The Gamer Chapter 1100 – Tier 5 Guild Hall 6 – Gathering Dungeons (Patreon)

“Since you seem to just understand them instinctively,” John addressed the support hovering beside him, “care to explain what they were celebrating?”

“Oh, I basically promoted Methenia from a local lady to a princess,” Momo responded.

“Makes sense, so much sense!” Sylph chimed in. “The Bramble Court, which is a totally cool but not that important court, because it’s only about a plant, is now part of the Midnight Court, which is a totally important court, because it’s about a very important time of day. So Methenia is now also very important.”

“Organizing a society by the importance of concepts… I guess there are worse ways to do it,” John shrugged.

Moving south, they had walked to the Seelie Path and summoned a gondola once they hit the shore (another functionality available to him thanks to being the admin). After sailing all the way around the Newman Shire and the Farm, they arrived at the many islands that made up the Fishery.

It was a nice place, modelled after one of the many fantasy settings in which John had spent hours grinding his character’s fishing skills. The many islands of varying sizes, some so small that only a camping chair would have fit on top of it, rose out of the river. Their shapes and varying depth throughout the area caused the usually tranquil, soft flow to be narrowed into faster streams. Beyond trees and grass, the islands were decorated with ferns and reeds.

“Did you consider the idea I sent you?” Scarlett asked, while they inspected the houses at the centre of the Fishery. They were mostly decorative. Tables and bars dominated the insides, making it the ideal place for breaks or to get the crate of beer that many people needed to properly enjoy fishing.

John opened another door and found more tables behind it. Whoever would oversee the Fishery’s activities would have ample room, if nothing else. “Which one? Whenever I take my eyes off the list of suggestions you made, it grows by another three.” As he spoke, they made their way back out.

“The permission increases for productive workers,” Scarlett jogged his memory.

“Ah, that.” The Gamer recalled the suggestion. It was a simple and effective idea: give those that excelled in their productivity additional permissions in the Guild Hall. For example, someone who brought an above average amount of ore from the Mine could be granted the permission to call a gondola to their position, rather than have to walk to one of the piers. Such benefits would be handed out instead of traditional promotions.

There were two problems with the idea though. One, John, or someone else within Collide who had Guild Hall Admin permissions (effectively only his harem), had to edit the individual rights of whoever was to receive those benefits. Two, the jobs in the production Buildings were generally low-skilled labour and, optimally, John wanted those jobs to be primarily for the young and the untalented. Providing incentives to remain active in ‘mere’ resource gathering meant that a bunch of gifted people would remain where their income was secure and their life was easy. Individually, John had nothing against that, but as the head of the government, he had a vested interest in motivating people in general to enter specialized occupations.

The second point could be solved through competing incentives. Maybe the same program that rewarded successful workers could also have recruiters pick the particularly bright minded out of it to channel them towards the Buildings in the Industry area and ultimately towards the wider economy. Maybe to get the greatest benefits, people would need to diversify and then they would naturally stick with whatever they were the best at or the most motivated for.

The first point was really the larger issue. “I’m really not sure how to organize that program,” the Gamer confessed and pushed open the door of the southern building. Inside, they found a large collection of fishing rods and lures. There were various different designs of items. Less impressive ones were generally stored in barrels or other large vessels, while the most detailed and artistic fishing rods and lures hung from the wall or were presented in glass cabinets.

John picked one of the rods up and inspected a plaque nearby. It gave numbers to the size and difficulty of the fish this rod would attract. Lures could be used to customize those numbers further. A number of catalogues would need to be made to outline what exact fish could be caught with each level.

Putting the rod back, the Gamer continued on, “Obviously I can’t come out whenever someone reaches the necessary criteria, whatever we set them at. We could make it so it’s a monthly ceremony thing, but then we also need someone who tracks all of the progress.” They made their way outside again, this time walking to the Fishery’s own piers, where rowing boats were bound to the pillars. “It is all theoretically possible and I like the idea a lot, it would just take time to set up and maintain.” He looked at his haremettes, silently asking if anyone was up for the job.

The elementals were out from the start, they had enough to do with their ever-changing constituency. Government jobs were not for Scarlett, Rave, Nathalia or Eliana, for their individual reasons. Aclysia had only recently made her resolution to entirely dedicate herself to her job as a housekeeper and the teaching of new maids at her school. Lee was busy with her apprenticeship. Momo and Beatrice might have been the most obvious choices, but they also had a lot of work already. Nia and Metra were tangled up in the military. Lydia wasn’t even part of the country.

That left them with: nobody.

“If you want to, you can outline the benefits and obligations already,” John offered Scarlett with a shrug. “We simply lack the manpower right now to run that program.”

“You could make another Artificial Spirit,” the business-savvy redhead pointed out.

The Gamer shook his head while boarding one of the boats. “The mana cost would double again. I would remain in the positive, but it would take a toll on my combat effectiveness. Plus, I am not sure if I want to create another Artificial Spirit. I would need to find a way to do it without setting the base personality of the new woman.”

The three Artificial Spirits had different reactions to that. Aclysia failed to see the issue, Beatrice gave her full support of finding a new way, and Momo had to call him out, “Can’t set her personality, but you are happy to set her sex.”

“Hey, if she doesn’t like me, that’s her choice,” John said with an admitting smile. “She can become independent at the first juncture. However, if I add another permanent stay in my life, I want her to be pleasant to look at.”

