Egbert was rather pleased with his progress overall, and the new rules feature could add a very exploitable way for him to chip an extra coin or five from parties with very little real effort or strategic building on his part. He would revisit that later, but for now.
[Copper 1] [Silver 2] [Gold 11] [Platinum 1]
His coins were starting to run low, and he still hadn’t even hit the cavern wall yet with his expansion. He had a weird coral reef of fungus shaped like an insane lord's maze. Killer anteaters and ants so far. All stuff he could certainly work with, but he was hoping for a bit more.
Bah, why not just push a tad bit farther!
Egbert shoveled coin after coin into the ether as his viewpoint slowly swept forward. One coin got him another stride and an odd formation of coral fungus that looked like a shoe. Another coin granted him a geyser of blood-red water that washed over the nearby fungus and explained the slight haze in this area.
The third coin jolted his view against a crystal formation. It draped elegantly from the ceiling in a hauntingly fleeting manner. It was filled with crenellations and grooves that made parts of the flowering stone almost parchment-thick and clear enough to see through.
It hung there like a blooming microcosm of magical purpose. Purple light danced along the edges of the stone and leapt off in raindrops of condensed mana that splashed into a pool below that was tangibly filled with power.
Ahh, I see the gods have, after all these years of my suffering and impeccable service, decided to take mercy upon my poor devout soul. I would like to send a thanks to Abbicus of the accurate ways for putting such a natural treasure within my grasp. I will use it well and make sure none walk away with so much as a drop for free!.
Egbert could barely believe his luck as he stared at the crystal formation. It was an honest-to-god natural mana font. This was the kind of thing that could form its own dungeon given enough time. Mana had somehow condensed enough here that it began attracting other mana naturally in a slow, ever-growing cycle.
The water it dripped down was probably worth even more than the damned zip-dust was and had a bit less problematic connotations attached to it. It was pure liquid mana; a skilled crafter could form it into usable stones that let people cast spells normally beyond their capabilities. Or hell, it could also be used as a fuel in the most powerful artifices.
Egbert started looking around the area a bit more; it was exceedingly odd that this was here, though. They normally formed in places of immense magical concentration; dragons' lairs were the only ones that Egbert knew of offhand… And well, he really fucking hoped he wasn’t another handful of coins from meeting another roommate.
No, I'm sure there’s probably not anything unfathomable here I need to worry about… and I patently refused to overthink it because, let's be honest, my sanity lately is a tentative thing at best…so let's lock this baby behind something safe before some jackass with a pickaxe decides to take a souvenir worth more than their house.
It cost a lot more than Egbert was happy with, but he couldn’t just bring himself to fully hide away something so obviously priceless that he hadn’t even had to really pay for. So he arranged a cage of very, very strong glass around the crystal, basically growing from the stone above it.
Then he tried to follow the natural curves of the crystal formation, but he made sure to leave a bit of wiggle room just in case it decided to grow some more. It ended up looking like a half-cut transparent gemstone had been placed over the mana font.
The pool of actual water at the bottom he did lock down under a slab of metal and not your energy. A square, impenetrable edifice to hoarding that had a tiny basin in the top to catch the drops as they fell. He added a coin slot and the world's tiniest tap on the side. Eventually he would be rewarding people with a taste after all.
Hmm…. I could make it so this entire area is based around getting just a splash of mana-water. Oh…the better you do, the more my angry vault dispenses. That could be fun… I'm not thinking a time trial this time, maybe just…point-based. Hmm, I'll have to think on it while I build up this area.
But for now I think I'll go back to the village and do some touching up. It is pleasantly cheap to add in little props and make it more real. The place does need more mimes after all. Heh, I need to put at least one oasis mimic in there. Although it's supposed to make itself look like something adventurers would be comforted by fifty-fifty odd, it just ends up disguising itself as another key. But one that absolutely looks like it's going to work.
Egbert zoomed back up into the village; the myconids were teeming about like psychotic acidic toddlers. Remorse was disguised right next to the fountain as a slightly bigger, drippier fountain with a pair of bright yellow eyes peeking out from where water should be falling through the statue's hands.
Egbert danced around the village, adding homey touches. One house had some dirty rugs hanging from a windowsill like they needed a good beating. The hunter's cottage got shelves stuffed with empty potion bottles and vials of very questionable quality.
Egbert looked at the history-buff-themed house, a bit stumped. He wasn’t sure what else to add here other than more weapons or armor. But that seemed dumb.
