Chapter Eighteen

The adventurer’s guild ended up being built in the area where they cut down the weeping willow. It was close to the settlement, had plenty of open space, and all the original settlers thought of it as poisoned land so it was unclaimed. The guild was going to have offices for the staff, a large common area for the adventurer’s, dormitories, and a training ground to start. Once the settlement got larger they would likely add on a bar and maybe even a restaurant but for now getting the basics was their goal.

Despite the guild not being complete, all the new adventurers were still gathered there. Today was their training day and John was their teacher. He had been chosen because he was the only one free from the most experienced raiding group. He walked to the front of the group and looked around. He saw that a lot of the adventurers were probably more experienced dungeon delvers than he was so he decided to go with an unusual approach. Instead of lecturing them on what he knew he started by asking

“So what questions do you guys have?”

All the adventurer’s were quite until a skinny young man that was twirling two daggers to keep his hand occupied asked

“Why should we even listen to you? I heard you and your party nearly got killed right at the entrance last time you went for a raid.”

John disliked the man already, but he still responded

“You should listen to me because I’ve gone into this dungeon more times than anyone else. If you want to fall for traps that other people already figured out then be my guest, but my guess is everyone else here cares about their safety a little bit more than that.”

The dagger wielding man Tched at being called out, but he didn’t leave the group and he didn’t cause any more trouble.

The next question came from one of the older adventurers.

“You just mentioned traps right? How about you tell us about all the traps you’ve run into.”

“Sure. The traps that are most dangerous in the dungeon are spike, fish, and plants. The spike traps are the simplest. The dungeon has gotten quite good at making thin stone covers that lead to unpleasant drops. I haven’t been able to see a visual indicator so I usually tap a walking stick or something in front of me and listen for them. For the fish I’m not really sure if they should even be considered a trap, but they can catch you by surprise if you don’t know about them so they seem close enough. You should assume that anywhere there is water there will be fish ready to jump out at you from it. They have a headbutt that will bruise at best and can break bones if you are unlucky. The last trap you should be aware of is the plants. The only plant trap I’ve seen so far is a poison splitting flower, but the dungeon is adapting so fast that I am sure there will be others I don’t know about. Any questions?”

Another adventurer yelled out

“You’re telling me the dungeon’s only traps are spikes, fish, and plants and you haven’t conquered it yet?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. The traps are just the start. They tire us out and then we have to fight against the dungeons monsters. I’ve already confirmed that It’s got wolves, bees, a bear, and a whole fucking demi-human tribe. I’m also sure that's just the start. If you want to go in there pretending it’ll be easy then be my guest. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The adventurer called out again and said

“Why don’t you show us what you're made of? That’ll show us if you're just soft or if the dungeon is actually hard.”

John considered trying to just talk over the guy and immediately threw the idea away. Adventurers were the kind of people that let their actions talk for them. If he let them think he was afraid of a little fight then they wouldn’t listen to anything he had to say. He walked towards the man and said

“We can do that. How do you feel about ending on the first hit? Or do you think we need to fight till surrender?”

The man smiled and said

“First blow will be fine, but not a graze. Gotta be a clean hit to the vitals to end it.”

With the rules in place the group of adventurers formed a circle and the two fighters walked inside. They grabbed their practice weapons. John had his sword and shield and the opponent had an ax. They faced each other within the circle and the adventurer’s smile grew wider as he said

“ Finally a chance to stretch. I’ve been stuck on that damn boat for far too long.”

As soon as he finished talking he charged at John. He took a large swing forcing John to step back to dodge. He raised his ax to start another swing when John acted. He stepped in and raised his shield to interrupt the swing before it got much momentum and then prepared to strike. John was too close to use his sword so he lowered his shoulder into the opponent's chest and sent him stumbling backwards. He dashed after him and took a swing with his sword catching him under the armpit where the gap in his armor would be.

