Leo headed to the central guild hub and headed to the clerk at the counter, the beautiful blond woman in a leather frock coat with a beautiful silver saber at her side, she looked at him with piercing green eyes. "Hello sir how might I help you..." She looked at the patch on Leo's coat. "Ah, apologies, I didn't realize you were a guild leader, how might I help you? would you like to turn in rare loot or perhaps you wish to hire mercenaries?" She asked with a slight bow.
"Actually, I'm here to browse the guildhall catalogue" He said, returning the bow. he'd learned pretty early in the beta that treating npc's with respect got you alot more than being a dick.
She smiled. "Of course, might I ask your budget?"
Leo set reached into his inventory. "I've come with five thousand gold." He said, taking out a large bag of gold, frankly the fact they made gold pouches visibly not applicable to the actual amount inside, otherwise it would look like a massive trash bag and weigh like seven hundred pounds, more if it was actual gold.
The guild clerk grimaced. "Well..." She handed him a small leatherbound notebook. "Here, this is all you can get for five thousand."
He took the ledger and walked to a large leather armchair in front of a roiling fireplace, red crystals constantly generating a crackling flame.
Leo sat and opened the book, flipping through many pages, one was an abandoned mansion in the city outskirts that was definitely haunted, another was an old tavern, and a third was destroyed all together, but after some looking he found one that looked interesting, and the more he looked at it the more he grinned.
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John watched Leo coming out of the central guild hub, wearing a grin he'd seen too many times, He Rin and Tyrese shared a glance knowing they were thinking the same thing, Leo had just did a mischief.
Leo walked up to him only to be met with the words "What did you do?" all said in unison by the three of them.
Leo held up his hands in a calming gesture. "Woah woah woah, why so hostile."
John sighed. "Oh god, it's bad."
Leo patted the air. "No no no, it'll be great, I'm sure you'll see the limitless potential to the place."
They'd been lead outside of the city, waaaay outside the city, and the dungeon practically took up their view and towered above the clouds, and the grey stone and gold spiraling blades as if someone had buried the hilt of massive swords in the ground so only the blade can be seen, and then somehow twisted the metal around the entire gargantuan building. "Every dungeon is unique, remember the lady who took the sponsorship of that one dagon? it has a weird thing for pearls and mother of pearl, magic pearls can be seen throughout their lair, the stone is white but shines with a rainbow of colors, I didn't go too deep into that dungeon because apparently it's a puzzle dungeon and a library, I ain't reading no words." He declared, as they saw a large building appeared in the distance as they crested a hill.
"No..." John whispered. "Leo what the fuck did you buy?!"
Leo shrugged. "It came at a surprisingly good price, I wonder why."
They approached an abandoned military fort, half of the stone was scorched along with half of the fields nearby being glassed, and half towers were destroyed, the stone actually melted looking like large melted black candles.
"What the fuck happened here?!" Rin practically screamed.
"Report said the dragon decided to do a little incendiary gardening, who knows why maybe it stubbed it's toe or it's kobolds prepared it's steak a little too rare, either way the fort was caught on the edge of a massive fire breath, apparently dragon fire can actually melt stone, you learn something new every day." Leo said as if he'd just read something from the discovery channel magazine while waiting for the dentist.
Several of the guild members who had come with to check out their new home groaned, one shouted. "Never again, never am I giving you my coin again." a few grumbled in agreement.
Leo patted the air. "Don't be so sour, it just needs a little bit of effort and elbow grease and it'll look good as new."
John looked at him with his 'I'm gonna murder you face'. "The stone is fucking melted, we'd probably have to remove the towers and walls all together, that's not even to mention the danger of dying via cranky dragon!" He said.
Tyrese butted in at that point. "Frankly Leo, I'm with the Cadet over there, I kinda want my money back."
Rin actually held out her hands and started lunging at Leo. "I'm gonna strangle you for real this time you blond shi- Oof."
Leo sidestepped the lunging Rin who fell down getting a face full of the ashy soil. "Listen, it's a good deal, listen, melted or not, it's still stone, and the walls are sturdy enough, I checked the ledger, it said that the structure is sound, and the location is premium, we're like an hour away from the dungeon."
John looked at the fort, frankly it looked like a giant candle that might once have been made to look like a fortress, as much as John was loathed to admit it, Leo had a point.
