The next morning, the three got up early to head out to the adventurer’s guild, Jade mirroring the siblings’ tired looks. Having their sleep interrupted and then fighting a giant monster in the middle of the night did not help matters. They quickly moved through their breakfast and headed out to the guild building, Jade feeling a tad nervous about how the discussion would go. He quickly took deep breaths to calm himself down, reassuring himself that it would go fine.
Once back in the guild master’s office, Jade realized he did not know the silver man’s name, thus not being sure how to greet the man. “Thank you for seeing us again… uh… Guild Master…?” he hesitantly greeted, getting a smile and chuckle out of the man.
“My name’s Janice, Sir Janice when we’re doing official business.”
“Sir Janice, then. We discussed everything, and we’ve decided to stay in town for the next few weeks so the guild can commission armor and weapons for me to make.” The guild master looked excited until Jade raised a hand for him to wait. “I’m going to need the guild to handle getting the materials, however, and it’s going to be limited to what armors and weapons I can make in a short amount of time. Wooden, copper, and tin weapons are the easiest to make, and will be more durable and protective than normal.”
Janice nodded at that, giving Jade a once over. “Makes sense. The way you all handled the Eye of Madness, I assume you all have armor crafted by Jade?” The party members nodded, letting Janice give a smaller grin. “Normally I’d look sideways at armor and weapons made of tin and copper, but considering how well your golden bow worked in the fight, I can attest to that item’s superiority to normal gold bows.”
After the initial agreement, Janice got into aspects of cost, Yondol and Amy taking over as both had more experience with selling goods and commissioning works. They did occasionally look to Jade to make sure everything was okay with him, which the mage appreciated. It took almost a half hour to draft and sign the agreement, Jade feeling happy that he could still move around freely, even if he was trapped in Ormand during the nights for the next few weeks.
#
Once they exited the guild building, the three headed over to the center square, though Amy made sure they lost a hanger on or two before they reached their destination. She reassured Jade that they were just the normal guild spies, and it would be no issue to disappear for most of the day and then come back to the inn in the evenings. They did, of course, stop by a clock smith to grab each of them a timepiece, Jade grinning widely as he put it in his inventory. Just like in Errant, that allowed him to ‘know’ what time it was whenever he wanted, though in the game, it was ‘known’ by being constantly displayed.
He then wondered how he might get the rest of the display items that were available in the game, Jade especially wanting the gps coordinates it could give him, as well as other information it could give on monsters he fought. I… honestly don’t remember where to get them though… He sighed at the thought, dismissing yet another quest before he could get started on it. I already have two missions, to establish the mushroom biome to make the Plinths work without the mirror, and to get the ultimate boots. No need to add another to my list.
With a flash of light, they departed the forested city, this time appearing in a gloomy cavern, the ceiling sitting just a dozen meters above the rooftops. It took some time for their eyes to adjust to the gloomy surroundings, but once they did, Jade couldn’t help but gape at the buildings surrounding them. Each one was a different color of the rainbow, the bricks practically glittering in the streetlights. Are those… gem bricks? he wondered, moving closer to one of the buildings. He had, of course, seen other players use them for construction, but he’d never had the time or patience to use them in his constructions. It took quite a while to farm the gem trees that could grow underground, making the gem bricks a slow process overall.
“This is so pretty!” Amy squealed, drawing more than a few eyes to their party. “Oh I wish we could use these in Candor. It would look so good next to the snow bricks.”
“Can you… make armor out of these?” That drew Jade up short, looking to Yondol in shocked interest.
“I couldn’t before… but I can see if I can try to make jewel weapons…” he muttered, shaking his head to get rid of the distractions. “Anyway, we need to see if there are any mushroom dungeons near to the city. I can reasonably get all the items I need from the chests that would spawn.” Both party members nodded at that, Amy moving to ask a random passerby if they knew where the local guild building was. Jade still found it odd that no one noticed their arrival, even with he large flash of light. Maybe it’s a perception filter…? He asked himself, briefly distracting himself with thoughts of Doctor Who. Man I miss TV…
After a few conversations, the three headed off to the adventurer’s guild and made their way to the front desk, finding all of the furniture having been made with what looked like volcanic glass. Good. I might even be able to get obsidian ore here.
