As the second Random Box’s glow faded, both of their Random Boxes did the same, it deposited not only an Aether Crystal of decent quality, but both left a piece of armour on the ground!
Before Janik laid what looked like a breastplate, it was entirely metal and had clasps on the side to allow you to put it on and clasp it together without needing assistance. It had some runic engravings on the front and looked surprisingly light. It didn’t have arms or a neck, just a chest, stomach and back covering.
On the ground next to Sam laid a black leather armoured vest, it looked like it would cover his entire torso except his arms. It was black leather with some subtle patterns engraved, and it seemed almost like it shimmered oddly where the shadows of the trees hit it.
[ Shadowleather Vest - D (mid-end)
Defence: 40
+10% Stealth
+10% Evasion ]
“Jesus fucking christ...” Janik commented as he looked at his metallic armour. This caused Sam to break out of his little bubble of wondering just how powerful his armour was and have a glance at the one Janik was holding.
[ Sentinel’s Breastplate - D (mid-end)
Defence: 46 (40+6)
+15% Physical resistance
+5% Health ]
Sam was amazed, this felt too good to be true. The armour he was currently using, the one he got less than a day ago from the Bandits was a substantial 2x upgrade from the one he wore before, which again was an upgrade from the TAC freebie. But this was an amazing 4x upgrade from that, and it came with two traits that fit him perfectly. Likewise, the one Janik got seemed to do wonders for him.
Based on the damage numbers Janik explained earlier, not counting critical hits, nothing in this dungeon could even properly hurt them... The Chiefs might land a solid hit and do something, and he didn’t know about the Bearfolk, but everything else felt surprisingly survivable.
Before Sam had the time to ask Janik about things, his friend had already stripped him of the old armour and was putting on the new one. Sam looked at his own for a moment, he understood the Stealth bonus but how did the Evasion work?
[ Evasion +10%
When an attack lands, there is a 10% chance that it might still miss. ]
This felt insane, he had no idea how that would work in practice but this meant that it dramatically increased his survivability. Not only could he take harder hits and come out alive or unscathed with this armour, but it helped him avoid being seen or taking damage altogether. It almost felt tailored to him.
Not wasting more time, he got the bandit piece off his body and put on the new one, using a good solid few minutes to get it sitting properly so it didn’t feel too restrictive to move in. The list of his stats updated when he took the old armour off and put the new one on, listing the new numbers and statistics to Sam’s enjoyment.
“Ok, I was... No.. I’m still envious of your shit, but this makes it much better.” Janik smiled widely, seeming incredibly happy for his new piece of armour.
“Well, I’m glad for you, now I don’t feel as bad as I did before.” Sam smiled in return letting Elara slither back up his arm and drape over his shoulders. Though he didn’t feel entirely guilty before, he still felt slightly so, this dulled that significantly.
“Let’s go eat something good and chill for now, I think we earned it. We can sell our shit at the cabin and... if you feel like blowing $300 for a single night, we can consider that, or we can just sleep outside somewhere.”
“But...” Sam thought for a second as he brought up a thought. “Can’t we just sleep in here? If others can’t forcefully enter, isn’t it much safer for us?”
“You’d think so, and you’d be right, but the System boots us out after a while if we don’t leave on our own after completing it. I have heard of skilled or powerful enough Players tying up the Dungeon Boss in the lower level ones, in that case, it’d work but... then you have an angry creature there..” Janik shrugged during his explanation, making it sound almost like he had tried this before but didn’t like it.
And he had a good point. If the dungeon could be kept open by not completing it, it’d work out, but... Sam wouldn’t be happy if he was just tied up after having all his friends murdered... so he could see the problem.
“With our new gear, I think we can either go to another Dungeon for some better XP or run this one a few times tomorrow. But I honestly think it might be smarter to just waste the $300 for the safety. I mean... I doubt you forgot what happened this morning.” Janik smiled almost like he was edging on Sam to react to something dumb.
Sam had to agree, he was fine camping outside but as weird as it sounded, it was more dangerous than being homeless. And it wasn’t due to the local animals and monsters, strangely enough.
“Yeah, I agree...” He felt that it was an insane amount of money, especially for what you got, but at the same time, one core from in here would cover the night for three people. Even thinking like that almost made him worry about his sense of money, spending $10 felt like a massive investment earlier, and now he was using gear probably nearing $100 000... Though he had already had this discussion when he got the sword, it hit strangely weird again.
Once all cores were gathered and they felt good about leaving, they exited the Dungeon and landed outside. Though it was getting dark, Sam still felt weird about something inside the Tower... They moved to the Cabin. As they entered they went over to the counter where the man asked what he could help with.
They decided to sell their solo stuff first, to keep it separate for simplicity. Sam didn’t pay too much attention to how much Janik was selling for, he was too busy making sure he didn’t mix the collective stuff with his things.
He didn’t have that much of personal items to sell, mainly Aether crystals which went for $1000 each and the Bandit armour, also going for $1000. His mind almost exploded when he saw the $50 000 for the ring.
