Looking over my notes from last night was rather interesting, the first half was fairly legible, but you could see where I drank too much, so much for gathering information.
I was left with two choices: I could do it again or not. Either way that was later tonight's question. I had nothing to do and Isiah had everything to do, this is the part where I go take a look around the place we're going to be spending a long time at but this hangover requests more immediate attention: My solution chosen, I threw myself back into bed and did as one should.
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Isiah was making good headway, I spent time learning about the dungeon, roaming about. He still had far more to make but we had enough to get started. Since he had his hands busy It was me learning his craft this time, which would surely be useful later since my Skeletons could do it for me as well. The eternal Skeleton conundrum, everlasting and all-encompassing apparently, granted we'll be hiring people to do this for us later, but then is not now.
For now, it's what we'll be doing, as it turns out if you have someone who's been doing this for years telling you how to do it makes things far easier. It'd be even better if he wasn't groggy all the time, damn hypocrite. Letting people drink themselves to death but when he pulls the trigger himself now he feels guilty? Not that I'm claiming to be a better man than him, I'm certainly not, I don't regret anything I've done, he'll just have to get over himself.
Either way we were getting close, with our first batch coming up soon introductions will be in order soon. Something I'd only considered until recently is how much we sell it for, if I get 20%, then they'd split it either 40/40 or 50/30. If we set a strict price with the mayor then we'll be able to ensure that he can't short us, if we give him twelve bottles all worth the same then there's simply no way to hide the missing gold.
As such that is the plan, but first that means getting our product ready in the 1st place, we want to do a 30% price markup from how much Isiah sold his vodka before for our new brew. We don't want it to be too expensive that it no longer appeals to the masses but we don't want to short ourselves either for our enhanced product.
That was all for another day though. Right now it must be made and then left to marinate in the bone zone. Until then I had even more time to kill, so I guess I'll think of a plan to start the 1st delve, the monsters go from 1-9 solo, so that's a marginal improvement. 4 treasure chests, 3 enemy types, simple main objective, bad quest.
The Red Grove entrance will transport you to an empty field filled with the Mist, from there you must navigate the empty field and locate a grove of trees, after that, you have to find a blue gem located inside a socket carved into a tree stump at random, then take it back to where you started to begin the boss battle.
you can find 1 treasure chest buried at a grave found at random in the woods. The next will be inside a derelict log cabin found by the upper right border of the grove. You can start the quest by taking the gem to the grave and burying it and waiting 24 hours before digging it back up which will turn it red.
Once you do, go to the boss as normal and kill a harder variant of the boss you'll complete the quest and the boss. No one does it since they need to churn out resources as fast as possible not wait around for an entire day to get 1 extra chest. It's worth noting the ghosts will leave you alone entirely once the gem changes red and if any are near when you start the fight they'll join you.
After a few days though of prodding and poking the jig was up and people stopped talking to me. I only got a little information on the enemies, it's bad for my health, but I can't help but be excited about it.
Some trees actively attempt to kill you, some large snakes don't take kindly to your living, and various spirits that aren't exactly enemies cause they'll ignore you so long as you don't touch them, but it still counts. As for the boss, I couldn't tell you, I never asked, and I don't want to know. The thought of defeating something I know nothing about is simply too intoxicating.
Is that stupid, yeah, but I'm not world-renowned for my intellect now am I?
When you enter the dungeon the only guarantee is that the grove will be somewhere within an hour's walk of where you started, it's a far slower dungeon than Mudtooths, which sounds like a nice change of pace. Things feel so chaotic but empty, yknow, nothing happens until everything happens, nothing to do or everything to do.
Either way, the more I thought of it the more I realized that this wasn't a dungeon you could really plan on, it's about 80% random. Everything is guaranteed to be there in the grove, but where? Good luck with that.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
So the best I can plan for is to be ready for every scenario. You can solve most of your problems with an old pressure cooker, melted sugar mixed with plastic, and lastly, some ethanol, throw in some duct tape and you have a recipe that gets the job done 90% of the time. Few words can compete with dumping napalm on someone's skull.
I'm sure Bandit can destroy anything I need it to but I don't want to rely on the demigod in my pocket all the time, what will I do if it's not in my pocket? Is it appropriate to call it, it, anyway? It's pretty much a copy of myself, actually, scratch that, I don't care.
Yeah, I don't think other than being ready there's not much I can do here.
Well so much for planning.
There wasn't much else to do so I let the dreams whisk me away, not before I took stock of all the things I'd need for tomorrow. Just as the dreams stole me away I checked my status.
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Name: Admatha Sullivan Marwood
Titles: Iron Will, Power Leveler, Idiot
Race: Homo Sapiens (Mutation x2)
Overall condition: Acceptable
lv 7, 48/300
Subclasses,
Locked (lv 15)
Locked (lv 25)
Locked (lv 35)
Main Class: Necromancer
Affinity: The Ancient
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stats
Body: 2.17, 2.17/30 x0%
Toughness: 7.44, 4.96/10 x50% (Mutation x2)
Endurance: 4.21, 3.24/10 x30%
Fortitude: 4.32, 4.32/10 x0%
Mind: 8, 5/10 x60%
Will: 14.19, 8.87/10 x60%
Tolerance: 2.6, 5.20/10 -50% (Mutation x2)
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Skills:
Inform, lv MAX: Activate to reveal an item's info card or yours if you so desire, items must not be currently be possessed by a living creature.
Animate Dead, lv 0: Animate a fallen humanoid corpse/complete skeleton as a minion, costs 35/15 mana, casts in 0.5 seconds.
Boneworks, lv 3: skeletal minions, remain till they fall, as knowledgable as you under most circumstances. Costs 35 mana, you've currently animated 5/5 skeletons.
Ossuary, lv 2: You may access a pocket dimension to store bones and skeletons, inserting things into the Ossuary takes 54 seconds, and withdrawing things takes 28 seconds. You may expend 10 mana to withdraw and insert 5x faster. you've currently stored 0/6 skeletons and 0/15 pounds of bone.
Fleshworks, lv 0: Fleshy minions, Rapidly decays after 24 hours, retains only the knowledge they had in life. Costs 15 mana, you've currently animated 0/3 zombies.
Unseen Whispers, lv MAX: No words need be spoken to command the damned.
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Iron Will: You awoke with a base will higher than 8, you're 35% more resistant to mind-altering magics and have an easier time seeing through illusions.
Idiot: At the wonderful lv of 1 you inflicted yourself with an almost deadly level of Mana Exhaustion, as a result, you can no longer suffer death from Mana Exhaustion. Consider it a failsafe for your own ineptitude Idiot.
Power Leveler: You've lv'd twice in the same info card, as a reward you gain +1 xp per kill.
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Status: Mana 39/39
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