Yes, I had a new house now, courtesy of the Iron-workers Guild. Negotiating my contract with the Guild had been exhausting, but I think we we were both happy with the outcome. Of course, Master Gustave’s [Bargain] and Level had been higher than mine, so he probably got the better end of the deal, but from my perspective it was a quite satisfactory.

Gustave had mainly been concerned with getting as much money as possible out of the deal, and while I did want the money, I had been more concerned with maintaining my freedom. Both to act, and to leave when it was time to move on. Fortunately, Gustave had no intention of turning me into an [Enchanting] factory. Because my raw materials were so expensive, and the market so rarefied, putting massive numbers of enchanted goods on the market would raise costs and drop prices.

So I was contracted to produce 6 items a week according to the Guild specifications, for which they would provide all the raw materials. I’d get 20% of the profits of the sale. That wasn’t much - that had been the number Gustave was most eager to bargain down in return for concessions, but when you considered that the average profit on a [Good] enchanted item was around 300 Gold, I’d be making 360 gold per week, for about one days worth of work.

For any other enchantment I wanted to make, they would provide materials at cost - which was a substantial discount for iron-working, and a smaller discount for the gems. They had first offer rights if I wanted to sell them, but I could sell elsewhere if they couldn’t meet my price.

My main concern had been making sure I wasn’t locked in. They’d put in a provision that I couldn’t leave to work with other guilds in this city, but otherwise I was able to exit the contract with no penalty. I wasn’t sure if they’d keep to those provisions, but I had an ace up my sleeve there. I hadn’t told them I had [Teach] which would let me create a replacement, which should ease the pain of my leaving. I hadn’t told them about it because I didn’t want them pressuring me to [Teach] them.

The house had been a perk - we had both agreed that I needed a more secure work area. They’d managed to find me a place on Smithy street - it was occupied only by Guild members. Of which I was one now - I had been awarded the rank of Senior Member, which was as high as I could go without having duties as an official. The house was a considerable upgrade from my old place, with more rooms and thicker walls. There was space for working, dining, a library, even a room for my maid.

Oh.. yeah. I was getting a maid. It felt ostentatious. but Gustave had insisted that I needed one for both companionship, to keep me fed and to keep me from ‘bringing disgrace to the Guild’. Which I took to mean, that as a Senior Guild member, I needed to dress well and keep my hair in some sort of elaborate style. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if he was just saying all that so that he could have someone keeping an eye on me, but it didn’t matter. Its not like a spy could learn [Enchanting] from observing me, and I wasn’t planning on betraying the Guild, so it didn’t matter. It would be nice to have someone to do the cleaning and such. I’d task Aubey with cleaning, but he’d be rubbish at it.

Speaking of Aubert, he was just now coming back from his final trip. Most of my belongings had been packed into my trunk, but there were a few larger items that needed separate transportation. I’d feel bad about making him carry them, but it really wasn’t a problem for him to lift a one tonne barrel of water. I’d unpacked while he was doing that, so once he’d placed it correctly, we were ready to start with what he’d thought he’d come here for.

“So, a mercenary team.” I said briskly, sitting down at my new table, and gesturing for him to take a seat. “Should I presume that your talents lie with the sword?”

He looked at me suspiciously before taking the seat. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve achieved level 6 with Bladed weapons. I’m also proficient with bows, and I can wear heavy armour. May I ask what your talents are?”

I grimaced, both because of what I was about to reveal, and the fact that I was going to reveal it. “Enchanting and Illusions.” I felt the need to demonstrate, so I gestured and made an apple appear on the table.

“Neither of which will be of any use in this dungeon,” Aubert sneered.

“You are correct,” I sighed. “But the dungeon is only to be our sideline. I don’t believe the jobs your father has for us lie in there.”

“I don’t know anything about that. He hasn’t said.”

“Well, we’ll need to get a team together first,” I said. “To my mind, we have the support and tank roles covered. We need fire support and a rogue type to take care of traps and scouting. We also need healing, but we can cover that with potions.”

