Drip-Fed

Apexus looked at a small mountain of food.

It smelled delicious. There were clams and fruit and many meats, all raw, all unspoiled. The food was presented on a bowl a meter across, standing on a small pedestal in an otherwise empty room.

“That’s a trap,” Reysha commented.

“When did you change to Scout?” Korith drawled sarcastically. “How would you know that’s a trap?”

“I do not believe it is one.” Aclysia scanned the religious markings on the walls. “The Temples of Temptation would not be an adequate challenge if its temptations were trickery without substance. The encyclopaedia is clear on the matter: although the ultimate goal of the dungeon is to guide you to failure, it offers you genuine items and knowledge on the way. It is to know when to step back and not be consumed that is difficult.”

“Then let us see what we can take,” Apexus said and strut towards the bowl. He remained wary of traps and tested several of the foodstuffs for poison. What was perishable, he begun to eat immediately. What had a high shelf life, they put aside. There were turnips and potatoes and even a few stripes of jerky.

Aclysia double-checked everything for poisons with some improvised holy magic. It was not efficient enough to detect any expert tampering. Between that and Apexus’ capabilities at analysing what he ate, they did confirm that there was nothing poisonous in there. It was all genuine food, magical at that, given that it was conjured by divine manifestations.

They were about done sorting the food when the wall at the back of the chamber opened. A delicious fragrance immediately filled the air. It smelled of magic rich boss monsters, fatty tuna, and dragon meat.

“There’s the temptation.” Apexus was proverbially salivating at the smells. He remembered tasting such rare treats and the profile of unique flavours. However, when it came to hunger, he had been tested to his utmost before. His will triumphed against the idea easily. “Let us go.”

With some extra food in their storage, they continued to explore the Dungeon, leaving the usual pheromone markers as they went. Occasionally, they encountered another Warden Construct. They dealt with them much like the first one.

At the end of the second day, Aclysia gathered all of them up.

“In accordance with the guidelines to notify the Guild about a new Dungeon, I have kept a map of our movements so far,” she revealed to all of them.

“Can’t expect that to have been too hard,” Reysha said. “Feels like this Dungeon is pretty straightforward.”

“Yeah, it’s like… corridor, selection of 2 to 5 rooms, which all connect back to the same corridor, which then leads to a selection of 2 to 5 rooms and so on.”

“Precisely,” Aclysia said and revealed to them all her sketch. “I have made some minor mistakes on the dimensions, yet the overall shape of our trajectory is clear.” She traced the long curve of the path from where they had started to where they were: effectively opposite of their starting location.

“A ring,” Apexus noted.

“Could be a big sickle or a spiral,” Korith remarked.

“Unlikely, albeit not impossible. As is visible here…” She pointed at the entrance area again. “There was a second path here. It is my estimation that we will arrive there, completing the loop.”

“Alright, then how do we progress?” Reysha asked.

“Assuming my theory of this being a ring is correct, I believe the answer is that we must give in to our temptations to a degree.” Aclysia pulled out the encyclopaedia. “This is a common theme among the Temples of Temptations. In one of the two known Dungeons of the area, temptations have to be entirely ignored.”

“Uh, shouldn’t you have told us that before we went for the big pile of food?” Korith asked.

“In the second Dungeon, you must give into your vices but not too much in order to proceed,” Aclysia answered. “I was testing which one it was and, as a door opened at that time, I believe that this was justified.”

“Fair enough?” Korith was still a bit confused. “Could have told us earlier though.”

“I was tempted to see if you would make these observations on your own,” Aclysia responded, to Reysha’s amusement.

The redhead gave Aclysia a soft punch to the shoulder. “Nice pun.”

“Does that qualify as a pun?” Apexus wondered.

“It’s close enough for me.”

Aclysia cleared her throat. “I believe a more accurate description would ‘referential humour’?”

“Uh, not sure about that one?” Korith scratched the back of her head. “Isn’t that more, like, when you say something and it’s funny because it references something that happened before? Like when I say fire burp around Reysha?”

“Fire burp?” Apexus asked, confused.

“Did we never tell ya about it?” Reysha wondered.

“This set of words has no reference in my memories,” Apexus answered.

“Alright, so… you wanna tell it, squishy, or should I?”

Korith shrugged and began undoing the buckles of her chest plate. They were in the full end-of-day banter mood now, so they were obviously not progressing any further and they had found a Healing Fountain to rest at to boot. Nothing would interrupt their rest. “You’re better at telling stories.”

“She also embellishes them,” Aclysia remarked.

“Bah,” Reysha waved off and turned to Apexus. “Alright, so while we were Questing about this summer, Korith and me went on a shopping trip one time. We wanted to see if we could buy her another one of the vibrating thingies.”

“That’s not a necessary detail!” Korith squeaked, her face turning red.

Reysha rolled her eyes. “What’re ya getting ashamed for, all three of us have used it by now. It’s just a carriable version of the big guy’s nails.”

“Or are my nails a biological version of it?” the Monk wondered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Reysha ended that philosophy lecture before it could start. “Point being, we were walking around the marketplace, lookin’ for an enchanter or artificer of lewd repute. We scurried through the seediest alleyways, exchanged information with disfigured brokers…”

“It was one guy at a corner that had a bit of a scar on his cheek,” Korith corrected. “The alleyways were kind of dirty though.”

