Underworld - Sanctuary: A LitRPG Series, page 5
“Well, that’s not something you see every day, but I wouldn’t do that in here,” Khun scolded.
As soon as I realized he was watching I drew in the heat and had Skeletal Armor cover my hand.
Looking up, I saw him staring down his nose at me with his arms crossed. Since when did he have arms?
“Why’s that?” I replied.
“If you let loose lava in here it could cause a lot of damage. The cleanup would cost a lot of DP,” he insisted.
“I see.”
“I have to admit, I didn’t think you would last very long but rarely have I run across a Magma Mage. That bodes well for your survival.”
“Thanks…” I said, chuckling as I shook my head. You’re so encouraging. “I’m not actually a Magma Mage though. I use Blue Magic and Light Magic.”
He turned his head slightly as he studied me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Many Blue Mages have walked my halls. Never have I met one able to use Magma.”
“I got lucky in more ways than one, I guess. I ran across a Primordial Beast that let me live.” I stopped myself from giving him more detail about what I could do. We needed him, but that didn’t mean I trusted him.
He lowered his head, slowly, never taking his eyes off me.
“Elorion!” Russ bellowed as he entered the Master Chamber from The Bridge.
Happy for the interruption to the strange conversation, I turned to my solidly built friend. Instead of armor, his upper body was clothed in a thick cotton long-sleeved shirt. It must have been white originally, but now it was gray with patches of black soot.
I extended my hand and he took it, pulling me into a bear hug. After his transformation when he reached 1,000 Constitution, he was no longer the size of a bear, but stood at least six foot two and had what I guessed was a magically toughened body. It was obvious he had been increasing his Strength as well.
“How’s it going?” I inquired.
“Good. Good. Finishing up making everyone some practice armaments. Did you need anything?” he offered, looking me square in the eyes.
“Soon enough, I’m sure. But not at the moment. You better get some food. We have a meeting in the morning.”
“You mean in about an hour?” He snickered. “Yes, I remember. I’ll make sure Zorik prepares us some bacon. I’m sure we’re going to need appetizers.”
“Genius,” I proclaimed.
“I know, right?”
“Any luck with the dwarf?”
“Ujurak? Oh, he’s open as can be at the mention of coin. He’s not convinced we’re going to survive here long enough to justify setting up a long-term trade route, though. All he’s willing to deal with is what he has in his Inventory, but he’s not letting any of his food go, which is what we’re in the most need of.”
“Figures. Well, keep working on him. We might have to take care of the minotaurs before he takes us seriously.”
“That would probably do it. Although, I think he’s also scared to leave here by himself. When he does decide to deal with us, we’ll probably have to send some people with him.”
I threw up my hands in defeat.
Russ shrugged.
***
Richard stood beside Khun in the middle of the room wearing polished plate mail that fit him better than Russ’s old set. Shifting from foot to foot, he tapped his tasset on either thigh. I couldn’t tell if he was excited, nervous, or both. Since he was our communications guy and wasn’t shy about telling everyone how he used to be a streamer, I’d asked him to run the meeting. I wasn’t exactly fearful of public speaking, but I didn’t enjoy it either. I was happy to let him take the reins even if the final decision rested with me.
Everyone was already here, lining up on the side of the room with The Bridge to our rear, which gave us a clear view of Khun and the two stone panels that he manipulated like big screen televisions. Most of the others were dressed in comfortable clothing. After the immediate threat from Lady Contessa was dealt with, the Lich’s Magic Bag had been opened and inventoried. Everyone had grabbed comfortable garb to work in. What the Lich had provided us with were all plain black or white, but it beat wearing armor during downtimes.
Olivia was still in her tank top and skirt, but she had made sure Russ cleaned up, used Mage’s Deodorant and put on a new shirt. He stood at her side. Mel stood close by, also dressed for comfort, with Zorik beside him, who had been kind enough to fix us a plate of bacon and cheese squares.
Skyler hadn’t gone all comfy with his gear. He was still wearing his black and red streaked platemail.
Travis had changed into his tanned leather armor and stood as stoic as a statue. This whole werewolf thing was really bothering him. Before he would have been looking for a way to lighten the mood, or at least to liven up the place. I really hated that he was having to go through this.
Aeris flew in through the large doorway from the Living Quarters to join us. She touched down in front of me, placing a piece of paper in my hand.
I gave her a thankful wink.
She was still dressed in leather and I still hadn’t put on any real clothing, so I was covered in Skeletal Armor up to my neck.
“I believe that is the last person we’re waiting for?” Richard said, raising his voice over the chatter.
I nodded to him that it was.
“Very good!” he declared, bringing his steel plated hands together in a clap. It chimed throughout the chamber like someone had struck a gong. “Ladies and gentlemen! Mages and meatheads!”
“Hey!” Skyler objected.
“Don’t you like meat?” Richard probed.
“Yes…”
“There you go!” Leaning toward Skyler, Richard shielded his mouth as if to tell him a secret before saying loud enough for all of us to hear. “I love meat too, dude. I thought I’d give us bashers a new nickname because meat is awesome.”
