Chapter 17: Some Puzzles
DM had received several alerts originating from the Upper Gordu Dungeon. He wasn’t micromanaging anything over there so it didn’t take much of his attention away. He simply kept an occasional eye on anyone exploring or proceeding to the boss chamber. The minotaur boss was defeated once, but that was of little consequence to DM. At one point, an adventurer’s leather wrist guard got damaged by a monster, and they decided to discard it on the floor rather than keep it. As they left the dungeon, the damaged gear sizzled and disappeared, granting the Upper Gordu Dungeon a smidgeon of experience. Other than that, the dungeon didn’t have much opportunity to level without direct input from DM. Even the dropped wrist guard was probably a violation of the Nar Union Guild’s policies. DM wasn’t complaining.
The console did seem to include a feature for transferring experience between dungeons, but he decided to leave it alone. He had already pulled on the tiger’s tail by seizing a second dungeon to begin with; he didn’t need to draw more attention to himself by sapping levels from a dungeon in another country and in full view of everyone around. DM wasn’t sure how limited the ability would be, anyway. That teleport feature though? Hell yeah he’d teleport between dungeons whenever he felt like it. He just had to be careful not to leave the Lower Gordu Dungeon too undefended in case another intruder like Barney had the knowledge, means, and will to see his dungeon reset and relocated.
Speaking of Barney, the man was investigating the Union’s reaction to DM seizing the Upper Gordu Dungeon. The magically-controlled agent wasn’t showing any signs of having a message for DM, so DM left him alone. It was apparently too soon to learn anything useful.
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That morning, Bandit proceeded to the Guild alone. Her target, the young swordsman being secretly investigated by Guild Agents, reported in as well. As he was perusing the board for mission requests, Bandit walked past and playfully rubbed her raccoon tail against him as she walked by. He turned to look at her, but she otherwise ignored him and proceeded to a different part of the Guild hall.
In truth, Bandit thought it was a bit of a mistake for her to try to become his target as she was instructed. She’d much prefer to simply keep an eye on him from afar and wait for him to do something self-incriminating. Perhaps Thaw was just testing Bandit, but this assigned method seemed unnecessarily risky. Perhaps her target was totally guilty but just didn’t see her as prey. Perhaps he was guilty but became suspicious of Bandit obviously trying to get his attention. Perhaps he was innocent and would ignore her, tipping her off to nothing. Heck, perhaps he was innocent and he would pursue her, innocently. Then what would Bandit do?
She had decided not to ask Thaw that question because she’d inevitably get the response, “Knee him in the balls.”
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Vera seemed to be taking the day off so DM took advantage of the extra time to work on the dungeon. It was kind of hard to concentrate on anything too deeply because he constantly felt the need to cycle his mind through all the infected people on his list. He did the best he could.
One at a time, he designed and implemented new challenges into the dungeon. The first was a lever-based system. Throwing a lever in one room would unlock a door in a different room. After setting up a few of these simple puzzles throughout the dungeon, he started adding a timer as well. He found if he made the timer too strict, the dungeon wouldn’t accept the design. Still, he was pretty sure that most adventurers would be unable to proceed past his timed puzzles if he made them sufficiently challenging.
Of course, for now his goal was to provide training and experience to adventurers, not to stop them entirely from proceeding through most of the levels. There was no reason for him to make the route overly challenging at this point. He could always up the difficulty if he was expecting threatening visitors.
DM had considered using a key system as well. For example, in order to open a door in one room, you need to retrieve the key carried by a monster in a different room, or even on a different floor. Although this mechanic was obviously used in videogames on many occasions, it didn’t seem to offer much benefit over the lever system. Placing the lever in a room guarded by a particular monster had the same effect, more or less. Also, keys were annoying to manage because DM need to ensure they were set to respawn eventually after a party grabbed them, and vanished if the party tried to extract them from the dungeon.
Recycling an old idea, DM set a few locked doors to only open if the magical riddle was correctly solved. Unlike his first application weeks past, he made the puzzles more appropriate for adventurers. The questions included trivia about monsters, magical abilities, and equipment such as weapons and armor. Eventually, when he gained better control over the quality of loot, he hoped to create optional side-rooms that contained the best treasure but were the most difficult to access, such as by asking the most challenging riddles.
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His next idea was to include puzzles involving moveable boxes. For example, in order to reach a ledge, the party would need to move a wooden crate to a certain spot and stand on it. However, the crate was too heavy to lift, as enforced by the dungeon’s system. Of course, the party could not just slide the crate directly to the desired location. A rectangular ditch blocked the path. However, the adventurers could slide other crates into the ditch, filling it and creating a level path across to slide the final crate. DM found himself having a lot of fun trying to design increasingly complicated puzzles like this.
