Skeletons were weak to bludgeoning damage so Lauri materialised Chitin Cracker Warhammer and moved to use it. [Cannot equip both weapons at once]. "What? Don't be stupid, System, I'm not even holding my chains." [Do you wish to remove weapon wielding rules. Please confirm?] "Yes. I didn't know that was a thing. Why doesn't everyone just remove them?" [Rule removed. Warning: Magical conjunction can occur between weapons not designed for dual wielding], [I am not sapient and this question is beyond my understanding. Would you like help?] "No."
To his frustration, Lauri's attacks were delayed by all this and he was forced to kite the enemies until the ghast was already in the lead. Still, now excited about this revelation he shifted the chains on his right arm around so it wouldn't be constricted. Quitting his kiting as he turned to the ghast, "let's have some fun." He threw one chain end at the ghast and as it was quickly snaking around Lauri was already pulling back on the back. The chains hadn't even finished wrapping themselves around the ghast as they constricted and by the time they'd finished the ghast was already restrained. "I'm starting to see why this is a Sealer weapon." With his left hand pulled to his side Lauri realised he couldn't swing the hammer properly. Even still, the ghast having its right arm unrestrained was bad enough, so he swung as best as he could as was. The hammer blow struck the ghasts left side and the chains rattled as the ghast fell and disappeared, [960 damage, killed ghast], [lost 960 HP]. The chains on Lauri's left smashed into him like he had been hit by a sledgehammer. "Ooph! Is this that magic conjunction thing? Or do the chains always work like this?"
With the skeletons arriving Lauri didn't have much time to ponder, so he toggled the chains to unequipped and swung at the horizontal line of skeletons. [1,920 damage], [1,680 damage], [1440 damage], [1,200 damage], [960 damage]. His single swing took out all five, with 10 coins falling to the ground. "Effective. If I didn't unequip the chains then who knows, maybe I'd be downed." He looked over to the zombies and judged them to be a good distance away, "Level Drain stock incoming." Rummaging through his bag while keeping distance, Lauri finds two things, the healing potions and the main purpose of belts. Lauri takes out 6 healing potions, putting 4 in his belt as he does so. Having an idea, he puts the 6th potion back in his bag. "Each heals 500 HP so I only need 1 if I first drop the current Drain Life." Game to try the idea he ends his only active one, [-3 Levels].
"Ouch," Lauri felt a little bite and looked at its source, which was Ladybug, [-1 Luck]. "Unequip pet! What just happened?" With kiting unnecessary at that moment he stopped to stare at the bug on his arm. Naturally it had nothing to say for itself. "This proves that pets do something but I was hoping you'd bring me good luck. Who knew that ladybugs could bring bad luck? Oh no, I had you equipped while too low level. Okay, that's my fault then, I won't hold it against you." He drank the healing potion and spent a couple minutes draining levels until he reached 6, then he headed to the next room.
Spotting the next ankheg Lauri hadn't even crossed the threshold as he swung, stepping forward and letting the weight of the hammer carry him around the corner. The hammer crushed the big bug before it could even attempt its surprise attack, [Crit, 3,840 damage. Ankheg killed]. "I bet you're placed here just to remind adventurers how scary ankhegs are. Ensuring that the next room is overwhelmingly scary. That's how I felt the first time so it works." Heading into the next room Lauri waved and all 42 ankhegs fell to sleep. With each swing of his hammer another crit and another ankheg died, the third only dropping 2 coins. "You're one of those stingy ones, hey?." Inspired to check the description of his Sleep skill he got an info dump and learnt that an enemy will wake up as soon as its attacked. "This would be so much harder if not for this hammer. Good thing I've got this hammer."
[You have a friend request from Rebecca Huston. Accept?]
"Yes."
He almost immediately received a message from her. ["Let's go kill Dungeon of Woes. Where are you?"]
["I'm in Tutorial Dungeon. Don't know where Woes is. Meet out front of here?"]
