by Ryan DeBruyn
● Kitchen
● Cutlery and Plates / Bowls
● Skill Scrolls
● Research Unlocking Equipment
● Blueprints
To Build
● Residences
● Guild Hall
● Meal Hall
● Town Hall
● Restaurant and Bar
● Crafting Hall
● Local Shops
They had mostly decided that they would try to buy the first three on the ‘To Buy’ list and wait until they had built the first three buildings; then they would sit down and re-discuss.
The group wanted to rush them off to go to the shop right away, but Rocky pulled out the magazine which Jesse had given him that first visit, what felt like ages ago. While Jesse had turned out to be a true slimeball, the times for merchant hours within the book were accurate, and while he didn't have a watch, Sela had learned that the shop was approximately twelve hours in front of the time it was in this geographical location on Earth, meaning that it was somewhere near seven in the morning in the Grotto and seven at night in the shop. Garnell had listed hours that he would be in the shop. Currently, he was out of the shop for at least a few more hours and maybe as much as six hours.
The shopping trip momentarily on hold, they turned to any advantage that might help them progress faster for obvious reasons, which of course, meant the Dungeon needed to be dealt with. So Rocky pulled off his backpack and removed the softball-sized glowing stone.
“Alright, Maximus. How do we do this?” was Rocky’s awkward question. The stone didn’t respond, and Rocky noticed how faintly it was glowing. So, he panicked for a moment, thinking he had killed it.
It turns out that Max, the Dungeon, was merely deep in thought. Sela screaming at the stone woke it up, to her smiling satisfaction and pleased, crossed-arm victory pose. She had definitely succeeded in startling both Max and Rocky with her outburst.
Rocky repeated his question, and Maximus got serious, “If you choose to enter into negotiations, Gladiator, all you must do is place my core on the ground. Once I am on the ground, a menu of options will arise, and we can begin to negotiate between us for my place in the Territory.”
Rocky looked at Sela, who shrugged and then flippantly interjected, “If the Dungeon is lying to us. We will just be forced to kill it.”
Rocky shook his head and tried to hide a smile as he placed the Dungeon core on to the ground within the Grotto. Sela may one day get over her intense dislike of Dungeons, or perhaps, she wouldn’t, but that comment might help the negotiations. As he stood back to his feet, a green menu box appeared in front of him.
Maximus, the Arena Dungeon, has been grounded in Algonquin Valley.
Would you like to begin negotiations with Maximus, or is he an invading Dungeon?
Rocky mentally selected negotiation, and a new window popped up.
Terms of Cardinal Dungeon Contract
Standard Terms
● Dungeon receives 2.5% of Territory-generated Essence
● Dungeon receives at least one tribute in the way of valuable items or monsters sacrificed to its depth per moon.
● The Dungeon is not held responsible for any deaths of citizens who enter willingly.
● The Dungeon is not held liable for any injuries on premises.
● Dungeon attempts with all due haste to reach the Tectonic Dungeons.
● The Dungeon will work together to meet this goal with all other Cardinal Dungeons.
● Territory Leaders shall never be harmed within Dungeon.
● The Dungeon will increase the fertility of lands in the cardinal direction of its placement.
● The Dungeon will defend and notify Leaders of invaders from said direction.
● The Dungeon can call on Leaders to defend it from invaders who seek its heart.
Offer |
Looking at the standard terms, Rocky’s eyebrows shot up because he understood a grand total of zero of its clauses. He looked at Sela who was reading the same list as him. She shook her head and tilted it quizzically. Rocky turned to the core. “What exactly is this Tectonic Dungeon? Also, what in the hell is going to attack you?”
Maximus took a pragmatic pause, which was probably the only way he could convey gravity to a situation since he didn’t have any appendages or features. Then he spoke, “Gladiator, Tectonic Dungeons are the deeper seven. They are the place of legends, and Territories who gain access to their halls are granted power beyond compare. To be able to challenge the strength of the Seven should be something that any Champion would aspire towards! As for attacks, if you accept me into this position, other Dungeons and monsters may attack me and the other three Cardinal Dungeons to delay or prevent our progress to the Tectonic Dungeons. According to records, at present, only one Tectonic Dungeon was ever entered. Dungeons fight jealously for the honor of challenging the Seven.”
Rocky shook his head and considered if Maximus had just implied what he was thinking. Tectonic only related to one thing in his mind, and that was the tectonic plates. Conveniently, he believed that there were seven of those. Rocky chose to ignore that as it was an eventuality that was too monstrous and distant to fathom. He assumed that these seven Tectonic Dungeons would be far more powerful and nasty then Maximus was letting on.
“Alright, so let’s talk about what you as a Dungeon want? Cause the only one I understand is the Essence and sacrificed monsters,” Rocky continued, trying to understand the depth of this contract. Even understanding the Essence was a stretch, since from what he could deduce, it was some higher form of energy than Ether.
