As I suspected the new guys didn’t stay silent for long on the walk to camp. I ran over the basics of the world as we walked, stuff like how to open their inventory and “Character sheet”. As I explained everything, they started to trust me, but what really blew their mind was when Sarah and I showed them our magic. We had stopped in the fishing cave for a moment and decided it was the perfect place for a demonstration.
“There is a bit of magic in this world, but from what I’ve figured out, not many people can use it. That being said.” Sarah and I used our link to pull the energy into our hands and right as I finished speaking, turned it into fireballs that we let hover above our hands for effect. “We can help you get started in this world, and catch you up with what we know and what we plan to do. After we get the seal off the dungeon entrance you will be free to stay with our group or leave if you wish. Who’s in?” Everyone decided to join us, even if they were somewhat reluctant.
“So if this world is like a game, and you keep mentioning that we’re in a dungeon, where the fuck are all the monsters?” Said Muscles, whose name we found out on the walk here was Chad. Dude acted like a fucking walking sterotype.
“We killed all the hostile ones that we found, and then I took over the dungeons core.” I replied. “I can now control the creatures associated with the core and build stuff inside of the dungeon itself. Some stuff happened right before you guys showed up, and the core must have asked Tamani and Grathial to go back to camp. Can’t say I blame it, not sure you guys would have reacted any better waking up with goblins in the same room.”
“Goblins? Are you fucking serious?” Asked the blonde from before, who on the way here had introduced herself as Kimberly.
“Yeah I’m serious, when we took control of the Core they fell under our command. We currently have warriors to guard the camp, miners for gathering ore, and we also have the mages that helped us take over the camp.”
“Kind of like your own personal army?” Chad said, a thoughtful expression passing over his face.
“If you want to think of it that way, technically you’re not wrong. They are also my responsibility to take care of and keep alive. So in a senese, I am more a chief than their master.”
“And they just let you take over when you killed the rest of their tribe?” Asked a shorter, rotund guy that looked like he’d never been taught how to shave. I think he said his name was Melvin, I don’t remember, but he looked like a Melvin so it worked.
“The two mages were the ones who helped us take down the chieftain, and have been helping us build the tribe up again. I don’t think they would be doing all of this if they wanted to take us out. So now that I’ve had a chance to prepare you a bit, are you ready to go to camp where we can discuss this around a fire and a hot meal?” This got their attention and they all agreed, so we left the lake cave and walked the rest of the way to camp.
Their reaction to the camp was mixed. On one had a couple of them looked impressed at all of the tents and the large fire, while on the other, a couple looked disappointed, like they had been expecting something grander. Their eyes swept the cave, taking it all in, whispering to each other whenever they saw one of the goblins doing something.
It appeared that someone had set the goblins back to widening the other cave attached to the camp, because the warriors were carrying out stone to the core, and the miners were nowhere to be seen. “Was that your decision?” I asked the core.
“No that was Tamani and Grathials suggestion, I thought it to be a good one. That way we didn’t look like we were sitting around waiting.”
“Send my thanks to them.” I replied. Then to the others, “Welcome to the camp, I will be adding more tents so that you all will have a place to sleep, but until we can afford them, I will have some bedrolls bought and placed around the fire.”
“What do you mean bought? Is there a store or something?” Kimberly asked.
“No the dungeon core has access to a system in this world that we can exchange resources for things we might not be able to make. So I guess actually yes, but not in the traditional sense, it’s more like a vendor in a video game.”
“And how have you been getting this money to buy stuff if this dungeon is supposedly sealed?” Melvin asked.
“For a while we were turning in fish that the core was turning into points, but when that got to inefficient, we swapped to stone then stone blocks. We had discovered a vein of ore in one of the tunnels past where you had come in and were discussing how risky it would be to try and mine it, but we were interrupted by you guys arriving.”
“Why would there be a risk if you guys cleared the dungeon?” Asked the brunette girl, her voice quite. After searching my memory a bit I vaguely remember her saying her name was Kelsey. I swear, so many new people, I might have to make them where name tags or something.
“Well typically in games, dungeons have more than one floor and are surrounded by more monsters. This one only appeared to have one floor until we found more tunnels while we were mining. For all we know that tunnel could be safe or it could lead to more stuff that we might have to fight. It is better for us to assume that the tunnel is dangerous and be prepared than to be caught off guard.” She nodded my answer apparently sufficient enough. I then turned to Chad, “You look like you could handle yourself in a fight, would you be willing to help our warriors get stronger?”
“Why should I?” He asked, sneering.
“Because none of you have real combat experience and the goblins can help defend us until you do.” I said simply.
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“And what is stopping you from turning on us when you don’t need us?” He said.
Well at least he was smarter than he looked, “If I wanted you dead we could have killed you ten times over. If you don’t trust me, then think about this, you are all more useful alive and getting more powerful. To kill you would be to waste a resource we can’t afford to throw away.” It sounded cold but I don’t think that a flowery speech on human compassion and companionship would get to him.
He squinted at me as if trying to judge whether or not I was bullshiting him. He must have thought my answer to be good enough, because he looked around and snorted, “You don’t have what I would need, no weights, no benches, no track.”
