《Esoteric Skeleton Dungeon Master》Chapter 5
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Human disguise: 20 DP
Fake ID: 10 DP
Skeletons digging a labyrinth out of a cave: 1 Skeleton, and a caved in cave.
Being able to leave the dungeon and explore the world: Priceless.
“Halt!”
“Sup bro.”
“Present your identification papers.”
I hand the guard my ID and he waves me through. What a town! It’s a circular town with a river cutting through. Surrounded by high walls, it feels like the most generic fantasy world town you can imagine. It was a generic fantasy town until I turned the corner. One side of the street had open air casinos. People sitting around tables playing cards and drinking heavily. The other side was amazing. Scantily clad women & men sit behind glass and in front of red curtains beckoning you to enter their store and partake of their wares. An androgynous gal winks at me and begins to mime a lasso pulling me over. I let myself get pulled by the invisible rope until I’m right at the glass. She licks her purple lips and pulls up a small chalkboard. “Two gold for anything.” Then she points with her body, her ass leading, toward the door. I smile at her and nod. Walking to the door. I place my hand on the handle and stop.
I’m a skeleton in a human disguise.
I have no dick.
I walk away with my head held low.
I walk past the red light district and end up on a rundown street. This section of the city is a ghetto minus the racial segregation. A slum. No, wait. That person has cat ears! Elon Musk finally got operation cat girl going. That means that this is an actual ghetto. An animal human ghetto. With real fantasy world segregation!
“You look lost friend.” A man in a suit approaches me. The skin that peaks out is heavily tattooed. I shrug and he wraps his arm around my shoulder.
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“Nothing in the redlight district sparked your interest?” I shrug again. "Come with me."
“Man of few words. Respectable.”
I shrug again. He leads me down an alley then down through storm shelter doors, through a long stone corridor, down a spiral staircase, and into an underground factory building. Cages are stacked atop each other like aisles in Walmart. Each cage is full of people. Each person is equipped with a slave collar.
I have wandered into a fantasy world slave shop.
Perfect! Fuck skeleton soldiers. I’m assuming the collars are magical and they have to obey my every order as is the trope. Slaves that can be trained to defend the dungeon from heroes. Slaves that can mine out a labyrinth. Slaves that can mass-produce weapons. The only cost of maintenance is food! I can easily set up the slaves with a farm. They are self sustaining weapons! What a great place to wander into.
“This is great!”
“Oh, he finally speaks.”
“How much?”
“For which one?”
“For all!”
“All? Sir we don’t appreciate jokes like that.”
“Don’t give me an itemized list of bullshit. Give me a whole sale price.”
“Well….umm." he pauses. "One platinum?”
“How much gold is that?”
“One hundred.”
I have just over a hundred points left. It’s not like I use them anyways. “Deal mate.”
“Really?”
“Of course.” I pull the gold out of the store system and hand it to him. “Deliver them to---”
A loud crash from the ceiling; a hole opens up, natural light pours into the underground slave market. Five figures float down from the hole. In the lead is a man with black hair and a katana on his back. “Hiro?”
“Who is in charge here?” Hiro’s voice booms.
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I point to the man in the suit. He then points to me. “What? How am I in charge? I'm just a customer.”
“Hey man, you’re the one who owns all the slaves.” He pulls out a roll of paper and hands it to me. It shines with purple light for a brief second. Then he runs for the exit. I unravel the scroll and read it. It’s a list of the slaves and who owns them. It’s all me. I look up from the scroll. Hiro has already closed the distance to me.
“Vile villain, where do you get off keeping people as slaves?”
“Hey, Hiro, chill I’ve only just bought all of them.”
“How do you know my name!?” He’s in my face and his party has their weapons drawn.
“It’s me. Anon.”
“Anon? Anon is a skeleton!”
I pull off my human mask.
“Anon! What are you doing here?”
“I was … uhh” Getting slaves a slave army for my dungeon? Rooting out corruption in the human realm? Creating a perfect utopia in my dungeon? I need a good lie here, this dude is the hero of humanity. If he doesn’t like what I’m doing he could kill me!
“Like Overlord.”
“What?”
“You’re building a great tomb with you as the skeleton overseer? Like when Momonga enslaved the lizardfolk. Except you’re obviously weaker than him so you’re buying the slaves. Ah, I get it.”
I just nod along as he continues to explain my plan to me. He grows increasingly more excited.
“A dungeon stocked, not by monsters, but by demihumans! It’s new! It’s a crazy idea. How did you get the Demonlords approval?”
“I didn’t… Also did you say demihumans?”
“Only demihumans can be enslaved.”
“That’s fucked.”
“I know right! Racism isn’t cool, especial against cute catgirls!”
“Sure.” This guy has a few screws loose. “Anon, This isn’t something I should do, but you’re cool." He holds up his arms. “It’ll be a new experience to have to restrain myself from killing in a dungeon. The fear of hurting a brainwashed person. I look forward to it! No child soldiers though. That’d be too much.”
He then pauses. Contemplating his words. I’m fucked in the head, but even I wouldn’t use child soldiers. The children will be used in manufacturing plants. Obviously.
“Actually. Maybe a few child soldiers. Freeing a young girl from years of abuse at the hands of a skeletal tyrant slave-keeper is super heroic. She’d be super into me after I save her.”
I feel sick to my nonexistent stomach. My inexpressive skull stares daggers into him.
“Don’t look at me like that! I’m not a lolicon, I just like to be surrounded by cute girls.”
“Mmmhmmmm”
He nervously changes the topic.
“Well. It’d be a logistical nightmare getting all these slaves out of here. Let me…” He waves his sword in a large arc. The cages begin to sparkle and soon blink out of existence. “G̵r̶e̷a̸t̴e̶r̸ ̴t̶e̴l̵e̷p̶o̷r̶t̶a̸t̴i̵o̶n̸!̸” All the cages have left the room. He flashes me a smile. “I’m also dropping some corpses off on your doorstep. Use them wisely!”
Is this guy a demon lord? What is his problem? I give a shaky thank you before he teleports me back to the dungeon.
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