CHAPTER 64: My first dungeon dive
The next morning, we entered the guild for the first time. I couldn’t but wonder at the difference of that building to the Shimmerstal branch. Obon’s guild, a large unpretentious wooden building, situated a few hundred meters away on the western side of town, all on its own. It consisted of two halves along its length. One half consisted of three parts: the main hall with tables for a dining area, the reception with three administrators and the main upstairs office for the guild director and a meeting room. The other full half of the building consisted of a large rentable undercover training hall where adventurers could train in private or hold public sparring events as there was enough seating for spectators. It also seconded as a public hall for general town events, not that there were many.
We sat in the meeting room waiting for our dungeon induction instructor to turn up. Imagine my surprise when our teacher for the day turned out to be none other than Olivia.
“Olivia…what are you doing here?”
“Hello Hana, hi Mr. Karosaki. I’ve been transferred to Obon’s guild. I’ll be your teacher for today, and I’ll be your guild administrator going forward.”
“Really? How on earth did you get here?”
I mean it was a monster infested forest out there. I couldn’t imagine for a moment that Olivia casually rode over here on her own.
“I came over with Grenfell and Karato, they were so good to me along the way. It was very exciting.”
Hana and I looked at Karato, who suddenly found something interesting to look at on the log wall.
“Oh, did I forget to mention Olivia came with us?”
“Yeah, you did. Just how many people came with you?”
“There’s no one else.”
I wondered about that.
“Were you transferred here because of us?”
Obviously, I felt surprised that the guild would be willing to let staff travel on such a dangerous road, and all for me. Besides, they totally uprooted Olivia’s life. All her friends, family or fluffy pets stayed behind in Shimmerstal.
“I’ll be straight forward with you Mr. Karosaki. I asked for this position. Both the guild and I realised your potential, but we also understood how naïve you are, and how easily you seemed to find trouble. My being here is our attempt to help you.”
“I’m not sure if I should be honoured or not. Do you usually do all that for guild members?”
“Oh no.”
She vigorously shook her head.
“Shane, you’re the first. The king feels he would like to improve this kingdom’s relationship with you, and he asked the guild to help you. He couldn’t force the guild, but let’s say they had mutually similar goals.”
Karato interjected. How earth shattering to think King Leopold felt I was worth the effort of bringing both Karato and Olivia to Obon.
“Is that why you’re here?”
I asked Karato, but he just laughed.
“Ha, ha, ha. Don’t get too full of yourself son. I’ve other interests here too.”
I picked up on the slight reproof. Hana leaned closer and whispered a suggestion to me that made me smile.
“So, Olivia. In that case I only have two requests. Could you please call me Shane, after all we’re going to be working closer in future?”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“And secondly, have you been to the dungeon before?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Then come with us and think of it as a learning opportunity.”
At first she seemed uncertain about it. I wasn’t sure what arrangements she made with Obon’s guild. Something deep inside me said having a guild official with me would smooth a lot of difficult situations. Also, I felt Olivia was looking for a little excitement in her life. Karato just shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t have an opinion on it. Olivia sighed,
“I think I’ve no issue with that. But I’ll need to speak to the Guild Master about it first.”
I left it at that, there was no point going further with the discussion. Karato coughed.
“Then let’s leave it to Olivia to continue with the lesson.”
We learned from Olivia what to expect from each of the different dungeon levels, the types of monsters and the ways of defeating them. Although we didn’t get to do any hands-on experience, we learned a lot about the dynamics of the dungeon. I think the training session was an attempt to stop needless deaths because from day one, they drilled into us that attacking the fifth-level boss wasn’t an option. As far as the guild were concerned the dungeon stopped at the fourth floor. They believed that there were at least fifteen floors in the dungeon, but no one could confirm that.
There was a basic listing of monsters. She first introduced us to the ‘humble’ dungeon rabbit. The thought that cute bouncy balls of fluff like those from the forest could be lethal, surprised me. I shouldn’t have been amazed because how many web novels showed the same. From my lessons, I discovered they could be quite vicious if they got close enough to make a hit. To encourage the point, they dragged a stuffed dungeon rabbit into the room as a demonstration. Immediately apparent was that its fluffiness stopped at its feet. A kick from one of those two lower legs could send someone reeling, and their sharp claws do far worse. Attacking in larger numbers wasn’t beneath them, especially on weaker opponents. Going up the monster strength hierarchy, the next monsters were goblins, some worm like creature and others of various forms and sizes.
