Rok wasn’t wrong. Nothing attacked them in their sleep. That day the group got ready to leave, giving farewells to the village. They rode back to Zakor with nothing interesting transpiring.
Back in Zakor they delivered the completed quest and told them that a level 53 fire rabbit had attacked as well. They got a small fee of 25 gold for reporting that as well. It was a petance compared to the 2.5k gold which was evenly split between the three of them. Hatchet was left out since he had no true needs for gold. “I’m saving up for a mansion for when I’m back in my own body.” Hatchet argued angrily.
“When that happens we will make sure you are well paid for your efforts. I think .001% would be fair.” Calrin nodded sagely.
They also sold all the meat and body parts they collected for almost the same amount, getting it to 4.5k in total. They could have gotten way more by selling the cores. Xane wanted those since stronger enchants and runesmithing called for them.
Xane went back to Warrens to start learning runesmithing from her. He tried to pretend he didn’t know anything about it in a vain attempt to get some sort of praise. It didn’t work. She somehow knew immediately. “You shouldn’t have done that. Runesmithing is dangerous too. Could have blown your hand off.”
He wanted to say “You had me overcharge an enchantment to know my skill and power. That could have killed me.” And from what he learned it could have.
“Now tell me what runes you know.”
She wasn’t impressed by his selection. Saying they were “useless” “cheap” “not even worth knowing” And then proceed to yank on Xane’s purse demanding payment for “great” “useful” “every runesmith worth their pinch of dust knows” runes.
It was the reason why he got more money. He bought runes for durability, weight reduction, weight increase, projectile speed reduction, projectile speed increase. As well has a frost damage enchantment and a strength stat boosting one. The latter being the most expensive. He wanted intelligence but that was almost triple the cost. With all the purchases he was broke again. Broke in rich people terms.
This was going to be remedied with the dungeons Calrin was going to take Xane through. That wasn’t going to happen for another 2 weeks. The list was longer than expected. They were going to go through four of them in quick succession. Xane spent time learning from Warren and doing her grunt work. A few orders from patrons that Xane himself could do. He was even getting paid for it. Barely anything but was something.
He spent the 2 weeks as follows. Enchanting. Runesmithing. A small amount of cultivating. Training with Calrin and Huntress. More enchanting and runesmithing. By the end he had gained another 3 levels in enchanter and 6 in runesmithing.
Xane thought about trying for his last profession but didn’t know how to go about doing it. Would tinkering with his guns work? He had plans for bullets but still hadn’t found anything that acted as gunpowder. His queries leading nowhere. He thought about using runes but still didn’t have the ones he would need. And he didn’t know which ones he would need. There was one other person in town that knew runesmithing but he told Xane to shove off, refusing to even give a price. “Those secrets are going to cost way more than you have.” A guard getting him out of the shop. He knew that Tortoga was rich with runesmiths and decided to wait till he got there.
Calrin woke Xane up by banging on his door. Xane’s room was filled with his tools he was too tired to put away the night before. He hadn’t been wearing his armor for the past few days and was half naked and happy Calrin didn’t barge in like usual. “Yeah, be out in a minute.”
“You really need to stop snoring when you sleep. I hear that it means that you have a sleep demon inside you.”
“I don’t have a sleep demon inside me. Whatever that is.”
“How would you know?”
“Well since you are in there.” He said, knocking on his head.” Then you can fight it off.”
“Lucky there isn’t. I would have destroyed it. On a more serious note. Even after passing myself I ran out of things to watch. Give me access to books you read or something.” She begged like a little child asking to buy a candy bar.
“Fine, go ahead. Warning most are technical in nature. Lot of structural stuff.” She seemed saddened by this but didn’t respond.”
Xane wanted to get her out of his mind as fast as possible. It was getting harder and harder to keep her busy. The more worrying thing was that he could feel her power growing. At first it was small, only noticeable if he focused hard on it. Now though he had to try and push it away. It was distracting. Xane liked Lyenn but needed her to move out soon.
Xane went down below to find Calrin and his brother talking at a table. They stopped and cheerfully called him over. “Finally kid thought you might have died in there.”
“I only took 2 minutes sheesh inpatient much.”
“Well we are on a strict timeline…so yes.” Calrin’s brother just nodded his goodbye as Xane was ushered out.
Xane dragged his feet “What about breakfast.” he complained.
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“I know you have something to eat on you already.” Calrin half picked Xane up.
Xane did but liked Dav’ip’s meals. They were always interesting and gave nice boosts. He still had the rabbit stew from the village but was saving the bonuses from that for a more special occasion. Instead he unhappily munched on some leftovers he took a while ago from Dav’ip. Even though the ring kept it fresh it still somehow didn’t taste the same.
Mostly put down at this point Xane pulled himself away from Calrin’s grip. In between mouths full of a saucy meat and noodles Xane asked Calrin specifics. “So- uhmm- what is it like in there? Like- dangerous…puzzles?”
“Quit that. Eat and I’ll explain. No other questions till you are done.” Xane just nodded sauce on his chin. Calrin just gave a disappointed look, “It depends on the dungeon. Some you need to solve puzzles or go through a deadly maze. Others you are in a large room needing to fight off large amounts of creatures. Others are similar but instead have just one large and/or really high level creature that is called a boss. Those give some of the best loot.”