Adding to the surprise was when he figured out that between them, they had 84 Cores, four of those were from the Chiefs but the 80 was from a mix of the non-Chief monsters. The Chief cores went for $1500, the others for $1000. This ended up with them splitting $86 000, in turn meaning that today’s gain was $95 000 for Sam.
“I can send that to your accounts if you want?” The man behind the counter asked politely.
“Yeah, but we both want a bed for the night. Oh, also, let me check something.” Janik added, being much calmer than the thousand-yard stare and not mentally present, Sam next to him.
Taking a moment to confirm the prices of the Stealth ring, as well as daggers showed that they under-valued the daggers, they were 2k each, not 1k. This bumped the money Sam owed Janik to $16 000. Deciding to handle this right away rather than waiting for some reason, Sam’s cut was lowered in a sense, but he still ended up gaining solid gear for himself in addition to $79 000, which boggled his mind. Janik also got a solid chunk of money, Sam didn’t notice how much personal stuff he had to sell but between getting his owed sum and the sold stuff, his share netted him at least $60 000.
This was also not counting the gear they were currently using.
“So.” Janik turned to Sam with a wide smile as he placed the Shadow Fang dagger on the counter. The man scanned it right away as soon as it was there, not wasting time, but Janik looked at Sam. “Do you want to buy the dagger of me? I’d rather you have it for the same price I’d get from him, there is no difference in value but it’d set you back-” Looking at the man behind the counter and eyeing his tablet, the hint of the value being mentioned was hard to miss.
“$22 000.” The man updated them without considering the sum much.
This sent Sam into another existential crisis, he wanted it, he really, really did. Adding that to his swarm of blades would do wonders for everything, but... it was so much money... At the same time, thinking about it practically, it was something akin to the ring. It was expensive but worth it. The 5x TAC markup meant that if he wanted to buy this later, it would be over 100k. And worst case, like the ring, he could just sell it later at the same cost he paid for it now...
His voice replied, in almost a whisper, barely audible as he stared without focusing anywhere looking like he was in some kind of terrifying trance. “...I want it...”
Janik laughed. There was no doubt in his expression that he somewhat expected this to happen. Which explains why he waited with it until everything else was handled.
“Shal I give the $22 000 from your part to him, then?” The store owner asked, again not seeming to react that this was a life-changing amount of money.
Janik smiled still, and Sam struggled to consider what to answer. He wanted it...But 22k could keep him living in TAC for 2/3 of a year... On the other hand, he could afford it and still live in TAC for well over a year, he was currently swinging around a sword worth twice that. He had persuaded himself to handle money differently earlier but... it didn’t seem like it stuck.
Sam nodded, it felt less bad than agreeing vocally. The man handled this expertly and before he knew it the money was deducted from his share, netting Janik a much larger chunk of money. That said, even ‘losing’ the 22k he walked away from there with close to $60 000 in gains, again not considering the actual worth of his new gear.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Taking control of the situation, Janik let the man take the 300 from each of them, they were given light information that could also be found on a plaque next to the counter of how this worked. It was communal, easily 20 bunk beds in a single room, but there were solid lockers that could be properly locked. All of them were numbered and the plaque encouraged that if you saw someone fiddling with one of the numbered lockers, but the bed with said number was still occupied, let people know in case there was theft.
Simple enough, and each morning as you registered as awake, the bed was made and freed up and you got your breakfast.
Having handled that, the duo spent the rest of the day talking about what they had done, what could be done better and perhaps what they should consider for tomorrow.
Janik had taken a sip of a drink they had ordered with their dinner, it was expensive, sure, but to their credit, it was pretty good.
“I’m not sure, if you want we can run the same dungeon a few times tomorrow. We have been astronomically lucky, so I don’t expect to get any gear. The XP is... Acceptable as is the experience but with what we have now, we can probably go somewhere better.”
“I need four more to get a level if we do everything in there. After that, I expect I’d need closer to ten so that shit scales fast...” Sam commented. The needed XP per level doubled from the previous, meaning the needed runs you’d need also doubled exponentially.
Based on the numbers explained in the Dungeon, he could probably survive quite well in there now, but it was still not smart to go in alone if he took some hits. His armour was surprisingly amazing but it only took a few solid hits to take down his lacking health.
Lowering his voice, Sam started talking about stats and choices. “Should... should I start putting points in Vitality or something? I’m feeling a bit... easy to kill at times.”
“Ah.” Janik realised the change in topic and sat up properly, getting a bit closer when speaking about something that personal. “That’s a hard thing to consider. Most people tend to put some points in, just for safety, you know? Your armour is pretty good and if one of those frogs were to hit you, you’d take no damage. On the other hand, if they were to critically hit you, you’d die in one hit... so... there is zero room for error.”
