by Dakota Krout
“I am glad! My team is just returning though, I should be off. Good day to you!” Dal nodded and turned to rejoin his team when Tyler paused and caught his wrist.
“About that new store… I hear you are taking requests for materials from the dungeon?” Tyler stammered out, obviously reluctant to ask the question.
“Have a job for us, then?” Dale turned back with a grin, putting Tyler at ease.
“Of a sort,” Tyler agreed with the inferral. “The exotic weapon store I have is doing well, but I want to make truly exotic weapons. I’ve hired a smith, tailor, and alchemist to start putting together prototypes. They have various requests for materials that I can’t fulfill myself. Interested?”
“Always interested in money.” Dale grinned back at the slightly portly man, while rubbing his fingers together in the universal language of ‘you get what you pay for’. “What are you after?”
“Oh dear, that is a loaded question.” Tyler dabbed at his forehead with a sodden handkerchief. “To start with, one of everything.”
“Right, well, that doesn’t really narrow it down for me, so…” Dale trailed off.
Tyler grimaced. “We don't know what will be useful yet. So we want one of each type of Mob in here with everything attached. If you find Runes used in traps or on weapons, we want that too. Each vegetable, animal, or mineral. As undamaged as possible.”
Dale looked at his group, who were as stunned as he was. “That’s… a tall order, Tyler. I hate to ask but… can you afford this?”
“Oh yes. As I said, business has been good,” Tyler looked him in the eye again, the light of greed playing in his pupils. “and when we are done cataloging what is useful to us, we will be able to narrow down future orders.”
They worked out a few details, such as the cost of each item, danger pay, and delivery fees. Both walked away smiling, thinking they had gotten the better side of the bargain.
“Well, team,” Dale clapped his hands in excitement, “it appears we have steady pay coming our way!”
Rose interrupted his jubilation, “I’m not sure why you bothered, there is no way he can pay us more than we can earn from just emptying the treasure chests on the way.”
Dale’s smile faded a bit. “I have a feeling that the ‘golden month’ is over. Remember, the dungeon talked today. We have already seen some changes, and we can’t just assume that it won’t notice how few people have been bothering to attack lower levels.”
Hans winced. “People aren’t going to be happy when they notice the decreased rewards.”
“Just play it off as the last month being a reward from the dungeon,” Adam interrupted the morose thoughts. “You know, as thanks for surviving the ‘Wailing War’. Now people just need to be reminded that they need to work for their pay, not just go for a stroll and be entitled to buckets of gold. Prices have been skyrocketing in town; this will be good for the economy.”
“You don’t know people very well if you think they will be fine with that, Adam,” Hans uttered stiffly. “Who doesn’t want something for zero effort?” The group tried to think of a good answer for that but instead shrugged and moved to the tunnels. At least they had a paying job to work on. Dale waited until his team was focused on entering the dungeon, then slipped his hand into his pocket and squeezed. A bit of light shone through the fabric, and he shuddered a bit. Smiling, he picked up the pace.
The group started marching through the first floor, attempting to ignore the press of people. After they noticed a dozen people attacking a single Bane–the overgrown mushroom Mob–Hans gave a snort of disgust, and they turned around. They used the portal to jump directly to the second floor, deciding to go back and collect Mobs and items from the first floor when the area was less densely populated.
There were less people on the second floor but still enough to make Hans antsy. The rest of the group was fine with continuing and barely paused when collecting plants and Mobs. This high up, the monster population was fairly sparse. Although Cats had been in the area earlier, it seemed none had returned to reclaim the territory.
“The Cats we killed earlier were rolling around over there. Is there anything special about that plant?” Rose pointed at the slightly crushed plants.
Tom plucked the plant in passing and sniffed it. “It is just a mint plant.”
Hans grabbed a bit of it as well and inhaled deeply. “Well, yes, it is mint. Specifically though, this type of mint is known as catnip. Put it in the bag!”
Thus the collection began and soon, not even the normal creatures in the area were able to escape the ruthless group.
“Will they even want a pigeon, though?” Rose was holding a weakly flapping bird in her hand, an arrow peeking through the blood-soaked plumage.
“He did say one of ‘everything’.” Dale shrugged, tossing a chunk of broken rock into the bag.
Hans looked affronted. “Dale! Are you just trying to increase the amount of items we bring back so that he needs to pay us a higher fee?” Dale nodded with a wide grin, and Hans pretended to tear up. “I’m so proud.” Hans sniffled and wiped at his eyes, followed by grabbing a handful of dirt and stuffing it in the bag.
They continued down the tunnels, collecting everything that they could find. Leaves, flowers, bugs, saplings, Bashers, and Cats were unceremoniously dumped into the bag. Even with the bag’s ability to reduce the weight carried, it was starting to get heavy. Luckily, they each had their own dimensional bag at this point and were able to spread the weight amongst themselves.
“Everyone, wait a moment,” Rose called as they all approached the Boss room.
“What is on your mind, beautiful?” Hans posed against the wall, attempting to look seductive.
