Chapter Six!

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~ Chapter six ~

I’m bored again. Digging is boring. That is, it is dull. Not to be confused with boring, the act of digging a hole. Which, I suppose, it also is. I was at a bit of an impasse right now, to be frank. Digging was time consuming, more so since I was starting from near the top of a mountain. It was harder to do the further I moved away from myself, and thus slowed down progress and increased energy consumption. Luckily it didn’t take much concentration, or I would have gone as crazy as the council on the surface seemed to think I was.

For the first time in a month, I had decided to take a hard look at what I was doing. Minya - abyss take her - had scored a point in our last conversation. Dani wouldn’t have wanted me to ignore my upkeep and get lazy; she has always been a proponent of hard work and judicious rewards. When I looked at a few treasure chests lying around on my second floor, I was shocked to find them stuffed with gold of all things!

I didn’t give out gold on the second level! What had I been thinking? ...The short answer was: I hadn’t been thinking. At least not clearly. High rewards on an entry floor made for less people continuing to the deeper floors! I deactivated the Runes I had been using to generate treasure in the chests throughout my body, and felt a wave of nausea as I noticed how much Essence they had been sucking up. All they were doing was generating coins and bottling health potions. Unendingly.  They had been unendingly making gold for a month. I recouped some of my losses by reabsorbing the gold, and tried to think of a way to fix this situation. I liked the treasure chests, because they made for a convenient distraction. People could waste hours looking for the hidden boxes, and I didn’t have to worry about generating rewards for each individual Mob death.

I didn’t want to go back to trying to make rewards for each individual person. I had way too many things to get done. How could I solve this problem? Quickly getting frustrated that I had no one to talk to, I... wait. Bob! <Bob, do you have a moment?> I questioned quietly. He was setting up some kind of dark ritual, and I really didn’t want to interrupt him if it would affect what he was doing.

Bob slowed his writing, carefully finishing pouring some blood into a long stripe. He stood and stretched before answering. “Sorry for the wait, but if I did this wrong it would backfire quite terribly. For you, Great Spirit, I will always have - or make - time.”

I was touched, and it threw me off a bit. <Thank you, Bob. It has been… hard… for me recently.>

“Understandably so. What can I help with?” I explained my situation, and how I was having trouble finding a solution. He scratched at his leathery hide, considering my words. “Well. Too many adventurers to give exact rewards for? That is a good problem to have, I think. Let me ask you this, how many groups have those bags that are larger on the inside?”

His return question caught me off guard. <Oh. I haven’t really counted, but it is fairly rare. Maybe one group in ten? Less now that there are fewer experienced groups.>

He nodded, “So then the groups without them can only carry what they can fit in the sacks they carry around, or in their hands?”

<That… sounds right? What are you getting at, Bob?>

“I think you need to play on their greed a bit more.” He grinned wickedly, and since his mouth was twice as wide as a human’s and filled with jagged teeth, it was a truly frightening visage. “How about this?” Bob started talking, and I started getting… excited.

~ Dale ~

“Stupid dungeon. Stupid me for listening to it.” Dale muttered as Adam reattached his finger.

“At least you didn’t start with a Core from the Cat.” Adam patted his hand. “I’d say you got lucky.”

“Question!” Hans raised his arm into the air and waved it around.

Dale rolled his eyes. “Yes, Hans?”

“Did it work, at least?” He looked at Dale’s slightly off-color flesh. “The intent was to allow you to gain Essence from crushing the Core, correct?”

“Yes it was, and yes, it did work.” Dale grudgingly admitted. “There was a slight side effect of losing a chunk of my hand though, if you didn’t notice.”

“I don’t think you realize the potential here, Dale.” Hans was being serious again, which was always a nerve-wracking experience. “Outside of your normal cultivation, you can gain Essence from Beasts. Beasts will always have large amounts of Essence in their Cores, and no-one has found a way to directly extract and use it before, outside of using it in Rune scripting. I think you should try again, more carefully.”

Dale was stunned at the earnestness of his friend. “Is it really going to be as useful as all that?”

Hans shrugged. “It could be, but that depends on if you can make it work or not.”

Dale sighed and pulled out another small Core. “I really don’t want to do this.”

“Please try not to lose another finger.” Adam muttered as he looked at the recently reattached digit on Dale’s hand.

“I think it’s fair for me to say that I’m more nervous about losing appendages than you are.” Dale grumbled, pulling on the cloth of his cursed battle gauntlet. He wrapped the Core tightly and *squeezed*.

*Bamph!* The Core shattered with a muffled explosion, but the fragments were stopped by the tough cloth surrounding it. There was a bit of light, showing that there was still Essence escaping the cage of his fingers. However, the vast majority of Essence was sucked into the Runed gauntlet, and soon flooded into Dale’s Chi spiral.

Dale opened his eyes, which glowed an electric blue as the Essence moved through his meridians. “Oh, yeah,” he breathed the words in a husky tone, “it actually worked!” The corruption was separated out, moving into various corruption Cores surrounding his Center.

“This seems like an expensive way to cultivate.” Rose mentioned carefully. “While I am glad that it is making you stronger, I hope you also know that every Core you use is going to have to be your share of the loot?”

Dale winced, but nodded. “I understand. Luckily we have a fairly large surplus of gold right now. A month of coin-stuffed chests has really helped with the bills.”

They had proceeded deeper into the dungeon only a short way when Adam pulled the group to a stop. “Wait, listen! Listen to all that noise!”

“Sounds like a normal forest.” Tom shrugged expansively, “What is the issue?”

Adam locked eyes with his hulking friend. “The issue is that we aren’t in a forest. We are in a dungeon.”

Hans peeked around the corner. “Uh-oh.”