There was a moment of hesitation from Skyler, but after a moment he stroked the stubble on his chin and admitted, “It works.”
Stepping back, with his fists in the air in victory, Richard mouthed the word, “Yes!” to himself before proceeding.
“This morning, at 7:04 am, we begin the first official meeting of the great council of Sanctuary!”
Aeris, standing in front of me, choked down a giggle. The others had mixed reactions of humor and annoyance.
“Before we get started, everyone please take a moment to look up,” he implored, directing our attention to the mural that had appeared when we took over the dungeon.
At the highest part of the dome etched in fine detail was a depiction of every one of us that had fled Mistress Nava and come here to find a place to call our own. Below us, beneath our feet, were the most powerful creatures we had fought and defeated in just as fine detail. It was a vicious contrast between us standing in victory and our enemies the moment before their death.
“Remember as you look upon your friends and yourself… that we… are… awesome!” Richard cried.
Anyone that had been annoyed a moment before joined the rest of us in laughter.
“He’s actually not bad,” I whispered to Aeris.
She turned back to give me a wink.
When the commotion had settled, Richard went straight into the business of the day. “We need to decide how to best prepare for the-bulls-that-walk-on-two-legs and the best place to use the bathroom. Elorion and Aeris have come up with a proposal and are awaiting your wisdom on the matters at hand.”
He directed their attention to me. I took back anything I had thought about him being good at this.
“Uh, yes,” I said, clearing my throat, then began laying out what we had discussed.
Aeris and I started by laying out the basics of how the dungeon worked, then followed up by answering a lot of questions. It was only after that, when everyone seemed to have grasped the basics, that we moved on to cost.
“There are a few things we need to decide before making any firm decisions,” I remarked as we switched gears.
I began by laying out the possibility of using Khun’s Dungeon Aura to attract mobs. As I expected, everyone started freaking out. I made sure they knew that in order to level up this ability it would cost 40,000 DP, 4/5ths of our total budget. It would also take 10 days for the DP to be restored.
“The reason it’ll be best to wait to level this ability is that there are some more pressing matters,” I insisted. “We need to decide what is the most important to us, but I think we all agree that plumbing is not something we can compromise on.”
Everyone agreed without question.
I continued, “There are two large bathrooms on the bottom floor of the Living District nearest to the kitchen we have begun using. Each of them would accommodate four people at a time, so I suggest we make one a men’s and one a women’s bathroom. They include sinks, but not toilet paper and towels. The problem is that they’ll cost 10,000 DP apiece and that is if we just have Khun fix the plumbing mechanisms. We’ll have to fix and clean them up as well. For him to do that for us would cost 20k each.”
“Are we seriously discussing plumbing in the Underworld?!” Russ called out.
Olivia smacked him on the arm, and he snorted in response.
“Yeah, isn’t there any magic for that?” Skyler complained.
“This is with using dungeon magic,” I reassured him. “Technically we could try to build our own plumbing, but that would probably take months.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for plumbing, but couldn’t we just throw our… waste into one of the pits in the Middle Perimeter?” Olivia challenged. “I’m more concerned with the minotaurs.”
Looking Olivia in the eye, I saw real concern. Her objection was understandable. “Great question. We’ll get to security in a moment. The good news is that we can take the same approach of just repairing enough to make things functional for the rest of our basic amenities. For the kitchen, we could have Khun just activate the mechanism for the sinks and the grill. For the bedrooms, we have him repair the bedding. It’ll take some work, but we can clean up the rest by hand.”
“How much will that all cost?” Olivia asked.
“35,000 DP to make this place functional to live in.”
“That doesn’t leave us much for defense.”
“No, but using it all for doors and traps would do little more than slow the enemy down.”
“What about summoning elementals?” Travis questioned. He was concerned enough that he had forgotten his own problem for the moment.
“The Lesser and Greater ones would be of little help if what Ujurak says about the minotaurs is true,” I admitted. “The Master level ones may be helpful, but we could only summon two of them. Then, if we continue to summon one every week, we have other issues like sanitation and morale to worry about. If we summon them first and wait to work on getting this place livable, it would be seven days before it would be fully functional. There would be a huge, filthy mess to clean up, or at the least, there would be a foul room no one would want to go into to. Honestly, it’s a gamble, but there is no evidence that they know where we are. If we make this place livable first, then every extra Dungeon Point can go into defense. Besides, there are other options besides elementals that might be better.”
“Better?”
“As in designing custom traps that could take advantage of our different talents. Room-sized furnaces, ice rooms with spiked walls… Wind tunnels?”
The room was suddenly silent as everyone considered the possibilities.
I took advantage of the silence. “I think we should make this place livable first, then summon one of the master elementals two days from now when we have the DP. After that, we can start repairing the doors that we think would be the most beneficial to our safety and a few traps. But most importantly, I think we should consider saving most of it after that and customize one of the closest rooms in the Outer Perimeter to make a kill box.”