["30 minutes?"]
["Okay."]
Lauri finished clearing the room out and checked to see if the secret passage was still there. Walking through with a cringe he spotted the dungeon core, which he took to assume it hadn't understood him last time. "Hello again." Despite being ingrained inside the wall the gem spun left and right a few times. It looked like it was uncomfortable but since Lauri figured it didn't understand him anyway, he joked "I'm not going to hurt you... this time," then left the room and then dungeon. Seeing the man stationed out front he remembered Grey and thus remembered to be polite.
"I'm Lauri."
"I'm Peter. It's nice to meet you Lauri. You plan to come here a lot?"
"Yeah. How did you guess?"
"A few things. Unlike many, you haven't died or run crying. You're wearing a Necklace of Greed. A lot of coins drop from skeletons. Finally, you bothered to ask my name. All in all, you must be planning to farm this dungeon."
"Only until I get the skill-book I'm after. I still have time before Bec gets here, so I'll go in again please."
"Skill books don't drop that often. That's another 2 gold."
Paying Peter, he went back in and found himself on a different floor this time. Even being at the level 4 to 5 range this floor was far easier, with less powerful monsters and less monsters in each room. There was still a ghast, at least, but it dropped a 'Throwing Stone of Paralysis' instead of a skill-book. That run only took him 12 minutes so he went for a third and got yet another floor but the same results. Another stone and a handful of coins. He could see Rebecca riding over this time so said goodbye to Peter and mounted his bull, riding to meet her.
"Hello Rebecca."
"Lauri. I see you're level 1."
"Yep, took a book from your leaf. Didn't want those blood-levels."
"Fair enough. Wait, how did you know I'd used an Amnesia Potion?"
"How could I not, you're the one who introduced me to them and you're only level 16."
"But I'm young, you said so, so that level makes sense right?"
"I only just got System. Therefor my younger sister doesn't have hers yet. When I said you could be as young as my little sister it was clearly an overexaggerating. You're at least a year older than me or you'd have been in single digits. Also I'd have seen you at my ceremony."
"Maybe I wasn't wearing armour then?"
"At least 1 year so you must have used a Necklace of Greed, an Amnesia Potion or sat around most of the time. But I figured Amnesia Potion."
"What's a Necklace of Greed?"
"Get more coins and at max setting you gain no experience."
"Wish I'd known that. Then I wouldn't need you."
"Hah."
Arriving in front of Dungeon of Woe it appeared to be a stone rectangle with an open entryway and stairs leading deep into the ground. "My first dungeon that's not a portal type."
"Library isn't a portal type, it started as part of the academy."
"Oh yeah."
A man standing out front saw that Lauri was here for the first time and warned "this dungeon is sentient and can already hear us, so watch what you say."
"Aren't all dungeons sentient?"
The dungeons stone entrance glowed as it spoke with a slight echo, "I'm sapient. A step above."
"Also you want to carefully consider going in there. This dungeon will try to kill you."
"I'm Lauri by the way."
"The names Richard but call me Dick."
"My names Dungeon of Woe but you can call me Woe. If you find yourself dying slowly then try calling out 'oh Woe, oh Woe!' Who knows, maybe I'll pay attention to your pleas and kill you quickly."
"So... Dick, don't all dungeons try and kill adventurers?"
"The Tutorial Dungeon doesn't and there's lots of such examples."
Lauri scratched his chin. "Hmm. You've never been to its core, if you think that."
Woe laughs, "how is good old Tutorial?"
"He says..." and then Lauri jokingly swivelled his hand left and right to mimic the movement he'd seen the gem make.
"Tell him I say hello back. If you see him again. By which I mean if I fail to kill you."
Lauri was dumbstruck. The movement of his hand right now was indeed one of waving hello. Was he wrong about Tutorial Dungeon's lack of intelligence? Had it been saying hello back? Did he actually threaten good old Tutorial?
