The party progressed a bit more careful after their first all-Reaver encounter. Already being a close call as a lone squad, if the party ever found themselves facing these critters with gatherers successfully flanking them things could turn dire very fast.

The first step was to study the gatherers, see where their weak spots were better than just ‘smash the head or stab the eyes’ and find the limits of their intelligence.

They found out that the gatherers were relatively easily tricked when food was involved, as long as that food was meat. They shrieked and potentially attracted reavers when they saw the party, but naively wandered towards chicken nuggets when these were thrown around the corner.

It didn’t always work out that way, not by a long shot. The krutnik crawled around in the dark while humans had to use a torch or Thomas’s Torch spell. They rarely spotted the krutnik before the screech, unless they sent Ben ahead to scout using his Gloomy Stalker Goggles’ darkvision.

They soon left the neighbourhood only to find more krutnik in the next one, and as they traversed it they saw that there were quite some krutnik in the next neighbourhood over. They’d looped around back to the woolf neighbourhood, so they could once again see a revealed map far beyond the single corridor they normally saw.

The amount of krutnik flooding that neighbourhood was fewer than in the last neighbourhoods they’d been in though, and with a few other mobs still roaming about. Most specifically, there were still a few Bad Llamas in the former boss room. And they were under siege.

The party ignored that for now. They were worn and tired from traversing three krutnik-infested neighbourhoods and dealing with what felt like a hundred encounters with the hardy critters. It was closer to a dozen or so, but that was still quite a lot of smashing and stabbing for people who never did either of those things just a week ago.

It had borne fruit. Darryl was now level 8 almost solely by team share experience while Thomas and Ben were both level 7 and Elise level 6. It didn’t feel like they hit the floor’s ceiling either, as they would fighting lvl2-3 trash mobs.

As they headed back to the Safe Room that Darryl and Ben had found way back at the beginning, Darryl traded a few items to Elise.

“Are you kidding me with this?” Elise asked, seeing what he sent her.

“You’re the only one whom it might fit.” Darryl shrugged. “And they’re charisma-based. You’re the one with the best Cha stats already, it makes sense if you become our diplomat.”

“Me? The fucking diplomat? What kind of dipshit came up with that plan?” Elise asked incredulously. “You’re just saying that because these are all girly things, aren’t they? What’s next, a tiara?”

“Well...” Ben said, raising his top hat to show the tiara underneath. “I wouldn’t mind giving it to you if you want it.”

“Ah shit, that one is actually kinda pretty. And the stones would go well with my eyes.” Elise said.

“It would be a waste of the items if they just sit in our inventory, and your diplomacy is a matter of raw charisma stat rather than your personality.” Thomas said. “It’s not like you have to trade out items, anyway. We can always revise our getup when that happens.”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess I’ll try if they fit me, but don’t blame me if I tear anything.” Elise said, janking the tiara off Ben’s head and taking the top hat too.

“Hey!” Ben protested.

“I’m the diplomat, remember?” Elise smiled. “That top hat does nothing but granting you +1 Cha and hide a tiara you’re no longer wearing.”

Ben grumbled something, but didn’t protest it.

“Please don’t do that too casually, Elise.” Darryl said.

Elise raised her eyebrow and was about to say something, but Darryl interrupted her. “You’re already on strike two and I’m pretty sure that what you just did counts as theft in the AI’s eyes. If you do that in a Safe Room, you're dead.”

“Ah, right. I forgot about that.” Elise said abashed. “Thanks.”

Darryl nodded as he opened the door of the Safe Room.

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

“Ta-da!” Elise said, giving a twirl to show off her new look from all sides. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful...” Ben said breathlessly.

“Yeah, looks good.” Darryl shrugged.

Elise’s look had changed drastically. She still wore the aviators that granted her a mild intimidation bonus and she still slung her giant barbed bat over her shoulder, but everything else was different.

After deliberation with the group, Darryl took off the back brace and gave it to her. It granted +3 Str and +1 Con plus a lifting skill that benefited from a higher strength score, so it was more useful on her. Especially now that Darryl didn’t have two arms to lift with.

