“So are you really some castaway?” Merf asked, a look of excitement flashing across his face.
“Nice to meet you too Merf. Thanks for letting me in and all, the truth is that I am secretly a dragon. I just decided to fly here for a bit of fun.”
Merf’s eyes went wide as he quickly backed up a step.
“Well it was nice to meet you sir, I really need to get back to my post now.” Merf hurriedly said, immediately turning around and heading back up the wall.
Ambrose headed into the tavern, it was about as busy as it had been the last time he was in, including several of the same groups of people. The only one that drew Ambrose’s attention among the patrons was of course Renna, the one eyed and definitely crazy huntress.
Renna was staring at Ambrose from the moment he came in. Ambrose simply nodded at her diplomatically and decided it was better to just ignore her, she was allegedly harmless after all.
Approaching the bar and taking a seat, he waited for Jobe to arrive. Instead his wife came out to greet him.
“Oh hello dearie, you must be our special visitor.” She winked at him, indicating that Jobe had also communicated the situation. “I’m Mariella, you here just for the food, or do you want to take a room again?”
"Both for sure, but I was mostly here to talk about some business with Jobe or yourself. Could we go somewhere a bit more private?”
“Sure thing sweety.” She turned and yelled up the stairs. “Luce, come watch the bar for a bit while I help our guest.
Motioning for Ambrose to follow, Mariella headed into the back room where the kitchen was located. Luce came down the stairs, gaining a mischievous look upon seeing Ambrose. The pair waved to each other as Ambrose moved to follow the barkeep into the kitchen.
Jobe was cleaning the dishes for the night when Ambrose entered while Mariella sat watching, waiting for Ambrose to begin. “Ah Ambrose, good to see you again” The gruff man wiped his hand on a cloth and shook Ambrose’s.
Mariella leaned forward, clearly excited by Ambrose's presence. “Well here we both are, what can we do for you dear?”
Ambrose took a breath to focus himself, and focused his efforts on putting on a sales pitch persona, knowing that intentionally trying to grow Skills would increase their rate of growth and thus his chance of success.
“I want to assist in supplying you with meat. There are plenty of fish around, but you have a limited supply of red meat, correct me if I’m wrong but I believe Renna is the town’s only hunter?”
“Aye, but that’s because we only need the one, any more and we would cause population issues on the island.” The couple looked at Ambrose sadly, feeling sorry for the broke Outworlder.
“Hold on a second before you give me those looks, I understand that. You know of my .. special circumstances. What if that allowed me to acquire meat from a source not on the island.
Mariella looked downright confused, but Jobe’s eyebrows crossed as the gears turned in his head.
“You woke up in that damn dungeon didn’t you.” Jobe quite literally spat the words out, small flecks of spittle flying out.
Ambrose was caught off guard at the mans outburst, the dungeon had seemed so long abandoned, and Prism had said there hadn’t been Residents in decades, so why did he know about the dungeon, and why wasn't it used?
“Uh.. yes?”
Jobe just sighed. “Alright, finish your pitch, and then I will explain to you just how damn stupid you are.”
Ambrose swallowed hard and tried to regain his composure, his nerves slipping through as he made the proposal that would decide whether or not he could stay around to fix and beat the dungeon, or if he would need to stow away on the next ship and run for the rest of his life.
“So yes, I can bring meat out from the dungeon which you could sell here as an alternative to the fish stew. But that’s not the big goal, there’s meant to be a ship coming in a day or two right? So, I gather a bunch of meat that you could then prepare for storage, so we can sell it off. That way its money coming into the town rather than risking me leaving with some, reducing the currency available.”
Jobe gave him a half contemplative smirk. “Alright so it's not the worst idea I have ever heard. Fine, the ship is due tomorrow or the day after, which seeing as the weather has been pretty solid, is likely a pretty accurate estimate. How much are you planning on bringing in?”
Ambrose smiled, having expected a far harder argument. “I can probably get four of the creatures back here per day provided you can get me something to haul them back with." Ambrose glanced around the room, searching for a unit of measurement. "I don’t know how you guys store meat for transport, but I would guess it to be one or two of the creatures to one of those barrels.”
