Chapter 40: Book 1: Chapter 16 (Part 3 of 3)

Congratulations on being the first to conquer the first level of the dungeon, Anastasia Ruslanovna. You have been awarded 20,160 XP and the following item.

Dungeon Corsair Captain’s Spyglass

This is a special item that does not need to occupy an item slot but must be in your inventory to provide its benefits. Your Dungeon Ship will be aware of any dangerous water-borne threats within one nautical mile. While aboard your Dungeon Ship, analysis of visible threats and targets will return more detailed information. You will be aware of the location of any ship in your fleet wherever they are in the Darkwyrlds. Allows your Dungeon Ship to navigate the Darkwyrlds Plexus. Affords you access to the Galactic Black Market, Galactic Slave Market and the Galactic Dungeon Corsair Network.

 

Congratulations on completing the dungeon Anastasia Ruslanovna for the first time. As this was a conquest, the reward has been doubled. As you completed the dungeon with a party under the recommended strength level the reward has been doubled. You have been awarded 4 upgrade points of your choice.

Congratulations on completing your first dungeon. As this was a conquest, the reward has been doubled. You have been awarded 2 upgrade points of your choice.

Congratulations on completing a dungeon at character level one. As this was a conquest, the reward has been doubled. You have been awarded 2 upgrade points of your choice.

I read through each notification in order. My first impression of the loot drop could be described by the word underwhelmed. Although this may in part be because I’d expected a spiffy new weapon or piece of armour and got some kind of utility item.

It didn’t help that I had no idea what the Darkwyrlds Plexus was or if access to the darker Galactic Markets or the Dungeon Corsair Network was good or not. For all I knew, everyone could get that kind of access fairly easily.

Eight upgrade points, on the other hand, were a big deal. At least if what Dean had said about how difficult they were to acquire was true.

Shortly after I completed reading the fourth message the suspension faded and I completed my step out of the dungeon. We came out on the car park side of the dungeon and could see that the black stone edifice was already crumbling.

Shana and Jackson had come out with me and we all backed away as the skull-like entrance collapsed upon itself. Soon there was nothing left except for a few motes of black dust in the air and the incongruous remains of the small lake’s activities building. The far walls on either side had survived but almost everything in between had been consumed.

With a clear view behind us, and with the dungeon collpased down to the lake, it was obvious that Tommy hadn’t stuck around after he left. Jackson was the one who spotted a piece of paper that flapped in the breeze weighted down by a rock on one of the picnic benches. He wandered over and read it quickly.

“What does it say?” I asked. I infused my words with a measure of command that the Corsair’s Canon granted me over my subordinates.

Jackson’s eyes flared in surprise at the compulsion and then paraphrased the contents of the note. “It’s from Tommy. It is mostly him apologising to Carl and begging him not to beat the crap out of him. That he was the only protection his Ma and younger brother had, and he couldn’t let them down by dying.”

 I nodded.

The command had been an interesting experiment, it had worked in as much that Jackson had been compelled to obey. However, that he could paraphrase the contents and hadn’t been forced to read it out verbatim told me those under my canon still had some leeway to interpret my commands unless I was very specific. That could be useful for loyal crew members in situations that required a bit of lateral thinking, but also a flaw that could be exploited by the disloyal if I weren’t careful.

They might be mystically bound to me but I still needed to keep my people happy was the takeaway.

With that, and Tommy’s note mentioning his family fresh in my mind, there was a potentially awkward conversation to be had.

I slipped my hand into Shana’s and we joined Jackson at the picnic bench.

“Everybody, please take a seat for a few minutes. We have a few things to discuss,” I instructed.

I threw one leg over the bench and sat on it sideways. Shana settled on the same side as me and adopted a similar pose and I pulled her into me. Shana leaned back into my chest and sighed happily, meanwhile, Jackson sat across from us and his fingers rapped on the table nervously.

“First, I want to say I’m not going to apologise for what happened inside, Jackson,” I stated firmly.

Jackson seemed a little taken aback by my blunt statement but didn’t offer any argument and nodded his head almost imperceptibly.

 “With that being said, I imagine you’re a bit pissed at me right now. I know I would be. So, as an olive branch of sorts, while we have a moment of safety you have a two-minute pass to express the depth of your discontent without fear of any repercussions,” I offered.

