Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 7 (Patreon)

Randal smirked as Lootz walked in carrying a treasure chest. “Couldn’t stay away, could you?”

Taylor laughed and walked over to set the treasure chest on the counter. “The dungeon didn’t give me a key, so I figured I’d stop by and say hello. I also figured you’d pop the lock in exchange for the box.”

Randal chuckled as he grabbed his lockpicks and went to work on the lock. “Happily. Where did you find it?”

“I opened a dungeon that was basically an abandoned shop. In the back was a giant rat that dropped a shop deed.”

“Huh. Does that mean you’re going to be a shopkeeper?”

“No clue, I only used it once after I cleaned it out and found a jester selling rocks. They weren’t even particularly good rocks.”

“Hmm.” He grinned as he unlocked the treasure chest and opened it. “That should do it.”

“Thanks.” Taylor looked inside the chest. “A shopkeeper’s guide and a bunch of crystals.”

“Crystals?” Randal asked as he looked into the chest. “They’re neat but they don’t look particularly valuable.”

“They’re an ingredient.” Taylor smiled as she grabbed the book and started transferring the crystals to her ingredients bag.

“For what?”

“The important part of the phrase focusing crystal is the crystal.”

“Oh, for the elemental guns.”

“Bingo. Thankfully I can scrap the stuff I make for parts so my skill is going up, albeit slowly.”

“What are you using for materials?”

“Rough quartz chunks, old aluminium cans, and branches for the stocks.”

Randal reached up and rubbed his face. “Aluminum cans, seriously? Copper pipe is cheap… like really cheap and no one checks who is buying pipes. Hell, steel pipe is reasonably cheap and I’m sure we can find something better than branches, like planks or boards or something.”

Taylor shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance yet.”

Randal looked up at the clock. He wasn’t going to lose his new friend because of shitty materials blowing up on her, he’d more than reached his quota of that type of crap with Leet and he used decent materials. “Okay, let’s go, I’ll flip the out to lunch sign and we’ll be back in an hour. Worse case we’ll stick everything in the chest and call you a taxi or something.”

“Okay,” Taylor agreed as Randal grabbed his coat and hustled her out of the shop and over to his truck. She spent the five minute trip to the hardware store explaining the rest of her experience with the rats.

Randal quickly grabbed a cart once they got to the large hardware store and collected a stack of four 2x4s and eight ten foot lengths of ½ inch galvanized pipe and loaded them into the cart. “That should make everything easier. How are you doing for tools?”

“I’m using a handsaw and a knife…” she trailed off at his look of disbelief. 

“Right, you should probably grab the full rotary tool kit.”

“It seems to work well enough. Besides, aren’t those expensive?” Taylor asked warily.

Randal shook his head slightly as he pushed the cart toward the tool section of the store. “You’re thinking like a teenager. Think like a professional or a gamer, it’s an investment. Having better tools usually makes your finished product better or cuts down the time required. If it doesn’t help, I’ll buy the kit from you, but I have a feeling you’ll use it.”

“Dad’s going to freak,” Taylor muttered as she saw the prices on some of the tools on the wall.

“It’s not like you can’t afford it.”

“Point and it would make polishing the stuff easier,” Taylor agreed as he grabbed two fairly large boxes with Dremel written on the side; one was evidently a saw kit and the other one was a rotary tool kit with all sorts of attachments and a press. 

Randal shook his head and continued through the tools section. “You have a place to put this stuff right?”

Taylor glanced around then replied, “Yeah, I can stick it in the forge, there should be room.”

Randal blinked and looked around to make sure no one heard that then relaxed when there wasn’t anyone around. “Okay… Do you have a grinder? Of course you don’t…” 

“Yes, I have a grinder.” She shrugged. “It came with the shop.”

Randal turned and raised an eyebrow. “An electric grinder?” 

“No, but it works,” she replied defensively.

Randal rubbed his temples briefly. “Right, I’ll have to see this stuff to check what you need… Doing things by hand is all well and good, but time is money… In this case, it also determines the amount of grinding and tedium you have to go through.”

“Hopefully, can’t be worse than rolling aluminum cans after cutting them apart with scissors.”

Randal sighed and shook his head as he grabbed a soldering iron and angle grinder and put both in the cart along with a cordless drill kit and a few boxes of screws of various sizes.

“There goes all my money. We should probably grab an extension cord.”

Randal turned and raised an eyebrow dubiously. “All your money? I saw your table at Lord’s Market.”

“Okay, fine, I was exaggerating a bit,” Taylor complained.

