Dungeon Tour Guide 1, page 19
part #1 of Dungeon Tour Guide Series
“Oh! Of course!” She used her interface, staring at a spot just above my head and fiddling with it.
After a moment, the [Spellblade] showed me the panel.
Honestly, I had to be impressed. It was a modified hack of the interface, yes, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell if not for the little “Alder Corporation” inscribed into a corner of it.
I peered closer, reading the text.
Ketz Dungeon (Currently Unnamed)
Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)
Ratings: 6
Clears: 3
Guild Recommended Party Level: 1-5
User Recommended Party Level: 1-10
Top Review
★★★★★ Helpful dungeonbound! Easy to survive From Kira Heartgiver [Life Cleric / Official Guild Investigators]
Recommended Party Level: 1-10
Reviewed at: END OF DUNGEON
Themed around snakes and earth constructs. Had solid loot for a low-level dungeon. The shining point, however, was the dungeonbound tour guide, who was able to adapt to a changing situation and deal with both our party and the dungeon, preventing any casualties. Highly recommend this dungeon to any low-level adventurers within a few days’ travel of the Ketz area.
On survivability: this one doesn’t need any pre-prep. Just go in. The tour guide will help you.
Top Critical Review
No review found.
“Interesting,” I said slowly. “I like the interface, but I’m not quite sure what to think about the stats I have. Are these… good?”
“Six perfect ratings for a dungeon as new as you are is a lot,” the [Spellblade] said. “Especially with only three clears, two of which were the same party.”
“I’m sensing a but there.”
“The larger ones do have quite a bit more,” she said. “Thousands of ratings and clears in the tens of thousands or even higher than that, with the most popular adventures reaching into the millions.”
Millions of clears… I couldn’t even imagine that many.
“And they get more attention through the ARI?”
“Indeed,” she said. “If I remember correctly, the interface also has areas to find new adventures where users can view the most popular ones—dungeons and adventures that have recently seen a sharp increase in activity. Those are called ‘Trending Delves’, I believe. Since most dungeons tend to have disproportionately better loot for early delvers, the ones on Trending tend to get a lot of attention.”
I don’t think I’m going to give out less loot as time goes on, I thought, but then again, I wasn’t most dungeons.
“And finally, there’s also an area where reviews from the most well-known adventurers—like the ones that cleared you—display, which will funnel much activity to you.”
“Woah, that’s a lot of information,” I said. “You seem to know an awful lot about it for someone who’s not in the Alder Corporation.”
“I did some reading into the matter because it’s relevant to which dungeons need more Guild presence,” Lisa admitted. “Most of the time, the ARI is used exclusively to promote dungeon communities that branches of the Alder Corporation build settlements around, though there are a few exceptions. Once you obtain a settlement—which you definitely will, if I know anything about the Alder Corporation—the best ways to grow are to make the ‘Trending’ list or receive reviews from those well-known in the adventuring spheres, which you’ve acquired.”
“How can I reach that list?” I asked.
“I’m not totally sure. The Alder Corporation representative I spoke with was a little cagey on the details, but I believe that just keeping up this quality of dungeon tour should be more than enough, especially with the investigative team’s reports. Most of the time, dungeons just get there naturally—again, it’s extremely rare to have dungeonbound or any form of intelligent dungeon, so intentionally getting on there is a bit of an unknown region.
“I do know that most of the dungeons that get popular on the ARI are ones that have consistently good survival rates and good rewards. To be honest, I don’t like the ARI that much. It’s such a whimsical interface, but at the core of it is a marketing ploy to enter more dungeons—dungeons that regularly get unprepared adventurers hurt or killed, mind—that the Alder Corporation builds communities near.”
“Thanks for the explanation,” I said. “I… guess I’ll try the ARI out, but that doesn’t sound like the best program. I think I’ll stick to what I know for now.”
“I agree with that,” Lisa said. “And you do know it very well. This tour has been extraordinarily entertaining so far.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Would you care to continue?”
“I’d love to,” she said, dismissing the interface window and hefting her blade. “I’m ready.”
“Here we go.” I stood as well, opening the door and leading her into the tunnel. “The next room is a bit of a change of pace from the rest, I have to say.”
“Is it now? I’ll be the judge of that.”
I opened the second door, revealing the stairs I’d built to get to the next room.
“Your change of pace is stairs? Very funny, Lucas.”
“We haven’t reached the next room yet,” I said, giving her an exaggerated roll of my eyes. “Come on.”
She followed, carefully positioning her blade behind her so she wouldn’t accidentally scratch the walls with it.
The staircase wasn’t terribly long, but it was long enough for us to ascend a full thirty feet—the design of this puzzle meant that it went directly above the boss room, which necessitated going up a fair bit.
There was yet another door when we got to the room, and when I closed it behind me, I sealed the exit behind a wall of rock. It would be a minor pain to get rid of it afterward, but that was the price I had to pay for a cool room. The stakes of this room were way lower if you could just run from it, and having a door kind of screwed with the symmetrical design.
