Lillian pulls up her phone and leads me through the city; crossing streets crowded with cars and people. We arrive at an abandoned looking building a few minutes later only to find two groups of armed men facing off against each other. One has the Arschloch Corporation logo on their armor; the other has Ludas Inc. logo.
I recognize Harold among the security team and walk up to him. He shakes my hand and explains that the Arschloch Corporation is trying to claim exclusive rights to the dungeon.
“Yeah, they pulled this on us too. Every time we tried to get into a decent dungeon, we’d find Arschloch waiting for us with their security team.”
Harold shakes his head, “Well, they’re not getting away with that tactic today.” He pulls out his cell phone and makes some calls. Within ten minutes, three dozen other security teams appear on site. They have the logos of four separate corporations.
There’s a tense moment when I’m sure that fighting is going to break out, but then a man in a suit appears and talks to the Arschloch security team. They reluctantly stand down and give access to the dungeon. I guess with the scrutiny from the Oversight Committee, the Arschloch corporation doesn’t want to appear like their impeding another System User. Though I’m sure, the show of force from the other corporations didn’t hurt either.
The dungeon itself isn’t that amazing. It’s a level 6 dungeon with a fantasy theme. The group from Ludas Inc. switches over from guns to bows and crossbows since the dungeon restricts the level of technology allowed. The big quest is to defeat the Evil One that lives on Mount Gloom and drop a magic toe ring into a volcano. From the description from the quest giver, we’re expected to travel through forests and plains and gather allies along the way to defeat the mighty army waiting for us before; we can get access to Mount Gloom. I roll my eyes at the dungeon’s Tolkien rip off.
While normally I’d follow all the questlines and kill every monster I came across, the team from Ludas Inc. has other ideas. One of their members pulls out a crystal ball to magically scout out the most efficient path to Mount Gloom. With the route established, another member of the security team casts another spell and horses appear for everyone. The horses must have some enchantment on them because we speed through the vast landscape. I’m a little concerned that we seem to be skipping all the parts in LOTR where a fellowship is gathered but we’re making really good time. We’re attacked several times by Goblins riding giant gerbils and a small army of orcs. We even fight a group of giant centipedes as we cross through a forest. I get some solid hits by using Fireball and Ice Needle, and everyone likes the debuff I lay on the enemy with that ability I got from Krampus, Naughty Children. However, what I can do is nothing compared to what the Ludas security team does. They wipe the floor with everyone they fight. Their bowmen rain magically enhanced arrows down on their enemies and their swordsmen slice through enemies with flaming swords. We’re moving at such a rapid pace that I don’t even have time to use Absorb on any of the monster corpses. We even capture giant flying condors and use them to avoid the armies waiting for us, and they drop us off right at the edge of Mount Gloom. While I’m exhausted; we reach Mount Gloom after only eight hours of travel and battle. I toss the toe ring into the volcano, and the dungeon disappears around us. It’s already nighttime in the city.
All told, I get 4832 XP from finishing the dungeon and killing the monsters inside. I think I could have gotten more XP if we’d taken the long way through the quest and followed all the sub quests, but Lillian points out that it would have taken at least a week to complete the dungeon that way. The security team takes off once the dungeon is done and Lillian and I head back to her place to get dinner. We find John entertaining my mom and Marie in the office.
Sitting around the dinner my mom made, we all talk about our days. Lillian and I talk about the dungeon. Marie and my mom talk about their exploration of the city in the morning and their concern when they came back and found they couldn’t get back in the office. John had to let them in and explain about the security measures in place to prevent unauthorized access. He also explained where Lillian and I had gone off to. My mom and Marie spent most of the day trying to be useful. My mom organized the office, and Marie read through the literature about the System. We all go to bed happy that everyone is safe and I’m making progress towards getting back to level 10.
The following weeks all follow a similar pattern to that first day. I still have a massive 33,568 XP to recover before I get back to level 10. That means I have to average over a thousand XP a day to get back to level 10. Every few days, Ludas Inc. escorts Lillian and me through a dungeon. Rarely are they able to find a high-level dungeon, but the few times they do, they’re a near confrontation with the Arschloch Corporation. At one point in the month, I even stop working with Lillian and John too. If we want to compete in the same brackets for the System Games, we need to be within three levels of each other. So, once Lillian and John hit level 13, they can’t work with me anymore.
Instead, I group up with security personnel from Ludas Inc. Most of the time they act as a backup on the dungeons, just to prevent me from being overwhelmed. They stay out of the way and let me kill everything, but the emphasis is definitely on clearing the dungeons as soon as possible. Sure, I would typically milk a high-level dungeon for a couple of days, but we just don’t have time. I have to get about 1100 XP a day if I’m going to make it back to level 10 by the end of the month. I almost have to clear a low-level dungeon a day to make it. But somehow, I do. By the last day of July, I finally hit level 10.
I realized while training that one of the things I kept running into as a limiter of my options was just how small my inventory is. I have 77 skill points saved up, and I decide to use some of them to increase my inventory. I also craft my own particular combat style. While power leveling, I had plenty of opportunities to nail down how I fight best. I found that I liked attacking at a distance and using traps to slow down and damage my opponent. However, my aim sucks. So instead of using a high precision weapon like a sniper rifle, my primary ranged weapon is a grenade launcher. It doesn’t do much damage on its own, but I have a variety of special ammunition that does damage and adds special effects or even sets traps. My backup melee weapon, should an enemy get close, is a hammer. It’s not the weapon I do the most damage with, but that’s why it’s the backup weapon.
Trap Making is the one I put the most skill points into since the higher the skill, the more trap recipes I have access to craft. Next is Explosives since it adds options to create mine type traps and explosive grenade ammo. Plus, the skill has the secondary effect of increasing the damage explosives do. Next is Ranged Combat, which increases the range and damage of my grenade launcher. Lastly comes expanding my inventory space. One downside of being dependent on crafted items is that they take up a lot of space. Even though the same types of items stack, I’m still using a wide variety of items.
While 77 skill points seem like a lot to spend, I have to remember that each level costs that many skill points to increase. So, to go from level 5 to 6 costs six skill points.
Trap Making level 5 to 10costs 40 skill points
-Access to level 10 Traps
Explosives level 3 to 5 costs 9 skill points
-Damage radius of explosives increases by 5 ft. Damage increased by 5%.