They walked inside and John glared at Leo when he saw the interior, there was so much ash on the floor, there was melted armor with ash spilling out of it in some locations and in others it was just ash, Leo looked up at the forts skeleton, the iron beams burned black, the the ceiling was filled with stone stalactites of the melted stone, the staircase to the second level looked more akin to a slide or a ramp, and the smell was aweful, burned wood burned stone burned metal and burned flesh all combined to create a miasma that made all but Leo and Tyrese gag their strength being too high, John thought it odd that they made constitution and strength the same level. Leo had the dignity to at least look a little sheepish. "Lucky this place was on the outskirts of the fire breath otherwise this would just be a big puddle of slag." Leo said, scratching the back of his head. "The receptionist said the city empire didn't want to spend the money to repair it so they abandoned it, so the adventurers faction took it off their hands and made it an available for guilds to buy as a base, originally it was in the twenty thousand range, then the ten thousand, then demoted it all the way down to five thousand, apparently after years of it just sitting there they just wanted to get rid of it." Leo explained.
John gagged but managed an eyeroll. "I fucking wonder why..." He wheezed.
Leo gestured back outside. "Let's go meet a dragon eh? I'm sure that'll put you in a good mood." He said, before grumbling under his breath about buying some Febreze for the fort, despite having high enough strength to not be sent into a coughing fit he still hated the smell in general, sure wood smoke was a decent smell especially if it was a particular type of wood like hickory but adding in all of these other smells just made it a miasma, he looked back at the lowest level guild member who was level one and snorted seeing a poison effect over their health bar, they were full on throwing up though that seemed to be all it was doing they weren't losing health points.
They walked out John growling. "They didn't even clean out the bodies?! what kind of fucked up shit is this game on?"
"No wonder that place didn't sell, nobody would want to buy a place that smelled that bad." Tyrese said, fanning sweet fresh onto his face. "Leo if this doesn't pan out you know we're gonna murder you right?"
Leo barked a laugh. "Already dead remember?"
Nobody laughed, it was a topic they were trying their best to forget about.
Leo sighed. "If I can't laugh at my own death then who the fuck even am I anymore, come on, we have a dragon to meet." He said, waving his hand through the air.
John clapped Leo on the back, frankly he could see what Leo was doing. "Thank you, for trying to cheer us up, but uh, this is just our second day here, maybe give it a hot minute."
Leo nodded. "They need to realize this isn't going to fix itself, this is our new world our new world, the sooner they stop being here and start living here the better." He replied.
John nodded, giving Leo a smile. "For what it's worth I was just giving you shit about the fort, extra crispy or not it's a defensible spawn position in a decent grinding area, I think we can make it work."
Leo smiled back. "Th-"
"Smell's gotta go though." John said, a stern expression on his face.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Leo chuckled. "Damn right it does."
After an hour of walking they came to the large iron doors, the entire door about as tall as a thousand year old sequoia tree, yet despite it's weight they pushed it open with little effort, the runes on the door glowing blue as the doors seemingly start moving on their own before they start to close again behind them.
John looked at the familiar tunnel, there were bloodstains on the door and floor though a couple kobolds with what looked like rags and wooden buckets were trying to scrub the stains off of it, the groups looked at each other, before the Kobolds started cleaning again seemingly ignoring them.
John frowned gripping a dagger, though Leo patted him on the shoulder. "unnecessary, come on, assuming the dungeon layout wasn't changed between beta and now."
John nodded. "How common are kobold knights?"
"Actually pretty rare on the first floor, we were lucky to find two of them." Leo said.
The soldier who had the 'Luck' of having his shield destroyed and his head cleaved off grumbled a few protests, he was a whole three levels behind everyone else because of that encounter.
John shook his head. "Let's not take the chance, Hey, can one of you guide us to your dragon boss dude?" He said to the kobolds.
The kobolds looked at him and then down to their rags, they glared at each other and to Johns amusement played rock paper scissors, the one that won threw down and skipped merrily forward. "Fallow, I take." It said in it's raspy almost serpentine accent, it pronounced it's O like A, but with the way it rubbed it's throat apparently wasn't used to speaking English.
The soldiers shook their heads. "Think we'll stay here." One said, John noticed it was the guy who was killed last time. Leo waved them down. "Alright, do what you will."
They walked through the honestly smoldering halls, it was like opening an oven, the fire in the braziers were abnormally hot. "Is... Is this dragon fire?" He asked.
"Yes." The kobold said simply, before rubbing it's throat again.
it took three hours, three hours to get from one side of the maze to the center of it, from there they took what looked like an elevator up to the next floor, well it was a maze but rather a far nicer one with paintings and it was big, really big, you could probably fit a sky scraper horizontally through it, or a massive fuck off dragon that would rival Smaug in size.
Leo looked around, admiring the beauty of alot of the things, and frankly everyone except the kobold was so enamored by the absolute scale of the halls that they walked right past the human sized door set into the wall, atleast until the kobold shouted. "Iz Diz way idiotz!" before breaking out coughing.
The party came back scratching their heads in embarrassment. The creature knocked on the door and spoke in hisses growls and shrieks, draconic was not an elegant language, sorry Skyrim, maybe it's written text looks better.
