Chapter 9
FRIENDS!
Igmail was getting tired of meat. He ate dried meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The dietary supplements kept him healthy but there is a finite amount of jerky a person can eat without dying of boredom. Alpusic Brownwic, a much talked about adventurer, proved it conclusively by eating nothing but dried monster meat and pure vitamin powder for a decade straight. It was the eve of his tenth year on his pure protein diet when he suddenly keeled over one day at dinner time.
It was theorized that the sheer monotony of his diet eroded his soul to the point of death, as new experiences were required to maintain a person’s spiritual heath to varying degrees. This was actually one of the leading cause of death for high tiered people, just behind monsters and old age.
Igmail was on the lower end of the ‘Wander Lust’ scale, and it usually took decades for this malady to reach fruition even in those on the high end, but he still decided to spice up his diet. This spicing happened to take the form of a new room extending left from the weight room, meaning it shared a wall with the bathroom. Inside this room were several rows of planters filled with the richest, most nutrient filled dirt Igmail could make in a week. Inside that dirt was nothing yet, as the sunlamps Igmail had ordered hadn’t yet appeared, though his mattress had.
Igmail had leaned his transport hoop against the wall in the main room, waiting in eager anticipation for his new green buddies. Of course, he took the occasion to work on the sharpness and toughness of his much neglected spear. For the sake of maintaining combat effectiveness of course, totally not because he was getting really bored of walls.
Finally, finally, a crate fell through the hoop. With all the speed of a frenzied ape Igmail brought the crate to his newly made garden room and tore it open, revealing a cushioned rack of glimmering orange crystals and several pouches of seeds. Central command had been happy to make the bunker more self-sufficient so they sent significantly more stuff than Igmail would need.
Included in the various labeled pouches were many vegetables, some examples being soybeans, potatoes, beets, rice, and several varieties of spice and herbs such as rosemary and mint. There were mostly roots and tubers on the staples side, taking into account the height constraints inherent to an underground garden. Igmail took a moment to install the sunlight based light crystals into the ceiling, standing on the edges of the planters to do so, before he started planting.
When Igmail was being modest he would call himself a hobbyist gardener. When he wasn’t, Igmail would call himself a semi-professional. He visited his parent’s apartment complex thrice weekly simply to tend to their rooftop garden plot; Igmail didn’t have a place of his own; and sold what his family couldn’t eat. Vegetable prices in Flourish were rather high due to the relative scarcity of plants in comparison to meat, so this was actually a rather significant chunk of his income. Certainly more than enough to pay the rent on the plot itself.
Igmail’s advantages were three-fold in the realm of gardening. The first was that he could determine the composition of the soil at a glance, and thus determine which plant was best for which part of his garden. Second, he could enhance the soil’s different properties to be perfectly ideal for each individual plant.
It took a lot of study and practice to get to that level of knowledge and skill, but Igmail’s third advantage, his focus, meant that he hadn’t wavered in his peaceful pursuit of planting perfection, perhaps peripherally persuaded by potential plans and playful places but mostly possessed with his powerful plots for his rooftop plot.
Before Igmail awoke his abilities he had been hoping for plant based powers, so it only made sense that Igmail would know a lot about them. Thankfully, a person’s mind had very little influence over what ability they awoke, as that was determined by the soul. If things were any different, then perhaps Igmail’s golems wouldn’t have been brutalizing the dungeon so badly.
Despite the way his wishes had gone awry, Igmail was still good with plants. He tenderly poked holes in the soil and planted each individual seed, even the really tiny ones, before covering it over with soil and giving it a modest watering from a large stone watering can he had shaped beforehand.
Over the coming weeks he would document the amount of each mineral and nutrient that the plants absorbed, then adjust accordingly. Likewise would he look out for wilting or overhydration as well as ideal temperature. He couldn’t do a whole heck of a lot about the lattermost condition, but he could at the very least change the insulation of the soil so that it stayed at a proper temperature.
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Champion was brutalizing a slime. It was a tough sucker, his spear did little damage and his fists even less. It was twice the size of Champion and kept attempting to swallow him whole. However, even though Champion now weighted over two tons, the slime was still way slower than him. This turned it into a defensive battle, slowly kiting the slimes down the hallway in a fighting retreat while waiting for Artisan to hit them with his magic ammunition.
Artisan had devised a way to make a quick setting concrete powder, and they were using that to petrify the slimes before smashing them to pieces. They had already half cleared the twenty first floor using this method, and surprisingly, Dash, the newest of the forward party, was being very useful.
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In contrast to everybody else Dash was fast and nimble, potentially due to his reforging at the hands of the master. He was the second to be reforged, right behind Gar, though there had been two others since. He would quickly rush around, bouncing off the floor, wall, and ceiling to deliver the special concrete powder Artisan was continuously making.
The current forward party consisted of Champion, Scholar, Inty; who was formerly Gar, Artisan, and Dash. The party of four had become a party of five because master had made two golems in the time it took them to need one for guard duty. At the moment Scholar was at the back helping Artisan make more powder while Inty was guarding the crafters and Champion was bringing back the monsters to powder.
