Healer Book 4 -- Chapter 20

Chapter 20

“The conquering heroes return!  So, tell me, how did it go?  Better question, how did he do?” 

Thaden didn’t bother to answer Rachel’s question, as it was clearly directed toward Corinna, who had a serious expression on her face.  It was all he could do to keep a straight face as the Lieutenant led the way into the Guilded Glory’s upper office where the Guild Leader was still working on a seemingly endless stack of paperwork.  While it was undoubtedly necessary to the successful running of the Guild as a business, seeing it was yet one more reason he didn’t want the responsibility of leading people on a permanent basis.  He’d done enough office work in his life on Earth; the last thing he wanted now was to take on even more in his life on Tarth.

“I still can’t believe you pulled that off, despite the fact that the dungeon created a variation specifically designed to counter your abilities.”

Thaden shifted slightly as he stood behind Corinna as she sat down across from the Guild Leader, while he thought, No, we pulled it off.  I couldn’t have done it without you.  While Sadia couldn’t read his mind, he did his best to convey the sentiment in his body language.

The giant squirrel had retreated back into his equipment right after the fox-like Boss had died and the celebratory Raid Party had been busy looting all the corpses from the last Wave.  Truth be told, after the Vixenite had managed to nullify all of the prepared protective spells on the Raid Party, he had thought that at least a few of them might die during the battle, but none of them had needed to be Resurrected afterwards.  While it wasn’t as clean of a run as he would’ve liked it to have been, considering the surprise change-up at the end, it turned out better than it could’ve been if he hadn’t had Sadia’s help to recover swiftly.

It was a victory, but it was a victory that they had to work for.

“Well, things didn’t turn out quite as we expected,” Corinna began as her explanation, which caused a concerned expression to blossom on Rachel’s face.

“Did you have to retreat?  It hasn’t even been two hours since you left this morning?” the Guild Leader asked.

Corinna hesitated a few seconds, completely for dramatic effect, before she answered.  “No, we didn’t have to retreat.”

“What happened, then?  Why are you being so cagey?”  Rachel glanced at Thaden, the only other one inside the office, as if seeking an explanation.  He did his best to keep his face completely devoid of emotion, as the Lieutenant had asked him to do before they arrived.  It seemed as though Corinna liked to mess with the Guild Leader on the regular, and he wasn’t going to stand in the way of a little fun.  It was a good way to relieve some of the stress that had accumulated during that final battle.

“Well, there was a little hiccup during the Assault Waves that we couldn’t account for.  All of us nearly died.”  She was laying it on more than a little thick, but she was technically correct; if Thaden and Sadia hadn’t jumped on the problem almost instantly, then many of the Raid Party would’ve died.  So, the “nearly” part of that statement was true.

The Guild Leader was now clearly frustrated, as she had actually stopped writing.  “What are you talking about?  How could something like that even happen?”

Corinna sighed heavily, before finally revealing what she was hiding.  “In short, it changed.  Wave 9 was variation, and it was one hell of a variation to the likes of one I’ve never heard of before.  In one fell swoop, it used an ability that destroyed every protection spell that had been cast over the entire Raid Party, leaving them almost completely defenseless.”

“A variation?!  How did you survive?”

Corinna cleared her throat before answering.  “It was scary, being without any additional protection against the 30-foot-tall Vixenite Ranch Raider, especially as I had to try to tank it myself as the others were engaged in a wave of monsters so large I wouldn’t have believed it possible that there were so many on the ninth Wave.  The Boss was much more powerful than the Harvester ever was, and I was nearly ripped apart multiple times in the first few seconds….”  She trailed off as Rachel scooted forward, literally on the edge of her seat.  When Thaden next heard the Lieutenant speaking, he could practically hear the smile on her face that she was obviously flashing toward the Guild Leader.  “Fortunately, our new subsidiary Guild Leader is a freaking badass.  Not only was he able to keep me alive solo-tanking the boss until the others finished off their monsters, but there was so much healing and new protection effects being flung around that it’s a wonder than anyone even got hurt.  And when they did, their Health pool almost always filled all the way to full despite nearly dying a second before.”