Knowing he won the fight John stepped back and caught his breath before saying

“Shall we get back to the lecture?”

None of the adventurer’s had a complaint, so he went back and started telling them everything else he knew about the dungeon.

Gem

Ever since the more dangerous group of invaders fell prey to its flowers the gems territory had been peaceful. Intruders had still come, but none of them were threatening. This allowed for plenty of time to examine the newest oddity in its territory. The rabbits and squirrels were reacting differently to its mana than any of the creatures before them.

Instead of slowly enhancing all of their base attributes like its other creatures some of the rabbits and squirrels had the mana gather into a solid ball inside them. At first they acted no differently from their normal counterparts. They dashed around nibbling on everything they were allowed to and generally acted how one expects squirrels and rabbits to act. That only lasted for a few days.

Once the solid mana seemed to have found a permanent place in the creature's bodies they started to act strangely. What had once been normal rabbits could be found chewing through stone and the squirrels seemed to have gained the ability to fly. Or more accurately glide very very well by controlling a small amount of air.

The details of the changes themselves were not what was important to the gem though. What was important was that the creatures had gone through a change. Most of its defenders had gotten all of the benefits from its generic mana strengthening and had hit a plateau. If it could figure out how to recreate this with its more powerful defenders then it would be more secure than ever.

The first creature it decided to test on was the most powerful defender in the entire territory. The invaders made some progress in fighting its bear and that was not acceptable. It was supposed to be the strongest defender. An impenetrable wall. If it was getting damaged by a few spears then sooner or later the invaders would have its core.

The main difference between the mana strengthening of the squirrels, rabbits, and the rest of its creatures was the focus during the upgrade. Previously the gem had focused on slowly and steadily upgrading everything in its territory at once. It had only put all its focus into strengthening its newest creatures because the others were showing few results recently.

With that in mind the gem took every scrap of mana that was not necessary for the function of its territory and started to strengthen the bear. It felt its focus on the territory wane and only the bear was left in its mind. The mana was constantly trying to escape the bear so part of the gems focus was on holding the mana in place. As the mana started to solidify inside of the bear it became denser so the gem had to constantly stuff more mana in. This repeated countless times before the mana in the bear reached its final form.

The gem’s focus finally left the bear, and it realized it was experiencing something new. It was tired. It had lacked mana before, but never was there the inability to focus, the desire to do nothing, the sheer struggle to accomplish anything that it was feeling now. It forced itself to check on the bear and saw that it was alright, and then it allowed its focus to slip to nothing.

The world came back into focus with the stars shining bright overhead. There was no clear indication of how much time had passed so the gem shifted its focus to Snud to try and find out. It found him in another drybolds bed and asked

“How long has it been since we spoke?”

The drybold jumped up and put one hand over its reproductive organs despite the fact that the gem could see the entire territory before responding

“Snud no talk to master for many days. Snud assume master busy.”

“Many days? Can you be more specific?”

Snud scratched his head with his free hand and said

“No?”

The gem was a bit irritated with the drybolds lack of knowledge and shifted its focus from Snud saying

“You may go back to what you were doing.”

The next thing it did was examine the bear. It had grown larger and seemed to have a thin layer of stone coating each of its follicles of hair. Assured that the bear had successfully solidified its mana the gem started to think about the consequences of upgrading its creatures this way.

The most important thing was that it did appear to make its creatures stronger. How much stronger was unclear since they hadn’t fought invaders yet but that would come with time. The problem was this method had obvious downsides. The gem could not focus on its territory while upgrading a creature, which meant it could not coordinate its defenders if there was a serious attack. The gem and the defender that were being upgraded also appeared to be left incapacitated for an unknown period of time. Lastly, there hadn’t been enough time since the first creatures solidified their core to learn what the long term effects were. It had gotten excited and strengthened its best defender but it was not sure that was the correct choice now. It decided to examine the results as invaders came in for now and decide how it should upgrade its creatures later.