“I can work at range as well,” he reminded me, “But it would be good to have a fire mage. Working with a rogue though,” he sniffed. “They are beneath me.”

I raised an eyebrow. I could do that before, but now I could indicate five degrees of disbelief. “Its my understanding that Rogues aren’t actually criminals.”

“Too many of them are,” he sniffed again. “and all of them… they fight dishonourably, in the shadows with knives and stabs in the back. With commoner weapons.”

I rolled my eyes. “Weapons like this?” I asked, pulling my dagger out of a slit in the side of my skirt. I used [Unseen Sound] to make my voice come from behind him. “With tricks?”

He quickly whirled around, knocking over the chair in his haste. When he saw nothing behind him, he glared at me.

“I think theres a fair amount of synergy between a Rogue's tactics and my own,” I continued. “How do you deal with traps without a Rogue?”

Aubert carefully restored his chair to the upright position and took his seat once more. “Poorly,” he admitted. “A [Ranger] or some class with good [Perception] can often spot them, but the only option for disarming it to trigger them at a distance.”

“Rogue and Fire-mage, on the list.” I said firmly. “Thats four, do we want more?”

“A Healer would be useful…” he said. “And with two - or three - backline roles, it would be good to have another… Protector role in the team.”

I drummed my fingers against the table as I thought about it. “I do know a Healer, that comes with a fighter-type. She’s not in town though.”

“Do you want to write to her, and save her a place? Healers that go into combat are rare.”

“Yes, I’ll write, and see if she’s interested. We can work on filling the other two spots for now. Do you know anyone suitable?”

“There is a fire mage not currently in a team,” he said. “But she won’t work with me.”

“I like her already. Tell me more.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to say that guy's right about anything, but he’s right about that. Theres no way I’m working for him.” Janie leaned back in her chair, already on the defensive. She was one of the rougher-looking denizens of the delvers bar that I’d found her in. Tattoos on her neck and wrist, piercings in five places that I could see - but it was her armour that had made her easy to pick out. Leather, and dyed bright red, it stood out, which had to have been her intention.

“You wouldn’t be working for him,” I said calmly.“You’d both be working under me.”

Janie froze, then very deliberately sniffed at her drink. “I thought I was hallucinating when someone like you walked in here, now I know I am.”

“Someone like me?” I was not wearing my ladies dress for this outing, I’d reverted to my leather armour. While still new, it had enough faint bloodstains to fit in here.

“You think you can hide quality looks like yours just by putting on a suit?” she replied. “Plus you’re just now telling me that Aubert the Shit is working for you - are you a princess or something?”

“I’m not any kind of noble,” I said. “I’ve a contract with his father that puts me in a… supervisory role over his son.”

“He must fucking love that.” Janie said, grinning. “Almost worth signing up to see that in action.”

“You know…” I said. “I told Aubey not to bother telling me exactly how he incurred your enmity, but now that I’ve met you, you don’t seem like his type.”

“Are you calling me ugly?” Janie’s eyes narrowed.

“Strong.” I replied. “And obviously the type that won’t be browbeaten into anything.”

Janie scowled, “I’d have to take ugly, if it came from you. But yeah, it wasn’t me he was latching on to, it was a friend of mine.”

“Is she alright?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. It wasn’t like he’d dragged her out to a back alley or something. Just wouldn’t take no for an answer. Things got ugly, least until his burn scars healed.” She smiled at the memory.

“You got away with burning him?”

“Ah, it was just a little bit. He didn’t want to admit he lost, so he didn’t take it further. Officially. He put a surcharge on my dungeon entries, that fucked things up for my team, so I had to leave it. Since then, I’ve been barely scraping by.”

“Why not leave? Join the Adventurers guild?”

“I’ve got family here, you know?” She looked a little embarrassed at the admission. “Makes it hard.”

“It seems to me,” I said carefully, “That this is an opportunity to have Duvost family make up for what they’ve cost you.”