“Ooh,” Lisa said, looking around. “I like the design of this. Magic cells in the ground, too?”
She was using [Detect Magic], I saw, which I hoped lower-level adventurers would figure out at some point.
Oh well. If they couldn’t understand exactly what to do, then that was what their tour guide was for, right?
The room itself was certainly a bit different from the previous ones. Its ground plan was circular, and it reached nearly twenty feet in height and just about twice that in length. Twelve runes softly glowing with various colors were inscribed into the ground, each of them corresponding with a type of magic, and carved lines ran from them into the main feature of this challenge.
At the center of the room was a massive goblet made of stone, ten feet wide and fifteen feet high. Convenient handholds bored into the side of it allowed people without movement abilities to scale it, which meant I had to climb up while Lisa used an [Agility Boost] to leap atop the thing.
The lip of the goblet was just about wide enough to stand on, and from that position, we stared down inside it. At its center, a second, smaller cylinder rose from the bottom, and water filled the entire area to a depth of about eight feet.
“At the bottom of this goblet,” I announced, “is an exit into the next room. In order to get there, though, you will have to figure out a way to remove this water. You could try diving inside, but…”
I gestured, pointing at the bottom of the goblet, and at the same moment, the snakes that I’d spawned there started swimming around the place.
“Ah, I see,” Lisa said, grinning. “It’s a puzzle, huh?”
“It is indeed,” I said. “And to make matters a little more interesting…”
The walls started rumbling, and I started liberally applying [Reshape] to the area, allowing the earth constructs to step out of their hidden chambers. I spawned eight of them to start, one in each cardinal direction and one per ordinal direction. Normally, I would start with something lower, but Lisa had already demonstrated the capacity to easily clear this many.
“Interesting,” she said.
“You may already know the solution if you’ve been adventuring for a while,” I said. “I believe it is a somewhat common puzzle.”
“A variant on one,” the [Spellblade] replied. “A well-done one, as well. Tell me—how would you plan on helping those who don’t understand the puzzle?”
“Why don’t you explain your deduction to me first?” I said. “Just to make sure you’re not trying to con the solution out of me.”
“Of course,” Lisa said. “From what I can see, the inscriptions each respond to a type of magic. When activated, they—one second.”
She jumped off the goblet’s lip and blurred into action, activating a [Haste] to add to her [Agility Boost].
One, two, three, four, five, six—six. It took her six seconds to slice through all of them, the [Enemy Attunement] making quick work of the earth constructs.
“Anyway,” she said, breathing a little harder as she rejoined me, “by activating the inscriptions, they increase the level of water in here. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that the cup is a greedy cup, one that starts to drain once it gets above a certain level, which would ultimately reveal the entrance below.”
I nodded. “Just about correct. The snakes will thin out in number and start dissipating as well, which leaves the path clear.”
“Just to be clear,” Lisa said, “I could have easily swum to the bottom without any of this. Many high-level adventurers could’ve.”
I shrugged at that. “Sure. And you can also blitz through the whole dungeon. But figuring it out is fun, right? Isn’t that part of the whole point of adventuring?”
Lisa laughed. “I like you, Lucas. Yes, you’re right.”
With that, she pointed her blade again and activated a [Flameburst] from it—a low-level spell that shot fire forth—and the water started rising upon triggering the correct rune.
“As for how I would explain it to new adventurers,” I said, breaking the silence while she worked at it. “I’d start by giving them the advice to use [Detect Magic], which most of them should have, and then I would slowly give more hints if they were still stuck. Since the number of constructs will increase over time if they’re not careful, I anticipate this one giving the lower levels a pretty good challenge.”
“A good design, I think,” Lisa said. “Perhaps make it clear that you need the correct type of magic to activate a rune. Lower-level [Detect Magic]s may not be able to detect the nuances of the situation.”
“Noted,” I replied. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Anytime,” she said. “Thanks for helping with the dungeon.”
“Of course,” I said. “One moment before we continue, though. You called this a greedy cup?”
That was pretty similar to what we called it back on Earth. I’d remembered the name as a Pythagorean cup, but it was pretty obviously not named that in a land where Pythagoras had never existed.
“It is indeed,” she said. “It’s impressive that the dungeon understood the mechanic. Also, you’re aware that there’s one more way to clear this room, right?”
“Water magic,” I said, nodding. “If they have a mage that can [Create Water], I’ll nudge them towards it.”
The way this worked was that the cylinder in the center was actually hollow. There was a small opening that let water enter it through the very bottom, and if the water level rose high enough, it would start draining out of a raised chamber in the middle, creating a siphon that would drain all the water from the bowl because of a pressure differential.
“I do love these kinds of rooms,” Lisa said. “May I progress to the last?”
“Of course,” I said.
This was the part where I would demonstrate the necessity of equipment—the trapdoor led into a thirty-foot fall, after all, and having rope on you meant that it would suck a lot less to make it down.
