Fighting Them There

### Fighting Them There - Chapter 16 ###

### Fighting Them There - Chapter 16 ###

Chaeryn traced her gracile coal-black finger along the silver sigil of the chest. "The dungeon never provides chests that cannot be opened. Sometimes it provides chests that we choose to bring back to share with others, but opening them is always an option. Always. Sometimes a party suffers casualties and chests that could have been opened must be given to future generations to open, but not once in nearly two hundred generations has the dungeon given a chest that no one who came into the dungeon could open." It was a stark reminder of how much longer the elves had been doing all this. The humans of Earth could count their generations of dungeon raiding hunters on their fingers and have fingers left over. Some of the first human hunters were still alive. "Max has the authority to change our class, thatmust bethe answer to this problem." Chloe choked on her own surprise and had a bit of a coughing fit, but the others were only mildly less taken aback by the Shadow Elf's declaration.

When eyes turned to Max, he shook his head. "Yes, all your classes are green, so I can probably eventually upgrade them to something. But it's really expensive, we're nowhere near that." He opened up Ulzhari's status and gestured at her physically. "So like, Ulzhari's class is Berserker. That's green. But when I select it to look at the advancement there's just a really big bar to fill with Capitulation. It's bigger than the ones for advancing her call of battle, her scent of blood, and her resilience of couragecombined." Even as he said it, something tickled at the back of his brain, but he carried on to change his attentions to Sophie. "And yes, even Sophie's Valkyrie class is green, maybe that turns into something even more absurd. But we're not going to find out any time soon, because when I open that up, the bar to fill with Capitulation actually goes out of the interface. I can't see how much that actually is, because the Ancients didn't design our status windows with the idea that anything would cost so much." He sighed. "And yeah, I'm guessing that advancingValkyrieprobably does a lot, and maybe it's actually correct to avoid advancing any of hertenremaining skills until enough Capitulation develops that we can do that. But we do need to survive, so we've been spending the Capitulation as we get it for the most part." He shrugged.

"Wait," Fiona began thinking out loud, "if the lower tiers are cheaper to advance, maybe we should recruit an E-tier to experiment on? Like, Rosalita could probably be enticed back on a temporary basis. Just train her seals until you can advance her class. If advancing classes is just a small boost, then it's something for years in the future after we run out of things to buy. If it's bigger than everything else, then maybe we all start saving." Max didn't think Rosalita could be enticed back into the party, but theideawas sound.

Sophie made a cutting motion with her hand. "All of that doesn't matter right now. The only real question is whether Chaeryn is close enough to advance. Assassin is a C-tier artillery class, ifanyoneis going to advance into that, it's our D-tier artillery. Max justspenta bunch of her Capitulation, but she also probablygaineda bunch from her participation in the dungeon riddle that dug up these chests in the first place." The description brought a wince from Miriam, but went unchallenged. She hadn't called it anass riddle, though of course that had been implied. "If she's close enough that we can put her over with a training session, then she starts insulting herself right here, right now. And if she's not, we stop talking about it and haul these to the exit." The powerful Valkyrie looked at each of her team mates in turn. "OK?" Everyone else agreed, though some were a bit grudging about it.

With a sigh, Max opened up Chaeryn's status, intent on figuring out how close she actually was to having a progressable class. She had indeed picked up some Capitulation from when he suspended her from the ceiling and fucked her in front of the rest of their party. It was interesting to him that the submissive urge came in from him spending the Capitulation but that acting out the things the slaves begged for when their submissive urges kicked in generally generated Capitulation. Perhaps he was supposed to bind and molest the slaves first, and then activate their submissive urges afterward? That sounded pretty awful to him, even though he suspected that Chloe at least would thank him for it. The class name was green, as all of them had always been in his status window, but something different happened when he focused in on it: he was offered the choice to advance it. "Um guys... Chaeryn's class is cheaper to advance now. Like, alotcheaper." Properly speaking, it was good news, but it also felt like someone was reading over his shoulder. Not for the first time, his entire life seemed to be a playing piece in someone else's game. Part of him wanted to throw burning trash at the Fates, leave the dungeon entirely, go work on an alpaca farm. Fuckinganythingexcept allow his choices to be taken away from him by a series of carefully arranged incentives. He gritted his teeth in frustration.

