Ally shrugs, ‘Even with you weighing everything down with loot, that doesn’t mean equipment will rain down on the delvers. If anything, having so much loot spread around the drop rate is now slower than before. Though only for a little while. All that loot is competing for energy. Once they have filled up, the drop rate will increase.’

‘I don’t think they mind. None of them expect actual loot and are quite happy that everything drops money. Though speaking of everything dropping money, you made the rule a tad bit too broad. Coppers are dropping from the rabbits. Luckily, your rule doesn’t include ants and such as being able to drop stuff or it might have gotten a bit ridiculous. Not that I wouldn’t find it funny to watch a bunch of people digging up the dirt to kill bugs.’

‘At least someone finally got a horn drop from the rabbits. It was a big hit as well. These rabbits have been on the floor for quite a while now, so the horns have a decent chance of having a herbal effect. I almost feel bad for adventurers. After this bit of time they will assume rabbits drop herbal horns all the time.’

Doyle tilts back and sighs, ‘Well I guess it is good to know how broad the loot rules are. Anything else happening? It’s the next day after all, and it makes little sense for them to only be resource gathering. Even during normal times a group or two at least try for the second floor.’

Ally laughs, ‘That’s because the people from upriver are visiting.’

Normally Doyle’s core will shift around a little, even if not moving. Hearing that causes his core to freeze in place. ‘The what? When did they show up and why didn’t you interrupt me? This is kind of important.’

Ally nods, ‘I was going to but then it devolved into a standoff. That is why people are farming. The whole settlement has taken up position on the walls, with only a handful of people leaving at any point in time. But yeah, you could just look outside.’

Doyle shifts his view to outside of his dungeon and takes in the view. On top of the wall in front of everyone else stands Ace. Below and a good thirty meters away stands a group of forty people. While these new people have half again as many people as the settlement, neither side has any illusion of how much of a chance they stand.

Ace and the rest of the settlement members are all armored in matching wooden armor, except for Jack’s bronze greaves and Sammy’s iron gauntlets. The new people on the other hand seem lucky to own armor in the first place. Not one of them is fully armored up, and most of the armor they have is pre-system stuff.

Doyle settles in to watch the situation develop. While nothing is happening right now, this interaction could have major consequences for his development in the near future.

Time passes and a few hours past noon a small boat can be seen speeding down the river. While out of Doyle’s territory, just the speed alone is enough to tell him that some kind of magic or skill is in use. Even without a motor, the boat is kicking up a rooster tail as the tiny craft approaches.

The boat parks next to a large barge, the vehicle Doyle assumes the new group had arrived on. A young girl hops off her boat as it comes to a halt and rushes over to the person Doyle had assumed was in charge. The lady wearing the most complete set of post-system armor of her group grabs a piece of paper from the girl and reads what it says. Doyle strains to get a look at the note, but the lady keeps it covered so no matter the angle, no one else can read it.

She crumples up the note and sighs before turning back to Ace. “So as you probably guessed after we convinced the idiots to retell their story, we confirmed yours. I won’t say I’m sorry for doubting you, but I would like to move forward with a better relationship. Though I have to ask what happened to everyone.”

“While we have confirmed that you had liberated the two towns from thugs, there should be a few hundred people. You have an order of magnitude fewer people here. And don’t say they are hiding inside, we’ve been observing your place for a couple days.”

Ace stands firm with his arms crossed, “Most of our population has left for their own safety. There was a large pack of mutated wolves attacking our location. Those of us you see here are the ones willing to face said pack to protect our new home. You should already know about the dungeon? Well, we believe the potential of it outweighed the danger. While it is young, it has provided for us.”

“If you want to wait for maybe a week, the others should be coming back. But you won’t get a better deal talking to them. Those of us who remain here have claimed this place as our own, even above the others. We raised these walls. We protected the land. We have explored the dungeon. We won’t turn others away, but this will be our settlement.”

The lady takes a step forward, “Will you be letting others dive the dungeon?”

Ace nods, “We won’t monopolize the dungeon. Though we will keep control over how people enter it. Because of the wolves, we have set up a dome around the dungeon gate. After all, maybe the next horde of monsters that come along might be birds or some other type of flier. Besides that, while we don’t know if monsters will come out of the dungeon, we figure keeping the area clear is safer for that as well.”

“Every person who enters will need to register before entering. Besides that, we don’t have many other rules outside of not dawdling while in the dungeon. Though that may change. If too many visitors dive the dungeon, we may start giving preference to our own people or requesting a portion of a team’s take of meat and money. After all, we depend on it for a large part of our protein at the moment.”