Lisa, of course, simply dropped down, not even grunting as she hit the ground. I followed a moment after, using magic to reinforce my body and prevent myself from breaking a leg.
The final boss was pretty much unchanged, and Lisa seemed to recognize that.
“Watch this,” she told me, and she cast her spell.
It took nearly ten full seconds for her to finish it, but when she was done, her blade had a [Deathblade] spell applied to it, and she had [Haste]d herself again along with granting herself [Truesight].
I didn’t even finish the introduction before it was over.
In a blink of an eye, she dashed forward and upwards, identifying the location of the pseudo-hydra even hidden in the dark folds of the ceiling, and she slashed with her greatsword. The [Deathblade] effect gave the cry of the blade an almost horrific quality—a keening that sounded vaguely like someone crying in pain—and then it was over, all four of the monster’s heads chopped off in one fell swoop.
“That was fun,” Lisa told me once she returned. She was breathing hard now, visibly tired from her efforts. “I have to do this again sometime.”
“Onto rewards we go, then?”
“One thing first,” she said. “I still need to give you the ARI, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “Take your time. We can go to rewards.”
“Let me do one thing first,” Lisa said, showing me her interface.
★★★★★ Lovely! From Lisa Seastrider [Spellblade / Ketz Guild]
Reviewed at: END OF DUNGEON
Recommended party level: 1-10
Excellent dungeon.
My thanks to the tour guide.
Risk-reward ratio is incredible.
Chapter 26
It ended up taking fifteen minutes to integrate the ARI into my interface. Before that, I’d tried to award her some loot from the final room—armor pieces with snake carvings in them and coins, mostly—but Lisa had refused to take most of it. After a bit of a back and forth, I’d at least managed to get her to take a few coins, but it was still a significantly lower reward than it should’ve been.
Afterwards, we’d gone to the safe room, and she’d given me the interface through some kind of upload/download process that neither she nor I completely understood.
All told, it’d been about an hour from Lisa’s arrival to her departure, but it had felt like shorter than that.
This adventuring guide gig really was fun.
“Well, I believe that I must return,” Lisa said, sheathing her sword with a sense of finality. “An issue has come up. It was truly a pleasure, Lucas. I hope to come here again.”
“Please do, and good luck with the issue,” I said. “Is it serious? If you need anything—money, resources, a good time—feel free to drop around.”
“It may be serious if left unattended,” she said, “and I appreciate the offer, thank you. I’ll be off now.”
“See you around,” I said, waving.
With yet another [Haste] layered over an [Agility Boost], she dashed off.
I shook my head with a smile. The interface wasn’t exactly perfect in terms of balancing, so silly interactions like [Haste] multiplying the [Agility Boost] multiplier to achieve insane amounts of speed were relatively commonplace. Something warmed my heart about those instances. Performing them myself was fun, but watching other people discover and implement them gave me a sense of pride and fulfillment for them.
Helping them into it heightened that feeling, and though I hadn’t been able to teach Lisa anything new, I was looking forward to the potential newbies I might be able to offer guidance to.
I thought back to the adventurers that I’d done my second and final dungeon with. We’d had a [Swordsman], a [Flame Knight], and a [Wizard] there, and it had been during our time together that we’d thought of using some spell combinations to increase our effectiveness in battle. A crucial part of the final bossfight in that dungeon had involved a [Haste] that had its effectiveness amplified through the [Swordsman]’s [Emboldening Bond], which had ultimately led to the [Flame Knight] dealing critical blows through her [Surging Strikes], the effects of which had been massively multiplied by the effects of both of those spells.
Reminiscing about the parties I’d been with before wasn’t exactly the best use of my time, but I let myself dwell on the past for a little longer.
I wondered where they were now. Had covering the detonating Dungeon Core with my body been enough to save their lives? I assumed so, or else the goddess likely wouldn’t have been so irritated with me.
What were they doing now? Living lives of their own, obviously, but what did that entail? Had K’lon the [Swordsman] grown more comfortable with his blade? Had the [Flame Knight] Ashley learned to become one with the fire that she wielded? Had Thorn, our party’s [Wizard], earned enough to get the education he desired?
I hoped I would get to meet them again one day, show them that I had lived and see what my ‘sacrifice’ had bought them.
One day, I imagined, I would think of M-1 the same way. I hoped that when they parted ways with me, they would do it with my lessons and their high spirits. Rose, Troy, and Ryan weren’t the people I’d spent the absolute most time with in this world, but they’d left some of the strongest impressions on me. I truly wished them nothing but the best.
As time passed and my thoughts drifted, I found myself opening the ARI.
I hadn’t wanted to bother with the interface too much, but I didn’t really feel like building the dungeon or reading right now, so taking a look at the rating system was pretty much the only thing I had left to kill time.
The ARI was remarkably well built, I had to admit once again. For being an external modification to the interface, it was really good at pretending to be part of the Will of the Goddess. If not for the fact that it was clearly marked with the Alder Corporation’s logos in places, I could’ve believed that the goddess had decided to implement some form of social media into her beloved interface.
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