He waited to make sure Xane was paying attention as the kid was practically licking the bowl. “Anyway. Some dungeons are short, taking only a fight or two. Most are in the middle with the largest ones being the hardest and rarest. The names for sizes or better known as tiers are as follows. Young, Growing, Grown, Aging, Aged, Ancient and lastly Historic. From what we know, and we know a lot, dungeons grow in size as it gets older. However, there is a limit and once it hits that limit they can’t grow anymore. Most get around Growing and Grown. Wantags for example is only Ancient. I’ve personally never even heard of let alone seen a Historic dungeon. They are really rare.”
Xane gave more nods having finished his food he did ask a question. “Can a dungeon be…like killed or destroyed?”
Calrin didn’t miss a beat having known that question was going to come up. “Yes. Dungeons can form just about anywhere. They are in essence similar to our storage items. They don’t actually take up space in our reality. With that in mind it can form in someone’s cupboard or closet. Dungeons like those are usually destroyed due to it being a problem for those who owned the object. I heard tales of someone’s winter coat closet leading to an entire other realm, something about a pretentious lion and a hot ice mage.” Calrin’s face looked wistful till he snapped out of it.
Calrin took a moment to get his thoughts in order. “Uhmm yes… dungeons are very dangerous for those unprepared. Or unaware. From what I’ve heard Zakor is protected from such occurrences of smaller dungeons.”
“By smaller dungeons do you mean that one can…be born as a higher tier?”
“Yes, it's rare. More rare than a dungeon making it to a similar tier. But it has happened. There is an Aged dungeon right under Zakor that spawned as an Aged dungeon. Luckily it hasn’t reached Ancient even though it is now almost 140 years old. Though it is believed that it will someday. You don’t need to worry about that one. It is for royal use only except during dungeon frenzies”
Xane was about to ask what that was but Calrin stopped him. “Simply say dungeon frenzies are when it overpopulates out of nowhere with no warning. As I said before, dungeons need to be culled or the creatures inside will leave the dungeon. Even after many years, at least from my little knowledge, we have no idea how or why they occur. Even the most used dungeons do it. Sometimes with people still inside. Which leads to a gruesome death more than not.”
“I have another question. How does the loot work? You didn’t go in full detail before.” Xane asked with a bit too much greed showing.
“Creatures in there are not the same as real ones. They are made of pure mana that has been compiled to look like and act like whatever creature, for lack of a better term, is desired by the dungeon. When you kill the creature if you wait a bit you can let it dissolve and some of that mana will condense into items. Like potions, coins, ingots, weapons and armor, etc. As I said before you can harvest the creature itself but no items will form then. Higher level the creature means there is more mana to make better things. It isn’t a done deal though as some luck is involved with what and if anything will drop at all.”
“You keep saying creatures. Is it always animals? Anything like a humanoid or elementals?”
“You truly know nothing. One day you will tell me where you are from because they need an academy there. At least a law to teach basic things.” Xane just shrugged. “Well ‘creatures’ is really just a broad term for anything not seen as a sentient species. I honestly think it's a bit outdated because I know some creatures that are more ‘sentient’ than most ‘humanoids’ but we don’t have something better.”
Xane nodded in understanding. “I just thought of this. Why isn’t Huntress or Hatchet with us?”
“Forgot to tell you with the lecture you forced me to give. The dungeon we are heading to has a rule where only 2 people may enter. Pets are allowed and I think Hatchet wouldn’t count either. But bringing in more makes it harder. Which is why you’ll need to keep Garry put away.”
“Now you have to tell me more about ‘rules’.”
“Sure why not. Dungeons may sometimes have rules and you have to follow them or bad things will happen. Rules might be things like the amount of people or a time limit. To needing to kill creatures in a specific way. To more specific things like class restriction, no fire allowed, no music, only people over the height of 5ft may enter this dungeon. It depends on the dungeon. Like most things about dungeons it is totally random. One of the reasons scholars believe that dungeons are ‘alive’ is that these things are way too specific and emotional in nature.”
“I’ll give you an example. This dungeon called The Spider Warren had a few clears that used massive fire spells to get rid of all the webs. After a while a rule popped up restricting fire. Anyone using fire had a swarm of fire resistant tiny spiders attack and devour them alive. That I will say is a dungeon with an attitude.”
Xane was kinda mortified and a small amount reluctant to go into one. Calrin must have noticed and reassured him that the one they were going to was a very easy one just to get him his first dungeon feat. “The feat grows in strength by a point system. Each tier of the dungeon gives a different amount of dungeon points. Young = 1, Growing = 2, Grown = 4, Aging = 8, Aged = 16, Ancient = 32, and this, from my knowledge, has never been confirmed but Historic = 64.”
Calrin paused to take a breath, “You need a certain amount of points to upgrade the feat. For example the first Dungeon Delver feat gives 1 point to all stats and you only need 1 dungeon point to earn it. The next version of the feat Dungeon Delver II needs 5 dungeon points and gives 2 points to each stat. Dungeon Delver III needs 10 dungeon points and gives 3 points to each stat. The points doubles each time you earn it with the stat boosts increasing by the previous number. Dungeon Delver IIII gives 5 to each stat but you need to get 20 dungeon points. Really high ranks in Dungeon Delver are hard to get but worth going for if possible.”
Calrin breathed in again having anticipated the next question, “No you can’t just keep doing the same dungeon over and over again. Young dungeons can only be done once with the amount of times that it can be done to earn dungeon points increasing by one each rank. That was a lot. I’ve decided no more questions. We are almost there anyway. Hope you brought an extra pair of socks.” He said this with an evil grin as if all that explaining was well worth what Xane was about to go through.