Affliction

"So what are your thoughts?" asked Duaparc to Vlas after they both appeared back in her office.

"It was indeed very interesting" he responded.

"I knew you would like it, anyways, this box here, it's filled with the scrolls and similar stuff you asked for and also your payment" she said.

After taking his newly aquired stuff, Vlasfimia went back inside the dungeon, the Holy order's exploration would start soon and he thus needed to make some preparations.

He made his flame consume all of the things he had gained and it burned with a new intensity, flickering around with a certain enthusiasm, when it would fully awaken it would have a great deal of strength and it would awaken soon, very soon.

Vlasfimia started making some preparations, he once again trained monsters to evolve but instead of keeping them caged, he let them out, causing them to naturally progress and also causing other monsters to evolve due to the suddenly added danger roaming the dungeon, at first he released them in different areas so that they wouldn't meet too soon but after a while he just put the new ones randomly, he also used his knowledge of areas that were cut off from the rest and were only empty spaces only reachable by breaking through walls and stacked up many monsters of the same kind in said spaces, specifically those that were hidden behind thin walls.

He also made sure to release minotaurs on floor they weren't supposed to be on, just for more confusion, many beginners adventurers met their end in the first floors due to Vlas little intervention in the natural order of the dungeon, adventurers grew worried about what was going on, Vlas laughed, the dungeon enjoyed the free diffculty spike in these floors.

Some time after he had began messing in the first floors, the fire that lived rent free in his hollow socket suddenly grew stronger, the fire moved slower and was finally able to exert its full influence, allowing Vlas to use it to do more than shoot out a bullet that followed a random path to its target.

The flame was able to shape itself into pretty much anything and by consuming scrolls that granted skills, spells and afinities allowed it to shape itself into such thing with more ease.

This marked the start of the apparition of absolutely random traps and strange monsters whose left eye burned with an unknown flame.

These monsters, who had the misfortune of meeting Vlasfimia's path found themselves tormented by everlasting pain, the flame constantly consumed their left eye and regenerated it, they didn't even gain much out of it apart from being able to shoot cool beams sometimes.

These monsters grew mad from the pain, the apparent increase in strength was simply the natural occurence of beings that felt as if they were constantly on the verge of dying, those inflicted developped another strange behavior, these monsters simply couldn't allow themselves to be the only afflicted and infected their fellow monsters with it.

Soon, the only monsters that were not afflicted with it were the newly spawned and these monsters would always be infected very quickly, the monsters that would usually attack each other on sight seemingly found camaraderie in the possession of the flame and stopped doing so, all that was on their mind was to spread the affliction further, it wasn't long until an adventurer was afflicted with it too.

The traps placed by using the fire were similar to magic traps and such, their effects could be varied and if one was unlucky enough, they could infected with the flame through them but it wasn't as common as being afflicted by another bearer of it.

Vlas tried afflicting some bosses with it, first trying on some that were unimportant and he found out that they lost the affliction upon respawning, so it was safe to use on them.

With such high success, Vlas started working on extending his home down to lower floors, that way he would be able to follow the expedition of the Holy order deeper without risking exposing himself much.

Also thanks to the fire awakening, Vlas fully regained his sight in his left eye, not having to account for the lack of depth awareness felt strange but was a welcomed change.

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"So Agios, got some bitchs since last time?" jokingly asked Vlas.

"Shut up Vlas" was all Agios responded, he still had a few traces of their little street duel.

"Come on, you can't just ignore the possibilities when they show up!" spoke Vlas.

"What do you mean?" Agios didn't realise what he was talking about.

"I mean you could go and get some right now" explained Vlasfimia, confusing Agios.

"I don't understand" he said.

"Listen, back then, I had heard that you were on this continent from members of the noble knights" he started explaining.

"Okay?" Agios was still confused.

"And while I heard of that, one of the members, a girl, asked the other, another girl, if she would hae her chances with you" concluded Vlas.

"Nah, you must be mistaken, I would have noticed" refuted Agios, making Vlas exasperated.

"How can you be so blind?! I'm starting to wonder if we really are brother" said Vlas.

"I never would miss such a detail unknowingly and neither would dad, who raised you Agios?" continued Vlasfimia.

"We literally have an unkown number of half-siblings because dad impregnate everything that moves!" exclaimed Vlas.

"God, don't remind me of that" pleaded Agios.

"We are supposed to be sharing things, so you will immediately get laid, right now!" ordered Vlas.

"But-" Agios attempted to refute but was overwhelmed.

"No but! I don't care if you go get married or any bullshit like that go fuck someone, whoever, whatever, go pay a prostitute if you must, there are a lot in this city, there are having their eyes ripped out but their numbers is still high!" added Vlas.

"Ok, ok, I'll try to find something, calm down!" spoke Agios.

"Good"

"Anyways, why is half of your face skeleton?" asked Agios, he would have asked sooner but he got assaulted by words before he could.

"Got shot in the face and my flesh fell off all around the wound" explained Vlas.

"How did you survive getting shot in the face?" Then asked Agios.

"No idea, just did, by the way, are you going to join the expedition of the Holy order?" questionned Vlas after his short answer.

"I will not, the Holy order is not my cup of tea" responded Agios.

"That is the right choice" spoke Vlas, making Agios want to ask why but he thought that it was better to let sleeping beasts be and simply ignored it.