Milo scratches his head. “You’ve been in the business of magic far longer than I have Ivan. I don't have a fucking clue.”
Ivan squeezes his eyes shut, and rubs the bridge of his nose “I just wanted a peaceful time, in a pretty place, with lots of young naive adventurers, to teach. Why do I have to deal with the giant ball of floating mana?” He quickly opens his eyes again. “I guess I will post guards around it, keep you updated, and contact the kingdom? They probably send some damn research, like spatial mages, or the like. Don't tell anybody about this, It'll cause panic.”
I nod along. “Yeah, sounds good.”
Ivan reaches into his pocket, and has a crystal ball the size of a egg in his hand, which he lifts to his mouth, and starts calling in guards.
I turn, and leave up the stairs passing a couple guards going down, several powerful looking mages, as well as-
“Oh hey Milo! Makes sense you'd be clued in on this.” Luther stood at the front of a line of my party members, Harkon, Theo, Aeryn, and of course, himself. “Yeah, crazy right. Depending on what this is, it'll either make you incredibly rich, or kill everybody in hundreds of miles, and make this land barren for centuries. Like a dimensional bubble.” He shrugs and grins.
Milo, having heard this, turns pale. “Oh, noo.”
Luther laughs, and pats Milos shoulder, “don’t worry too much, there have only ever been two dimensional bubbles recorded, and both of them were due to multiple S rank or above individuals colliding, and literally tearing each other's souls apart.
This only slightly eased Milos fears.
DC
I smile, and ask Gairy. “Fifth floor! Ideas?!”
Gairy purses his lips. “Well… I mean… I dont know.”
“No! Tell me! Tell me!” I beg.
Gairy relents, “Oh, fine, you could make a goblin village for some of my kind to live.” He blinks innocently.
I shrug “ok.” I make this floor mimic the one I find in the mine, just a plain stone floor, but with a wooden palisade wall that stretches from wall to wall, forcing adventures to breach the wall to continue. I actually put secret passageways that I will only open for the goblins, for an underground floor, where I allow them to live as they please, as long as they supply me with a garrison of goblins up top. Specifically I only allow 20 Goblins on the walls, and they cant be above D-4, or below D. The living space for said goblins is nearly 360 feet in every direction, a forest underground. I use mana to make a fake sky for my Goblins. It's not the biggest, but in the future I'll make it bigger, huge, maybe even one day I'll get powerful enough to make it the size of a continent! When I had that thought I struggled. How would I do that?
“Gairy, How do dungeons get as big as they do? Won't they eventually run into other stuff?”
Gairy nods. “Yeah fair, when dungeons get about D rank, which you are actually nearing, they can start using spatial magic to make spaces bigger on the inside than on the outside.”
I smile. “So, I see. Thank you Gairy.” I quickly return my attention to the space
I fill it with some deer, and other flora, and fauna, and a drop a couple regular goblins down, As well as putting 20 goblins for the garrison at the top, and another 20 in the bottom, that way they cant alternate out, and at night they will go down to the floor, with their families. For the first couple years I'll just re-spawn them, when they die, but I hope that eventually they can supply them, themselves. I give them permission, and urge them to breed, which will give me more souls, and mana.
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I turn my attention back to the boss room for this floor. Gairy interrupts.
“Every five floors you need a power boss, a jump in difficulty. For this one, you could probably just use that Goblin snake, but make it longer, and more powerful. In fact doubl the length, and quantity of arms, wouldn't be unreasonable.”
I nod, and do just that. Doubling the length of the entire thing, and outfitting it, with more weapons, more spears, shields, and sword, as well as a crossbow, which it doesn't know how to reload, but it can fire once, and than when the adventurers leave, or he dies, ill reload for him.
I also decided to name him Serp. To be honest, he's a bit of a freak. But whatever.
Milo
Milo sits in line outside of a stall set up right outside the tower. The specific stall sells spectacular sandwiches which Milo is getting some, for Luther, and the gang.
“Hello.” Milo jumps as someone sneaks up to him. A man. Average in every way shape, and form, except for the knife, in his belt, the spool of string, and the subtle smell of roses coming off of him.
“Hi…” Milo responds questioningly.
“My name is Alistair! I'm here representing my guild, and wanted to talk to you about dungeon rights.”
I nod. “Ok, um, what is the guild name?”
“The dark knights… Super cool right?” He nods his head.
I smile, “ok, say 10% flat overall tax, anything you take out of the dungeon you can use free, but money is taxed, and if you sell anything that is taxed.”
He frowns. “No, I will settle for no more than 2% tax, and items sold, no tax.”
I gawk at him. “Then you may feel free to leave, OR accept 5% instead of 10 but with the same tax on sold gear.”
He glares. “Fine.”
I smile, and point him in the direction of the secretary Ivan made me hire. She's a skilled scribe, and makes mana contracts. She has a series of contacts pre-made, and pre-signed by me with that same rate.
I turn, and walk to the tower, before heading down, and finding the party chatting while sitting on the edge of the platform overlooking it, feet dangling over.
I toss each of them their sandwiches.
“I just got another offer made by a Guild.”
“Oh, weah” Luther says through a mouthful. “What Wuild?”
I glare. “Not while eating man… But they are called the dark knights.”
Harkon laughs. “Really? The church will not be happy.”
Milo frowns. “Why?”
Luther interjects, “they’re a bunch of dark mages, like necromancers, and hemomancers, and the like. While not illegal, or anything, you know how the church disapproves. But to be honest, most of them are pretty chill.”
“Somethings happening!” The B ranked fire mage appointed to guard this thing starts yelling as it starts rippling, and shimmering, and… Something steps through.
A young man, of average height wearing a black shirt, made from some strange material, that reads out, smashing pumpkins. He has pants on that seems to be made from some bluish rough material, and long knotted hair. He holds a wooden board between his hands, with wheels on it.
His eyes widen, and he turns, and dives back through what we now know is a portal, with gusto.
“Do we follow him!?” The fire mage asks. “Someone, go get fucking Ivan!”
A young man sprints by using air magic to speed his travel, and disappears up the stairs, shortly followed by Ivan, heading down. He jumps from the platform down to the bottom floor, where he guides a team of people to begin entering. He will lead, while the Pyromancer follows close behind, and of course a team of C-rank adventurers.
Ivan quickly steps into the portal followed by his team of mages.