The Gamer was ready to push the boat off the pier and start his search for the Deep Place when a wave of strangeness washed over him. Involuntarily, it made the hairs on his neck stand on end, despite his familiarity with the sensation. Holding a colourful fish in her arms and patting its slick body, Nia stood on the wooden boards. Water ran off her as if her entire body was made of polished glass, leaving no drop behind. Her hair and the skirt of her impossibly white dress waved in response to unseeable things.

“Thank you for the company,” Nia said to the calm fish and tossed it towards the water. As elegant as a fish could be, it nosedived and swam away.

“There you are.” Lydia was the first to address the pariah. “I must apologize for my poor formulation earlier.”

Nia mildly tilted her head and stared at the queen with her blue eyes. After a couple of seconds, she seemed to remember that she was supposed to emote and smiled softly. “I was not offended,” the blonde clarified. “I found the Deep Place. How were the fairies?”

“Confusing,” John responded and got off the boat. Since Nia wasn’t joining him on it, he assumed that the location was not reached via rowing. “Thanks for scouting ahead.”

“It struck me as the most effective use of my time.” Nia lowered her head slightly, making big eyes at her lover. Placing a kiss on her forehead, the Gamer obliged the obvious request. “It is no danger.”

“To us or in general?” the Gamer asked, weary of Nia’s tendency to sometimes omit details by accident.

“In general – as long as normal people stay out,” the blank specified.

“Well, I think we should check it out anyway,” he said and looked at everyone else. With their current group, even the non-combatants felt confident enough to tag along. Only Velka stayed and John expected her to be gone doing her birdcat things by the time they were back.

Nia led the way by jumping in the water. They swam with the stream of the clear river for a little while, until they hit a segment that went particularly deep. Deep, that was, for a regular person. At five metres, it was a pretty laughable challenge to John and most of the harem. Lee and Scarlett were not as physically apt, but they were still above athletes. Their lungs could have been a problem but with Sylph around emergency air was always available.

The pariah gestured for them to follow and directed them towards a tube, halfway hidden between algae and rocks. She slipped inside and John closely followed. Only about two metres wide, it made John aware that his mind was maybe not as equipped for the task of diving as his body was. The smooth material, similar to bare bone, wound down in its path, leaving John with a claustrophobic feeling while an ever-stronger stream pulled him deeper inside. If there was any saving grace, it was that the tunnel was covered in glowing, arrow-shaped crystals, letting him know which direction he was to head towards.

Desperately shoving aside the burning sensation in his lungs, he kept swimming. The curvature of the tunnel made it impossible to look ahead or tell just how far in he was. His strokes barely accelerated him. For the most part, he just corrected his path, dictated by the pull. Paddling against it would have been possible with his strength. A part of him wanted to, to get back to where there was air. He kept going, stubbornly clinging to his Endurance.

They emerged in an underwater cavern, filled with reefs, corals, and massive aquatic creatures. Large crystals all around illuminated much of it, but the base of the reefs was shrouded in darkness. There was no telling how far down the Deep Place continued.

While it was beautiful, John was too busy calming his heartbeat to really enjoy it. He heard nothing but the swirling of water, felt nothing but the pressure of the water on his body, nearly out of air. Nia kept swimming towards a nearby corral that had bubbles rising from its bright pink body. Knowing a game mechanic when he saw one, John followed and waited for the pop-up.


The pressure and the sound were gone for the moment and John let out a relieved sigh. On the inhale, water magically stopped at his lips and was transformed into air. “Note to self, go diving regularly,” he said, while the rest of the group gathered. “That was actually the worst thing I went through since the Death Zone.”

“Little warning next time, please,” Lee croaked. She and Scarlett were worse for wear than the rest.

“I forgot.” Nia lowered her head in something approximating an apology.

“Some of us are having fun at least.” Rave pointed towards Stirwin and Copernicus. As light spirits, they did not need oxygen and as predators they liked the big food items being offered. Crocodiles were always good swimmers, even if the majority of their prey was caught in shallow water, and when it came to cats, jaguars were among the best aquatic hunters. Swiftly, one had caught themself a squid and the other a tuna. Neither continued to be happy when the dead animal exploded into disappearing particles, like dungeon monsters always did.

At level 30, the monsters in the upper layer of the Deep Place were a joke to the group and they quickly made their way down. The biggest challenge was to tell Nathalia and Salamander to not do anything, since their powers would turn the water around them into a scalding hell. The second biggest was to get from one oxygen source to the next.

It took them about forty-five minutes to make it to the bottom of the dungeon and find a massive clam. When it opened, it revealed inside a boss monster, level 70 strong, which was instantly annihilated by a Blast Ray and left behind a cluster of pearls that could be consumed to give the water breathing buff for five minutes.

‘Interesting. Would be nice if I could motivate people to clear this regularly,’ the Gamer thought. For him, the time it took to the endpoint made it infeasible to do this. He was better off using that time with paperwork, having sex, or doing grinding to get levels. ‘Maybe I can use this to train military personnel in aquatic warfare. Anyway, since the monsters stay in here, it’s fine.’

Once they were out of the Deep Place, they decided to check on the other two ‘dungeons’ that had spawned in the Mine and on Silicate Island. To differentiate them from his Instant Dungeons, John decided to call them Gathering Dungeons. A term that fit especially well for the Mine, as its lower levels had to be cleared to allow one to gather the ore in the walls.

For the Gem Pyramid, there was less of a focus on combat than on riddles. Each rewarded a gemstone and was then followed up by a more difficult mental challenge. A better gem followed and that went on until the group had cleared ten chambers, at which point they got a pop-up that they had to come back tomorrow.

All in all, another interesting addition to the Guild Hall.