Richard looked towards Rebecca, "here to try and kill your Woes?"
"He's my white whale."
"Didn't you reach then end last time and return claiming there's no core?"
"Yeah but I was venting, there has to be a core. I just need to find it."
"Okay. Good luck in there."
Woe echoed ominously, "yes, good luck. I think you'll find there's been some changes to the final floor."
Once they'd already walked in Lauri realised that he hadn't paid. "What about the fee?"
"There's none."
"But then why did I need a horse or to travel far to reach an unmanaged dungeon and all that?"
"Your other assumptions aside, you're the one who ruled out Woe as your first dungeon. Also what's with your look?"
"Oh shoot, I need black leather armour. Can we go back?"
"Sure, we've barely entered."
Doubling back, Lauri found lots of armours in Market that would pair excellently with his Tank build idea but their profession restrictions ruled them out. Annoyed he tweaked the filters and located a 'save default filters,' ensuring it doesn't happen again. Thankfully he finds a good one, that doubles the value of shields he creates, but at 399,999 it's the most expensive... oh, with the filters removing those he can't afford and those with requirements he doesn't meet, he remembered that it's probably not actually the 'most' expensive. That left him with 211,491 so he purchased 18 Strength and 8 Agility potions, bringing him to 3,498 SP.
[Purchased 1x Sexy Leather of Showing Skin for 399,999SP]
[Purchased 18x Potions of Strength for 143,999SP]
[Purchased 8x Potions of Agility for 63,994SP]
Stolen novel; please report.
As soon as he equipped his armour Rebecca started laughing her head off. "That... sure does a good job protecting your shoulders."
"True. Good place to attach some chains."
"And if someone were to try and stab you in the heart, that ring holding together your X chest straps should stop a sword from going that deep."
"Yeah? You think it'll be effective?"
"No. I think that armour was designed for a women."
"It's marked as unisex but I would hope it looks different if a woman puts it on. Bare chests are find for men but..."
"But?"
"But some women may not like to bare their chests..."
"Damn right!"
Lauri had to buy some chain clips of the right size before he had everything looking the way he liked. "I'm leaving my arms free this time. Lessons learnt and all."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, the chains my weapon. I toss it and, well you'll see it in action soon."
"How do you toss chains with them clipped to you like that?"
Lauri had been fortunate to buy some special 'safety clips' he'd found, which would unclip with a good tug. Grabbing the chain and tugging it, the result wasn't what he'd actually expected, with a length of chain being drawn from the link he'd grabbed rather than the clip pulling free.
"Oh, fair enough. If only you were less chubby you might look hot like that."
With shopping done they walked down the stairs, Lauri drinking Agility potions, until Rebecca was blocked. "You'll need to Drain Level me."
"One moment", Lauri drank all his remaining Agility potions as well as a few for health and power before using Drain Level on her. [-3 Levels], [+3 Levels]
"Hacks!" Woe cried.
"What does that mean?"
"He's complaining that we're cheating," Rebeca laughed manically, "I'll hack you to death."
"Like, kill him with cheats or with a hacking motion?"
She readied her battle-axe, "both."
As they reached the entrance to first floor Lauri used Drain Level on Ladybug, [+2 Levels], then activated Protection Bubble. They both checked their status.
{
Class: Ritualist
Profession: Level:1
Effective Level: 6
HP: 3,000, SP: 3,720, PP: 1,976/2,400, MP: 17
Strength: (72)180/180, Toughness: 300, Agility: 162/180, Memory: 84/180, Reasoning: 48/180, Charisma: 186/180, Luck: -6/0, Destiny: 6/12
Skills: 5
}
Rebecca noticed something. "I'm weaker than either time I was actually level 13, you know."
"Yeah, I think the skills intended target is enemies, so, more bang for buck."
"How much does each usage cost?"
"It uses power. Effective cost for the first was 200 and effective cost this time was 74, I think, but that's with me estimating that shield cost 50."
