Chapter 220: Chapter 202: Demons

The Obsidian Spires were weird. Or 'was' weird? I wasn't entirely sure which way around it went when the name of a single city was pluralised like that.

I wasn't quite sure of a lot of things.

We'd chosen our new base based on the dungeon interior, without giving any consideration to the surrounding landscape. To some extent, that made sense, because we could teleport straight to Dawnhold from the dungeon, and we'd only need to visit the surface here to sell our loot. Even then, basic things like monster cores, ingots and gems could be sold anywhere, so we'd only need to visit the Obsidian Spires' delvers' guild to sell monster parts.

Nevertheless, there was a big difference between a big city like the Emerald Nest, a smaller town like Dawnhold, or a mere encampment like Serpent Isle. There was an even bigger difference between any of them and here.

"Huh?" asked Cluma as we walked out of the guild's warehouse and found ourselves facing a giant grey wall, stretching from horizon to horizon with black needles jutting out of it at irregular intervals.

Suspicious, I walked silently to the corner of the warehouse, my guess confirmed when I looked behind it and saw the sky.

Which was, for some reason, blood-red, but that was a fact rather low down on my priority list.

"Guess it's not just the dungeon that has inconsistent gravity, then," I observed.

"Huh?" repeated Cluma. "Wait, there's people walking around on the wall!"

"That's the ground. We're the ones on a wall."

Cluma tapped our local Obsidian Spires' namesake experimentally with a foot. "Feels like the ground to me. You can tell by the way we aren't falling off."

"Look around the side of the warehouse, then," I suggested.

We were near the base of a spire, which was one of four arranged into a neat square. A structure with a couple of demons lounging outside was set into its centre. Presumably it was the dungeon's entrance, but why wasn't the warehouse built closer?

"Woah!" exclaimed Cluma as she located the sky.

There was little foot traffic in the area, but there wasn't none, and I watched with interest as a group of demons rounded the curved base of a spire and set off across the floor below towards the next one. A winged demon flew from one to another, spinning in the air a few metres above the ground. Obviously, the altered gravity didn't extend far away from each spire.

"Well, shall we get going?"

"Mmmk. General store?"

"Yup."

We'd already learnt what we could about the dungeon while in Synklisi, and knew we could clear the upper floors without worrying too much about what we would bump into, but we still needed maps. Once we'd reached floor fifteen or so, we might want more information on the monsters, too. The maps would contain data on the monsters and traps native to each floor, but as things grew to be actual challenges, there was no substitute for seeking out delvers with first-hand experience.

Fortunately, the guild buildings other than the dungeon itself seemed to be clustered around the base of this spire, so reaching the shop didn't require investigating the area's warped gravity. On entry, we were enthusiastically greeted by a six-armed, squat female, with violet skin, black eyes and flaming red hair.

She was also completely naked.

"Hi!" she exclaimed. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit by a pair of beastkin? Delvers, from the look of you. Come to challenge our dungeon?"

"Yup," I answered, doing my best to keep my gaze at eye height. "I'm human, though."

She scratched her head with one of her many hands. "You're just wearing a beastkin helmet?"

"Something like that," I answered non-committally.

"How come you have boobs, but your crotch is completely smooth?" asked Cluma, who had no more filter now than when she was three.

The demon burst out laughing.

I risked a quick glance down from where I'd been rigidly holding my gaze, only to discover Cluma was correct. This demon had nothing going on below. Given that they didn't really eat, I could understand them not having a proper digestive system, but they drank plenty of beer. Where did it all go? And did no demons have... equipment? It wasn't the sort of thing I'd ever dreamed of checking with [Mana Sight].

"Sorry, was that a weird question?" asked Cluma, with complete innocence.

"You've not met many demons, have you, young lady?" asked the storekeeper.

"Umm... Not undressed, no."

"Bah. I can understand armour, but what's the point of clothing? It doesn't protect from anything and the air temperature is perfectly comfortable. It's just extra faff for no purpose."

I took a step back, this not being a conversation I wanted to get involved in. Or listen to. Or even acknowledge the existence of.

"Mmm... But don't demons have a far wider comfortable temperature range than other races?"

"Yes, but just because you lot have a line between too hot and too cold that's thin enough to be invisible doesn't mean that I need to act like I do too."

Cluma nodded, that explanation being perfectly acceptable to her.

"Anyway, to answer your original question... Dunno. That's how I was made. I might as well ask you why you have two arms."

The demon squinted at Cluma.

"Actually, speaking of vaginas, aren't beastkin normally preoccupied at this time of year? Or are you human too?"

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"Nope, I'm beastkin! But, umm..." Cluma looked away shyly.

"Oh, a late bloomer. Say no more," grinned the demon lady.

"That's..." started Cluma, before shaking her head. "Anyway, we're forgetting what we came in here for. Maps!"

"Of course. The first pack takes you to floor five. That'll be five large coppers."

