Chapter 81: Book 1: Chapter 28 (Part 1 of 2)

I left Trisha and Shana in my quarters basking in the afterglow of what we had been up to over the last several hours. Anastasia had waited for me outside the door impatiently tapping her foot. The lower deck was filled with hustle and bustle as people, mostly men in military uniform with Darkwyrlds armour over their clothes, loitered in the corridor or walked about.

We had got underway while I’d been engaged but I trusted Anastasia and Jackson to have handled it in my absence.

“Why didn’t you tell them they could make use of the crew quarters and the mess,” I asked the blonde offhandedly.

“I did, Torin,” she replied brusquely. “And they are. The Governor brought a lot more people than we expected. At least three hundred National Guardsmen and two hundred various civilian types. They didn’t bring everyone from the island, but it sure does feel that way.”

“Damn, that is more than I anticipated. They must have had patrols all over the island. Anyway, what’s got you so cranky? Is it because of what I’ve been getting up to in the privacy of my own chambers?” I needled her good-naturedly.

“Faugh!” Anastasia half-laughed half-scorned. “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what you were doing with the songbird strumpet. It’s them. They are everywhere, poking, prodding, and touching. Sticking their fucking noses in my business,” she said with a shudder.

I looked around us with a frown, sure there were a few bawdy soldier types nearby, but nobody seemed to have been invading Anastasia’s personal space. I was ready to crack some skulls, fatally, if any of them had laid a hand on my Ana.

Then the lightbulb went off in my head.

“Ah, you mean they are everywhere on the ship, touching things.”

“Yes, the ship, what did you think I meant?” she shot back, her eyes narrowing. Then she smirked conspiratorially. “Ha! If any of them had tried to cop a feel I would have drained them on the spot, deal or no deal.”

“That’s fair, I’d say,” I chuckled.

Anastasia rolled her eyes.

“You said our guests wanted to speak with me. Where have you settled the Governor and company?” I asked her.

“He is in the Captain’s Cabin on the upper deck with his daughter and several of his people. It’s his wife who wants to speak with you. She is under the stairwell by the dungeon entrance,” Anastasia replied.

Anastasia had returned the Dungeon entrance after the Fomorian invasion of the ship yesterday. Incidentally, she had told us that hardly any of the sea-demons she had deceived into going inside had made it as far as the third of her original chambers. None of them had made it any further.

“Let’s go see what she wants,” I said and took Anastasia by the hand and led her through the throng of people clogging up the gangway.

She yelped in surprise but didn’t object to her hand being clasped in mine and there was even a hint of a rosy blush in her cheeks when I glanced down at her.

We broke through the crowd and the area around the stairwell exits was mostly clear. Regina stood beneath the stairwell by the dungeon entrance with the taller of the two lawyers whose name I hadn’t caught yet.

“Ah, Captain Carter,” Regina remarked archly when she spotted us threading through a gap. “Good of you to join us.”

I ignored the backhanded criticism and ploughed on unperturbed. “Regina, call me Torin, please. I believe we are fast becoming friends and allies.”

Regina’s lips twitched with the ghost of a smile at my informality.

“Allies indeed,” she mused. “And yet you failed to disclose everything to us. Like the nature of this rather valuable mode of transportation,” she finished reproachfully.

“You can’t expect a fella’ to ‘fess up all his secrets on a first date,” I flirted.

Regina rewarded my playfulness with an unimpressed chuckle and pressed on.

“You have a dungeon on your ship, Torin,” she said, and I grinned at her use of my name but let her continue.

As soon as I heard that she was at the dungeon’s entrance I’d had a pretty good idea of where this was going but had decided to let Regina say her piece rather than skip straight to the negotiations for access.

“A level one dungeon. Albeit of quite a high grade,” she continued. “This caused quite a stir amongst several members of our camp more familiar with gaming than the rest of us, as you can imagine. I must apologise that several of them have already tried to enter without authorisation from us. But as I’m sure you’re aware, they were denied access without express permission from you.”

That was news to me.

Anastasia must have stopped them from going in. Wild dungeons couldn’t do that but being owned by me had to have changed the rules somewhat. Anastasia’s dainty hand was still in mine, so I rubbed the back of it with my thumb in a silent gesture of approval.

“Indeed,” I expressed, feigning ignorance of what she wanted. “As you have probably learned from the Framework, the Dungeon powers the ship and obeys my commands as captain. But we can’t have anybody wandering in there by accident. It is still a Dungeon, and they are potentially lethal.”

“Of course, a wise precaution to take,” Regina complimented, buying my excuse or at least pretending to.

“We did find a Dungeon during the exploration of the northern half of Mackinac Island. Regrettably, our analysis revealed that while the dungeon was fairly low in grade it was level fifteen and beyond the current capabilities of our forces to delve safely,” Regina informed us.

The verbal dance had been amusing but the song had finished. “Regina, are you asking if your troops can use my Dungeon to boost their levelling?” I grinned impishly at her with mock innocence.

Regina gave me a calculating glare; no doubt having realised I knew what she was angling for from the beginning and then sighed. “What is this going to cost me, Torin?”

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A part of me wanted to gouge them for as much as possible. But simply having plenty of runs would help Anastasia top up the ship’s energy levels. Plus, if we did end up doing business in the future it would be beneficial if Regina looked upon me favourably.

“I think a little favour to be called in at a later date should do the trick,” I told her.

