Malorie FleshShaper

Malorie, Georgi, Kellie, Clint, and Hope were examining the thing that Leon had been creating. The other four were the mentors of Leon’s party mates and they were exceedingly curious about the massive creature that Leon had created.

“It’s actually alive!” Hope said in astonishment.

“I’ve never heard of anyone actually making and controlling monsters. The boy could end up becoming a force to be reckoned with all on his own.” Clint remarked.

“The real question is whether or not what he is doing here is going to be a problem. He’s got almost the entire island encircled by this monstrosity to about 100 yards out. His claim is going to be a massive part of the city-to-be, here. He’s practically setting himself up as the future city lord.” Kellie said with almost an accusatory tone.

“Leon’s intent is to create more land for the city to grow on and build both docks for seafaring and airships. His claim is valid, and he is going to be providing not only a wall, but a way to continually grow the city. He even has plans to use this monster to foster the local ecosystem and provide plumbing and sewer services from what you told me Malorie. He hasn’t thought about what that means in terms of the personal power it would give him over the city. And as you all know, we mentors are not the true founders here. The true founders are our pupils even if they don’t know it yet. If the other Mentees do not object to his course of action, then it is not our place to try and correct it.” Georgi said in his gravely tone, “But the potential of this young man is something that many would try to stifle… If only because of their fears or jealousy.”

The group completed their little survey of the creature that looked like it would eventually become the living heart of a city. Needless to say, they were all fairly impressed with the ingenuity on display by Malorie’s Pupil. Each of the mentors had to deal with their own pupils constantly harping on about Leon this and Leon that. The boy hadn’t realized how infatuated his own team was with him yet. Even the other mentors had said that their pupils were always gushing about the boy.

Malorie was actually little concerned as to why Leon didn’t seem interested in anyone, most young men his age with the amount of attention he was getting would probably have been well on their way to becoming a father by now. At the very least he should have been doing something with his party mates. But Leon was so focused on his own self-made tasks that every moment he wasn’t doing something assigned for development of the city he was either growing his monster wall or reading a Lore Book. He seemed happy to Malorie, but she was afraid that he was going to burn himself out.

Not that she wanted her student to go sleeping around just to lighten up, but him showing any form of want for social interaction at all would be a welcome change that would alleviate her worries a little.

Leon Crumbl

Entering the dungeon and moving through the first and second floors in only about fifteen minutes had become the norm for Leon and the girls. Team Terra was efficient at the task after four months of daily diving. But today was something different. Arriving at the end of the Second floor, Leon and company discovered a new staircase leading down. It was incredibly exciting to say the least. The dungeon had finally expanded, and Team Terra was the first to get to explore the newly opened depths.

Descending the new staircase, they went down a good hundred feet before the staircase turned into a tunnel. That tunnel opened into a new room. And the new room put everything else the dungeon had made to shame. It was definitely a Biome Floor. It was enormous. The ceiling must have been at least five hundred feet up. And Leon couldn’t make out the edges of the room they’d entered at all. It was probably miles and miles across. There was definitely a tropical jungle theme going on here. The sounds of birds singing, and animals chittering chattering was everywhere. Leon spotted bees flying around and landing on flowers, ants marching around in the underbrush looking for food. He could hear the burble of a creek nearby even. It looked like a Central American rainforest to Leon.

“This is amazing! The first ever recorded dungeon to have a Biome Floor before its fiftieth floor.” Lamia gushed. “We’ll actually need to be careful here. Biome Floors don’t follow the same rules of difficulty as the normal floors. The creatures here can be anywhere on the spectrum of the first Tier, which means that there could definitely be predators that can not only hurt us but kill us. Should mean there’s some really great hidden rewards here though.”

Cynthia nodded and proceeded to lead the way. Into the jungle they moved maintaining a loose formation that would allow them to respond to threats quickly. It did not take long for them run into their first bit of trouble. A massive snake, Reticulating Python, was in the branches of the trees above them. Leon spotted it easily enough and pointed it out to the group before firing a Horrific Missile lvl 99 at its head. The problem was that it freaking dodged the shot. Then it launched itself towards the group with a speed that defied the fact that the creature was of Earth origins.

Cynthia, covered in her earthen armor. Interposed herself between the approaching monster and the others with her shield raised and her armor fusing to the ground to make her immovable. The monsters open mouthed strike slamming into the shield with such force that it produced a massive crunching sound and caused Cynthia to buckle slightly. Everyone’s eyes widening in surprise at how strong the creature they were facing was.

