Chapter 11: A Real Mission
The girls all returned to their inn at varying times that evening. Kat and Vulp happily summoned a dog and fox, respectively, to keep with them while they slept. As Shiba summoned a dog, Lupy whined that she couldn’t summon her minotaur. Bandit complained that she couldn’t summon anything, but she was giving thought to what she would even like to be able to summon.
She definitely didn’t want a minotaur like Lupy. A monster that would help her with her Guild Agent missions made some sense, but she’d be very limited in her ability to use it while keeping it secret from Thaw and the rest of the Guild. Judging from Lupy’s story, learning to summon a morphling might not work, interesting as that idea was.
Summoning DM most likely wouldn’t work either. She could possibly learn to summon a tentacle monster but she wasn’t sure. Besides, she didn’t really see a benefit to summoning a tentacle monster. Most of the other lower-level monsters weren’t appealing, either. The cat, dog, and fox-type monsters weren’t bad, but most of the others, like zombies, goblins, and wasps, were kind of gross. Deciding there was no rush, Bandit held off for now.
Vulp had been introduced to the Lord’s extended family earlier that day. So far, her plan to ingratiate herself with them was proceeding as planned. At the same time, Kat had established friendly relations with the Church and was beginning to learn from the priestesses there. With any luck, she’d gain new healing abilities soon.
Shiba was on the lookout for opportunities to learn more magic as well. So far, no opportunities had come up. Also, Lupy was trying to decide how she should spend all her extra spare time with most of the other girls constantly going off on special missions.
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Olivia returned to the dungeon the next morning, this time with a fresh batch of newbie adventurers, all LVL 2. She told DM, via the morphling, that the Guild decided to just stick to the plan with the Lower Gordu Dungeon. They would wait and see what happened with the Upper Gordu Dungeon. DM also agreed to hold off on acquiring more dungeons, at least for the time being.
He found overseeing the adventurers’ training relaxing and even somewhat rewarding. The only challenge was making sure he didn’t make things too easy for them or too difficult. Other than that, he felt a bit of a sense of personal pride as they leveled up and acquired the occasional low-tier item. This group wouldn’t make it to the deeper levels, but he wanted all of them to gain a level, at least.
Although Olivia didn’t explicitly state it, DM got the sense that this party was also a test case. Unlike Kat’s party, this group was appropriately leveled for the dungeon. The presence of only one party indicated that the Guild wanted to see how things went for this group before sending more. Then again, there probably weren’t many level-appropriate groups to tackle the surface floors of the dungeon anyway.
Still, the fact that the Guild allowed DM to challenge a LVL 2 party with his dungeon showed a real degree of trust. If Kat’s group was the alpha test, then this was the beta test. Probably, Olivia would return the next day with two, or even more, parties. Heck, the Guild might send several parties staggered throughout the day. If DM made good on his promises, this was too desirable an opportunity for the Guild to pass up. Once things stabilize, they’d probably question DM about the console as he previously promised to open up about.
Today’s events reminded DM of another concern. Word would soon spread outside the region of a dungeon modified to help beginners level, complete with safety features. The extra attention would likely draw visitors from further away. Even though the Lower Gordu Dungeon was leveled high enough to challenge parties above the beginner tier, he was glad the Guild was starting with LVL 2 newbies. It was unlikely too many LVL 2 newbies would make a long trip to level here based on reputation. Right?
His leading worry was about the Upper Gordu Dungeon. He didn’t realize the change in ownership would get broadcasted over such a wide area. So long as he kept the dungeon unchanged, he suspected any parties sent from the north, or elsewhere, to investigate would simply conclude that the changes shown by the Dungeon Crystal were of no consequence.
If anyone tried to access the console and move the dungeon, would DM simply lose control of that dungeon? He suspected the only danger to him occurred if the primary dungeon was reset by an intruder. Still, he’d do everything in his power to prevent anyone from messing with the Upper Gordu Dungeon. That wouldn’t be easy, though. He needed to spread some infected minions around several floors to spy on whoever explored the dungeon, but that increased the burden on him to monitor all the targets. He really couldn’t afford to just infect thousands of people and creatures. It didn’t work that way.
Speaking of infected people, he got an idea. He already had Barney investigating north of the Upper Gordu Dungeon. Why not have him look into what the closest Guild Branch in that direction was saying about the recent changes? He switched his focus to Barney, spawned a tentacle, and charmed the man. When the man came to, he read the instructions on his lap to investigate this very matter and changed course.
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Cycling through his other infected friends, Daphne’s party had departed the capital bound for her home in the elven forest.
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Thaw and Nina met at the hideout to debrief.
“Good job. I don’t think he’ll be hiding anything from the Guild any time soon.”
“Did you find what the man stole?” asked Nina, referring to the target that Thaw had eliminated.
“Yes. He was kind enough to tell me where to look, right before I killed him.”
