(DD) Chapter 3 - Unexpected Guests- (Patreon)

Ryker looked up from the counter in the entry way he was polishing.

It’d been a busy three days.

Day one had been spent in town. There had been a number of things to do and chores to take care of.

Like getting his original land grant paperwork copied . One copy, which he had officially notarized, turning it into a duplicate of the actual paperwork, he put into a bank account for safe keeping, and the other he included in his letter to the queen.

A letter about the dungeon, and promising her thirty percent of the proceeds if she could send some guards to protect her investment.

At the same time he sold another crop of herbs, though not nearly as large as the first.

That money he used to buy a single item of everything he needed to build the inn and the store. They only needed one wooden board after all, the rest could be provided by the dungeon.

Same with nails, saws, hammers, everything.

Throw in a hundred Hobs as a workforce, and the inn went up in two days.

Standing up, Ryker was confused. A group of five people were standing just outside the doorway, peering in at him.

“Can I help you?” Ryker asked. “Are you here for the dungeon?”

He’d decided a while ago that being up front about the dungeon would be best. Wynne had agreed.

Though she did disagree with him being alone. Instead, they’d filled the inn with the original Enchanted Items. Then she had the original Minotaur and female Hobogblin act as guards for the inn.

Only after promising to buy more guards on his next trip did she relent. In fact he was planning on traveling back to town today.

Until now.

The visitors had the look of a hard life.

They were all dressed the part of adventurers. Most were in leather armor, though one was in chain mail, and a woman in dark black robes.

Weapons of many origins were attached here and there to their persons.

“Yes,” said the man in the lead. After a pause, he stepped into the inn and walked up to the counter Ryker was standing at. “We are.”

He was middle aged, and one of the few members of his band without a helmet or a hood on. His hair was a smooth black and his eyes matched.

Muscular and lithe, he looked much akin to an athlete.

A sense of unease filled him from Wynne. Unease and distrust.

The Minotaur and Hob stepped out from a backroom and stood quietly, watching.

The lead man’s eyes flicked to the two creatures, then back to Ryker.

Smiling, Ryker shrugged his shoulders.

“I found the dungeon. I plan to benefit from it. One has to defend themselves from the wolves in the world, right? Our queen has of course been notified. I would imagine her Royal Guards are on the way now to protect their future investment,” Ryker said neutrally.

Best to lay it all out on the table now, lest they get any ideas.

Smiling, the man spread his hands out in front of himself. “Of course. I would do the same. It’s a tough world out there. Tough world.

“So, how does one get into the dungeon? And have you explored it?”

Ryker shook his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t. I’m trained for dives, but not by myself. No, that life is behind me. As to how to get in…” Ryker paused considering the situation. “I’ll show you through. Once the guild shows up, I plan on charging an entry fee. For you, we’ll just call it fair if you tell me what you find out.”

While they spoke, the others in the man’s party began filing into the common room. The inn doubled as a bar, of course. Adventurers needed a place to blow off steam after fighting for their lives.

I need a log book. There’s no polite way to ask him for his name otherwise.

“Mighty kind of you, consider it a deal,” said the unnamed man.

Ryker turned to one side and tapped a glass with a finger.

“Show them the entrance to the dungeon,” he commanded.

The glass lifted up and began floating away.

“Fair journey,” Ryker said. He had no intention of putting his back towards any of these individuals.

Dark black eyes evaluated Ryker, before breaking off. The group followed the floating glass as it moved. It bobbed along towards a hallway situated between the inn and the bar.

After they all vanished, Ryker locked the front door of the inn. 

“Come get me if anyone else shows up,” he said to the Minotaur.

Quick as he could Ryker, got into his office and sat down on the bed. Wynne simply appeared as if it were completely normal for her to teleport in.

“They’re evil!” she hissed.

“I thought they might be,” Ryker said, calling up his control spells. “Wasn’t sure, but glad to hear my instincts weren’t wrong. Also, we need a log book. Something that they have to use their card on to record who they are. Maybe even their skills and ability level. Part of the price of getting in. Know of anything that’d work?”

“No, but I’ll work on it. I’m supposed to check in with the other Fairies soon anyways,” Wynne promised.

Nodding, Ryker focused on his vision spell.

And suddenly he was looking down on the group. They were still in the first room, making last minute preparation's.

“-en we follow the plan,” said the man Ryker assumed was the leader.

Moving to the front was the only man in chain mail. Flanking him were two men in heavy leather armor. The leader went into the middle. Taking up the rear was the woman in the black robe.

“She’s a priestess,” Wynne said. “She’ll be who they rely on to sustain their health.”