Expecting the worst, the rest of the group tentatively looked inside as well. Still, they were stunned as they stared into the noisy and brightly lit room. It was lush, full of life. Normal, non-mutated flora and fauna abounded in the room, creating a cacophony of sound.

Birds flew from nests burrowed into the stone walls, insects moved between various plants, and water burbled down the walls in a small stream. Dale looked around and saw huge Cats rolling in patches of mint, crushing and chewing on it.

“What’s happening?” Adam asked, unable to see around his taller teammates. They shuffled a bit and he looked at the room. Frowning, he questioned the others, “Did we step outside? Are we on the wrong floor? Also, why ‘uh-oh’, Hans?”

“It looks like the dungeon is building an actual ecosystem.” Hans sighed deeply. “This is uh-oh for a few reasons. Firstly, it makes it harder to determine what is a threat to us. If all sorts of animals are moving around, we may get used to the motions and not see the ones that are actually dangerous.”

“This could be an issue.” Tom agreed stoically. “If our constant vigilance would allow us to be caught unawares, which it will not.”

Hans waved a hand at the redhead. “I’m not done! The biggest issue that I see right now is those birds. They are flying all over the place without any kind of pattern.”

“So?” Rose glanced at him askance. “Far as I can tell, they are just birds, right?”

“Yes, Mountain Chickadee’s to be specific, but what do birds do when they fly over you?” Hans nodded grimly, reaching for throwing knives. “Use you for target practice.”

“...This is about bird poop?” Adam made a calculated guess.

“Yes. That type of bird has a nasty habit of staining clothes irreparably.”

Rose glared at Hans until he looked her way.

“What?” His eyes were clouded, without a hint of laughter.

“Are you sure you aren’t a child in an adult’s body? Go fight a Beast. Here, I’ll get you started.” Rose pulled out an arrow and sent it at the rolling Cats. A deep roar in return caused dust to fall onto them from the ceiling. It did also get the birds to hunker down in fright.

The group got ready for the attack as three Cats ran at them, one limping heavily. The limping Cat was a Flesh Cat; the other two were Coiled Cats.

True to their name the Coiled Cats sprang a great distance, covering the distance in huge, leaping bounds. Tom roared at them in return and took a few steps forward, settling into a good position for hammer swings. Dale bounced on his toes a bit, dancing in place to warm up his legs and arms. Adam stood just off-center behind Tom, while Rose stood to the side firing arrows. Hans leaned on the wall.

“I don’t wanna fight.” He muttered petulantly.

“You are a total child!” Rose growled as she released another arrow. The Flesh Cat fell, blood draining from its torn neck.

Tom swung his hammer in an arc, somehow missing the lunging Coiled Cat. It knocked him to the ground and tore a strip of flesh off of him with its razor-sharp claws. Dale was busily engaging the other Cat, and didn’t notice his friend's predicament.

Adam stepped forward and attacked! His staff came down and… bopped the Cat on the head.

The Cat looked up at Adam and hissed.

Adam looked at the slowly growling Cat. “Tom… now would be a good time…”

Tom couldn’t move, pinned by the weight of the metal-laced Cat. The claws lashed out at Adam, striking him squarely on the arm and throwing him to the floor.

“Adam!” Rose shrieked, firing a fat-tipped arrow at the Cat. The projectile impacted its head, bouncing off and stunning the Beast momentarily. Tom took this time to roll out from under the staggered Cat, bringing around his ingot hammer. With a muffled *clang* the hammer struck the Cat hard enough to knock it unconscious. Rose quickly strode forward, drew an arrow and pressed the tip against the closed eye, firing point blank. The Cat expired with only a slight spasm.

“Everything okay over there?” Dale had the hand with the Essence-absorption Rune pressed in the space between the eyes of his target Cat, swinging his other hand onto its skull whenever it stirred. The Cat was severely brain-damaged at this point, the blood in its brain being forced around mercilessly.

Rose rushed over to Adam, who was already staggering to his feet. Blood was dripping out of his sleeve. “Adam!”

He stepped back from her, “It is better, and worse, than you are thinking. The claws didn’t cut me; the robe wouldn’t let that happen.” It was lined with what was essentially Mithril chainmail. “But the hit broke my arm enough that there is a bone sticking through the skin. I can’t fix it alone, we will have to leave. Please check on Tom.”

She nodded seriously, and then moved to Tom, who was holding his side. “How bad is it, Tom?”

He grinned at her as he sweated profusely. “I don’t care to look at it…”

Rose moved his hand to the side a bit and was able to see intestines through the gash. “I need a potion over here!”

Dale hurried over and fished a potion out of his pouch. He poured half of it directly into the wound, prompting a howl of pain from the barbarian. The other half was poured into Tom’s mouth. His bleeding stopped as a scab formed, and his intestines were pulled into place by writhing muscles. He needed to see a healer quickly, as this was considered a temporary fix at best and Adam was otherwise occupied.

Hans had walked to the corpses during these ministrations, and stuffed them in his bag. He got a dirty look from Rose as he sauntered over. “It isn’t my job to kill everything for you. Think of this as… a test. You didn’t do well.”

“Everyone is on the first floor by now, so the healers should have a station set up. Let’s go.” Dale ordered, standing near Adam in case he needed help. As they walked, Rose questioned what he had been doing with the Cat. “Oh, the punching? I was trying to drain its Core. That way, I would get the Essence, and we would still be able to sell a quality Core. Win-win. It worked pretty well after it passed out.”

“Smart!” Hans enthused, “That way you won’t shatter the Core by removing all of its Essence! As long as it is alive, it will pull Essence from its body to maintain the Core. And we can still sell it! You’ve been making good life decisions today!”

His exuberance only increased the glare he was receiving from Rose.

They stepped into the portal, returning to the first floor.