Regina snorted with derision at my suggestion. “Completely unacceptable. You have to be off your rocker if you think I will make a Pact or sign a Contract for something as nebulous as an unnamed favour.”

I put my hands up at her righteous indignation. “Regina, you misunderstand. We are all friends here. Despite being a pirate, I wouldn’t be so underhanded to bind you to such an ill-defined deal.”

I absolutely would have if she had been foolish enough to agree but that was beside the point.

“This will be an informal agreement. A little bit of mutual back-scratching to build a growing trust and bond between our factions.”

“Hmmm,” she mused thoughtfully. “Such an agreement goes somewhat against the grain for me. But I can be flexible if the circumstance demands, provided you understand that if I believe you ask for too much, I will not hesitate to refuse.”

I already had an inkling of what I would be asking for. Regina wouldn’t like it and her daughter would positively lose her shit. But it wouldn’t be something Regina could reasonably refuse, and ruffling Raven’s feathers up would be a bonus.

“I’m fine with that, but if you turn me down, the favour will still be owed,” I made clear.

Regina nodded her assent. “You aren’t going to spit on your hand or anything equally obnoxious, are you?” she inquired with her eyebrow arched.

“No,” I reassured her with a chuckle. “You’ve been watching too many movies. Ana here, is our resident dungeon expert. Would you care to impart some safety advice to these adventurous folks? I’m sure the Governor wouldn’t want his forces decimated with unexpected losses,” I finished and drew Anastasia forward and put my hands on her shoulders.

Anastasia side-eyed me and grumbled something about being offered steak and having it switched for stringy jerky at the last second. My enhanced hearing picked it up, but with the hubbub of voices that filled the gangway, I doubted anybody else did.

Anastasia would just have to lump it, she might have preferred them going in blind and suffering a few casualties, but I didn’t want to sour our burgeoning relationship. The participation energy would suffice particularly if they ran several groups.

“The Marena’s Mercy is a young dungeon…” she began to explain. The unnamed lawyer or assistant started taking notes as she spoke. “…and hasn’t developed a theme so far. Unlike wild dungeons, it is double graded, either N or K. The N-grade version is its original quantification, and the higher K option is a result of being captured by Captain Carter.

“I would not recommend venturing in using the K version at all. K is in the fourth tier, and your soldiers don’t have the classes for it. For the N-grade run, which is still plenty dangerous, the recommended party strength is ten levels-worth of third-tier classes, or twenty of second-tier, or thirty of first tier. The maximums are twenty, forty and sixty respectively. I would advise forming groups somewhere in between. Anything under the recommended strength level and you are highly likely to lose people before they have a chance to retreat.

“There are four chambers which get stronger as you go, that is common knowledge.” Then Anastasia looked over her shoulder at me, a questioning look in her expression. I nodded for her to go on. “Chamber one has twenty red slimes, the second has ten lesser Fomorians armed with harpoons. Chamber three has ten razorback boars and the final room contains five Janusian Golems. They have two faces and four arms.”

Her description to Regina showed that her dungeon had changed things up a little since we had been through. It had still been adapting to its full strength when Shana, Jackson and I conquered it.

The Skreechers were gone, with the fire-based slimes taking their place and Fomorians now filling the gap in chamber two. They would be facing more boars and golems than we did, but ours had been compressed to make them tougher with considerably more Hit Points.

Compressed mobs maximised the chances of killing at least one or two of the group’s weaker members even if it meant complete party wipes were less likely.

“Finally,” Anastasia continued. “The dungeon can support three instances at a time. I estimate you have time to run fifteen groups through if they take an hour each. If you build your parties closer to the maximum, rather than the recommended strength, you should be able to get all the National Guardsmen to complete it before we arrive, and you have to debark.”

“Which is a good point, Regina,” I spoke up as Ana finished. “We are not staying in Saginaw. I will be extremely put out if you try and put a group through without enough time to complete the dungeon before we cast off. As will they be when they emerge and find themselves confined to my Brig for the trip back to Beaver Island, as we won’t be waiting for them to finish. That goes for everybody,” I said meaningfully.

“Understood, Captain Carter and those terms are agreeable to me,” Regina said with a coy smirk. Then she turned to nameless. “Higgins, get Macdonald’s, Kowalski’s, and Murphy’s expanded squads inside as soon as possible.”

Higgins bobbed his head and rushed off, calling out for the attention of the aforementioned sergeants. They were nearby and less than two minutes later, three fifteen-man squads had trooped through the shimmering entrance to the Marena’s Mercy dungeon.

“I see you already made preparations,” I chuckled as the last of them filed through.

“Time flies,” Regina responded with a bob of her head. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must return and make sure my husband hasn’t managed to fall overboard.”

Regina Reynolds rolled her eyes as she said this and made her way up the steps behind her.

“If you need me, Anastasia and I will be in the Navigation cabin on the opposite side of the corridor,” I called up after her.

“Shall we,” I then asked the diminutive blonde and proffered my arm.

“Don’t you want to go back to your quarters and bang the siren some more?” she asked suspiciously.

“I do, but the captain’s work is never done. As much as it pains me to forego the pleasures of the flesh available to me, I shouldn’t leave you to bear all the responsibility. That’s not very Captainy, is it?” I joked with her.

“Whatever,” she breathed and stomped up the steps ahead of me.

I still caught the hint of a pleased smile on her lips before she turned away, though.

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