I look around the area for the rest of the party and manage to see everyone but Jay is present. Although it looks like everyone but Lia decided to go off and find something to do. Thankfully none of them have left Wyla yet. I can see Z above us checking out the strange inn that makes up the entirety of the second level and Hal is over at a small shop that appears to be serving food. At the thought of food my stomach growls, a reminder that I haven’t had breakfast yet.
“Would you like to have breakfast now?” Lia asks with a slight tone that tells me she’s amused by the situation. I guess everyone is acting a little childish due to all the new things around us.
“Yes please, let’s find a place to sit and eat. Hopefully everyone else will wander over with the promise of food” I say as I look around for a table to sit at.
“We can only hope” Lia jokes as she starts leading me towards an empty table that’s been placed off to the side. We sit down and she starts unpacking our breakfast so that the two of us can start eating. After 10 minutes Hal comes over with a bowl so big he has to hold it with both arms. He gently places it onto the table and I peer inside to see some kind of cloudy soup with various bits of things floating in it.
“The locals call it Miso soup and they eat it as part of their breakfast. I wasn’t sure the rest of the stuff they were serving was really breakfast appropriate, but I definitely want to have lunch in town.” Hal says as he sits next to me and pulls out 5 smaller bowls from his bag.
“I got a big serving so everyone could have something warm. Look at the cool way their spoons are carved! It’s so much easier to eat soup with this thing rather than a normal spoon.” Hal says pulling out a spoon that more closely resembles a ladle as he starts to serve himself some of the soup.
Lia and I look at each other before shrugging and filling our own bowls. Hal was nice enough to get it for us, might as well have some. As we continue eating, a thought crosses my mind.
“Hey Hal, what did the soup cost to buy?” I innocently ask my question.
“Oh, it was only 3 EC for the big bowl. I thought it was a good deal for the amount of soup we were getting!” Hal says excitedly not realizing anything was wrong.
“So you spent the equivalent of 30 silvers on a big bowl of soup” Lia says in a completely deadpan voice while glaring at him. Hal pauses, his spoon halfway back to his mouth, as he processes what Lia just told him.
“Oh, right” is all Hal manages to say as the realization of how much money he spent dawns on him. “Uhh, sorry?”
I sigh and signal Lia to cut off whatever rant she’s about to go on about fiscal responsibility. “It’s fine Hal, just be more careful. At least we know that if a meal costs EC on this floor then it's likely we’ll have easier ways to earn more.” I tell him while giving him a consoling pat on the arm. He gives me a bright happy smile which I immediately crush with my follow up. “That being said, you still get to listen to Lia lecture you on the value of money” I give him a smile as I finish eating and stand up. “I’m going to go claim our party’s reward while you two have a fun chat” I say as I walk away from them towards the town hall.
I ignore the sounds of a lecturing Lia as I open one of the large doors to the town hall and walk inside. Hal mentioned locals and I’m curious to know who they are. I don’t have to wait long as the first thing I see as I walk in is a young woman who appears to be in her early twenties, what stands out is the pair of large wolf ears on her head and the fluffy tail peeking out from behind her. I immediately try to look at her tag.
Spiritkin (???) Level ???
Her tag is obscured by the dungeon and my mana sense can’t get a read either because of it. I have no idea how strong the creature in front of me is. Then again I’m in a safezone still, so long as I don’t break any rules everything will be fine.
“Hello Token Bearer, how can I assist you today?” the Spiritkin asks me, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Uh, hi, yes, I’m here to claim a reward” I say fumbling for a bit before my noble training kicks in.
“Very well, one moment please” The woman says before tapping on a pane of crystal that looks similar to the material the pylon was made of. “Everything looks set. Just confirm through the system when you’ve made your choice and I’ll receive it here. Thank you for coming to the town of New Beginnings and I hope you enjoy your stay. May the Lord Eternal bless your journey” She says with a strange dismissal. Right, I’m in a totally foreign culture, like visiting another country. Their customs and ways of life will be different from what I’m used to.