“You were being dramatic, because you’re a teenage girl… got it.” Randal snickered and patted her on the head as he continued down the aisle selecting various tools and bric a brac and adding them to the cart.

Taylor huffed and briefly considered arguing then decided not to bother and really he was helping her get a bunch of tools that would probably help her crafting efforts. A lot if she was being honest.

When they got to the counter sticker shock kicked in, especially when Randal paid for everything and headed out to the truck, “You can pay me back when we’re not in public,” Randal preempted when they’d got back into the vehicle as she looked at him in askance. “People expect the adult male to pay in hardware stores.”

“In other words, no point in drawing attention?” she asked quietly as they started loading the supplies and tools into the back of the truck.

“Exactly, a teenage girl buying all this stuff attracts more attention than me buying all this stuff with you wandering around with me,” Randal agreed. “So, are we going to a rock shop or was there enough in the chest to build multiple items?” 

“It takes one crystal per item so I should be fine for a bit unless you want to pick up some chemicals for growing them?”

“Well, I am interested in seeing what you can make and how it compares to stuff from drops,” Randal admitted.

“That sounds reasonable,” Taylor agreed as they finished unloading the cart.

Randal smiled as they headed to a science supply store that he’d bought some stuff at before with Leet, it wasn’t like crystal growing kits cost anywhere near the amount he’d paid in power tools and construction materials. 

0o0o0

Taylor was rather relieved that she could stick an extension cord through the door into her forge dungeon as it meant that she had a place she could keep her tools and work without attracting attention. Of course, setting things up had taken twenty minutes but it was twenty minutes well spent as far as she was concerned thanks to her crafting bar going twice as fast when she crafted her first pistol handle with her new tools and supplies. “Huh, well crafted handle…” she trailed off as she noticed Randal smirking at her. “That could have been a fluke.”

“My bet is good tools help,” Randal replied with a grin, “not to mention using quality materials.”

“Maybe, we’ll see.” She set things up and tried again. “Well crafted… okay, maybe there is something to the new tools,” she admitted as she set the finished handle on the bench.

“Told you. You should try making a decent barrel out of the pipe then put one together.”

She selected a length of pipe then converted it into a barrel, thankfully it was a lot easier than trying to make the barrel out of rolled up aluminum cans. She smiled as she looked at the popup. “Well crafted steel barrel, not bad. That’s means I should probably use my decent focusing crystal and see what we get.”

“Probably, it would be a shame to waste such well crafted parts,” Randal agreed smugly.

Taylor selected her new parts and the cold focusing crystal and hit her accept button.

Randal watched in fascination as Taylor put together the elemental pistol. “So… where does the metal for the trigger and the rest of the bits come from?”

“No clue. Tinker bullshit?” Taylor smirked as she looked at her elemental pistol. It looked decently crafted unlike her first attempts which was a nice change.

He snorted. “That’s not how that is supposed to work, that’s more like Shaker bullshit or Trump bullshit or just plain bullshit.”

“I’ll take it.”

“How does it compare to the ones that dropped?” Randal asked wondering how her weapon compared to the ones they’d acquired from the mobs.

“The ones that dropped are better, at least for right now, but they’re not that much better which is nice considering my low level of skill right now… I expect I’ll be churning out superior guns in no time.”

“Excellent, I’d keep that one as a memento of the first pistol that was made with decent parts.” He smirked.

“Thank you for the help, I should get home and let you get back to work.”

“Yeah, probably should even if it’s not as much fun. I’ll work on growing some of the crystals for a control. You should play around with your crafting menu and grow some naturally. You might try polishing them or carving them into shape before you turn them into focusing crystals.”

“I’ll see how it goes, I have a feeling I’m going to need to keep a notebook.”

“Just keep it in your forge, no point in leaving it laying it around.” He turned and headed for the door.

“Point.” Taylor followed Randal out of the door into the back room then walked over to the extension cord and unplugged it. She tossed it through the door to her dungeon and shut the door. “We should be able to do another dungeon Wednesday, if you’re interested?”

“Hell yeah I’m interested, making the pistols looks fun, but I wouldn’t mind trying other dungeons while we’re at it.”

“Sounds good. Thanks again for the help with shopping.”

“You’re welcome, I’m just glad it worked out as well as I thought it would. Maybe we could hit a dungeon with a repair manual at some point.”

“That sounds useful,” Taylor replied as she headed for the door. She wanted to get home and play with her crystals and start trying to farm some more clothes from the Winslow dungeon.

‘You have no, idea,’ Randal thought to himself as he thought about Leet’s collection of old inventions.