Not looking super satisfied with his own answer he thought about it for a few seconds. “The problem is that there is no ‘best way’ to do things. You need to do what works for you, and how you plan to do things. Sneaking about and whatnot is good but what happens when you’re discovered? Heavy investment into one Attribute is fine, and great, even, if you can find a way to leverage it to support your lacking aspects. Like, if you could find a skill or something that’d have your Health calculated of your Spirit, that would solve your problems.”
During his explanation, Janik took out his smartphone and started looking for something before finally turning it around, and showing Sam.
The phone displayed a historical price for a skill crystal that let you calculate Health from Spirit rather than Vitality. “So, it seems that the price you’d have to pay fluctuated, but the last few went for around $7 million.”
This deflated Sam a lot, he expected it to be expensive but not only was this rare, but only a few sales and they seemed to go immediately after being put out.
“So, odds aren’t good...” Not even considering having the funding, there also needed to be some.
[ Conditions met. Compulsory Ascendance System quest. ]
Sam’s expression turned from the slight annoyance of the skill, to fear. Janik reacted with a deep sense of worry.
“What is it?” His hands instinctively moved to his swords.
Sam’s eyes calmed once he properly read the message, he was given a quest, he wasn’t going to be pulled somewhere random or worse.
“No... it’s fine... hold on...” Sam’s eyes stared into nothingness, a special kind of acting that any Player would recognize.
[ Ascendance system quest; Rental
-Entity #%&/¤ requests control over the Ascendant Player’s body.
-Consume the bead and surrender your body and skills to #%&/¤ for a short time.
Reward
-Tailored Skill according to the Player’s play style.
Note
-This quest cannot be abandoned.
-This quest will force-activate if the Player postpones or avoids it. ]
His expression fell into uncertainty and despair, this was horrible. In Sam’s mind, this was worse than the flesh dungeon. At least in there, he had control over himself and could do things himself, control himself. In this case, he was surrendering his body to some... entity. It didn’t even list what this person or creature was, just some entity...
“I got a new... quest...” Sam finally replied to Janik, but put a strange pressure on it, hoping that he would understand.
“Oh shit.” Janik leaned back forward in his chair. “Last time was surprisingly lucky but... what is it this time?”
“I’m supposed to surrender control of my body to some... entity...” Sam didn’t look exactly terrified, but he looked scared, doing his best to keep composed but there was a clear undercutting of fear in there.
“That... that sounds horrible... Abandon it, wait for the next quest.” Janik half-commanded, seeming to agree on the icky nature of it.
“I can’t, it’s a compulsory quest. It’ll even auto-activate if I try to ignore it...” Having said that made everything feel surprisingly worse. Placing his hands on the table he realised that in his right hand was now a small bead, easily swallowable but it wasn’t there before. Though that part wasn’t as strange as it sounds; every Dungeon run had spawned items, after all. But the fact that it was just subtly put in his hand was surprisingly disconcerting.
“Ah... fuck... That complicates things... Who.. or what, wants your body? For what?” Janik tried asking in a hushed but surprisingly urgent tone.
“I don’t know... The name is corrupted-” Sam took up his phone and used a moment to spell out the #%&/¤ characters. “-It displays like this. The quest explains it as an ‘entity’ and... for ‘a short time’.”
“Oh... yeah... That’s a lot of wildcards. What if we chain you up in the forest or something?” Janik forced an uncomfortable smile.
Sam liked that idea, chained up and he’d be fine out in nowhere, he could yell and scream as much as he wanted but at least he wouldn’t go nuke a city or something. There was no telling what this entity could do while in control.
The quest popped up again in the middle of his focus, with a new sentence added.
[ Ascendance system quest; Rental
-Entity #%&/¤ requests control over the Ascendant Player’s body.
-Consume the bead and surrender your body and skills to #%&/¤ for a short time.
-Entity #%&/¤ must be free to act, or the Player will be punished for failing the quest.
Reward
-Tailored Skill according to the Player’s play style.
Note
-This quest cannot be abandoned.
-This quest will force-activate if the Player postpones or avoids it. ]
“Fuck.” Sam broke out right after reading the edit. “The System updated it, Mr. Entity needs to be able to be free to act or... I’ll get punished.”
“Well... that complicates things a bit...” Janik leant back in his chair, pondering, seeming like he was trying to find a loophole or idea.
[ Player is actively trying to sabotage ‘Rental’. Force-activating.]
As Sam tried to comment on the new window to Janik, his hand moved without his input and slammed against his mouth, throwing the bead into the back of his throat. The involuntary reaction had him swallow and the ordeal was done.
“It auto-activated-” Sam managed to say to his friend, still feeling surprisingly fine. “-Follow me, if it’s bad; just... stop me.” Sam said this out as an order, he didn’t want to die, he wanted to continue everything. But the thought of being a puppet of the System, even more than he already was, churned his very core in disgust.
Janik looked like he wanted to say no, but he steeled his expression and reluctantly nodded.
Sam felt his eyelids grow heavy, almost like he hadn’t been sleeping for days and couldn’t stay awake anymore. Wanting to keep them open with his hands they remained lying on the table, his head dipped forward and his eyes closed.