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The Guild posted a general request for various people to join a short expedition into the nearby forest to gather herbs and fight off any animals or monsters that got in the way. Since the danger level of the area was low, parties were not required. It was an opportunity for adventurers either without a party or temporarily separated from their party to make a living and maybe earn a bit of combat experience. Bandit and Lupy both accepted the request along with a smattering of other solo adventurers.
For this mission, a Guild clerk led the way. As Bandit and Lupy walked alongside the others, Bandit noticed that her target was also among those that accepted the request. She wasn’t sure if he accepted to keep an eye on her, or simply because he was looking for work. If Lupy stuck too close to her, it could get in the way of her mission.
Bandit uttered under her breath, “Lupy, because of my mission, we need to stay apart today.”
Lupy pouted, feeling once again like she was being excluded but she didn’t argue. Deep down, she knew Bandit was telling the truth and only wanted them to keep apart because it was necessary for Bandit’s job. Bandit suggested she try to strike up a conversation or otherwise be friendly with other members of the group. Lupy didn’t seem terribly keen on the idea but didn’t object.
Lupy soon found herself flanked by two guys both eager to learn more about her and specifically her weapon choice. They were fascinated by how she chose to fight by dual-wielding axes. That was something Lupy actually liked talking about so she ended up enjoying the rest of the walk to their destination.
The rest of the group generally bunched up for conversations as they transited the fields surrounding the Twin Cities. Having sent Lupy away to talk with others, Bandit got approached a couple of times as well. The first was by another female adventurer who was trying to get more experience while the rest of her party was taking a break from the Guild to do various other things. Although Bandit wasn’t necessarily impolite, she quickly finished her conversation with the other adventurer and separated. The second person to approach Bandit ended up being her target.
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While Kat was training at the Church, she brought up a topic that had been on her mind lately. She knew the Church was violently opposed to necromancy but wasn’t sure why. DM didn’t seem to object when Shiba started studying such magic under that weird man, so Kat assumed necromancy, at least in the case of animals like rats, wasn’t a bad thing. Still, she was smart enough to know she needed to ask about this topic delicately.
Despite her best effort to hedge with her wording and imply that she thinks necromancy is quite gross, and her message that she just wants to know a bit more to avoid missteps in the future, she received an earful. Not only was necromancy a dangerous art that should be avoided at all cost, but any Church-goer would severely regret providing a necromancer the time of day, or so Kat was told. Kat asked around to multiple people but received very similar responses.
DM had noticed these conversations and found them interesting. It seemed like most of the responses were knee-jerk reactions to the question while having absolutely no idea what the principle was behind why they were to oppose necromancy. It was like someone smart years ago actually understood what the real problem was with necromancy, planted the seeds in the Church that necromancy was awful, but never bothered to include in his or her explanations the actual reason why. Thus, the reasoning surely died with him or her.
In retrospect, such cases were not uncommon on Earth either. Often, the layman knew that something was a bad idea but didn’t know the actual reason why. Only experts, or people who took the time to perform a detailed internet search, would come to understand the basis for the conventional wisdom. In this world, wikis weren’t a thing, and the only experts on necromancy were actually necromancers who presumably were not members of the Church or consulting on its behalf.
DM suspected that Kat and Shiba, if they worked together and pooled their knowledge of the Church and necromancy, could come up with some new and interesting ideas, or even spells. It was probably extremely rare for someone well versed in the Church and someone well versed in necromancy to collaborate. Then again, Kat and Shiba had trouble working together on anything. DM wondered if it was just their personalities and history, or if it was because one was a cat-girl and the other was a dog-girl.
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Daphne’s party arrived at the capital and reported straight to the Guild. Alenia advised Daphne to search for good requests while the three older elves stepped up to the counter. With Daphne’s sensitive hearing, she picked up some of the conversation.
Apparently, Alenia and her friends were registered with the Guild but hadn’t been active in a long time. The clerk was visibly shocked when she verified the elves’ identities in the Guild’s records. From Alenia, Daphne overheard the words ‘short break’ and ‘once in a while.’ From the clerk, she heard words shouted loudly enough that elf ears were not even required: “You call forty years a short break!?”
The last thing Daphne could make out was Alenia responding that the three were getting a bit stir crazy and were looking to get out and have some fun. Daphne didn’t know exactly what Alenia meant but knew it wasn’t anything good.