The lady frowns, “You would charge us for what we have fought for?”

Ace glares down at her, “Of course we would. The dungeon isn’t big enough yet for multiple parties to dive at one time. To be honest? Since you brought this up, I’m going to limit outsiders who want to enter. Every other party will be someone from the settlement. Not only is the dungeon a source of food, it is also a source of power. We need to protect ourselves. After all, you would have attacked us as soon as you arrived if we hadn’t set up a proper defense.”

The lady scoffs, “We could have taken you! I just don’t want to lose anyone.”

Ace just shakes his head, “Everyone here has more stats breaking twenty than not. Do you still want to claim you could take us? Look at the scratches on my armor. Notice how clean the cuts are? These are marks from battling the wind wolves that were a part of the wolf pack that attacked us. Besides that, there were stone wolves, dire wolves, and even a lesser shadow wolf! A pack of mutated wolves nearly a hundred strong attacked us, and you think the forty of you could have done what they couldn’t?”

The lady crosses her arms, “It isn’t just us! Our town has thousands of people in it. You take us out and no matter how good you guys are, you’re doomed.”

Ace rolls his eyes, “The world’s a different place now. How many of those thousand people have killed a monster? Hell, how many of them even own a single piece of armor? Numbers mean just as much here as they did charging against a machine gun nest in the world wars.”

“Stop posturing. We’ve already agreed to let people use the dungeon. We are even okay with others settling here. All we care about is that we stay in control because it was us that put our lives on the line.”

The lady points at him, “You think that just because you are stronger that will always be the case? We could just retreat and come back once we have the power to defeat you all. I bet it wouldn’t even take a year to build up a force like yours, but with ten times the number of people. My town wants to take control of the dungeon to provide food for our growing numbers.”

Ace laughs, “You think you’re going to grow a force that can compare to us without a dungeon?”

The lady snorts, “And who says we don’t have a dungeon?”

Ace shakes his head, “If you had a dungeon already, you wouldn’t be so weak. If you had a dungeon already, you wouldn’t be so forceful in trying to take ours. You want to take a year to build a force to take us? That just means we have a year to grow even faster than you ever could, let alone if you want to make a bigger force.”

“You want food? Dive for food. We can take coins instead of food. You want our dungeon? All you will get is death. Though I guess that would help with your food issue. Fewer mouths to feed.”

The lady huffs, “We just want to control the dungeon. This isn’t some matter of life and death. Can’t you be civilized?”

Jim laughs at this. “You think he isn’t trying to keep things civilized? Fighting over land and resources is one hallmark of civilization. Plus, while our leader there doesn’t want to drag this out in the open, you don’t have the power to decide on if you’re going to fight us! Otherwise we wouldn’t have had to wait around so much. Sure, you needed to get news back and forth about the thugs. But the first message you sent back was asking about what to do.”

“I wouldn’t want to be controlled by your group if this is how you are treating the world. How dare you be out of communication range and not have control over the situation. You should be given the power to make decisions while out in the wilderness.”

Ace coughs, “While a little blunt, I have to agree with him. What in the world are you doing out here without the ability to make decisions? Take your crew and go back to your town. Next time you come back, maybe consider bringing someone that can bargain with us.”

The lady crosses her arms, “I can make decisions!”

The girl that had delivered the message scoffs, “Are you sure you don’t need to ask Ben if you’re allowed to say that?”

The lady turns with a stomp, “And you can shut up!”

The girl rolls her eyes, “Okay everybody, pack up! We’re heading home. I was permitted to read the message I delivered for just this type of circumstance. If things get to this stage, we are supposed to go back to town so we can decide what needs done.”

As the rest of the group relaxes and packs up the lady sputters. With a sigh, the girl just shakes her head, “You’re in charge because of your pre-system relationship with Ben. He understands what you are like yet still lets you come out here because it wasn’t expected that we would find a situation like this. Even if they weren’t a haven of thieves and criminals, it was thought they would be at the same level of strength as us except with fewer people. Lets just leave so we can figure out how to deal with this.”

Soon enough the group of forty have loaded up on their barge as the small boat speeds off ahead of them. Back on the wall, Ace shakes his head and turns to the others. “Well, at least we know who is in charge of the town and that they should be quite close to us. Not too close, though. I’m going to guess the system probably placed us with enough space for a couple of small villages between the starting areas. So say about an 18 hour walk?”

Doctor nods, “With boats they can probably make that trip in a few hours if they aren’t pushing it with skills. I almost wish Jan would come back now. While we are strong, people still look to numbers to determine the power of a force.”

Everyone else sighs at this, but no one disagrees.

Akhier

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