Gamer’s Guild Dungeon (3rd Floor, Pt. 1)

--- Jon ---

“I’ll keep the boss around for now.” Ying told them to his immense relief, because while he didn’t think she’d actually go through with selling the kobold for a treasure, he was aware of how both her Madness and Draconic instincts influenced her decision making. (Namely that she’s ruthless and greedy.) (Sometimes.)

“Oh, thank you merciful mistress!” The Boss Kobold cried. “I will not disappoint you or your expectations.”

“See that you don’t.” Ying nodded in strict approval before turning back to him and Roxanne. “So, now that we’ve an army to tackle the next floor shall we?”

“I guess…” Roxanne sighed, seemingly resigned about something. “At the very least if we’re breaking this run, we should be able to do some cool things.”

“Oh, absolutely!” The Boss Kobold smiled, all fangs. “Especially if those things involve beating the shit out of the third floor goblins!”

“I’m still mad at you for going off script.” The gamer teen told the kobold before turning towards the floor stairs. “But we might as well make the best of a modded game.”

“Right!” The Boss kobold cheered taking up a place between Ying and Roxanne as their party started down the stairs to the next floor.

“Huh…” He glanced at Ying’s massive cult as they seemed to push and shove each other to get to the front of the pack and be as close to Ying as possible. “Uh, I think I’m going to stay back here and make sure the kobolds don’t kill each other.” He told the girls.

“Suit yourself.” Ying shrugged before asking Roxanne something he couldn’t quite hear over the marching of the various kobolds.

“Wolf, you mind watching the other side?” He asked his canine companion, knowing that while he didn’t mind being the responsible one of the group he wasn’t sure if he could say the same about her just yet.

His contracted canine gave him a bark of confirmation before seeming to growl at a couple of kobolds that were shoving at each other.

(I can already tell this is going to be a thing.) He sighed, having to do something similar to the kobolds near him himself.

“Pix, fly around and if any kobolds start fighting each other stop them.” He told the fairy on his shoulder, earning a nod as she took flight before zapping near one of the sixty-six kobolds he was now in charge of managing.

“Well, don’t see this every day.” He overheard the merchant say once he’d managed to organize the army into something resembling a line he eventually managed to corral them all into the waiting room.

(Yeah, neither do I.) He agreed to himself as he made his way to where Ying and Roxanne were apparently waiting for him while eyeing the nearby kobolds.

“I’m telling you it won’t work, and unlike the monsters going rogue I know this one for a fact.” Roxanne told the other girl.

“What won’t?” He frowned as they turned to him.

“Given how the treasure for the previous floor is apparently an oversized kobold tooth I was wondering if we could perhaps work the system by having each of the kobolds donating one of their fangs.” Ying explained.

“Uh, I don’t think that would work.” He admitted, because while it was absolutely the kind of thing he would do if it’d work, “I’m pretty sure the fangs are condensed Madness, and while the kobolds are made of Madness themselves I’m pretty sure it’s a little more distilled than necessary.”

“Yes! That’s exactly what is happening here.” Roxanne pointed at him. “It’s the same thing with all of the drops from the GM’s monsters. Each monster has so much Madness in it and when that monster dies part of the Madness returns to the GM while the rest is reconfigured with her drop system.”

“Hmm.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” Ying crossed her arms.

“Yeah…” He nodded, remembering how Roxanne was a part of a Wonderlander gang before deciding to just move on by asking, “Either of you think we should get anything from the store?”

“Well we didn’t really get much from the previous floor, and honestly the only new thing is a treasure chest with drops from the previous floor. Which is kind of useless to us given the circumstances.” The more experienced dungeoneer told them. “Meaning we don’t need anything he’s offering, especially without any of those treasure fangs.”

“I’d suggest stocking up on potions but given how we haven’t even needed one yet, it might be best to hold off for a while.” Ying agreed.

“Alright, so I guess that means we just get started with the third floor?” He asked, getting an affirmative from both of the other teens. “Then in that case, is there anything in the first room we need to be wary about?”

“There’s a challenge statue and treasure chest, but those aren't really things we need to worry about.” Roxanne shrugged.

“A challenge statue?”

“Yeah, the GM likes to randomly throw one or two of them in each Dungeon.” Roxanne explained. “Basically we can set ‘challenges’ on a floor to make it more difficult or to change how the floor plays out and thus what kind of loot it drops. For the goblin floor I think it’s mostly about the ratio of classes they’ve got going for them, be it rogue, warrior, or shaman.”