“Thank you for your help” I say before quickly moving away. I was tempted to try and return her blessing but my noble training says that when you don’t know the local customs to just stick with your own until someone educates you, otherwise you might end up unintentionally offending someone important. I move back to the group as I look through the reward options.
The hidden reward turned out to be a choice piece of property within the town of New Beginnings. We have a lot of options to pick from, likely because we’re the first ones here. There’s all sorts of different buildings in locations all throughout the town. There is even an option for a much smaller space located inside of Wyla’s trunk. While that is tempting I think I’d rather have a larger space that the whole party can live in while we dive this floor.
It’s not my decision alone though so I finish walking back to our breakfast table and see that everyone is finally present. I take a moment to just enjoy how happy everyone looks talking about the things they found and learned while enjoying what remains of breakfast. It brings a smile to my face as I join them at the table.
“Alright everyone, give your reports and then we’ll discuss what to do next. I’ll go first.” I begin “ The reward we received is a property of our choice from a very extensive list. I looked into it and it seems like the price range is for anything that costs 8000 EC or less. My personal opinion is that we should find a large property in town to use as a base of operations/place of living for the whole party.” I finish and then sit down, opening the floor to whoever wants to go next.
“I learned that the complex on the second level is a massive inn meant to offer affordable housing to token bearers. I also learned that the whole thing functions through the system with limited interactions with locals, it's also a quite robust system. I couldn’t learn more without paying though so I stopped there. Oh also Token bearers is what all the locals call us if you haven’t already noticed” Z gives his report in his usual carefree manner. Although I can tell that he’s excited by the prospect of system guaranteed safety for his belongings.
Hal and Lia both shake their heads when I look at them, it seems like they didn’t learn anything new while I was gone. That just leaves Jay, who I learn spent almost an hour at the central Pylon doing nothing but going through the information available.
“First off I learned what the inventory and quest systems are. The Inventory is a spatial storage function built into the dungeon tokens. Each `slot` represents 10 cubic feet of space that you have available and anything in the inventory will still be there when you respawn. The `save slots` are special slots that allow you to bind any item to them and that item will respawn with you even if it wasn’t in the inventory. Things cannot be placed into the inventory during combat but things can be taken out. Finally the inventory can be upgraded using EC at various shops around town and in Wyla.” Jay waits a moment to let everyone absorb the information as well as ask questions if we need to. No one speaks up so he continues with his report.
“The quest system is similar to the one the Adventurers Guild has. There's a job board that we can accept quests from and they pay in EC or items. Since we have the integrated system for it we can access the job board and turn in features from any safezone. The quests are posted by both locals and by the dungeon itself. It seems that quests are going to be one of the main ways to earn EC on this floor.” Jay once again waits before moving on to his next point.
“Ok second, I learned that there are several new features on this floor that offer various things. Most of the features reflect services you would find inside a normal town or city. There’s a bank that can let you securely store things. The town hall which runs most of the administrative aspects of the town. Various shops and craftsmen that produce and sell goods. There are also a lot of smaller items that are better explained if and when they come up, such as the docks and river services. The new feature I’m most interested in is the Altar of Offerings.”
You can place anything on the altar and if it's new to the dungeon, the dungeon will absorb it and pay you in equivalent EC. Although what the dungeon considers equivalent wasn’t exactly disclosed it hardly matters, we can get paid to increase the loot table of the dungeon. It’s probably a good idea for us to try and profit from this as much as possible before the Guild does.” Jay finishes his report and gives all of us some time to think about things.
The dungeon effectively placed a bounty on new things so that it can grow more quickly. It seems that the level of intelligence that legacy dungeons possess is not to be underestimated either that or it’s an aspect of being a mythical dungeon, hard to tell. All I know is that I’m glad I picked out an item that is perfect for this situation.
“Well I think we all know what to offer to the dungeon first, after all I picked it out specially for the dungeon.” I say with a grin while standing up. It always feels good when an idea like this pans out in your favor. The rest of my party takes a moment before getting on the same wavelength. I tell Jay to lead the way to the altar, I’ve got a book to sell.