0o0o0

Taylor smirked as she raised her staff and blasted Sophia with lightning until she turned into pixels and vanished leaving behind a pile of loot. There was something rather satisfying about blasting her with lightning until she died, not that she’d ever do it to the real Sophia but she could take a small amount of pleasure in destroying her twisted doubles. 

Her previous feeling of satisfaction turned to ash as she saw the broken piece of a very familiar flute sitting on top of a shadowy cloak next to a vial. Her fingers trembled as she reached down and grabbed the broken piece of a flute. She felt a small ember of hope as she stared at the popup. “Broken pieces can be reassembled, 1 of 20. I’m going to murder her, a lot.” She put the broken flute piece in her ingredient bag then picked up the black vial. “Another shadowy vial, nice.” She put it in her ingredient bag then picked up the shadowy cloak revealing the book under it.

She looked at the popup for the cloak and realized it was the same as her other cloak. “Looks like I can farm shadow cloaks. Probably a good thing; now I don’t need to get my cloak back from Amy.”

She picked up the archery book and opened it then sighed when nothing happened. “Worth a shot.” She stuck it in her pocket to give to Amy or Kevin. She turned her attention toward the various dropped articles of clothing and knives from the various other girls in the room that she hadn’t bothered to pick up yet. ‘At least I’ll have plenty of things to sell Saturday.’ She glanced at her watch. “That should be enough time.” She opened her crafting menu and checked her mana level then converted one of her quartz crystals into a focusing crystal which ate up a little less than half of her remaining mana and pushed her elemental pistol crafting to level 5. She looked at the new focusing crystal. “Well crafted unaligned focusing crystal, that should be interesting.”

She put the crystal in her ingredient bag them glanced around at the various knives and pieces of clothing that the rest of the mobs had dropped. “At least I have a bag of holding this time.” She let her thoughts wander back to grinding her elemental pistol skill as she started looting the room. She still felt a little guilty about tossing most of the pistols she’d created into her salvage box for parts so she could ‘earn’ more experience by putting the pieces together. Of course, she’d also been trying to unlock unusual or unique parts like the fancy handle she’d gotten from salvaging one of her well made pistols or the decorative ivory handle she’d gotten off one of the pistols from the dungeon that she’d salvaged, nevermind the fact that the handle hadn’t actually been ivory to begin with. 

She stuffed the last knife into her bag then glanced around the empty room to make sure that she’d gotten everything then headed back toward the entrance to reset the dungeon. ‘Hopefully the flute pieces aren’t a rare drop.” She was just glad the dungeon had some interesting loot, nothing overly powerful in the grand scheme of things but useful enough. She frowned as she walked around the corner and saw the bank of lockers. “I wonder.” She opened the menu for her bags and pockets and looked through the unorganized mess until she found one of the lockpicks she’d made. “Okay, let’s see if this is easier than a treasure chest.”

She grumbled slightly as she tried some of the tricks that Randal shared for picking locks on one of the lockers. She scowled slightly as her first pick broke and a popup appeared. “Congratulations you have jammed the lock, this lock can no longer open.”

Taylor raised her eyebrows. “At least they don’t act like background crap.” She pulled out her portable drill out of her pocket. “Okay, let’s try this again.” She smirked as she brought the drill up and went to work on the lock. She blinked as an alarm sounded and she heard footsteps coming down the hall. ‘What the fuck, this is Winslow, since when did they have security?’ She put her drill back in her pocket and grabbed her lightning gun. She scowled at the overweight looking security guard holding a baton in one hand and a donut in the other as he advanced toward her. “That explains so much.” 

The security guard said, “We can’t have you bothering the nice girls in the school with your wicked ways, prepare for a beat down.”

She raised her eyebrows then shot him with her elemental pistol. She frowned slightly as his health dropped by a third. She quickly shot him several more times as he charged her which caused him to dissolve into pixels leaving behind a wallet and a can of pepper spray. “Mental note, ranged weapons for the win.” She smiled slightly as she walked over and picked up his wallet and pulled out the twenty five dollars in it. “Cheap bastard.” She grabbed the can of pepper spray. “Double strength pepper spray, won’t cause any permanent damage but they’ll wish they were dead. Okay, that’s useful.”

Taylor tossed the crappy wallet into her bag along with the pepper spray then walked back over to the locker she’d broken open. “Math book, notebook… some pencils and a nice pen. I’m not sure that’s worth it.” She reached out and grabbed the math book then opened it and smiled when it vanished and a popup appeared. “Academics skill increased. Okay, that’s more useful than I thought. Totally worth going through and cutting everything open.” She grinned as she pulled her drill out and went to work on the next locker. 

