Ace sighs, “So, does anyone have so actual cash on them?”
Kelly nods, “I have two copper and one silver coin, no gold though. Even the silver was a lucky catch soone found in one of the thug’s pouch. Without a system store to sell to or the quest board, the system currency isn’t exactly common. The only current source is actually the dungeon. My second copper cos from one of the dives we did to get everyone their limit break path. Apparently the first floor kobold leader has a chance to drop copper coins.”
Ace shakes his head, “Much too rare then. We need ten thousand copper coins to buy the anchor. Does anyone else know a good way to get so coins?”
Doctor knocks on the table to everyone’s attention. “First of all, from what I heard of the last trip, the early floors are easier. That ans everyone should be able to deal with the first floor increasing our odds of getting coins. Also, not that many people have grinded on the second floor. It is quite possible that we can get coins from the monsters there and just not know it yet.”
“As for alternate thods of gathering coins? I think we should instead ask if we need to use coins directly. While we can’t sell stuff to the system without a system store, we might be able to barter our goods directly. Of course, to find out we would need to ask Jimmy about it. Though I feel we should let him relax for a second.”
Susan shrugs, “Do we have anything of worth to trade? It isn’t like the System needs what we can make. At most, it could probably sell it back to other people on our planet.”
Ace turns to Kelly, “I know you have a certain theory about dungeons. While you haven’t been able to prove it yet, now would be the ti to share.”
Kelly looks away from the gathering twists in her chair, but with everyone staring at her she eventually sighs. “I really didn’t want to talk about this till there was more proof. Especially since part of this is built upon the bodies of all that have fallen to the dungeon so far. I could see that in the wrong hands things could turn very grim.”
Ace nods, “From what you have shared with , I am sure certain human elents could gain a lot of power at a horrific cost. I was willing to let you study it in secret, I even made sure you alone had access to all the counts of what ca out of the dungeon. Now I won’t try and claim so for the greater good junk to you.”
“The ten of us should all very well know we aren’t the best of people. To gain power like we did requires a drive beyond what society has beaten into our world’s more civilized regions. I want this knowledge so we can dominate our area. Yes we probably aren’t the best choices to lead our world into the future. Problem is I don’t trust anyone else to do it for us. Now tell us what you’ve found out.”
Kelly lowers her head and takes a shaky breath. “I haven’t always been the best at interacting or relating to other people. Still, what I have found could cause a loss of human life on a staggering scale.”
She looks up, “When soone dies in the dungeon the next group will have better drops. I’ve collated all the resources we have extracted from the dungeon and on average the dive after soone has died in the dungeon will get twice as many resources. After that the amount quickly dies off, but that doesn’t matter.”
“We knew that people dying in the dungeon would feed it. However, never once did any of the tutorial guides ntion the fact that it also improves loot. What I have been researching is if it has to be a death. While all signs point to no, a person dying in the dungeon, especially those with higher levels, will instantly upgrade what we get. Now that you all know this I can be more open with my testing. After all, I couldn’t exactly have people leaving perfectly good gear in the dungeon to be eaten.”
“I have so guess on this but nothing to prove it yet. First is that near-death experiences improve the drops. This points toward it not being the death itself that matters, but rather sothing released by us when in danger or even just when stretched to our limits. That second one is particularly likely as while we didn’t exactly scour the dungeon when doing our limit breaking the amount of goods retrieved was quite decent.”
“The other guess I am willing to share is that while items being left inside help, garbage does not, or at least not all that much. Now I haven’t had much luck in testing this one as people rarely leave stuff in the dungeon. We don’t even throw garbage in because about the only waste we have is being put towards compost. However, going by what we know when it cos to pre-system equipnt, I have a suspicion.”
“The more an item has been processed by crafting skills, the more an item has been used with soone's skill, and even just the more an item has been around skill use will increase its value to the dungeon. As it is we aren’t making all that much. In fact, I’ve heard so of the others haven’t been picking up all the dropped at because we just don’t need it. If my guess is correct, that needs to stop.”
“Everyone that has a crafting skill should be practicing it, even with poor materials. Beyond that even things like our cooks should be continually using as much of our supplies as possible. Then anything that isn’t needed should be tossed into the dungeon. This even includes the ash from the cook’s fire. Every single bit of waste that has had a skill used on, through, or around needs to go in the dungeon. Too much goat at? Cook it up right before it goes bad and into the dungeon with it!”