You know it's always the ones you don’t expect that just suddenly announce they collect rare coins or have the world's second-largest assembly of wooden horses. And every time without fail, it’s the big tough guy you would least expect it from.
I bet a collection like that in here could be fun, especially as something the mimics could imitate. The question is what…it would need to be decent sized… No, Egbert, adding a key collection to the madmads key chest challenge will just get the damned cottage burned down when someone cracks.
Something that would make you double-take, ha ohh...that's mean, but I'm doing it. Well, dungeon-wise, it turns out this cottage owner had a military history but also had a softer side. He really, really liked collecting those creepy dolls everyone’s grandma has for some freaking reason.
Egbert cackled as he started darting around, adding some of the most off-putting dolls imaginable. They had those button eyes that looked dead. Scraggly strings for hair and uneven stitched features. Just because he knew somewhere down the line it would cause a glorious moment, Egbert put a pile of coins inside two of the haunting dolls.
If months from now people started riffling through the dolls and discovered that some of them held treasure, he knew that would start a glorious scavenger hunt in exactly the kind of place where you shouldn’t be picking up every random object. Because, well, eventually a disconcerting number of them would absolutely try and eat you.
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Egbert was busy positioning one doll so it looked like it was trying to ride the horse barding in the chest room when the front door practically exploded open and a pair of people piled in along with a small tide of Myconids.
Egbert hadn’t seen them before; one was a lanky fellow with an enviable mustache wearing leather armor and a curved sword that accented his rather rakish appearance. The other was a dumpy fellow in a monk's brown robes and no visible weapons.
Huh…wonder what their deal is.
The rakish figure set into dicing the myconids ambling around the living room with sweeping blows that seemed to slightly phase into the monsters before small blasts of pure mana shot like living blades through them midswing. He was firing off his rather flashy skill left and right like preserving mana wasn’t even a consideration.
The dumpy monk Shuffled up to the door surprisingly fast and powerfully shoved the teeming myconids back with a kick that gave off a concussive shock hard enough to rattle the whole damned building. With a heaving sigh, he slammed the door closed and slumped down in it, breathing hard. Just opting to use his considerable frame to hold it closed for now instead of bothering with the door latch.
His companion finished off the last myconid that tittered towards him with a flick of the wrist and another icy blue blade of mana. The lanky man turned towards the monk and said, “Uhh, John, are you okay?” and offered him what looked like a healing potion.
John heaved a few more trembling breaths. “Spider…That fucking spider… Ender, why? Oh gods, why did you suggest this would be a fun dungeon?” Jhon said accusatorially around what Egbert was guessing was an arachnophobia-induced panic attack.
Yeah...I understand you, John. The spider wasn’t an addition I would have made if the need wasn’t dire…and now, well...I can’t just squish it. Boo actually listens, unlike...literally everyone else who ‘works’ for me…
Ender looked over apologetically. “I mean, come on, I knew as much as you did; it’s a fucking loot-and-gold-themed dungeon. How does that not sound like a good time? There are literally just piles of respawning coins dotted around. I didn’t think that the kind of mind that would run with that theme would be quite this sadistic…” Ender flipped the door latch over Jhon’s shoulder and gave him a comforting pat.
“There’s supposed to be honest to god’s zip-dust in these houses hidden in a puzzle chest; keep your eyes open. This place is literally called the mimic village…for some fucking reason…The only one I’ve seen so far though was that massive bastard that looked like a melted fountain.” Ender walked deeper into the house, cringing as he saw the dolls peeking out from between stands of armor and rusted weapons.
Jhon finally got his breathing under control a bit and pulled himself to his feet, dusting chunks of Myconid from his robes. “There’s sadistic, and there’s whatever the fuck this place is…sure, there’s coins everywhere and loot bugs. Except the lotbugs want to eat you, and every single time we have even seen a coin so far, it means we are in immediate danger, usually from something stupid like a tripping hazard or a damned hungry treasure chest. I don’t even want to know what was in the skull castle laughing at us ominously.”
John wandered around slowly, inspecting the room for mimics. He kept making short but powerful jabs into the decor, waiting for something to react. But since the mimic village really didn’t have THAT many mimics yet, nothing did. He did accidentally behead an old stand of plate mail, though, with a clatter.
“Shit, sorry.”
Ender laughed nervously in response from the chest room. “Soooo I found the uh…chests…. But the puzzle is a little…deranged… There is a dispenser, though, if we need a little help.”
