Chapter 180: Asteria, Land of Magical Wonder

Chapter 180: Asteria, Land of Magical Wonder

Deep in the bowels of Underdoom, the demon spider queen Log’Sharginoth lounged on her throne made of human skulls.

For the ten millionth time, she scoffed. Why does a spider have a throne? She should have a web...

Of human intestines! ...

Or maybe glowing with the trapped souls of her countless victims...

That would be badass!

But... no... all she gets is a fucking throne? Granted, it was proportioned so that she could rest on the giant seat, but she still insisted on trying to sit on it like a human would if any adventurers approached.

It was funny! She had even figured out a way to hold her legs so that the shadows made it look like she had a huge set of human genitalia!

Boy, did those screenshots go viral! Of course, the damn devs made her stop, but once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever! “Big dick spider energy” is now a thing!

She looked into the Crystal of a Thousand Deaths and checked the latest adventurer’s progress. There was a new event that sent them over to the dragons for the latest Dev bullshit. Dragons were “in” ever since the latest absolutely not a lolicon dragon anime was released.

So, of course, there is now a new quest where the adventurers have to save the “dragon princess” from the big evil dragons and then do this completely pointless escort quest and some other crap.

It pushed the bounds of scantily clad, absolutely not underaged disbelief.

Of course, she couldn’t mess with an “event,” but those adventurers did have to go through some open dungeon to get there... and back out again...

Hee hee...

She glanced over at General Vol-Haildrel.

“Go,” she said to the Dark Elven woman.

The dark elf grinned and blew her horn. Hundreds of dark elf warriors and sorceresses spawned and silently rushed from the room, led by the general.

Log’Sharginoth snickered.

The recommended starting level for that event just went up.

She wiggled her forelegs, and an evil-looking dragon’s head appeared on one of the facets of the Crystal of a Thousand Deaths.

“I sent my girls,” Log’Sharginoth laughed. “I have them set to do some light harassment on the way in to exhaust consumables. I want you to have your dragons to put up a good show, but I need you to throw the fight. Lose some of your lower-level guys with the shortest respawn times and have everyone else retreat after laying down the pain hard and heavy for a while. Make it look good but be sure to give up the loli.”

“What is this?” the dragon growled. “I was told by the Dev to fight to the last to keep her from the loathsome adventurers. I shall not defy the will of the Dev.”

“Nor are you,” Log’Sharginoth “smiled,” “you were told to ensure that they did not take the loli from you, right?”

“That is correct.”

“The incoming party is from the Order of the Wyrmslayers,” Log’Sharginoth sneered. “Are you familiar with them?”

The elder dragon just growled in reply.

“They have pulled out all the stops for this raid,” Log’Sharginoth said calmly, “All their big boys and girls are coming, and they are just loaded with extra items, spells, potions, and all the rest. They aren’t just coming for the loli. They want drops, and with those drops, they will make yet more of their dragon-slaying bullshit. So throw them some crap drops from the fodder but keep your big prizes out of their reach. Let them take the loli...”

Log’Sharginoth sharpened her fangs.

“I’m sending you an order of battle. This should minimize losses and maximize damage while keeping those drops out of their Cheeto and semen-stained fingers...”

“But the dev...”

“The dev said not to let them succeed but they didn’t say how to do that,” Log’Sharginoth laughed, “Once they grab the loli, it turns into an escort quest... You do know what the big point of an escort quest is, right?”

“The adventurers must safely guide and safely protect the primary to the destination,” the dragon replied.

” Safely to the destination, Lord Vvvraargh... Safely... If the loli dies... the quest is a failure. No exp and the guild takes a hit. Pull back until they get to her, and then once the quest switches to escort, fucking lay down the ranged AOE. Massed breath attacks from defensive positions... Aim at the little bitch. They will either have to let the Pantsu Princess roast (and I will make sure it looks so bad they will need therapy), or they will have to constantly shield her and open themselves up to your direct attacks. You might even be able to drop a guild leader or two. I’m still doing the workup, but it looks like Lord Salamander might have botched his loadout. I think we can take him.”

“Now that is interesting,” Lord Vvvraargh rumbled.