Jay leads the party over to a secluded area hidden between the town hall and the bank. There we found an overgrown park with a single winding stone path that leads to an weathered stone altar with dense runic writing covering it. I recognize from a glance that the runic writing on this altar is just decorative, they do nothing but make it look magical. It’s likely because absorption is just a natural dungeon process they instinctively perform rather than an active spellwork. It’s for this reason that no ones ever been able to replicate dungeon magic, that, and the fact that the system tends to kill people that try.
I approached the altar while the rest of my party hung back for now. I walked up and pulled out a lockbox from my bag. I had been saving this for when the second floor had unlocked to offer as a tribute to the dungeon. It was the second item I had taken from my family vault, a blank Legacy Tome.
Blank Legacy Tomes could be used by anyone to record the path they took to reach their class. If their path was considered good enough then the tome would activate and become a proper Legacy Tome; which could be used by anyone who hadn’t reached their rank up limit to change their class to that of the Legacies. Most noble families had several blank legacies as each person could only make one legacy for each star they’ve achieved. It was noble tradition to pass down the same class, one which was usually superior or even legendary.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
The way to create blank legacies had been lost to the ages, with only a handful of dungeons being the source of them now. If a dungeon is suspected of being able to create blank legacies then it will usually be offered one to see if the supply of them can be increased further. Based on what I’ve seen so far I’m pretty confident that the Eternal Dungeon is capable enough to replicate this.
I reach out my hands and gently place the tome onto the altar before stepping back to wait. I don’t have to wait long as intertwined purple and green energies flow around the book and seem to pull it into the altar. Once the process finishes the energies disappear leaving a large box in their place. I walk forwards and reach out to open the box. The moment my hand touches it the box dissipates into motes of mana and I receive a system prompt.
Reward received: 4000 EC
I grinned and explained what happened to my party before they think that the dungeon tricked me. Honestly no need to get worked up about it, originally I was going to give it away for free. With the altar proven to work we all go through everything we own trying to find things the dungeon hasn’t absorbed yet. We managed to scrape together enough minor items to gain another 560 EC.
We ended up losing all the items, but most of them were inexpensive and unimportant, we could recover them in the small outpose the guild had made outside the dungeon. Although Z had a suggestion that we try to replace our sacrificed items with ones from the Town of New Beginnings. I agreed that if the price wasn’t too bad that we would try since it would save us time. Plus we would need to know what the local prices were like if we planned on living here.
We left the offering altar and I allowed the party to split up and look around so long as they stayed within the safe zone boundaries of the town. They all told me that they trusted me to pick a good home for us, so we would meet up once I had picked one out. I could message people through the party interface, just another one of the things making it worth the 1200 EC we paid. Although with how much we’ve gained from the altar it doesn’t seem like as much money now.
We left through the southern arch and entered into a large plaza bigger than the one on the first floor. The others all split off to look around the town while I went towards the first promising location that was listed. I had immediately ruled out all the buildings that didn’t have enough space as well as ones that were too far out of the way. In the end I was left with 3 listings, all of them had at least 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms as well as several other varying features. Regardless of which one I chose it would be the biggest building I ever personally owned.
I found it strange to be walking around a town while in the middle of a dungeon. Normally dungeons only have safe zones to encourage people to dive further than they normally would so that they’re inside the dungeon for longer. Yet I get the feeling that this dungeon just wants people to have a place to relax. It’s nice to be inside the safe zone of the Eternal Dungeon, It gives a feeling of security that I rarely feel elsewhere.
I decide to just enjoy my walk as I head down the main road that leads from the southern plaza to the edge of town. It’s strange to see nothing more than a chest high wall separating the town from the outside world. Then again, why build a massive wall when a safe zone is a more powerful barrier than any constructions of wood and stone could ever be.
