Chapter 35: Deliberations on the Future (Patreon)

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The walk back to Avernon took significantly longer than it had on the way to the dungeon, but they managed to make it back to the town before dark. For all their difficulties, they hadn’t actually spent that much time in the dungeon itself – barely an hour and a half. It had been an intense hour and a half, certainly, but it was still only an hour and a half.

Which meant that, even after taking a long rest after leaving the dungeon, they were able to take their time limping back to town.

Cayden was in the worst shape, but Jerome had been rattled from the first explosion more than Cayden had realized, and the air elemental climbed on his brother’s back for the first hour of the walk. Xavier offered Cayden a ride after Jerome hopped off, but he declined, too proud to accept the awkward offer from someone who, to Cayden, he still saw as a relative stranger.

Eventually, though, they made it back to the gates.

“We’ll meet you back at the guild tomorrow for the split,” Cayden said. “Say, eighth bell?”

“Can we do tenth bell, instead?” Andy replied. “The shop is usually pretty busy around the eighth.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Elise had grabbed the vast majority of the experience crystals, but everyone had a few they’d collected on their own. Cayden hefted the final bags after they finished consolidating the loot. “Looks like we’ve got one and just under a half pouches…which is kind of crazy. I don’t want to get my hopes up too high until we’ve actually been paid out, but if every dungeon run pays this well, I can’t imagine ever struggling for money again.” He turned to the siblings. “It’s been a pleasure – hopefully, we can do this again soon.”

“Er…about that,” Andy replied. “We probably won’t be going on any more dungeon runs, at least for a while.” She glanced at her siblings before rushing to continue. “Like we said – we’re not really adventurers. We just needed to make a bit of coin to support the shop, and we’ve got that, now.”

Cayden glanced between the three siblings who looked back at him resolutely. He couldn’t imagine when they might have discussed this, considering he’d been by their sides for the entire walk back from the dungeon, but they all looked to be on the same page. Even Xavier, who had barely been able to take his eyes off Elise for the walk to the dungeon, seemed firm in his agreement with his sister.

He shrugged. “Well, it’s been a pleasure. And if you ever do decide to delve again, come find us.” For all that the siblings were amateurs, Cayden had been extremely impressed.

“Of course,” Andy responded. “But – and don’t take this the wrong way – if I never enter a dungeon again, it’ll still be too soon.”

Cayden chuckled, and they waved goodbye and split off, the siblings going their own way while Cayden walked Elise back to her house.

“Hey, Cayden,” Elise said as they turned down the street towards her home, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. “I know we haven’t gotten it appraised yet, so there’s no way to know for sure…but if the potion-boosting necklace is worth more than my share of the loot, would you be willing to lend me a portion of your share so I can keep it? I have some money saved up, so I hopefully won’t need too much, and I’ll pay you back as soon–”

Cayden waved down Elise’s promises. “Of course, it’s not an issue. You’ve been supplying free potions for the delve, which have literally saved my life, so it’s the least I can do. As long as I’m left with enough to live on in the meantime.” He flashed Elise a smile, who smiled back in relief.

“Thanks. I really want to spend some time studying the enchantment. I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to learn, but I think I’ll be able to make my next one stronger if I can better understand what went right and wrong with this one.”

Cayden nodded and didn’t voice his suspicions of sentimentality on Elise’s part. She had poured a lot of time and effort, and even risked her relationship with her father, for the chance to pursue enchanting, and it was only natural for her to have an attachment with her first enchanted item. Though, if there was anyone who might not have that sentimental attachment, it would be Elise.

Either way, he trusted Elise enough to lend her the money. If the payout was as large as he suspected it would be, even losing ninety percent of it to pay for the necklace would leave Cayden with plenty to survive on until the next delve, and he had no doubts about Elise’s ability to pay him back if continued to delve.

He waved goodbye to Elise as she let herself into her father’s shop, and then he turned down the street in the direction of his apartment.

Despite his exhaustion and slowly healing injuries, the delve had certainly gone well. With the exception of Cayden gaining another racial skill, they’d accomplished everything they’d set out for: growth for Cayden’s skills, a successful enchanting by Elise, and a hefty paycheck. But Cayden wasn’t like the siblings – he wasn’t satisfied with just this single delve.

If he were to be prepared for the next one, he’d need to get back to training.

--

Unfortunately, Cayden’s body couldn’t quite keep up with his convictions. In the wake of his injuries, he was forced to take the next day slowly, stretching and training his mind stat with some borrowed math textbooks from Elise.

Elise hadn’t had nearly as strenuous of a dungeon delve, but the ten-mile trek there and back from the dungeon hadn’t been particularly easy for someone of her level of physical stats, so she also took a bit of a day off in her training with Cayden.

“I need some help planning out my build.”

They sat across from each other in the courtyard of the adventurers guild, stretching as they waited for the scheduled meet-up with the siblings in an hour. Maybe it wasn’t the best place to discuss his potential skills and build, as there were likely plenty of adventurers around with high enough perception to eavesdrop without them noticing, but Cayden realized he didn’t care enough about keeping his skills secret to wait. Besides, any adventurers with enough perception to overhear were likely too busy with their own training to care about a random F-ranked adventurer’s planned build.