“The money is good,” she said wistfully.

“If you can manage to avoid setting Aubey on fire, I’ll make sure to keep him under control. Thats what I promised his father, anyway.”

“Can I call him that?”

“Absolutely.”

You have defeated Janie Baker in a Tier 3 Social Contest! You have earned 20 XP

Social penalty rescinded.

When we got to the bar, Janie pointed out Cloridan. He was sprawled out behind a table, sitting beside an unconscious man. He perked up as we approached.

“I’m in!” he said. He looked pretty tall from what I could see. His eyes were green and his blond hair was long for a man. He had a thin braid which ran behind one ear.

“We haven’t even told you what we’re here for,” Janie said, a wry smirk on her face.

“I thought you said this guy was reliable?” I asked Janie.

“Reliably sober on the job, reliably drunk off it,” she replied.

“Indeed ma’am, she speaks the truth,” Cloridan said, only slurring his words a little. “And while I’ll happily comply if you need something right away, I would be re- rem- foolish, if I didn’t warn you that I won’t be at my best for the next 8 hours.”

“Its a long term job, with a retainer’s fee,” I said. “I can’t have you being drunk every night.”

“Thats fine,” he said, making an expansive gesture. “The company of a woman as beautiful as yourself is like fine wine to me. I can stay sober for as long as you need, knowing that I will be fulfilling your desire.”

I looked over at at Janie. “Are you sure…”

“He won’t try anything,” she said firmly. “He won’t shut up, but he’s not the type to make unwelcome advances. I wouldn’t be on a team with him if he was.” She gave me a significant look back. Touche. I took a seat opposite the Rogue.

“The job's long term, with a retainer of a gold a day. Missions from the Count, pay dependant on the job. In our downtime we get free access to the dungeon.”

“Free access? The Count?” Cloridan’s eyes narrowed for a moment, but then he shook his head. “I’m too drunk to think about this… Janie, is this job alright?”

“Its legit,” she said. “Theres a Shit-shaped twist to it that she hasn’t told you about, but its a twist, not a stinger.”

“Good enough!” he exclaimed. “I’ll have more questions tomorrow, but I’ll do it. I take it Janie vouched for my skills?”

“Yeah. I’m not going to ask you to demonstrate anything drunk. Janie, can you get him to my place tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure thing… boss.” she said, trying the word out.

“I’ll get the details sent to the Count. He might have something for us already, if he doesn’t, we’ll work on our tactics and try out a dungeon level or three.

“We’ll be there.”

“Brace!” Janie yelled, and our front line responded by ducking back behind their shields. A streak of fire flashed past the two boys and exploded into an inferno that engulfed the room. The screams from the tentacled horrors were terrifying, but mercifully brief.

Your party has killed a Octopoid Abomination - your experience share is 135 XP

Your party has killed a Octopoid Abomination - your experience share is 175 XP

Your party has killed a Octopoid Abomination - your experience share is 135 XP

Your party has killed a Octopoid Abomination - your experience share is 135 XP

Your party has killed a Octopoid Abomination - your experience share is 175 XP

With no monsters immediately threatening, Cloridan dropped his shield and carefully moved into the room. Aubert presented his shield to me, and I drenched it in water, doing the same for the other shield. The boiled leather facing wouldn’t catch fire easily, but if we didn’t keep it wet, it would burn eventually.

“Are you sure this is still an undead dungeon?” I asked, “It seems more Cthulhu horror to me.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Aubert said, turning back to face the room. “But this is what you get when a Necromancer has a bunch of left over flesh from making skeletons.”

Your party has killed a Octopoid Abomination - your experience share is 175 XP

I looked over to see that Cloridan had finished off one of the still-twitching Abominations.

“Wait, is that actually how these were created?”

“No,” Aubert said. “But once they were created, they became available to spawn in dungeons.” He paused in thought. “The boss does have necromancy though, he can raise any delvers that die in his room.”