But the surprise of the powerful nature of their opponent did not stop them from responding quickly. Far dashed forward took a swing at the creature’s face as it reeled from the solid impact on Cynthia’s shield and Daisy unleashed flamethrower that engulfed its rapidly coiling body while Leon unleashed more Horrific Missiles into it.

Perhaps they had over done it because the python died under the assault very quickly. The group was visibly shaken by the fight, but Leon was distracted from their current state of mind when he spotted what the python had been guarding. A treasure chest.

“We got loot up there on the tree. Ima go clear it out real quick and then we can talk about how to proceed.” He said before blinking up to the branch where the treasure chest was nestled into notch between two other branches.

Opening the chest Leon found twenty silver coins. A Plant Lore book series. And a vial that made Leon’s eyes widen in shock as he identified it.

Elixir of minor reflexes (Tier 1)

Effect: Enhances the imbibers response times and speed of thought by a small amount permanently.

Note: Only usable by Tier 1 beings. Maximum effective doses of this Elixir are limited to five per individual.

Leon thought about just downing the vial right then and there. He thought about it really hard but decided that showing it to the group was the better choice. Storing everything away in his Utility Pocket Leon blinked back down to the group. Appearing in their midst and immediately sharing the news.

“Gal’s we have just found our first Elixir.” He said popping it into his hands to display it to them. “Its an Elixir of minor reflexes.”

“Gods above!” Cynthia exclaimed, “I’ve never heard of an Elixir being found so early in a Dungeons development. Though to be fair I haven’t heard much about Dungeon early development but still. This is amazing! That Elixir could sell for upwards of five hundred gold. But one of us should probably drink it ourselves.”

“We’ll decide after this dive who gets it. First, we need to explore this floor and see what else the Dungeon has in store for us. Maybe even see if there’s another floor below this one already.” Leon said as he stored the vial and began scouting their surroundings as the group continued on.

Everyone agreed and continued on moving throughout the floor. The found ponds with gators in them, the occasional predatory cat, more snakes, and even a Cassowary. The scary thing is that everything that they encountered was actually dangerous. They were fast, tough, and aggressive. And there were a lot of them. Deer and deerlike animals from earth were everywhere, hogs, and even monkeys. This biome floor was a massive ecosystem all contained within the dungeon. There were hundreds of different species of animals represented here. Their biggest scare came from a group of gorillas that attacked. The things were ungodly strong and fast to boot. It had been the first time in all of their dungeon dives where Lamia’s healing was actually useful as Far had been hurled into a tree with such force that an ordinary human would have died back on Earth. Far was an elf and was considered more frail than humans normally, but the most that she was affected by the impact was a few bruised ribs.

After every major encounter with the wildlife of the Dungeon Leon would invariably find a chest hidden nearby. Inside the chests Leon was finding a lot of coin, Lore books, weapons of good quality, armor, and even processed ingots of a variety of steels, and bronze alloys. They didn’t find any more Elixirs, but they spent a good five hours combing through the entirety of the floor and cataloging everything that they found that could be used for resources.

The exit crystal was located at the very center of the floor which they had found was about five miles long and wide. The exit crystal was guarded by an Asian elephant that was deceptively fast and very dangerous. Team Terra’s battle with the elephant left trees toppled and had resulted in Cynthia nearly being crushed. It was an actual battle where any one of them could have died. The rewards for winning however were quite lucrative.

There was a large chest beside the crystal that contained five gold coins, twenty high quality healing potions, two skill books, and a beautiful sword that Far immediately called dibs on. As always Leon went for the crystal last to be able to talk to the dungeon a little bit.

“This new floor of yours is amazing. Terra’s Legacy will live on here in what you create. I’ll have more animals for you in the near future. But I was figuring that it might be best if I waited until you got to Tier 2 before I dump a whole nother Era’s worth of animals on you. But if you would like more, I’ll start right away. Things get really crazy as I work my way back in time with animals from Earth. You’ll have a lot to look forward to.” He said as he placed his hand on the crystal and found himself at the entrance of the Dungeon surrounded by everyone on the island.

“Now you are all here. Tell us about the third floor.” One of the Mentors said.

Leon and his team explained everything and even told the gathering about the Elixir find. That made the crowd murmur. The fact that the animals on the third floor were actually a threat to life and limb was received with smiles and happiness across the board. Which Leon felt showed how different this world was to his old one. Most people shouldn’t be getting excited to go into a place where they could die on the daily, but hey this was a new life.

Leon and team Terra retreated to his house to discuss loot distribution. The coinage was easily distributed, Leon kept the Lore books and skill books. And the rest of the equipment gathered was split between the four girls. Then they came to the Elixir.