The first location is placed right on the main road halfway between the southern plaza and the edge of town. It’s a large 3 story building that has a small fenced in backyard, it also had a small shop space in the front of the building that we could either rent out or use ourselves for something. I walked up to the front of the building and got a system prompt to tour the inside, I accepted and was suddenly inside the building.
Seamless teleportation, I don’t even know why I’m surprised. I move past the front shop space and into the rest of the building. It has a large open room that functions as both the kitchen and dining room, the fact that their combined makes what would be two small cramped spaces into one larger and more open one. A set of stairs along the back wall led up into the second and third floors. The second floor had an open space that was connected to a bathroom and 3 bedrooms, it would make a good shared living room space. I moved up the stairs one last time and found the master bedroom and a full sized bathroom. The last floor was smaller than the previous two so it wasn’t like the two rooms took up an entire full sized floor of the building, but they were quite large. The bathrooms all had toilets and sinks that used magic to bring in and take away water, the master bath had a large tub as well.
It was a nice building but some of the features weren’t to my liking. I disliked the look of the processed wood on the walls, I preferred a more natural look. The fact that the only bathing area was on the third floor and would require everyone to go through the master to reach it also wasn’t appealing. Finally the tiny backyard felt too exposed even with the fence to be used as a training area. I made sure to take note of all my likes and dislikes for this building before moving on towards the next one in the eastern district.
Z POV
The locals of the town were interesting people to talk to. They had their own culture, way of speaking, and social norms. It was to the point where I was almost certain that these people must’ve been what was left of whatever civilization found this dungeon a thousand years ago. The architecture of the buildings and the style of clothing truly made one feel like they had stepped into a foreign nation rather than a dungeon.
While I was initially concerned with the thought of sentient dungeon creatures, Jay had assured me that most dungeons eventually end up with some, and you just have to accept the fact that you're going to need to kill one. I never thought I’d see the day where Jay of all people had a more flexible mentality than me. The only person who it would’ve been more sobering to hear it from would’ve been Hal, who is the kindest and most gentle soul I knew. After Jay’s wake up call to the reality of dungeon diving, I did my best to simply accept it and move on. I doubt I would ever truly be able to get past the thought of killing a sentient creature until I was forced to do it, but hopefully that was a long way off.
At the moment I need to focus on my information gathering. The Spiritkin were a wealth of knowledge if you just took the time to talk to them. It was also difficult to perceive them as dungeon creatures when they acted so much like people. Just by speaking to them you could learn about their wants and desires, what they did for a living, what they did when not working, what their families were like, and just so much more.
This was why I would’ve never cut it as a real member of the thieves guild, I sympathized too much with the people I spoke with. My gift of gab was negated by my very human heart, how could I not come to like someone after talking to them for an hour. Still just because I was a little nice doesn’t mean they had to . . .
I shook my head to stop myself from dwelling on the past. It was too late to change what happened to me, all I could do was work towards the future. Thinking of my past reminded me of my goals as well as how much I owed to Ava for all she’s done for me. I needed to make sure my party was well informed so that we could do well on our delve. We needed to stay ahead of the other adventurers if we wanted to reach our first star by the end of this year. Hopefully the dungeon would be able to keep up with us.
I moved through the streets, stopping by every vendor and drumming up a conversation. I was making sure to keep my ears open to learn any new pieces of information that might be helpful. So far I've gotten a few key pieces of advice that would be worth sharing with the party.
1. Don’t go into the Forest of Endings or Croaker Lake. These two zones had the most powerful bosses on the floor and the locals seemed to think it was better to avoid the areas until we were stronger.
2. There is a village of goblins in the east but their strength and numbers are unknown. They stay in the east because they aren’t strong enough to trespass against the bosses in the north or south. Which leads me into -
3. The monsters on this floor will fight each other just as much as they will us. In addition, all the stronger monsters try to avoid leaving the forests.
4. Final piece of interesting advice is that the roads on this floor aren’t safe zones. This means we need to be careful while traveling around the floor.
