The Chronicles of Dwynveia - a Slimeling LitRPG

Aki returned to the room they entered the floor in. Lilyth’s coat was lying on the floor there. The girl smiled seeing that. The thing was too bloody comfy to get dirty. Aki hoped she would get to cuddle with Lilyth under it soon. She sat by it and placed Lilyth’s tattered backpack and the books on the floor. She didn’t feel comfortable rummaging through it without her girlfriend around.

Suddenly, she heard voices coming from down the staircase. She recognized one of them. It was Lilyth. Who was she talking with though?

‘...me so fast anyway?’ her girlfriend asked.

‘I was able to lock on the magic signature of the altar and teleport to it,’ said some woman in a melodic voice. ‘I did not expect to find you there.’

‘Ah. I understand. I see there is a lot for me to learn about magic.’

‘Yes. I can teach you some of it if you want.’

‘Yeah. That’d be great. So far I only know two spells

Aki saw that Lilyth, still understandably half-naked, emerged from the staircase alongside a very tall red-haired woman with three horn-like protrusions on her head and wearing a skimpy black outfit. Aki’s blood ran cold upon seeing her. Why was this skank with Lilyth? Still…

Aki ran over to Lilyth, hugged her, and kissed her directly on her lips.

‘You’re back! I’m so glad you are safe, hon. Who’s your… friend?’ she asked in a pleasant voice while smiling at the woman in the most innocent way possible.

Lilyth gave Aki a confused look and said.

‘Aki… this is Caeileera. Caeileera, Aki.’

‘“Nice” to meet you,’ Aki said, maintaining her smile.

‘Likewise,’ Caeileera smiled back, though her eyes were saying: “I know what you are trying to do here.”

If Lilyth sensed anything was amiss, she did not say.

‘Where did you find her?’ Aki asked.

‘She’s a stray I found in the altar room,’ Lilyth laughed. ‘She followed me home. Can we keep her?’

‘A stray?’ Caeileera asked with indignation in her voice.

YES!

‘My bad,’ Lilyth said, apparently realising her poor choice of phrase. ‘It’s a common joke phrase at home. When a child would try to convince its parents to keep a pet they brought home, that would be what they said.’

Caeileera looked like she was going to say something, so Lilyth quickly added:

‘I don’t consider you to be a pet. It was a poor choice of phrase. Just forget it.’

Caeileera huffed but said nothing.

Good start, Aki thought to herself merrily.

‘At any rate…’ Lilyth continued. ‘When I was getting rid of Sarin, Caeileera appeared on the summoning altar and convinced me to have a short chat with her.’

The tall woman nodded, took over and told Aki her story. The girl involuntarily reached towards her weapons upon hearing that Caeileera was one of the Sanguine, but Lilyth shot her down with a look. The scantily dressed woman seemed to have noticed that, slightly scowled, but continued unperturbed. Caeileera also shared her quest with Aki, as the final proof:

Caeileera wants to share the following quest with you: The Master of the Tower

Type: Divine - Life - Dungeon

Difficulty: Hard

Description: Laachersain of the Sanguine is a potential threat to the living being on Dwynveia. His plans must not come to fruition.

Objectives:

Stop Laachersain

Rewards for your participation:

500 experience points

1 Perk Point

Approval of Akh’Ret

Approval of The Sun that Burns No More

Rune of “Flaming Weapon”

Penalties for your participation

Disapproval of The Blood that Devours

Do you accept this quest? Yes/No

What the hell is “The Sun that Burns No More”?

Still... As this was the first quest Aki had ever received, she immediately accepted it. That would also mean she would have to accept the Sanguine woman for the time being.

‘I gave Caeileera a very short version of what happened to us, while we were heading over here. It will probably be time for more explanations later. Right now, we have to deal with the problem of Laachersain looking for us.’

‘Sorry about breaking the mirror,’ Aki said, genuinely embarrassed. ‘I never expected that it would be noticed.’

It was a bad idea in general,’ Aki thought, remembering the mana crystals and the burns she sustained.

Lilyth shrugged.

‘You did what you thought was best. I would probably have done that too. Anyway, what is done is done.’

‘For now, he probably still thinks that I am on that, which should give us some time,’ Caeileera said.

Lilyth nodded and turned to Aki:

‘Find anything good in Löwe’s lab?’

Aki showed her the books and the pendant. Her girlfriend gave the books a cursory review and, per Aki’s suggestion, put them into her bag. This “locket” made her frown, however.

‘Was there a photo here?’ Lilyth asked.

‘What’s a photo?’ both Caeileera and Aki asked in unison.

Her girlfriend sighed heavily and explained:

‘A… direct image of something or someone. Not sure how to explain it. It’s basically as if you took the image in front of your eyes and preserved it forever just like you see it.’

Something clicked in Aki’s head.

‘Oh. There was an image of a woman with curled hair here.’

