From the moment we returned to my dungeon after getting Two-Twelve’s assistance in evolving Desiree I knew something was off. With my arm still around Angela’s soft, thin waist I decide to explore a bit on the new and improved Desiree by pulling her into me with a deep kiss.

As a succubus, Desiree held plenty of lust, and evolving to a Camilla’s succubus, it should have only increased, but whatever happened at Two-Twelve’s dungeon in my absence has seemed to upset her enough to sideline those feelings for lust, as she doesn’t even fill my head with lustful images like she normally does when I take her in my arms and kiss her.

Not only Desiree, but even Angela seems out of it as my lips part from Desiree’s, and Angela is just standing there with my other arm around her deep in thought while oblivious of me making moves on Desiree inches away from her.

“What exactly happened while I was gone?” –I ask them, because I know something just isn’t right.- “I know Two-Twelve isn’t the type to take advantage in that kind of situation…”

Perhaps that is an understatement? Considering how many beauties he surrounds himself with, each willing to jump him as soon as he gives the word, and yet how oblivious he acts around them. It seems a bit of a miracle that he was the first dungeon core to have a child.

‘That princess of his is rather strong willed. Maybe she forced herself onto him.’ -I can’t help thinking while licking my lips.-

Anyway, that doesn’t clear up the situation with my girls, they are clearly upset about something, and since there wasn’t enough time for anyone but Two-Twelve to say or do anything, he must have been the one to upset them.

Angela: “It’s just…” –She explains.- “He made the assumption that… No, he really thought you’d taken advantage and raped me!” –She blurts out with her face growing quite red from not only embarrassment, but out of anger as well.- “It made me so angry! The master I love and respect is so different from how his “friend” thinks of him, I… Ah, I’m just so angry!” –She declares, flaring her wings, and griping my hand, that is around her waist, tightly.-

“Oh, is that so?” –I say while looking at her and a smile stretches from ear to ear across my face.-

Angela: “Of course!” –She declares again.- “I mean, I know I said some things that I shouldn’t have, but the leap in logic he made is just unfair!”

Desiree begins to smile as well, releasing her grip on me and stepping back while placing a simple image into my mind. It is surprisingly tame, a downright cute and prudish one by her standards, but not one I am entirely opposed to, at all. It is enough I decide to act upon it, and after my arm around her waist slides up along her back, I pull her into me planting my lips on hers for a kiss.

Angela: “I-hmo?!” –She gasps at the interruption, as our lips finally come together on a long-awaited kiss.-

Angela is startled at first and she offers some resistance, but after her declaration, let’s just say, I wouldn’t be surprised if the codpiece of my armor has got a dent in it. Those words of hers were what I have been waiting for, and after a couple of moments, she finally realizes what she admitted to.

Angela’s arms begin to relax and her hands go from pushing to clinging while we kiss. At the point from which Angela goes from being kissed, to kissing back it is as sweet as I had expected from her, but Desiree’s near-constant example right before her eyes, she's seen kisses both sensual and lewd enough to make a high-class whore blush, so after a few more seconds of giving her some nice memories of a sweet and chaste first kiss, I promptly begin to devour her tongue and lips as hungrily as if they were made of milk and honey.

Desiree: “I told you. All it took was a different approach, Master. If pushing doesn’t work, try pulling.” –She whispers into my ear as she join in, nibbling on my ear while my hands begin to explore Angela.-

Soon armor and clothes have begun to fall to the floor as Angela presses against my front while Desiree presses from the back. By the time my armor and gambeson have been removed I am left only in my undershorts, Desiree has easily come out of all her clothes, and Angela's small silk basque is wonderfully bad at covering her beautiful figure.

With one of my hands held firmly on one of Angela’s breasts over the top of the silken basque the other explores slowly up her inner thigh, seeking out a far greater prize. Both of the girl’s hands are all over my body while Desiree’s tail works its way into my undershorts and wraps around my mighty member just tight enough to cause a rush of pleasure and not pain.