When I asked if the monsters respawned, they looked puzzled for a moment.
“What’s respawning?”
Everyone looked at me.
“Um, forget it. How do the monsters recover their numbers, after all, if you culled them enough, they would go extinct, no?”
“Ah, we’re getting to that. They seem to have access to parts of the dungeon we haven’t discovered yet and even if their number dwindled, they simply disappear for a short while and return with more numbers. Believe me, the guild has tried to discover where they come from without success.”
That certainly sounded like spawning to me but that was a big assumption. Nothing I experienced in Aryonne up to then backed up my theory. The insipid truth was that the monsters probably kept their breeding places well hidden from humans.
At the end of the day, there was that last point repeated to us again. No one returned after going into the large metal doors at the beginning of the fifth level. The monster protecting that level, called Bladetooth, killed over a thousand adventurers over hundreds of moon cycles. Logic dictated that since no one returned, it meant strength, stealth, speed, or intelligence couldn’t dispatch Bladetooth. Either there were outside circumstances that were beyond the abilities of good adventurers to overcome or Bladetooth carried an ability far beyond what they could handle. Subsequently the subjugation reward for killing Bladetooth, was 150 large gold. I unconsciously salivated at the thought of what I could do with all that money. I was determined the reward would be mine one day, but first, I needed to get physically stronger, improving my stamina while working on my skills.
After we finished our lesson around lunchtime and seeing that Olivia was now representing me at Obon’s guild, I decided to ask her about sorting out the skinning and culling of the monsters I collected on the marsh iron quest.
“Firstly, I must assume Mr. Karo…ah apologies, Shane, that you have a means to store those animals? Otherwise, they would probably be far past their usefulness date, well rotten by now. Both the fur and the meat will be next to useless.”
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“Hasn’t Karato explained anything to you yet?”
I asked. He feigned mock surprise.
“What, I’ve never said anything to her. What are you talking about?”
“Yeah, just like those goof balls that kept spying on me in Shimmerstal. I bet you know nothing about that either?”
No doubt the palace sent their spies to keep an eye on me. Ever since the palace got wind of my skills, their operatives were hanging around me like flies around a turd. Ara could sniff them out, no matter what disguise or hiding place they used. We could literally tell which operative it was because the same guys kept using different disguises. I didn’t want to say anything about it at the time, the last thing I needed was to upset the palace and if they wanted to look, well I was happy to let them look. It wouldn’t be more than Karato has probably already related to them. I didn’t count them as being stupid. For all I knew, they already suspected I came from another world. As if my keeping that information from them would change anything.
“I know nothing about goof balls.”
Okay, I’ll let him play innocent then.
“Well in that case, come to the back of the guild, I’ll show you how I store them. I only ask on your word that you would not mention this to others. I won’t ask you to sign any non-disclosure agreements, just give me your word that whatever you see now will stay with you.”
Olivia was about to get a lesson she didn’t expect.
“Very well, I agree.”
“You might as well join us Karato. The same goes for you though.”
But he didn’t answer for some reason. He seemed conflicted about something. I sighed; I knew what was going on.
“You can tell His Majesty, after all, by now he probably knows about my skills anyway.”
He smiled before saying,
“You are far wiser than you look, Mr. Karosaki.”
I thought as much. He was just being a pain in the ass for me exposing his charade.
“Yeah, and stuff you too Karato. Luckily, I like you.”
He just laughed.
Outside the guild I realised there were no attached slaughtering facilities. That bothered me. I guess that slaughtering of monsters must happen near the dungeon perhaps. There were no people outside the guild, so I opened a transfer storage and allowed one large Direwolf to fall out with a thud onto the ground.
“What the?”
A duet of voices sounded behind me as both Karato and Olivia loudly exclaimed.
“Yeah, it had that effect on me too.”
Hana said nonchalantly, recalling her first surprise at seeing my belt popping out of a black circle in the bedroom. Karato made an educated observation.