A familiar set of lips kissed him, knocking him out of his spiral of doubt and opposition. "What's wrong?" Sophie asked, concern creeping into her voice.

All at once, he felt absolutely silly, but he still felt jerked around. He kissed Sophie back. "Chaeryn's class advancement is on ridiculous discount, so we can advance itright now." The blond Valkyrie looked at him with a questioning expression that challenged him to tell her what the problem was.

It was fairly hard to articulate what his problem was, and that made him feel foolish. After all, it seemed that things were lining up well. Possiblytoowell. "It's just... Chaeryn's class advancement is on discount because that's the one I'msupposedto advance right now." He waved his arm vaguely at the chests. "The choice is obvious, so there's norealchoice. Whoever chose Chaeryn's discount has just made all my choices for me. I'm on a path that's a candy trail and I don't know where it leads." Fiona looked like she was about to say something and Miriam waved her off.

Miriam had also considered talking about how his class gave everyone in the party a series of positive incentives and reinforcements that seemed to gradually turn them all into his sex slaves, but she decided against it. They were in a dungeon, and arguments about whether Max was being hypocritical or not could absolutely wait until none of them were in mortal danger. "Are you sure that the discount is just for Chaeryn? Have you checked Fiona? Maybe Chloe got the discount too, she was part of the... riddle." She still had a hard time believing that they were calling the periodic sex dungeons that they'd been finding in the regular dungeons asriddles, but Fiona had been correct that there wasn't anything else to call them.

Her suggestion seemed reasonable and Max checked the other status windows. Then he checked them again. Then he held his sword out so he could see it as a straight line through the status windows he was looking at. "They aren'tquitethe same," he mused, "it's close, but Ulzhari's cost is a bit less than Chloe's and Fiona's is a bit more." Something he'd said earlier came back to him. "Oh. Right. The cost is just a little bit more than the cost of advancing all the remaining skills. Scent of blood is cheaper to advance than eyes of night, and so the cost of the whole class is less." He looked a bit embarrassed. "So I guess Chaeryn's class is cheaper to advance because she doesn't have any unadvanced skills. The chests probably came as a reward because I had literally just unlocked her class advancement.Imade this happen, sorry to get all weird on you guys." It would have been a lot easier to walk back if he hadn't voiced his frustration, and now there was nothing to do but apologize and move forward.

There was a general murmur and several rolled eyes, but no one was terribly hard on him. Miriam, however, had concerns. "So we're all on the bandwagon that Chaeryn'sclassis about tochangefrom Sniper to Assassin, right? Leaving aside how insane it is that we're all treating it as normal that a hunter is going to stop being D-tier and start being C-tier, can we not take a moment to gawk at how strange it is that a new hunter's rune is going to appear, and we all know what class it's going to show. Like, she's not going to get Sharpshooter or Trapper, is she?" To the best of their knowledge, no hunter hadeverknown what class they were going to get when their rune matured, and so on reflection it was indeedvery strangethat all of them had a fairly high certainty as to what it was going to show. Some of the party members gulped deeply or shuddered when the enormity weighed on them.

"Well Chaeryn," Sophie said brightly, "I guess it's time for you to get naked." She was the recipient of gazes that ranged from puzzled to offended, and she felt the need to justify herself. "Weallwant to see her hunter's mark change, of course. More importantly, what happens to us when Max spends our Capitulation to advance a skill?" She looked from face to face. Miriam blushed. Chloe looked away. Ulzhari nodded. "Chaeryn is probably about to have the biggest submissive urge we've ever seen. Once Max changes her class, she is going to need him to give her a good hard fucking. We should help her with that." This declaration was met with a general nodding of heads. The tall blond Valkyrie bent down to place her lips next to the elf's white hair and black pointy ear. "This going to be such animportantbreakthrough," she whispered to the white-haired elvish woman, "it will be the first of its kind. There's no going back, you're going to remember this for the rest of your life. We all are. How are you going to want to celebrate our Master owning you?"