That was everything I had learned that would be worth sharing. There were a few minor tidbits but similarly to how Jay didn’t tell us every minor thing he learned, I would just bring up any relevant information as it was needed. We were unlikely to need everything I had learned tidbits such as: The master Tailor’s daughter Aika has a birthday coming up in 3 weeks; the blacksmith's favorite food is steelhorn venison; and one of the carpenters was moving to the docks to work on boats. Still when it came to people I had near perfect recall, so it was hard for me to forget the less useful information.
I was about to move towards the ferryman’s house when I got the party message from Ava telling all of us that she had picked out a location and to meet up with her. I changed directions from the eastern district to the northern one and started moving towards her.
Ava POV
The second building was worse than the first one. It had more space overall, but it was too close to the edge of town. I wanted something that wouldn’t be too far from Wyla since the tree would likely be the center hub for adventurers. Another factor was that being closer to the center meant being closer to all of the gates instead of just one of them. We didn’t know what zones were best to adventure in yet so it was better not to commit to being closer to one over the others. Luckily the third building turned out to be a perfect fit.
I knew it would be a winner the minute I saw the size and location. It was actually the largest of the three buildings but that was because it wasn’t on one of the main roads. To get to it I had to travel down a small street that led off of the northern plaza. Upon first glance the building was a large square building that had 2 stories. However closer inspection would show that it was actually several 2 story buildings that were connected by covered walkways which turned the complex into one massive building. This was a major upside since it meant everyone could have their own space and we would have a large interior courtyard to use.
The interior courtyard had a small garden with a nice stream that fed into a pond. It also contained both grassy and sandy areas that would be perfect for training. The whole compound was hidden amongst other buildings as well as trees and plants that grow inside the town. It felt like a secret base hidden within the urban landscape. Z would like the secrecy and Hal would love the idea of living in a secret base.
The complex was made in such a way that every room would have its own building that would be connected via the courtyard and the covered walkways, which were basically hallways who’s courtyard facing walls could be opened up if we wanted. All the interior walls were made out of this paper-like material that was surprisingly strong. When I asked a Spiritkin about it he told me that the buildings were all made using Ancient Oak and Dungeon Stone. That would make some of the buildings in this town tougher than the stone walls we put around villages, just another point in the walled compounds favor.
On the first floor of the compound there was a large building for the kitchen which had a cellar for cold storage; there were two bathrooms placed on opposite sides of the compound; a communal bath house, which had separate sections for boys and girls thankfully; and two more interior spaces that could be turned into living rooms or greeting rooms or whatever else we wanted.
The second floor of the compound was where all the bedrooms would be. Every building had a second floor level excluding the bathhouse. This meant that there were 5 separate bedrooms in the compound which would give everyone their own space. We could probably turn one of the extra first floor spaces into a living/dining room and keep the other as a spare room in case we needed it for something. We would definitely need to buy a lot of our own furniture. I guess that was another one of the downsides that came with this building, but I honestly saw it as an upside as that meant we could decorate how we wanted.
Lia would likely take the room above the kitchen and she would want her room directly connected to mine, which means I need to either be above a bathroom or one of the blank spaces. I would probably prefer to be above a bathroom so that Lia and I could claim it as the girl’s bathroom. Z would want to be as close to the entrance as possible, so he would be above either the other bathroom or one of the blank spaces. Probably the Blank space as I know that Hal would want to be closer to the bathroom. Knowing that means Jay will be in the last room.
While it's not guaranteed that everyone will pick their rooms that way, with what I know about them, it's more than likely. I decided that this is definitely the best space for us. The only downsides I see are the out of the way location (which is also an upside for privacy) and the lack of preexisting furniture (a personal upside). There’s also the fact that our compound is a bit close to the north plaza which could become quite noisy, but we were boxed in by enough other buildings and trees that I didn’t think it would be a problem.
With my decision made I buy the building with our hidden reward and message the group to meet up with me. I would have everyone claim a space and then we would finally explore the rest of the floor!