Rachel sat back in her chair with an annoyed expression on her face as she balled up a piece of paper and threw it at Corinna, even as the Lieutenant chuckled.  The Guild Leader acted all bent out of shape at the deception, but he could sense a grin underneath the surface threatening to break free as Corinna then started over at the beginning, describing in fairly accurate detail everything that had happened, both on the way to the dungeon as well as after they went inside.

It took about 20 minutes for her to go over everything relevant concerning the events of the day, and finally a pleased expression settled across the woman’s face as the Lieutenant finished up.  “…so, in short, the whole dungeon run was one of the craziest things I’ve ever witnessed, especially since everything that he claimed he could do was proven completely accurate.”

“Everything?” Rachel asked.

“Everything,” Corinna replied with meaning, nodding at the same time with a huge grin on her face.

“Break it down for me, then.”

Thaden listened in to the Lieutenant’s breakdown of the rewards they’d received, because although he knew what he had received, he wasn’t exactly aware of how much different it was than what the Guilds considered “normal”.

Corinna marshalled her thoughts for a few seconds before launching into it all.  “Right off the bat, I’ll go into the hard currency of our takings.  Through the majority of the dungeon, the extracted loot from the monsters that Thaden killed returned an average of a 457% increase over the norm.  I’ll have a more comprehensive breakdown for you later, but that is just raw numbers talking there.  When it came to the Assault Waves, that number jumped up to around 1,370% when the base monster Level was over 161, which pushed their Perceived Level to 20 Levels over Thaden’s own, triggering one of his Achievements.  This happened a few times during the final Wave as some of the monsters were higher-Level, and especially the Boss, which was the highest-Level monster I’ve ever seen in a dungeon at a base of 185 in its final stage.

“In a normal run, the total raw gold and silver coins received only from extracting loot from the monsters inside average out to be approximately 23,000 gold, which is then divided amongst the 100 members of the Raid.  On this run, however, we accumulated a little over 118,000, thanks to a larger increase of extracted currency during that last Wave.  A quick calculation puts that at about a 514% increase over the norm. 

“Moving on to the currency from the reward room at the end of the dungeon, we can usually count on the minimum amount received being 4,200 gold, but we’ve seen as high as 7,100 before.  How much did we receive?  37,500 gold.  That’s more than a 30,000 gold increase over what we’ve seen before, which is a significant difference; I believe that some of that increase was due to the variation in the final Wave, but it’s difficult to tell for sure without more information.”

Thaden could see the joy practically emanating from the Guild Leader’s eyes as she took in all the numbers.  But Corinna wasn’t done; she was just getting started.

“Then, as you know, we have the Guild Progression Quest that we completed, which normally gives out 200 gold to each person who completes it; again, because of his Achievement, everyone received an extra 400 gold, which is an extra 35,600 gold when you add up the amount gained by the 89 total Guild members who participated. 

“When added all up, the raw currency we received was as much as we could reasonably expect by running this dungeon approximately 5 times, and we did it all in about 8% of the time normally devoted to travel and the actual delve itself.

“But then there is the PICK we received,” she continued in a steady tone of voice.  Uh, oh, this is where I’m not sure how it stacked up to normal.  “As expected, everyone received approximately 60% of the PICK we would normally see from the monsters and Mini Bosses.  It was only during the last Wave that we really saw any increase of that, where we ended up gaining approximately 180% of the PICK from the monsters there and the Boss, of course.  Even that extra PICK didn’t necessarily make up for the missed PICK throughout the dungeon, though it is, again, hard to determine because of the variation.  Early estimates put our final PICK accumulation through the dungeon around 79% of the normal, but with a variance of plus or minus 3%.”

It was crazy how the Lieutenant had been able to calculate all of that data, making him wonder if she had also been somewhat of a business Data Analyst as a job back on Earth. 

“The reduction also applied to the Quest reward, which was cut from 50,000 down to 30,000 PICK, so that was a bit unfortunate, but not as bad as it could’ve been without his Achievements,” she said with a hint of disappointment to her tone, but that changed with what she said next.  “However, there were also the five Assault Professional Achievements that every single one of us earned, as we managed to score first place in every single Assault Wave.”