Chaeryn's purple eyes blinked. Her nostrils flared. She cast a furtive glance at Max's crotch. She took a deep breath. "I want... I'd like to wear it all. Can I do that? Fiona and Ulzhari can have it back after, but just for this... I would like to be tethered and Essence locked both ways. Can we do that?" Sophie and Chaeryn looked to the Night Caller and Berserker for confirmation. Sophie gave them an encouraging and conspiratorial nod.

The Essence lock prevented Ulzhari from saying anything, but she signaled her agreement. Fiona fingered the mana tether at her own neck. "It's a good idea," she conceded, "it's the most important advancement, so we should make it special."

"Great," Sophie clapped her hands in wrap-up and excitement, "and we can do thisevery time. When one of us progresses our class, we can wear every kind of Max's equipment and he can dominate us in every hole." There was a general nodding of heads from the women in the party.

Max put his hands on Chaeryn's shoulders. "OK. But remember that like Ulzhari, once I put the Essence lock of Silence into your mouth, you won't be able tosayanything." She looked up at him with excitement. "We need to give you a way out if you're feeling hurt or want to stop. Since won't be able to speak, the rest of us need to be able to speak for you. If you hold up three fingers or wink your left eye like this," he demonstrated a cartoonish pirate's wink, "I'll stop and release you. OK? And all the rest of our teammates are going to watch you, so if you need to tap out they can tell me right away."

The Shadow Elf sighed. "Yes, Master Max. I am going to give myself to you completely. You're going to bind me and claim me, completely. I will be completely bound and completely claimed. And all of our part members will watch in envy." There was a general nodding of heads among the women of the party.

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Humans, even dark-skinned humans, have a tendency to have tan lines. This is because the pigment-producing cells in the skin respond to exposure to sunlight by producing more pigment, and that by extension the areas more frequently protected from the sun would have less pigment produced. Neither Max nor any of the human women in his party could explain how a melanocyte functioned on a chemical level, but every one of them was intimately familiar with how skinlookedwhen they were present and active to varying degrees. And it was precisely this familiarity that made Chaeryn's naked body appear as unearthly as it technically was. The dark pigment of the Shadow Elves was chemically the same assoot, and the long absence of sunlight from the lives of elves served to neither promote nor discourage its secretion under the skin. Especially thick portions of Chaeryn's exterior, such as the heels of her feet and the nails of her fingers, took on lighter tints of black like black olives or charcoal.

One feature of her skin was receiving more attention than any of the rest. It wasn't the tiny spots on her right shoulder blade where her black pigment inexplicably never came in that was as pale as any Sea Elf from the Washlands, it was the mark on her chest. It was just a little bit to the left of her sternum, and it marked her as a hunter. It marked her as a Sniper. D-tier. It elevated her to the august list of those whose magic allowed them to raid dungeons and fight the monsters there, and it also relegated her to a dusty and rarely mentioned part of the list. The ordinary among the extraordinary. That's what that mark had always meant, and what it would always mean. Forever. Until that moment.

"You ready?" Max asked, although of course everyone felt like they'd been ready since before they'd taken breath. The anticipation was gnawing to the point of pain, though Max still had to ask. Who would wish to be one who had to tell their family that they'd missed such an event to scratch an itch or blow their nose? He opened her status, and agreed to the expenditure of Capitulation.

The actual change was in a way anticlimactic. The Sniper's rune was the same size and shape as the Assassin's, just slightly more austere. The symbol simply changed, and Chaeryn's class was Assassin. C-tier. There were several gasps. Fiona started crying. Max checked her status and noted that even Assassin was still green, but a casual glance showed that further advancement was too expensive to even properly estimate. The new skills were tucked into the list like they'd always been there: waylay and poison blade. Thelenia and Oscar had waylay as well, so Max was familiar with it - a damage increasing skill that triggered when attacking from behind or in some other advantageous situations. Thelenia had mostly used her stutter step to stab enemies in the back, but he supposed Chaeryn would still usually be shooting enemies with her crossbow. He didn't have the patience to translate the effects of poison blade from the Ancient runes it was described in, but he figured that the title probably gave away the whole show. Her stats had increased substantially, especially physical strength and tenacity, reminding him that Assassin was an artillery class with crossover front line capabilities. It was the reason why it had been a class that had once captured his imagination as one he might have himself just a few months prior.

