Next morning Doyle watches as the newly healed up team starts another dive. Having the previous day’s dive under their belts, the first floor doesn’t represent any challenge. They take even the last fight with the kobolds apart with ease.

The second floor does a better job of holding them back. This time through isn’t without rewards. Now that Doyle has put coin drops on all the kobolds of the second floor, the chance some will drop has skyrocketed. While not much, the group has gained 21 copper coins over the entire floor.

Seeing this Ally nods, ‘A decent haul for a floor people aren’t visiting that much. Once we start getting more people on it, each kobold should start dropping at least one coin a piece.’

Doyle sighs, ‘Doesn’t seem like all that much.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t sound like much. However, you forget, this isn’t the one or two parties through a day situation. Think of how many people were diving your first floor there at the start. You can expect to get at least that many traipsing into your second floor every day. And each of those groups? They will get at least a copper a piece and likely more. It will add up.’

Doyle nods, ‘True, but let’s get back to watching the party. They seem to be about to head to the third floor and I want to see their faces when they realize the floor has changed.’

Jeremy gathers the group together and they head through the portal. At first they don’t notice a difference. After all, the entrance room doesn’t change and there are only two directions an exit can form. Just by chance the new exit not only leaves from the same side as yesterday but leads directly into the next room.

As Doyle is thinking this to himself Ally smacks his core, ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice you fooling around last night. It doesn’t count as by chance if you keep re-rolling the floor until you get what you want.’

Doyle laughs, ‘Oh look, they are about to move out!’

Jeremy seeing nothing is wrong with the first room leads the group into the second room. Or he intended to, but something was wrong to him. Yesterday this room had a staircase going down just out of sight of the entrance room. Now though, there is a tunnel on the right wall.

Jeremy pulls back and talks to the group. None of them are too keen on how things have changed up, but it isn’t like they have a choice. Then Susan pulls out six vials and everyone in the group downs one. Now ready, they toss the empty vials off to the side.

Doyle turns to Ally, ‘What was that?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Probably the protection potion they had wanted to whip up.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘No, not that. Context clues and basic understanding of the situation told me that. I mean the vials. Those are glass vials and they just tossed them to the side! Glass isn’t exactly the easiest thing to make. Especially not crystal clear glass.’

Ally frowns for a second, then nods. ‘Ooh, that’s what you meant! Yeah, I guess it would make sense for you not to know. The vials aren’t glass. Or I guess technically it is glass, but it is not permanent. There is a technical term, but everyone calls those things alchemist vials. They create the vials through a specialized mix of alchemy and summoning.’

‘They can summon The vials and they will vanish within the hour if not used. However, once an alchemical solution is stored in it, the vial will start to draw in world energy. If there isn’t enough world energy around, it will draw on the solution inside for power. Once all the power is gone, the vial will vanish like normal, leaving behind what might as well be dirty water. That or herbal tea I guess, depending on what kind of solution it was.’

‘If there is enough world energy, the vial will maintain itself. Even more world energy? We start getting into the fun stuff. At first it goes from just maintaining the vial to maintaining the solution as well. Shove even more world energy at it and the solution will actually be slowly improved.’

Doyle shifts his core to the side, ‘It sounds way too convenient. What’s the catch? You don’t get something that will miraculously improve a finished product.’

Ally laughs, ‘Well, you’ve thought more about it than most alchemists do. To be honest? I don’t know much about this. Though I know a couple things. First, these vials are provided by an association of alchemy gods. Second is that the improvement isn’t a miracle but rather a waste.’

‘The amount of world energy used to improve a potion would have been better spent on just making a better potion to begin with. To do that purposefully means the alchemist has hit some bottleneck or there isn’t a proficient enough alchemist nearby. Plus, the world energy needs to be dense enough or it doesn’t work. No matter how much world energy you shove at one of those vials, there is no place on this planet can improve the solution within. Give it a few years, though.’

Doyle sighs, ‘There are places out there that focus on mass producing the lowest quality of potions and letting them sit around for a while, aren’t there?’

Ally laughs, ‘You know it! Of course, even if the potions are raised to a certain level doesn’t mean they are just as good as a potion made at that quality. But sometimes quantity is a quality all its own. Plus, age can cause strange things to happen. People will pay absurd amounts of money for vials retrieved from ancient tombs. While the resulting solution might not do what it originally was meant to do, through strange aeons the possibility of miracles will grow. That or poison. Always test your ancient potions before drinking.’

