DD5 ~ Chapter 10!

<Let’s see…> I looked over the data provided by one of the Bobs, and found that there were currently more people throwing themselves against my defenses than ever before. Not only were the people in the area working hard to gain the new-style tokens I was offering, but the portal was running constantly. People from multiple nations were cycling in and out constantly, supplying me with fresh victims every single minute. 

The Guild’s attempts at regulating when people were allowed in had broken down completely. They had been caught denying access to necromancers, and soon after that incident people were coming and going as they pleased. Barry had vanished, going across the world in an attempt to rally the remainder of the Guild and bring them to safety. Lucky me. The downside was that I had no time to respawn creatures, reset traps, or get personally involved in many of the fights.

So, I increased the difficulty. I had Dregs Managing the first four floors pretty well, and all it cost me was a fraction of the energies collected. That worked for me perfectly. Not only did I get to focus on floors that were more fun, her style of doing things was different enough that people didn’t expect it. Mainly fire. Lots of fire. That was fine, and it led to a lot of new people expecting that fire was the theme of the entire place. They would get gear, potions, and weapons built around countering the fiery floors, then suddenly their gear would all be useless. Merchants were having a great time collecting tokens, now the only useful currency in the area.

In fact, Mountaindale had begun flooding the world at large with gold, silver, and platinum, knowing that one way or another the currency would be worthless. They bought artifacts, knowledge, rare materials, animals, and anything else they could think of to tempt me into granting them tokens for things they could actually take with them. The number of patterns I was gaining daily had increased to the point that I was having trouble keeping track of it all. I had a perfect memory, of course I did, everything was crystal clear. Heh. Still, when a list is in the multiple thousands and growing, it can become difficult to think of what you want or need.

In short… it was glorious. I was getting bloated with power, or I would have been if I weren’t already devoting everything to my inner world. I was going to work on that later, but I was still caught up with watching everything going on in the real world. Most importantly for me, I was following a group of Mages as they pushed through the final challenges the golems offered to reach The Mage’s Recluse. I watched the wonder appear in their eyes, and knew that this was the start of a great couple of weeks for me. 

This wasn’t the first group of Mages to reach this level, but the Dark Elves hadn’t spread the word, nor had Madame Chandra, nor The Master, nor for some reason the group that had lost a few members a few days ago. It was less important that everyone know about it, because I knew that there was a portal being built that would give me way more Essence and Mana; but I still wanted my work to be appreciated. This place had been my first real attempt to make an area beautiful and not deadly. I had trained Attendants, I had made housing and food. Abyss take it, I wanted people to literally fight over the honor of living here!

After watching the group slowly calm down and accept that this was a non-combat zone, they found the stairs down to the next level, but didn’t descend. I watched as they claimed homes and got to some serious relaxing. Each of them had a small ‘welcome basket’, which among other things included a keygem for the portal to the surface and back. I watched as the rogue of the group snuck off, popped through the portal, and sold the information to the Guild, then to as many other people as he could before it started becoming public. He returned to the dungeon with a satchel full of tokens, and got back to his new manor just before the others decided to regroup.

Heh. They were going to be surprised when they got back and found that their new discovery was already almost common knowledge. What a sneaky-sneak. I approved. They decided to take a look at the next floor, but were forced to retreat before they got a proper look at things. The lower they went, the more the suffocating presence of my Mana impacted them. Until they had increased in ranking more, they simply wouldn’t survive whatever was waiting for them. They knew it at a deep and visceral level.

Then again, it may have been the ‘fear’ Runes I had lightly interspersed on the stairwell, but who knew for sure? The screaming rocks might have done it, too. Really could have been anything. The Pit - as I had decided to call it - was designed for groups of Mages from B-rank six to A-rank zero. If you were fighting something at your own level alone, it would be a hard fight. But in the Pit, there were swarms of Elementals. You needed teamwork, the ability to adjust as you went, trust, and a not-insignificant amount of luck. This group had the teamwork down, but if the rogue were an example of the trust between them… I would have enjoyed the snack.

I switched my view over to some C-rankers that were fighting Cats in the labyrinth. They had caught my attention a few days back, and I was trying to work out why. They were certainly skilled enough, but something about them felt strange. Not bad, just strange. A Flesh Cat swiped at their front liner’s midsection, but he evaded the attack and returned a blow that left a shallow line of red in the Beast. Odd… he had hit pretty hard there. That should have easily taken the Cat apart.