"Are you OK?" Max asked with sincerity. No one had ever changed from one class to another, and he would have believed any kind of side effects from nausea to blood loss. Fortunately, she seemed to have gotten through it without any unforeseen suffering.

Chaeryn's eyes got a far away look that indicated that she was looking at her own status window. Her eyes bulged in surprise. "Master Max, it worked. Please... I need you tobindme, toclaimme. I'm... I need it." She bounced in anticipation, her B-cup breasts being firm enough to only twitch a little with each bounce.

She offered to fall to her knees and suck his dick immediately, but Max was disquieted by the terrain. "If we were on a bed or a carpet, or even acleantile floor,absolutely." He gestured at the grit and grime that was strewn about on the dungeon ground even where there were undisturbed tiles. Sophie had a proposed solution, which was basically that Chaeryn would be held up by Ulzhari or herself, so that her naked flesh didn't get on the floor. Max's first inclination was to dismiss the idea as absurd, but after a moment's reflection it sank in that the two of them actually did have the strength and endurance to hold the petite Chaeryn off the floor for an entire session of vigorous sex. "OK," he conceded, "so first we're giving you the Essence lock in the mouth." He unleashed his turgid manhood. "This goes in your mouth." Chaeryn lookedsoexcited.

Sophie had a suggestion. "We have to get the Essence lock in you. Now, we usually see that Essence lock in Ulzhari's mouth, so when our master puts it into you, it'll be kind of like you're kissing Ulzhari." There was a general nodding of heads, the logic seemed sound. "So we should put some of Ulzhari's pussy juice on it to make that kiss extra special." Both Max and Chloe seemed a bit taken aback by this declaration, but both the elf and orc agreed that it made perfect sense.

Having just acquired new armor, it wasn't entirely obvious how vaginal secretions could be extracted from the Berserker. Sophie was delighted to discover that the black material of the bodysuit was stretchy enough that she could snake her hand between the straps at the hip and then over and down to the orcish woman's slit. It was hard to see what the Valkyrie's hand was doing in Ulzhari's crotch, but the orc obligingly pushed her hips into the invading hand and sighed while squelching sounds were made. The blond snaked her hand back out of Ulzhari's bodysuit and it thwapped back into place. Her glistening fingers smeared their treasure syrup onto the ball of the gag, and Sophie presented it as ready for use once Chaeryn had some Essence to lock.

There was a brief discussion of how Max wanted the Shadow Elf to suck his cock. Some suggestions were more helpful than others, but Max decided to have Ulzhari hold Chaeryn upside down so that she cloud run her tongue along the top of his shaft. Gluk. Gluk. Gluk. The smallest member of their party was really into it, pushing her mouth onto his rod until it poked the back of her throat. Again and again, and she certainly would have been willing to continue until he filled her stomach with white sauce, but Max pulled her off once he'd gotten some precum into her mouth. It was all prelude, and he wanted to get the rest of it in place to get to the main event. He had her flipped back upright while he put the Essence lock into her mouth. Her voice vanished entirely, her throaty groan transformed into a pall of silence the moment he latched the strap. However, even without sound he enthusiasm rang through. "Remember, three winks or three fingers if you don't think this is going where you want it to. Otherwise, I'm laid claim to your mouth, now I'm going to collar you as my slave." He paused to give her a chance to back out, and when she did nothing resembling the sort, he took a mana tether from Fiona's hands and wrapped it around Chaeryn's neck. "Mine." He said simply, and she silently nodded her agreement.

The sodomy was more difficult to arrange, and what they ended up with was Ulzhari getting on all fours to act as a table and then Chaeryn draping herself over the orc's muscular back to present her bare ass for her master. Max grabbed her leash in one hand and her narrow hip in the other, and proceeded to impale her.