“How can I help you?” the guild official cheerfully asked, his smile just a bit too wide for Jade’s tastes. Getting a map of the surrounding dungeon areas wasn’t too difficult after showing off their guild badges, the three soon heading out of the city and through the adjacent tunnels. The entire city was in what looked to be a circular dome of rock, obviously man-made to house the peculiar city. It was a short trip to the mushroom themed dungeon, Jade a little worried as they reached the glowing blue entrance.
“This one might be tougher than our previous forays into other dungeons,” he warned, Amy rolling her eyes at his comment.
“Considering this one is rated four skulls instead of the other ones, which were two, that’s obvious Jade.” She then carefully looked again at the mage, her expression softening. “Will the armor and weapons hold up?”
“You both are one tier down from where you can comfortably handle mushroom threats,” Jade admitted, tapping on the meteorite leggings he wore. “These are around the same tier as the dungeon, so it shouldn’t be too hard. But it may be more slow going than the other ones.” Both siblings nodded at that, Yondol putting his calm game face on as they stepped into the line for the dungeon, finding it to be rather short.
The party ahead of them in line gave the three weird looks, after all not everyone could afford the trinkets that made their armor invisible. The other party’s armor consisted of heavy steel and what looked to be hide armor, Jade smiling at the ‘normal looking’ armor. He might try buying a set of hide armor just to see how it would look different than the jacket and scarf combo he wore, but his various metallic armors would hold up better in his opinion. Don’t get overconfident, he chastised himself, knowing that with magic, armors could be reinforced or have other effects added to them. No need to shit on expert craftsmanship just because you have a cheat ability.
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Jade was happy when the other parties didn’t bother them, though he was left slightly confused. Once they entered the dungeon proper, he decided to ask the siblings, getting a rather unexpected response from Yondol.
“Well normally the only way down in the cavern layer is through many hoards of tough monsters. Even the locals who were born here have to be abnormally tough to survive as adventurers, and are usually trained by their parents to not take the dangers lightly.” Yondol gave Jade a small grin at his confused look. “Most of the powerful people in Indas, from what I’ve read, are families who’ve lived in the caverns ever since the settlement was made, passing down their gear to their children. Couple that with strong monsters, and anyone weak that makes it down here barely leaves the city proper.”
They soon made it to the first room of the dungeon, Jade giving Yondol a thankful smile as they all got ready to assault the monsters inside.
#
The monsters in the mushroom dungeon were, of course, way harder than the other dungeons, Yondol and Jade finding themselves having to do more dodging than hitting. As Jade had expected, the monsters were all variations of bug monsters with mushrooms growing out of them, mainly being giant beetles, flies, and other quick moving insects. The variation he was not expecting were the mushroom bats, though they worked the same way as the other monsters. Jade constantly thanked his newfound ability to use the potions directly from his inventory, though in between rooms, he wondered why it worked that way now. Asking Yondol turned out to be a good idea, as he had the exact answer Jade needed.
“Sometimes it takes a few days to a week for magic to settle in the body, making some abilities unavailable until it’s done settling.” That explains why the royal slime did not give me the boss bag. That part of his looting ability hadn’t been available yet.
Speaking of… Jade thought, pulling up his inventory as they waited for the group ahead of them to finish with the room. Clicking on the sack from the Eye of Madness he’d received the previous night, it opened, spilling both flesh and Cythralite ore into his inventory, some extra potions and money, which were helpful, and the key item from the bag, the Madness Shield. The shield would add a bit of defense to a player, while also allowing for a short dash every second or so. He immediately equipped it of course, needing the extra speed for the mushroom monsters.