“I think Leon should have it.” Daisy started, “Almost all of us are so close to reaching Tier 2 that we probably won’t be able to get any more before then, Leon is the one the farthest behind in terms of Tier progression so he will probably get the most benefits out of it.”

“Funny I was about to say the same thing.” Far intoned, followed by multiple nods from the rest of the girls.

Leon frowned at that. It didn’t make much sense for them to just hand it over to him like this. And it didn’t really feel all that fair. Though they were right about him being the farthest from breaching into to Tier 2. His mana density had increased by a tiny amount over the past four months. Corey was always circulating and condensing his mana, but there was so much space available inside his soul that the average density would only really be comparable to a normal person with five or six skills at low levels. At the rate that his mana was increasing it would still take the better part of the next two years to get him close to the threshold. The girls however were very near their thresholds. Perhaps only four to six months away from crossing it into Tier 2. Leon was still unsure of what happened when crossing the threshold, as that was information that was held back from people.

“Actually, I think that we should give Leon any of the Tier 1 Elixirs that we find and save any Tier 2’s for distribution based on our Archetypes and the like. If not, then we should settle who gets it by having to purchase it from the team based on its value.” Cynthia proposed.

“How would that work?”

“Well… most Elixirs of the first-Tier cost around 500 gold pieces to get ahold of on the regular markets. There are unique Elixirs of the first-Tier that have exceptionally good effects that cost upwards of 10000 gold. But those are rarely even sold. Tier 2 Elixirs start off in the markets at around 2000 gold and go up from there depending on rarity and effect. I’ve heard rumors that Tier 3 elixirs sell for no less than 20000 gold and are rarely ever even sold by those who find them.” Cynthia explained, “This Elixir wouldn’t actually work on me because I’ve already had five doses of the same one a long time ago.”

Apparently all four of the girls had been given Elixirs when they’d gotten into the guild. A basic set of them including the enhanced reflexes one. Their parents had apparently signed some form of contract that gave the girls five different sets of Elixirs. Reflexes, Strength, Toughness, Regeneration, and Enhanced Mana Draw. It was a deal that had basically made their families into guild servants for life but had given each of them a massive advantage in growing stronger more quickly.

Leon wondered if that had been an option presented to his parents. But quickly dismissed the thought. He would soon have access to the markets through the Telepad, and the frankly ridiculous quantities of material that he had stored up, not to mention the coin, would allow him to make some purchases of more Elixirs himself.

The loot situation cleared up. Leon ushered the girls out of his house and went about feeding Cynarina and pushing it to grow. At the same time Leon popped his centipede monsters out and had them wander around and eat their fill inside the confines of his house. He was trying to get them to the point where they could be combat capable. He didn’t want to accidentally feed them to the dungeon. But having them just in case something went wrong would be a good thing. They had already grown pretty significantly. All of them were about six feet long and terrifying to look at. They made Leon uncomfortable even though he was in absolute control of them.

As Leon pumped mana into Cynarina and dropped the occasional animal corpse into its ever-gaping maw he pulled the Elixir vial out and opened it. After only a moments hesitation he tossed it back like a shot and was surprised to find that it had no taste at all. It felt like he’d swallowed air. Immediately he felt it get to work on his body though. A pulse of warmth flowed throughout him, reaching from his toes to the crown of his head before it subsided. Leon didn’t feel any different but decided to just keep on doing what he was doing.

Cynthia

Cynthia was irritated. She was angry even. What was wrong with Leon? The man was a gods be damned genius but he couldn’t take a hint to save his life. There wasn’t a single female on the island that hadn’t made a pass on him by this point. But he didn’t even react at all. At first the woman of the island had assumed that he was playing for the other side. But after seeing Marcus make a pass on him, Leon noticing it, and telling the man that he wasn’t into men, but he appreciated it, he’d confirmed that he was interested in women. And yet he seemed completely unable to even notice the women who surrounded him.

Cynthia in particular was always making sure to dress prettily and even laugh at his stupid jokes that didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t like she wanted to marry him, she just wanted him to pay her some damned attention. And she wouldn’t mind getting laid now and again. She was 19 years old and these last four months had been her longest dry spell ever since her first.

Daisy, Far, and Lamia had all talked about it, and they all felt the same way… Even their other friends were talking about it. Plus, some of the Mentors. Maybe it was because he was younger than them? She thought to herself. It didn’t make much sense; he was nearly Eight feet tall and well built. The way he carried himself was like a fully grown man and his confidence, intelligence and even the way he smelled seemed to make her want to tear his stupid clothes off. But he was entirely oblivious to it.