“So we can pick our enemies?” He frowned in thought, wondering how that would play out.

“Technically. Though we can only really use it because I’m here.” The Gamer teen admitted. “Usually you have to clear the dungeon at least once to unlock the challenge markers, but since I’ve done that…”

“We can reap the benefits.” Ying finished for her.

“Yeah, though if you were normal people I’d tell you to still do a standard run. But since you’re anything but, we might as well try to make this challenging or fun for you.” Roxanne told them.

“Sounds reasonable.” Ying nodded.

“What do you mean normal people?” He frowned at the same time.

Roxanne gave him a look before letting her eyes drift to Ying’s kobold cult.

“Alright, I’ll admit this situation is a little weird but you can’t hold power interactions against Ying.” He told Roxanne sternly (for him).

“Weirdly enough I think she’s the normal one of you two.” Roxanne admitted dryly.

“Again, what’s that supposed to mean?” He asked as she turned towards the stairs.

“It means what it means Jon.” Ying consoled him with a there-there pat, before following the other girl.

“That doesn’t answer my question…” He grumbled before turning to Pix and Wolf. “You don’t think I’m weird do you?”

The little fairy seemed to think about it for a moment before making a so-so gesture with her hand.

Wolf by contrast bumped against his leg in what he felt was meant to be a show of solidarity.

“Right…” He sighed, before turning to the still idling kobolds. “Oi, load up and move out!”

For some reason the kobolds jumped to attention and started moving down the steps in an organized line that it’d taken him several minutes to fight them into just minutes before. (Huh, I guess they can learn.)

Unfortunately, even if the kobolds were capable of learning on some scale, snapping at each other seemed to be an inherent part of their personality. Meaning even if they only had to spend a few minutes in the stairs, he, Pix, and Wolf each had to break up at least three fights a piece. (Ugh, and I thought the kids at camp could be bad to keep organized.)

He felt what he was sure was an unhealthy amount of relief once he got the last of the kobolds into the challenge chamber, where Ying and Roxanne were finnicking with a statue of what he assumed was a goblin. Mostly because the boss kobold and a few others seemed to be kicking the base of the statue.

As he got closer to them he found a quartet of pedestals in front of the larger statue. Three of which held a figurine of a goblin wearing a different outfit while holding a different weapon. (I’m guessing the hood and bow is the Rogue, the armor and sword is the Warrior and the mask and staff are the Shaman.)

“Good you caught up.” Ying commented as if it wasn’t her cult he was fighting to keep contained. “We were just working out what we should set the class priority as.”

“Yeah, all we’ve got to do is put the figure of the class we want to take priority on the front pedestal and it’ll change the spawn rates, or we can leave it blank and it’ll leave the default ones.” Roxanne explained, before seeming to remember something. “Oh, and we already looted the chest. It had another Iron Bracelet, but Ying gave it to Pix saying you’d be too stubborn to take it.”

“I mean, she’s not… entirely wrong.” He was willing to admit. (After all of the five of us I’m the one who can take the roughest beating and keep going.)

(He grit his teeth and held his breath as he forced himself to keep moving as he put all of his weight against the wall. Forced himself to ignore the way his head spun every time he heard that faint grinding sound when he had to step with his bad leg. And most definitely forced himself not to think about the bit of white visibly sticking out of his leg.)

“So uh, what exactly is the difference between the three classes here?” He asked, shaking his head. “I mean I kind of get that Warriors are Bruisers, Rogues are Infiltrators, and Shaman are Blasters, but…”

“Well, those are half right.” Roxanne told him. “Warriors are Scrappers and Bruisers. Rogues are Infiltrators and Marksmen. And Shamans are Blasters and Medics. But if we’re going from a drop perspective, Warriors drop more armor, while Rogues drop more traps and such, with Shamans having a higher drop rate for rare stuff. Though I should probably point out that difficulty wise, Shamans are probably worth two or three of the other two.”

“Hmm…” (Going off of what I know. Warriors are probably something Ying would enjoy fighting, especially given how she could let loose against their tankier kits. Rogues probably fight closer to me and ma so I’d at least know what to expect with them. Shamans on the other hand are a bit of a wild card, but they might have some cool spells or something…)

(Then again, I could just leave everything on default. It’s not like that wouldn’t be a new experience for me and Ying… Though Roxanne has probably run that layout on more than one occasion.)

“So what do you want to set it to?”