For the amount of discussion that followed, there was really little objection to the idea.
“There is one final thing we need to discuss. Well, really two,” I said, bring everyone back around. “We have a big problem with our limited food supply. Zorik said we have maybe three weeks if we ration it.”
“Probably closer to two the way everyone eats,” Zorik spoke up for the first time to add.
That tempered everyone’s excitement. From their nods, there wasn’t anyone here that wasn’t aware of the situation.
“We also have another situation that’s just come up, but I think we can solve all of our problems with the same fix. Travis,” I said, stopping to give him a moment to ready himself for questions. When he nodded, I began to explain. “When in the Belly, Travis was bitten by a werewolf and infected. In 28 days, if he doesn’t find a cure, he’ll become one.”
I’d considered the room silent before, but this time to sounded as if everyone stopped breathing. “Lydia has found a cure in her alchemy books but needs certain ingredients that we don’t have. Zorik has informed me that there used to be a low-rank dungeon nearby that he believes the army of imps we faced in The Belly probably inhabits now. It is also rich in water mana, so it’s likely that a lot of plant life grows there. They also must have had some kind of food source to sustain that many mouths. We wiped out over a hundred of them recently…”
“So, we find this cure and get some grub at the same time!” Skyler declared. He gave me a sharp nod of encouragement.
I sighed.
Aeris elbowed me lightly in the ribs. She didn’t turn, but I could see her shoulders rising up and down as she tried to smother her laughter.
“No objections?” I asked.
“Well,” Olivia jumped in, not to disappoint. “I think it has to be done, but I want to hear your reasons why we shouldn’t wait to see if the minotaurs attack us first.”
She was being uncommonly reasonable. “As far as we know, it is most likely the case that Mistress Nava doesn’t know our exact location. If we leave now, we can travel there and get it done before they can find us. If we wait, it is more likely they’ll find us when we’re already running low on food and it's already too late for Travis. Like I said, it's a gamble, but I think it’s the best thing we can do with the information we have.”
“Who’s going to go?” Olivia asked with a smirk.
“Aeris, Travis and me,” I replied.
Multiple voices protested at once. I let the chaos continue for a few minutes as everyone tried to tell me why I was wrong and what they thought was a better idea. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I held up my hand and cleared my throat, waiting until I had everyone’s attention. “One of the biggest issues we have right now is time. No one else can keep up with the three of us. There are a few that come close, like Steve, but we need to have a few stealth users here to handle possible invisible mobs.
“Which also brings up the point that the three of us can move stealthier in a small group. As nice as it would be to have more firepower, we have already handled over one hundred imps at one time. I think we’ll be able to get there quickly and safely, and wipe them out with little trouble. Perhaps the most important thing is that you all know that the three of us have already fought together against impossible odds and survived.”
“When will you go?” Richard asked.
Putting her hand to my chest as I was about to respond, Aeris stepped forward and declared, “Tomorrow morning.”
Chaos erupted.
Chapter 5 – We Have Bathrooms
The toilet seats in the men’s and women’s restroom were not made of porcelain, but stone. It was smooth like polished granite and speckled with blue and green like all the rock in the surrounding area.
I watched closely with Mana Sight as Ice Mana crawled up the inside of the toilet bowl for the first time, covering it in blue power. We had just spent the 35,000 DP to fix up two of the Dungeon’s bathrooms, one of the larger kitchens, and the beds and bedding of twenty-one rooms.
When you entered the Living Quarters from the Master Chamber, on either side of the entrance stood the two largest kitchens. Beside them were walk-in freezers followed by smaller kitchens. The large kitchen to the immediate right was the one that Khun was activating along with its freezer. There was a large counter running the length of the whole kitchen separating it from the Dining Area. Large groups of people, or mobs, could line up there and receive food. The dining area was much different from the Mistress’s mess hall, which had been made up of long tables with benches. There were dozens of large round tables made of solid stone planted firmly in the ground. There were few chairs that hadn’t been turned to rubble, but the dining area extended the length of the entire kitchen area, so we eventually found enough chairs for the 21 of us, including Zorik. All told there were enough tables to sit at least a thousand people. It was like a large mall cafeteria. It left me wondering what creatures had lived here when the dining area was first constructed.
After the long strip of the dining area was a wide-open space that felt like an atrium because of the dungeon-produced light that shone down from the ceiling at least three stories overhead. There was enough room here for a small army to train. It was at least four football fields lined up end on end.
It was past the kitchens, the dining area and this wide-open space that you finally came to the sleeping chambers. Hall after hall was filled with nothing but bedrooms. Though no one had counted, we had chosen one hall on the bottom floor that was directly across from the entrance. It possessed exactly 24 rooms, so I assumed each hall had about the same number. Khun had said there were 2,000 rooms in total, and I believed him. We would eventually have bedding in 21 of the rooms restored, but not until after we had cleaned the place. Having a new mattress did no one good if it was covered in dust and cobwebs.