Every group needs a healer. Though… most don’t bring a priest of an evil god.

“Any thoughts on who they are?” Ryker asked.

Below, the group of five rapidly cleared through the beginner rooms. Tearing straight through to the point of the “fringe ruins” room.

“I’m not sure… but… they have no goodness in them. As a Dungeon Fairy we can sense auras to a degree. They all have bad auras in one way or another. Whatever their intention is… it isn’t good,” Wynne said.

The party slaughtered everything they came across. Whether the Hobs were unarmed, ran away, or fought. There was no mercy.

No quarter.

Pausing when they saw the patrol of six Hobs at the exit, they took a moment.

The man in chain mail grumbled under his breath, but said nothing.

“Oh calm yourself you blood crazed fool. I just need a moment to let my mana recharge a touch. Then we’ll be off,” said the woman.

“You be quiet Sharon. You’ll keep that adders tongue in your mouth!” shouted the mail clad man.

The two in heavy leather armor seemed mildly perturbed at the exchange, and eyed one another.

“Now, now. Let’s all be calm. We didn’t plan on doing this dive, but now we don’t have a choice. It’s a beginner’s dungeon. This is probably the last room. We’ll be done with this, and head back down the road,” said the leader.

“What?!” shouted the mail clad man.

“The inn keeper is mistrusting of us already. I could sense it. We’ll not have an easy fight with him, and I’m not sure we could win. But… we could lay in wait and take out the others,” explained the leader.

“Huh,” said the woman. “Well, we did plan on killing them anyways, we’re just doing it out of order.”

Ryker frowned in thought. Then it dawned on him.

“They don’t have a wizard. They found out about the dungeon from someone else. They rushed here to steal the finder’s fee, kill the other group, loot them, and head back,” Ryker said with a dark chuckle.

Wynne’s sigh was full of disappointment.

“Think anyone would miss them if I decided they needed to die?” Ryker asked curiously.

“I don’t think so. No,” Wynne said cautiously.

Focusing back on the group, he found they were engaged with the Hobs. It was going their way and handily. None of the Hobs were down yet, but it was clear they were being worn down.

Quickly as he could, Ryker built an alcove off to the side. Inside of it, he put down a pack of six runes that matched the better geared Hobs.

Activating those runes he cut a doorway into the alcove for the Hobs to get out through.

Looking back to the adventurers, he found that they had finished off half the Hobs. They were completely focused on the fight.

In fact, they didn’t even notice when the six extra Hobs ran down the priestess. Her shriek of pain was cut short as several different short swords were slammed through her rib cage.

She fell to the ground as the Hobs rushed the rest of the group, their clawed feet turning her corpse into a bag of broken bones.

Her death was swift, if agonizing.

There was a rush of magic that flooded through the dungeon, the core, and Wynne. From Wynne, it went to Ryker.

In addition to that, there was a flash of memories of her experiences. Her magic. Her skills.

It was knowledge he had known nothing of, that was now as firmly in his mind as if he’d studied for years. It wasn’t everything she knew.

Ryker could tell it was everything you’d need to start down the path of becoming a priestess of the first rank.

Thinking quickly, Ryker pulled out one of the dozens of empty beast cores he’d practiced his spells with. Channeling all that information into the core, he watched as it filled up. And up.

He wondered if it would be enough to contain everything.

Right about when he was getting ready to toss the thing aside before it exploded, it stopped.

He now held a beast core with everything that death priest had left behind.

I wonder what I can do with this.

Checking in on the fight again, he found the adventurers were battling in a crazed fashion now.

They were chugging potions, activating items, utilizing abilities that were ferocious. Class abilities.

Skills that would take time to become available again. Some as long as a day. These would be things they more than likely hadn’t planned on using.

Suddenly one of the two in leather armor dropped from a spear pushed through his guts.

Before anyone could react to help him, another Hob stomped on his skull, the thin metal helmet splintering under the force.

Another down.

Another overwhelming flood of information, skills, and techniques rushed towards Ryker.

He was ready this time. In fact, he was ready for all of them. He’d taken out four more empty cores. No sooner than Ryker felt all that information, then he channeled it into the core.

Switching his attention back to the fight as the core filled up, Ryker watched.

There were only four Hobs left of the original number. They were all from the ambush group.

They were up against three adventurers. Three adventurers who lost their healer.

Realizing their situation was not ideal, the three turned and ran through the exit doorway.

Deciding to end this game, Ryker slammed the gates down that the original pack of Hobs had been guarding. They clanged shut behind the adventurers, breaking off the Hobs pursuit.