I mentally pushed an image to the core on what the weights and benches back home looked like and had it set one of the crafters to work. As we continued talking, the steady noise of chisel on stone started in the background as the goblin started forming larger stones into discs of varying sizes.
“You can use the tunnels as a track, as for the weights, I’ll have my crafters work on some, as well as benches. We don’t have any metal yet, so they will have to be stone until we can afford to spare better materials.” I pointed at the workstation the crafter had started working at, and the new people turned, astonishment on their face as they saw when they saw him busily chipping away.
“But how?” One of them said, “You didn’t even say anything.”
“Like Kevin said earlier, I can communicate with the core in my head. In turn, the core can communicate with anything under its control.”
They must have thought it was a joke until now, because varying degrees of fear and respect crossed over their faces, probably not at me, but rather at the power I wield.
“Anything else you can talk to in your head?” Kimberly asked, her face a little pale.
“A goddess.” Kevin replied before I could.
There was a pause then the new people started to laugh. That was until the cave got a little brighter. I looked up and there was a glowing image of a sword a shield over my head. Their silence was almost immediate.
“Show off.” I shouted up at the cave’s ceiling. I heard a faint laugh fill the camp and blinked, that was the first time I had heard Cilendrial outside of my head. My party must have been just as startled as I was, because when I looked at them, they were all frozen, like a deer in the headlights. Any doubt they’d had about my dream, if they’d had any, probably gone.
I heard a couple nervous swallows from the new people as they looked back at me. They were all staring intently at me, Kimberly’s face had lost all color. I shrugged, “She said she’d give me and whoever sided with me help. She is why we were able to kill the old chief.” I didn’t mention that this was the first time she’d been heard outside of my head, or that her helping had been a huge miracle. No need to ruin whatever image I was building.
“So if we stay with you she’ll make us powerful?” Another person in the group asked, Shawn I think.
“As long as you stick with me and follow our code.”
“What code?” Chad asked, suspicious.
“Us. Ours. The innocent.” I said ticking them off on my fingers “We look out for each other and anyone who can’t look out for themselves. This includes you guys since you don’t yet have enough experience here to hold your own.”
“Are you saying I’m weak?” Chad asked, his voice rising.
I held up my hands, palms out, “If I thought you were weak, I wouldn’t have asked you to train our warriors. What I was saying is that you don’t have skills or levels from this world yet. Take Sarah as an example, she ran track back on earth, but here she can probably take you in a fight, especially if you count her magic into the equation. Once you get used to using a weapon and you get some skills, you’ll probably be one of our best fighters.” I chose my words carefully, making sure to mention how strong he was already, as well as how much the system could improve him.
He seemed like he was the type who liked having his ego stroked. I must have been right, because his anger faded and he looked satisfied. God he was going to be fun to deal with, but as long as he was on our side, it would probably be worth it. Probably.
“For now let me see what I can do for sleeping arrangements and food.” I said, then left to walk over to the core. “Could you get a couple of volunteers to go catch some fish for dinner?”
“Of course, Vincent. Anything else?”
“Yeah, how many points are we sitting on?”
“65.” The core replied shortly. I sighed, 35 more points and we could undo the seal, but with the decay rate on the material-to-points trade, who knew how long it would take. I shook my head.
“How much for enough tents to house the new group, same tents as ours.”
“Depends on if you are okay with them sharing tents. If so 45 points, if you want them to have their own tents, then it will be 90.” I sighed again, we didn’t have 90 points to spend, but I also didn’t want the new people to think I was treating them less fairly than the main group. I decided to compromise.
“Go ahead and buy the 3 tents and upgrade them. Some of us will just have to share.” I’d have the main party pair up tents wise, that way the new people having to share wouldn’t look so bad. Then again it didn’t matter, if they didn’t listen to me then… fuck. Why did I have to be the one making decisions. To offend, to not offend. To care, to not to care.
That left us with 20 points, only one fifth of the way to breaking the seal, and that was IF nothing else came up, which it was bound to. I pinched the bridge of my nose and turned my attention back to reality. I felt eyes on me and turned, the new people were staring at me. I saw Tamani and a couple others pass out of the cave in my peripheral. They kept staring. Then it dawned on me that the tents had just magically appeared and they had never seen anything like it before.
I cleared my throat, “There are barely enough beds to spare so we are all going to have to share a tent. Each one has two beds so it shouldn’t be to bad. When we get enough points we might be able to get everyone their own tent, but that might not happen until we can break the seal, since we have been delaying that for a while.” They all nodded slightly and I walked over to them.
“So you can just make things appear?” Chad asked.
“It’s part of that shop thing we talked about. I can make changes to our equipment, hire new goblins, sell extra resources. All sorts of stuff.”
“Wait your saying that you can just make goblins appear out of thin air, just buy paying these points?”
“Yeah, among other things.” I replied. We sat around the campfire for a time while we waited for Tamani and the other volunteers to return with dinner. We taught them about the interface as much as possible, helping each other fill in as many gaps in the details as we could.
After a while the volunteers got back with more than enough fish and we enjoyed a nice meal together, giving all the extra cooked fish to the core when we were all full We divvied up the tents for the night and all turned in, a rotating watch of warriors making sure the camp wasn’t attacked.