She had taken off her ring of +1 strength and given it to Darryl in return, as his shield had proven a bit too heavy for him without any bonus to his strength. It was a thick and rather ornate slab of metal, after all, barely within the realm of what a normal person could wield.

The back brace wasn’t visible though, instead it was hidden underneath the Tavern Wench outfit. Elise hadn’t taken off her shirt, so instead of a scandalously low cut showing off her decollete there was instead a little angrily screaming red panda print just poking out. The dress had a slight corset effect though, showing off Elise’s waist and thinning it. She complained about having a harder time to breathe, but didn’t seem like she was going to take the thing off. Or remove her back brace to grant her some more breathing room. Or ever not complain about anything even mildly annoying to her, though the increased charisma had done wonders to make that one no longer grating.

Underneath the skirts and the pants which she hadn’t taken off either were the ballerina pointes. Same as the dress they granted a Cha boost and some related skills, but these came with +1 Dex and the Jump skill boost sounded a lot more useful than the ‘Damsel in Distress’ skill that the dress gave her.

Her head was now adorned by the tiara and the top hat, the latter being slightly crooked on her head and hanging from one of the thorns of the tiara to make sure it wouldn’t obscure the former.

All in all, she looked like a weird patchwork dress-up doll without so much as a consistent genre. Just like the rest of them. Losing his top hat made Ben look less like he was wearing a vampire outfit for Halloween, his ability to don his hood now making his look appear less ramshackle. But he was still a far cry from consistently dressed.

Darryl chuckled and Elise glanced over. “What’s so funny?”

“I just imagined what would’ve happened if they made this dungeon on Halloween eve.” Darryl said. “No one would be able to tell whether the other adventurers are wearing magical items or just a crappy costume.”

“And most of the crawlers would be kids.” Elise said not amused.

That knocked the smile off of Darryl’s face. Ben was mature enough given the circumstances, but there must’ve been plenty of little kids that entered the dungeon as well.

“So, what are your stats now?” Ben said, breaking the awkward silence.

“11 strength, 9 charisma and my Smashing skill is up to 6 already. I’m not really a Basher I guess, and I have to ask Volos what this dungeon considers Thrashing to be because that one’s also still the bare +3.”

“Good stats, with your increased strength I reckon you’ll be killing gatherers in one shot now assuming you hit their head or core.” Thomas said. “On another topic, we should exchange achievements. We can all get them once, so we can now reap four times the rewards from each achievement.”

“Yeah! I've noticed that they only give us something good for the first achievement we gained, the three copies are always something sucky like biscuits and torches.” Ben said. “But some, especially the gold boxes, give some good stuff. Or at least a lot of the base survival junk. We still have to find some more brain squids to beat mobs to death with.”

“Brain squids?” Elise asked. “Can't we just use rats, seems easier?”

“Using lesser mobs leads to lesser rewards.” Thomas said. “Those squids are decent foes and thus grant decent rewards. We either don't get a gold box for smashing a rat onto a rat, or it will contain junk.”

“Especially that platinum box that you got will hopefully get us some real good stuff.” Darryl said. “Whatever it is, we have to be careful not to lessen its value.”

“Wait, you got a platinum box!? Awesome!” Ben said, staring at Elise in open awe.

“Jup, that's where I got my precious little bat from.” Elise said, lovingly cleaning some gunk off of the spikes with some toilet paper. “But I don't think you guys can copy it.”

New Achievement! Scarlet and Scalding hot!

Congratulations, you're officially the first attractive redhead that entered the dungeon! No, we didn't give anything to the first redhead uggo because who cares about them? You on the other hand will draw some attention from those races that find little to like in humans but red hair! Yes, we do judge you by your appearance, it's all there in the dungeon reward algorithms. So how about you show us some skin, and I'll give you a little something to increase the odds of you surviving the month. Deal?

Reward: You've got a platinum Adventurer Box!

“Well that's...” Ben said.

“Something that we cannot reproduce.” Darryl said. “I already feared that it was a dungeon-entering reward, they don't need to worry about those being replicated.”

“And also pretty sexist.” Elise laughed. “But who am I to say no to some looks-based favouritism?”