“What about?” Elise asked, her chin resting on her fists as she lay on her elbows doing the center splits. Despite his better physique in pretty much every other area, flexibility was the one area Cayden lacked behind Elise even with [Enhanced Flexibility], and he was feeling significantly more pain attempting his own splits than what Elise was displaying.

“Everything, really,” he responded, slowly leaning back to shift to a slightly less strenuous stretch. “We worked so long for [Resistance] that I really didn’t give much thought to what I wanted after I got it. So far, I’ve just been picking up general skills that are most useful for delving, which isn’t bad, really, but I think it could be better. After all, I’ve got five general skills slots aside from [Resistance], which is how many it takes to get a tier three general skill. With how long it took to get [Resistance], I figure I should start planning sooner rather than later.”

“Hm, so another tier three general skill,” Elise said as she slid out of her splits and mimicked Cayden in the new stretch.

“Yeah, that’s the main thing, but other stuff too. What should I be focusing on to get the best class? And if I find another primordial mud or other enchanting material that calls to me,” he lowered his voice, “What should I pick for my next racial skill?”

“That’s a kinda tough question, considering we don’t even know the options.”

“Yeah, but it helps to be prepared, right? Especially since I can only find more enchanting materials in a dungeon, which isn’t exactly the best place to spend time thinking it through.” Cayden stopped stretching, choosing to focus completely on the conversation instead.

“That’s true. You said that you had two options last time? And one of them was a healing skill?”

“Mhmm. I think it said that it would passively heal me whenever I was in contact with the ground.”

“Well, we can probably assume that you’ll get two options next time then, too. And there’s a chance that the healing skill will be one of them. But, other than that…” She shrugged. “I suppose you’d probably want to pick a passive skill over an active skill to get the extra boost, but it’s kinda hard to plan for anything when we have so little data.”

Cayden sighed. “I suppose you’re right.” He paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask, though. What are the odds we find enchanting materials I can use on our next delve?”

“That depends on what enchanting materials you can use. We assume you can probably use primordial mud if we find it again, and know that you can’t use verdant grass. But other than that? We’re still working with so little data that it’s hard to say.”

Cayden frowned. “What about just primordial mud, then? How often should we expect to find more of that in a dungeon?”

“It’s…also hard for me to say,” Elise responded, the hesitation clear in her voice. “There aren’t any great records or statistics on enchanting materials, at least not that I’ve been able to find. In general, I think enchanters find enchanting materials in roughly half of the dungeons they delve, though we can probably expect to be able to find more than that around Avernon since there aren’t any other enchanters. As for primordial mud?” She shrugged. “There are over a dozen different types of enchanting materials that I know of, each with different rarities. Primordial mud is one of the more desired ones since it’s good for enchanting armor, and it isn’t the rarest…but beyond that, I really don’t know.”

Cayden sighed. That was disappointing, but he supposed that was the reality he lived in. Complaining wouldn’t do anything to change it, so he instead switched topics. “What about my class, then? Any good evolutions for [Athlete] I should be striving for? Or anything else I should be doing?”

“So, general wisdom for classes is the same as what is popular for the change,” Elise said, her voice slipping into the cadence Cayden recognized as ‘lecturer’ mode. “Just do whatever you’re doing with as much skill as you can, and the class will follow.” She frowned. “Unfortunately, unlike with preparing for the race change, I actually agree.”

Cayden looked at her askance. “What? Really? Just go with the flow?”

“Pretty much,” Elise responded with a sigh. “In general, you’ll get a class with skills that best support whatever you’ve been doing regularly. Train all the time? You’ll get [Athlete], with skills that help with your training. Work as a [Blacksmith]? You’ll get [Apprentice Blacksmith] with skills to aid in your work. Do either of those things with more dedication and skill? You’ll get an upgraded version of those classes with more powerful and specific skills. So whatever you’re doing in your life will naturally get you a class that will help with that. If you want a class that helps in delving dungeons and killing monsters, then keep doing that, with as much skill as you can manage, and the class will come.” She sighed again. “I’m sure there are some hidden system requirements for accessing the different classes, and if we knew what those were then we could probably game the system somehow, similar to how we got your race options. But, unlike races, the system doesn’t tell you the requirements you’ve met to be offered the classes you’re given. And coupled with the amount of time that’s required doing whatever actions match up with your class, it’s pretty much impossible to determine those hidden requirements. Or at least I can’t figure out how.”

“Can I at least see what classes are available? It might help if I know what I’m working towards.”

Elise nodded, happy to be of more use. “Oh yeah, I can get you that. It won’t be a complete list, of course, but I should be able to get you a list of a hundred or so different classes related to combat or training, and the direction their skills trend towards. Just give me a few days.”

“Of course, and thanks,” Cayden said, and leaned forward to resume his stretching. But before he could get very far, Elise spoke up again.

“General skills, though,” her smile widened. “That’s where I think I can be of more use.”

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