She was less amused with the second security guard that showed up looking like a strung out druggie in a rumpled security outfit. She quickly shot him several times then used her drill on the next locker then glared at the obvious Empire Eighty Eight rent a cop that came running around the corner.

The rent a cop said, “Oh, you’re white, carry on.”

Taylor blinked then brought her gun up and shot him three times. “Yeah, I think I need a different approach, like learning to pick locks and stealth.” She put her drill back in her pocket then opened the two lockers and looked at the books inside. “Chemistry and physics.” She opened the books and smiled as her academics skill increased. She looked down at her pistol. “Okay, I’ve got enough charges for a couple more rent a cops then I’ll have to switch guns.” She pulled her drill out and went to work on the next locker. She wasn’t terribly surprised by the scummy looking rent a cop that showed up from the other direction. She turned and gunned him down then blinked as he turned into pixels and dropped a book. “Oh.” She walked over and looked at the book. “Lockpicking, that’s rather useful and somewhat suspicious.”

She picked up the book and opened it which caused it to vanish and a popup telling her that she’d acquired a lock picking skill. “Sweet.” She pulled out her lockpicks and went to work on the next lock. She frowned slightly as the lockpicks made a rather loud scratching noise and she heard a guard coming. ‘Son of a bitch.’ She glared at the offending lock then turned to look at the fat security guard with a baton as he walked around the corner.

The man looked at Taylor. “Hey now, move along.”

“Move along?” She asked in surprise that he hadn’t charged her or anything.

“Yeah, move along unless you want trouble. Shoo, get.” He made shooing motions with his hands.

Taylor briefly considered shooting him on general principle then decided she needed more lockpicks anyways so she backed down the hall away from him. She half expected him to complain when she picked up the various wallets she’d ignored before but apparently loot drops weren’t illegal goods. She turned and headed for the exit. ‘Weird that he didn’t attack me, maybe because I didn’t actually damage anything or he didn’t see me doing anything illegal?’ She decided that her power was more than a bit weird and not to worry about it for the moment. Even though she knew he was just a mob in a dungeon, she didn’t really want to get to the point that her first response to surprise was shooting people.

She left the dungeon and closed it behind her. She glanced at the clock. ‘Okay, I should have enough time to make another couple lockpicks then do the dungeon again before Dad gets home. Hopefully we can try something new.’

0o0o0

Taylor glared at the book that she’d just pulled out of the treasure chest that Sophia had dropped. “Stealth 101… That would have been nice earlier.” She opened the book and smiled as a popup informed her that she’d acquired Stealth. She frowned slightly as she picked up the running shoes. “Twenty percent increased movement rate, not bad.” She smiled as she saw another theater mask. “Sweet.” She picked it up and looked at the popup. “Same as mine, Amy is going to love this.” She grabbed the piece of flute and the container of icy hot. She looked at the popup. “Icy hot, dulls pain and gains a temporary regeneration effect. 10/10 doses.” She stared at the container. “Yeah, my power is weird.”

She piled the knives and clothes into the treasure chest then worked on dragging it to the lockers. She set her lightning gun on the top of the chest then ‘quietly’ went to work trying to pick the lock on the locker. The less said about her attempts at stealth and lock picking over the next hour the better. Thankfully picking locks when there was a chance for a rent a cop to show up counted for stealth training so it wasn’t a total waste, well that and the money, pepper spray and five lockpicking books she managed to acquire from the countless rent a cops she’d dealt with.

Danny smiled as Taylor stepped out of the broom closet carrying a chest. “How did it go?”

Taylor set the chest down then turned to look at her dad. “I managed to find a stealth book which should help and six lockpicking books which means I have extra to spread around.”

“In other words, I get to be a test subject?” Dad asked with amusement.

“Think of it more as being first in line to get a new skill.” Taylor pulled one of the lockpicking books out of the chest and handed it to him. “See if you can use it.”

He took the book then opened it and blinked when it vanished leaving him with knowledge of how to pick locks. “Seems to have worked.”

“Sweet, it works on normal people… well, non capes anyways.” Taylor grinned at her father.

“Are you saying I’m abnormal?” Danny asked with amusement.

“I plead the fifth,” she replied quickly.

“I think all this free time is making you strange, at least you’ll be in Arcadia tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Taylor asked with surprise.

“For testing, Frank pulled some strings.”