“Too bad that we can't get more platinum boxes, but it is what it is. I'll send you the gold and silver boxes we can reproduce, Elise. Give them a read-over so you can get them when the opportunity presents itself.” Thomas said. “Has everyone’s light meal settled by now?”

He glared slightly at Ben and Elise at that, as both inhaled more fatty fast food again instead of ordering something appropriate for lunch.

“Sure have, dad.” Elise said dismissively. “I’ll have no tummy cramps while I’m smashing and trashing monster-bugs, pinky swear.”

“If we’re all ready,” Darryl quickly interjected before Thomas could rebuke. “then let’s go to those Llamas. They’ll be gone one way or another if we wait too long.”

Thomas grunted in reluctant agreement and didn’t say another word as he turned to the door, while Elise snickered. Darryl sighed, Elise was the second-oldest of the group but clearly also the most childish. Even moreso than Ben, and he was still half child.

No one spoke up about it as they left the Safe Room, least of all Bellar as he picked up their plates to clean up. The Bopca’s dislike had grown into a silent enmity after Ben again ordered a ton of food to stash away in his inventory.

“The influx of krutnik is rather high, don’t you think?” Thomas said. He stared at nothing, but Darryl figured he opened the minimap to look at the edges. “The other mobs just wandered in, but they seem to have more than just chance behind their deployment.”

“I don’t think there’s intelligent control behind it.” Darryl said. “The Llamas wouldn’t have held for a minute, let alone for as long as they have now, if the krutnik massed their numbers for a serious push. I think the reavers are just screeching every now and again to draw nearby gatherers while they’re trying to push through themselves.”

Thomas nodded in agreement, while Elise paced ahead to go smash some of the Gatherers that were just around the corner. By the time Darryl and Thomas caught up, she smashed two of them while a third lay dead with a crossbow bolt between the eyes.

“We should really kill more Neighbourhood bosses, I much prefer fighting these things when we see them before they see us.” Elise said with a wicked smile, her tavern wench outfit covered in green gunk. “But I’ll accept us fighting in this neighbourhood, for now.”

“I hope you haven’t worn yourself out, because we’re facing about seven of these things at once at the Boss room and I wouldn’t count on the Llamas sallying out to help us.” Darryl said.

“The two reavers are mine.” Elise said with a mad glint in her eye. “No kill-stealing.”

Thomas looked like he wanted to say something to that, but he stilled his tongue.

Darryl shot him a quizzical look after Elise walked on ahead, and he sighed. “Can’t practise my poisonous fog when she keeps pulling ahead like that. It’s trash now, but that’s why I think it’s going to become real good if I keep training it.”

“Isn’t there another you could train?” Darryl asked softly.

“Magic missile, I guess.” Thomas shrugged. “Not too effective against the carapace, it catches the brunt of the force or even reflects it to the side. But I guess it’s a good spell to have in my basic repertoire. Not too fond of Fire Fingers, it requires me to be on the front lines and is prone to friendly fire considering at least one of us isn’t sticking to basic formations.”

Darryl didn’t need to ask Thomas who that might be, and Thomas didn’t pursue the matter either.

“Hey man, are you okay? You seem a bit…” Darryl tried cautiously.

“Yeah, I know.” Thomas said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I learned to be more easy-going about these things growing up, but something about this place is causing some issues to resurface. I think it’s the stats, even if they’re not as invasive as Wisdom I bet that they’re messing with our minds one way or another.”

“You think she-” Darryl asked.

“No. I think we should be more wary about that bloodlust curse on her bat, try to convince her to use your spear whenever she can. I highly doubt she was quite like this back on the surface.” Thomas said. “And I’m trying to be understanding about it. That we can’t all be disciplined soldiers with teamwork about this. But…”

“Don’t worry about it, man.” Darryl said. “Remember, you’ve been in this mess not much longer than her and you can’t be more than two years older either. You don’t have to be the adult all the time. I appreciate you biting your tongue to keep the peace, but if she starts to get too much of a problem then you can talk to us about it.”

“Thanks.” Thomas smiled. “Now, let’s catch up before our group toddler gets herself killed.”