Zoe stood a few steps to the side of the royal office entrance, out of the way of the rather frequent visitors coming in and out of the building. She watched the plethora of folk travelling up and down the road, relishing in the abundance of emotions that flooded the streets.
It was strange, to her. When she got her Vampyric Empathy so many years ago, it was overwhelming. The despair and lust and fears slammed into her like a freight train of negativity that destroyed her ability to think, to even walk sometimes.
But now that she was used to the skill and all of the emotions that came with it, it was almost pleasant sometimes. Even with all of the negativity, the angst and desperation that blanketed most of the cities she’d been to, it was comfortable.
These were the people, these were the emotions they felt. They all had their own lives, their own little things that made them tick. The little frustrations that they felt as they wandered down the streets, the flashes of anger and annoyance when people saw somebody they didn’t like. The sudden surge of anxiety some people felt when the guards poked their head into an alleyway, and the equal surge of peace others felt at the same gesture.
It was a city. She’d long since accepted that the emotions she felt couldn’t be controlled. She couldn’t feel somebody’s anger and fix it for them — half the time she’d come to realize their anger wasn’t even worth fixing. An older man furious at a young woman driving a cart for some reason or another, a child angry at a rock that bounced the wrong way when they kicked it down the road. Subtle anxieties that were washed away as soon as a person sat down in a chair, or a meeting in a restaurant was finished.
People felt so many things, for so many different reasons. Individually, they might not even be that much. To each specific person, that little flash of anger they felt might not even matter to them. The minor annoyance at having to step out of the way of a child kicking a rock in their path might not even be memorable to them. But to Zoe, it all slammed into her all at once. Every little tiny micro emotion people felt magnified as they mixed with one another, creating a glorious mass of emotions that Zoe was quite proud of for being able to understand as well as she could now.
The sun was high in the sky by the time Zoe realized how long she’d been loitering outside the royal office. She smiled and stretched out her arms as she rolled her shoulders. Two to four weeks until they’d contact her with some options to check out for her new home here in the capital. Even just the deposit was more than Zoe remembered Emma spending on her first home back in Flester several decades earlier, though.
Were people wealthier in the capital, or were homes just that much cheaper in Flester? Zoe wasn’t sure. The capital would be safer, she imagined. Even if the fire elemental that destroyed Flester attacked the capital, Zoe couldn’t see it even damaging a single building with the sheer number of high level guards wandering through the town. Some of them even reached over level three hundred, and the bright red colour that had been so incredibly rare until now was even somewhat common to see.
Did people just pay for that safety? Or did the people who lived here also make more money? Zoe shrugged, she’d find out in time. Maybe she could pick up some odd jobs again, wander through the city helping people out with whatever they needed.
Zoe made her way back towards the inn she’d been staying at and sat down at the cold metal bar to order another of the sour drinks she had the previous night. An older man, maybe late forties walked over and poured her a drink. His hair was gray and thinning, and his face covered in sagging wrinkled skin.
“What’s there to do here?” Zoe asked him.
“Lots. What are you interested in?” The man asked.
“I dunno. Everything, really. Anything. Just fun, interesting things to do. Touristy things. Any dungeons around?” Zoe asked.
“Dungeons? Plenty. If you want to find some dungeons, I’d recommend you go visit the dungeoneering guild.” He said.
“Where’s that?" Zoe asked.
“The royal district.” He answered.
“Like, with the royal office?" Zoe asked.
“Yeah. They’ve got a bunch of resources there if you’re interested in finding something to do.” He said.
Zoe sighed. “Of course. Duh. I should’ve thought of that. I was just at the royal office applying for rent. Should’ve checked out the rest of the place too. Thanks a bunch.”
“No problem.” The man said.
Zoe downed the rest of her drink, feeling her cheeks pucker at the sourness as she bit into the small fruit and then ran out the door. She walked down the road, past the pink library and all the way up to the royal office again. By now, the sun was already beginning to set, casting long shadows across the streets as the light tried to reach into the alleys and streets.
All of the other buildings were labelled similar to the royal office, with embossed golden lettering above their entrances. Zoe mentally kicked herself for not thinking to just wander around and see what other resources might have been available to her.
She’d gotten so used to just asking locals for directions that the idea of government resources available to her as a tourist just to find something interesting to do hadn’t even crossed her mind.
Zoe wandered through the royal district for a bit, checking out all of the buildings. There was the royal office, of course. But the rest of the buildings seemed to be various guilds for different activities. A fisher’s guild, an athlete’s guild, a smith’s guild, an alchemist’s guild.
The district itself was much smaller than the rest of the districts she’d checked out — less like a district of its own and more like it was just dropped in place. The two districts that would have normally been there were still there, just behind the front facing royal buildings and with royal district sized bites taken out of them.
Did those districts get some other benefit for the royal district taking up some part of their homes? Or maybe the benefit was just being closer to the royal district. Did they argue over who got their homes torn down to build another royal district?
Finding the dungeoneering guild was quite simple — just walk down the one street that cut through the entire royal district until she found the white building denoted as the dungeoneering guild in large golden lettering.
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The layout inside was surprisingly similar to the royal office. The decorations differed, with some small changes in the style. The largest change was the glass walls at the back of the room instead being made from a dark wood, with shelves that held up dozens of different colours of potions, weapons and armour.
One of the workers sitting behind the long counter waved Zoe over, and she walked up. The woman smiled at Zoe as she approached. “Hi there, how can I help you today?"
“Hey, I heard you could help me with finding a nearby dungeon? I’m really just looking for something to do in town and thought it might be fun.” Zoe said.