Cloridan gave us the all-clear, so we moved into the room. We each had a job to do. Cloridan and Aubert covered the exits, while Janie stood ready to torch any entrance that looked to start spewing Abominations. We weren’t actually expecting trouble. Janie’s strategy had been to have our fighters hold off the horrors for long enough for them to all gather in the one place. Then she could take them out with one big spell.

They should be all gone, but they moved - slid - entirely soundlessly, so we were keeping an eye out for any stragglers. Well, except for me. As the baggage, with low defences and little damage potential, my job was to collect the treasure.

Ugh. At least the [Undead Bane] runes on my knife meant it cut through the flesh like butter. I had to slice through the main body to get the mana crystal at its core. These were 10 of mana capacity, probably the minimum for me to use in enchantments. 20 gold per monster, which was actually low for a Level this deep, but all the good loot was with the master, apparently.

Eventually I was done, and we moved on. Aubert pointed out the entrance to take, and I lit it up. Lighting spells were my main spell contribution so far. Octopoids didn’t even have regular senses. I wasn’t being much of a leader here. Aubert was the one with prior knowledge, Cloridan led the way, and Janie provided our strategy.

Cloridan had stopped up ahead.

“Trap,” he said when we’d caught up. He pointed up at the ceiling. “Corpse rats dropping down.”

Ouch. Corpse rats weren’t much of a threat - if you saw them coming. Droped on top of you, spread out amongst the party… nasty. We’d seen this sort of thing already though, and Janie had a response ready. She cast a spell and a flamethrower-like jet of flame washed out and covered the ceiling. Hardly any of it found its way through the stone of course, but Cloridan then triggered the trap.

With another horrible shriek, rats fell into the flames. There were hundreds, but none of them was much tougher than a normal rat. They were charred before they hit the ground.

Your party has killed a Corpse Rat Mass - your experience share is 175 XP

Corpse rats were just one monster, with lots of little bodies that all worked together. Each rat killed was just some HP lost. We all paused for a moment, thinking about what that would have been like without warning

“Do you see the stone?” Janie asked me. With [Mana Sense] it was easy to make out the central rat that held it. I retrieved it, and we continued on our way.

Things continued in much the same way for a few more rooms. Finally we came to the end of the level.

“Your chance to shine.” Janie said.

“Pretty sure this is the opposite of shining,” I said, casting [Greater Invisibility] on Cloridan. “But its nice to be finally useful.”

“Your lighting spells have been useful,” she objected. “Believe me, its a real pain having to fight carrying your light source.

“Doesn’t Fire Magic have a light spell?” I asked. Cloridan handed me his shield, and I hefted it experimentally.

“Theres a continual flame spell, but the upkeep is ridiculously expensive unless you give it a fuel source… like a torch,” she said grimacing. “I normally carry a torch, drop it during the fight and then relight it when the fights done. Everybody ready?”

I raised my shield and nodded. Aubert did the same, and we moved forward in a line, first Aubert, then myself and finally Janie. We moved briskly into the chamber.

The boss of this level was a Vampire, Threat 13. He was waiting for us on top of a dais that held his sarcophagus. He contemptuously bellowed out a challenge in what I’d been told was a long forgotten language, but I could understand it.

“Foolish Mortals! You dare trespass on my domain? I will teach you the pleasures of death’s sweet embrace!”

Little cliched, I thought as we ran towards him. Aubert took the lead, hoping to close the distance and engage in melee, while us casters hung back. The vampire released his magic, shadows radiating out in all directions and threatening to engulf us.

The room was engulfed in darkness as the shadows swarmed towards us, my light spells obscured. Then Janie lit up the room.

A pillar of fire extended from her hands as she cast [Torrent of Flame]. It punched through the shadows surrounding us and cleared them away from Aubert - possibly going a little too close for comfort - before finally striking the vampire. He screamed, but this wasn’t enough to take him down. He shouted something about raising us as his undead consorts and unleashed more shadows.

