Ally hums as she looks at a replay of the last group of the day. ‘Yeah those first rooms are just a loss. Though the biggest problem isn’t that. With the current situation outside they need the free meat and as long as they continue to try and go further things are fine. The problem is the vine room. Because the early rooms aren’t that dangerous, we aren’t getting much cruft off of them before things go sideways. If people started dying to the assassins, we would be fine but despite being randomized they are a trap which people have already figured out.’
Doyle’s core dims as he thinks, ‘Hmm, lets remove one of the assassin vines and replace it with a couple kobolds geared up for stealth. Even with adding two kobolds and gear I will still be up a hundred and change points to spend. The kobold room is tough so I think adding a touch more loot isn’t out of order.’
Ally nods, ‘true, we have a couple female kobolds there without any potential loot and none of them in that room can drop their greaves or mace yet. Set those two to drop them wouldn’t be out of place.’
Doyle makes the change and then looks at the leader's room. ‘More loot and goats for the leader as well. Her tunic and gauntlets would be nice. Can’t be too mean though so the two extra goats will only have the regular helmets instead of the spiked ones. Hell, add another goat to the kobold rooms as well, why not?’
Ally adds it all up and sighs, ‘We still have 115 points to spend before we hit the cap again. Though don’t forget the new kobolds in the vine room. They aren’t geared up yet.’
Doyle pulls up a picture of his kobolds, ‘They are already green so adding too much would make them less stealthy. Let’s throw a helmet on the both of them. Besides that I think they can have a dagger each and one of them can drop it as loot. That should leave us with… Huh, exactly enough points for one more goat. Let’s throw it in the entrance room. A little extra bit of threat at the start should help our profit margin.’
Ally scratches her head, ‘honestly, you couldn’t have planned it out better there. I was expecting us to end up with a few points to spare. Not that that would be a bad thing either. A little wiggle room can be nice.’
While the dungeon plots the adventurer plan. Outside around a campfire the ten founders have gathered and Ace is trying to get a handle on what tomorrow will bring. “So Ruby, tomorrow Doctor has decided you and a group will try and complete the dungeon?”
Ruby nods, “Or so he has told us. I already tapped in Jack and Sammy. Jan of course, yes I am talking about it”, and she glares at Jan, “will Never be a part of my team again. Luckily Doctor is already coming so we have a healer. I think that while any of you could join in on this and improve our odds. I want to bring in the Barrai’s since we need them to try and harvest some herbs anyway. They don’t claim any combat abilities but we all know they are lying.”
Ace nods, “I am glad you pulled together a team. It looks like a well rounded. A couple fighters, two magic users, and I know the Barrai’s and can safely say you're covered with rogues. Now the question is, do we want to keep other teams from going in before you?”
Doctor buts in at this point, “Let them enter, just stop letting them in about an hour before our slot. A dungeon is a living creature and I don’t want to enter what is basically its mouth before it has had breakfast. My guide mentioned they don’t need to kill to survive, but it is their best source. That we have had no deaths in the dungeon means it is on half rations just as much as we are. Until we get some dumb outsiders wanting to rush in uninformed, we need to be extra careful.”
Ace frowns, “humanity is in a bit of a situation at the moment so I want as few deaths as possible.”
Doctor laughs and slaps his knee. “Haha The human race hahaha isn’t in any danger. Ooh ha sigh, you might not have been informed in your tutorial but Earth isn’t the only place with humans. Now us Earth humans might not do so hot but knowing us we will manage to spread our genome around given half a chance.”
“On the upside if we manage to tough it out long enough then from my understanding we will have enough ways to mitigate further losses. Just getting a proper adventuring guild set up to allow a limited form of death insurance. Not the classic type but the insurance that in some cases of premature death you can be brought back. Sadly, not a fix for murder victims or even all dungeon based deaths.”
“It only insures against deaths not caused by sentient beings. Luckily most of the dungeon monsters don’t have a soul and the dungeon itself doesn’t count as the killer. Despite you know, ordering it to happen. Oh, and it doesn’t fix death by disease and old age so that’s the thing.”
Ace rubs the bridge of his nose, “and how difficult is it to set up such a guild?”
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Doctor shrugs, “We need the dungeon to grow to be five floors deep and have a boss. Once that happens whoever conquerors it first gets to be the local guild leader. I actually advise against any of you founders doing so because the main guild doesn’t allow their leaders to be a part of the local power structure.”
Ruby frowns, “that sounds a little easy for something so important. Also, how do you know about this when none of us, even the ones from your tutorial have heard of it?”