“Dungeons need to be strengthened. We are constantly threatened by travelers, such as your homicidal druid over there. Everyone wants to kill us, and even our own don’t want us to reach the Seven. So, we want stronger monsters and Essence to be able to build defenses and armies. In addition, we would like people to challenge our depth to learn and grow,” Maximus gushed excitedly, like challenging the Tectonic Dungeons and evolving strategies was an imperative for him.
The poker player in Rocky perked up at the emotion in the rant, and he smiled. Rocky didn’t care at all about these Tectonic Dungeons currently, and that gave him leverage since Maximus clearly did. To confirm this suspicion, Rocky opened a customized contract and added a few lines while removing a few others.
Customized Terms
● The Dungeon will not kill any of the citizens who venture within its halls.
● The Dungeon will receive 2% of Territorial generated Essence.
● The Dungeon will receive a new monster corpse one time per month.
● The Dungeon will drop loot at each wave of the Dungeon for explorers and give them the option to exit the Dungeon between waves.
● The Dungeon will increase the fertility of lands in the cardinal direction of its placement.
● The Dungeon will defend and notify Leaders of invaders from said direction.
● The Dungeon can call on Leaders to defend it from invaders who seek its heart.
Rocky had taken the last three from the standard contract verbatim thinking that they should be fine as listed. He clicked “offer” at the bottom and waited.
Maximus went silent, and a moment later, the screen popped back up with a counteroffer.
Customized Terms
● The Dungeon will not kill any of the guild members who venture within its halls if they are not competing.
● The Dungeon will receive 5% of Territorial generated Essence.
● The Dungeon will receive a new monster corpse one time per month moon.
● The Dungeon will drop loot at each wave of the Dungeon for explorers and give them the option to exit the Dungeon between waves.
● The Dungeon is not held responsible for any deaths of citizens who enter willingly.
● The Dungeon is not held liable for any in
juries on premises.
● Dungeon attempts with all due haste to reach the Tectonic Dungeon.
● The Dungeon will work together to meet reach the Tectonic Dungeon with all other Cardinal Dungeons.
● Territory Leaders shall never be harmed within the Dungeon.
● The Dungeon will increase the fertility of lands in the cardinal direction of its placement.
● The Dungeon will defend and notify Leaders of invaders from said direction.
● The Dungeon can call on Leaders to defend it from invaders who seek its heart.
Accept |
Rocky smiled because he knew he had the Dungeon after the counteroffer. He immediately saw his bargaining power and wasn’t going to let it go. They went back and forth and spoke often. Maximus seemed shocked when Rocky told him he didn’t care at all about reaching the Seven. In addition, after many back and forth exchanges, it turned out that the Dungeon couldn’t distinguish if people were citizens and had to change it to guild members because then through some feature of the system, they were tagged for the Dungeon to recognize.
In the end, they reached an agreement that Rocky thought was ideal for his population. Maximus, on the other hand, felt he had given away access to something that Rocky should have wanted to begin with.
You can’t start planning for the distant future when you have no foundation set in the present.
Strangely, what ended up assuaging the Dungeon’s feelings was the ‘donation’ of human excrement. The North Dungeon, Maximus, was going to create an area in the northern part of the Grotto that would absorb human waste. Rocky was ecstatic about this boon, but the Dungeon had fought for it. According to Maximus, human waste of any kind had some Essence and Ether still present. If you put enough of it together, then it amounted to something.
The Dungeon had also wanted to create bathhouses, which would be able to absorb filth and human skin cells from the wastewater. Rocky really wanted to accept that offer but felt like it was a good bargaining chip for later or one of the other Cardinal Dungeons. Thinking of LFD, Rocky was strangely contemplative on giving this Dungeon too much.
Customized Terms
● The Dungeon will not kill any of the Guild Members as long as:
- If a Member would have ‘died’, they will be notified and forced to leave the Dungeon, and ‘dead’ Members cannot return until after Resurrection Day—Voskresenie (Sunday).
- On Saturnday (Saturday), the Dungeon will tally each spared Member and will be awarded accordingly.
- A Member can choose to enter after they have ‘died’, but then all above protections are void.
- If a party has cleared past the final wave, they also must wait to re-enter until after Resurrection Day.
- The Dungeon will reset to wave one for all parties on Mōnandæg (Monday).
● The Dungeon will receive 2.5% of Territorial generated Essence.
● The Dungeon will receive a new monster corpse or equivalent Crystallized Ether one time per moon (month).
● The Dungeon will drop loot at each wave of the Dungeon for explorers and give them the option to exit the Dungeon between waves.
● The Dungeon is not held liable for any injuries on premises.
● The Dungeon shall attempt with all due haste to reach the Tectonic Dungeon as long as it doesn’t hinder other clauses.
● The Dungeon will work in conjunction with all other Cardinal Dungeons for the betterment of the Territory.
● The Dungeon will increase the fertility of lands in the cardinal direction of its placement.
● The Dungeon will defend and notify Leaders of invaders from said direction.
● The Dungeon can call on Leaders to defend it from invaders who seek its heart.
● The Dungeon will create a sewage system to receive human excrement from the Territory for absorption.
● This agreement is subject to change and will be re-negotiated once per full rotation.
