Somewhere in the woods, a young elven girl was utterly lost and alone. The girl was on the short side at around 140 cm in height, with long sapphire blue hair and sapphire blue eyes. Her skin was fair and marked with a number of wounds, she was wearing a torn and bloody aquamarine dress that barely concealed her figure and her bra could be seen poking out on the left side. Her chest was about average for an elf with a B cup. She had lost her shoes earlier so she was barefoot. She had managed to escape the bandits that had attacked her caravan, but she had no idea where she was. She rounded another tree, leaning a bit on her staff since she was exhausted and came out in a clearing, dimly lit by the setting sun. In the center of the clearing, a large stone structure sat atop a small hill. She climbed the stairs on one side of the structure to get a better look. The structure was 4 pairs of pillars on either side of a staircase aligned with the compass points. The top of the hill was a flat stone plaza and in the center was a pool of water and rising out of the center of the pool was a naked statue of a horned woman with wings, and in her right hand, she held a coiled leash with a collar. When she passed the pillars she felt the familiar feel of magic wards and knew she was safe from the monsters and beasts of the forest. Being exhausted she barely paid attention to her surroundings and made for the statue. If she had, maybe she would have noticed the signs that she was at a dark shrine, but she only cared that she was safe for the moment. Now she could care for her wounds, and rest.

Feeling safe for the moment, she sat down in front of the statue, set her pack down and removed her torn and bloody dress, so she could look at her wounds. Using some water magic, she started cleaning her wounds, so she could cast her only real healing spell. As she cleaned her wounds she checked her status.

{Note condition bleeding, health regen drops to zero and health starts draining at 5% per hour until bleeding is stopped.

Note condition exhausted: Mana recovery is halved

Note: the above stat table is the simplified version, with most of the base stats hidden}

Her status reflected her exhausted state, and she closed it after confirming what she had already guessed. Finding this safe spot was indeed fortuitous given the wounds she had gotten fleeing from those bandits. Otherwise, she might have bled to death lost in the woods. She prayed to her patron Yiran the god of the forest thankful that he had guided her somewhere safe. Her pool was practically depleted, but she had enough mana for a lesser healing spell. Her wounds glowed a gentle yellow and closed before her eyes. That small use of mana was just a little too much for her and she drifted into slumber. Her torn dress, and travel bag still lying beside her.

She groggily stirred hours later on soft grass. Her sleep-addled mind didn’t at first notice the difference from the hard stone of the night before, and it took her a few moments to realize she wasn’t where she was before. Looking around she noticed she was on a field of grass surrounded by dark shadows. The shadows limited her field of vision, and she couldn’t see very far because of them. Looking around, she found her staff not far from where she was lying, but her dress and pack were gone. Meaning she was now in the middle of some field in nothing but her underwear. Checking her status she was glad to find that she was fully recovered from the events of last night. That was a bit of good news, but losing her clothing and supplies was a problem.

“You messed up, you know that?” suddenly spoke a voice from behind her. Turning around she found herself staring at the bare chest of a naked woman. The woman was beautiful with superb proportions. Her skin was flawless, and the first thing she noticed when she pulled her gaze away from her chest was her horns. She felt a little jealous of her proportions, but her sudden appearance put her on guard. She had no idea who she was dealing with and decided to analyze the newcomer. The status that followed was so full of question marks she knew she was in trouble.

She had no idea why a major goddess of the dark pantheon had chosen to appear before her, but it couldn’t be good. She immediately prayed to her patron Yiran, but instead of the normal warmth she felt from him, only a sharp cold came from him. Confused she clutched her staff protectively in front of her.

“It’s probably best that you don’t pray to him again. Yiran gets quite touchy about his own praying to him at a Dark Shrine,” said Dewari.

Now very confused, she exclaimed, “Dark Shrine!? But I never ...”

Dewari stepped forward, and she immediately retreated a few steps. Interrupting her Dewari said, “I’m afraid you did pray to him from a Dark Shrine last night. Piece of advice, it often pays to pay attention to your surroundings. The place you were at was a shrine of mine, and he tossed you out of his temple because of it. He seems to think that you betrayed him in favor of joining my temple. He transferred you to my service without even consulting me.”

Feeling indignant, she started letting her emotions get the better of her good sense. “I would never! The god of the forest has always been good to me, why would I betray him for a ...”

Dewari stopped her before she could go into her full tirade. “Anyway, I would like to offer you a chance to leave my patronage if you want.”

Just then a rather cheery message that didn’t quite match how she felt about the circumstances appeared before her.