"Umm... I think we'll need more than that."

"Floor ten?" asked the demon? "They come in packs of five."

"As far as... floor thirty?" tried Cluma, looking at me.

"Might as well just get them all. It's not like the dungeon will change."

I stopped to consider that statement, which, given the interesting nature of this dungeon, wasn't quite true.

"I mean, change any more than it usually does," I corrected myself.

The demon stared at us, then shrugged. "Must not be as good at judging the ages of you lot as I thought," she muttered under her breath as she pulled out a series of packets from drawers along the shop's back wall. "That'll be five small silver."

I paid up and stepped outside the shop, where I realised something strange and stopped dead.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Cluma?" I asked the catgirl next to me, who was both fully visible and had spent the entire conversation without hugging the shopkeeper once. No way would she have let the nakedness put her off.

"This is a new city. I don't want to teach people that you walking in through a doorway means they're about to get hugged, or they'll come to expect it. Surprise hugs must be a surprise!"

I opened my mouth, failed to find the words, and closed it again. In turn, Cluma flashed me a look filled with just as much innocence as when she'd questioned a demon about her sex organs, turned to look in through the store window, then vanished.

A short scream echoed through the closed door.

"All done," said Cluma, hugging me from behind with perfectly visible arms. I needed to stifle a scream myself.

That hadn't just been [Non-detection]. Once again, she'd been too quick for regular movement, and the door had never opened. She'd turned to look before vanishing. Maybe she was checking the way was clear, but it was probable her teleportation skill required line of sight.

And she'd popped up behind me... I turned to look, where she was standing in the middle of my shadow, grinning.

[Shadow Strike]. That must be the one. A skill to jump to an enemy's shadow and strike them from behind. Or, in Cluma's case, hug. Could be defeated if I kept my shadow in sight, but if she could jump to any shadow, evasion would be harder. Keeping a light source above me might be the best safety measure. Although that wouldn't do anything about [Non-detection].

Was it bad that I was needing to devote significant brainpower to dodging Cluma's hugs?

"Let's just get into the dungeon before you traumatise anyone," I muttered.

"I'm not traumatising anyone!" she complained, and, to be fair, the short scream had been followed up by laughter.

We managed to reach the base of the spire without further incident, where Cluma stared at the sharply curving black surface beneath us, and the wall only a few metres in front of our faces. I gingerly took a step forward, felt the tug on my leg change direction, and... didn't fall over.

"Cool," I said, surprised, but I suppose all my experience with [Far Step] and [Weft Walk] had already inured me to my legs behaving oddly. A few more steps got me onto the grey, rocky ground, where I looked up at Cluma, who was now standing ninety degrees to me.

"Weird!" she giggled, reaching her arm out into the region of shifting gravity and waving it around for a bit before following me. Of course, the [Acrobatic] catgirl had no difficulties whatsoever.

It was only a short walk to the dungeon, where we went through the usual entry procedure with the pair of demon guards, who were fortunately both fully clothed. Or, at least, armoured, which served the same purpose of public decency, as far as I was concerned.

"Actually, something I was wondering," I asked them before we stepped through. "Why is everything built on the spires rather than the ground?"

"In case there's a dungeon break, like the Emerald Caverns," grumbled one of the guards. "Being on the spires makes it far harder for monsters to catch us unaware by tunnelling. It was a pain in the arse dismantling the entire city and shifting it up the spires, let me tell you."

Wow. Another case of them investing significant effort in defence against a wide-scale dungeon break. Was relocating a significant chunk of city more or less effort than churning out city-scale adamantite armaments?

The pair of us headed down the staircase, Cluma shifting back into invisibility as we entered the dungeon's territory. The first floor had giant maggots, apparently, which were gross but thankfully were soft and squishy enough for my brain to not file them alongside the likes of centipedes.

The stairs ended at an archway, leading into what at first glance seemed like a perfectly ordinary chamber, with grey blocks making up the walls, floor and ceiling. There was an occasional white tile, spaced out among every surface, and each glowing with an internal light. Cluma's shadow-hopping trick would be useless in a dungeon like Dawnhold's, but at least the spaced out lighting here meant there were plentiful shadows for her to use.

"So, how far away is the exit? How long until we reach a decent floor?" asked Cluma.

"The exit of this floor is, well, there," I answered, pointing above us where an upside-down staircase ascended upwards from the middle of the ceiling. Only ten metres away, but actually getting there required following quite a complicated route, according to the maps.

"Oh, cool! The exit is in the same room as the entrance!" exclaimed Cluma, crouching. She leapt, aiming for the staircase, but a metre up, her eyes opened wide in surprise as her ascent rapidly slowed. She didn't let her surprise spoil her landing, which came far more rapidly than it should have.

"Gravity gets stronger away from the floor," I pointed out. "It's still possible to jump it, if you're strong enough, but I don't think we could manage it."

At second glance, the room wasn't ordinary at all.