Suffice it to say, everyone was interested in that helmet and what exactly a craftsmanship of first drop dungeon boss loot actually meant. Before that though, they have to decide what to do. They just beat the fifth floor and so could move onto the next, but for some reason felt not quite up to it. The only thing they are sure of is that they all want to at least go through the portal.

Jim heads through first to take a look and is suitably impressed by the scene. Now, he can tell that the ceiling isn’t really all that high up. The rest of it, though? Maybe with time he will notice the repeating terrain but just a view from the safe zone isn’t enough to reveal that secret, even to someone as observant as he is.

Though after reporting what he saw to Ace any plans of exploring further are shut down hard. While the floors are supposed to get bigger the deeper you go, all of them are clear that it should not be to this extent. After all, as far as Jim could tell, the plains went on forever. While none of them actually believed it went on forever, something wasn’t right and so they all just went through the portal and then with a quick reverse, out of the dungeon entirely.

Of course, that doesn’t change how interested they are about Ace’s new headgear and it is actually one of those things none of them had heard about. Though they know who to ask first and so head directly to the town hall. After all, the people running it were actual people with much more experience under the system than all of the founders combined.

After a direct question, of course, the brown rabbitkin receptionist doesn’t answer right away. While being the main receptionist doesn’t put too many restrictions on Lily, she too is a person and has a word or two for them. “While I don’t mind answering some of your questions, might I suggest not treating me like a convenient info dump? It has been quite a while and most of you haven’t even stopped in to chat. I understand setting up a new settlement on a new world is tough work but that shouldn’t stop you from socializing at least some.”

Ace, in particular, looks suitably reprimanded as of all of them, he had spent most of his time hidden away in his office. Lily shakes her head again, “You’re in theory trying to run a town here. While the system isn’t going to just hand it over to someone else, you should at least try to be known around town. That, however, can be figured out later.

“For now, you’re wondering about what the craftsmanship of a first drop dungeon boss loot means. Well, the most obvious is that it was the first drop of a dungeon boss. A suitably rare thing, even if deeper dungeons will have a good number of bosses. After all, it is the first drop and not the first equipment drop.

“So even with how rare it is to be the first to kill a boss, that boss needs to drop a piece of equipment or else it is wasted. After all, herbs and coins are nice to have but most would prefer equipment just waiting for magic. As for what it does?

“Eh, not much. Don’t get me wrong, the quality will be much higher than boss loot, which is better than normal loot. For now, though, that doesn’t do you all that much good even if you ignore the fact it comes from only a fifth-floor boss. Once you have someone to do a bit of enchanting work, though? That’s when the fun happens.

“Let’s say each enchantment takes up a certain number of slots in a piece of gear. That isn’t actually how it works but it makes things easier to explain. Anyway, regular loot has a single slot. Good enough to make it supernaturally sharp or something similarly tame. Boss drops, on the other hand would have, let’s say three slots. So a few more enchants or a single, more powerful one.

“Then you have the first drops. From how I understand it, dungeons in places without a system don’t have this concept unless the dungeon specifically places it. Anyway, since the system had fun and upgraded the thing it would have four slots. Once again, slots aren’t how adding enchantments actually work, but the example is close enough to make sense.”

Ace nods, “So it is a minor upgrade over normal boss drops. A bit disappointing.”

Lily shrugs, “Wait until you find a boss that drops pre-enchanted stuff to see the really fun drops. You can get boosted gear with the strangest of enchantment combos on it. But that is all an aside, how was your dive?”

Jim laughs, “Well, as you might have guessed we succeeded. Though I don’t want to fight that again. At least not while we’re unable with a proper group instead of a mini raid.”

Ace sighs, “The difficulty curve seems a little out of whack.”

Lily rolls her eyes, “The early floors tend to be meant for young teens trying to change their future from backup for the backup farmer to hero in training. Nevermind the way that usually ends. So yeah, what you have right there is some top ranked newb gear. If we were near a few other dungeons, I would say you were well on your way to a clown suit.

“Just slap some minor shock absorption, self cleaning, and minor self repair on it when you have the chance. Even if you will have most likely outgrown it by, then I’m sure you’ll have someone that needs to be protected from further brain damage. Though my advice is try and get your kids hooked up with the system stores like I’ve done.