Surprisingly, the sack also disgorged the pet item, the Grinning Eye. In Errant, it was just a pet item, but Jade was unsure of how it would act in the real world. “Hey guys?” he called out to get the siblings’ attention, both turning to look at him. “Just looked at the loot from the eye and…” He moved the Grinning Eye over to the pet slot in his inventory, the medium sized eye appearing in front of Jade with a flash similar to how the starling appeared. It was around the size of Jade’s head, perfectly spherical with tentacles hanging down from it. It’s blue pupil glanced at the three party members as it floated there before it gently flew over to land on Jade’s shoulder, mimicking the way the starling sat on Amy’s shoulder.
“That’s so gross…” Yondol muttered, Amy curiously looking over the pet. “Are you sure it’s not going to attack you?”
“I don’t think so. In the game I played, it was just a vanity item to look cool, so it’s not going to help in combat.” The siblings shrugged off the creature, which slightly confused the mage until Yondol explained.
“Summoners are common, so if people see it chilling on your shoulder and not attacking anyone, they’ll just assume it’s a familiar of sorts. With the news of us defeating the eye, they’re just going to assume that it was looted from it.” Jade nodded at that, having suspected his monster looting ability to be not that uncommon. The eye looked up at Jade, Jade getting the feeling of content from the pet. He wasn’t sure how he knew the eye felt that way, but he assumed it came from it being connected to his magic.
They soon ignored the pet in favor of fighting the monsters in the next room, the pet floating back to the hall to not get in the way. The last two chests they’d looted had been mostly duds so far, according to Jade, though Amy really liked having the option of throwing the Mushroom Boomerang they’d gotten from the one mushroom chest. The other chest had been gold, containing a rarely used health regeneration item that he quickly handed over to Yondol. The rest of the loot, considering it was random potions they didn’t need and money, they left alone, instead looting the rest of the items normally to get the gems from the gold chest, and the glowing mushrooms from the other chest.
They also looted the mushrooms that were growing on the sides of the walls, finding that the glowing blue moss-like substance that spread all along everything died as soon as it was taken from the walls, making it useless to try and collect. Besides, it was their only form of light, the walls constantly glowing and allowing them to see everything. After defeating the third room’s occupants, Jade looted the mushroom chest, grinning at what it offered. “Found them!” he called out, both Amy and Yondol coming over to see the seed bag Jade was holding. “Got around ten packs of them.”
“What do these do?” Yondol asked, Amy quickly looking away, presumably bored.
“They grow the mushroom moss you see around you,” Jade exclaimed, waving to the walls, floor and ceiling. “As long as it’s placed on rock, it’ll grow to overcome it, allowing for the creation of a glowing mushroom biome!”
“And how does that… help?” Yondol asked, still looking a bit confused.
“Well, the Plinths say they’re missing one to complete the set. And in the game I played, glowing mushroom biomes had one that you could teleport to. And since it’s not listed when I try to teleport…”
“We can try and make the final Plinth!” Amy excitedly yelled, drawing a smile from Jade and wide eyes from Yondol. “But… how would you even go about making one? I’ve never heard of the plinths being made before… just that they appeared. Also where are you going to put it?”
Jade frowned at the last question, looking off to the side with a bit of a blush. “I’m not sure. On both fronts. But I’m willing to try. Too bad there’s no Great Dungeon for me to plant it at. That’s what I usually did in game.” Looking back up from the seeds, Jade flinched at the siblings’ pale looks, neither one looking at Jade. “There is… isn’t there…”
“There was. The area has since been overgrown by the Daemon and Scarlet infestations.” As soon as Yondol mentioned the two evil biomes, Jade’s mouth smashed into a hard line, having known from when he brought it up before that it was a sore topic for his party members. Feeling a burst of comfort from his pet, Jade took a deep breath and looked between the two. “Once we’re out of the dungeon, we need to talk…”
#
Mushroom Boomerang
21 Thrown Damage
5% Critical Strike Chance
Strong Knockback
Very Fast Speed
A boomerang that flies back to the user’s hand, empowered by mushrooms.
#
Gem Necklace
+25% Health Regeneration
A necklace made with the healing powers of a rubied gem.