Chapter 3: Chapter 2: Dungeon Diving

Gramps’ personal warehouse was a large, crowded building a short walk from the guild. It wasn’t cluttered, just…full. There was stuff everywhere, arranged into neat rows of shelves, boxes, stands, and other containers. Gramps led them through the stuff, walking with purpose towards what appeared to be a row of armor stands in the back. Once he got there, he led them down the row until he reached two stands with a bin next to each. One set of stand and bin was labeled as “Thomas”, and the other as “Ellie.”

“Go ahead and grab your stuff.” Gramps told them, “This is the best you can equip without any prerequisites, at least for leather armor and quarterstaffs. I picked those because they were the easiest to use with the minimal training you have. The gloves and boots will boost the power of the martial arts I taught you, but use those as a last resort, at least until you’ve had more real practice. Just use the staffs to hit things at a distance, and if they get close, then you can use your fists.”

As they suited up, Gramps began to tell them the particulars of the gear. “The gloves and boots are each a 10% boost to your unarmed attacks, the armor gives 10 extra Defense and Magic Defense, as well as 10% resistance to elemental damage. The quarterstaffs just add 10 to your Power. That all should keep you pretty safe from basically anything we’re going to encounter in the first dungeon, but I’ve got antidote potions and healing potions in that little satchel in each of your bins. It’s extradimensional, so just reach in and think of what you want, and you’ll be able to take it out.

“Once you hit level 5, you’ll be able to use the addon to your bands that will let you identify items, so let me know once you get there and I’ll give that to you.” He looked over the two, then nodded. “It looks like you’re all suited up, so let’s get this show on the road!”

Gramps led them out of the warehouse and down what Thomas assumed was the main street. People would, on occasion, stop to say hello to Gramps, and he would usually respond by returning the greeting and having a short, friendly conversation before excusing himself and the kids. Eventually, Gramps stopped in front of what was, in essence, a stereotypical wizard’s tower. It was tall and crooked, with small offshoots at seemingly random intervals.

And, strangest of all, it had a mailbox out front. No…not a mailbox, whatever those locker things were that apartment complexes had. Thomas didn’t know the name, as he had never lived anywhere that even had an apartment complex and hadn’t bothered to learn such a small detail.

“Um,” Ellie said, “Is this the dungeon? Why is there a mailbox?”

Gramps smirked. “Sure is. Each floor of a dungeon has a safe area to start with, and for whatever reason safe areas usually have some form of housing built in, complete with bedrooms, running water, electricity, and even internet access. They never used to have any of those last things, not until they started to become common, but now they do, and it baffles absolutely everyone. So, the guild rents those safe spaces out. It’s pretty handy to live next to a potential source of income, so rooms in dungeons are pretty popular, especially in a city like this.”

There was a line in front of the entrance, but Gramps just walked right to the front. There were two guards there, one of which was handling the line, and Gramps called out to the other. “Elias, can I have a moment of your time?”

The guard bolted upright and scurried over. He was, if Thomas was any judge, a dwarf, but Thomas didn’t know what shorter races there were, so he didn’t want to definitively pin down the species in his mind.

“Ah, Guildmaster, what’re you here for? Inspection’s not for another week…right?” Elias asked, peering curiously at Thomas and Ellie. “And who are those two?”

Gramps smiled. “You’re right, inspection’s not for another week. These two are my cute little grandkids, and I’m here to bring them on their first dungeon dive. I don’t have the time to spend all day waiting in lines, so I figured I’d just pop on in through the resident’s line. Oh, and I’m still working on getting their paperwork filled, but I can personally vouch for their trustworthiness, so do you think you could let us in?”

Elias rolled his eyes. “You know you don’t have to ask, Guildmaster. Have fun, kids!”

Before either Thomas or Ellie could reply, Gramps towed them through the large door that was propped open. All of a sudden, the atmosphere changed completely; the slight mugginess that had pervaded the air outside had vanished, and the temperature went from warm to perfect, like the place was air conditioned.

The sound dimmed noticeably as well, and when Thomas looked back, there was nothing but a featureless wall behind them. The room they were in was bigger than the tower had appeared to be from the outside and had significantly less people to boot. There was a hall to the side that was labelled “residents”, a large, ornate crystal in the middle of the room, and a couple of wooden stalls where merchants were hawking wares. Directly opposite the resident’s hall, there was a door labelled “Floor one”, and aside from that, the space was empty.

