My second life as a dungeon

Val woke me up about two hours later, while I was sleeping the Red Rubies had defeated the goblin king, the leftover goblins had been taken care of and all the loot had been gathered at the centre of the colony. This meant it was time for everyone to meet up at the centre of the colony to give out everyone’s reward, other than the Red Rubies who had already taken their share and left for the next Quest.

Most of the loot that the goblins had dropped wouldn’t be useful for adventurers so instead the guild gathered them up, estimated how much the materials cost and split that amongst the participants depending on what group they were part of. That didn’t mean there was no loot however, monsters may not create anything but they would still kill adventurers and use their gear to make themselves stronger. We were now giving that gear another life by using it ourselves instead of leaving it to decay.

When we got to the centre of the colony almost everyone was there, the only people absent being adventurers that were either too injured to move and were being cared for or had died in the battle. The pile was quite tall even after all the monster parts had been taken but most of it would be gone by the time I got to pick something from it.

The way splitting loot on emergency quests works is that the trump card, in this case The Red Rubies, would get whatever the monster leader’s group had on them plus fifteen percent of the loot with first dibs on any equipment. This could either be just money, just equipment or a combination of the two. This had already happened with the group deciding to just take the money, it was now the vanguard's turn.

The vanguard as a group would evenly split seventy-five percent of the loot between each party. If any two parties claimed the same item they were expected to come to a compromise between themselves but if they couldn’t then the representative would get involved. After an hour the Vanguard was finished and it was now the scouts turn. We would only get ten percent of the loot and most of the equipment was already taken as it is almost always better to take a piece of equipment then just money.

We looked through the, now very small, pile of loot but couldn’t find anything either of us wanted so we ended up just taking our share of the loot in coins, which ended up being three gold and six silver coins. In my old life if I had been playing a game and it had given me this amount of gold for a quest as difficult as this was I would probably complain but those games tended to underestimate how much gold was worth.

In this world just six silver coins would be enough to replace the potions we used and feed us for two months if we hadn’t already been getting everything we needed from the dungeon and that was before thinking about the three gold coins. As the day went on and everyone had gotten their share of the loot the group slowly dispersed, either returning home or going to their next quest.

Now that the major threat around this area had been dealt with they didn’t have to worry about travelling in huge groups like we had on the way to the colony. We also had no reason to stay around so we said goodbye to everyone that was left before slowly making our way back to the dungeon as we talked about the quest, getting about a quarter of the way there before the sun started to set forcing us to set up camp.

Now that we were resting and I didn’t have to concentrate on anything I brought up the notification I got for reaching level ten. I already knew that I would be offered three new skills since that was part of the knowledge I gained when I was transferred to this world, I just didn’t know what specific skills I would be offered. 

As I looked at the skills I could choose from I got the feeling that each one would send me down a path that would further define my Job. Stealth would focus me on becoming an unseen assassin that attacked at night and finished the fight before anyone knew I was there; Blink would focus me on flitting around the battlefield making sure that if anyone managed to get to me that I would easily be able to escape them.

Finally Eagle’s Eye would make me into a sharpshooter specialised in attacking enemies from as far away as I can. After reading through the notification and thinking about it I easily came to a decision as only one skill felt like it fit me as a person. Firstly both Eagle’s Eye and Stealth would make it so that I would have to choose when I fought someone and if I was caught unaware then it would put me at a severe disadvantage.

Secondly I liked the idea of being able to teleport around the battlefield and becoming an untouchable force of nature. As I chose [Minor blink] as the skill I wanted to gain from the notification it vanished and I felt a surge of power flow through me similar to what I usually felt when I levelled up but much stronger. Before thinking about it I cast [Minor blink] like I would with [Quick Shot], I ended up landing on my ass extremely close to the fire but luckily not on it.

Not deterred by this I dusted myself off, got up and walked a bit away from the fire before trying again except this time I focused on where I wanted to go. I didn’t end up exactly where I had focused on going but it was better than last time. I looked back at the tent that Val was sleeping in, as I had planned on practising with whatever skill I got while on watch I told her to go to sleep first.