After a soft reply reply from the other side the kobold opened the door, they walked inside to see... an Asian woman in a crimson robes that made her look like an empress of ancient China, it would make any noble woman blush with envy, there was also a circlet on her head made purely of ruby, not like it was made from clustered ruby, or was a metal circlet with rubies embedded in it, or rubies grown in a circle, no like someone somehow perfectly melted down ruby and sculpted it like glass, it was honestly an impossible item to make. "So, Humans, it's a pleasure to-" The woman's eyes were quickly glued on Leo's sword, and suddenly turned a smoldering orange with reptilian irises. "That, does not belong to you." It stated it as a fact, not an accusation or an insult.
Leo looked at it, his eyes knitting together. "It was given to me by the system once I reached level ten and picked a subclass."
The girl literally huffed and smoke came out of her nose. "That is most interesting..." John saw her eyes flash with fire for a second. "Ah, it's right there, replica sword of the elf king."
Leo checked his menu eyes furrowing and saw an absolutely tiny label in the corner under the sword's description, replica. John checked his mistcloak, replica, Rin and Tyrese checked their items, tome of holy light, replica, Shield of the tower king, all of the items given from the system were replicas.
The girl nodded, then looked at John's dagger. "That though, that's real, Glamthring, interesting weapon in all honesty, did you know the man who wielded it was blind? turns out blindsight doesn't help avoid traps. that's weird though I thought I sent a kobold down there to reclaim that for my horde a hundred years ago."
Leo huffed and John half expected him to be breathing smoke too.
"Any chance that it activated the trap too and died? it's body would have disappeared when it died and these are kobolds we're talking about." Leo asked, emphasizing the kobold next to the door who was two knuckles deep into it's left nostril.
The dragon cleared it's throat. "I uh, I see your point." he said, sitting down. "Oh, right, please sit."
John, Leo, and Rin sat, Tyrese decided to stand next to the door, man was basically our body guard, literally he was like a second set of armor if something happened and he was there he'd be there to take it. "Excuse me, mister Iligsir, why was there a giant blackened patch outside of the dungeon, and by patch I mean two fields and half a forest." Rin asked.
The dragon blinked. "Oh, right, I did do that didn't I, I spent thirty days straight awake and was suffering from hallucinations, why do you ask?"
Leo patted the air. "We purchased the fortress that you made extra crispy, thanks by the way we got it for a really good price."
The dragon blinked. "That's the first time I've been thanked by a human for committing mass murder..."
Leo frowned. "What?"
"There was a village there, though in my sleep deprived state I had thought it was an invading force of giant mimics." Iligsir tapped a nail on the desk.
"So, you-" Leo was cut off.
"Quite thoroughly yes." The girl said.
"What were you doing that kept you up for thirty days in a row?" John asked.
"Raising wyrmlings, by the thirty second day I threw them off the roof of the tower and went to sleep, they flew away though, man was the divorce a rough one." Iligsir said, laughing, then turned a bit more serious. "But I'm not here to talk about political marriages and potential filicide, I'm here to discuss you, you came into this place four levels before you should've been ready to take on kobolds, it's why I sent a pair of kobold knights after you, to teach you a lesson, imagine my fucking surprise when you managed to kill one and amputate another's arm, and then took out the army I sent after you when you escaped, I'll be straight with you, I want you." Iligsir stood to her full height, a pair of large horns growing from her head and a large scaly tail and wings grew from her back, her eyes turned back to it's fiery reptilian state. "And I won't be taking no for an-" Leo cut her off with a raised hand.
"We already decided to join you, no need for theatrics, frankly we'd have be fucking morons to refuse." Leo said.
The dragon sat back down her wings and other draconic features disappearing. "Alright, since that's been established, let's talk benefits, frankly I didn't even think you'd make it after the army, so, I'm thinking, in exchange for thirty percent of your profits you gain an ally of me and will gain many benefits, the first being I can give you the real version of that shield and book." He gestured to Tyrese and Rin. "The sword and cloak, are as of yet not part of my horde, another benefit would be access to my spell library, My ex husband isn't the only one who collects books after all."
Leo thought it over, these were two good resources, but... "Thirty percent for that? Throw in some kobold Centurions and we're square."
The girl sighed. "Kobold Centurions? how do you even know about those? you haven't been to the sixth level."
Leo blinked. "Do you not remember the beta test?"
The dragon exhaled a blast of smoke from her nose. "Oh, you're from before, I remember you now. I'll throw in two centurions and a small detachment of kobolds to guard your fortress, however melted it might be."
Leo nodded, he was tempted to push for more but he wasn't going to try to milk his good mood any further, it could end poorly, like die a horrible fiery death kind of poorly. Leo stood and offered a hand to shake, the dragon looked at it, before taking it and giving it a shake. it seemed they had a deal.