As my hand working its way up Angela’s inner thigh finds its mark, my hand brushes over her final line of defense in the form of her lace and silk panties. I try working my hand past that point but Angela’s body jerks and she abruptly stops pushing me back.

Angela is blushing brightly as her eyes dart from me to Desiree. “I-I’m sorry, Master. I don’t mean to say I am not… Ready, but…” –She says while her eyes keep darting between me and Desiree.-

Desiree: “Say no more… This new body of mine will not go without Master’s touch for long, but this is a special occasion, so I will at least give you some time before I return.” –She says while she takes a step back, her tail uncoiling from around me as she pulls it out of my undershorts.- “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” –She says with a devilish grin before she starts sucking on the spade-like end of her own tail while walking out of the bedroom leaving all of her clothing behind.-

Angela: “I-I’m sorry, Master… I might not be like Desiree, but I will do my best, I promise!” –She says while blushing and then grabbing my hand while pulling towards the bed.-

○○○○○○

Today is the day of the big meeting, and I am going out on quite a limb here for Two-Twelve, so he better not be wrong about this. The messages have already been sent, and Two-Twelve said he has already started gathering his “troops”.

I don’t know if the other Elders will show or not, but if they do I might be able to hold Dungeon Core #764 Barry here at the neutral zone for a much longer time, if the meeting seems genuine. Then again I didn’t tell the other Elders the whole truth either, so if they do show, things might quickly get out of hand if I am not careful.

As the time in which I am supposed to go collect #764 approaches, I have still received no word or signs of any of the other Elders arriving, but after getting the meeting room prepared, I start to walk out the door to set up a portal to collect #764 when Lucille walks through the door.

“Good you have arrived.”

Lucille: “This better be important… I see Laura hasn’t arrived yet, that means she is most likely using this time that you have me cooped up here, to launch another attack.”

“As I told you, this is more important than your little human border squabble with Laura. I believe I have uncovered one of the traitors, so we need to question him. If he is one of the traitorous dungeon cores he could lead us to the others.”

Lucille: “You better be right.”

I step out of the room and find Dyson in the hallway with his new entourage hanging from his arms. All three are wearing their equipment, and Dyson seems to be uncharacteristically exhausted.

Angela: “Do we have to, Master~♪?” –She pleads with a song like voice.-

Desiree: “You know there are matters that Master has to address on his own.”

Angela: “Fine!” –She says while pouting.- “But Master has to promise to make it up to us later!”

“Only after all of our errands are complete. With a bit of luck this meeting won’t take long.” –Dyson says as he sends his girls into the waiting room and shuts the doors while letting out a sigh of relief.-

“Trouble in paradise?” –I say while stepping forward to greet him.-

Dyson: “He must have done it on purpose, I-… Where is Two-Twelve, I need to speak with him.”

“He has another task he has to deal with today, so he will not be joining us.”

Dyson: “Shit… It looks like I may have to use an ultimate command, after all. I never thought I would see the day I would use one for something like that…”

“What are you going on about…?”

Dyson: “Ever since I took Desiree to Two-Twelve and had him use one of his skills to evolve her a few months ago… He must have done something after I left the girls in his dungeon and left to collect his payment. I haven’t had a proper night’s rest since!”

“Are you complaining about what I think you are complaining about? Now this is a day I never thought I would see, but I did try to warn you of the dangers of taking a succubus into your entourage, and evolving her would only increase that lust.”

Dyson: “Desiree…? “Desiree…? No, she's great. It's the white-winged lust demon I'm talking about! If Desiree didn't help me wear down Angela every night, I wouldn’t get any sleep at all!”

“The great pursuer of lust, the hero Dyson himself, has finally met his match on a shy little beastkin girl? Are you serious? If it has really been that much of a problem, why only do something about it now?”