Nina hesitated, but Thaw urged her to ask the next question. “Why did he tell you? Did he think you would let him go?”
“Hmm…” Thaw leaned back in her chair, raised her face towards the ceiling, and closed her eyes for a few moments. “Not yet. Not quite yet.”
“’Not yet’ what?”
“You’re not ready for me to teach you about that, Nina. Let’s call that an intermediate skill. You’re still, say, an advanced beginner as a Guild Agent. At least, when it comes to the assassin side of the business.”
“Oh.”
“I did manage to catch most of your conversation with the young guy, though. You did a pretty good job for your first time.”
“Thanks.”
“For the time being, if you need to get someone to talk try kneeing them in the—“
Nina couldn’t hear the rest as she covered her ears, groaned, and twisted away in agony.
Eventually, Nina recovered to the point that they could continue the conversation.
“Nina, it’s time for you to start completing the occasional mission on behalf of the Twin Cities Guild.”
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Bandit met up with her party, all of whom were actually available for a change, and proceeded to the Guild. Strangely, the Guild Master called them all up the stairs to his office.
“I’ve got a mission for you five.”
“Us?” In her role as leader, Kat wasn’t just pretending or acting. She really was surprised that the Guild had any use for them. After all, they were told they were too young to accept even basic escort missions without special permissions from the Guild.
“Yeah. I’ve got several other parties away on various missions, and I think you’re ready for this. Surprisingly, this is a request for the Church.”
“Is that why you asked us? The Church has been teaching me some things.”
“No,” the Guild Master answered. “Don’t get me wrong, fleece them of every spell you can. That has nothing to do with this, though.” The Guild Master took a breath before explaining the circumstances of the mission. “One of the Church’s priests detected unusual magic. Priests are sensitive to certain types of dark mana, or so they say.”
Kat nodded, not being surprised by this. The other girls just listened on silently.
“I’m really not sure why the Church is suddenly trying to be friendly and have relations with us, but they formally requested for us to send a team to investigate and deal with any threat we discover. They paid well, too.”
“Could this be a trap?” said Vulp.
“Not likely. The five of you will go tonight and resolve this.”
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The girls returned to their inn to rest up before their nighttime mission. A few hours later, Olivia returned with the adventurers who had been exploring the Lower Gordu Dungeon, a big grin on her face due to how successful the trip had been. While she was reporting the result to the Guild Master, Vera from the Church entered the Guild.
Olivia returned to the main desk and called over Vera when she noticed her. “Hi Vera, how can we help you?”
Vera explained that she wanted to adventure more, but wasn’t formally a member of Kat’s party and didn’t have any backups. She was seeking guidance on what to do next, although she kept her desire and mission to meet with DM more a secret, of course.
“Oh, why don’t you return tomorrow morning? I’m going to bring a couple of parties down to that dungeon in the Lower Gordu again. Having you join up with one of them, after all the time you spent in that dungeon, should be beneficial to the others!”
Olivia didn’t have to ask her twice.
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After dark, the girls proceeded to the location specified by the Guild. They were on the edge of the city in a less-traveled area where several old stone buildings abutted the boundary wall. Although they were standing at the spot indicated by the Church, it wasn’t obvious where they should go from here.
“Do you sense anything?” Shiba asked Kat, hoping their resident white mage would be sensitive enough to notice whatever the Church’s priest had noticed either the night before or on another recent night.
“No, I don’t think so.” Unfortunately, Kat wasn’t having any luck.
“Maybe the unusual magic is only cast late at night? Should we wait?” Shiba’s theory was reasonable.
“Yes, let’s just move around this area for a while and see.” Kat led the way as they patrolled the area quietly.
As they walked around, they spotted a rat. This wasn’t a rat-type monster; it was just a normal city rat. They didn’t think much of it, but suddenly a tentacle spawned, scooped up the rat, and launched it over the city wall out into the surrounding grasses. The tentacle disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
The girls laughed, figuring that was DM’s way of joking around with them. His actions were hardly necessary, but nobody in the city would get upset over his actions towards a single rat, either.
Just as they were resuming their march, Kat turned her head towards one of the stone buildings. “I sense something.”
The four other girls went quiet and followed Kat as she tiptoed to the building she suspected of unusual magic.
“What do we do?” Lupy asked.
Kat didn’t immediately respond. She suddenly realized they didn’t have any type of a plan for what to do if they detected strange magic in the vicinity. They would have to just investigate the suspicious stone building and hope things worked out. At least, it seemed like DM was monitoring them. Still, Kat knew DM wouldn’t want them to count on him and then take too many risks.
“We’ll use the same formation as in the dungeon and check out this building.”
The other four girls nodded and obeyed Kat’s decision.
“If things get too dangerous we’ll run away.” That was the right attitude, but Kat was more excited than afraid.