Ace sighs, “So, does anyone have some actual cash on them?”

Kelly nods, “I have two copper and one silver coin, no gold though. Even the silver was a lucky catch someone found in one of the thug’s pouch. Without a system store to sell to or the quest board, the system currency isn’t exactly common. The only current source is actually the dungeon. My second copper comes from one of the dives we did to get everyone their limit break path. Apparently the first floor kobold leader has a chance to drop copper coins.”

Ace shakes his head, “Much too rare then. We need ten thousand copper coins to buy the anchor. Does anyone else know a good way to get some coins?”

Doctor knocks on the table to everyone’s attention. “First of all, from what I heard of the last trip, the early floors are easier. That means everyone should be able to deal with the first floor increasing our odds of getting coins. Also, not that many people have grinded on the second floor. It is quite possible that we can get coins from the monsters there and just not know it yet.”

“As for alternate methods of gathering coins? I think we should instead ask if we need to use coins directly. While we can’t sell stuff to the system without a system store, we might be able to barter our goods directly. Of course, to find out we would need to ask Jimmy about it. Though I feel we should let him relax for a second.”

Susan shrugs, “Do we have anything of worth to trade? It isn’t like the System needs what we can make. At most, it could probably sell it back to other people on our planet.”

Ace turns to Kelly, “I know you have a certain theory about dungeons. While you haven’t been able to prove it yet, now would be the time to share.”

Kelly looks away from the gathering twists in her chair, but with everyone staring at her she eventually sighs. “I really didn’t want to talk about this till there was more proof. Especially since part of this is built upon the bodies of all that have fallen to the dungeon so far. I could see that in the wrong hands things could turn very grim.”

Ace nods, “From what you have shared with me, I am sure certain human elements could gain a lot of power at a horrific cost. I was willing to let you study it in secret, I even made sure you alone had access to all the counts of what came out of the dungeon. Now I won’t try and claim some for the greater good junk to you.”

“The ten of us should all very well know we aren’t the best of people. To gain power like we did requires a drive beyond what society has beaten into our world’s more civilized regions. I want this knowledge so we can dominate our area. Yes we probably aren’t the best choices to lead our world into the future. Problem is I don’t trust anyone else to do it for us. Now tell us what you’ve found out.”

Kelly lowers her head and takes a shaky breath. “I haven’t always been the best at interacting or relating to other people. Still, what I have found could cause a loss of human life on a staggering scale.”

She looks up, “When someone dies in the dungeon the next group will have better drops. I’ve collated all the resources we have extracted from the dungeon and on average the dive after someone has died in the dungeon will get twice as many resources. After that the amount quickly dies off, but that doesn’t matter.”

“We knew that people dying in the dungeon would feed it. However, never once did any of the tutorial guides mention the fact that it also improves loot. What I have been researching is if it has to be a death. While all signs point to no, a person dying in the dungeon, especially those with higher levels, will instantly upgrade what we get. Now that you all know this I can be more open with my testing. After all, I couldn’t exactly have people leaving perfectly good gear in the dungeon to be eaten.”

“I have some guess on this but nothing to prove it yet. First is that near-death experiences improve the drops. This points toward it not being the death itself that matters, but rather something released by us when in danger or even just when stretched to our limits. That second one is particularly likely as while we didn’t exactly scour the dungeon when doing our limit breaking the amount of goods retrieved was quite decent.”

“The other guess I am willing to share is that while items being left inside help, garbage does not, or at least not all that much. Now I haven’t had much luck in testing this one as people rarely leave stuff in the dungeon. We don’t even throw garbage in because about the only waste we have is being put towards compost. However, going by what we know when it comes to pre-system equipment, I have a suspicion.”

“The more an item has been processed by crafting skills, the more an item has been used with someone's skill, and even just the more an item has been around skill use will increase its value to the dungeon. As it is we aren’t making all that much. In fact, I’ve heard some of the others haven’t been picking up all the dropped meat because we just don’t need it. If my guess is correct, that needs to stop.”

“Everyone that has a crafting skill should be practicing it, even with poor materials. Beyond that even things like our cooks should be continually using as much of our supplies as possible. Then anything that isn’t needed should be tossed into the dungeon. This even includes the ash from the cook’s fire. Every single bit of waste that has had a skill used on, through, or around needs to go in the dungeon. Too much goat meat? Cook it up right before it goes bad and into the dungeon with it!”