"You don't need to tell me how nonsensical power expenditure is, I'm a Ritualist too."
"You didn't have to admit to being a grandma. Until now I'd assumed you're a Heavy."
"I'm not old! And I did pick Heavy. But I didn't know that Warrior wasn't the only Class that profession was available to. Then made leveling blunders because Heavy Ritualist apparently uses attributes differently than Heavy Warrior does. Meaning everyone's advice were wrong"
"Oh. Goddess picked your Class for you too?"
"Seems we're alike in that way."
"So they're different professions but with the same name?"
"Same profession, different application of System mumbo-jumbo. You ready?"
"Never. I'd rather just talk all day... Let's go."
Entering the room beyond the bottom of the stairs there were 4 minotaurs, each at level 15. Rebecca cautioned, "stay back you're still under-level for this dungeon." Lauri gave a thumbs up before he threw two chains towards the closer of the four. Those two were quickly bound and then their legs pulled together. As they toppled over Lauri pulled another two chains out and tossed them at those remaining, happy to discover that such worked. All 4 were restrained before Rebecca even got a swing in, "why was it again that nobody wants to be a Sealer anymore?"
He shrugs, "maybe because these chains, new, cost 40,000 SP, aren't on Market and being spoilt by a guild master is not a guarantee?"
"Fair." With a huge swing she took the first ones head off, hitting Lauri's chains in the process. Lauri winced at this but after he received no damage he said nothing as the rest were dispatched, most only dropping coins but one dropping a metal helmet. "Upgrade," Rebecca took off her helmet revealing herself to be around 20 years old, with red hair, a pale complexion and lots of freckles. Lauri didn't make out the colour of her eyes before she'd slid her new helmet on.
"Well, I had suspected you're a girl but this confirms it."
"Haaarr haaarr. Sure you don't want to wait until I strip down naked before it's confirmed?"
"If only we weren't inside of a deadly dungeon, I'd take you up on that in a heartbeat."
Woe teased "I can wait."
Lauri asked Rebecca "does this dungeon funnel monsters?"
"The opposite, the monsters respawn super quickly, so we need to keep moving."
"Hold up, wouldn't 4 bulls of Minos be max difficulty for a party of 6 adventurers at level 15?"
"Yeah but as a Heavy I can solo them easy."
"Are all the rooms at maximum difficulty?"
"Oh. This is just Woe's cruelty, you won't see any rooms like this again until floor 5. There's 10 floors total so let's keep moving."
"Now hang on, something's fishy here, let's think about this."
"Can we do that in literally any other room? With this being the most difficult room it's better to tarry literally anywhere else."
"I think that the dungeon core is here. Look for a secret passage."
The minotaurs appeared again but by repeating the team combo from before they're dispatched like they were weaklings. Lauri thinks he's found something and called out, "Bec, come have a look at this."
"What did you find?"
"There's a hidden passage here, look at this crack."
"Can't be a door, it's not straight and it follows the natural shape of the stone. It's just a natural crack."
"But why are all the walls of this dungeon so rough? In Tutorial the walls were smoothed."
"There's no reason for it, dungeons have different looks, that's normal."
"It can't slide up or down because of how is sort of zigzags but what about sliding backwards? Look for a similar crack to the left and I'll look right."
After a short bit of searching Rebecca found something, "there's a similar crack here."
"Okay, for the section in-between the two cracks, we should try and push it backwards."
The wall of the dungeon groaned as it slid backwards, as Lauri had guessed, but it led to a dead end. "What now?"
"It's an illusion. I feel it in my guy."
"What sort?"
"Hmm, the corridor turns to the right. The barrier might create an illusion of pain, trying to pass through."
"Excellent," she charged into the wall and bounced off, being knocked on her arse, "it wasn't an illusion!"
Lauri put his hand against the right wall, "it feels like a stone wall. Even when I push against it."
