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Bee was oddly quiet the next day as the group prepared for their first run of the day down in the dungeon. Molly noticed and spoke quietly to the girl. “You need to talk to me or your aunt before we go down there today. This is not a request.”

The girl looked up from where she was sitting on the couch at the healer and shook her head a bit. “I talked to Angel last night. I’m just nervous about screwing up again, and… I’m a little freaked out about getting hurt again.”

She stood up and seemed to shrug off her concerns. “But I want this. I want to be powerful, rich, and famous. I want to get my levels and this is the only real way to do it. I can deal with this, it’s my choice.”

Molly slowly grinned at the younger girl. "Okay, but tonight you, me, and some of my girlfriends are going out. You're going to get dressed up and there will be loud music and dancing. You need to do more than face danger every day."

That… was some good advice. Very good advice. And there are so many more fun things to do in this world. Organized sports, food, and drinks from all over a world, libraries of recorded shows, and games both for tables and motion screens.

If we had such things when me and Alelan had been young, with all of that to do and enjoy between dungeons, I think we could have lasted well into the Silver ranks.

Of course, they had such things here, but they didn't have the dungeons to get all that relaxation and fun for to prepare them to face the dangers and stress.

Still, I think they had the better deal. It made them soft, but their world allowed them to be soft.

In the first room, Bee used her new crossbow instead of using a spell on an easy encounter with a giant spider, a rat, a spiked kobold, three blue jays, and a carnivorous squirrel. She missed so badly that I wasn't even sure if she had been aiming for the rat or not.

Molly recovered the wooden bolt for her. “Tonight we go out and party, this weekend we go to a gun range for you to practice and try to get more bolts for that thing.” Iris gave a nod at that, “I’ll go with you two this weekend. If I ever need to shoot something with my revolver, it would be nice if I can hit something.”

Ernesto raised his hand, then dropped it. All the ladies looked at him making him squirm a bit. "I was going to offer to pay for a shotgun if someone could buy it for me. But I realized that could cause more problems than it was worth."

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That got me started on thinking about what sort of problems he meant, then realized he might be tempted to use a shotgun to solve the whole getting struck by his foster father problem. Which seemed a bit extreme, but Earth had put him in an awkward spot. He was old enough to be on his own, but his society was going to make him wait until was eighteen, even though he had a class.

At least he had a high copper rated skilled poisoner on his side. Whatever the roaches I had put under Alelan's command were dosing him with was hitting him just as he got home and leaving him too weak to do anything more than rush to the toilet several times before his nightly beers send him to sleep early.

The boy seemed a bit less dour at least, and the other children in his home, and his foster mother, seemed more energetic.

My wife, the Poison Angel.

As they prepared to hit the salt level again, Molly began pulling things out of her bag and setting them on the floor.

“Here you go Tark. One bottle of Shalimar perfume, still sealed, retail one hundred and fifty. One cut resistant glove, which you can easily use to make some leggings which would be very appreciated. One ridiculously overpriced Estee Lauder lipstick. One bottle of fancy expensive wine. All of which I can sell off at a rate of a few per week to bring in a few hundred dollars to pass around for expenses and fun money without bringing the Department of the Treasury sniffing around."

Iris turned from the offering to look down at the floor. "You can do the wine to Tark, I never like the stuff."

That got her a few curious looks and raised eyebrow from Molly before she brought out a small potion looking bottle filled with clear fluid. “This last one is more of a personal request Tark. This is Insulin and if you could make me about two dozen of these a week it could help a lot of people who are hurting, even dying."

The young woman looked angry, even bitter. I could guess the story, if Insulin was something people desperately needed, someone would figure out how to take advantage of them.

Molly shrugged. “Heck, if you could do a couple of dozen a day starting next week. I know people who can take care of putting it in the hands of those who need it.” She looked over at Iris. “Someone might look into this, but I doubt anyone will care enough to make an effort to do anything about it. Not on this small of a level.”

Iris nodded. “Yeah, do it. I don’t know much about it, but go ahead and keep a bunch of people from getting screwed.”

With that, Ernesto took a heavy hammer to the sliding stone panel under the top step and cracked it open the pull out the bottles of cooking oil. With Molly getting a thoughtful look and grabbing one for her bag.

Then, despite ruining the trap, the boy still checked the steps as he went down, and then took hold of the diving wall between the steps and the corridor heading for the next room and used it to get around the corner without touching the landing which had set off the trap the last time.

With an exchange of shrugs the three women did the same while Buttercup just walked around the wall on top of the platform.

The beast was too light to have set off a trap, but I’m sure he was doing it to mock the humans somehow.

In the salt room, they took out a package of tubes which they took hold of each and bent them with a snap before shaking them which made the insides begin softly glowing green. Tossing them about the salt mine let them see the Quick kobolds coming rather than having to try to catch them with their lights.

They still took a few cuts since they could come at them from most sides which let them get past Ernesto and Iris every now and then, but they finished off all five of the lizards relatively quickly.

After that, they had a short discussion about breaking open what they called the loot holes but decided to only go at them on the way out if they had the energy. Not wanting to get tired out just before a fight.

Everyone but Iris took the time to collect the green glowing sticks, but Envoy had already snuck in during the fight to steal one for me. They didn’t think to count the collected tubes so I got away with it without notice.

They looked down the next set of steps. Ernesto sighed as he read the sign out loud.

“The next trap.”