“Sure thing, would you like to buy a map?” The woman asked.
“How much are they?” Zoe asked.
“Depends on which one you’re interested in. A simple map would be a silver, but for a full featured map we charge five gold each.” She answered.
“Uh, sure. I’ll buy a full featured map then, whatever that means.” Zoe said, summoning a gold star marked coin and placing it on the counter.
The woman reached below the counter and pulled out a large sheet of paper that she unfolded onto the desk to reveal a map of the city and surrounding forest. Littered throughout the map were different colour shapes. Squares, circles and stars in pink, yellow and blue with a couple of orange ones. The edges of the map curled up the small glass walls at the left and right of the little booth Zoe was at.
“These are all of the dungeons. Do you know how to read them?” She asked.
Zoe shook her head.
“Okay, well each of these little shapes is a different dungeon, and you can get a rough idea of what to expect from them by our labels. The shapes give you a rough idea of how difficult a dungeon will be. A star means that the boss of the dungeon will be under level one hundred. A circle means it will be between one hundred and two hundred. A square means it will be between two hundred and two hundred fifty. And these ones.” The woman pointed to a couple of trapezoidal shapes that Zoe missed on her first glance over the map. “Are over level two hundred fifty.”
“Next are the colours. Pink dungeons are ruin dungeons, Yellow are challenge dungeons, blue are lodestone dungeons and orange are for productive dungeons. Each of these shapes are enchanted, so if you have the identify skill you can use it to see some more specific information on them. Have you ever been to a dungeon here before? Do you have a dungeoneering license?” She asked.
Zoe identified one of the pink squares on the map as she shook her head.
[Injellar’s Sewers, 227 (magical) /20]
The woman nodded. “Then you’ll need to purchase a license before you visit any of them. A dungeoneering license costs you two gold for each level you have. For you, that will be three hundred and eighty one gold.”
Zoe grimaced, wishing she’d kept more of her dungeon rewards from her time at Flester’s Might. At the time, she just let whoever she was with keep most of the rewards, or handed them off to Joe or Emma so they could be more comfortable. Money just wasn’t a problem for her and her slow life back at Foizo. Racing around the world exploring the depths or travelling to the moon was free.
But living in the capital? More and more it was looking like a very expensive endeavour. With the two hundred she already spent on her deposit at the royal office, three hundred and eighty one gold was almost taking all of what she had left. Let alone the twenty gold she’d need to be paying every month to keep her place once she got it. And whatever fees they tacked on if she couldn’t make those payments.
Of course, the license came with the possibility of making more money through raiding the dungeons. But Zoe had little doubt that there would be some tax she’d have to pay on any rewards she took from the dungeons, or some exorbitant fee she’d have to pay to enter them.
Would she be able to make enough of a profit from it to sustain herself if she dumped that much money on it, right now? Maybe it would be better to take a few years, try and get her sixth class to see what she liked and then reset down to a lower level for a lower fee?
“What does the license get me?" Zoe asked.
“Access to our dungeons.” The woman answered.
“What other costs are there? If I get this license and go to a dungeon then clear it, am I taxed on the rewards I get? Is there an entrance fee? What’s the whole process look like. I’m sorry, I’m just new in town and trying to figure out how things work here.” Zoe asked.
“No it’s okay. I’m sorry, I should have been more clear. There is a fee to enter the dungeons, which you have to pay each time you clear the dungeon. It’s the last number when you identify one of the dungeons on your map. All monetary dungeon rewards are taxed at fifty percent, but any items you get as rewards are yours to keep.” The woman explained.
“Okay.” Zoe bit her lip and pointed at the dungeon she’d already identified. “So if I enter this dungeon, I have to pay twenty gold coins, as well as half of what I get as a reward, every time I clear the dungeon?"
“Correct, half of any monetary reward you get from the dungeon. You get to keep any items, tax free, though.” The woman answered.
Which meant that so long as the dungeon’s monetary reward was more than at least twice the fee to enter the dungeon, she’d be profiting. And with such a high level dungeon only costing twenty gold to enter, Zoe didn’t have much concern about that happening. It would be stupid to make it not profitable anyway, because then nobody would bother exploring the dungeons the royals clearly spent enormous amounts of time and money creating for their city.
“Okay,” Zoe said. “I’ll buy a license.”
“Wonderful.” The woman smiled and pulled out a stack of paperwork, explaining what each agreement meant.
Again it was repeating much the same as what Zoe had already agreed to, though with some dungeon specific bits added in. It all looked fine, but the most interesting part was that as a healer, Zoe was required to provide healing to anybody who asked for it within a dungeon. She signed the pages and handed them back to the woman, along with a very large pile of gold that was thankfully traded over through their storage items.
“Here you are then.” The woman said as she pulled up a translucent plastic looking card just a little bit larger than Zoe’s hand. “Please fill this with your mana and then you’re free to leave. You’ll need to show this at any dungeons you enter, so make sure to keep it on you.”
Zoe took the card and pushed what felt like several million mana into it over the course of several seconds, before the card took on a more solid blueish colour. She felt a small wave of curiosity wash over the woman which was quickly replaced with more of the same calmness.
“Then you’re all set! Don’t forget your map and please, have a wonderful day.” The woman said.
“Thank you very much.” Zoe stored the map and card away in her Storage skill and wandered out the door with a little more anxiety than she’d expected. Now, she didn’t even have a full year of rent stored away and she wasn’t interested in finding out what happened if she couldn’t pay. It was time to find a dungeon and make some money.