Dyson: “I said it was exhausting, but I didn’t say that it wasn’t worth every second of it… But many of the things that require my attention have fallen to the wayside because of it. They haven’t even properly returned to training since that day. Hell, this is the first day in two and a half weeks that I've managed to get dressed!”

“You poor thing…” –I say sarcastically.-

Dyson: “Laugh all you want, but promise me you will drag this meeting on as long as possible…”

“That’s the plan… Speaking of which, I need to go get our guest.”

Dyson nods and then heads off towards the meeting room, while I head to the portals and rewrite the ruins to take me to the place I agreed to meet Dungeon Core #764 to pick him up for this meeting. Once the portal forms in the archway, I step through it quickly finding the dungeon core I came for.

Dungeon Core #764 Barry isn’t exactly known for anything in particular, and he isn’t even a very strong or successful dungeon core, but that is kind of the point we are counting on right now. If he really is one of the traitors we can use his weakness to finally get some information on the rest of their group.

It isn’t every day a dungeon core is called to a meeting with the Elders, and even less so for a dungeon core such as Barry, so he seems to be rather nervous as he sees me arrive. We lured him to this meeting with the talks of refilling the ranks of the Elders, and I am sure Barry doesn’t expect we mean with him, but it also is no secret about Two-Twelve’s role in the Elder selection process when we added Dyson, so surely he is expecting to reap some kind of reward in the same fashion.

Barry: “Ma-Madam Erin…Excuse me, Elder Madam Erin, I-I’m looking forward to helping the Elders in any way I can.” –He says while stammering.- “A-and congratulations… I-I saw the message about the birth of your child…”

“As this is the new way to produce new dungeon cores, no congratulations are required. Now, the others don’t like to be kept waiting, so shall we?” –I say while motioning to the portal.-

Barry: “I-I understand…” –He says as he hesitantly approaches the portal and steps though.-

After following him through the portal and returning to the neutral zone I quickly swipe my hand across the ruins on the portal causing it to disappear. We then head down the hallway and enter the meeting room while I send a message to Two-Twelve to begin.

The sound of arguing is heard the moment we step into the meeting room, as we find Lucille and Laura in their place at the head of the room arguing back and forth. Meanwhile Dyson is in his own spot with his elbows on the table in front of him, his fingers interlocked, and his head in his hands…

He appears to be sound asleep. With Dyson’s skills he should literally go weeks without a bit of sleep, so with him being able to fall sleep, here, and with Laura and Lucille yelling at each other right next to him, he really wasn’t joking about being sleep-deprived. Or should I say sleep-depraved?

“I see Laura has arrived as well. Alright everyone, Dungeon Core #764 Barry has arrived, so it is time to get down to business.” –I say while ushering Barry to his seat and then take my place in mine.-

Laura stops fighting with Lucille long enough to say. “What exactly are we doing here?”

Lucille: “If you read the message you would know we are here get information from Barry, but asking you to follow simple directions such as reading must be too hard. As you couldn’t even be bothered enough to have that human of yours read the treaty agreement I carefully laid out for those idiotic humans!”

Laura: “Oh we read it alright, and it was ridiculous. Aaron is the rightful king of Merretta, and anything less than that is an insult. We are not signing any treaty that isn’t a universal surrender of those traitors to the crown.”

Lucille: “You see what I am trying to deal with here! We can’t have a proper meeting here with Laura here.”

“Enough!” –A voice rumbles out from between Dyson’s fingers and he then raises his head.- “You are the one that insisted we make Laura a temporary Elder, so deal with it.”

Laura: “Speaking of dealing with it, where is Two-Twelve? Seems like he is choosing to shirk his duties as an Elder, once again!”

“Two-Twelve is dealing with an important matter right now, and couldn’t be here today. Now, do you think we can get this meeting started?”

After the others agree I then turn to Barry who has seemed to only grow more nervous.

“Dungeon Core #764 Barry, do you know why we have called this meeting here today?”