She hated divine trials, they always came with consequences. This one has nothing but downsides. Reiko didn’t know much about Dewari, but she didn’t think the Lust mage class was for her. The hero part was very attractive, and the attribute points were so valuable that she almost drooled for them. The failure part seemed a bit extreme to her, and still rather emotional she finally exploded.

“Hey! What the hell is even with these failure consequences anyway? Who the hell would agree to become a fucking pet if they failed! Is there a reason for this!? Can’t you give me a more reasonable quest, and I never said I wanted to be a lust mage!.”

Dewari with a slight dark expression, responded, “I never agreed to you joining my patronage either, but I have rules I must follow. You don’t have to accept my offer, but you aren’t going to get a better one.”

She slumped to the ground, and let her staff rest at her side. Losing her patronage had also meant losing the benefits and protections that came with it. Those benefits were rather significant in fact. It was why most people choose a patron to follow. Regardless she didn’t really think this was right for her, and she really did want the chance to leave. So after some thought, she replied,  “Fine! What can you tell me about this dungeon anyway?”

Dewari seemed to brighten a bit, and replied, “Excellent. It is a mere single floor demonic dungeon of the lust circle. Naturally, you will be challenging it alone. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a test.”

Her heart sank hearing this, and she was already having second thoughts about agreeing to this. Demons of all kinds were very tough opponents for mages like her. They often had a trait called ‘Demon Skin’ that acted like a natural armor that was highly resistant to magic. It straight up nullified 75% of any spell directed against them with the exception of celestial magic. Demons were weak to celestial spells, but she didn’t know a single celestial spell. She only knew a handful of fire, water, and ice spells.

“What kind of demons am I going to be facing?” she asked worried. Dewari shifted on her feet, and replied, “Mostly level eight Lesser Beastkin Demons, and Lesser Demon Girls.”

The good news was that she was at a higher level than her opponents, but with their resistance to magic, her spells weren’t going to be very effective. She had some training with the staff in hand to hand, but thanks to her class she didn’t have a lot of strength to go with that training. Normally she didn’t really need it. As a mage, she normally didn’t need to get close to her opponents, and as a princess, she had always had guards. Unfortunately, those guards were likely dead now having covered her retreat into the forest. Those bandits had been unusually well equipped and trained, but she had gotten away. The worst part of this was that she was half-naked. Maybe it would be better to just stay in her patronage, but she had a few more questions to ask first.

She looked up to ask if the dungeon had a boss, but found Dewari was already gone. The shadows on the field had receded, and she could now plainly see that she was in a clearing. All around her were tall trees, and directly in front of her was a forbidding cliffside with a raised platform directly in front of an ominous pair of stone doors. The quest didn’t say she had a time limit, so she started looking around the clearing to see if she could find her missing dress and pack.

  Dewari watched Reiko search the clearing for her missing things. Items that she currently had with her. She had even fixed the torn dress and was going to give them to her before she entered the dungeon, Dewari had gone out of her way to offer that rather generous quest, and that small elf had been rude to her. Any quest that offered someone the chance to be a hero was bound to have dire consequences if you failed, but hers were rather tame compared to some of the others she had seen. She could have even changed the penalties from the defaults and would have done so if the girl had asked nicely. It would have cost her some extra energy to do it, but nothing she couldn’t afford. In fact, this was a very easy quest as hero quests went. It was among the most generous the rules allowed her to offer, and unlike a certain goddess with no respect for the rules that was just one misstep away from being punished, Dewari respected and followed the rules.

Yiran dropping this girl on her was rather sudden but not entirely unwelcome. She had needed a teacher for her new dungeon, and this girl was quite convenient. She was even thinking of offering her a generous quest for that, but now it was off the table. Speaking of Yiran dropping the girl on her, she was glad that he could only do that once or twice every hundred years or so, and only after fulfilling other conditions, such as praying at a shrine dedicated to her that doesn’t include a shrine dedicated to Yiran.

She hoped the girl failed now, as it would give her a chance to teach this girl some humility and the value of good manners and respect. Something as a princess she sorely needed. Part of it she knew was her emotions, but for a princess, there was no excuse for that sort of ill-mannered behavior.

Reiko found herself standing before the stone doors leading into the dungeon. She had searched the entire clearing three times now for her missing things, but they were gone. Maybe they were left behind at the shrine, but she didn’t know where it was. Even if she did, she couldn’t go there, as the trees apparently marked the out of bounds zone for her quest. She was glad the quest warned her about that. It would have sucked to fail because she had unknowingly walked out of bounds searching for her stuff. Internally she was cursing Dewari for making her challenge a demonic dungeon of all things in her underwear.