“Eh.” Rose looked at him and shuddered. “The golden Bashers? Glitterflits? We need to drag this fight out to the point that they make an appearance. If we are trying to get one of everything, that also means the rare variants.”
Dale nodded. “Smart. Let’s go for the legs in that case. If we can lower Raile’s mobility, we should be able to do damage in small enough increments that the healing Bashers will have a chance to show up. Hans, you have the fastest reflexes, you are on capture duty.” Hans gave a mock salute, and they cautiously walked into the Boss room.
The battle was a farce. If they were fighting Raile one-on-one, maybe it would have been difficult. Their frequent excursions to the lowest depths had hardened them and honed their battle reflexes. Sadly, Raile was just an overgrown rabbit without real combat abilities. Without Dani to direct his movements in an unnatural manner, he relied upon jumping or running into his enemies, trusting that his great weight and armor would be enough to finish the job.
Dale took the lead as Raile charged into the room, armor bumping and scraping against the walls and floor. The Mob slowed as he saw them, and his eyes filled with hatred when they landed on Tom.
“You really shouldn’t have taunted Raile back then, Tom,” Adam informed his frowning friend. “He seems to be holding a grudge.”
Tom snorted. “I do not see how. The overgrown rabbit of that time was killed. This animal has always just had an unpleasant temperament.”
Taking a strong stance, Dale bent his knees and forced Essence along his earth affinity channels. To those who could see it, his Essence writhed into the ground and twisted into a knotted whip. He stomped his right foot firmly upon the ground, and the whip of accumulated power raced outward. The Essence followed the path of least resistance, flashing through the earth with a lightning-like pattern. “Huh!” He exhaled sharply as his hands shot forward and pulled, rerouting the Essence in the attack. When he did this, all his Essence in the ground–and even some energy in the stone the ability had passed through–was dragged back toward Dale with a powerful *crack*!
At the point where the Essence changed direction, a powerful shearing force was exerted. The granite making up Raile’s armor began shattering along his flank. At a smaller level, the technique acted on the stone armor at a
direction perpendicular to the grain of the rock. This force caused stress fractures to appear in a localized area but did not actually do any damage. Contrary to expectation, pulling the stabilizing presence of Essence back to himself was what caused the stone in Raile’s armor to uncontrollably crumble. With a deep breath, the Essence remaining in the technique–albeit greatly reduced–finished returning to Dale’s body as the stone scattered along the floor.
“Nice work, Dale!” Hans chuckled enthusiastically, clapping his leader on the back. “Is that the mountain-destroying technique you got from the Elves?”
“Yeah.” Dale was breathing heavily; he clenched his fists to hide how much they were shaking. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, grimacing. “It failed. If I had used it correctly, all of his armor would have shattered, and he would have been seriously wounded from the impact.”
Raile took a step toward them and fell, his balance completely thrown off. It was a comical sight, but the screams of rage he was releasing sobered the team quickly. A normal rabbit screaming can be heard from five miles away, and this animal was a hundred times larger.
“Still!” Hans shouted right next to Dale’s ear, “a month ago you couldn’t use it for crap! Is it the Moon-Elf trainer who is helping so much? Are you still owed more techniques from the Elves?”
“Partly!” Dale yelled back, not catching the second question. He was barely able to hear his own words over the screaming rabbit. Dale watched as arrow after arrow flew from Rose into the hole in Raile’s side. “He has really been teaching me to focus and how to twist my Essence inside my body, but he is garbage at teaching me to use earth Essence. Luckily, Craig didn’t hold it against me that I didn’t train with him for so long. He’s been able to squeeze in extra training with me.”
Hans held up his hand, “Hold that thought.” He flashed away, returning with a squealing, golden Basher. He ended its cries with a swift twist of its head then put the corpse in the bag.
“Abyss, Hans!” Dale yelped at the brutal sight. “If you had caught it, why didn’t we return it alive?”
Raile’s screams of pain turned to fury, and he sloughed off his remaining armor as he activated his inborn ability known as ‘Avenger’. Hans tried to think up a proper response to Dale’s words as Tom began swinging his ingot hammer into Raile’s side, eliciting loud crunching sounds. Raile’s screams turned wetter before trailing off into silence. “I guess I didn’t want to go back just yet?”
Dale went silent. “That’s fair, I suppose,” he muttered softly. “Not like we are short of space in our bags.” He looked over to see Tom digging a Core out of Raile.
“We have a problem!” Rose called to the group. Since she was standing over the Boss room treasure chest, everyone gave her their full attention instantly.
“There’s no money?” Hans clutched at his chest and looked faint as she explained the issue. “I understand that ‘the month of gold’ is over, but… seriously?”
“Nothing but consumables,” Rose informed them, referring to items that could be eaten, applied, or swallowed. In this case, there were a few healing potions and a vial of potent poison. “Wait, there are also wood coins.” She held up a coin with an imprint of a sword on it as well as one that looked like a bar outlined in silver.