Kelly is breathing heavily now as she finishes. When she doesn’t continue Ace slowly nods, “Yes, that info could result in the rise of a horrible culture of sacrificial excess. Now, does stuff being dropped off on the first floor affect the second floor? Also, are there any downsides to doing this? It can’t be all sunshine and bloody roses. What’s the catch?”

Kelly takes a few more moments to catch her breath. “It does seem floor dependent. While all deaths have been on the first floor and most don’t even go to the second one anyway, the data I got from the limit breaker runs is enough. We can probably get away with just dumping stuff like the cookfire ashes on the first floor. For more skill intensive things like high quality gear that has broken, we probably want to figure out which floors give the best loot and drop it there.”

“As for a downside? Yes, there is one. Some of you might have noticed how inconsistent the kobolds are with their traps, right? Well, there are two triggers for a trap appearing from what I can tell. The first is if a trap was there on a previous run but not taken care of, it will be there the next time as well. The other is that the same energy used to drop more loot is also used by the kobolds to place their traps.”

“There has been little experience with the traps, but I noticed something in every story that involves them. Once the trap is taken care of and no longer an active part of the area it is in, they just stop being talked about. Not as in, yeah the disarmed trap is over there but we don’t have to care about it. Rather no matter how much I questioned the people about it they just can’t remember the trap being there.”

“Unlike dungeon traps, the kobold traps act just like defeated monsters. Once it is disarmed or destroyed, it will fade away. In fact, I am willing to bet each trap is connected to a specific kobold. So yeah, more randomly placed tribal traps to deal with.”

Ace leans back in his chair and hums while he thinks over this new information. The other founders wait for a minute or so but he seems to be lost in thought for the moment so they start to talk among themselves.

It takes Ace a good ten minutes to figure out what he wants to do with all this nonsense. He claps his hands, “Alright everyone, I have a plan. We need one gold to make a town and to be honest? I doubt even if we had quests and system stores to earn money, this would be an easy amount to earn. Normally I would say this means we don’t have to rush it.”

“This isn’t normal. The very people we least want to gain any control over us would be the ones who could earn that amount of money. Those thugs from the old towns didn’t have much money, but that was just because they spent it all on drugs and alcohol from the system stores. All it would take is one dictator with a plan and some impulse control to wreck our day.”

“Worse yet, we don’t know how likely this is to happen. There could be a burgeoning slave empire, a hop skip and a jump in any direction from here. For instance, those few low level thugs that escaped down the river. No one has come back the way they went, and we have no clue why. Supposedly there is some kind of town off that way but they kept to themselves what kind of place it was.”

“With that all in mind we need to maximize our chances of getting money and I want to take a chance on the second floor. Right now the third floor is a mystery and maybe it has wealth beyond our wildest dreams but those mushroom monsters.”

Kelly coughs, “They’re myconid sprouts. While we waited, I took some time to examine them closer.”

Ace raises an eyebrow at the interruption. “Anyway, those myconids are a hard stop right now. Even if a group can manage to deal with them, we can’t exactly grind the floor. On the second floor, we can easily clear out the kobolds. With that in mind all of our trash will be deposited on the second floor for the near future, even the ash. If after a few days of this there still aren’t coins we will focus on the first floor.”

“Now for a more long-term thing. We know that more drops happen after someone dies in the dungeon. As it is, death is very rare because we all have a handle on the dungeon and have trained to delve into it. That won’t always be the case. Some point in the future we will see people coming from all around to give it a try. This means more people dying than ever before. Right now we can only realistically have one group delve at a time. From now on after every delve with a loss of life, a group made of our core members has to delve. We can blame it on how often the dungeon changes. Just say that any death could represent a sudden change in the dungeon that needs to be explored by professionals.”

“The goal of this requirement is to hoard as much of the drops and loot as possible. We won’t be able to monopolize it all, of course, but no reason to make it easy on any outsiders. The only problem that could come up with this is how few people there are in our core group. Not even 30 people isn’t exactly enough to cover it as much as we need to. But we can deal with this later. For now I don’t want anyone to check out the third floor until we have the medicine to counter those myconids.” Ace claps his hands and gestures for everyone to go back to work.

Akhier

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