Dungeon POV
They all managed to level up by the time they left my domain. Though none of them except Eric chose the upgrade path I would have expected. While I can't see exactly what they picked I was able to make a few guesses based on the last few encounters. Eric it seems is going for either a fighter or berserker type build. Probably fighter but it's too early to say for sure. Amy ironically enough seems to be going for a tank build. She picked up some kind of taunt skill. I'm not sure that's the wises choice given he lack of proper armor. I'm not her father though, besides it's not like I could communicate with them even if I wanted to.
The last two are the most interesting. Damien seems to be going for the healer roll. I thought for sure he'd end up being a fire mage or like a rogue or something. The true surprise however was sweet little old Rachel the smallest of the lot and apparently their new fire mage. Because of their new levels they were able to get way further than ever before. In fact they should have been the first to claim a chest. The problem is they kept picking the right, or wrong depending on your point of view, path causing them to miss not one but two chests. They desperately need some actual gear even if it is just level 1. Speaking of which upgrading one of the chests to a level 2 chest requires 100DP which is half as much as a second floor.
Fortunately I do have enough for exactly two mushroom nodes. According to the description I get DP for the mushrooms being harvested the same as if they killed a mob from the spawner. Just with node replacing the word spawner and harvest replacing the word kill in the calculations. I place one node near the entrance and one node near the first fork in the path. The idea being to attract more delvers by making some of the mushrooms easier to get to. I get the DP either way so if all they want is a few mushrooms that's fine by me. The reason I didn't do that with the chests is because that feels like something they should have to earn.
I avoid the poison mushrooms because I want delvers to explore, kill, and harvest. If I start poisoning them they might start staying away. On the flip side I'm still not adding iron or coal nodes because I don't want some corporation claiming me. Although from the sound of it humanity isn't doing to well so their may not be any corporations left. Although if anything from the old world survived it would be them.
Listening to delvers over the next week or so it seems like modern technology is beginning to fail. Hard to keep the lights on when there is a literal army of wild and aggressive animals between the workers and the power plants. Most small towns have been abandoned by the government forcing locals to either flee or try to survive on their own. It seems cold but from a tactical standpoint it makes since they would want to concentrate their strength on defending a few key areas with the highest population density. They're literally fighting against nature itself after all. Technically it's the system causing these changes but only a few have begun to accept the system much less embrace it.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Either way their level up must have lit a fire in them because they are back after less than two weeks this time. So far they are the only group who has delved more than twice. Watching them work their way through the mine I decide I may need to upgrade the spawner or add a new one. It's amazing what a level up can do when you have time to rest up afterwards. They slowly make their way past the tunnel that would have lead them to the first chest, ignoring the mushrooms completely. As they approach the second split in the path they decide to take the dead end path leading to the chest. I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice or if they genuinely forgot which way they went last time. Either way it doesn't really matter cause that chest has been cooking for a while now so it has a lot of good stuff in it.
The closer they get to the chest the more excited I get. I should get a lot of DP from them 'harvesting' the stuff in the chest. Not to mention the fact that they will be the first group to acquire proper gear. Eventually they make their way to the chest. To my surprise they don't immediately open it and grab the stuff inside. No, these idiots are debating if the chest belongs to anybody. It's enough to make me want to scream. At some point one of them decides they should carry the chest out of the cave. That's not going to work since the chest is literally fused to the stone under it. It is rather amusing watching them try however. Soon after that one of them gets the brilliant idea that if they can't carry the chest out they should at least take the items rather than let them sit here rotting away, reasoning that whoever left it probably did so before the world went crazy.
Opening the chest they find that it contains Leather armor, a tower shield, two swords, a magic staff, a hunting bow with 20 arrows, an iron helm, three minor health potions, and four copper coins. The leather armor is weak by system standards but stronger than the makeshift leather armor they have been wearing. The tower shield is made of wood far denser than any found on earth. At least it used to be denser than any wood found on earth, I'm guessing that it's not just the animals that are changing though. It's likely people just aren't paying attention to the plants. Moving on the swords are actually proper swords. To long to be short swords but not exactly long swords or great swords either. They both come with their own scabbard as well. As for the other Items in the chest they are kind of self explanatory.
I'm not sure what good the copper coins will do them but that seems to be a universal currency. As for the potions they seem unsure what to do with them. I can't really blame them, until a few minutes ago things like potions didn't exist as far as they knew. Not that any of them know that it's a minor health potion. They would need an identification skill to be able to identify something they have no prior knowledge of. How I know that is beyond me I just do. Just as surely as a know that copper coins are part of a universal currency. Watching them examine their loot is oddly satisfying. They seem surprised that everything is in such pristine condition.
They don't immediately equip the new gear, well aside from the swords. Instead they decide to carry the new gear out and sell it. Not what I would have hoped for but I already got the 20 DP from them taking it out of the chests so I'm happy. From their perspective they have no reason to believe that the gear is better than what they have. It is, but I have no way of telling them that. On the way back out however they get turned around and head down the side path they skipped earlier.