Rocky had added in all the parentheses to make it more understandable for himself. Sela had to try to explain what the days of the week were, using the second day and matching it to Mōnandæg before he had understood. While one moon equated to twenty-nine and a half days, Rocky had affixed month on to it more because that was the time delineation he and every human would be used to seeing. The Dungeon at first had fought desperately to be allowed to kill humans or travelers who entered if it had the opportunity. Rocky, who needed a safe training ground, had racked his brain for a solution to this problem.
Between Joe, Jason, a somewhat smug Sela, and himself asking questions of Maximus, they had begun to understand the Dungeon’s desire. The conundrum, as Rocky understood it, was that a Dungeon, when absorbing a corpse, consumed all the accumulated Ether in the corpse. This was a great boon and equated to much more Ether than usually looted in the form of Crystallized Ether. Additionally, most people had some Essence accumulated in their bodies as well, which seemed to be an order of magnitude more potent than Ether.
In the end, he had discovered that the Dungeon would accept something in place of a human’s accumulated Ether. One Crystallized Ether per ‘kill’ was accepted after much grumbling—or something of equal value, which Rocky assumed would be a monster corpse or the like. Shaking his head, he mentally pushed accept. He wasn’t sure he had made a good deal with the Dungeon, but he had added the final addendum for just that possibility.
Rocky carried Maximus over to the North wall of the Grotto and held him up against the stone. As if the stone wall was water and Maximus was dropped into it, the wall sucked in the Dungeon core and rippled back to normal. According to Max, it would take approximately four days to get set up, and he would open on Monday, and just like that, in an offhand way, Rocky had found out it was currently Thursday or Thorsday as Sela had informed him.
I will try to do a better job of keeping track of the day. You ‘retire’ and suddenly don’t know the day of the week. Old man!
He chuckled to himself and walked towards the training area. Sela followed along with him, while Joe and Zippo left to go organize the militia into both a defensive force and a temporary administrative one.
That had been another discussion from the night before. The military being one of the few organized groups in the Grotto, it was going to have to pull some double duty for a time. They would need to run some of the backbone of the administration jobs until a government was properly set up. The military’s jobs still included regular police work, Grotto security, and the like but extended to creating a list of people and classes present, what skills each person had acquired, and crafting needs.
Sela distracted his thoughts as she sped up her pace to get in front of him and put up a hand. “Are you sure about adding the Dungeon to the Territory? Also giving it Crystallized Ether seems like it will get costly.” In her words, Rocky heard her intense dislike of all Dungeons, and it continued to worry him.
“Sela, you forget a few things. I did specify that it had to drop loot and confirmed that it could create the three currency stones.” Sela was obviously confused, which was indicated by her narrowing eyes. So Rocky smiled and continued, “We may be giving away a Crystallized Ether early on to strengthen our population, but the loot they will receive will include items to counter this loss. If we choose not to allow the Dungeon to absorb any other form of currency, we will either be receiving gear, meat, or Emerald Gems. Do you see?”
Sela’s eyes widened, and she pointed a finger at Rocky in disbelief. “You were planning this the whole time?” Her voice couldn’t contain her disbelief with Rocky’s ingenuity. She continued, “And as our population gets stronger and doesn’t ‘die’ as much. We will be counting anything the Dungeon drops as pure profit?” Rocky smiled, confirming her thoughts, and she shook her head, truly surprised by the plan. After a thought struck her, she frowned and confusedly asked, “Why did you put in the renegotiations, then?”
Rocky frowned. “I
am kind of hoping that the first bit looks so unfavorable to us in the deal that I can get more out of Maximus. Then lock in a permanent contract before the odds skew back. In truth, if we continue to increase our population numbers, it may never really skew fully in our favor. It’s all just theoretical at this point.”
Sela shook her head again but moved out of his direct path to the center of the Grotto. They had worked at the meeting and subsequently dealt with the Dungeon through the night. It was time for the daily training, and then they would go to the shop.
They had almost chosen to skip the daily training to go to the shop, but Rocky had felt it was important to get the populace used to a routinely scheduled training session, and he needed to lead it. He was trying desperately to make this an every morning routine that they could adjust on the fly based on what the Territory needed. He would have to find others who could lead it for times when he was away, though.
They walked in silence as Sela considered how to break Rocky of his aversion to leadership, and Rocky considered how to break Sela’s aversion to Dungeons.
Chapter Eleven
After the morning training, in which Rocky taught Meditation and Sela directed people in hand to hand combat, Rocky’s and Sela’s projections phased into the familiar mountaintop of the Aretrin Bazaar. Rocky looked around and considered where to start. There were a few merchants he really wasn’t looking forward to visiting. Mainly Jesse, the man who ripped him off on his first visit, then handed him a magazine to let other merchants know he was a sucker. Unfortunately, the other merchants who sold skill scrolls and the like were nowhere near Jesse’s equal in what they offered. Regardless, he chose he would visit all of them before he graced the Elf’s stupid blanket.
As his eyes roamed, he swore he saw a red mechanical humanoid disappear, and he blinked rapidly.
That had looked a hell of a lot like Corsair!