Once I was sure that I wouldn’t disturb her sleep I proceeded to practise with my newly acquired skill. Over the next hour I managed to get the hang of it but if I ever lost my focus on where I wanted to go then my destination would vary wildly. At the end of that hour I had to stop as I had run out of mana so I went back to properly keeping watch.

The new skill felt very fun and I was extremely excited to use it in the future so I was pleased with my choice. The next morning we had some of our rations for breakfast before beginning our hike back to the dungeon again. While we travelled I showed my new skill off to Val who had been excited to see it and was quite impressed with it. Once I was done Val showed me her new skill, called [Empowered Cast].

It lets her increase the potency of one of her spells for double the mana cost and I could clearly see it work as she shot a firebolt that was three times the size they usually were. As we weren’t slowed down by any other adventuring parties we managed to make it back about mid-afternoon but were both exhausted from the past four days of adventuring so said goodbye to each other and went to our rooms to rest.

The next morning I awoke to a certain goddess in my room looking at some of the flowers I had growing here. ‘Hey Shonu’ I said as I rubbed my eyes as I was still waking up.

‘Hello little one,’ Shonu cheerily said with a bit too much energy for how early in the morning it was, ‘Congratulations on finishing the quest I gave to you. The next time you go to where you last found the barrier you will find it has moved as your soul is now strong enough that the tether keeping your avatar attached to your core can be stretched further.

‘As you continue to grow in strength you will be able to slowly travel further and further away, although this will have a limit no matter how much you grow unless you choose to be separated from the dungeon once your purpose here has been fulfilled.’

‘Thank you, just the little travelling I did to gain these levels has shown me how much this world has to offer. I can’t wait to see what I will find next.’ I said gratefully, if she hadn’t brought me here I would have never had the chance to experience these things. ‘So, what do you want me to do next?.’

‘It’s my pleasure, I love watching people grow and become their true, full selves.’ Shonu said with a bright smile on her face. ‘That last quest was to help your avatar grow stronger but I don’t want you to just focus on that side of things. Therefore your next quest will be to make your next floor into a raid floor that is strong enough to be a challenge for most people.’

As she finished saying this a notification popped up in front of me, after reading it I spent a while thinking about it before saying, ‘I’ll accept this, I was already planning on making my fifth floor into a raid, I will just have to make it stronger than I initially planned for it.’ As I said this the notification went away as it usually does and Shonu looked pleased.

‘That’s great to hear, I will be looking forward to seeing how it turns out’ Shonu said with a smile before disappearing as she usually does. With her gone I sat down and thought about what it was that I had been asked to do. First, to clarify things, every floor that is added to a dungeon adds an instance which allows an additional party to dive into the dungeon without interference from any other parties.

Every raid floor will still add an additional instance to the dungeon but the raid floor itself will only have a fifth of the total instances the dungeon has. This is because it is intended to be challenged by five parties, or up to thirty people, at the same time. To keep the floor challenging raid floors get double the usual floorspace and triple the max monster DP as well as a few extra things that I will go over once they become important.

It gets a bit weird when the sixth instance is added as only five parties are allowed to fight the raid at a time. It works similar to the entrance portal where if it is full then no more parties can enter and they will just have to wait for the floor to be free again. The most popular way around this is that any parties that want to take on a raid will notify the guild. They will then tell the other adventurers to not start a run at a designated time.

Once all of the current delvers have left the dungeon the raid parties will enter the dungeon close together, starting the raid. They will start separated into five groups but then enter the same instance once they get to the fifth floor. Usually these would start at night as not many adventurers would want to start a run then anyway and they tend to take much longer than standard delves.

Every fifth floor also has another important function, whether or not it is a raid, as anyone who defeats it, will get to skip that floor when they enter the dungeon. Meaning that everyone that beats my fifth floor will be able to go through to the sixth floor without having to redo it. Also every time five floors are added the previous raid floors will get another instance allowing multiple raids to happen simultaneously.