The battle with this Cat raged on, with the creature eventually trying to escape when it finally became seriously injured. The group pursued, catching and eventually felling the mutated Mob. The time it took for them to succeed was really tickling at my senses. I mentally reviewed the combat, looking for flaws in their fighting style, watching their muscles to see if they were holding back… there.

They weren’t holding back, and they were even more skilled than I had originally thought. Now when I looked at the weapons and armor they were wearing, I looked at the quality. These people were poor. I mean, who uses a weighted iron longsword to fight C-ranked Beasts? Abyssal professionals apparently. I was in awe, serious awe at their ability. I couldn’t figure out how they didn’t have better equipment, being in the C-ranks was not an easy or fast process for anyone except Dale.

I could only come up with a few answers. Either they were poor because they were funneling coins to someone else, or they were working to perfect their skills by using substandard equipment. I looked into them, noting that they had only the most basic of cultivation techniques. These were people who worked with what they had, and I was flat out impressed. I decided to test the waters, and see where what sort of situation they were actually in. I worked to create a treasure chest a few rooms away, one that would be hard to miss. 

To maintain fairness, I directed a few of the stronger Cats in the area to guard the room, and I watched closely to see how everything played out. There was a Wither, a Cloud, and a Coiled Cat standing guard together. The tactics my Cats used now varied greatly from when they had first been created. When the adventurers appeared, the Coiled Cat sprang at them with the Cloud Cat on its back. The Cloud Cat jumped off of that Beast, then the wall, and came at the group from a different angle and above. The Wither Cat prowled around, waiting for a chance to strike.

The battle took for-freaking-ever. I had seen entire floors cleared in the amount of time it took for the outcome of this battle to be decided. Between the more advanced defenses of the Coiled Cat, who took almost no damage from any single attack; the agile Cloud Cat, who could avoid the heavy and relatively slow iron weapons; and the Wither Cat staying out of combat unless it were convenient… ugh. The people were skilled, and had massive endurance. They took very little direct hits, and any grazing blows were absorbed even by the shoddy armor they wore.

Not to say that they ended the fight without any injuries, but they did well enough that they would be able to press forward. Then they saw the treasure chest, the shining golden light it emitted strong enough to catch anyone’s eye. The five men walked over and tossed open the chest, staring at the contents in shock. The leader of the group looked at one of the weapons in the chest, then at his own hand. “Is that my sword?”

“It looks the same?” His second-in-command piped up. “How is that possible? I even see the same dent on that side!”

The leader picked up the weapon, turning it over and over in confusion. He gave it an exploratory swing, and his eyes lit up. “It’s the same… but better! So much better! It is light, and I can feel the power it contains!”

“Hey, my bow is in here!” the archer of their group exclaimed. “A quiver of my arrows, too!”

“My knives!”

“My shield!”

I laughed quietly to myself as they traded out their weapons. I was feeling pretty good about myself, my good deed of the day being finished and all. Then I heard them start talking to each other.

“This alone justifies paying for the portal to get here, but I can’t believe that this dungeon only gives out wooden coins or potions usually. It's a good thing we found that merchant who likes to collect curios from the dungeon, or we wouldn’t even be able to get home at the end of all of this.” the archer was grumbling, but the others took it in stride.

“I guess the wild claims of incredible wealth were a little exaggerated,” the leader sighed. “It's too bad, I could have really used the money.”

“Same all around, boss man.” Their tanker stood and swung his shield around with practiced ease. “At least we were warned about those traps at the end of each floor. Can you imagine going up to something, thinking you were about to get a reward, and then being dropped into a trap? Pretty sneaky of this place to make those.”

“I’m still confused about that.” The knife-user stated boldly. “I want to see what happens for myself.”

“We already agreed not to tempt fate.” The leader calmly informed him. “We have too many people relying on us to return home.”

<Ugh. Just ugh.> I looked around until I found Minya, who was at a small shrine on the surface trying to convert people into Dungeon Born. Not many people listened after it got around that none of the people she led down were seen again. Though, now that Mages would be in the Recluse, that might change. <Minya, can I ask a favor, please? A group of people in the dungeon are being scammed out of a huge fortune by a merchant up here. Can you find and punish him for me?>

“It’d be my pleasure.” I filled her in on the details, and her scowl turned into a mask of rage. “I cannot stand that there is someone out there taking advantage of people when they need help the most. Consider it done, Cal.”

<Thanks, Minya. You know I’m all about the fair chance. Succeed on your own merit and whatnot.> I was trying to calm down. <Abyss, I’m giving people a better chance to succeed and survive than this scammer is!>

“You sure are, you mass-murdering people eater.”

<You say the sweetest things.>