Chapter 28

“So how did things go for you four yesterday?” Ilthvana asked as she dug into her plate of food.

“It was good and bad if I am to be perfectly honest,” I answered, glancing over at Entivala.

Entivala shrugged, “My family had been working with the exiled king, so my father is in jail awaiting trial for his part in the king’s crimes. My mother has wasted their entire fortune trying to help him, but it is not going to work. I said my piece to them and finally stood up for myself, which they didn’t like. They tried to get back at me and get us arrested when we were heading to the transport room to come back here, but that backfired and now all four of them are in trouble.”

“I am guessing that was the bad part of what happened yesterday,” Dilbar said as he finished a mug of ale. “What went well?”

“Pathios spent one hundred thousand gold to pay for Katie’s family to move to Kortinos,” Amenthia answered with an adoring look towards me. “They are going to open a store in the city, and they will sell the goods that the quartermaster’s can’t utilize. They will keep fifty percent of the profit, with the rest coming to the pact house. Pathios figured it would be good publicity for the pact house too as if we collect enough, they can sell at much cheaper prices than other stores.”

“Wow that is amazing,” Theresa exclaimed, before getting a bit shy again. “I am so happy that she will be reunited with her family.”

“She is too,” I answered, as I finished off the food on my plate. “She had done some things she wasn’t proud of in the past, not including trying to kill me, and she was unsure how they would receive her. We are all thankful things turned out so well, and if I can make Katie happy, what is a hundred thousand gold? How did you four make out yesterday?”

“It went okay,” Theresa replied as she grabbed some more food from the platters. “I didn’t level up, but I got some good experience, and I am getting confident in how I am handling myself and my partners.”

“She did well, for sure,” Dilbar added, giving her a warm smile. “Cassandra came out for the morning, but then popped back to get some work done on her rune smithing.”

Cassandra smiled, “I have perfected your suggestion of the stamps, which has helped me to increase my productivity, without losing the quality of my runes. I am also happy to say that I think that I will be able to make your shield work as you hoped soon.”

“We will see, ha-ha,” I replied. “It would need to absorb and even reflect kinetic energy, bounce off of most surfaces unless striking a specific way against a surface to become embedded. Plus a few other things.”

I began to relay in detail what I wanted to see it do and react, giving references to the various source movies that I was using. Thankfully, Theresa had seen them, plus Amenthia and Entivala had seen them during their training.

“We made about fifteen thousand gold thanks to your grinding method,” Ilthvana exclaimed with a proud smile. “That is not too bad. We took an easy quest both times we went in, and we had some lucky drops.”

“That is why I am not worried about what I gave them,” I replied. “With the methods we employ while we are in the dungeon, plus the fact this dorm isn’t costing us anything, we should recoup it soon enough.”

“So what is going to be on the docket today?” I asked everyone. “I know we weren’t sure how long we would be gone, and I don’t want to interfere with anything you guys planned yesterday.”

“Nothing really,” Dilbar replied. “We were just going to spend more time in the dungeon to see if we can help Cassandra and Theresa to level up.”

I nodded, “Well then, why don’t we go to the Guild to grab a quest or two and see if it doesn’t help push them up to the right circumstances for a level up.”

“I will keep here and work on the new potion recipes I got from my mother’s book,” Katie called out from inside of her room. “I am really excited to see just how much more potent they will be.”

I nodded and smiled at the group, “Well with that figured out, let’s decide where we will go and who will be going together and then get to work.”

Dilbar and Ilthvana would be going with Amenthia and Entivala to work on some high-level quests, while Cassie, Theresa and I would work towards leveling them up. Part of me wished that this world worked a lot more like western role-playing games. I’d be much higher in level than I was, but this world worked differently. The best I could explain it would be a milestone-based system. This meant skills would increase, but levels would only be awarded when certain conditions were met. I found I enjoyed this system a bit better, because it made things a bit more difficult. It meant that even with my training method, I wouldn’t be able to create a large gap between my level and the creatures of the dungeon. Even with all the time I have now spent here, I am amazed at all that has happened, and wonder what will come next.

Then there was the monetary system, that reminded me of how things cost in many Asian countries on Earth. We had spent so much money and gotten so much already. Hell the hundred thousand I had given Katie’s parents would only cover the costs of moving here. I can only imagine the price point of things when we started to get to the mid and high-level areas of the dungeon. We popped out and went to the Quartermaster to let Brot’k know of the plans, and he said that he would take care of getting the property for the shot squared away. He knew of a place that would work and I knew that he would have everything ready by the time Katie’s family arrived.

With everything taken care of for now, we popped into the armory to get geared up and then used the tube to hit the Guild. It didn’t seem overly busy today, so there wasn’t a long wait to see Esmerelda. She was surprised when we told her that the seven of us were going to be split into two groups, but she just smiled and nodded. Amenthia, Entivala, Dilbar and Ilthvana decided to take two quests from the fifth floor. The first was your typical fetch quest that was requested by one of the stores that operated outside of the tower. They were looking for the thorax of the large ants that we would come across. Though the task seemed simple enough, they wanted thirty of them and their drop rate was rather low. I knew that they wouldn’t mind, as I had gotten them used to grinding. It would also be good for replenishing our stock of gold. They had five days to complete that one, so they could also focus on their other task.

