Lewd Dungeon, Chapter 351

Chapter 351 – Options

As expected, the first day after telling the world about a new difficulty mode being added to the dungeon, the adventurers were out in force. Most were the locals and regulars, the ones who usually dropped into the dungeon at least once a week. They had become used to my dungeon by now, and knew when to fall back. The reason they only delved once a week was because of the cooldown on the escape charms.

Obviously, I didn’t expect them to be the ones to blaze the trail into the new floors. They were too cautious. Otherwise, they would have found a way past Shai-hulud before now. But, no, they had made a couple pushes into the fourteenth floor, barely escaped with their lives thanks to the escape charms, and decided to stop their delves after beating the Lewd Giant Sand Slime that was the ‘normal’ boss of the thirteenth floor. Their levels were still going up, slowly, but until someone showed them the secret to getting past the worm, they weren’t going to risk the fourteenth floor again.

I couldn’t even be upset with them, really. Seeing a giant worm crest out of the desert to start trying to swallow you whole, where its mouth could fit a semi truck with trailer longways, and still have room? And the whole thing is full of teeth? Yeah, that was going to cause some emotional trauma if you weren’t prepared for it. Even if you were prepared, it still wasn’t something that was good for your heart.

And that was just when it came up and attacked from the surface! Some groups had only found Shai-hulud when he came up from underneath them, so the first thing they saw of him was the massive ring of teeth bursting out of the sand all around them. If those groups had been any slower on their escape charms, they would have been dead. Instead, most of them went to other dungeons to train. Some had never come back to Swamptown.

No, I expected for the first real movement on pushing toward the new floors to come from other groups. The ones that didn’t make my dungeon their ‘home base’. Of course, the casualty rates for those who didn’t know my dungeon were higher than they were for the regulars, which meant that they had to go slower, and spend more mana on healing and other such things, which fed my growth.

One thing I had not expected was to see several local parties break up, and start offering their services as guides to out-of-towners. These guides would start by helping separate fact from fiction for the newcomers, sorting through the rumors and stories about the dungeon. I listened in on a few of these initial meetings. The groups from out of town, who had never been to my dungeon before, were always shocked about how stories of Captain Hentai and some of the other dangers of the dungeon were completely true.

I also learned from these introductory sessions that the Guild had quietly put the word out that any group going into the dungeon should have at least one member of each sex in a team, but preferably a ratio closer to 1:2 or 1:1 either way. The Miami guild had been doing that for a while now, with parties coming to my dungeon never having more than three men to each woman, though some still had a token man in an all-female party. Still, those were rare, and most fell in line with the ratios the guild advised.

The problem with devising ratios like that was in the available pool of adventurers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but being an adventurer was still a male-dominated profession. Not because men were inherently better at it, but because more men were drawn to the profession. Sure, there were women who wanted the adrenaline-fueled life of hunting monsters and getting stronger, but that just wasn’t something you saw much of on Earth.

Well, that was only a problem at the current time. Looking at the galaxy at large, things would even out more over time. Most Adventurer’s Guilds, or whatever they called the local equivalent, were fairly evenly split between the sexes. Biological differences didn’t matter as much when you had magic, enchanted gear, and class abilities bridging the gap. The System was an equalizer, in that respect. Everyone had equal opportunities to get stronger, though not everyone had the skills and classes necessary to advance.

Hmm. That gave me an idea. Here on Earth, the System had been offline for a long time, which is why we were able to pick our classes when it came online. However, the System didn’t unlock for people until after they hit puberty, or their race’s equivalent. I hadn’t paid attention to how it worked for kids who were too young before the System came on, but, judging by the goblins and other quick-breeding, quick-maturing races, those who were born after the Initialization fell under the normal way the System distributed classes, assigning them at birth, but hiding them until their System unlocked.

Classes weren’t exactly hereditary, but it wasn’t unusual for certain class traits to run strong in a family. The child of two powerful warrior-type classes was more likely to be a warrior, as well. The kid of two mages was likely to be a mage, and so on. The exact flavor depended on too many things to count, but those were the general expectations.

