After opening the door that led to the pantry, we found a thin spiral staircase leading upwards. There were also a chest inside the room, tucked beneath the stairs. Blaze was about to go take a look when Ed stopped him. “Better let my Earth Elemental open it, and take any damage from the traps.”

“Alright,” Blaze said and took a step back. “We really need someone with some trap disarming skill in the party soon.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already made sure of that one of the new recruits have those skills,” Ed said. There were no traps on the chest, there were only some coins. Four gold and six silver coins to be precise.

Petals remarked, “Not bad.”

“Just wait for the later chests, they often contain platinum,” I said.

“You must have some pretty good sources,” she said. I just nodded and hoped we could drop that conversation.

When we came to the top of the stairs, Ed opened the door and stepped aside to let his elemental and Petals past first, followed quickly by the mages and lastly Ed. A short scuffle later and Marion called back to me that it was clear.

Our timing had apparently been bad. Our opening of the secret door in the pantry happened to coincide with one of the zombie cooks were getting some meat from the pantry. The pantry was a large cooled room, with bodies of humans hanging everywhere. More of a meat freezer than a pantry really.

The scuffle with one of the cooks had drawn in more cooks from the kitchen which lay beyond. The only one in the pantry was Marion, sitting down and meditating. When I stepped in, she said, “The other are just making sure that no one else is coming. The five zombie cooks were not that hard to kill, but they made a lot of noise.”

“Yeah the zombies are not the toughest of opponents, especially not those doing the more menial work,” I said and moved over to the first corpse. There were only one inside the pantry itself, with the next one lying in the door to the kitchen.

“What loot can you get from the zombies?”

Just to make sure I did not misremembered, I pulled up the information.

Zombie Cook

Quality based of Butchery Tier: Below Average

Lucky Charm: +1%

Possible Loot

1 zombie liver - 76%

10 copper coins - 51%

1 zombie heart - 36%

1 silver coin - 26%

1 zombie brain - 16%

2 silver coins - 11%

1 manastone [1/10 (9)] - 5%

5 silver coins - 2%

“The same as with the skeletons, except that I can get some of the organs instead of bones,” I said.

She gulped audibly. “That sounds disgusting, need to put in some preservative like the eyeballs from the rabbits?”

“No, they’re already dried and shrivelled from being dead. The liver makes a good base for diseases and the heart for poisons, while the brain is the main ingredient in a berserker poison or potion.”

“Both a poison and a potion?” she asked.

“Depends on the base you use. If you use a dark elemental base you get a poison, the target becomes much stronger and attacks the nearest people with reckless abandon. If you use a holy elemental base you get a potion. The one who drinks it gets slightly stronger, and has a chance of going crazy, attacking anyone nearby,” I said and finally looted the corpse. Which gave nothing. The event log mocked me and informed me I had rolled a 100.

“Luck doesn’t seem to be on your side,” Marion said with a laugh when the corpse burst into motes of light and leaving nothing behind.

“Nope, but don’t laugh. It’s your loot too,” I said.

“True, but I have faith in the treasure chests,” she said with a cheeky grin. “Not you so much.”

“You enjoy teasing people, don’t you?”

“Yup,” she said unrepentantly. “Now, chop, chop. More corpses to loot.”

Which is what I did. This round of looting was more generous: Managed to get some coin, four livers, a heart, a brain and a manastone. Still on the low end, but it was better than nothing.

While looting the three zombies in the kitchen, Ed came up to me and asked, “Where to next?”

“If I remember the information correctly the corridor to the right leads to a dead end. Laundry and waste disposal. Besides a few zombies, I don’t think there’s anything there. The corridor left leads to the dining hall,” I said as I stuffed the coins and liver the zombie dropped into my inventory.

“And you said from the dining hall it would be best to clear the lower floor, with the exception of the throne room, before tackling any of the towers?” Ed asked, referring to our conversation before we arrived. I had told him the strategy for clearing the dungeon, but still tagged along for a couple of reasons. First because I got a better loot chance, and secondly because I was a bit fuzzy on some of the details, so being here should jog my memory and provide any missed details.

“Yeah, if you could clear the garden next to the dining hall, I can harvest it while you guys clear the rest of the floor.”

“Not sure it’s a good idea to leave you unprotected,” he said with a frown.

“I’m sure you’re right, but the chances are small of a roaming patrol finding me. As long as the way there and the garden themselves are cleared, it should not be much of a problem.”

“If you say so.”

Marion came and joined the rest of the group, just as Ed finished speaking. He decided to clear out the dead end first, taking care of the three zombies without any problems. The dining hall was filled with zombies, but of a stronger persuasion. Mostly it was Zombie Footsoldiers, but there were also a couple of knights.