“Sadly, it is difficult to spend wooden coins,” Tom grumbled, shuffling his feet in agitation. He had been hoping to have a more exhilarating fight, and he was sweating in anticipation of battle. “Take them with us anyway.”
They stepped into the next room and yelped as sudden light burst into being. As they blinked spots from their eyes, they noticed an empty chest connected to the wall. Hanging over it were large globes containing light potion, which had been uncovered as they entered the room. Next to the chest was a pedestal with a slot in it with elegantly carved pictures above it.
They looked at this odd setup, trying to puzzle out the meaning. There was a person holding a tiny coin, followed by the same person putting said coin into a pedestal like the one standing before the group. The next picture showed the individual holding a sword above their head, which they had apparently gotten from the chest. As Dale’s group looked over all of the images, the person in the picture seemed to decline using the pedestal, deciding instead to go deeper into the dungeon. After finding another pedestal further down in the dungeon and attempting to use the coin, this time the sword seemed to shine.
As the images progressed, there was a similar scene where the person in the depiction had arrived at the deepest level. The sword they drew from the chest this time seemed to sparkle and blaze with light. Rose pointed out a tiny picture beside each place a token was used; it was so small that it was nearly hidden by the mural. Adam was the first to discern the meaning behind the artistry, and his eyes widened comically as he found the deeper meaning.
“So many people are going to die soon,” Adam whispered into the confused silence.
Tom glanced at him. “What do you mean? Is this drawing a trap of some kind?” He took a step away and raised his hammer.
Shaking his head, Adam explained, “No, nothing like that. If I am reading this correctly, the wooden coins are tokens. We can hold onto them and place them in that slot and receive the reward shown on the coin.”
Hans gleefully reached into his bag and pulled out a wooden coin. This one had an image of a silver bar on it. He pushed it into the slot as Adam continued speaking.
“The rest of it seems to suggest that if we keep the tokens and go deeper, we can exchange the tokens for a higher reward. For instance, a sword token on the first level may give you a solid weapon, but the same token taken to the lowest floor seems to suggest an inscribed weapon will be given.”
“Wait,” Hans spoke suddenly as they heard a *thunk* from the previously empty chest. “You mean to tell me that the coin I just used could have been turned into gold or platinum if I had just taken it a few levels lower?!”
Tom opened the chest and pulled out a large ingot of silver. “Looks like it worked!” he exclaimed joyously. He looked closer at the chest, then told the group that there was an opening in the back of it that went up into the wall.
“Drat,” Hans groaned.
Rose slapped him lightly on the arm. “Just be glad it wasn’t an item token! Imagine getting a dagger here that is worth a few copper versus the same token giving you a dagger with a sharpening Inscription on it on the fourth floor! We would have lost hundreds of gold.” Hans looked relieved at her explanation, but he shivered at how close he had come to wasting a fortune. “Then there is the tiny picture. If we are understanding the meaning correctly, there is a small chance that each token will give out a ‘jackpot’ when used. I have no idea why the dungeon would offer more than we’ve earned though.”
“The issue I see here,” Adam spoke louder as conversations started, “is that greedy people will try to reach beyond their means in order to turn in the token at the deepest level they can reach. Not just that, but unscrupulous parties may wait in a room like this to catch weakened groups off guard. There is nothing on the token that says only the group that earned it has to be the one to cash it in,” he finished ominously.
The group went silent as they caught up with what he was saying.
“Yup. A lot of people are going to start dying in here soon.” Rose sighed discontentedly.
~ Chapter Nine ~
I was enjoying the Phantom Armor’s clanking. The metallic stomps created a pleasing counterpoint to the shrieks of surprise and pain coming from the group that had just been ambushed. The party of five had hailed someone they thought they recognized and were asking after his usual companions while expecting the worst. At least, what they had thought was the worst. Heh. While at first they seemed a bit leery when the armored man didn’t respond, none of them had been prepared for the brutal assault. In opposition to the ponderous way the armor moved while walking, it was even more agile than the person who had previously inhabited the armor whilst in combat.
“My pleasure, Great Spirit.” Bob rubbed his tired eyes as he moved to comply with my request. He pulled a half-globe of glass from his pocket and placed it on my ritual diagram. The Runes and various symbolic links seemed to double in size and jump into focus within the glass, allowing him to see the intricate patterns and cuts I had made. He studied the work for another hour before sighing and nodding.
“As well as I can tell,” his exhausted voice rang out, “the ritual is correct. I would not let any living creature near it when you activate it, just in case it violently fails… but I don’t think it will.”
“I am happy to help, but I need to know…” Bob trailed off as he realized that he was questioning me. I had never punished him for doing so, but he had been a slave and old habits are hard to be rid of.
“I need to know, why such a small ritual?” The words tumbled from his mouth faster than he possibly could have spoken as an unenhanced Goblin. “The power of a ritual is directly tied to the size of it! Also, it is so simple for a ritual, it only has a single function!” He seemed more flustered than the situation called for, in my opinion.