"Maybe that's because it's a stone wall."
Lauri's hand sinks into the stone, "it's not. I think the deception is that the first wall needed to be pushed, which creates an expectation, which is then subverted by this one. The illusion pushes against you equally as you pushing against it. You need accept that it's an illusion and ignore that fake force pushing back against you."
"That's nonsense."
"I'll see you in there," Lauri walked through the wall.
At the other side there's a small room with a 2 meter tall by 1 meter wide gem sitting in the centre. The gem lights up in proportion to its volume as it speaks. "Woe is me."
"Finding the core room right away. I guess I'm just lucky..." nothing happens. "I said, just lucky..."
"Am I supposed to say something to that?"
"How do I increase my Luck attribute?"
"How did you get in here?"
"I ignored the illusion."
"It wasn't an illusion."
"Then I don't know. Do you know the answer to mine?"
"No. Maybe ask the dungeon Misfortune and Horror. It has a luck theme. You have no intention of killing me."
"Is that a question?"
"I know because one of my nifty barriers many tricks is the more someone wants to kill me the harder it is to get through."
"That's a really cleaver defence. Is there a reason you can't just, you know, not have a secret passage?"
"Every dungeon who's core is completely sealed off explodes rather quickly, so the trick is to... have tricks."
"Huh... okay, I'm going to go ahead and kill you now." His hammer appeared in his hand.
"No no no, wait, can I at least ask why?"
"Why? I don't know."
Lauri stood there with his hammer in hand for a long while. The room seemed frozen still. Finally Lauri lifted him hammer again and draw it back for a build-up. "You're going to kill me when you don't want to? That doesn't make any sense."
"Huh? But I do want to kill you."
"Then how did you get in?"
"I didn't want to then. Now I do."
"What did I say?"
"It's not what you said. It's that I figured Bec was going to kill you but now it seems she's not coming so, well, since she can't I will."
"But why do you want to?"
"Umm. Well if I don't now then I'll never be able to. See, if I leave then I can't just decide I want to kill you and come back, I'd be locked out."
"You want to kill me just in case you want to kill me?"
"Hmm. Yeah."
"But I'm full of lots of really good loot and you need us to balance your energy as well as your worlds energy."
"Oh? I need to find out more about that."
With a swing of his hammer the large gem was shattered into hundreds of pieces and Lauri felt the change in atmosphere tingle the hairs on his skin. He turned to leave but something caught his eye and he turned back. Squatting down he saw that within the randomly shattered pieces, one of the shards had a nice shape to it. So uniform that he wondered if it was an item drop. Did dungeon cores drop items? He wasn't sure so he put it into his bag to check out what it was later.
Walking back out to Rebecca he announced "it's done."
"YES! Take that! I wanted to do it myself but this darn barrier!"
"Part of the trick to that is you need to not want to kill the dungeon. It uses that desire against you as part of its defence. Ohhh... the more it can make you want to kill it the more difficult it is for you to kill it. Huh."
"Then you didn't want to kill Woe?"
"Consider me indifferent. Wish I could have asked you a million questions, especially why you wanted to kill it so bad, but then I wouldn't have been able to get back in. You know, not if I then wanted to kill it."
"So you killed Woe anyway?"
"We're friends and you wanted it, so why not. All and all this trip has been far too quick and easy."
"Survivors Guild wasn't my first guild but it's the only guild that took me after Woe killed everyone else in my party and I got kicked out of my first guild. When I was struggling to try and escape from here Woe tormented me about their deaths and kept telling me that I'd die here alone. I'd almost escaped when the true, insidious, nature of the first room became clear. That room is for finishing off survivors, right when they have hope, on the cusp of escape."
"So is Survivors Guild for people who prioritise surviving or for people who survived a tragedy?"
"The type of people to survive a tragedy are those who are able to prioritise surviving. Take my old friends for example, they prioritised me living and now they're dead."