Chapter 37: Delve Three (Patreon)

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“And the F-ranked coming along is non-negotiable?” the ogre asked, speaking to Elise as if Cayden wasn’t even at the table.

“Yes, we’re a team. It’s a package deal,” Elise responded.

This round of interviews was going much better than the first – although they still weren’t ideal. With proof of success at enchanting, they could actually bring something to the table for the higher-ranked teams this time, but it wasn’t enough for them to be treated as equals.

Apparently, the average adventurer was a bit disdainful of adventurer affiliates, even if Elise could make them significantly more money on a delve with her skills. But even their attitude towards Elise was better than how they treated Cayden as an F-ranked fighter without a proper team of his own.

With each interview, Cayden’s opinion of adventurers was dropping. He was sure that there must have been other good and welcoming adventurers out there, but it certainly didn’t seem that way from their interviews. Was it just the adventurers who delved on the regular that were the issue?

Although, Cayden had to admit he wouldn’t have been the most pleased to be in their shoes. As a D-ranked team, an F-ranked fighter was likely just as much of a liability as an adventurer affiliate but without any of the potential benefits.

“We’ll do it, under one condition,” the ogre said after thinking for a minute. “We only go with the even guild split if you enchant something. If you are unsuccessful, or if we don’t find any enchanting materials, then its kill-claim shares.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Elise said. “I think we have a–” But before she could finish, Cayden grabbed her arm and cut her off.

“Could we have a moment to deliberate?” he asked of the ogre, who frowned back at him. But before the adventurer could respond, he turned Elise’s chair so their backs were to him, and whispered. “What are you doing?”

“Making a deal. Wasn’t that obvious?” Elise whispered back, smirking.

Cayden sighed. “You know what I’m talking about. Kill-claim shares means that each person only gets a share based on the number of monsters they kill. If you don’t find any enchanting materials, you’ll get nothing for this delve. And I probably won’t get much either.”

Elise’s smirk faded. “Yeah, but that doesn’t seem unreasonable, since I wouldn’t actually be doing anything if that’s the case. And this isn’t like the siblings.” She looked back at the ogre, who was waiting patiently on the other side of the table. “This is a professional D-ranked team. Our safety is pretty much guaranteed. And it’s a good chance for us to learn how more experienced teams handle a dungeon.” She hesitated, looking unsure. “If this is about the money I owe you, I promise I’ll–”

“No, no,” Cayden said, cutting her off with a sigh. “It’s fine. I’m not hurting for money so much that I need the next paycheck immediately. In the future, though, I think we should try to negotiate for better terms.” He sighed again. “But you’re probably right. We’re still new to this, and seeing what an experienced team is capable of and how they handle a dungeon is its own form of payment.”

Elise smiled, and they turned back to face the ogre. “We’ll do it!” Elise exclaimed, and the ogre nodded seriously. “Delve on the next Dynday? Do you have a particular dungeon in mind?”

“That works for my team,” the ogre responded. “And we’ll be delving the Thompson’s Graveyard dungeon.”

Cayden frowned, irked at the ogre’s tone but unwilling to make an issue of it, and so over the next few minutes they finalized the last of the details.

By this point, Cayden was pretty much completely recovered from the Bolton dungeon, his increased vitality and the healing potions finally having completed their work. But there were still four days left until Dynday. He didn’t plan on completely exhausting himself right before a dungeon run, but he had [Recovery]. As long as he didn’t kill himself the day before the delve, he should be back at one-hundred percent without issue.

In the meantime, he had training to get to.

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Four days later, Cayden walked out of the Thompson’s Graveyard dungeon, disappointed.

His disappointment had nothing to do with the dungeon itself. It was an interesting variation compared to the two dungeons he had previously delved. Technically, it was an open-air dungeon like the Bolton dungeon, with a blue dome marking the boundary, but the dome was much smaller than the one that housed the field full of zepples.

The dungeon was only about as large as a square block in Avernon, the majority of the space taken up with an overgrown graveyard full of unkempt headstones and burial plots. Whenever they edged too close to one of the plots, a zombie would slowly crawl from the grave, rotting flesh digging itself out of the soft earth.

Cayden wasn’t entirely sure how strong the monsters were, as he had been firmly told to stay in the center of the formation next to Elise while the adventuring team’s mage, a high elf who demanded to be called ‘Blaze,’ dispatched each zombie with a single [Fire Lance] to the head. The man was annoying in his superiority, but even from behind him Cayden could feel the insane amount of heat emanating from his skill. Elise had whispered that it must have been high level, most likely enhanced by several other supporting skills as well.

In the center of the graveyard had been an old church, decrepit and rotting. Inside the church, ghouls wandered the halls with slavering jaws and too-long limbs and would charge the adventuring group the moment they saw or scented them.

The presence of ghouls had been strange to Cayden, considering ‘ghoul’ had been one of the potential race change options they had considered pursuing before Cayden turned twelve. Ultimately they had abandoned it as it was one of the few illegal races, the supposed requirement being to consume the dead flesh of another sapient. He had made a note to ask Elise how ‘ghoul’ could be both a monster and a potential race change for people, though.

They killed – or perhaps re-killed? – the ghouls with little trouble. The ogre team leader, Gregor, drew the ghouls’ attention from behind his massive shield while their ranger, an archer named Howard, dispatched them from a distance whenever he’d knock them back, stunned. Cayden wasn’t sure whether Gregor had a taunting skill or if the ghouls were just stupid, but they never tried to navigate around the man to get to the backline adventurers.

In the center of the church, in a rotting sanctuary of falling-apart pews and mildewed floorboards, waited the boss of the dungeon: a lich. But that monster fell just as quickly as its underlings as Blaze dispatched it with a single mega-charged [Fire Lance].