Barry: “U-uh…To ask me questions on who I think should become a new Elder after the death of Elder Draco…?” –He says nervously looking around the room.-

Laura: “Of course not you idiot! Why would we care who you thought would make a good Elder?”

Barry: “U-uh…?” –Is the most he can say while starting to look frightened rather than just nervous.-

Dyson: “It has been a little over a year now, but I assume you can recall receiving a message from Archjusticar Two-Twelve about a group of dungeon cores that are going around and murdering other dungeon cores while using my name, is that right?”

Barry: “O-of course! I-I would never think Elder Dyson would do such a thing as indiscriminately kill dungeon cores for no reason…”

Lucille: “Good, then that makes this easier. Now are you saying Dyson wouldn’t do something like that because of what you think, or is it because you know who truly is behind it?”

Barry: “U-uh…No?

Laura: “No, what?!”

“What she means is. We have received some pretty creditable information that says that not only do you know Dyson is innocent, but you are helping those who are killing others in his name.”

Barry: “T-That’s absurd! W-Why would I do such a thing?”

Dyson: “That is exactly what we are here to find out.”

○○○○○○

We move out from the staging area heading for Barry’s dungeon, we aren’t as close as I would have liked to have been, but this was as close as we could get without alerting Barry or the nearby village beforehand.

We have just over 100 bodies gathered with most of them being humanoid in shape, but there are a small handful of actual monsters that some of the other dungeon cores brought along with them, and Teku is the largest of which.

The three dragons Emery brought along are not far behind, but after them there is a major drop in size leaving the rest of the monsters only the size of a hellhound at most. Even with their size, the geography of the area mean that unless we just happened across some humans by chance, I am rather confident in being able to reach the dungeon without detection.

That is until Ithros and Teku go against my recommendations and take to the air. They should arrive at the dungeon much quicker that way, but I fear they are going to get spotted. Emery is not one that likes to be out done either, so he quickly mounts one of his dragons and all three of them take to the air as well.

Dawn: “Papa, please let us go on ahead! They are going to take all the xp before we get there if we don’t!”

“We are not doing this for xp, we are doing this to deal a blow to the traitors.”

Maeve: “She is right. If we are going to risk out necks we should at least get something out of it in return. Sorin, Linna let’s go!” – She says while Sorin and Linna grab ahold of Maeve’s arms as they take flight. The monsters Maeve brought with her consist of Sorin, another pair of the swan beastkin I gave her, Linna, and several more of her sky elves, each of which take flight to keep up with Maeve.-

“Damnit Maeve, you are going to be seen!”

Twilight: “Don’t you think you are going to beat me! Girls let’s go!” –She calls out taking flight with a handful of the monstrous harpies that she brought along.-

Dawn however looks conflicted as she watches Maeve and Twilight fly off. She is wearing her ring so she has the appearance of a human, but she turns and says. “I’m sorry Papa, but I haven’t won a single one of our competitions yet, so I can’t get behind in xp now.” She then slides her other ring on her finger returning to her normal form before chasing after the others.

The monsters Dawn brought along are mainly different types of fire elementals, so they don’t really walk, but they don’t really fly either. They take off after their master, but they slowly are losing ground to her as Dawn gets further and further ahead.

Inari: “The damage is already done, if the humans are going to see anything it is the dragons, so the rest of us won’t matter after that point. Takeshi you and the others stay with Daddy and we will meet back up at the dungeon. I am going to go on ahead and make sure those bird-brained sisters of mine stay out of trouble.” Inari then uses her special skill, and takes off so quickly I can barely follow her movements.

I could still run quite a bit faster then I currently am, but there are a lot of monsters and other dungeon cores that couldn’t keep up that speed, so I have no choice but let the girls go on ahead, and hope they don’t run into some kind of trap.

By the time the rest of us reach the dungeon, the dragons, and my daughters are nowhere in sight. The opening of the dungeon is no larger than that of my dungeon so, even if the three dragons of Emery’s managed to squeeze though, I don’t see any way for Teku to have managed it.