“So… what’s the plan?” she asked Lamia who was spearheading their efforts right now to come up with a viable, ‘get with Leon’ plan.

“I say we just go to his house at tonight and start stripping. That’ll get the message across.” Far said from the sidelines.

“Well, we can’t all do it at one!” Lamia exclaimed loudly.

“I don’t see why not, I’m not against sharing. Its actually fun sometimes to outnumber them.” Daisy said with a smirk.

“You girls are forgetting that he’s human. Humans tend to have more monogamous cultures than ours. Especially different from Spriggan culture Daisy.” Cynthia put her bit in.

“Ah but I happened to hear that Leon was raised by Gnomes. Polygamy is expected in gnome culture.” Far said, “They have a very similar culture to us elves due to the male female ratios.”

“Yeah, but I am almost positive that Leon is a virgin. Suddenly springing a five way on a virgin seems like a good way to scare him off.” Lamia defended her position.

“This is stupid, we all want that guy turn us inside out. He’s a male he should jump at the opportunity. He hasn’t noticed any of our advances on him. So, he obviously doesn’t have any experience in the matter. I say we just go and talk to him and ask if he’d like to sleep with us.” Far spoke almost angrily, “We elves tend to be far more direct anyway. So, I’m going to go over there and just ask him. Worst he can say is no, and there are other males around here if that’s the case. Either way I’m getting laid tonight.”

With that Far marched out of Cynthia’s house without waiting for anyone else’s input.

Leon Crumbl

Leon was reading the Earth Lore books when there came a loud knock on his door. The sun had already fallen and hadn’t been paying attention to everything in his sphere. Now paying attention he saw his whole team standing outside his door dressed to the nines as they always were. Lamia and Cynthia looked nervous, while Far and Daisy seemed pretty relaxed.

Leon was curious as to what would have brought them here after hours. Maybe they’d changed their minds about the Elixirs and wanted to talk about it? Maybe they were about to ask him about a business proposition or something. Sighing Leon put his giant centipede monsters back into his Utility Pocket and went to answer the door.

Opening the door Leon invited the four girls into his house. Which he had lit up on the interior by modifying Cynarina with bioluminescent strips in the ceiling. The girls all walked in and took seats around his table.

“Would you all like some tea?” he asked

The girls looked around at each other like they were looking for one of them to decide first before Far shook her head and waved Leon off the idea.

“No, we came to talk to you about something.”

“Ok you have my attention.”

“Have you not noticed anything about your interactions with us?” She asked in a tone that said he had better have noticed something.

Leon was suddenly feeling very anxious, had he offended them? Were they upset about something he’d said or done? Or worse… It could be one of those women things where he hadn’t done anything and that was the crime. Slowly Leon shook his head no.

“You see he’s just dense. This is why I said we needed to be more open with him and just ask up front.” Far said immediately.

The other girls didn’t look convinced. Now Leon was exceedingly confused and worried.

“Are Cynthia, Daisy, Myself, and Lamia beautiful to you?” Far asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

Leon’s brain malfunctioned at the question. That was trick question. It had to be. Leon couldn’t respond. There was no right answer when a woman asked you a question like that. It was loaded and fully contemplated just using Quantum Blink to escape this strange situation.

“All four of you are quite gorgeous, so yes, I’d say that you are beautiful.” Leon said after several awkward seconds of silence.

“See I told you three it wasn’t a taste thing.” Daisy said from her seat.

“Look I’m really not sure what is going on right now. Whatever you all are disagreeing on if I can help you all resolve it I will.” Leon basically mumbled.

“You all heard him. He is willing to resolve the issue.” Far said with a smile, “Leon dear, the issue is you not picking up what is being put down. All four of us have, pretty blatantly mind you, actively tried to show our interest in bedding you. But you seem to have completely been ignoring us. We need to know if you are just not interested, are playing for the other team, or have a thing about sexual relations with individuals outside of your own species?”

Again, Leon’s mind went blank. The second time in his entire life here in this world where he’d been rendered speechless, and both times had been within minutes of each other. What was he supposed to say? He’d been so focused on improving and learning the Lore’s that he hadn’t noticed the girls hitting on him at all. Looking back on it he now understood it. He’d been blowing off really blatant signs practically every day for months now.

“Th- that… Um…” Leon fumbled; he hadn’t dealt with male female relationships for nearly sixteen years. And, for some reason he felt just as awkward about it as he had when he’d been a teenager in his previous life, “First, no I do not have homosexual inclinations, I simply don’t find males attractive that way. And as long as the individuals interested in sexual activities are at least humanoid and attractive to me I have no problems with interspecies sexual relations. As for being interested… I… I was unaware of yall’s interest until you just pointed it out, now I feel like an idiot.”