No, Cayden wasn’t disappointed by the dungeon itself. It was his first dungeon that featured a variety of different monsters rather than just one, like the zepples, or simply the same monsters at different stages of advancement, like the ratlings. And the changing environment of the dungeon from the graveyard to the church hallways to the sanctuary, coupled with the creepy ambiance, kept him always on his toes despite being safely sequestered behind Gregor.

Neither was his disappointment because they hadn’t found any enchanting materials. Certainly, he would have preferred if they had, but Elise had explained the odds. They had been lucky in their first two dungeons – a bit of bad luck was expected.

No, the biggest source of Cayden’s disappointment was how easy it all was.

He approached this delve with the mindset of learning how a ‘real’ adventuring team delved a dungeon, and learn he had.

Slowly and carefully. Each step was measured and careful, and they always had a plan for how to deal with the next monster. They navigated at a snail’s pace through the graveyard, only drawing the aggro of a single zombie at a time, which was dispatched with a single attack from Blaze. The path they took was obviously pre-planned, routing the team close enough to each grave to maximize their experience crystals from the zombies, but never close enough for more than one zombie to attack at once, or for Blaze to not have the time to kill them before they crawled free from the earth.

They’d navigated with similarly careful planning in the church. Against the ghouls, Howard’s arrows were more effective, which let Blaze relax and regain his mana. With their pathing, they never worried about ghouls attacking them from behind, which enabled Gregor to fully focus his attention forward on the next ghoul they might stumble upon. Only twice did they encounter more than a single ghoul at once, and the team handled them with ease each time.

And then, the lich. Normally a terrifying foe that could summon hordes of underling monsters, but with Blaze’s completely recharged mana pool the boss monster was sniped from the doorway before it could do more than look in their direction. Summoned monsters didn’t contain experience crystals, after all, so there was no point in letting the lich create his army.

Cayden approached this delve with the intention to learn how a real adventuring team approached a delve. And what he’d learned was this: it was slow, it was careful, and there wasn’t a hint of ‘adventure’ involved.

Apparently, this was the only dungeon Gregor’s team delved. They knew its monsters and quirks. Blaze’s fire attacks did bonus damage to the undead, allowing him to kill the lich before it gained any momentum, and carefully planning the route out ahead of time kept them from getting swarmed by ghouls or zombies in the rest of the dungeon. Furthermore, the Thompson’s Graveyard dungeon was an E-ranked dungeon, and Gregor’s team was D-ranked. Even if they made a mistake or got swarmed, they were over-leveled for the monsters they were facing and were unlikely to face any serious consequences.

“Why don’t you delve any E-ranked dungeons?” Cayden had asked on the way back to Avernon. “Or even other D-ranked dungeons?”

It was one of the first things he had said one the entire delve. Gregor, Howard, and Blaze were happy enough to chat with each other even when they were inside the dungeon, but except for Gregor to give them strict instructions before entering, they ignored Cayden and Elise as if they weren’t there.

“Why would we?” Blaze had responded with a snort of derision. “The experience crystals from Thompson’s Graveyard are solid, especially from the lich. Leave those other dungeons to other adventurers. Thompson’s Graveyard is our dungeon.” He looked at Cayden out of the side of his eye. “Don’t go getting any ideas of trying to steal it. Delve too often, and the monsters might not have time to repopulate each week.”

“Of course, if you want to tag along with us for more chances to enchant, you’re welcome,” Gregor had added with a smile, this directed towards Elise.

And finally, it clicked together in Cayden’s head.

This was their job.

He should have seen it earlier. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t seen it – most likely it was a bias from his expectations of this as a fantasy world. From his expectations of adventurers going on…well, adventures.

But to Gregor’s team, it wasn’t an adventure. It wasn’t a moral obligation for the protection of nearby citizens. It wasn’t even an adrenaline-fueled dance with death.

It was a job.

A dangerous job, to be sure. Even with their higher levels, preparation, and skills which perfectly countered the dungeon, they were still fighting monsters, and a mistake could easily lead to serious injury or death. But it was still just a job. Once a week they’d clock in, clear the dungeon, and clock out, earning enough to live better than the average citizen of Avernon. Cayden doubted their skills advanced much with the level of danger and the way they were using them in the dungeon, but if all they were looking for was a paycheck, then they didn’t need to.

Cayden shouldn’t have been surprised or disappointed by the revelation, but he was. For some reason, he’d expected more of adventurers.

They bid goodbye to the temporary teammates at the gate of Avernon. It was less fond than the goodbye to siblings had been, but at least it was cordial. Cayden walked Elise back to her house in silence.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get anything from the delve,” Elise said as they turned onto her street, and Cayden looked at her with surprise.

“Hm? Oh, that’s fine,” he responded offhandedly, still caught up in his thoughts.

“It’s not, really,” Elise replied. “I should have insisted on an even split. I still owe you from the last delve, and we got nothing from this one. You didn’t even get a chance to level any skills.”

“Really, it’s fine,” Cayden insisted. “Like you said, it was more for learning how ‘professional’ adventurers delve a higher-ranked dungeon. Which we did.”

“Still, I feel bad,” Elise said. “I’ll make sure we get even shares for our delve next week. I don’t want you to run out of coin and get kicked from your apartment.”

Cayden laughed. “I appreciate it. But it shouldn’t be necessary. I think I’m going to delve the ratling dungeon, again.”

Elise looked at him askance. “Really? I guess we can make that part of the condition for the next delve. It might make it harder to persuade a higher ranked team to…” she faded off as Cayden shook his head in the negative.

“Not next week, and not with a team. I’m going to delve the ratling dungeon tomorrow – alone.”

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