Rolling his eyes, Doctor scoffs, “Because none of you asked the right questions or got in good enough with your guides of course. The person in charge of me was also a more traditionally trained healer along with their magic training and so we got along quite well. With my past knowledge of how stuff like this worked I picked up a few choice tidbits of knowledge.”
“Oh and beating a dungeon boss is just the requirements for a new world and only works if there isn’t any nearby guilds set up already. The only reason I am so sure we can get it because there likely aren’t any other nearby dungeons. The system tries to space them out a bit at first as none of them will have naturally spawned yet.”
Ruby rolls her eyes, “not all of us got lucky enough to have a guide who fit us like a glove. Now do we have anything else to go over? I want a good night’s sleep. Going into a death trap tomorrow and all.”
Ace waves her off, “yeah, you’re fine to go. Doctor, you need to stick around as there are some concerns related to health and our current diet.” After that most of the group wanders off to and the night comes to a close.
Next day and the first group starts their dive. Doyle and Ally watches on with bated breath. With all their changes this group is the best chance to get a good chunk of energy for the next floor. Once someone notices what has happened and leave with the info others will be ready for it.
The extra goat in the first room however throws a bucket of water on their excitement as the group wisely leaves to report this finding. This turn of events is almost enough to delay the next team. That is, it would have if they weren’t a little too brash and decided to just push ahead. They even convinced the guard to let them in earlier though as the last group hadn’t actually done anything.
In fact, Doyle hadn’t even gotten around to spawning more goats in the entrance room so the group got a free ride there. The second room makes Doyle and Ally extra hopeful about this group being the ones to finally lose a man. Three goats versus six men should have been an easy fight. They still manage to win of course. No one who couldn’t win in those circumstances will have likely survived to this point.
Then it happens. The vine room finally delivers. Two of the men trip over the assassin vine. As the other four close in to bash it apart the guy farthest back gets jumped. Out of the shadows the two kobolds grab him. The guy yells in panic distracting the rest of the group. This pulls them away from the assassin vine fight. Seeing the savage kobolds being this early in the dungeon the group seems to decide as one that it was time to leave.
The three guys that are still unmolested grab the closest one wrapped up by the assassin vine and give a mighty tug. The trapped guy is free of the vine monster as it focuses on the other. Those four men turn towards the kobolds but it is already too late. At least that is what they assume when the spot the dagger stuck in the guy’s throat.
Under the attention of so many invaders the kobold without her dagger stuck in anything turns skittish and darts into the foliage. All alone the remaining kobold is soon bashed into the dirt. There isn’t anything suspenseful about it or the fight as a whole. With that done and the guy in the assassin vine also expired, they decide the last group wasn’t a bunch of cowards and follow their example.
Back in the dungeon Ally is doing a fist pump. ‘Boyah! We got them Doyle.’
‘Eh’, Doyle tilts to the side, ‘do they count? Any decent team would have done a lot better.’
Ally rolls her eyes, ‘well duh, but we still got two of them in one group. How are we doing with getting a second floor off of this?’
Doyle shakes his core at her question. ‘As if they could provide all that much. If it wasn’t for the pool needing specifically energy gathered from people, I would have filled the pool many times over by now. Plus why ask? I still have the count displayed on the wall over there.’
{52/2000}
‘See? Not that much. I even used half energy from my pool when respawning my creatures. When more of those founders come through, we will probably get more than that in the same amount of time.’
Ally shrugs, ‘sure. But that is a given as those guys and gals are probably the strongest people for hundreds of miles. About the only way someone would come out ahead of them is if they killed their whole starter town. Wait, now that I think about it there is probably one guy stronger around here. That ranger dude in the first group.’
Doyle shifts side to side, ‘You know what? I really just want a group who can fight my kobolds. No one has even gotten to my berry bushes! Those are supposed to be the prize for people who make it that far but can’t fight the kobolds. Of course now there are those two ladies in the vine room so they have little choice in whether they fight them.’
With a grin Ally laughs, ‘yeah, the last group found that out well enough. The goats didn’t even have a chance to join in. Maybe we should move them elsewhere?’
‘Hmm’, Doyle pokes the goats, ‘I want to leave one in there for now. Move another goat to the previous room with goats bringing it up to four of them. The remaining two I will use to bring the two two goat rooms up to three each. Though it almost makes me feel bad about that single goat room, it must be lonely.’
Ally nods, ‘now we just have to wait till the next group comes through.’ With the changes shocking those outside no one enters until noon.