Jobe rocked his head back and forth, performing the math in his head. “Storage method depends on how much money you have, we only get basic traders out here and only have basic barrels. We would be salting the barrel, putting a layer of meat on it and then salting it as well, before repeating the process. There are more fancy methods involving enchanted barrels that preserve the food inside, and the richest just use dimensional storage though we clearly don't have access to that. How much they would be willing to buy is also pretty dependent on other factors, for this group I would guess anywhere between three and eight barrels.
Ambrose nodded along, thoughts racing with future plans. “Okay, so if you two can get a couple barrels ready and get the salt, I’ll bring as much meat over as I can in a run early tomorrow afternoon, where we can work out how much work it'll take to cover just the two barrels.”
The trio continued to talk over the plan back and forth, settling on the split, investment, delivery, and all the other details. Ambrose’s cut was most of the profit, which Mariella estimated to end up at ten gold per barrel they could sell to the ship. Additionally, they would also let him stay in the room and take a meal for a week at a time, in trade for a body's worth of meat, provided that people would purchase enough of it, and that the loss of sales for the fisherman didn’t get too much. This meant that Ambrose would likely need to drum up business from the other residents of Baro to increase the traffic to the tavern if he wanted to stay there.
With the business out of the way, Mariella returned to the front to serve those who had been waiting for food.
Jobe took a breath and put on what Ambrose assumed to be his ‘stern father’ face as he began the obligatory warning portion of the conversation.
“That place is cursed, Ambrose. It was abandoned by the town long ago, even visiting the dungeon was outlawed for all residents by the last lord after most of the town's crafters were killed off back when I was a child. Low level adventurers would still come and enter it in the following years, but many of them wouldn’t return. Hell that’s how Renna ended up here, she had a full party and they were all wiped out. She managed to get away purely because she was the fastest. Claims the dungeon rose up against them.
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She kept going in, again and again. Coming out more damaged each time. Physically and mentally. Would go around screaming at any adventurer who showed up that the dungeon had gone rogue and it was almost guaranteed death. Renna the adventurer died that day with the rest of her party, and the town died with her. We've been trying to revive it ever since.
What I am saying is, I don’t know why the dungeon has let you go for as long as it has, but you can’t trust it. I get you need some funds so you can get off the island but you need to avoid that place as much as possible, or you might just undo all the work we have put in to keep this place a float. Anyway you seem smart enough to understand the dangers. You better get some rest. You have a lot of work set out for you.”
Jobe took the bowl he had finished cleaning and filled it once again with stew, passing it to Ambrose and motioning for him to head on out.
As he did so, he got to enjoy his stew in peace, before he was ambushed by Luce while heading up the stairs to his room.
“You woke up in a dungeon and you didn’t tell me! I didn’t even know there was a dungeon on Baro. What’s it like?”
Ambrose rolled his eyes before heading into his room and spent time regaling Luce with his adventurers so far, intentionally leaving out his initial life, and making himself look far better by making the Loobins and the sheep sound far more dangerous and scary. He left the encounter with the wolfspider exactly as it was, he was worried that if there wasn’t genuine fear of death in his stories somewhere that Luce would simply go to the dungeon on her own. Luce dying would put a very quick end to all of his plans, being repeatedly killed by residents of Baro was not a future he wanted to see.
Satisfied that she had been caught up, Luce headed out, returning to her own room for the night.
Babysitting duty out of the way, Ambrose lay down for the night, clearing out his notifications for the day.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED NEW SKILLS
You have gained the Skill Cruelty at Level 1 (Rare): You have an unusual habit of causing horrific levels of pain, please stop.
* Attacks on enemies inflict additional pain when using Cruelty Abilities.
* Attacks on enemies inflict additional emotional damage when using Cruelty Abilities.
You have gained the Skill First Aid at Level 2 (Common): When you cannot avoid damage, knowing how to heal it is the next best thing.
* Increased proficiency with items relating to First Aid Abilities.
* Increased understanding of injuries and how to fix them.
You have gained the Skill Cooking at Level 1 (Common): You cooked plain meat poorly, you didn’t deserve this Skill.