Doyle bobs up and down, ‘Can I be affected by a potion? Like, I can’t drink them or anything.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Maybe, maybe not. Not sure about that because it isn’t like you consume stuff you breakdown in the dungeon. It might be possible if a potion got dumped over your core. Some beings which don’t have the ability to eat things have that backup. You can actually tell a potion made for such a race as it tends to be thicker so it doesn’t just run off before being absorbed.’

‘Of course, this doesn’t mean it would work for you. There are also races that potions don’t work on, even if they can drink them. Though let’s go back to watching the party. We’ve been waffling around for a little and the first kobold section was relatively close to the entrance.’

Doyle turns his full attention back to the party. He had been following them in the back of his head. Not that he had a choice on it. Part of being a dungeon is knowing where all invaders are at all times. Anyway, while Ally wasn’t wrong, the kobolds were close to the entrance. This however was only if they went the right direction.

They did though, and now they get to fight the kobolds again. Not the newly spawned group, one of the three surviving groups from yesterday. If Doyle didn’t reset the ore, including the ore they mined, this would have been a big harvest for them. Sadly, it is early in the day so there won’t be much ore to grab. The only luck they have is that this is the only tin vein today.

As the fight starts, the lessons learned from yesterday come into play right away. Zach focuses down the enemy mage, not letting it even start casting the spike spell. Then the Barrais come in and both attack the goatherd before it can give any orders. At this point, while the fight isn’t easy, it is clear the party will win.

At the end of the fight, Jeremy and Sarah have both been injured, mostly by the goats. However, the damage is minor at worst and Doctor is able to patch them up enough they the dive can continue. After that Zach gets quite excited at the ore and goes on about how bronze is such an important alloy.

Neither the rest of the party nor Doyle are interested in this though, so they all turn their attention elsewhere. Doyle in specific turns to Ally, ‘So those alchemist vials they tossed down earlier? There is still some potion in there and going by how the myconids were a complete non-challenge it must have worked. Will the residue be enough for my deconstruction skill to make something of it? Here is what is left.’ And he pops up six displays that are focused on the vials.

Ally scratches her head and turns to one of the displays. ‘Hmm, there might be a chance. Though I think you would need to gather the vials and combine the residue together before deconstructing it. However, I don’t think there is enough time if we wait for them to leave the floor.’

Doyle nods, ‘I was afraid of that. While I wouldn’t say I can see the energy escaping, I can see it. Odd non-human senses aside though, I have to ask. Can I use one of my monsters on my second floor to retrieve the vials? Really wish I could order the monsters on the same floor as adventurers. Be so much easier to have one of the kobolds in another group do a run around of the party.’

Ally laughs, ‘Just wait until your floors are bigger. Anyway, you can do that. You would have to give the monster all the orders before it gets onto the third floor. The only catch is the monster can’t enter the floor if doing so would put the point count above the max. And not the current point total, but rather the point total for the floor during the last point in time that the floor didn’t have invaders on it. So those now dead kobolds and goats still count towards the floors total.’

Doyle’s core dims down for a moment and checks on the third floor goat farm. ‘Okay, looks like I can manage it. While I don’t have enough room for a kobold, the goat farm isn’t full yet. That means I can afford to send down three goats to retrieve the vials. Two trips because I don’t trust them to handle more than one vial at a time. Though this makes me consider leaving some wiggle room in future floors.’

Doyle shifts his view to the goats right at the second floor’s exit and selects three of them. With great care, he gives some very exacting orders to them. The one important point he hammers home is no matter what they need to get back to the second floor if anything goes wrong.

Ally watches on with interest as the goats step through the portal. They walk with stiff steps towards the vials and each of them picks one up. Making certain to grab them by the side with their lips and tilting their heads so none of the contents left inside drips out.

As they make their way back to the portal Doyle turns towards the kobold mage on the second floor and gets him ready to receive them. Once the goats are through, the transfer goes without a hitch and Doyle sends them back on through to get the last three vials. This second trip works just as well, and all that is left is to combine the residue. Of course now that they are on a floor he can control, this isn’t a problem.

Akhier

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