With that, Dave started to walk over to Talvenicus when a tall young man called out, “Baron, what about if we want to seek service protecting Eris’ Rise rather than chopping wood?”

  He had known this would become an issue, and truthfully they still didn’t have it all sorted out. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

  “It’s Bertrund, my lord.”

  “Well, Bertrund, it is a very noble thing to be willing to fight and even if necessary lay down your life in the protection of your community. So I’m sure that we can find a way to provide you with training. That said, chopping wood is also important, and if all the lumberjacks join the military, then the army is going to be sent to chop wood. If you take my meaning.”

  “Yes, my lord, I will try to do both.”

  “I’m sure that the strength you gain in here,” Dave said as he waved his hand in the general direction of the dungeon entrance, “helps with chopping wood too.”

  “Oh yes, my lord, I am nearly twice as fast as I was before, and I’m only level five now.”

  Dave smiled, nodded, and then walked over to Talvenicus. “So what do you have for me today?”

  The others moved away politely so that their baron could have a private conversation.

  “Well, it’s a busy dungeon day. There are six groups for the survival floor and eight for the scavenger floor. And today we will have our first raid party since your inaugural trip.”

  Dave frowned, a dungeon day was what they had taken to calling a day inside the dungeon. It was less than two hours outside, but that didn’t mean that those who stayed inside the dungeon didn’t still need sleep and so on. In fact, coordinating the time inside with the time outside must have been a frustrating job and one that Dave was more than happy to delegate to the former mayor. What he said, though, was, “We aren’t ready for a raid yet, other than a few core people, and last time we had those three adventurers with us.”

  “And I know you just missed us so much, didn’t you, Baron Murkwood?”

  Dave heard the familiar voice and turned to see the blue-robed mage. “I didn’t know you were back in town, Tode, but that still doesn’t mean that we can take our time for a raid. The people strong enough are needed for other things.”

  “Oh, and here I was so happy for you that you got to see me again, but no, this is an Adventurers’ Guild raid filled with professional dungeon delvers. We paid all the dues and fees as agreed, or hasn’t Talvenicus filled you in on that?” Tode said.

  “I was just getting to it when you interrupted, adventurer.” Talvenicus, who had been former kingdom military and then a gem crafter before eventually becoming the mayor of an outpost town, was all about rules and managed to instill the word adventurer with all the disdain he felt for the dubious profession.

  “You would almost think that he doesn’t like me or all the fees that my guild brings into Eris’ Rise. Well, by your leave, Baron Murkwood, I am going to get my people organized and onto the raid floor. Those quests won’t complete themselves. Besides, it’s far more crowded in here than it was last time.” With a shallow bow the adventurer then turned and left.

  “They paid everything properly?”

  “Yes, even for the building of a guildhall in town, but there won’t be any hands available till after the goblin attack.”

  “Well, at least we will have extra swords and spells for when the goblins come,” Dave said.

  “They have power, just no discipline, my lord,” Talvenicus replied.

  “True enough, but beggars can’t be choosers. So what else is going on?”

  “Jaselm, Mun Hagen, and Daichi are already all here, training classes in various combat methods while waiting to see if you want them to lead any of the dungeon groups.”

  “Of course I do. You never have to ask that. I will do my fair share, but the more groups they run, the more time I can spend on my own projects too. Some of which I should say will truly improve the quality of life here.”

  “Very well, my lord. You of course know that all the villagers, human and elf alike, prefer to be in groups that you lead, but you are quite correct, you can’t lead them all. The only other thing to report is that we have a shortage of mithril again, so the scavenger floor teams need to make a priority of trying to find as much as they can. The rest can wait for later.”

  “Thanks, Talvenicus. If I don’t say it often enough, I truly appreciate everything you do for me and for Eris’ Rise,” Dave said.

  “It is my honor to serve, my lord.” Talvenicus bowed and then walked over with clipboard in hand and began organizing the various dungeon teams.

  Dave figured he could now take a minute to look at his notifications and then check out what loot he had earned in his little solo dungeon escapade. First, he opened his XP notifications.

  You have defeated 1 level 28 Tundra Tiger, after all applicable bonuses and penalties = 168 XP.

  You have defeated 3 level 15 Drake Hounds and 1 level 21 Alpha Drake Hound (caster variant) = 176 XP.

  Dave laughed. Even though the Tier 2 monsters didn’t give him any XP, they added to the group bonus, so the caster actually ended up being worth more than the tiger. Even two weeks in the dungeon had not gotten him to his next level. It was difficult when nothing below Tier 3 gave him XP and he had to fight in a group to enable the villagers to gain XP.

  Truthfully, this morning’s set of fights had done almost as much for him as over twelve hundred hours in the dungeon with low-level groups had. Still, he couldn’t stay in a bad mood. There was loot to collect. Hopefully, Altracia would throw him a bone for bringing in another creature that she could add to her mad laboratory of monster construction. Even more so after having created a spell for her casters that seemed like it was specifically meant to be a counter to his Ablative Armor.

  Opening the chest, he peered in and smiled. On top there was a note. He opened it up and read it. The core was definitely growing in personality. He wondered how much of that had to do with the bond and time spent with Sara, and how much with all the people walking the halls here now.

