Chapter Two

John fell down on his ass hard enough for a puff of dust to envelope him. He accidently inhaled a bit and sat there coughing and trying to wave the dust out of his face until Sam reached down and helped him up.

“Bed rest really took it out of you huh? I know I’m good, but you should be putting up more of a fight than that.”

As he took her hand John grumbled “Just give me a month and I’ll be back to normal. I feel like I lost half my muscle after being on bedrest for two weeks.”

“I’ll make sure to beat you up a few times this month to keep you motivated.”

“Ah, please spare me that.” John said with a grimace “Just patrol and training should get me back into shape and if we spar much I’ll just have to do those covered in bruises.”

“Bruises build character. Plus Camille and I are ready to go back into the dungeon. Sparring will make sure you are ready to go once your muscles are back.”

“How about we just see how I feel next week? I’ve got enough bruises to last me that long.” John said with a pleading tone.

Sam acquiesced “Alright, you’re spared for now. Why are you in a hurry to get out of here anyway?”

“I’ve got a meeting with Lou and Olivia. They’re going to help me figure out what to give the dungeon.” John thought for a second before continuing “If you really want to get back to raiding quickly you should join us. Lou told me the dungeon probably won’t let me in until I fulfill my side of the bargain.”

“I’m willing to help, but I’ve got patrol to head to. I don’t really feel like joining in for ten minutes and then leaving. Just tell me what to help with and I’ll probably be game.”

“I would appreciate that very much.” John said “Now if you’ll excuse me I have a meeting to get to.”

Then John walked from the adventurers guild straight to Olivia’s office. On the way he passed the carpenters who were finishing up repairing the damage done by the blood mages. As he was going by they stopped working and waved to him. In fact a lot of the settlement had been doing that ever since he left the hospital. He didn’t know why they treated him differently than all the other adventurers who fought so he just waved back awkwardly before entering Olivia’s office.

As he walked in he greeted Olivia and Lou before sitting down and asking

“So what do you have for me? I want to get enough offerings for the dungeon to go right back to raiding.”

“I’ve actually got some bad news about that. I don’t think the settlement has much that the dungeon wants. We won’t know for sure till you go to negotiate with it, but until then don’t get too attached to the idea of going on a raid.”

John sighed “Lou, do you have any good news for me?”

“I’m afraid not. I have a few more things from the main continent you can give the dungeon, but I doubt the dungeon will consider them anywhere close to the value of two tier two adventurers. For now I think your best shot is to just go negotiate with the dungeon and see what it wants you to get.”

“Alright. Anything else before I go and see what the dungeon wants?”

This time it was Olivia who responded “Bjorn volunteered to help you guys gather whatever you need to pay off the dungeon. I’ve freed up his schedule in addition to Sam and Camille’s so that the four of you can work together.”

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“Ah, I thought he would be going back to the mainland after the whole attacking the dungeon core thing. What is he going to do around here when trying to raid the dungeon will probably get him killed?”

“He was very insistent on staying so he must have something he wants to do here. My guess is that he wants to pay back you, Sam, and Camille, but I don’t know for sure. Maybe he wants revenge on the Sanguine empire and thinks they will send more blood mages, or maybe he was just ordered to stay here by whoever sent him in the first place. Either way I’m happy to have another tier two adventurer around when we could get attacked at any time. If you want to know for sure you’ll just have to ask him.”

John nodded and stood up. “Ok then. I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth either. Unless either of you have anything else I’m going to go and talk with the dungeon. I want to go ahead and pay it back so that I can focus on getting back into shape for raiding.”

Lou stood up as well and said “That sounds like as good a plan as any. Let me give you the few things I have for the dungeon and then you can get going.” They walked to the adventurers guild and Lou gave John a pouch with a few more flowers “These should be pretty good mana producers for the dungeon, and if it starts to grow them it will actually be good for us. I don’t know how much the dungeon will value them but they should be a decent start to negotiations.”

John reached out to grab the bag “Thanks. I’ll do my best to get a good deal out of them. Any last words of advice?”

Lou thought for a second before responding “Don’t expect the dungeon to value things the same way we do. If you ask questions and figure out a lot of the stuff it wants then there will be items that are valuable for the dungeon but easy for you to obtain. In short, just don’t rush your talks with the dungeon and you should be fine.”

The conversation ended there and John started his hike to the dungeon. It was a bit harder than normal, but he knew he needed the exercise so he just powered through until he arrived. Once there he got behind the waterfall, called out that he was there to talk, and then waited for the drybold to come talk to him.

It didn’t take too long before one came out. John saw that it was a different drybold and put a hand on his weapon until it started to talk “Mav here to speak for the holy tree. You here to pay debt?”

John pulled out his pouch “I have a few things to start paying off the debt. I wanted to negotiate with the holy tree and learn what else I should bring to pay it back.”

“Holy tree want many things. You owe cores from two adventurers. Very expensive. You bring new cores?”

John briefly considered it;wondering if any of the blood mages they killed in the village had been tier two, but then he decided against it. They probably hadn’t been tier two and even if they were it was unlikely to be good for the settlement if the dungeon got a hold of their cores.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to do that. What other things do you want?”

John watched as Mav stood there in silence nodding her head every once in a while. After a few minutes she said “You have many runes yes? Holy tree wants runes it doesn’t have. Each rune worth half a core.”

John thought back to everyone that had already died in the dungeon and had a feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to fulfill this request either, but he still asked “What runes do you want? I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get any that are too rare.”

This time Mav already had a response prepared “Holy tree knows about space, time, and mind runes it doesn’t have. Will accept other runes that it doesn’t know about too.”

The only one of those runes John even had an inkling of where he could get was the space rune, and he knew that getting that would certainly take more effort than it was worth so he again shook his head and said “I’ll give it a try but you shouldn’t get your hopes up. What else could I bring?”

“You know the lesser holy tree?” Mav stopped briefly and It looked like she was conversing with the dungeon “Err you call weeping willow? Holy tree want one of those. You bring whole weeping willow and holy tree forgive one core.”

“Ah, I actually think I can do that one. What do you want for the other core.”

Mav consulted with the dungeon again before she responded “Holy tree tell you once weeping willow here. You can go now.”

John started to leave before remembering the flowers he had given the dungeon earlier “What about the flowers? They should be worth something.”

Mav shook her head “Holy tree say flowers not close to value of core. Not willing to accept them as trade.”

Mav held out the pouch and John reached out to take it back before remembering that Lou said it would be useful if the dungeon grew some of those flowers. He pulled his hand back and said “You can keep those as thanks for your help then. Just think of an easy task for me to pay off the second core please.”

Mav apparently took him literally because she responded “Holy tree will consider it.” before turning around and walking into the dungeon. That left John alone to figure out how he was supposed to transport an entire tree.