Hesitantly she stepped towards the door and pushed it open. Cautiously she stepped into the dungeon. The walls were rough stone. They looked like they had been carved out by hand and the stone was rather dark. The tunnel was lit by a few old looking mana torches bolted to the walls. The lighting from the torches was poor and produced deep shadows.

She didn’t encounter any traps or monsters in that first tunnel and soon made her way to the first room of the dungeon. In the first room, she encountered her first monsters. Two naked demons guarded the room. Neither looked particularly old, one was a beastkin, and the other was standard demon girl. Reiko didn’t plan to fight them. In her opinion, beating this dungeon would require her to avoid fighting as much as possible. The demon girl cast a spell. A bolt of dark energy flew straight at her, and Reiko dodged to the left before bolting for the door on the other side of the room.

Just as she was about to cross the threshold of the door, she stumbled when a bolt slammed into her shield. Her shield absorbed all the damage, but the dark energy still caused her a bit of pain. She yelped but continued on. Neither demon moved to follow her and she cursed the fact they had pain-inducing dark spells. Her shield was great at stopping damage, but it couldn’t block the extra effects of spells, and dark spells tended to inflict pain.

Getting out of range, she hoped she didn’t take too many hits on the way through the dungeon. After a few meters of walking, she came to a fork in the path. She stopped for a moment, but since she didn’t have a map she opted to go right hoping it was the right choice. After awhile the tunnel turned back towards the entrance and then opened up into another room. Just as entered, she heard a click and felt the ground push down. Then she heard rocks crash down behind her, trapping her in the room. In front of her were four demons, like the first group they were all naked. Two of them were demon girls, and the other two were beastkin demons. She couldn’t help but curse her luck, especially given the lack of an exit to this room.

One of the beastkin demons charged her but she used her high speed to dodge its attack and a quick cast ice spell was her response. A spike of ice flew from her hand and struck the demon in the stomach only to bounce off her skin. A notification popped up telling her she had only dealt a mere sixty points of damage. Then a bolt of dark energy came within centimeters of hitting her. Internally she was cursing, as she stepped out of the path of a second bolt. 

The previous beastkin was charging her, and this time she didn’t have a ready spell to throw at it. Instead, she moved out of its path and whacked it with her staff. The hit dealt even less damage than her ice spell, but it did stun the demon. However she had failed to notice the other beastkin approaching her from behind, and it hit her with one of its skills. There was enough force behind the blows to stagger her, but thankfully her shield absorbed the damage.

Before she could recover from the blow, a dark bolt hit her in the stomach, dropping her shield close to the breaking point. Quickly she gained some distance and retaliated with a fireball spell. The ball of flames exploded and engulfed both lesser demon girls. It blinded them both for a moment and drained their shields massively. The two beastkin demons were already trying to close the distance again from different angles. She took a few steps back and quickly chanted a spell. Her spell flew true towards one of the demons, but she dodged it with a good jump that closed the distance and unleashed a flurry of attacks. Forcing Reiko to defend against her attacks. She managed to deflect a couple with her staff, but most got through. Fortunately, just before her shield broke, she managed to score a critical hit that stunned it.

The other beastkin, however, had used the distraction to close the distance and hit her hard. Her shield broke, and its claws raked across her chest shredding her bra and drawing blood. She cried out and made some distance. A couple of spells came her way, but she saw them and dodged. Returning a couple of fireballs to the mages. She was rewarded with the flash of a shield breaking, and then she charged the mages position. While chanting a new spell. She quickly attacked the one on the left, and hit her with a quick series of staff hits staggering the demon, and then hit it with a spell. She got a notification about defeating the demon girl, but couldn’t engage the other as a beastkin had caught up with her. She managed to block the first hit with her staff, but the next two were solid hits to her midriff. Crying out, she stepped back and used a skill to quick cast a volley of ice bolts at close range. It drained a good chunk of her pool and put her rather low on mana, but it worked.

Several bolts of ice punctured the demonic beastkin’s tough skin, and she slumped to the ground. A notification popped telling her that she had defeated another demon, but then a bolt of dark mana hit her. She cried out in pain and stumbled. Staggered, she was unable to get moving before the other beastkin unleashed a powerful skill. Unable to defend or evade she took the full damage of the skill. The pain was intense, and she didn’t even notice the notifications that told her that she had been afflicted with the crippled condition or the warning that she only had one hp left. Instead, she blacked out overwhelmed by the pain.