John walked into the chest room with a sigh. “Of course it’s deranged; everything here is deranged. I refuse to feed any more coins into this rat trap of a…” Jhon stuttered in shocked upsetty as his eyes finally fell upon the literal pile of keys, and then three chests and a key skittered around on the pile for a moment.”
“What the fuck…” John said in sheer disbelief.
Ender looked over with a grimace, both his hands already full of keys. “Yeahh…come help me. I don’t know how long we have before the mushrooms make it through the front door.”
***
Max—Max’s Still Unnamed Tavern
Max looked up at the Choral loot bugs that had alighted in his rafters again with a dangerous glint in his eyes. They were starting to get a little loud again, so he threateningly reached for his broom, and they brought the sound down a few decibels.
“That’s right… I know you respawn; I’ll do it…”
Max had reached a sort of unspoken accord with the endlessly singing menaces; he had smitten at least five of the little bastards over the last couple days for chanting so damned loud he couldn’t think. One extra smart one had hidden in a corner, leaving its chants at a reasonable conversational volume.
That was the max had spared, and the others had gotten the picture. They could hang out and provide their weird ambient tracks as long as they weren’t annoying. So for better or worse the tavern had some really impressive chanting echoing through it lightly night and day now.
Max looked around with a smile. He had finally gotten the roof actually done and the tarps taken down. Even as early as it was today, there was still a smattering of customers. He had been damned worried when he moved; he would lose most of his clientele. But apparently his uniquely generous serving style had inspired a modicum of loyalty.
Most of his regulars trudged the few minutes out of their way after work to come to his new location. And despite his prices being quite a bit higher here, damn near no one complained about it. Instead, they just wandered off to one of the dungeon's challenges, drink in hand, to try and get lucky with a handful of coins that would pay for the night's drinks.
More often than not they would come back beaten, bruised, and with a fistful of silver and copper for their troubles. Max was a wee bit worried about the sustainability of that. Some of his patrons were absolutely going to get themselves eaten. But at least for now it wasn’t an issue yet, mostly.
He was getting pretty good at first aid for the half drunk idiots that came back from the lootbug playground triumphantly holding a lootbug in one hand. They always had a missing tooth or a black eye or, in one case, a missing damned finger. That guy he had made go to the actual doctor after he helped him fish the finger out of Bully’s pit.
Overall, things were going way, way better than Max had even hoped. There was frantic, intense, and somewhat unhealthy crunch time there when he was trying to get the tavern to the barest bones of functionality as fast as he could. Where he had just kind of skipped sleep and food…and mostly run on stamina potions and whiskey. But that was all behind him now, he hoped.
The event had filled his coffers fast enough that he could pay off the small building materials loan he took and still have enough left over to pay this month's oppressive mortgage. Hell, if things ever got too dire, he could just sell a chunk of his parcel around the lake; his property value had gotten stupid the moment people finally accepted that there was a dungeon and the fisherfolk hadn’t finally just lost it.
Max poured another beer for an adventurer coated head to foot in myconid gore. He nearly fell over when Greed’s voice rasped out of that damnable rock he insisted on leaving in the bar.
“Hey! Max! Where is the free labor force? I can’t find them, and the mushroom swarms are starting to get a bit too all-consuming and hoard-sized again for my comfort.”
Max sighed and re-stoppered the beer keg. “Greed, my man. You had to stop calling the kids a free labor force, and to answer your question, they went with Thrognar to register as adventurers. I think they took the puppy too; Thrognar insisted it was fine because, and I quote. You told him that the puppy was the Orphans.”
“Oh, well, that’s not great, but okay… Wait, how are those little bastards going to register? Don’t they need, like, a parental signature or something?”
Max nodded. “Normally they would, but Balthazar sold them some fake identification after the event. It was pretty impressive, actually; he whipped them up right there on the spot in a flash of mana and capital crime.”
“Who the hell is this Balthazar? The kids shouldn’t be adventuring!”
Max frowned. “Balthazar is the rich bastard dressed like a peacock who fell into a dye factory and plopped a platinum into your most expensive trap that we both know wasn’t even hooked up to anything yet.”
Egbert grumbled for a second incoherently.
“Greed, do you actually give a shit that they are adventuring, or are you just mad no one offered to cut you in on the profits…?”
There was an uncomfortably long pause as Max stared at the pet rock. Finally, Egbert exploded in exasperation. “It’s the least they could do! I house them; they have infinite oatmeal feeders! Ungrateful brats…” Max shook his head in disbelief and went back to shining a shot glass.