“Well now you know. If you are interested, is it okay if we all spend the night? Or would you prefer only one or two of stay? Some of us were afraid we’d scare you off if we suggested a five way right off the bat.” Daisy asked smiling prettily.

Again, Leon’s mind went blank. What the actual Fuck was happening right now? Was he really being propositioned by four women at once? He knew that polyamory was considered the norm among most species and sex was viewed very differently in this society, but it was incredibly odd to be experiencing something like this.

“I’m completely fine with whatever you all want.” Leon said stiffly.

“Perfect.” All four of them said in unison, smiles on their faces.

Malorie FleshShaper

Malorie smirked to herself. She’d watched Leon’s teammates all file over to his house just after the sun had gone down and they hadn’t left for hours. At this point she was fairly certain that they’d be staying all night. She was glad that his team had taken it upon themselves to start something. Leon was burning the candle from both ends and he didn’t know how to wind down. Hopefully a little fun would loosen him up a bit and get him to live a bit more.

Malorie herself had several nighttime callers among the other mentors. And she didn’t discriminate. She like both male and female attentions equally. Sometimes she wanted one or the other more, but she’d never say no to either.

She shook herself. Right now, was not time to be thinking about such things. Right now, she was gathering up her fishing supplies to have a nice midnight snack and fishing session. She hadn’t realized how much she enjoyed fishing until it had become one of the only things she could do. Now she loved it. Gathering up her stuff she headed off to the opposite side of the island from Leon’s home and passed directly by the dungeon entrance but was stunned by what she saw.

The Dungeon entrance was closed. Nothing but smooth stone where the stairs used to be. The implications of this were enormous. The only times a dungeon ever closed down entirely was when it was pushing through to the next Tier! But there was no way. Dungeons didn’t grow in Tier until they had at least a hundred floors or the equivalent. Biome floors were readily accepted as being equivalent to ten floors worth of growth. It wasn’t ready yet. Not with only the equivalent of twelve floors.

Dropping what she had been doing Malorie sprinted over to Georgi’s home and pounded on his door.

Gerald Crumbl

Business was slow in Cracked Stone Keep. After the initial craze for his and Ameillia’s services they had ended up with a low but stable income and much more free time on their hands than before. The kids were growing exceptionally well. But they still hadn’t heard back from Leon. Though they weren’t holding their breaths on that one. It could be a while before they got word back.

The main issue haunting Gerald’s days was not business however, it was his family. They were pressuring him to marry the daughter of a family friend and add her to his family. But he and Ameillia were happy with just the two of them. If he accepted though, it would take care of their problem of being far away from Leon. The woman they wanted him to marry lived in Dungeon City #12 which would be just a quick teleport to and from Dungeon City #1 to visit. Apparently, the woman’s name was Annise and her previous husband had died about thirty years ago in a Dungeon dive. He’d left her with a great deal of wealth and a large home but no children.

And now Ameillia had found the letters his family was sending him pressuring him to take Annise as his second wife. She was sitting at the table with the letter in front of her looking up at him with a raised eyebrow as if expecting an explanation.

“I can explain.” He started off

“No need, I read the letters, and to be frank your family actually contacted me as well this morning.”

“Then you realize why I have just been ignoring it all. We don’t need to add a third to our relationship. We don’t know her. What if we don’t like her? What if she doesn’t like us? Or the kids?”

“Gerald, we don’t have an excuse anymore. I am happy with the way things are now and I know you are happy too. But both our families are actually pressuring this. I received a letter from my mother yesterday asking me to kindly talk you into it.”

“I know we don’t have an excuse anymore. But… I don’t want to love anyone else…”

“We don’t have to love her Gerald; you just have to put children in her. If she is a good person like mother thinks she is, then I am sure that eventually we will both love her. It benefits Annise, It gets our families to quiet down for a little while, and it puts us in a position to more easily communicate with our other son… I’m not saying that I want to share you, Gerald. But it would be selfish at this point to keep denying our families wishes.”

Gerald sighed. How and why was his wife pressuring him into an arranged second marriage? He didn’t want it. He didn’t want the responsibilities associated with another wife. Then he would be beholden to her family as well. Then he’d probably be forced into a few more marriages in a chain of favors to keep the new families happy. It was a tale as old as gnomekind and Gerald wished he could be left out of it. He just wanted to love Ameillia and grow old with her. But seeing the look in her eyes right now, he knew he didn’t really have a choice right now.

Nodding once he muttered “Ok” and left it at that.