Kelly is breathing heavily now as she finishes. When she doesn’t continue Ace slowly nods, “Yes, that info could result in the rise of a horrible culture of sacrificial excess. Now, does stuff being dropped off on the first floor affect the second floor? Also, are there any downsides to doing this? It can’t be all sunshine and bloody roses. What’s the catch?”
Kelly takes a few more monts to catch her breath. “It does seem floor dependent. While all deaths have been on the first floor and most don’t even go to the second one anyway, the data I got from the limit breaker runs is enough. We can probably get away with just dumping stuff like the cookfire ashes on the first floor. For more skill intensive things like high quality gear that has broken, we probably want to figure out which floors give the best loot and drop it there.”
“As for a downside? Yes, there is one. So of you might have noticed how inconsistent the kobolds are with their traps, right? Well, there are two triggers for a trap appearing from what I can tell. The first is if a trap was there on a previous run but not taken care of, it will be there the next ti as well. The other is that the sa energy used to drop more loot is also used by the kobolds to place their traps.”
“There has been little experience with the traps, but I noticed sothing in every story that involves them. Once the trap is taken care of and no longer an active part of the area it is in, they just stop being talked about. Not as in, yeah the disard trap is over there but we don’t have to care about it. Rather no matter how much I questioned the people about it they just can’t rember the trap being there.”
“Unlike dungeon traps, the kobold traps act just like defeated monsters. Once it is disard or destroyed, it will fade away. In fact, I am willing to bet each trap is connected to a specific kobold. So yeah, more randomly placed tribal traps to deal with.”
Ace leans back in his chair and hums while he thinks over this new information. The other founders wait for a minute or so but he seems to be lost in thought for the mont so they start to talk among themselves.
It takes Ace a good ten minutes to figure out what he wants to do with all this nonsense. He claps his hands, “Alright everyone, I have a plan. We need one gold to make a town and to be honest? I doubt even if we had quests and system stores to earn money, this would be an easy amount to earn. Normally I would say this ans we don’t have to rush it.”
“This isn’t normal. The very people we least want to gain any control over us would be the ones who could earn that amount of money. Those thugs from the old towns didn’t have much money, but that was just because they spent it all on drugs and alcohol from the system stores. All it would take is one dictator with a plan and so impulse control to wreck our day.”
“Worse yet, we don’t know how likely this is to happen. There could be a burgeoning slave empire, a hop skip and a jump in any direction from here. For instance, those few low level thugs that escaped down the river. No one has co back the way they went, and we have no clue why. Supposedly there is so kind of town off that way but they kept to themselves what kind of place it was.”
“With that all in mind we need to maximize our chances of getting money and I want to take a chance on the second floor. Right now the third floor is a mystery and maybe it has wealth beyond our wildest dreams but those mushroom monsters.”
Kelly coughs, “They’re myconid sprouts. While we waited, I took so ti to examine them closer.”
Ace raises an eyebrow at the interruption. “Anyway, those myconids are a hard stop right now. Even if a group can manage to deal with them, we can’t exactly grind the floor. On the second floor, we can easily clear out the kobolds. With that in mind all of our trash will be deposited on the second floor for the near future, even the ash. If after a few days of this there still aren’t coins we will focus on the first floor.”
“Now for a more long-term thing. We know that more drops happen after soone dies in the dungeon. As it is, death is very rare because we all have a handle on the dungeon and have trained to delve into it. That won’t always be the case. So point in the future we will see people coming from all around to give it a try. This ans more people dying than ever before. Right now we can only realistically have one group delve at a ti. From now on after every delve with a loss of life, a group made of our core mbers has to delve. We can bla it on how often the dungeon changes. Just say that any death could represent a sudden change in the dungeon that needs to be explored by professionals.”
“The goal of this requirent is to hoard as much of the drops and loot as possible. We won’t be able to monopolize it all, of course, but no reason to make it easy on any outsiders. The only problem that could co up with this is how few people there are in our core group. Not even 30 people isn’t exactly enough to cover it as much as we need to. But we can deal with this later. For now I don’t want anyone to check out the third floor until we have the dicine to counter those myconids.” Ace claps his hands and gestures for everyone to go back to work.
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