Delayed Transfer

The next day arrived and after breakfast, Rendira made an appearance to tutor the twins and after them, to tutor Liriel for a few minutes. Mark asked Milena to have her or one of her assistants look after the children after the tutoring session ended since he was planning to explore the city and possibly one of the dungeons there.

When the twins heard what he was planning to do for the day, they clamored to join him in the dungeon, and even Liriel looked at him grumpily.

“I’m planning to let you join me anyway but I want to scout them first and I thought you had plans in the afternoon like playing with your friends with your spaceships?” Mark asked the twins.

That statement made the twins shut up and they were also glancing at their tutor guiltily since they discarded the fact that she was there and asked to go with Mark.

“Just go, Mark. We’ll look after the children. I’ll make sure that they eat their lunch later,” Milena said.

“I’ll go to your RV first to replicate all the things that you will sell later.”

Milena then gave him a new list that she wanted him to replicate since they almost always changed what they sold to the customer every day to make sure that the novelty of the unique things that they were selling remained fresh. This time, there was no food since it was too early in the morning for the food to just be stored in the RV so Milena changed it to packaged snacks like chips and candies.

After Mark was done, he headed directly to where the Library of Monderro dungeon was located. Of course, he needed to ask for directions from the guards who were patrolling around the city, and after an hour of walking, he reached the dungeon gate.

There was actually a very huge building constructed before the entrance of the dungeon and that building was full of mercenaries and what Mark assumed as some sort of government officials or adventurer guild officials.

Mark saw the actual dungeon portal at the very end of the building and it looked like your typical library entrance. It was guarded by several tough-looking men who he assumed were city guards.

There were also some sort of station booths near the portal where mercenaries or adventurers were signing some sort of forms and handing the persons behind the booth some coins.

He was glad that people were allowed to come and go inside the building without showing anyone any form of identification. The building was filled with all sorts of booths that had different items for sale by merchants and most of them were magic items based on what the placard information said in the booths.

Mark imagined that he looked like some sort of rube with him trying to look everywhere at once but then he noticed that he was not alone in doing so. Others like him looked positively green with their shabby equipment and young faces and he wondered why they were there and not in the novices dungeon.

He went to three young men who looked like they were the same age as Enos and his group. Based on their equipment, one was a warrior slash tank because he was wearing some sort of heavy armor with a sword and a shield, his friend had a bow on his back and quivers of arrows and the third one had daggers on their belts.

They were also carrying a large bag that was laid down on their feet and Mark assumed it contained their supply.

“Hello, my name is Mark. Are you planning to enter the Library?” Mark asked politely.

“Hi! I’m Drenod. Yes, we’re going to enter the Library! We just finished the Novices dungeon four days ago. At first, we planned to go directly here once we were done with the novice dungeon but we went and watched the Star Wars movies first! It was the best thing that I have ever seen in my life!” The young man who looked like a warrior with his heavy armor, shield, and sword said.

The young men who were wearing the bow and the daggers looked at Drenod exasperatedly and Mark assumed that it was because Drenod was overly trustful and a sharer.

“What’s it to you?” The man wearing daggers said and Drenod told his friend that he was being rude.

“Actually, I’m a healer and I wanted to check out this dungeon. I also don’t know anything about the city or this dungeon,” Mark was planning to join a party as a healer using the legendary Mace of Healing that he had just identified last night.

“Let’s go ahead and talk in that open tavern. You’ll pay, of course. My name is Vermont, Drenod, you already know his name and this is Lucius,” The archer said.

Vermont the archer pointed at a corner filled with tables and chairs with a huge counter that was being manned by a bartender.

Drenod went to the bar, ordered four huge mugs of ale, and paid with his coins. When he gave the mugs to everyone, he looked at Mark expectantly and said the amount of coins he paid to the bartender.

Mark almost laughed out loud and gave the coins to the young man.

“So I take it to mean that you want to join our party. To be honest about it, having a healer would be really helpful but we need to utilize the crystal of truth that the adventurer guild provided. You would need to use it anyway before you can enter this dungeon. The minimum requirement to enter the dungeon is level thirty. But you don’t need to worry about sharing your secrets with anyone. You just need to say that you are over level thirty and that you have no intention of harming your party mates,” Vermont said.

“Oh, that was nice! It would make sure that those who wanted to join a PUG would not be a danger to the group,” Mark said.

“PUG?” Lucius, the dagger-wielding man asked.

“I’m sorry. That means Pick-up Group. Basically, strangers form a team to enter a dungeon. Are we going to start from level one?” Mark asked.

“Since we just completed the Novices Dungeon, we’re all above level thirty but we need to start at the first floor because the first floor of this dungeon is as powerful as the last floors of the novices dungeon,” Vermont said while his two friends kept drinking the mugs of ale.

Drenod looked like he wanted to order more ale but held himself since they were planning to enter the dungeon.

“Do we need to register as a group to be able to enter the dungeon?” Mark asked.

“You are new here. Just like the Novices dungeon, you just need to pay coins and you’re good to go. The only difference is you will need to touch the crystal of truth and say that you are over level thirty and you don’t have any intention of harming your party mates,” Vermont said.

“Can a person ask someone to open the portal to the deeper floors of this dungeon?” Mark asked the archer.

“Of course. The deeper the floor the higher the amount of coins you will need to pay but that’s about it. You will still need to touch the crystal of truth every time you enter the dungeon.” Vermont said.

“Can I join you just today to check the inside of the dungeon?” Mark asked since he wouldn’t be able to commit to something like a dungeon dive party long-term.

“Sure, but I recommend that you purchase the book that contained the general information about the dungeon,” Vermont said and after that, he stood up signaling that they were ready to enter the dungeon.