  Thank you for the tasty treat. You have done well in honoring our agreement to bring in samples for the dungeon. I will enjoy experimenting with just what a tundra tiger can do, although I am not so sure that you will enjoy the experiments quite as much.

  Nonetheless, a deal is a deal, and I shall pay you for bringing this and any such high-caliber creatures to the dungeon. Besides your loot, the mithril nodes in the scavenger dungeon will produce 4x as much ore for the next 12 hours.

  Eloria is conflict.

  —Altracia, Dungeon Mistress

  Looking at the loot, he found four items, which again was pretty generous for the core. She must really have liked the tiger. One was a bundle of forty pounds of tundra tiger steaks. He had no idea how she knew about the cooks being able to make magical foods, but he wasn’t going to turn it down.

  Next there were two potions:

  Epic Health Potions: Full dose instantly heals 1000 health. May be consumed ½ at a time.

  Next he found an odd ring or something like a ring, but too wide to actually fit on a finger.

  Ring Fuser (single-use item): May be used to combine any two rings of Epic or lower quality into a single magical ring.

  He got a grin at that. It was one that would require thought, but was hopefully going to make a nice upgrade for him. The final item was also somewhat ironic. They were nice fur boots that clearly were made at least in part from the tiger’s hide.

  Forrest’s Running Boots

  Quality: Epic

  Weight: 2.0

  Passive Effect: Running speed increased by 200%.

  Passive Effect: Dodge costs 1 less Stamina. Cooldown on Dodge reduced by 25%.

  The boots were clearly a dig at the way he had run from the tiger to get it to the dungeon, but the item was too good to do anything other than sit down and change his boots out right then and there. He still had hours of dungeon runs to do, so he might as well get started.

  Nine hours later, Dave stumbled out of the dungeon. No tiger or tiger hybrids yet today, but the dungeon had been going after them pretty hard. She was a hard taskmaster and pushed the villagers just as hard as if they had been trained warriors, only taking into account the relative levels of the party when setting the difficulty for each instance.

  Still, it had been worth it. In that time he had run four teams through. Two in survival and two in scavenger. Each trip was as unique as the individuals on his team, so he always had to be on his toes. Sometimes a big burly miner ended up being more afraid of a monster than a slender seamstress, but most of the time the people fell into their expected roles.

  The one thing he would say about the people of Eris’ Rise, though, was that none of them, regardless of race or position, shirked their responsibilities. Dave couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was the morale bonuses that having a patron now was giving them versus the people’s own personalities. Which of course made him wonder in what ways Eloria might be influencing him.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Before one can search dungeons, they must first search their own soul.”—Jayfen Tarzen, former chapter head of the Theriot Adventurers’ Guild

  Bastion of Thralls Dungeon—Dave Nelson

  Dave had entered the dungeon this morning at roughly 8 a.m. He hadn’t checked the clock on his character sheet beforehand for obvious reasons, but that was a pretty close approximation. That meant that in order for him to be back home by 10 p.m., as was his aim, he had more or less ten days inside the dungeon. Then he would repeat this cycle, except that normally he would leave much earlier and get home earlier.

  After ten hours he had already run the groups he was going to for today, so he got down to his favorite part of the day. The research that he got to perform was satisfying in a way that he hadn’t actually expected. Despite being a decent attorney, he had always preferred the courtroom side of things to the research.

  Now though, he felt like his research was meaningful. He had broken his research down into four parts. The simplest was that each time the moon was out, he would study the book they had received from the moon elf Throne as part of the reward for the Tree Sapper Quest. Even now as he ate some food and started ordering his mind, the description of the item was seared into his memory.

  Tome of Mystical Enhancement

  Quality: Mythic

  Weight: 2.0

  Active Effect: 1/moonrise. Study item for 1 hour uninterrupted every night while the moon is in the sky until mastery is obtained. Timing of the effect is based upon the moon on Eloria Prime and not affected by time-distortion effects.

  Once 100% mastery of text is achieved, the user will receive unknown rewards ranging from improvements in a specific magical school, boosts to mana, spell use, or other unknown possibilities. Diligence and intention are critical. The tome will be randomly translocated after use or failure to a random location, most likely a dungeon.

  Eloria is conflict, and the path of personal improvement is its own conflict.

  Dave had faithfully read it every moonrise for fourteen days and still was no closer to understanding it. It felt almost like gibberish at points. It seemed to be talking about Eloria and the connection people have with the world itself. Confusing as it was, though, Dave wasn’t willing to give up. He had high hopes that eventually it would produce a significant boost for him. It was, after all, a mythic-level item and not for any obvious reason, so he had to believe that the mysterious benefits were just that good.

  Next, he thought back through his battle with the tiger and then the alpha. His regeneration along with the buffs from the snacks had played a huge part in keeping him up and fighting. What upset him was that he realized he had failed to use another of his skills, which might have made the fight with the alpha more simplistic.