Gramps hopped down from the raised circle they were on and led them towards the crystal. “Each floor has a teleport pad on it. Stand on it and think about the floor you want to go to, and it’ll take you there. You can’t actually enter the dungeon on floors if you haven’t cleared the previous floor, but you can go to the lobby if you want. The pads let you exit the dungeon too, so get used to using them. Don’t worry if someone else is on the pad, it’ll just teleport you, so don’t think you have to stand in line or anything.” He reached the crystal and put his hands on it. “Except if you use this. This here is a Party Crystal, which you can use to form a Party. Go ahead and put your hands on it, you’ll understand how to use it.”

Once Thomas did, he found he was vaguely aware of everyone else currently touching the crystal, and he knew that he could invite them to form a Party. He wasn’t exactly sure what a Party entailed, but before he could think about it much, Gramps invited him, and he accepted.

Gramps took his hands off the crystal. “Parties can use the teleporter together, but they can’t teleport further than the person who’s gone the least in the dungeon. There’s also experience and drop sharing, but the most important feature of a Party is that it lets you use the same instance of a dungeon as other people in your party. Every Party has their copy of the floor, which resets once all party members have left the floor. If someone dies on the floor, their corpse is ejected when everyone’s left, and then they can be taken back to the local revival station to get resurrected. It’s not cheap, nor is it pleasant, so try not to die, alright?”

When he noticed their unsure expressions, he gave them each a pat on the arm. “Don’t worry about it too much. I’m going to be signing you two up for the guild’s premium insurance, so don’t even think about the payment, I’ll take care of it.”

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And with that, he towed them through the door to the first floor. It opened into a circular room, the edges of which were recessed and filled with water. There was a walkway to a large circular area in the middle, upon which rested a round green blob that could only be a slime.

“Ah, pattern D.” Gramps mused. “Dungeons have a few variations for each floor, the number of which is dependent upon the dungeon itself. In the early ones like this there are only a few variations, but big ones have a lot. Still there are some commonalities between patterns, so the guild gives out info pamphlets to help people out. Since I know this dungeon like the back of my hand, that wasn’t necessary today, but I’ll show you where to get that info when we get back. Anyway, that slime isn’t going to attack until one of us sets foot on that center pillar, so one of you two go fight it. With the gear you have it isn’t even worth being called a threat, so for practice you two should take turns with the slimes we see.”

“Dibs!” Ellie called, running forward to the pillar. She took out her quarterstaff and brought it down hard on the slime, which instantly burst apart. A moment later, the remnants of the slime turned into this sort of oily rainbow vapor and vanished, leaving behind what appeared to be a small pile of coins and an orb of some sort.

“Good job.” Gramps said, “Pick up your loot and put it in the other satchel I gave you, we can sell it once we get back to the guild.”

Ellie reached down, her hand passing directly through the orb as she grabbed something. She pulled her hand up to reveal a small coin of the type that the pile was made of, which she put into the satchel.

“That all?” She asked, looking over the room. “That’s kind of underwhelming.”

“Slimes don’t drop anything good.” Gramps said, shrugging. “What’d you get, Thomas?”

Thomas walked forward to the pile, bending down and counting the coins. “Looks like 10 of those coins and a little orb thing.”

“What?!” Ellie yelled, “You didn’t even do anything! Not fair!”

Gramps nodded sagely. “I wasn’t sure if your blessing would affect drops, but it appears that it does. Usually, people get way less or don’t even get drops if they don’t contribute much to a monster kill, maybe a couple of coins if they have high Luck, but what you got is about as valuable as drops from regular slimes get. That little orb is a core, which is used in magic, and those tend to sell nicely. Slimes also drop a couple of pieces of equipment, but they’re bad and only have really niche uses in alchemy, so they’re much cheaper than the core. Given that this variant of slime is known to only ever drop one thing at a time, coins excluded, that really is the best outcome for you. Next kill, try and aim for a piece of equipment, see if you can change what you get at will.”

Thomas nodded. “Alright.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Ellie said, calmer now, “Looks like you can just be my good luck charm, eh? I can run around and do the killing and you make us a killing!” She elbowed him gently, then walked over to Gramps, who had moved to the other end of the room.

“Wait, I still have to put everything away!” Thomas said, grabbing all the stuff. “Is there a faster way to do this?”

“Not until level 15.” Gramps said, “Then you can use the autocollect feature of the bags. It…usually isn’t a problem, but I suppose you in particular will have some more trouble. Come here when you’re done, the slime in the next room is all yours.”

Once the drops were collected, Thomas ran over, and they went through the door at the far end of the room. The next room was a simple square room, with no distinguishing features save for the slime in the middle.

Thomas gripped his quarterstaff and strode forward, heart pounding slightly. He was only 5 Strength lower than Ellie when she had fought her slime, and she took it out in a single blow, so it shouldn’t be too hard…right?

He struck out with all his power, squarely hitting the slime.

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