I shook my head, ignoring Blink. She was messing with me, and I knew it. I thought that it was a bad idea that she became a priestess of Chaos. She was already odd, being that she thought about things through the lens of a magical Lizard. Now she had a closer bond with someone who kept telling her to go for it.

I started up the stair. “Kasidy come back up to the main room. I’ll show you what changed and what you can do to avoid problems.”

Kasidy quickly came running over to me. She wasn’t talking and still seemed to be worried. When we got the trapdoor to the tree house opened, she ran in. I could tell that she was even more worried now.

I calmly placed my hand on her shoulder. “Kasidy calm down. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

She turned to me with tears in her eyes. “All my money is gone. Everything I had left in the world was in this room. Now the dungeon took it all.”

“Hey we can get you more money. How much was it anyway?”

She sniffled. “It might not sound like much but it was the last 2 gold I had. I had sold so much just to get it and now its gone.”

“We can sell some stuff when we get to other people and get you money again. It’s gone now and we don’t even need it out here.”

Kasidy nodded and started to walk around the room. It was the same room as before, with the two changes of the safe room door and the path to the boardwalk. She moved around and touched the table and the chairs and then the hammock. As she got close to the boardwalk, she paused and then turned back toward me.

She pointed to the boardwalk. “That’s the way to the monsters isn’t it?”

I nodded and pointed to the safe room. “That’s the way to the safe room. But there is a rule about the safe room you can only go in once every 24 hours. This is the safe space if you go down the board walk monsters can follow you back to here.”

“If I don’t do either then I am safe in this room?”

“Yeah, all dungeons have this safe space at the start of the first floor. It isn’t there on the other floors but for the most part people leave out of a safe room and then go into the next level. This one doesn’t have an end of floor safe room on level 1. It is in here at the start for some reason.”

“What’s the safe room?”

I smiled, “Well Kasidy it’s a tavern with free food and beds.”

Her eyes got big. “We can go in once a day?”

“Yup, you get locked out for 24 hours after you leave.”

“How long can you stay in?”

I smiled and gave a dry laugh. “Well that’s the odd thing. You can stay in for up to 90 days at a time. BUT! Every one day that passes in there is an hour out here. In most dungeons if you stay in there for 24 hours then you have to fight the monsters that you beat right before you went in.”

With that, we went into the safe room. I felt that Blink, still hidden, followed behind us. I figured that she would stay hidden again until she could change back to a lizard. While she liked being a little girl to stir up trouble, she was a better huntress than a lizard.

Kasidy stopped just a few steps into the room and looked around. This was the second time in just a few minutes that she was amazed at the magic around her. For someone who grew up in a place that had magic, I thought she was reacting way too strongly to seeing it used all over the place.

Kasidy pointed at Dave, “Arn! Who’s that?”

I answered with a laugh, “That is Dave! He runs the place and never leaves. He is in every safe room everywhere.”

Dave waived, “Kasidy, Welcome to the first floor Safe Room. Can I get you anything to eat or drink? It’s on the house!”

Kasidy wandered up to the bar and took a seat on the stool. “Dave, this doesn’t look like any tavern I have ever been in. Why are there stools and why is the place so big?”

Dave sat down his glass and pointed at me. “This is what that guy came up with. He was the first one in so the safe room forms what he thinks a tavern should look like. Not what you think it should look like. I mean look at me. Who would ever think I could find a shirt this white or that I would wear it while working?”

Kasidy nodded. “So all of this is, including what you are wearing is from his mind?”

Dave nodded. “Yup if you were the first in the safe room it would be your mind. If our friend Blink came in then it would be her mind. Which would still be like this one since she has spent so much time in it like this.”

Kasidy looked around, “Is it all real? Like it looks real and feels real but is it?”

Dave took a long breath and then slowly let it out. “It is but isn’t real. Everything in here is made from mana and so is real that you can mess with it and move it but the moment that it stops getting more mana it vanishes. Like me!”

Kasidy reached across the bar and grabbed Dave’s arm. “YOU VANISH?”

Dave smiled and slowly removed her hand. “Yes I vanish but I come back no matter what. Now do you want something to eat or drink?”

Kasidy shook her head and then nodded it. “Does the food still fill us up if we leave here or does it go away too?”

Dave smiled. “By eating it you give it the mana it needs to stay around so it stays with you.”

I waved at Dave, “I’m heading out! We head north tomorrow!”

I felt Blink follow as I left the safe room. “So I know it’s a new dungeon. We are leaving tomorrow morning. If you want to give it a run you can. It’s 7 levels so leave when you need to. I need to spend some time getting my equipment gathered up that I am taking and making sure I am ready.”

Blink showed up in front of me. “Thanks Daddy!”

She gave me a hug and then ran toward the platform.

I yelled after her. “Tomorrow morning I mean it! We are leaving when I am ready!”

I headed down to the yurt to finish getting packed. I had planned on taking more traveling rations and trying for a quick trip but knowing that Cloudia was in an odd place made me think this was going to be longer. Which meant that I was going to need to spread out what I did.

I couldn’t just drop a dungeon seed in every thicket that I put up. If I did that, I would run out of seeds from this first seeding. I had 11 seeds. If I dropped one every three days, that would give me a range of 33 days to get to Cloudia. I would then only need to carry 3 thicket clubs with me at a time. If I pushed it out to where I was carrying 4, then my range would increase, but my other gear would drop.

I pulled over my pack. I hadn’t done much with it, but if I could level the thing a few times before going, it could make all the difference in range. I pulled open my interface for my external frame pack and shook my head. The writing was all gold, as I had come to understand meant ultra rare.

External frame Pack core!

As your External frame Pack core is the first it is uncapped in level

Normal External frame Pack cores will be capped at level 2.

As your External frame Pack levels its helpfulness increases.

General

Arn’s External frame Pack

Level 0

Type item core

Class Ultra Rare

Durability 200/200

This is Arm’s external frame pack. This pack looks just like all the other packs that the wild humans use. Sticks held together with leather strips to then have a single large bag held to it.

>Growth

To level your item core you must use it for its purpose and provide for it material to level to the next level.

Wood 0% Leather 0% Mana 0%

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your fur pack has.

Lighten- This pack is designed in such a way that when carried the weight effects you less. Everything in this while on your back is 10% lighter. Durable- This container is durable, it will not wear out from normal use durability will only decrease with targeted attacks.

I had been using this thing for so long and just hadn’t thought to upgrade, as I had always been short on mana or time. I had been running from one mess to the next, never stopping long enough to level my equipment. This meant that not only was I underpowered, but my equipment was as well.

I dropped my beverage container, sleeping fur, bowl, plate, and conditioning hammer into my pack and headed into the safe room. I had 16 hours before I was planning to leave. So I should be able to upgrade things and get my meeting with Sam in. I hoped.

* * *