A golden scorpion had been seen in the northeastern part of the map, near the village of Ithc’ca. It had been causing issues for the locals who went out to forage the tunnels for various flora that grew there. It would take a day or so of travel to reach the village, giving them time to collect the thoraxes along the way. They decided that they would camp out in the dungeon, so I wouldn’t see them until tomorrow night at the earliest. Given how determined they all were, I wouldn’t put it past them to want to keep going, so I told my ladies to focus on the tasks. They of course wanted to be able to come home each night, but I reminded them I would always be here and that I wouldn’t be alone either. To consider this a girls trip that can help them bond some more. They reluctantly agreed that it would be nice, and Dilbar promised to keep a lookout for trouble and keep them safe.

In our case we would be heading to the third floor to try and run into a stairwell guardian. I was hoping that making sure that Theresa and Cassie do most of the work, they will trigger the requirements for their level up. Soon we will have the strength necessary to ensure we don’t have another issue when we hit the sixth floor. She didn’t have any quests for that floor, but promised to hold one aside for us if one did appear. As we turned to leave, Esmerelda asked us to wait.

“I wanted to tell you that we have had reports of people being injured by unknown assailants within the dungeons,” Esmerelda explained, pulling out a pad. “So far, we have had reports from pact houses in three other cities. No deaths, but they have been using poison coated daggers like what were used against you.”

“Well we knew that that could be happening given what Kali did so far,” I replied with a sigh of frustration. “Still, Eir and the medical team have been able to counteract it, which will help in their recovery.”

Esmerelda fidgeted a bit, “It looks like they have made changes to the poison. While they can be cured, they lose levels and ability growth. Eir is still trying to figure out how they created this, but for now they can only cure the poison so that they don’t deteriorate further.”

My eyes widened in shock, “Just what kind of loss are we talking about? Where did these attacks occur?”

“The first two were hit with a weaker version of the poison, losing two levels and about fifteen percent of their ability scores,” She answered, visibly uncomfortable. “They were level seven and eight respectively, but still that is significant. The other three were much higher in level. They were hit with stronger poison that resulted in a higher loss. The first was level eleven, now he is level three with his ability scores dropping by fifty five percent. The second was level fourteen and is now level five, with a sixty percent ability score drop. The last was level seventeen and now he is level four, with a seventy eight percent ability score drop. As for where they were attacked, three were attacked while out and about in their respective towns, but the other two were attacked in the dungeon! You need to be careful as we all know that they are after you as well!”

“Holy fuck that is messed up,” I said, rubbing my temples. “This is big as they could be able to take the highest leveled members of a pact house and weaken them to ensure that they couldn’t handle their attackers. Kali’s group isn’t playing around. We know that they are still messing with things in the dungeon and now they are coming up with ways to weaken the pact houses.”

“Not just the pact houses,” Amenthia added. “The Capital is filled with retired adventurers. Just because they are retired there, doesn’t mean they don’t still have their levels. If Kali’s group were to start an all-out war, the retired heroes would be reactivated to help with the fight. If they were hit with the poison, they would be weakened in the same way. Not to mention that I have a feeling that adventurers aren’t the only ones that are affected by the poison.”

Esmerelda cocked her head to the side and asked, “What do you mean by that Amenthia?”

“Jupiter wasn’t a slouch and is on par with Zues when it comes to raw power,” Amenthia answered. “Kali could hold her own against him, but there would be an obvious gap between them. If her weapons were coated in such poison, she could level the playing field and even change the disparity in her favor. That would explain how she was able to kill him like she did.”

“Esmerelda, please relay our chat to the council,” I asked our elven guild representative. “While I am sure they have come to the same conclusions, you never know, and I fear that things will be moving forward soon. As for the rest of us, keep an eye out for things. Don’t just trust the map to help you see a threat coming, as I have no doubt that they will be working to block that system from picking them up.”

“Before we go, can I ask you a question Esmerelda?” Theresa quietly asked, surprising the elf.

“Of course Theresa,” she responded with a smile. “What is it that you would like to ask me?”

Theresa paused for a moment, probably to collect her thoughts, then asked, “What is stopping someone else from killing the target of our quest and thus collecting the bounty?”

“That is a very good question,” Esmerelda replied. “If someone were to kill the beast, you would find the quest gone from your tracker. This happens quite often, but it is the cost of doing business when you have tens of thousands of adventurers entering a dungeon every day.”

With our task in the Guild done, we left to head into the dungeon. Before they left, I suggested that perhaps Enti should visit both the various magic shops on the upper floors as well as popping by the knowledge center to see if there is any magic, she could learn to assist them in protecting against this new threat. I also sent a raven to Katie to let her know of this new issue and to keep a watchful eye out. We went into the transit tubes and arrived on the third floor. I glanced over at Theresa and saw that she was a little more apprehensive than she had been prior to learning these new details.

“Right now we can’t be letting fear and worry overcome us,” I told her. “That is part of what they want, but there is no guarantee that we would run into them right now. Let’s focus on our current goal but keep an eye out all the same. Okay?”