SIS Book 2 Chapter 10: Dungeon and Medals [First Draft]

"So what you're saying is, there's a wild event in the Waterford City Centre Mall?" Daz asked his sister, Rose who was busily tapping away on her keyboard as usual. The two were sat at a table that Sandy had created for fun a couple of days ago and Daz was sipping on a cup of water.

"Yup, you aren't deaf are you?" Rose replied as she looked up at her brother with a mocking gaze.

Daz stretched his hand over the table and flicked the ten-year-old girl's head with his fingers. "Just give me the details again, you know I like being thorough."

Rose held her forehead and winced a bit, but she quickly gave Daz a very simple explanation once again. "Like I said, the mall suddenly turned into a dungeon, or at least that's what the database is telling me. A dungeon is like a tower that's meant to be an optional challenge for survivors. Apparently, this one has three floors and is the most basic type."

Rose returned to tapping away on her laptop before she continued, "Each floor holds a type of monster and at least one boss. You get merit points and items for beating each floor. The dungeons are only meant to appear during the four-day resting period and are entirely optional. Oh, also, only groups of five can enter."

Daz lent forward and sipped his water again as a ponderous look crossed his face.

"So, are you going to go, Daz?" Rose asked.

"Of course I am. I'm just wondering who I'll bring with me. I'm thinking Maddy, Crusher and maybe Ger or Lyle. I have no idea about the last person though. Hmm, both of them?" Daz replied.

"All of our strongest people, huh? Well, I guess that makes sense since we're not sure how tough it'll be and now we have the soldiers to protect everyone here. Oh, by the way, that last slot, I'll be taking it," Rose suddenly announced, shocking Daz.

"Impossible. Like I'd bring my sister to her death," Daz snorted. It was absolutely absurd to him that Rose would even ask to come to the dungeon in her condition.

"Fine then. Don't bring me if you want to kill every strong citizen of Fort Skip and its Lord," Rose quipped back and she stuck her tongue out at Daz.

He very slowly and carefully put his hand into his cup of water and then flicked some of it onto Rose's face. "Stop teasing me and tell me why I need to bring you. You have a reason, right?"

"Ew!" Rose was still a girl despite her crude words, so she very quickly wiped away Daz's water from her face and said, "That dungeon is full of traps, and it just so happens that one of my class' skills lets me detect and disable traps. So you have to bring me along unless you want to get everyone killed."

"There you go," Daz smiled before ruffling his sister's hair lightly, "That wasn't so hard, now was it?" he added with a bit of a chuckle.

"You're such a bully sometimes..." Rose mumbled.

"Only to you. You know I love you really," Daz shrugged and then finished off his water.

Rose pouted and replied, "I love you too."

"Let Lyle go. He didn't get too many merit points during the last attack, but I got plenty from all of the Robots I sniped, not to mention the attention I got from a fair few gods," Ger said with a smile on his face.

Daz had approached him first and asked if he wanted to help out with the dungeon, but as he had said, Ger didn't want to let Lyle fall behind, so he was more than happy enough to give up his spot to his ex-employer.

"Sounds good. Sorry to bother you." Daz kept his words short and left to find Lyle. 

He walked around Fort Skip and couldn't find Lyle at any of the buildings or gathering areas. "This is annoying. Where is he? It's at times like these, that I'd like a citizen search feature," Daz said to himself with an annoyed tone.

Daz decided to just tell a few people to send Lyle to him if they saw him. It was already late and it would take some time to prepare for the dungeon, so Daz had decided to explore it tomorrow morning. 

The young Reaper spent the next hour and a half crafting small blades and tools with the Gnomes in the smithy. They had finished working on his hand shovel and it was still fairly useless, but it was definitely more powerful and it had an enchantment on it now which boosted its attack speed by ten percent.

Daz had given Hamson to the Master Blacksmith as he took lessons with a few other citizens held by the regular blacksmiths. They taught via showing as opposed to telling since they weren't exactly wordsmiths.

Two hours passed and the lessons had ended. Daz took back Hamson from the very hyperactive Gnome and looked at its new stats as well as his improved crafting skill and a new skill that was an unexpected boon.

Hamson [C-Rank (Higher Tier)]

Description

A regular shovel given life by its owner, Daz. If touched by any other sentient being than the owner, It will consume them if they try to use it offensively without the owner's permission. It has been sharpened and enchanted by a Master Blacksmith Gnome.

Stats

Attack: 260

Defence: 50

Durability: 600/600

Sharpness: 20

Skills

The One Shovel To Rule Them All

Morph

Earth Rise

Earth Rise

The magical ability to create a wall of earth in front of the host. Requires 25 death energy.

'I've always wondered this, but do other people see the type of energy that they have instead of Death Energy? They must, right? Like Stamina or Worldforce. I guess the system just auto-converts it for every host,' Daz thought in passing as he admired his more powerful shovel.