Jackson sat there and stared at me suspiciously.

“That means you can call me whatever you want. Better do it now, I won’t offer you the opportunity again,” I advised him.

Jackson hesitated for a second and then spoke. “Asshole,” he started. When I didn’t react, he added “fucking asshole.” After that, the vulgarities flowed like wine at a toga party. He got quite inventive by the end of the allotted time.

When two minutes had passed, I raised my hand and Jackson quieted.

“Feel better,” I asked.

“You know what, I do,” he answered, and a faint smile quirked on his lips for the first time since our conversation in the dungeon’s second chamber.

Shana broke from my hold of her waist and reached over the table and patted his hand. “You may not realise it yet, Jackson, but this is a good thing. Torin looks after what belongs to him.” Then she snuggled back into my arms.

Unexpectedly, a look of nervous discomfort crossed Jackson’s face, but I quickly diagnosed his concern.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to fuck you, Jackson,” I deadpanned.

Everything went quiet for a heartbeat before we all disintegrated into a fit of giggles and guffaws.

“Anyway, Tommy’s missive pranged a thought in my head. Do you have a family situation I need to know about before we leave the area?” I asked when the laughter died down.

His smile faded at my question. “Nah, it’s just me.”

“Are you telling me the truth, Jackson? Because, no offence, but you don’t look like you’ve finished High School,” I commented.

“I’m not lying,” he chirped defensively. “And I graduated from High School this year.”

“Really? You’re eighteen?” I questioned him.

He seemed to struggle internally before he answered with resignation. “No, I’m seventeen, but I’ll be eighteen in December. I graduated a year early…” and he trailed off.

“And you’re telling me you’ve no family to go back to in Ionia?” I pressed.

“I’m emancipated,” he sighed. “My mother and older sister are in Florida. Living in a house they bought with money I earned,” he muttered a little bitterly. “That was, like, eight months ago. I didn’t want to relocate in my final year of school, so petitioned the courts and was granted emancipation.”

“That’s really impressive, Jackson,” Shana encouraged. “The courts require evidence of financial security. How did you manage it?”

Jackson smiled nervously. “Coding, not that it matters anymore without power. I had a talent for figuring out what was wrong with other people’s code. Picked up some freelance work doing that, made a load of money fixing peoples apps, enough to pay my way through college and then my Mom found out…”

“We don’t have to talk about the particulars if you don’t want to,” I suggested.

“Thanks, maybe later,” he said quietly.

“Okay, did you both get eight upgrade points, too,” I asked the table.

Both Jackson and Shana nodded.

“Excellent. What goodies did you get from the dungeon?” I asked eagerly.

“Oh yeah, I got an awesome new bow,” Shana cried with excitement.

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She produced a new recurve bow from her inventory. It was smaller than her first bow and made of ebony wood. On either side of the handle centrepiece were two-inch spikes, so the bow could be used as a punching weapon in melee if necessary.

Lesser Bow of the Assassin

Ranged/Melee Weapon Damage: 15 + AGI / 5 + STR Archery +5, Stealth +5 Unaware target damage bonus increased to x3 Durability 30/30

 

I whistled with appreciation when I analysed her new bow. This was a significant step up from her previous one which had been ten damage plus her Strength and no melee option. And it included increased damage for sneak attacks which were usually only doubled not trebled. However, if you combined that with a headshot, then it would be twelve times the damage, twenty-four times if their head had no armour protection. Very lethal indeed.

Jackson laid out an orange-red hooded cloak on the picnic table for me to analyse.

Lesser Pyromancer’s Mantle

Cloth Armour (L) Damage Mitigation: Very Low HP +100 Mana Capacity: +10, Mana Absorption: +10 Flamekissed: Immune to sources of Fire damage Officially worn on the shoulders, the Mantle provides its mitigation to any body part that it covers (stacks with other armour on those body parts). Restrictions: Must have an active Sorcerous class. Fire magic must be the wearer’s primary school. Durability: 20/20

 

“That’s a nice bit of armour, Jackson,” I told him. “The stacking effect should really help.”

“Yeah,” he smiled with excitement. “And it’s cloth too, so it only uses one of my armour slots, which is good as I don’t have many.”

Jackson stood up and wreathed himself in his new attire. Which did reveal one minor drawback, he stuck out like a sore thumb. His new garb practically screamed, ‘Caster over here, please kill me’. Maybe we could dye it or cover it in mud or something.

