Once Levi put the wiki back into some semblance of order—sans demon invasion, since he still couldn’t decide how to present that properly—he went to the RL Game forums.
Still no one had come forward with a Seed Fragment. Whoever had it must be keeping it secret. Or it may have been found by another roaming treasure hunter like Levi himself who wasn’t part of this online community. Though given that the dungeon was in Tom’s backyard, that seemed unlikely.
A couple of decent trade offers had come in, one offering an Ice token for a few of his crafting base items, and another offering two elixir bases for three health restoratives. He messaged back the first in the affirmative and sent a counteroffer to the other. He didn’t have enough restoratives to be willing to trade them at present, but any of his other items were available.
His application to join Doom Raiders XXX had been processed and he needed to do an in-person interview before he could be an official member, but they were hopeful and proposed meeting over the weekend.
Levi didn’t want to wait, but without any other leads on the Seed Fragment, this might be his only chance to complete the set. He sent a message agreeing to the meeting, then found another message waiting already.
The Ice token guy had replied almost immediately, suggesting that they meet in “Dungeon 4” after work to complete the trade.
Levi checked through the wiki for a dungeon with that designation and found it to be another Destruction level 2 a bit south. He agreed to meet for the trade. It would be good to get rid of some of the miscellany they’d been accumulating. Years of training not to waste anything kept him instinctively collecting everything they found, but here he didn’t have a hierarchy above him to redistribute things to the crafters and soldiers who could make best use of them.
The mention of dungeon numbers sent him back down the rabbit hole searching the wiki for known dungeon locations in the area. If he could get more precise data than his Mana Ping returned, specific locations instead of general regions, it would save a lot of time driving around to triangulate the dungeons.
As expected, they knew about fewer than half of those near the city, but still an impressive number. Seven dungeons found—they clearly had the search down to a science and knew what to look for. For a group with no actual knowledge of the systems underlying the dungeons, that was pretty amazing.
The level 1 he'd just cleared wasn't on their list, so he designated it as Dungeon 8 and added its details.
The dungeon outside Tom's house was designated as 3, so he requested that as the meeting place for his evaluation with Doom Raiders XXX.
The meeting wasn’t for two more days, which left him with the question of what to do in the meantime. He could follow Gordon's example and try to relax, maybe focus on disseminating information virtually, but he would feel useless sitting around doing nothing active.
Centoo was close to threshold, Gordon needed to get his own levels up, and there were still plenty of dungeons in the area that no one had claimed. A Fire dungeon in particular had his attention; he associated Summoner with Fire and felt almost certain that Fire tokens were one of the necessary ingredients for crafting the Summoner class upgrade.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He spent some time searching the websites and wiki for RL Game in search of any crafting information he might not know, but all of it was simple things like “combine this type of tracing with this type of power stone to get this effect,” with nothing on actual creating. Which did explain the interest in his component items.
He also amended his trade offer to include the sheath and his requests to include any power stone, but he didn't have much hope of that panning out. From what he could see, power stones were among the highest-value and most in-demand objects anywhere on the site.
Once tokens started to be consumed with the unlocking of the crafting system at level 15, they'd rise drastically in value given their variety of uses, and the value of power stones would drop as weapons and items with power stones already integrated began to spawn more often than the standard varieties as dungeons outleveled humanity.
All of this was to say that, eventually, power stones would become commonplace and tokens more desirable, but that hadn’t happened yet.
Gordon returned with his hands full of shopping bags. “Is it alright if I move your dead centipede around a bit?” he asked, popping open the trunk of the car.
“Yeah, Revive will pull him back together.”
“How long until you can do that again?”
“A few more hours.”
“Let me guess... you want to go find another dungeon while we wait?”
“Yes.”
Gordon sighed. “And if I don't come with you, you'll run off on your own?”
“Probably.”
“Alright, fine. We'll keep doing this.”
“Do you not understand that this is going to be necessary? If you don't learn to fight now, you'll learn later when I'm not there to watch your back, when there's no one who cares about you, and demons who'd as soon tear your face off as look at you.”
“I know, you keep saying it. I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m ready to have 'fighting dungeon monsters' as my full-time job twenty-four seven.”
“Then help me find a taxi or something and I’ll be out of your hair.”
“No.” Gordon thumped the steering wheel for emphasis. “I promised Irene I won’t let you out of my sight. I’m not going to let you disappear again. And you’re probably right, I do need to learn this, even if I think you're moving too fast. I don’t want to keep doing this nonstop, but I’m not going to back down just because it’s frustrating, painful, and annoying.”
Levi’s respect for the man rose a bit higher. Even if he was untrained, unprepared, and afraid, he still had some steel to him. The fact that he'd come along so far without complaining more proved that he could do what it took.
He just needed some practice. Levi would be happy to help provide it.
Levi hoped to convert Gordon into a battle-ready warrior—someone who could stand at his side as he proclaimed the truth to the world—by the time they reached Oregon.
One man could be silenced a lot more easily than two, and two would be much harder to silence if they had an entire army of monsters by their side. Levi wasn’t immune to bullets himself just yet, but after another few weeks of fighting every dungeon he could reach, he would be.
“I have arranged a meeting with someone to trade materials this evening, and another meeting in a few days. We can stay at the motel at night. Two dungeons a day. Sound fair?”
Gordon nodded, not looking particularly pleased, but not wanting to argue.
Levi didn’t mention that he intended to go out on his own to the nearest dungeon while Gordon slept. He couldn’t sleep a whole night any longer even if he tried. Years of snatching an hour here or there had trained his mind to hyper-alertness. His current body still protested the strain, but the mental fog was just one more distraction, like the physical aches of muscles repeatedly stretched far past their limits without more than minimal pause.
Restoratives would keep him going, and he should be close to leveling in another three dungeons anyway. That would be enough to wake him up and reset his battered body to full health, better than ever.
Gordon need never know.
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