  Despite having plenty of mana to spare, he had not activated either Frost Armor or Mana Barrier. The frost armor would have been particularly useful against the tiger. After experiencing the chilled debuff himself, he was a big believer in the impact it could make. Even if it made it so attacks were slower and movement was stiffer, that alone could make all the difference in a melee battle.

  For the ranged battle, he could have activated Mana Barrier. He was kicking himself for not doing so. The barrier was instantaneous and could absorb 615 health of damage. He might never have even been chilled if he had.

  This led to two conclusions. First, he needed to look over his character sheet once again and make sure he wasn’t missing anything else. Second, he needed to set up some personal training time each day to help him maximize his own skills.

  It was certain that his role as a leader in helping to level up the people of Eris’ Rise would play a bigger part than his individual level now and in the future. Equally, he believed his ability as a researcher and engineer would be more important to the future stability, safety, and quality of life enjoyed by his people in the future than any combat skill he had.

  Yet for all that, he couldn’t forget the fight with Seimion. Would it really matter if his villagers were level zero or level fifteen when it came to a fight with a monster like that? Eloria seemed too much like a game or anime show for him to think that bosses could be beaten by a swarm. Bosses required high-level characters to fight them off.

  With that in mind, he pulled up his character sheet once more to go over it.

  Name: David Nelson

  Race: Human

  Age: 40

  Class: Arcane Dreadnought (Tier 1)

  Level: 32

  Alignment: +2

  Position: Baron of Murkwood, Consort to Lady Emiri, General of the Northern Army of Albia, Albian Ambassador to the Moon Elves

  Movement: 41

  Defense: 22 (5)

  Attack: 22 (10)

  Stats:

  STRENGTH: 50 (20% bonus)

  Bravery: 15

  Regen Rate: 5/hour

  Melee Damage: +100%

  DEXTERITY: 8

  Ranged Damage: +16%

  Rogue Skills: +16%

  AGILITY: 20 (30% bonus)

  Movement Rate: +40%

  Defense: +100%

  CONSTITUTION: 30

  Health: 1450 (300)

  Regen Rate: 11.4/hour

  Fury: 9

  Regen Rate: 3/hour

  ENDURANCE: 39

  Stamina: 18

  Regen Rate: (6/hour)

  Needed Rest: -60%

  INTELLIGENCE: 85 (20% bonus)

  Mana: 1450 (300)

  Spell Damage: +170%

  WISDOM: 39 (30% bonus)

  Mana Regen Rate: 585/hour

  Faith: 11

  Regen Rate: 3.9/hour

  CHARISMA: 21

  Social Skills: +42%

  Teamwork: 6.3

  Regen Rate: 2.1/hour

  LUCK: 8

  +8% chance to avoid catastrophic effects

  +8% improvement on chance of loot drops

  +8% improvement on quality of loot drops

  Total XP: 19,648

  XP to Next: 132

  Unspent Stat Points: 0

  Unspent Character Points: 48

  Looking at his stats, he was very pleased. It would have been easy to lament all the points put into Strength, but he was glad for it. Having a sword as a backup was always a good thing. This wasn’t some video game where he could die and come back to face the problem again. So even if he was determined to be a mage first and foremost, he still didn’t mind hacking a monster to pieces with a sword, as long as he was the hacker and not the hackee.

  The question was how to distribute stats in the future. His class put an entirely different spin on things. Only being guaranteed seven more levels before what might end up being his max tier, he knew that he had thirty-five more stat points in his future to play with. There was a part of him that wanted to dump a couple of levels’ worth into luck just to see what the impact would be.

  The way his class improved his stats gave him options that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. It was only practical for him to put more into Constitution moving forward because of the risk that he would be caught somewhere without armor and be unable to utilize his class bonus. Then again, Charisma could probably benefit from some points added to it. He was going to eventually need to upgrade the Charismatic influence but hadn’t because of how much he relied upon interactions with others.

  Dave supposed it was a decision for another day, hopefully a day that was soon, since he wasn’t far from his next level-up. Now though, he moved on to other parts of his sheet, looking at the traits next.

  Traits:

  Where the Mind Leads, the Body will Follow

  Tier 2: +20% Strength

  Tier 3: Arcane Backlash

  Tier 4: +20% Intelligence

  Blight Slayer: +10% damage against any creature that is the result of a magical experiment.

  These were definitely the hardest-to-define aspects of his sheet. The first trait he had obtained by going through deep personal hardship that shook him to his core and reformed his self-identity. The simple ones were the tier bonuses, although, he would be lying if he denied that he was excited to try to reach a new tier just to see what the next bonus would be.

  Arcane Backlash seemed incredibly overpowered. Yes, it was limited to specific functions, but the ability to turn an attack back on the one attacking you while at the same time limiting the damage that you took—well, there was a reason that was a class ability. It fit exactly with what an Arcane Juggernaut was. Even if the next bonus was only an additional 20% to a stat, it wasn’t like he would complain.

  Even the one he had gotten as a result of completing a quest was still useful. He didn’t need it now while running low-level groups through the dungeon, but that extra 10% had definitely come in handy during the raid. Since virtually everything in the dungeon was a magical experiment, it got a lot of use. Which of course left him wondering if there was a way to improve it.