However, that was just a guideline, not an actual rule. There was no way to guarantee of breeding the strongest mage from mating two powerful spellcasters, or anything like that. Which meant that, sometimes, people were born with a class they didn’t care for, or was banned for one reason or another. In such situations, they generally needed to go to the System Shop for a class change tome, but the good classes were always expensive. Too expensive for most people. And that was before you even considered the Tier 2 classes.

Few people went into a dungeon, especially one like mine, unless they were somewhat happy and proficient with their class. However, even adventurers had people they knew, and cared for. People who might not be as happy with their classes, or for whom they were a bad fit. Being able to change to something better would give them all new options, yes?

Of course, I didn’t want to just purchase class change tomes myself and put them in the dungeon. That would get expensive, after a while, even if I didn’t manage to dilute the market. Plus, it was a ham-fisted, inelegant solution. Fortunately, I had access to a place where people had considered all these things before me, and had answers already at hand.

Galactic DEN Marketplace

Specialty Goods

Item

Description

Cost

Tier 1 Class Change Tome Pattern

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to the one specified in the item’s description. This pattern is for the general tome itself. Dungeons using this pattern can only grant classes from the first Tier that they have acquired through fallen adventurers or through other means. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

3000 Anima

Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Random) Pattern

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Random)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 1. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

1000 Anima

Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Mage)

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Mage)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 1 with the [Mage] descriptor. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

1250 Anima

Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Warrior)

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Warrior)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 1 with the [Warrior] descriptor. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

1250 Anima

Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Ranged)

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Ranged)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 1 with the [Ranged] descriptor. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

1250 Anima

Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Skilled)

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Skilled)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 1 with the [Skilled] descriptor. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

1250 Anima

Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Noncombatant)

Pattern for a [Tier 1 Class Change Tome (Noncombatant)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 1 with the [Noncombatant] descriptor. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

1250 Anima

Tier 2 Class Change Tome Pattern

Pattern for a [Tier 2 Class Change Tome]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to the one specified in the item’s description. This pattern is for the general tome itself. Dungeons using this pattern can only grant classes from the second Tier that they have acquired through fallen adventurers or through other means. Tome can only be used by Tier 2 individuals.

10000 Anima

Tier 2 Class Change Tome (Random) Pattern

Pattern for a [Tier 2 Class Change Tome (Random)]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, changing the user’s current class to a random class from Tier 2. Tome can only be used by Tier 2 individuals.

5000 Anima

Tier 2 Class Access Tome Pattern

Pattern for a [Tier 2 Class Access Tome]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, ensuring that one of the class choices for the user when they ascend to Tier 2 will be the class specified in the item’s description. This pattern is for the general tome itself. Dungeons using this pattern can only grant access to classes from the second Tier that they have acquired through fallen adventurers or through other means. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

4000 Anima

Tier 2 Class Access Tome (Random) Pattern

Pattern for a [Tier 2 Class Access Tome]. Each tome is a consumable item with a single use, ensuring that one of the class choices for the user when they ascend to Tier 2 will be a random class appropriate to their current archetype. Tome can only be used by Tier 1 individuals.

4000 Anima

There were more choices besides that, including different options for the random tome patterns. Oh, the base versions were truly random, giving you the possibility of something incredibly generic, like ‘Warrior’, but also having the possibility of offering Super Rare, or even Unique classes! Of course, the probability of those better options were about as good as winning the lottery, but they were there. However, when you used a [Tier 2 Class Access Tome (Random, Rare)], then you were guaranteed at least a Rare option when you broke through to Tier 2, even if you didn’t normally qualify for it. And if you got a [Tier 2 Class Access Tome (Random, Unique)], then you were guaranteed a Unique-rarity option in your class choices!

I had plenty of anima, so I bought the class change patterns for Tiers 1 to 3, as well as the random ones for all three tiers, including the Rare and Super-Rare variants. Where was I going to put these things? Well, some of them were going to appear as rewards for different quests while the adventurers were hoping to work their way towards the raid. Might even have a rare spawn in one of the caverns that held one. Of course, they might find them more readily if they went in on the higher difficulties. These things could be just the ticket I needed to encourage people to try the harder difficulties!