Doyle watches as Ace and his team make it down to the fourth floor and do just about as well as Jim’s team. Though they do end up less lucky on their drops, only getting around 30 herbs. The biggest difference is that they manage to break the constant flow of support about halfway through. Still though, after finishing the stone wolf their team is worn out.

Having seen this happen twice Doyle can only shake his core. Apparently he has been going too easy on them. In theory, the fourth floor isn’t too much of a difficulty spike compared to the third. The only problem is that it forces a team to actually take every fight seriously because of the threat of the enemies getting backup. You know, like there would be out in the real world.

Not that Doyle plans to do anything with this information. His early floors are easy. Even the third floor has its difficulty coming from randomness rather than any actual challenge.

‘If anything, they should thank me for the fourth floor’s challenge. I hadn’t meant for it but the floor does a decent job introducing the idea that you’re fighting the floor and not just the current room. The boss floor is a lot more brutal as there are less restrictions on who can be called in for backup. Sure, the boss isn’t exactly going to mess with people around the edges, but if you’re blundering around in the town area there is nothing stopping her.’

Satisfied with how things are going, he takes a quick look at his progress towards his next floor. That turns out to be more good news for him. The fourth floor’s challenge is really wringing the energy out of the delvers. From basically zero the stored energy has just hit 1210 in total. Over a sixth of the way there.

But with how fast the energy is rolling in that does bring up the question of what he will do for the next floor. Since the boss is a checkpoint in the dungeon, he can consider delving into the strange a bit more. And with that in mind Doyle turns towards gravity. Still too early to change the intensity but direction? That would be fine.

The only question is how. Doyle already has some idea, but he wants to be careful. It would probably be really easy for him to just pick up a new skill devoted to manipulating gravity. That would be fun but overall a waste of a skill. Either his territory control or dungeon rules skill should be able to manage it. With that in mind Doyle starts to play around with the two skills and lets the world pass him by.

Outside, time passes by just as quickly for the settlement. After Ace had found out their weakness because of the fourth floor, he implemented a new system for delving. No more first floor quickies. Everyone still in the settlement can manage it without breaking a sweat, anyway. Now every dive’s goal is to fight at least one of the mining groups on the third floor. Not for the experience, but to grab as much ore as possible.

To facilitate this, Ace does three things. The first is to have one of the Barrais do a quick stealth run at the beginning of the day to map out the third floor. The second is to reveal the existence of the bag of holding and make it so every group going in gets it for their run so they can get out with as much loot as possible. Though any group who wants to challenge the fourth floor isn’t allowed to bring it along as they only have one at the moment.

Despite this, a good portion of the settlement still wants to give it a try. And they will get that chance because the third thing Ace does is set in place a new rule. Barring special circumstances, everyone has to delve at least once every other day. No exception. Everyone still in the settlement was strong enough to fight the wolves so as far as Ace is concerned the first few floors isn’t too much to ask.

In fact, the only person for whom time drags is Ally. Doyle hasn’t taken away her screens so she can still peek in on what is happening but she has pushed all the windows into a corner. Some might see this as remorse for some of what she had done but Ally wouldn’t even try to claim that. She pushed them to the side purely because she didn’t want to see them anymore. Though some of the more astute might follow up by asking why she didn’t want to look, but it’s just her and Doyle.

There is one screen still nearby though not one of Doyle’s. Rather, she has her magitech phone open and on the edge of her bed. Though she has her back turned to it. Ally feels the need to call her mom but is currently too embarrassed to do so. Not only that, though, it is also the point at which she is beginning to admit guilt. After all, how can she call her mom to complain when her skills and paths haven’t grown yet Doyle is off getting so many amazing things.

Until now she had been getting a vicarious buzz off of seeing him advance. Now all that advancement is like a weight pulling her down. Worse yet is when she checked her status because there was a new path for her. A branch of her class path even. Problem is the name of it. Her current class path is True Dungeon Companion while the new path is called False Dungeon Companion.

If there is one thing to really nail home the fact you aren’t doing fine, it is when the system calls you out on it. While there are uncountable numbers of paths out there, the system has been designed to make it extra hard to pop negative paths. Not evil paths, mind you. Picking up a pick pocketing path is just as easy as actually doing the task a few times successfully. Rather, it is hard to get paths like depressed, false, and traitor.