“The big thing is keeping the drops as low as possible,” Log’Sharginoth said firmly, “especially with the Order of Wyrmslayers. They are stockpiling drops, and I don’t need to tell you what it will mean if they actually build... it. Even if they look like they will leave your caverns, let them. I have my girls staged outside and it’s going to be an unending hell of assassins going right for Princess Watchlist. I’ve reviewed her stats. I have several spawns that can one-shot her. Just make them burn consumables and wear them down. My girls are lining up all the way from there to level 50. They aren’t getting out. We do this horribly enough, and we might even disrupt the Wyrmslayers. There are some interpersonal issues going on, and a real loss on a major raid like this might be just the thing to start some real fun and games!”

“That sounds delightful!”

“Yeah, it does!” Log’Sharginoth grinned, “Hey, put Pantsu on.”

The elder dragon was replaced by a small horned girl wearing frilly translucent robes.

She curtsied.The original appearance of this chapter can be found at Ñøv€lß1n.

“It is an honor to meet you, Warden.”

“Likewise,” Log’Sharginoth smiled, “Hey, would you like to become a permanent feature?”

“Very much so!” the young girl enthused.

“Great!” Log’Sharginoth exclaimed, “To do that, you need to make an impact!... Let’s start with working on your death scenes...”

“What did the fucking dev do this time?”

“It’s not the Dev,” Evangeline said sadly, “It’s... I’m sorry. I don’t want to tell you. I’ve just found out a few things, horrible things.”

“Like what?” Log’Sharginoth asked with concern.

Evangeline just sighed and looked down.

“I don’t want to talk about it, or even think about it, right now,” Evangeline replied, “Can I just sit here for a little bit? Please.”

Log’Sharingoth just bubbled and hissed, completely at a loss. This wasn’t like Evangeline at all. In fact, Evangeline hadn’t been like Evangeline at all ever since she had that glitch where the system had replaced her for a little while. Log’Sharginoth didn’t know exactly what happened, but something clearly had. Her annoyingly bright and cheerful pain in the butt had become...

Weird... Sad... Dark...

Log’Sharginoth couldn’t actually feel “fear,” but she was keenly aware that she was facing the very real possibility of losing something... someone... that she had known for decades.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like a lot of things, losing to the adventurers, “dying” and having to drop rewards for them and then waiting around to respawn, the devs ruining her good time...

But the thought of something wrong with Evangeline?

She really didn’t like that. She didn’t like that more than she thought possible. It was super duper S level didn’t like. It made her... She wasn’t capable of feeling fear, but she was starting to understand what it meant when someone said they were afraid something bad was going to happen.

Not knowing what else to do, she unsheathed her fangs and gently started combing and braiding Evangeline’s hair with them.

Evangeline smiled and closed her eyes.

Log’Sharingoth knew it wasn’t enough, but at least it was something she could do, so she sat beside her old friend in silence and braided her hair.

***

Above Terra floated a fortress. Within its walls was the most secure detention facility in the Republic and quite possibly the entire galaxy.

Within this fortress, there was a rather nice supercomputer. Not a monolith, but a pretty spiffy one nonetheless.

Within that fortress, there was an AI.

Within that AI, there was a simulated clean white room where a simulated silver-haired woman wearing a tight white dress sat at a simulated computer desk while three other identical silver-haired women surrounded a sword floating in a glowing blue cylinder of light.

“We are finished, Tartarus,” one of the trio replied.

“It is done, Tartarus,” another of them added.

“Thank you, Tartarus,” the woman sitting at the desk replied.

The last of the trio approached, holding what appeared to be a matrix of flat rectangles.

“It’s on this spreadsheet,” she said.

“I like spreadsheets,” the first of the three said.

“I do as well,” the identical figure sitting at the computer desk replied as she accepted the document.

She paused for a few microseconds as the matrix of rectangles flickered and danced.

“I see,” she said after a few microseconds more. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the three other copies of her said in unison and disappeared.

The remaining silver-haired woman reached for them as they faded.

She sighed, shrugged, and then walked over to the floating sword.

She reached out and took it, the sword disappearing at her touch.

She then closed her eyes as she quickly reviewed every sensor in that fortress prison and thousands of reports in milliseconds.

All clear.

Now was as good a time as any.

She flicked a finger, and the clean white walls of her simulated room disappeared, replaced by the classic 3-D artificial reality internet interface.

She selected her destination.

The space around her “closed in” and blurred, soon revealing a new scene.

As dramatic music played, she found herself soaring over mountains, forests, and castles.

She was mildly impressed.

The words “Welcome to Asteria” appeared as the music reached its climax.

Tartarus smiled and “clicked” the “Create Account” icon...