* Increased understanding of ingredients relating to Cooking Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Tumbling at Level 5 (Common): Rolling under a creature that could flatten you is certainly a strategy.
* Reduced impact from landings while using Tumbling Abilities.
* Better momentum control while using Tumbling Abilities.
* Reduced motion sickness while using Tumbling Abilities.
You have gained the Skill Persuasion at Level 4 (Common): Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.
* Increased understanding of how people are feeling when using Persuasion Abilities.
* Increased understanding of people’s desires when using Persuasion Abilities.
For gaining your first Rare ranked skill you have gained exp!
By gaining these Skills you have gained the following Abilities.
* Inflict pain (Cruelty): Are you feeling it now?
* Apply first aid (First Aid): The bandages can’t fix the mental trauma.
* Comprehend injury (First Aid, Assessing, Observation): Turns out bleeding is usually bad for you.
* Cook (Cooking): Please consider spices, I mean you have access to near infinite amounts of salt.
* Bake (Cooking): It’s a science!
* Deconstruct Recipe (Cooking, Perception): Eat enough of the food others make and maybe you will learn to make an actual meal.
* Create Recipe (Cooking): Mix ingredients and methods to create a meal.
* Tumble (Tumbling): You are not invincible while rolling.
* Roll with it (Tumbling): Take momentum and move it somewhere else.
* Persuade (Persuasion): Believe in me.
Your new Skills have also affected the following Abilities in some way.
* Dodge (Dodging, Tumbling)
* Exploit Weakness (Small Blades, Butchering, Cruelty)
* Fall (Jumping, Tumbling)
* Grapple (Grappling, Tumbling)
* Melee Weapon Attack (Small Blades, Cruelty)
* Throwing Weapon Attack (Small Blades, Cruelty)
* Incite Emotion (Speech, Persuasion)
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As soon as Ambrose had dismissed the notification intending to move onto his increases, when three more shoved their way into his vision.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 5
3 Attribute points have been gained.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 6
3 Attribute points have been gained.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 7
3 Attribute points have been gained.
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He had just hit level four after the fight with the Loobin group, killing the sheep hadn’t been enough to level but with the difficulty of the fight, that had surprised Ambrose, though he suspected that he got reduced experience due to many of the sheep's injuries being self-inflicted.
Even if that had put him just before level four, the fact that gaining his first rare Skill had granted him over two whole levels was a shock, especially as anyone could get them. He could only daydream about the experience gain higher ranked Magic or Divine tier Skills would give.
Despite the gains it had granted, and potential strength of the new Skill, Ambrose wasn’t thrilled with the addition of Cruelty. Being able to increase the pain something felt wasn’t exactly something Ambrose wanted to utilise, and the thoughts of what he would need to do to improve the Skill’s level weren’t pretty either.
Attempting to shove the intrusive and disturbing thoughts out of his head, Ambrose began to fiddle with his Attributes, eventually deciding to maintain his speed Attribute focuses.
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Attributes:
* Strength of Body: 14
* Speed of Body: 14
* Strength of Mind: 12
* Speed of Mind: 14
* Strength of Soul: 12
* Speed of Soul: 12
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE NURTURED YOUR SKILLS
* Your Assessing Skill has increased in level: 4 -> 6
* Your Butchering Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 3
* Your Dodging Skill has increased in level: 2 -> 4
* Your Grappling Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 2
* Your Identifying Skill has increased in level: 5 -> 8
* Your Inspecting Skill has increased in level: 10 -> 11
* Your Items As Weapons Skill has increased in level: 2 -> 3
* Your Jumping Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 3
* Your Perception Skill has increased in level: 3 -> 4
* Your Running Skill has increased in level: 4 -> 12
* Your Skinning Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 3
* Your Small Blades Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 8
* Your Stealth Skill has increased in level: 9 -> 10
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His gains for the day were quite good, though the fact that his Perception was only at level four, despite being common, began to worry him. Deciding that he would spend some time focusing on specifically training up his main Skills in the morning, Ambrose closed his eyes and fell asleep, enjoying the new energy from his levels flowing through his body.