“Great... I mean good?” Taylor asked warily as she’d rather not have to deal with school right now as it would cut into her dungeon running and require her to deal with people, teenager type people to be exact.

“It’s a new school, I’m sure it will be fine. Doesn’t Panacea go there?”

“It’s not like Taylor has a reason to know her.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Taylor rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Right, new school, new people, new bullshit.”

“Just give it a try, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll figure out something else.” Danny was really hoping Arcadia worked out because it was a good opportunity for her to interact with people her own age rather than hanging out in dungeons all day with twenty year old geeks that might very well be villains if he was right about their identities.

“In that case, I think I’m going to hit Winslow again then crash.” She wanted to see if she could grab a couple more academics books from the lockers before she took her placement tests in the morning.

“Don’t stay up too late. We’ll be going in a little early, they have some paperwork I have to sign.”

“Night.” Taylor sighed as she headed for the stairs.

0o0o0

Amy’s lips twitched into what might someday be called a smile with enough love and attention as she saw Taylor sitting at one of the tables by herself. She glanced over at where Victoria was sitting with Dean and Dennis. ‘Yeah, no thanks.’ She walked over to Taylor’s table. “Is this seat taken?”

Taylor twitched slightly then turned to look at Amy. “Ah, no.”

Amy sat down and set her lunch on the table. “Cool, I wanted to know if you had any more clothes in my size and if you’re going to be at the market Saturday?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there unless something comes up.”

“Cool, so what brings you by, I noticed your visitor pass.”

“Placement tests,” Taylor admitted.

“Ah, how is that going?” Amy asked curious how her new ‘friend’ was doing at least she was fairly sure Taylor counted as a friend after showing more concern for her health than anyone had in years.

“Better than I was expecting, I found some nice study books yesterday.”

Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘Study books, right.’ She turned her attention to her food not quite sure what to say now that she was actually sitting at Taylor’s table.

Taylor took a bite of her tuna and noodle hot lunch and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t horrible. “Huh, the food is actually edible.”

“It tries.” Amy went back to eating her lunch.

Taylor looked up as a boy with blue eyes and red hair sat down next to Amy. “Uh, hi?”

Amy raised her eyebrows as she looked at Dennis. “Not sitting with Dean?”

Dennis snorted. “Nope, Vicky and Dean are talking about date stuff, figured I’d come see why you abandoned me.”

“Taylor sold a bunch of clothes at the market and I wanted to check if she was going to be there Saturday. That and she’s saving me from having to hear about my sister’s date.”

Dennis studied Taylor. “You’re the girl that Vicky couldn’t stop talking about yesterday?”

Taylor sighed. “Guilty as charged, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s a decent job.”

“Gotcha, I’m Dennis by the way.” He held out his hand.

“Taylor.” She shook his hand. “So, you know Amy?”

“Yep, she’s okay, once you get past her grumpy bear act.” Dennis smiled slightly at the glare Amy sent his way.

“He thinks he’s funny but we like him anyway,” Amy replied then went back to eating.

“Ouch,” Dennis replied with amusement. “What brings you to Arcadia?”

“Placement tests,” Taylor muttered as she scooped up more of her food with her plastic spoon, she wanted to make sure she could actually finish everything before she had to go back for more testing.

Dennis frowned slightly as he noticed Taylor stiffen slightly. ‘Okay, sore subject.’ He grinned. “In that case, best of luck.” He went back to working on eating his food.

“Thanks.” Taylor wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about the attention as she worked on eating. “So, did your sister like her clothes?”

Amy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she’s still gushing about them, they’re nice but not that nice, you know?”

Taylor shrugged. “I just sell them.”

Dennis wasn’t a teenage girl but he’d picked up enough from yesterday’s lunch conversation with Victoria to know that the clothes Taylor had sold were worth far more than she was selling them for. ‘Hopefully everything is legal. At least Amy is being social, Vicky normally has to drag her places to get her to be social.’

Amy worked on her food, not sure what else she was supposed to say.

Taylor was almost happy when the bell rang meaning that she had to get back to testing. “Right, I’ve got to go.”

“Same,” Dennis said as most of the students started packing up or leaving if they’d already put things away.

“See you around,” Amy offered as she stood up.

“Sure, I’ll be in the market Saturday unless something changes.” Taylor awkwardly headed for the testing center. ‘Could have been worse I guess.’ She was just glad that she’d chosen to actually wear some of the more modest yet nice clothes that she’d collected from the dungeon as they fit in better than her worn clothes would have. ‘Now if I can just get through the rest of the day without any trouble.’