Since the zombies were clumped up like that, Marion got to play a lot with her new AoE spell she had gotten at level 15, Crystal Burst. The spell summoned a crystal made out of ice which exploded. The shrapnel hurt and slowed anyone it hit. The Zombies already being slow did not seem much affected by the percentage slow, but it definitely tore them up.

Ed ended up using Premature Severing as well, after which he said to me, “If this keep going, I’ll need you to make some manastones for me.”

“Alright, I’ll see to it.”

“Thanks,” he said as he finished summoning a new elemental. The dining hall brawl turned into a slugfest that lasted nearly ten minutes. While the party rested, I looted all the zombies and looked around.

The dining hall was a large affair with lots of smaller tables, covered with body parts served up as a meal. Very disgusting. At the end of the room, there was a raised platform with the high table for the royal family and their guests. Underneath the middle seat, most likely the king’s, there was a small chest with almost seven gold in it.

There were several doors. The one we came from were close the high table. Behind the high table were the door leading to the throne room, via a large corridor. There were also stairs along the corridor which lead to the upper floors, where there were access to the towers. The large door at the opposite side of the dining hall led to the receiving hall. There were a few doors leading to smaller corridors mostly used by servants, and then there were the doors leading to the only outdoor area in the dungeon: A walled in garden.

After ten minutes the party was done resting, and we went through the doors leading to the gardens. Their first reaction were voiced by Petals, “Snow?”

Indeed, it was lightly snowing outside. While the castle had really stood on the island where it never, or only very very rarely, snowed, the dungeon was placed elsewhere, and the Gods could do whatever they wanted.

“Indeed, but you should concentrate on the skeletons coming our way first,” I said, and pointed to a group of five warrior skeletons. I did understand their awe. The snow that fell in real life were black from pollution, if it fell at all, while the snow in the game was pure white and felt fresh. Hell even the air smelled fresh.

The skeletons were dispatched without too much effort, and the party cleared the garden quite easily, scooping out a dozen zombie gardeners as well. They left to start clearing out the lower floor, leaving me alone with the plants.

Which there were many varieties of. There were snowberries, which was great for my wallet, since I would hopefully not have to buy too many of them myself in the future. There were also a lot of different flowers, which had little interest to be honest. Most of them were just decorative, and hardly provided any XP. Nevertheless, I plucked them and discarded them at once, just to get the XP. The other great find was the snowdrop flower, which was used to make an antidote. Though it was one of the weakest ingredients for antidotes, it was better than nothing.

“Wow, you’ve really ravaged the garden,” Blaze commented out of the blue. Looking back, I saw him sitting just inside the doors, meditating.

“Any reason to grind XP. I’m just one skill point away from level fifteen.”

“That’s pretty good for a crafter.”

“What are you doing back here?”

“Well, I was out of juice, and all the small rooms in the servant quarters only have a couple of occupants if any, so I volunteered to come back here and keep an eye out for you.”

“Thanks, but shouldn’t be necessary.”

He shrugged. “Mostly it was an excuse to grab a moment to talk with you.”

“About?” I asked curiously. It was true we had not had a moment to really talk since his ‘betrayal’.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” I asked, even if I had a pretty good idea.

“You’re not making this easy.”

“A true apology should never be easy.”

“Always lecturing, eh Teach?”

“Can’t help it sometimes.”

We lapsed into silence. I continued to desecrate the garden, waiting for Blaze to continue. Which he did, following a few heavy sighs. “I’m sorry for being an ass. But what you told us is a pretty hard pill to swallow.”

“I know,” I said and turned my full attention back on him. “Which is why I haven’t done anything about it. Mostly just taken the verbal beatings.”

“It wasn’t until She—Hei came around with his offer that it occurred to me that you knew things that could not be easily explained away. You know Occam’s Razor and all. The simplest answer is always the correct one.”

I could not help but smile a little. “I like that you try to use Occam’s Razor, but what you said is at best an oversimplification of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s been many interpretations of it, but I like the one that goes, ‘If two theories comes to the same conclusion, the theory that makes the fewest assumptions is most likely the correct one’.”

“Oh,” he said, before we lapsed into silence. After a minute, he finally asked, “Do you forgive me?”

“Most people probably wouldn’t, but I will Liam. I’m just glad that I had not misjudged your loyalty, or that you had not changed,” I said. “Say, we never did find out who hacked the classroom, and turned it into a dopamine inducing trip. Just want to sate my own curiosity.”

“I’m not going to tell you that,” he said in an affronted tone.

“Good,” I said with a large smile.