Scholar had also taken the role of dumping the calcified slime through the transport hoop as it was made, the very possibility proving that said slime was dead. The logistics office had made very sure that nothing living could pass through the hoops after the gremlin incident. It took several days for the golems to finish the twenty first floor in this manner, their slowest floor to date, which is when Champion called a break.
‘Friends,’ he broadcast with the help of Scholar, ‘It is time for a training break. Dash’s information on the next floor indicates that we are not prepared for it as we are. Let us retreat to stronghold twenty and hone our skills before continuing.’ Champion’s command was met with a chorus of grumbles from Dash and Inty, though Artisan and Scholar both seemed eager to hone their craft.
‘How am I gonna practice moving fast?’ asked Dash with impatience.
‘How about by running from me?’ Champion responded with a bit of a threat. He’d needed to learn to keep the younger gorilla in line over the last few weeks.
‘Sir Yes Sir!’ said Dash with a hint of alarm. Within half a hour the group made it back to the twentieth floor. When they had beaten the boss there they had spent the time to make some preliminary fortifications, or really, Artisan had spent the time making fortifications while Champion, Dash, and Scholar had brought Gar’s remains back up to master.
It was just a low stone wall, about four feet, around the door to the stairs. It had a step on the stair side so that the gorillas could jump or throw things over the wall easier, but that was about it. Otherwise, the room was large and empty, though the walls had mosaics of a large snake inset in them. They had caught a couple goblins messing with the mosaics, but it had relatively low monster traffic otherwise.
It was here that Champion and crew met up with Puggy, the golem on guard, to train. As promised, Champion spent his time trying to pen Dash in while Dash tried to bop Champion on the head with a spear. Champion was having more successes than Dash, but it was by no means easy for either of them.
Scholar focused on helping Inty deflect Artisans rocks with his buckler type shield. Artisan would throw his trademark bouncing rocks at unpredictable angles, sometimes mixing in a random straight shot with a hyperdense marble, aiming each one for Scholar. Scholar would track those shots and inform Inty of them, and Inty would try to deflect them. It was a suitably challenging exercise for everybody, especially when combined with the body refinement they were doing at the same time.
The chaotic environment was good training, though poor Puggy was left out in favor of actually keeping watch. He managed to kill three moles, a snake, and a cockroach in the days the others spent training, though he was glad that he could just give the bodies to Scholar directly. It was better than putting them in the cold storage that was built into the floor and waiting for the weekly sweep. The cold storage was a pain to clean, being a simple hole in the floor with an insulative lid on it, but Scholar always insisted on it.
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James and Rob were on watch together again, talking as they usually were. This time, when Toto walked past, they were on the eastern side of the city. “Hey James, there are even less monsters on this side than there are on the other,” said Rob. “It’s kinda freaking me out.”
James, the older man of the two, gave Rob a raised eyebrow. “I’ll say it like I said it ten minutes ago, Rob,” James started with just a smidge of irritation, “Yes, it is eerie. Yes, it is unusual. Yes, it is mildly concerning. But, it isn’t our problem, Rob. Stop whining before Central sends you to find out where all the monsters went. Besides, shouldn’t we be glad we aren’t in mortal danger?”
Rob opened his mouth and held up a single finger, as if to unleash a devastating counter argument, but ultimately he did as his superior officer had implied and shut up. However, before Toto’s slow march around the wall had brought him out of ear shot of the two guards, he heard the voice of Rob once again.
“Where do you think they all are?” asked Rob, eliciting a groan from James. “I find it personally concerning that Central does not find this more concerning. I’m just saying.”
James leaned his elbows on the crenelations and rested his face in his hands for a moment, regathering the sanity that Rob was slowly leaching from him with his persistent paranoia. “Rob, all Central cares about right now is getting that wall out there done so that we don’t have to go back to the rebuilding rotation. They hardly care that the monsters are making their jobs easy. And who knows, maybe the beasts have just decided that dying on our wall wasn’t worth the effort.”
At that optimistic statement Toto finally finished walking out of hearing range of the two talkative guards.
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Igmail was very happy with his garden. Only a week of waiting and he could already see all his seeds forming healthy sprouts. Oh, the wonders of perfectly adjusted soil, a high mana environment, and magically altered seeds. He was positively giddy to already be introduced to his new frie- be seeing results.
Mr. Carrot and and Mr. Potato were coming along the fastest, inspiring Igmail to start making a soup pot. Additionally, Igmail included special instructions when he sent down this week’s gorilla, “Tell the others to bring me back the meat of the strongest monster as fresh as possible.” The gorilla had ended up coming back up half a day later with the body of slime, so he quickly amended that order by adding in a definition to the word meat.
Confusion resolved, Igmail received the body of a snake that he cut into smallish chunks. He started his new caldron at a low boil and stewed his snake slowly in anticipation of his eventual veggies. He’d always enjoyed a good bowl of perpetual stew, as throwing things in a pot and hoping it worked out over time was about the extent of Igmail culinary skill. He was like his father in that manner.
Also, though monster meat had high mana content to enhance flavor, the lean nature of most monsters meant that it took a while for their meat to get tender. Additionally he’d be relying on his soybeans for the fat content of the stew for the most part. Satisfied that his culinary boredom would be swiftly resolved, Igmail went back to work. He was reinforcing the walls of the dungeon room itself this time. Riveting.