CHAPTER 20 DAY 18

When I arrived everyone was there are ready to go. I was 30 minutes late. I walked down and made seven stairs while everyone else went down to the second level. I caught up with them descending the rope. Madre’s group had the first room. The monsters were large scarabs of different colors. Red ones did fire damage, blue ones cold damage and black ones acid damage. There were two of each in the first room. Madre’s group struggled as we gathered intel on the attacks and defenses of the scarabs. They were level 2 with 250 health. The next room had nine scarabs, 3 blue, 3 red and 3 white that did lightning damage. The room was large and the scarabs were spread out. I only hit 3 in my hail of stones to start the engagement. The remaining six was a challenge but our win was never in doubt. As we moved through the dungeon we found six other colors of scarabs. The groups ranged from 4 to 12 and the levels were 2 or 3. It was a hard grind for both parties. When we got to the final room we were lucky as it was our group up again. It was a massive scarab, larger than a horse covered in a rainbow of colors. I analyzed it,

Rainbow Scarab Level 8 Health 2000 Magic 600 Damage 100

I was even more disappointed when my charged hail of stones did only 25% damage. The blasted thing had either earth or magic resistance. It was also hitting hard and fast. It attacked for only 100 damage but hit 3 times. Carrie was taking a beating and Tara was having trouble keeping up. I switched to help heal. It was a brutal fight and Carrie fell when the scarab critically hit for 350 damage with a life drain attack. The drain also restored 175 health. Celina was using a short bow and having almost no effect. Gwyn’s health began falling. She was under 500 health soon and it was looking bleak, the other group was getting ready to step in but I waved them off.

The scarab was down to 300 health and I switched to flame spear and told Gwyn to go defensive. After four strikes with my flame spear it went down. Gwyn was at 132 health but gained health as Tara kept healing. It was a great victory but sad at the loss of Carrie. We searched the room but didn’t find any treasure until Joker said he found something. There were blue stones in the wall. Sapphires! The group started harvesting them and handed them all to me. There were a few dozen small stones and three larger stones.

The shaft down to level 3 had a bunch of heat emanating from it. We all decided that everyone needed more experience before continuing on this dungeon. Everyone transported out. I walked back to the boat with Celina and Harrash. I stopped to make some more steps. I burned a few magic potions and made 20 steps.

I sailed back to the village with Harrash and Celina. At the village I went with Celina to her house and looked at the potions she had made from my ingredients. She had a mix of 32. I gave my old translocation bracer and had her lock one of the remaining studs to the portal in the village. I told her to gather the potions she wanted sell and we would head to Bluewater to sell them. I transported us to Bluewater. I had Celina lock the portal stone in Bluewater to another stud. We asked around and found how to get a booth in the square. I helped Celina set up and let her sell the potions to the players running around. I had three hours of game time left. I went to check on Gina in my room at the Union Hall. The place was a mess. Piles of stones were everywhere. Half made rings littered the shelves. Gina was not here. I sat down and decided I needed to spend my time making a little profit myself.

I settled into the chair and pulled out some stones. I wanted to see what the sapphires would do so I made a sapphire ying-yang ring first. Sapphire ying-yang ring, +6 magic, +1 channeling. Ok sapphires gave +1 to magic. I assumed the larger sapphires would give +2 magic. I decided to make 15 more sapphire rings and sell them. That would be a good day and utilize almost all my time. Gina still had not returned when I finished but my skill with gems had increased.

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Artistry: Gem Crafting 2 +1 Agility, you can successfully work with gems up to tier 3

I wondered if she had gotten her own room?

I went to auction house and placed eight rings for sale at 2 gold each. I then went to the exchange and placed the other eight rings at $500 each. They should sell but I would have to wait and see. I went back to the room and sat down again and looked at my gear.

I had ten active rings. They all had the +1 channeling from the ying-yang trait and +1% to magic from the emeralds. Seven were +5 magic, two were +5 strength and one was +3 charisma. The +3 charisma was the weak link. Did I want to change the stat bonus? Maybe I should get the spell for +5 charisma? Yes that seemed the best course. I didn’t want to lose the charisma bonus as I believed it was giving me much better relations with the NPCs. I went to find Katrina.

I checked my posting on the forums about the goblins second port city. Some players had ventured there but didn’t make it far. They said it was a very high level area with strong goblins and magic wielding goblins. There comments had scared off other players. I told Katrina of our progress with the goblins trying to make it sound better than it actually was. She listened and asked me a few questions and I answered honestly. I then purchased some spells. I purchased a +25% damage to weapon, +5 charisma, +6 magic, +6 constitution and +6 intelligence. The two tier 5 spells were 1 gold each and the three +6 spells were 4 gold, 50 silver. I paid for the spells and thanked Katrina for her time.

Back in my room Gina was still not there. I put on my intellect rings and spent an hour learning the two new tier 5 spells. I decided my +5 charisma ring would use one of the larger emeralds to give me +2% to magic. I switched my rings back putting the intellect rings back in my bag and then made the ring. After ten minutes I had my new ring. I admired the craftsmanship, it was quite good if I did say so myself. The old ring was off already off and I put the new one on and then slid my gloved on again. No Gina. I went to the bed and lay down and logged out.

It was 4:00am in the real world. As I got out of my Cocoon I noticed Gina’s Cocoon was still active.

I took Flicka outside. After that I went to the fridge, Gina had made meatballs. I heated the spaghetti and meatballs, adding a generous helping of butter. As I was eating Gina’s Cocoon opened. She noticed me and came over. I got another plate and shared the food.

Gina opened, “Wow that game is awesome. I lost track of time. As I was going to sell some rings I ran into some people and they convinced me to go adventuring. They were very experienced and helped me gain two levels!” I smiled as she relayed her battles. “When I noticed the time I told them I had to leave. They asked if I wanted to join their guild, the Ball Busters, but I said I was not going to do much adventuring. They said since I was an enchanter I could help the guild in other ways. When I tried to leave they got angry. They said they leveled me up so I could make items for their guild mates. It got ugly and I just left. The weird thing is they knew I was with you. As I entered the mage hall the leader said, ‘tell Daedalus he can’t hide forever’.”

Ball Busters? I opened my mail on my phone. I had put Ball Busters as spam. There were 48 messages in the spam folder from the guild leader. I checked the forums and confirmed the Ball Busters were a PvP guild. There were many complaints from players having their gear stolen from its members. “Yeah,” I said looking through the forums, “they are dicks. If you want to adventure you can join my guild. We have a few members but they are all good people.”

“I think I will just focus on making money for now. She pulled out her phone. I only made $840 today.” Gina said checking her account. She transferred me $420. I looked at my account and saw the $420 deposit and $3600 from my rings. I wasn’t going to tell her I made that much money today. Gina continued, “but gaining those levels will really help in my enchanting. I should be able to make some serious cash tomorrow!”

We talked some more before heading to bed. It was late and we just cuddled, falling to sleep.