Most villages use loud horns or bells to signify the movement of monsters nearby, and the village is close enough to the mouth of the dungeon that if they were sounding off we would have heard it, so where ever the dragons went it seems at least nobody got detected by the humans.

After we make sure everyone has arrived we enter the dungeon. With this many people entering the dungeon at once it is quite packed. We encounter a few entry level monsters, but they quickly hit the floor before they know what hit them.

Other than the monsters we have killed there are remains of monsters lying about as well, so I can’t be certain about the dragons but at least the girls have seemed to pass this way. This dungeon turns out to be quite similar to mine, with the entry way being a natural cave, and then quickly giving way to stone walls.

As the paths start to diverge I remind everyone that we are here to get proof that Barry is a traitor, and not just to kill monsters. We then start to split up and take different paths. Moving through the first few floors and through dozens upon dozens of rooms is done without anyone suffering as much as a scratch.

In fact the only damage that anyone has sustained has been through traps, but at this point the traps are weak enough that it has been no serious threat. As the groups start to break off one after another each time the path splits.

Within the first hour we have already moved past the third floor and we have spread out enough that the only ones still with me are my own monsters, Inari’s monsters, and Kenta and his group of monsters. Even out of my own monsters, it is only my boss monsters, Bell, Kline, and Moss that are still with us. All of the xp gathering groups and Katie with a few of the dwarves have gone with other groups as well.

I know once things start spreading out more it might be unrealistic, but for now each time someone split off from us I tried to have at least one set of monsters from my dungeon go with them. We haven’t found a way to prove if Barry is working with the traitors or not, but we are only in the entry levels.

We do at least know [Communication] still seems to be working, and I have used [Blink] a few times so there doesn’t seem to be one of those items the traitors use. If we did are job right though they shouldn’t even know we are here, so that isn’t any indication if Barry is one of the traitors or not.

Over the next few floors we seem to be staying ahead of the majority of the group as we haven’t hit a single dead end yet as we are pushing forward trying to meet up with Inari and my other daughters, who we are keeping in contact with, while they continue to push forward trying to catch up to the dragons.

Inari told us the dragons must have entered the dungeon ahead of them because by the time they arrived at the mouth of the dungeon there was nobody there already. They are pretty sure they are on the right path though, because they have said they are still following the trail of dead monsters as they go.

I am not sure how much xp has been spent on the rifts that are in this dungeon, but if the dragons killed a spawning group, then the girls killed another, and we have to kill a third spawning, then it seems like they are quite costly indeed.

I am still rather curious about how the dragons are working their way through the dungeon though, as we have passed through several hallways and doorways that I don’t see how any of Emery’s dragons could have made through much less Teku.

After we pass the four hour mark we have made it as far as the 10th floor, before we have finally caught up to the girls, who had to begin slowing down due the difficulty. We still however haven’t gotten any hint to the fact that Barry is part of the traitors, in fact his dungeon if anything is rather on the bland side.

By what my [Archjusticar Menu] says this should be the halfway point through his dungeon, but as Inari and I are catching up with what has happened so far I receive a message from Madam Erin saying that we are running out of time, and she doesn’t know how much longer she is going to be able to hold Barry.

“I was really hoping we would have found something by now, like the [Communication] block, or even just some monster of some kind that shouldn’t be here. Just anything that would give Madam Erin a hand in his interrogation, because as it stands it doesn’t look good.”

Inari: “If he doesn’t prove to be working with the traitors, we will know it might be a good idea to take a closer look at the one that gave us information saying he was, and so far we have done very little damage to his dungeon, as everything we have killed so far have been rift monsters. The only problem is if he is indeed part of the traitors, but we have to leave without being able to prove it, and he then tells the other traitors we are starting to move against them.”

“Well it we aren’t going to find anything out by standing around here, we better get a move on…”