“That wasn’t a normal storage ring.”
“You’re correct. This storage works differently, although I’m surprised you know the difference, which means you’ve already seen a storage ring in action.”
I said looking at the ring on Karato’s finger. He looked stumped. It wasn’t often that I could throw Karato off his game. That ring he wore always made me wonder, especially since it looked so similar to the one I originally found above the portico gate. Like the good swordsman he was, he parried my comment well with a question.
“What would you like to do with that wolf?”
“I want the subjugation rewards and the fur. I’m not sure if the meat is worth anything, but I’ll donate it if it’s worth something to someone.”
“Oh no, please don’t do that.”
Olivia interjected.
“Why not?”
“Please don’t misunderstand me, it’s not a rebuff against your philanthropist spirit, but your actions might do more damage than good. Think about it; commerce is delicate in Obon and it wouldn’t take much to break it. Throwing free things around like confetti will irreparably undermine it. For the trader, there will be no benefit. It will limit his earnings to the point that staying in Obon will be pointless. To the common person your food will provide temporary reprieve until the food they normally received is no longer there because the trader has left.”
“You’re right, I never thought of it that way. Talking of which, where exactly is the slaughterhouse?”
“There isn’t one.”
“Then how are monster parts and meat processed?”
“From what I’ve heard, everything is processed at a designated area just outside the dungeon. There are no facilities, only an open area. Monsters and wild animals sort out any leftovers so there’s no health risk unless you hang around there long enough to be considered a part of the offal menu.”
Sheesh, that was something I never considered. Perhaps soon I could create a processing plant there, a slaughterhouse, and a tannery. Come to think of it, I had numerous ideas but the problem I felt was the absence of any plan. A serious drawback for someone like me who appreciated the value of mechanical modelling as a planning tool. That day I decided to work on my plan for Obon, with or without the mayor’s planning consent. It seemed there was no one that could skin my wolf, not that there weren’t enough skilled people, there were just no facilities to make it easier to process. I was forced to store the Direwolf until I could find a way to process it.
As I lay in bed that night, ruminating about things, Ara created a 3D model in my heads-up display for me of what I considered a good town design. For growth, one needed flexibility. I liked the modern concept of modularity, but not at the expense of aesthetics. After all, as dustily remote as Obon was, it had its own latent talent and artistic ability. Then there were the basic services that needed to be supplied and the large processing facilities for dealing with large volumes of water supply and waste. What about heat? There wasn’t a tree for miles around. It was something I would work on for a while still.
I wondered if it was my imagination, but I felt Ara was more accommodating those days. Ever since I relied on her to help Hana and I out of a couple of serious situations, she seemed to have mellowed out somewhat.
I didn’t feel like making the area a forest again would gain a lot of benefit, although it would be nice to have it back again. Perhaps a middle ground, a fusion of sorts. The elves were onto it with their tree cities idea, but the plumbing would be a nightmare. That gave me another idea for my 3D model.
That happened a few times that evening.
The next morning, about an hour’s brisk walk from town we finally stood with Karato and Olivia in front of the dungeon. Every morning at first light, a cart carrying adventurers left the adventurer guild, heading for the dungeon. Getting up that early everyday was going to be a challenge for me. Olivia was dressed in very tidy looking adventurer gear, like a British lady on a nineteenth century African safari. At the mouth of the dungeon Karato gave us a quick introductory speech.
“Dungeon monsters are not like your adorable, cuddly forest types. Here they love nothing better than to crush you into the ground, rip your appendages off and leave a blood stain in the dust after they’ve eaten you. If they can’t kill you with a blade, arrow, or rock, they’ll use their teeth, claws, and feet. I believe practical application is the best teacher. I can stand here, boring you to death with my speech. But when you’re facing creatures that are going to hurt you at all costs, they are ultimately the best teachers.”
With such a heart-warming speech for us beginners I suddenly remembered that I neglected to write a will. Not that there was much for me to leave to someone else. And who exactly would I put in that will anyhow? Probably Hana.
“You needn’t look so worried. I’ll be with you the whole way.”
“Will you protect us?”
“Goodness no. I think you’re good enough to do that yourself.”
“Then are you just tagging along for the laughs?”