Taking a second, Ryker dismissed the extra Hobs, and resealed the alcove.

“What the fuck was that?” shouted the mailed man. “You said this was a beginner dungeon!”

“It is! The wizard said it had never been sensed before. That it was new!” yelled the leader back.

There was a quiet sigh from Wynne. “Do you think they’ll kill each other?”

“Maybe. They won’t be leaving anyways. Only a matter of time. In fact…” Ryker moved to the exit, and blocked it shut. There would be no escape for those three.

Next he riled up all the inhabitants of the Hob city. In about ten minutes those three would simply be corpses.

Which bothered Ryker not at all. They were scum to begin with.

“That’s not very sporting of you. Be glad you’re not a dungeon core, they’d be unconscious for doing such a thing. They’re forced to have an opening, an exit, and a clear path from the dungeon to them,” Wynne said.

“Interesting. Seems rather… strange… to have rules like that. Almost arbitrary.” Ryker canceled the vision spell and settled back into the normal feelings of the core.

“Let’s see what those two had while the other three get dropped,” Ryker said.

Pushing at the core, he had it absorb the two corpses entirely.

Immediately, it now knew the patterns for a human.

It also had several new additions to its armaments. Mostly from the fighter.

The priestess had only a staff that had a minor enchantment on it. He’d mess with that later, see if he could pull it apart to figure out if he could learn enchanting from it.

In addition, the ability to make robes, and heavy leather armor was obtained. Several herbs he didn’t have yet, a handful of potions, and some coins. Mostly copper, though there was a few silver and a single gold coin.

Normally… normally dungeons don’t drop coins… but maybe I want it to. Maybe I want it to put out some coinage. They can buy my supplies with it.

Wouldn’t be hard to have runes for coins. They’re fairly simple.

There was a flurry of activity in the dungeon, and suddenly three blasts of knowledge came speeding into Ryker’s mind.

Immediately he pushed out three cores to take all of it. He didn’t want any of that knowledge and he’d rather try this out for now and see where it went.

Quickly he had the dungeon absorb the three fresh corpses.

Much of their gear was very similar. Leather armor, a few weapons. A shield.

A good deal of clothes they were carrying in their packs.

The only real positive add waas the chain mail and arming sword the front-line warrior had.

He’d be giving to some Hobs and Minos and fleshing out their kit some more.

All in all, he’d profited greatly by these blackguards.

Wynne made a musical noise that got his attention.

Cracking open an eye, Ryker peered at her. “Yes?”

“Nothing. That was just… very different than what I was made to expect. A dungeon shouldn’t be able to do what you just did. It’d suffer terribly for it,” Wynne said, almost sounding like she was complaining.

“And?” Ryker asked, not understanding the problem.

“Half of a Fairy’s job is to provide a moral compass. Most dungeon’s aren’t even human,” she said.

“Ok? And? Whatever. If you have time to complain, you have time to go open the exit again and get it reset. I made some changes that I want to undo. Oh, but leave the alcove. I liked that,” Ryker said evilly. “I’m going to go fiddle with the Hobs and Minos. I want to change a few things.”

Moving back into his dungeon headspace, Ryker surfed into outer fringe rooms. The crumbling outskirts.

He rearranged the runes for Hobs into more ideal locations, then he began modifying their kits to be more akin to what he wanted.

His dungeon was meant to be a story. Something interesting and different.

To that end, he began to dress Hobs accordingly to that story. The vast majority of those in the outskirts he gave simple weapons to and clothes. On a few of them he even put a couple of copper coins.

Taking a hold of the cores he’d filled with the knowledge of the dead, he began to experiment.

Testing out modifying the Hob’s runes, giving them skills they might not normally have.

Knowledge they wouldn’t have gained.

They were magical constructs after all.

Mindless, really.

The personalities of those of the dead were fairly dark, and so he refrained from instilling those into the Hobs here. They were displaced citizens. Refugees.

The weak.

His dungeon story was starting to take shape. The outskirts now had appropriate inhabitants with skills, gear, and locations. He’d have to wait on the personalities.

Shifting his focus into the main Hob city, he did the same. Though for quite a few of those in the keep, he instilled some of those dark personality traits. He changed their gear. Modified their skills. Made sure everything lined up with what he wanted it to be.

This was a Hob city underground. One on the verge of collapse, but it had the potential to survive.

Nodding to himself, he found his inner dialogue right.

Shaping up quite nicely.

Now if I could only force them into behaving a certain way, with certain memories.

Well, another time. 

For now, I think we’re ready for the first real group of actual adventurers.

With a few minor tweaks, that is.

And no one will even know we just did a service to the world.