“Did you automatically level-up when you finished the dungeon?” I asked them.

“Nah, you have to elect to do that. I got enough XP to level-up twice,” Jackson gushed. “Wait, did you not get enough to level-up? Sixteen thousand wasn’t enough.”

I shook my head and thought it best I didn’t mention that I received twenty thousand due to my notoriety bonus and remained more than twenty thousand short of enough for level two. Although, that was down to me needing double the standard amount for my classes grade, otherwise, with the dungeon’s XP and the quest I would have.

Jackson’s mouth gaped. “Damn, you are badass. I shouldn’t be surprised, you and Shana could have run the dungeon without us, after all.”

“I have enough for my second level,” Shana smiled.

“Good. Before we take any action in that regard we need to assess if we can make use of these upgrade points,” I said to the table.

“I read all about that in the help files,” Jackson enthused.

<I was going to give you the benefit of my years of experience, but I suppose we can let the noob show us what he knows> Quixbix snarked.

Jackson, being unable to hear the impudent quest imp carried on with his enthusiastic explanation. “So, to begin, the first ten points you get are essentially free moving. You can put them where you want and even move them later if you haven’t spent them. After that, any extra you earn are randomly added to the four upgrade categories, unless they were rewards for that specific category.”

“Are the costs the same for each category,” I interrupted.

“No, to change species it’s ten points multiplied by the tier you are moving to and you can’t skip tiers,” Jackson informed us.

<That means forty points for you and thirty points for Shana to go up a species tier> Quixbix supplied concurrently.

“For Paths and Harmonisations, it is five points to adopt them in the first place, unless you already have an existing one, Then it gets a bit more complicated, and then five points times the level you are moving to for each subsequent raise,” Jackson continued.

<So, ten to upgrade either of yours or five for Shana to adopt one, but there are a lot of prerequisites. Which neither of you has achieved, yet. As the sorcerer pointed out taking a secondary Path or Harmonisation is tricky and the cost variable > Quixbix said.

“And for Classes, the cost is the difference in grade multiplied by the tier of the new grade and an extra five multiplied by the new tier if you are crossing a tier boundary,” Jackson finished.

<The only class upgrade available to you is Dungeon Corsair Lord and that will cost fifty points. Shana has more options available to her, but she already has a Q-grade class so going higher will be a minimum of eighteen. We haven’t really talked about what happens when your Notoriety passes two hundred. At that point your experience gains will be doubled, and you begin to accrue other effects instead. One of which is a reduction in the cost of upgrading your Notorious class.>

<There isn’t really anything you can do with your points but hold onto them. The little firebug, on the other hand, has the precise number needed to shift from Sorcerer to Pyromancer> Quixbix advised.

“Thanks, Jackson. My imp concurs with your explanation,” I said, and Jackson looked a little surprised. “In fact, he tells me that eight points are enough for you to shift up to the Pyromancer class.”

“Yeah, I know,” he grinned. “I just didn’t want to act rashly and spend them without thinking it through. No respawns, you know.”

“I understand. It’s largely what has guided my current philosophy. Do it,” I encouraged him.

“Also, these points aren’t easy to come by. Completing dungeons is the best way, the harder the dungeon the better, but each dungeon only pays out once and we won’t earn as many points in the future. And then they get randomly allocated. Maybe I should hold onto mine for now,” Jackson worried.

“Jackson, you won’t be getting any more points if you’re dead. What are you going to do, hold onto your XP and run around at level one until you’ve completed a dozen dungeons? All to get a better class. Make the change,” I instructed kindly.

Jackson’s eyes flitted from side to side as he reviewed his character sheet.

“Shana, you should level-up too,” I whispered to her and kissed the crown of her head. “If it gives you the option of visiting Dean, decline.”

A minute later and that was done.

“Okay,” I announced to the table. “Now we have to head to Grand Haven and find an abandoned boat big enough to place the core in to form a Dungeon Ship.”

“Ermm,” Jackson coughed. “Does the vessel have to be intact?”

“Actually, no it doesn’t. It just has to be a boat or ship and large enough. Rowboats or speedboats won’t do,” I told him.

“In that case, I know where a river taxi has run aground not far from here,” he said.

“Tell me more,” I grinned widely.

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