‘That tracks. The inscription inside says “For my love''. Which would mean it was either his lover or his wife. You are right, though. It should be worth a pretty penny though.’

A ghost of something dark flashed across Lilyth’s face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared, so Aki wasn’t sure whether she didn’t imagine it. She really didn’t like how everything related to Löwe affected Lilyth.

‘So… what’s our next step?’ she asked to take her girlfriend’s mind off that.

‘I don’t know,’ Lilyth sighed.

‘There was this side tunnel I’ve found below, but I’m not sure whether it is worth looking into. Other than that, I think we should start looking for a way up.’

‘I can lead you there,’ Caeileera said. ‘Though, I’m not sure how passable that is. The explosions from this “cascade failure”, as you called it, really did a number on the level above. Part of the reason why Laachersain didn’t send Löwe any help after you killed his guards. There is a lot of damage to fix.’

‘So we could be stuck here?’ Lilyth asked with genuine fear in her voice.

‘Not necessarily. As you’ve noticed, there is a network of tunnels surrounding this dungeon. Neither I nor Laachersain did much exploring of these.’

‘True enough. We got here through Goblintown. But that gives me an idea. How about we see if the tunnel below is one such tunnel? This would potentially give us an element of surprise. If we go up the main stairs, we can likely run into an ambush.’

Both Aki and Caeileera nodded in agreement.

‘Can your fancy floating disk hold all three of us?’ her girlfriend asked.

Turns out it did and shortly afterwards they found themselves by the entrance to the side tunnel.

‘Gonna be a tight squeeze,’ Lilyth muttered.

She examined the bricks still covering the entrance to the tunnel.

‘We can probably remove some of them to make more room if this turns out to be worth the effort.’

Lilyth removed all of her gear and placed it on the disk.

‘Wish me luck,’ she said and started trying to squeeze through the hole.

At a few points, Lilyth appeared to get stuck but then her body shifted slightly and passed effortlessly.

That's… eerie.

After a minute or so of that, Lilyth was finally through. She blew Aki a kiss and disappeared into darkness.

‘Ah,’ Caeileera sighed dreamily after she was sure Lilyth was out of earshot. ‘That body of hers. So… flexible. The things you could do with it…’

Aki turned towards her red-faced.

‘WH-’ she began but the Sanguine bitch cut her off.

‘Don’t worry pipsqueak. I’m just messing with you. I wouldn’t touch her after you marked your territory so… bluntly.’

‘I wouldn’t have to if you didn’t walk around dressed like a whore!’

‘Hey. If one has a body they are proud of, why not show it off? Also, unlike you I’m not the kind of a person to throw myself at someone right after meeting them, so…

I don’t think either of them realised how keen my hearing was, especially given how quiet everything around here was. Still, they needed to hash this out among themselves. Like it or not: for the time being we were in this together.

However, I am starting to worry that… our “date” with Aki might have been a mistake. It was the correct choice at the time, I think, but I just hope it won’t cause any more… issues.

There was nothing I could do about it anyway, right now, but pray that both of them would still by the time I got back.

To my slight dismay, the tunnel was sloped downwards. I wanted to turn back, but… something was drawing me down there. Alarm bells were going off in my head, but I persisted.

Eventually, I reached a small cavern with a metal door in the wall opposite the tunnel exit. Still guided by that impulse I approached it and tried to open it. It didn’t budge. I looked around and saw a small rectangle carved into the wall right to the door. Upon closer examination, I saw dozens of small etchings visible in the stone leading to the doorframe.

It can’t be…

I placed my hand palm-first into the rectangle. I felt a small amount of mana drain from me, there was a flash of yellow light, the etchings on the wall lit up and an audible click came from the door.

I opened it and found out that it led to an empty large spherical chamber. It was easily fifty metres in diameter. There was a path leading down from the door, located roughly on the sphere’s equator, to a flat circle at the bottom.

What the fuck is this place?

I descended down the path and stood in the middle of the circle. More mana drained from me and the chamber lit up like a Christmas tree. There were etchings, thousands of them, all over the walls. They were all glowing in yellow and their pattern reminded me of a circuit board. No… it was a circuit board, I realised.

A set of messages appeared in front of my eyes.

CONNECTING WITH THE CONTROL ROOM OF THE FACILITY: THE TOWER OF TRIALS

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CONNECTION ESTABLISHED

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WARNING: POWER LEVEL CRITICAL

WARNING: SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE SUSTAINED

WARNING: ALL FACILITY FUNCTIONS DISABLED

WARNING: SANGUINE INTRUDERS DETECTED

WARNING: SHUTDOWN IMMINENT

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SELECT ACTION

STATUS REPORT

GENERATE ITEM

SUMMON SUBJECT

SUMMON CREATURE

VIEW CURRENT AUTOMATION PROGRAMME

CHANGE AUTOMATION PROGRAMME

DISABLE AUTOMATION PROGRAMME

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AWAITING INPUT…