It now had a new stat, sharpen which just increased the likelihood of penetrating objects and causing cutting damage, whatever that was. Daz had to take some time at some point to figure out the entire damage-type system, but not today.

Basic Craftsmanship [E-Rank (Middle Tier)]

Description

A skill for those who have only just begun their long and arduous journey as a craftsman.

Level 5

Abilities

All crafting done by the host shall be 7% more efficient.

The host will have a slightly easier time crafting all things.

The host will have a slightly easier time understanding how something was crafted.

Basic Blacksmithing [E-Rank (Middle Tier)]

Description

A skill for those who have only just begun their long and arduous journey as a blacksmith.

Level 1

Abilities

All smithing done by the host shall be 5% more efficient.

The host will have a slightly easier time smithing things.

The host will have a slightly easier time understanding how something was smithed.

Daz didn't plan to pursue blacksmithing, but it was a nice skill to have since it might help him with his crafting hobby. Just as Daz was leaving, he saw a familiar face stood outside of the workshop. "Lyle?"

"Ah, My Lord," Lyle exclaimed with joy in his voice, "I'm sorry for the delay. I was busy when you were looking for me, and when I heard about that, I went to find you immediately but you were taking a lesson, so I didn't wish to disturb you."

Lyle was being very apologetic, but Daz's instincts were telling him that Lyle was lying. His eyes seemed to be dilated and he was shaking ever so slightly. It would have been hard for Daz to notice these things if not for his impeccable instincts. 'Drugs, huh? I wonder if it's heroin or some other drug provided by the system, after all, he was a heroin addict before the apocalypse if I'm remembering his status correctly.'

"Don't worry about it," Daz replied calmly and with a smile. 'I guess I won't mention the drugs for now. Though it had better be a one-time thing. I'll have to create some rules at some points about what you can buy from the system and what you can't. Urg, what a pain. I hope the system has some sort of base-upgrade that can put actual purchase blocks in place.'

"Thank you, Lord," Lyle bowed his head and added, "What did you need me for?"

"Right, I have an opportunity for you," Daz said.

After hearing Daz's explanation of the dungeon and how it could reward him with items and merit points, Lyle was more than willing to accompany Daz and the others. He was far too weak and useless, and he knew it. He had tried to help on both days three and four but proved to be meaningless in those attacks, and this had severely impacted Lyle's already rock-bottom self-esteem.

'I need to try my best tomorrow. No, we need to try our best tomorrow. All we need is thirty-thousand more points to get those blink boots that will help us actually be of use to the lord. Thankfully, two gods took an interest in us, otherwise, we'd only fall behind even more... hahaha...' Lyle laughed to himself in pity.

He had found a set of footwear that was from a magical world and they allowed the wearer to teleport a few feet once every two minutes which Lyle was convinced would be critical in powering himself up. The only issue was that is costed a large sum of forty-thousand merit points.

While forty-thousand didn't sound like a lot, Lyle had only earnt a total of just over two-hundred thousand points since the start of apocalypse and he had spent most of it on his core stats or on upgrading his syringes, leaving him with just over ten-thousand points. 

"Well, get some rest. It's getting late. I'll see you at the outer gate tomorrow morning at roughly eight am-ish," Daz said casually.

Lyle smiled and nodded his head. "Of course, My Lord."

With that, the two parted ways. It was almost nine o'clock now and the only lights were the bright moon in the sky, the handheld torches of the soldiers and the lamps that had been set up along the walls and buildings by a few of the non-combatant citizens.

Daz made his way back to the crafting area and took a seat. There was no light here, but thankfully, Daz's Reaper eyes allowed him to see with little difficulty. It wasn't perfect night vision and looked more like a grey film that was covering everything.

"It's a shame I don't have a music player, huh? This is gonna be pretty boring," Daz mumbled to himself as he picked up a piece of iron and began carving it with a knife.

He sat there in silence and crafted a total of two-hundred identification medals. Each one had a number cut into it and a small carving of Rimmy's helmet-like head was on one side while the other side said in bold lettering, 'CITIZEN OF FORT SKIP'.

Daz looked at the rising sun and cracked his neck. "Not needing to sleep is both amazing and shit. I should sleep with Maddy tonight. I bet she was lonely. How long has it been, what, a month or so since we last had any 'fun?" 

Daz stood up and left the pile of medals on the ground since he couldn't carry them all without a sack or two. He stretched his entire body and then looked at the base shop once more. "I've given everyone plenty of time. System, I'd like to use my base change token now. Change the base to a Castle-Type, please."

Confirmed. Change initialised. Change successful. 42 items were forcefully commandeered by the system as they were in the no-longer-accessible Inventory System. The Quest System has been added to all of [Little Base] Fort Skip's citizens. Certain upgrades for your base have been strengthened and more options are now available to you in the shop that would be suitable for the base's current base type.

 4 quests have been generated for the host based on your past actions and goals.