“…finally, we came about Lazander’s Shop for Everything. We stepped inside, finding a spacious market with a thousand and one products!” Reysha took a deep breath, before continuing her story. “We did not find what we were looking for, for such items were in high demand recently and their price had shot up. Having failed in one pursuit, we perused the magnificent items on display, each a more powerful artefact than the last.”

“It was a bunch of second-hand gear and random crafters junk.”

“And then we came across the great bottle of magical scotch! I bought it for the low price of 3 Copper.”

“3 Silver.”

“And took a sip immediately! After a deep gulp, I then burped! It came out aflame, setting the ends of the shop owner’s hair alight!”

Apexus looked at Korith. “That did happen,” the kobold confirmed.

“And then we were tossed out and I poured the scotch away afterwards because it was honestly rancid. Like, it was magical, but it tasted terrible the regular way.”

“Interesting,” Apexus remarked at the end of the story.

“Still weird to have stories to tell to each other that happened while we knew each other,” Reysha said with a broad smirk. “We’re usually squatting on top of each other like some co-dependent chickens.”

“Co-dependency is the proper way of existence. He who lives alone, dies alone.” Aclysia finished her recital, then tapped on the map again. “It continues to be my understanding that we must follow our temptations to advance further. It may be that the mechanic is entirely the same as the one already known, or it might be a merely surface level similarity.”

“Either way, we should give into our temptation next time we see one?” Korith asked. She wouldn’t complain about it. Besides the pile of food for Apexus, they had encountered a massive board game. Korith had wanted to try it, but the rules had been down a very long and dark corridor. No further temptations had been seen so far.

 Another matter that Aclysia wished to bring to attention. “It is my estimation that the Dungeon is using the first round to analyse the party. It is unlikely to know all about us immediately. Such thorough scanning of the mind would take more magical power than the divines are likely to bestow upon a Dungeon of this level.”

“Weird to consider that we are still in the lower rank for adventurers,” Korith said. “Like, not going to say I would actually do it, but I know for a fact that I could whirl a grown adult around with one arm.”

“We are approaching the middle ranks. As with most hierarchies, it is a pyramid that becomes ever narrower.”

“Enough of all of that!” Reysha declared. “What do we want to have first – dinner or sex?”

______________________________________________________________________

“That’s what it’s trying to tempt me with?”

“It… knows you… well….” Aclysia barely managed to press the words out between suppressed chuckles.

The room before them was filled to the brim with male genitals. It was an extremely juvenile view of dicks and dick-shaped objects sticking out of walls, lining every surface and seat. Golems of various flavours of male physique posed, showing off their most attractive assets. There were tall and muscular ones and ones that were more timid and slender in their appearance. If she had the choice, Reysha’s tastes were quite varied, even if she had a favourite.

“You are a horny woman,” Apexus drawled.

“Pfffffft….” Aclysia managed to hide her pink lips behind a raised hand. Swallowed amusement remained in her throat and her trembling shoulders. She tried a little too hard to suppressed her laughter, ending up choking on her own spit. A coughing fit followed.

“Imma assume we aren’t givin’ into this temptation?” Reysha leered at the many dicks on display. There was a deep curiosity here about what it would be like to be taken in so many different ways.

“No,” her man stated. Base breeding instincts demanded that he keep his females away from other phalluses. That and he did not want to descend the party deeper and deeper into Reysha’s various debauched tastes. “If we must give to temptation, it might as well be in something useful.”

“A shame, isn’t it?” Aclysia teased.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Aclysia buried her head in her hands.

“…Ya know, bubble butt, I think this Dungeon has a sense of humour,” Reysha commented with a huge grin on her face.

Three hours removed from the last chamber with a genuine temptation in it, they found what could only be aimed at the metal fairy. A series of Apexus variants stood on tall plinths, leading up to a massive statue of his current self. The lifelike copy was different from his current self only by virtue of the tiny loincloth he wore and the prominent bulge that lifted it halfway up. The Apexus statue held a leash, hooked to a collar, dangling seductively at the metal fairy.

“We are not following this temptation either,” Apexus remarked.

“…not even a little bit…?” Aclysia muttered under her breath.

“Why are both of you so pervy?” Korith asked, flabbergasted.

“Why is the Dungeon narrowing in on our perviness?” Reysha asked. “It’s not like we don’t have other desires. I really think it has a sense of humour.”

__________________________________________________________________________

“That… is interesting.”

Apexus let out an agreeing hum to Aclysia’s words.

They had completed the loop and were now back in the first, library-like chamber. It was unchanged, save for the picture of the Omniverse. It was, as before, a depiction of the young tree, it roots burrowing into the void, a few leaves sprouting from its countable branches. What had changed was the presence of an odd, blob-like creature nestled in the crown of the great tree.

It appeared like a molten flower, flowing between the branches, and dripped out of some cracks in the bark like sap.

Apexus felt an immediate kinship with the picture. He remembered existing like this before, a liquid entity hiding in treetops, eating plant matter during the night. How long ago that was now and how weirdly similar to that experience this picture was.

The Temple of Temptation Dungeon had hooked into the greatest question of all.

“What is my origin?” Apexus asked out loud, his finger almost coming into contact with the picture.

The great stone it was painted on was pulled back by magical mechanism. A dark staircase invited them in deeper, deeper into the Dungeon, where answers to this one, unanswered questions may lie.

They descended wordlessly.