“All five?” Rachel asked incredulously.

Corinna nodded.  “Yep, all five.  While the PICK rewards were only 60% of normal, it was still 450,000 PICK.”

“WHAT?!” the Guild Leader screamed, shock painting her face.  “That’s like 9 or 10 Levels-worth of PICK for them at their Level!”

The giddiness in the Lieutenant’s voice made Thaden smile.  “And about 8 Levels for myself, as well.  Granted, it was basically only a one-time bonus since we already have the Achievements, but it was worth. 

“But that wasn’t even the best part.  For the Assault Professional V Achievement, which was for obtaining first place for every single Assault Wave, everyone also obtained a monetary reward.  Do you want to guess how much?”

Rachel just shook her head, obviously overwhelmed. 

“Well, the base amount that each person received was 150,000 gold; with Thaden’s bonuses, that reward was tripled.  In other words, every member of the Raid Party came back with around a half-million gold in cold, hard currency; with the 5% Guild fee that Guilded Glory charges on earned currency during a Raid, we’re looking at about 2.2 million in gold.”

Wow, I didn’t realize everyone had earned that much.  I wonder, are they charging me that 5% fee, too?  Perhaps not, since I’m helping to generate it all.

The Guild Leader was absolutely flabbergasted, but she smiled a few seconds after hearing the results.

“And that wasn’t even considering the actual loot we received,” she went on.  Thaden didn’t really pay attention to what Corinna started to list off to the Guild Leader, as it didn’t really interest him all that much.  He had been offered his pick of any of the 3 Epic-Rarity Support Class pieces of equipment, but none of them were good enough to replace what he already had.  As the rest of the items were useless to him, other than to sell, he’d earned enough during that run that he didn’t really care about trying to sell them on his own – nor did he want to take the time to list them on the Market.  He still acquired some items as a member of the Raid Party, but he didn’t take anything specifically for himself.

Fortunately, the Guilded Glory had a service that helped with unloading what he did acquire, and they had the patience and expertise to get the best price, so he was happy to hand over pretty much all of his extraneous items from both this dungeon and what he had left over from Crestline Gorge.  They took a 10% commission on the final price when a sale was made, but he was told that they priced the items competitively, but which still allowed them to give those selling the items a healthy profit.  He didn’t like doing all the research into those prices because it reminded him too much of his old job, and he was fully invested in his new existence here on Tarth to want to go back.  He was more than content to let someone else do it if they wanted.

“…received not just one Legendary item from the dungeon, but a total of three.  One of them came from the Boss, which is a fur-lined cloak for a Mage, while the other two – a sword and a helmet for a Fighter – were found in the reward room.  Neither of them worked for my build, so they’ll go into the Guild vault for auction later,” Corinna finished, the self-satisfied look on her face mirrored by the Guild Leader.

There were a few more details that the Lieutenant covered, but Thaden wasn’t really listening anymore, as he had either heard it all before or lived through it, himself.  The last thing that Corinna went over was the Achievement that everyone received because of the variation that occurred during the ninth Wave.

Congratulations for surviving a Variation Assault Wave inside an Intermediate Dungeon on Minimal difficulty!

Achievement received: Change Is Good I

Bonus reward: Free Stat Point (20)

Army Of One I Achievement activated!

Bonus reward: Free Stat Points (60)

It was a bit of a surprise to see that his Army Of One I bonus tripled the Free Stat Points he received from the new Achievement, but he supposed that it was technically a “reward” from the Achievement, so it qualified as something that could be tripled.  To say that every member of the Raid Party was ecstatic over the 60 extra free stat points was putting it lightly.  Thaden nearly threw the ones that he received all into Physicality, as that would benefit his solo experience a lot more, but he decided to hold on to them until he was able to complete his Evolution Assignment.  He didn’t know if he would need to change things up a little once his Class evolved, so he figured he might as well stockpile some until that time.

It wasn’t like he was in desperate need for any particular stat right now, thanks to his Adaptable Mimicry Plates.

There were two other Achievements that Thaden picked up to add to his long list that she didn’t cover, though the lack of coverage was entirely due to the fact that everyone else already had them.

