Play Testing

Chapter 169

When the Red Sun’s arrived in the valley I’d gotten a hostile entry notice, but not a raid warning. That hadn’t started until the next morning when they were properly into the dungeon. The Daggers weren’t listed among the enemies when they did. They show up as neutral gray tokens on the map.

After the two younger men ditched them, at Jarod’s suggestions, the group was down to five. Still a healthy number if the party was balanced right. They made it past the gathering layers with only minor difficulty. Something which wasn’t a good omen for them as the bone brigade had never had trouble with them in the first place. Reiners party hadn’t either.

Caution didn’t appear to be in the vocabulary as they chugged along through the entry layer. They’d gotten a map at the Inn when they arrived. One they’d paid dearly for after pissing off Icarus. A move I’d thoroughly approved of even though I’d meant for it to be free.

They made it to the descent chamber reasonably quickly. That was when they made a rather severe mistake. Rather than taking the stairs down they walked over to the teleport pads and stepped on the green one.

The red one only worked in one direction, straight to the layer, but the others went both ways. The map had a warning about not using them if you hadn’t actually tried the layers before. One they apparently gave zero fucks about.

In the viewing room of the necropolis, psychic and actual laughter went up as it happened. I just sighed. Green was the first and easiest of the combat layers but I was fairly certain this group of asshats would have struggled with the gathering layers.

“Ugh, this isn’t even going to be worth watching,” Chris groaned. He’d plopped down on the pillows I’d set up to lounge on early but hadn’t been enjoying himself as much as I expected.

“Unless you're waiting to collect on a bet, you really don’t have to stay,” I offered. Chris mulled that over for a moment.

“Eh, I am, but fuck it,” he said, getting to his feet. He stretched, bones giving up a hideous crack despite his illusion of life being active, then he was off.

“I can’t blame him for his impatience,” Henry offered, with a sigh of his own.

“Yeah, not exactly riveting stuff,” I agreed. I had a low key sense of dread but it was truly weak compared to what happened with the hero party came through. Not that it had come even close to the terror that I’d felt with the bandits and soldiers the first time. I was always going to feel threatened when someone hostile came, but competence and how well defended I was obviously played a role.

The general mood of the viewing area was low for a while but turned merry as full blown heckling started. Everyone who felt like it called out the party's various dumb moves.

The Sun’s made it about half way into the first combat layer before I felt like only an idiot would keep going. They’d taken injuries and only had garbage grade healing items. Items which they weren’t using nearly as often as they should have.

I didn’t get to find out if their supply was limited or they were just stupid. They made camp in the corridor rather than trying to reach a safe zone. Only the one for the green layer stack was listed, the rest of the dungeon a sketchy hint of deeper depths with no detail. A little taste to lure the curious in rather than a proper play through guide.

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What little interest in the group that remained immediately burnt out. The bone brigade dispersed to go do whatever else seemed like it would be fun. Henry and I head for the palace of shadows. I kept a screen open as we worked on projects, only occasionally glancing over to see how things were going.

The Sun’s slept in shifts but eventually seemed to feel recovered enough to keep going. By the time they reached Squish they were in bad shape. To the bone brigade the giant centipede was more of a punchline than an obstacle. That didn’t hold true for the Sun’s.

He managed to use his ability to call other large centipedes to join the frey and the group was quickly overwhelmed. Full party wipe in less than eight actual hours of exploration, discounting their time resting.

I wasn’t one to turn down easy points, and these were offered on a platter. What was a little grating was how quickly the party had wiped. I’d been hoping to get a better idea of how existing tactics worked before more groups showed up. It looked like I’d been overly optimistic.

If the Sun’s were average, I’d be fine, but I wasn’t willing to bet on that. Elim had suggested that the local level was pretty low, but also mentioned that wasn’t true everywhere. The elemental core he’d found could potentially be sold somewhere, not that he knew where. That place likely had better overall magic.

“I’m less c-concerned about your adventures training idea now,” Henry offered. He’d been working on an intricate piece of embroidery since he’d lost interest in the raid. Putting it aside he looked at me with amusement.

“Yeaaah, if they're like this it would take a lifetime or two for them to become a threat. Without class changes anyway,” I agreed.

Though I was interested in getting my hands on a crystal that could do that, I wasn’t planning on offering it as a guild service. The world didn’t need a bunch of heroic assholes running around. Breaking the church's monopoly would be good, but it needed to be done carefully.

It would be better to stick one in my dungeon and only offer it to those who I felt wouldn’t abuse a power increase in ways I’d object to. At least if I couldn’t set conditions for those who received the service.

Figuring out if it could alter npc classes would also be good. There were better ones than those I’d been seeing. Specializations too that few people had access to.

“I believe you are sch-scheming,” Henry said, chuckling.

“Ruminating on a possible scheme,” I clarified. Making a weaker crystal that could only alter those would be something I’d be comfortable letting pretty much anyone have access to. A purely theoretical option until I actually got my hands on one.

“Well, best do so quickly. The Lepusan are due to depart s-soon,” Henry reminded me. Ban and a couple of the others were going to take supplies and bring back the rest of the band. Something I was looking forward to as it meant my living population would soon be on the rise.

They’d tried to turn down my offer of a cart and some donkey’s to pull it, but I’d talked them around. They were strong and certainly faster on foot, but they had a large number of people to care for. Even carrying heavy packs wouldn’t do the job.

Besides, between the elderly and children, it was likely someone would need to ride rather than walk. Ditching the cart once they found the group and distributed supplies was also an option, though I doubted they’d need to do that.

“True,” I agreed, checking the time. My lack of a real day night cycle could be a little problematic when it came to dealing with topsiders. It would likely be prudent to have office hours above just so I knew when it was daylight without having to check the system clock.

“Did you convince him to take a water stone?” Henry asked.

“I managed to talk him into it as a lone. They didn’t have an easy time in the desert, and while I hope they can just come over from the post town, better safe than sorry,” I explained. It had taken some lengthy debate, but I’d won.

Like the supply cart I’d insisted on, they’d been reluctant to accept the item. I could understand why, it probably felt like way too much. Possibly also like a debt they’d have to repay. I wasn’t going to do the whole “your treasure is my trash” song and dance like I had done for the girls though. It didn’t warrant that level of theatrics when persistence was sufficient.

I got up and stretched before taking on my giants kin form. The mayor was due to make an appearance and I needed to pick out an outfit.