“You’re weird.”

“I’m told that from time to time,” I said with a shrug. “Was it a good offer from Dawnguard?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. They offered me twenty grand a month, and my own party. But the whole slavery contract for ten years were really off putting. It was the one thing that finally made it click for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“You told us about how the competition would last for ten years, and suddenly the largest guild around is amending all its existing contracts to be for ten years, and keeps you from playing any game you want,” he said.

A deep breath later, he continued, “It fit with your timeline. There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Why do you insist on using our real looks in the game? Won’t it make us easier to target.”

“It won’t make us that much easier to target. You probably didn’t notice because you knew it was me, but any footage taken from inside the game slightly alters the look of everyone. Not much, but just enough to create doubt about who it is, and make it harder to run facial recognition.”

“Huh, you never told us that.”

“It did not seem relevant at the time, but really the most important reason for using our own looks are that as we grow, it will get harder to distinguish between who is who. We live together, eat and train together. Some of you are already using other names, which can be confusing sometimes. If you also used another appearance that would increase the confusion further,” I said, starting to explain my primary reasoning for the decision.

“Furthermore, I did not know there were another time traveler, so I was not too worried. Which is a mistake in hindsight, but it’s not like altered appearance would slow him down much anyway. And lastly, in the next two games, everyone will be using their own bodies anyway, where you can’t alter any details at all. I reckoned you might as well get used to it.”

He was silent for a moment, before finally saying, “I can see that reasoning. But what about Hei or anyone else joining who’s already in the game? They got different looking avatars.”

“We’ll just have to pay for cosmetic surgery.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Temple offers each player the chance to change their appearance once, for five platinum of course, nothing is free. The thing is that they can only change it to make the player look like themselves.”

“Typical micro-transactions,” Blaze grumbled.

With a laugh, I agreed. “Indeed.”

After a few minutes of silence, Blaze broke it again. “You’re right, it’s better for us to use our real appearance. I would get confused lusting over Rose’s avatar if it was different, while uhm, liking her in real life.”

That made me raise an eyebrow. “You and Petals?”

“I don’t really like that nick, she’s a Rose, much more fitting,” he mumbled, proving my point. “But yeah, we’ve been sorta having some intimate talks. She joined after Nise cured me of the worst of my habits. No one really explained to me that it was wrong, it’s no excuse, but I just didn’t know better. But I’ve mostly learned to keep my comments to myself, I mean I still sometimes slip, but Rose just headslaps me, and I remember to stop.”

“She learned that from Ed?”

“I think so,” he said with a frown.

“I’m glad that you found someone that you like.”

“Me too, I’m just so afraid of fucking it up.”

“Just remember that it’s hard work and a lot of communication. Never be too proud to say you’re sorry, but at the same time don’t roll over every time. A relationship only works if there’s compromises,” I said.

“What about you Teach, I heard that you and Kira had a friendly water fight the other day, fancy her?”

I had to think about that for a moment. “She’s an amazing woman, but no. I don’t think so. She enjoys an active lifestyle, I hate it.”

“Why forcing training regimens on yourself and the rest of us?”

“In preparation for the next game. There you don’t have stats, your real body and capabilities are what you get to use.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “No aim assist if you want it?”

“Nope, no skills either.”

“That means I need to learn to fight or shoot?” he asked with a groan.

“Yeah. That goes for all of us. Some of us have already started, but I’m waiting until the Challenges have been announced before making it mandatory,” I said.

Suddenly his face lit up, like he had figured something out. “That’s where you guys go after dinner on the days with physical training.”

“Yeah, and you’re welcome to join us,” I offered.

“I’d like to, but I spend that time with Rose,” he said. After a moment he finally asked, “Could we tell Rose the truth?”

“Marion and Hei already know outside of you five. I guess we can do it, but are you sure she will believe us?” I asked cautiously.

“Uhm, no. But she knows about the magical contracts and how you cannot lie. Couldn’t you sign one, stipulating that you cannot lie about how you know stuff?” he asked.

“A good idea, but no.”

“Why not?”

“Because then it would become official record in the game. All data related to the magical contracts are open to review by Perennial. Unlike this little conversation here, they would need a reason, like a report for impropriety, to review it.”

“Oh,” he said dejectedly.

The whole conversation did make me think about something though. It would be expensive. “There’s another solution, but it’ll be expensive and it’ll take time for us to get the funds together.”

“What?”

“A memory scanner,” I said. It would solve the problem of how to convince new people about my sincerity. It was really annoying not to be able to talk freely around people.

“Those costs millions of credits.”

“Yeah,” I said. I noticed Blaze reaching up a hand and seemed to listen to something.