Congratulations for completing The Ranch Intermediate Dungeon on Minimal difficulty!

Achievement received: Corralled

Bonus reward: 25,000 PICK

Unkillable I Achievement activated!

Bonus reward: 50,000 PICK

Army Of One I Achievement activated!

Bonus reward: 150,000 PICK

Congratulations for completing your first Guild Progression Quest with the Adventurer Coalition!

Achievement received: Guild Asset I

Bonus reward: 1,000 PICK

Unkillable I Achievement activated!

Bonus reward: 2,000 PICK

Army Of One I Achievement activated!

Bonus reward: 6,000 PICK

The new Achievements didn’t really do anything for him since his PICK was already maxed-out, but that was perfectly fine for the moment.  It would only be 3 more days of running these Intermediate dungeons before he could finish off his Evolution Assignment, as the test dungeon today didn’t count toward his contract with the Guild.  Once that was done and he evolved his Class, he would finally be able to accumulate PICK again.

“It sounds like you exceeded all of our expectations, Thaden,” Rachel said abruptly, interrupting his thoughts.  “On the hope that what you told us was true, I put together a schedule of Intermediate dungeons to run over the next 30 days, though I’ll be making some changes now that I know what you can do to speed up your travel time.  Are there any limits I should know about?”

He felt his head tilt in confusion.  “Limits?  What do you mean?”

“Specifically, how many Intermediate dungeons could you delve through in a day?  You can only do a single Guild Progression Quest per day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all make some money by doing more.”

He nearly blurted out that he could do as many as she wanted, but stopped himself when he realized she would certainly take advantage of that.  While he didn’t mind doing these Intermediate dungeons with a Raid Party, and actually had some fun – despite the stressful situation – when it wasn’t just him killing everything instantly, he also didn’t want to spend 16 hours a day going from one dungeon to the next, one right after another.

“It definitely takes a bit out of me every time we go through a dungeon, and moving from one to another just adds to my exhaustion,” he prefaced his answer.  “That being said, I could probably run through a pair of Intermediate dungeons each day, but if their locations are close together, I could probably do three.  Does that sound reasonable?”

She nodded, making a note on a piece of paper.  “That’s perfect.  I’ll make some adjustments to the schedule, and we’ll get you started with it all tomorrow.”  Glancing at Corinne, she added, “I’m going to have Corinne keep working with you, and if she’s fine with it, I’ll have her handle the business side of your work, including collecting Guild fees and listing items on the Market, as well as assigning Guild members.  I want to take advantage of the way you can help gain the Assault Professional Achievements for our members, which is nearly as important as the gold you’re making all of us; as such, many of your trips through the dungeons will be with at least two-thirds of your Raid Party being new to you.  We’ll be keeping a core group that will accompany you on all of these Raids, however, as they will help acclimate the temporary members to your methods so that you don’t have to explain yourself every time.

“That’s about it.  Do you have any questions?”

Thaden thought about what she said, and he was glad that not everyone would be new for each dungeon; he really didn’t want to have to get in a different person’s face every time he took over as their Raid Leader.  He tried to think of anything else he might need to know, but he just shook his head when nothing else occurred to him.

“Great!  Let me be the first to welcome you as the leader of our new subsidiary Guild, Exploitation.”

“Exploitation—?  Oh.  I get it.  You’re treating my abilities as some sort of glitchy exploit, while also exploiting me for PICK and profit.”

The Guild Leader smiled as he spoke.  “Do you have a problem with the name?” she asked.

Shaking his head, Thaden chuckled.  “Nope, not at all.  It’s actually refreshing to have all these motivations out in the open.”

“Well, then, Corinna will meet you out front of the city tomorrow morning in the same place you met today.  Take the rest of the day off, because from now on, the real work begins.”

He just nodded and left, partially excited about what was to come, while also slightly concerned.  If every dungeon turned out to be as stressful as the last one, with the whole variation thing going on, then it was almost inevitable that someone would die when something unexpected happened.

“You’ll be fine.  You’ve got me, remember?”

He nodded with a smile just for Sadia, and he exited the Guilded Glory building with an additional pep in his step.