“Sure, they won’t end up the strongest but that was never in the cards. The rest of the universe is either way ahead of you or will have some sort of edge you can’t expect. Just running a shop for the system is such a better role. Hard to lose those close to you that way.”

Ace coughs, “Well, okay. I can see you have some opinions on the subject. I doubt my current people have much of a choice with any of this but I will keep it in mind. Is there anything else you want to say?”

Lily laughs, “No. Though remember to stop by! The others are nice but the system likes to switch things up just when I’m about to really get to know them. I’ve been lonely enough and while you can’t fix that, a good chat wouldn’t hurt. And don’t forget, I know more than you ever will and not all of what I know is locked behind system restrictions.”

Ace nods to note his understanding and after a round of goodbyes from the group everyone splits up to do their own thing.

Back in the dungeon Doyle and Ally are both happy and quite annoyed.

Ally rages, ‘How dare they raid our first boss! They didn’t even give it a good old-fashioned try. Anywhere else they let the low ranks a year to try and clear any such obstacles before sending in the big guns.’

Doyle is just exasperated. ‘I wanted them to beat the boss, but not like this. Worse yet, I bet if they had taken the floor seriously they wouldn’t have been too far off doing it properly.’

Ally nods, ‘They totally could have! Yes, your boss is basically one of the highest quality strength checks I’ve heard of this early in a dungeon, but still. Worse yet, is that the fifth floor isn’t exactly designed in a way to take advantage of the aggro generated by having too many people around.

‘Even the fourth floor would have been better! I can just see it now. They try to go through the floor with all those people only for all of the random ambush wolves to all pour in from one of the ambush points right after they passed it. Nevermind the fact that the entire floor would be running off to fight them just the surprise from behind might have been enough. And the sixth floor! Glory be, I hope someone tries to raid the sixth floor.’

Doyle sighs, ‘An endless stampede that crushes all before it. On one hand, I don’t want to kill them. They’re important to the town out there developing in the direction I want. On the other hand, they knew the rules and specifically worked to abuse them. The worst part though is I’m not really sure what I should change.’

Ally sticks out her tongue, “Bleugh”, ‘I don’t care how valid it is as a tactic. I don’t want to see something like that happen again. At least not against whatever is the current last boss. Though yeah, I can’t really think of a solution off the top of my head.

‘Plus, we can’t really judge how it works off of them, can we? Sure, they basically did a speedrun of the boss floor but all that means is they were skilled enough to do so. Without other data points, we don’t have any way to tell if the floor is too difficult or not. Those founders made short work of it as a minor raid but I highly doubt others would have a similar experience even with a full raid.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘You’re throwing around terms related to raids and what not. Is there some set definitions or just how you like to call them?’

Ally shrugs, ‘You already know that the classic party is made of six or less people. Because people like even numbers and symmetry, someone at some point decided that a full raid should be made of six parties or in other words, 36 people. Anything bigger is just a raid up until the point someone decides to call it an army. Though some might use fancy terms like a major raid, double raid, or a raid of raids.

‘Below that there is of course the half raid, can you guess how many parties are in one of those? Anyway, if you dip too far below that without any specific breakpoint you have a minor raid. Missing a party or so from your raid? Then you have a hard time figuring out what to call your group, though most settle for just calling it a raid.’

Doyle rolls back to the other side, ‘Well that’s a thing. Does the system actually recognize raid groups and such or is it truly just a bunch of parties working together.’

Ally laughs, ‘Not exactly the easiest question to answer. Suffice it to say the answers are a little of column A and a little of column B. The system itself doesn’t recognize them per se and doesn’t really need to. After all, it isn’t like being in someone’s party magically turns off friendly fire or some such.

‘The other side of it is that people do need ways to keep track of all those people and without the party interface doing it for them things can be hard. Raid leads tend to be picked more for their ability to multitask than combat potential. One dude able to swing his sword a bit better than others doesn’t match up to another dude who can make sure that ten people all swinging swords have something to hit.

‘To get around this system based limitation, there are people who have attempted to override the system to make it work. Seeing as we still have stories about it, I’m willing to bet none of them succeeded. Of course, for every rule, someone will be beating down our door to show off their exception. At least we haven’t publicly stated your idea or something really sill will happen.