The boss and Janie started trading spells, fire for shadow. My job was to try and block the shadow fragments that didn’t get burned up by Janies spells. I wasn’t great at, though I did unlock [Weapon Mastery: Shield]. I think that we were getting the better of the exchange, especially once Aubert managed to make it up the dais and land a few blows. All of this was a distraction though.

Cut off in mid-insult, the Vampire looked down. As his shadows evaporated away, we could all see an empty hole, perhaps an inch across in his chest. We watched as he slowly crumbled into ashes.

Your party has killed a Necromancer Vampire - your experience share is 325 XP

For clearing the 10th level of the Crypt of Ineris, you have earned 250 XP

“Nice work, Cloridan!” I called, cancelling the spell. Cloridan appeared holding the wooden spear that he’d stabbed the Vampire’s heart with.

“I’ve done this before, but invisibility makes it easy,” he said.

We all gathered on the dais. The chest for this level was actually the vampire’s sarcophagus. We heaved off the lid and took a look inside. The others had seen it before, but no one ever got tired of looking at gold.

[Identification]: - 1000 Gold Eagles - Quality: Great

[Identification]: - Crypt of Ineris Token, Level 10

Everyone looked at me, the pack mule. “Yeah, yeah,” I said, as I started shovelling gold into a leather sack. This beat taking crystals out of dead flesh though. “Everyone alright with me taking the token?”

Everyone indicated assent. Unlike Oakway, with a token for every level, the Crypt had tokens only for Level 10 and 18. Aubert had a token for 10, which was how we’d gotten here without wading through all the other lower levels.

“What now?” asked Cloridan. “Do we go on, or call it a day?”

“I’m good for another level or two,” Janie said. “Though if I burn any more mana I won’t recover it with just one night’s rest.”

“My father did say he would have a job for us tomorrow,” Aubert said. He’d warmed up somewhat over the course of this delve. It was hard not to, working together against the threat of death.

“I think this has been a good shakedown.” I said. “Its given us a good idea of what we can all do. I say we take our profits and stay fresh for tomorrow’s job.”

“You’re the boss,” said Janie, still not above making a dig at Aubert. I rolled my eyes, and teleported us back to the entrance.

We split the loot up back at my old house. I still had the lease, so I’d decided to keep it as a base of operations for the group. The fine people of Smithy street had expressed concern about all the non-guild members tramping along their street, and I thought it worthwhile to placate my neighbours. Given some time I thought I could outfit it with some useful stuff.

Like a bath. Baths, separate for men and women. God I stink. I couldn’t wait to get back home, but there were some formalities to take care off. I took my share entirely in mana crystals. I was looking forward to just having a jar of them for my experiments. That still left about half of them, but the others were fine with splitting them up and selling them themselves.

We agreed to meet here the next day, and then I was finally free to go home. Elodie had a hot bath ready, bless her. I was quickly getting used to having a maid - if this kept up, I’d soon become dependant on her.

“Was the bath to your liking Miss Hammond?” Elodie was a little shorter than me, and kind of stocky. It was hard to get an idea of her figure underneath the maid outfit that she’d arrived with, and despite being younger than me, she had some very definite ideas about propriety.

“It was heavenly,” I said, with some feeling. “I see you’ve gotten the hang of using the fire gem.”

“I still think its extravagant to use that thing just to heat water,” she said disapprovingly.

“Well, give me some time and I’ll be able to enchant up some less extravagant amenities, and we’ll be able to re-use it for central heating or something.” I said. “But in the meantime, we’ve got all the hot water we can use.”

“We, Miss?” she asked.

“Yes, we.” I said firmly. “Did you think I was going to have you scrub down in a cold tub in the kitchen? If you’re going to live here, Elodie, you’ll make full use of the facilities.”

“As you say, ma’am,” she replied, with some hesitation. “Does that mean you plan to put more enchantments on this house?”

“Oh you have no idea, Elodie,” I said smugly. “No idea…”