He then stood up and looked at me, “The others need my help with clearing the entrance hall. Will you be okay here?”

“I’m actually done here, I’ll start looting corpses again.”

“Okay, follow me then. I’ll just tell Ed we’ll take the circuitous route and gather all the loot. They probably need the rest anyway,” he said and led me towards one of the side doors in the dining hall.

The guard room in front of the vault was a mess of corpses. Dozens of skeletons and zombies were lying in heaps on the floor, in front of a robed figure. The Necromancer. It was the fourth and final boss of the dungeon. The first three bosses had been tough fights for the party, but had not cost any lives. This one had. Petals and Robin had been killed during the fight. Luckily they would respawn at the dungeon exit, not back in town.

Ed had shared the prompt he had just received with me.

Blackport Castle Dungeon

Cleared

1st Clear - Normal Difficulty Awarded

Fastest Clear - Normal Difficulty Awarded

Tallying up Dungeon Points:

Normal Difficulty - 250 points

1st Clear, Normal Difficulty - 2500 points

Fastest Clear, Normal Difficulty - 100 points

Total Point for ‘Gold Squad’ - 2850 points

“Why did we get so few points for Fastest Clear?” he asked.

“Because we’re the only ones to complete it. For each time the dungeon is cleared, a hundred points is thrown in a pot. If you beat the fastest time, you get the pot, if not the points stays in the pot,” I said. “Unless you’ve the record already, then you just need to clear it to claim the pot.”

“Okay, now what can we use those points for?”

“First let me loot the corpses, then we open the vault.”

“I thought we already were in the vault, I mean you needed the three keys to get in here,” Blaze said.

“Sure, but the Necromancer has the final key that goes into the door over there,” I said and pointed to a plain looking set of double doors.

“That doesn’t look like it’s fit to protect a vault,” Marion observed.

“Just don’t touch it without the key, instant kill for anyone below level thousand. Just be glad that the Necromancer only has a fraction of his real power,” I commented while looting the corpses.

“So now we get to loot the vault?” Blaze asked when I opened the door with the key.

A voice drifted out from the half opened door, “Not really, Traveller.”

“Who’s there?” Ed said, immediately palming a manastone.

I put a calming hand on his arm. “It’s just an angel of one of the Gods, beyond the door is the final treasure chest, as well as a shop where we can spend the points on high value items.”

“You’re well informed,” the angel said.

“Benefit of talking with the Locals,” I said and opened the door fully. Revealing a brightly lit room, with a dozen pedestals with items on both my left and right side. At the opposite side of the room sat three larger pedestals. In the middle of the room hovered an angel dressed in white robes, and in front of it were the treasure chest that were our reward for clearing the dungeon.

“Take a moment to look around the room. The pedestals to either of my side can be bought in as large a quantity as you want. The three pedestals behind me is expensive, one time offers. Not that it makes the item unique, it’s just that we only offer it limited quantity,” the angel explained. “The items will reset when the new moon starts in less than a week. As soon as you open the treasure chest and take the coin within, you’re transported to your exit, together with those that have died.”

“How do you—” Ed asked, but the angel had vanished.

“They’re rather rude. Anyways, you’re the only one that can buy anything, you’ve the points as the party leader,” I said. I started looking around. Mostly it was weapons with some basic runes, costing anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand points. What really caught my interest was the three limited items.

One was a recipe for Dwarven Knockout, a dark heavy ale, which would grant race shards for drinking it in large amount. The price was ridiculous though: 10,000 points. Worth it though, but out of our reach.

The second was more moderately priced at 3,000 points. It was a transmutation board, and a spool of silver thread. It was a small board, one by one meter, with small hooks all around the edges. With the thread and hooks, you could make any symbol you wanted for transmutation, and it gave a boost of 2%. Unfortunately the board was limited to Lesser Transmutation, which was probably why it was so cheap.

The last item was priced at 100,000 points and was the item I really wanted, but we would not get any time soon. It was a core for an auction house. With it, you could create your own auction house like the one I had sold my Lucky Charm at. It would start out small, but as resources was offered to the core, it would grow and offer more options. It was an artifact from the time of the Ancient Races, and seeing one available was a little awe inspiring, even if it was out of my reach.

“Should we use the points now?” Ed asked.

“You can save them, but if any of these weapons would benefit your party, buy them. Besides the transmutation board, none of the items up here will be within our price range any time soon,” I said.

In the end he decided not to buy anything, and I opened the chest. Scooping up the five platinum that were the final reward for clearing the dungeon. As soon as the coins entered my inventory, we felt the gut wrenching feeling of teleportation.