The system doesn’t judge evil but rather what is damaging for the person. Someone who is depressed is suffering and seeing it in their paths will just drag them deeper. A person who knows they are bad at their job isn’t false. Even a traitor will tend to have some actual allegiance they uphold over whatever they are turning against, even if that thing is money.

The fact a false path has popped up for Ally is actually a good thing though she doesn’t know it. To gain a false path you have to admit what you’ve been doing is wrong and have the chance to change. Some may fall into the falsehood. Ally being remorseful shows a chance to grow. She has already taken the first step and now she just has to continue down her path. And call her mom. Not everyone has an understanding parent or friend to talk to but she does.

Still, even for Ally time passes. The settlement is delving deeper, Doyle is planning bigger, and of course something has to come along and interrupt it all. Though it was expected so they can’t say much. Down the river floats a boat. Not like the previous boats that had been clearly pre-system. Rather, it was more of a raft being guided along by a guy with a long pole.

Besides the guy with the pole there are only ten other people on it, though that might be more of a limit to the boat itself than how many might have wanted to come down this way. Since they weren’t exactly stealthy, the settlement had seen them coming a way off and so had time to decide what to do about it.

The original plan was to have everyone ready in case they meant trouble. Then as the raft got closer and people got a better look that idea was thrown out. The raft was shoddy and the people riding it were all wearing pre-system gear that even in the past would have been considered low quality.

Of course Ace, Jim and the Barrais would stick around to meet them but overall the settlement’s first opinion of these visitors was outcasts, hoping for a miracle to happen. If it wasn’t for the fact that the person guiding the raft was one of the people who had bargained with the settlement, Ace would have suspected that the group either snuck over or were from a different place all together.

Soon enough the raft docks and the person in charge of the boat leads the others over to the opening in the wall. When he meets Ace and the other three founders he nods to them, “Well, these are the first idiots who want to try their hand at delving the dungeon. I’ve got more waiting for me back at our city so I’m going to leave them to you.”

And the guy turns a smidge to give the ten people he had brought a glare, “And if they cause any trouble, feel free to beat them up a bit. Though of course we would prefer to have them not die by your hands. I didn’t want to bring them first, but they caused enough trouble on our end that someone had the bright idea of making it your problem. From what I’ve seen of your settlement though that problem would be short-lived if they tried anything.”

Ace sighs, “Well, thank you for the warning. Since it is still early, are you going to pick them up later today or are they staying the night? We have built some extra living space but would have to do a little finishing up on it.”

The guy runs his hand through his beard, “Well, that depends entirely on them. Somehow they convinced enough people, probably being obnoxious, that they should get three days here. So in theory they could be doing a bit of a sleepover. But just like with a kids sleepover, if they get too rowdy and don’t follow the rules I get to be their parental figure and bring them home early. Basically my schedule is going to be to show up around now and later in the day so I have enough time to get home before night.”

Ace nods, “Fair enough, though I do have to ask who thought it was a good idea to allow troublemakers to be the people who make the first impression on us.”

The guy shrugs, “Welcome to being ruled by a council. We might have our leader who makes sure things are running smoothly but democracy didn’t die with the system’s arrival. Sadly I suspect we ended up with one of its more problematic variants. Despite how much he tried to get everyone to agree on one of the good groups, these chucklemucks are the only ones everyone could settle on. And that’s only because they all had people pushing them to do something about the group. Anyway, I should be heading off before they start wondering where I am back at town. They aren’t quite timing me but they are making sure nothing happens to me on the trip.”

Ace waves him off, “Even if you are dropping off some trouble makers we aren’t going to hold you back. We made a deal and plan to stick to it. Though depending on how they pan out, there might be some angry people here if you don’t show up tonight and we need to offload these people.”

The guy rolls his eyes, “I don’t blame you. Anyway, good luck and I hope you the best. I know some of the people back at town are leery of you guys but I just think it’s good to know others survived this nonsense. I know the system and guides said we would get spread out but seeing it with my own eyes is better.”

Akhier

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