Duncan presented David with the Technique stones he’d bought from the guild and noted that a few others would arrive shortly. “How much do I owe you for these?” asked David.

“Ten gold,” said Duncan. When David started to object, he continued, “Shut up. I need you not to die if a monster I’m fighting gives you a dirty look. I looted over a thousand gold this week. This isn’t charity, this is me investing in you so that you become more useful in our dungeon delves.”

David sighed, and said, “Thank you Duncan. I appreciate your kindness and will strive to be less fragile.”

“Good,” said Duncan. “This should help with that, too.” He pulled the fish scale armor out of storage. “Water affinity. Really sturdy, and the protection scales with your water affinity. So, for you, really sturdy. Got this off a big fancy fish man I killed in a dungeon.”

“Gods above, Duncan, this is amazing!” exclaimed David. “I’ve never seen the like!”

“Wear it on our dungeon runs, don’t show it off around the Academy. Keep it in your storage device. You don’t want some bastards deciding they can take it off you,” cautioned Duncan. “I spent a while from level twelve to about level seventy-five thinking every adventurer I met was going to try to kill me for my armor. In my defense, some of them did try.”

“That’s... sobering,” David said. “I’ll be careful and not show it off to anyone.”

“Good,” Duncan replied. “Because, seriously, that armor will make level eighty warriors jealous. Keep your other armor, too, and wear that for normal stuff. Only bring this out for dungeons when you’re with me. If someone kills you and takes your stuff, I’ll kill them, but that won’t bring you back.”

“And it just went from sobering to scary,” said David. “I’ll be careful, honest.”

“Okay. Use those Technique stones before our delve this week. The rest will hopefully be here before next week’s delve.”

Duncan passed the Technique stones he’d gotten for Cassandra and Amelia on to them, as well, with the same admonishment to use them before the dungeon delve and noted that it was possible some others would arrive the following week.

“Trying to get in my good books?” asked Amelia.

“Trying to bulk you up,” Duncan grinned. “Seriously, if you’re ever to do a non-sewer dungeon, or fight more of the undead, you’ll need to be a bit stronger. And I’m pulling an insane amount of loot out of my dungeon delves at the moment. Helping out feels good.”

“Well, thank you,” Amelia replied. “I’ll even forgive the bulking up comment, given how helpful you are.”

“What’s to forgive? Girls with muscles are sexy,” Duncan said.

Amelia rolled her eyes, though she did blush a little, too. Wisely, Duncan said nothing further.

Cassandra was easier to deal with. “Thank you, Duncan,” she said. “These will help with my plan to conquer the empire. Or to grow strong enough to wipe out the undead plaguing York.”

“How bad is it?” Duncan asked.

She frowned. “York is a bigger city than Lanport, and much older. Its graveyards and catacombs are extensive. About half the population died in the initial uprising, and parts of the city are still too dangerous to walk around in if you’re alive. We have more people over level one hundred than Lanport but it’s not helping much. The undead are bunkered down in some of the larger mausoleums and more defensible buildings they’ve captured. Mother writes that our specialist teams are running into fierce defenses when they attack the undead strongholds. Even the church warrriors are struggling.”

“How far away is York?”

“Hundreds of kilometers. If I were to take a ship here and sail around the peninsula to the West, it’d take about three weeks to reach Northport, and it’s a week’s ride from there to York. Before the undead uprising, it’d be about two months by carriage if I chose that route. Or a day by teleport network, if I wanted to spend the money.”

“How much does the teleport network cost?” asked Duncan. “How does it work?”

“About twenty-five gold from here to York. There’s a gate between here and the capital, and another between the capital and York. That’s the fastest route. There are gates to other cities from here, and lots of places have gates to York. But Harrish is the central hub – they have gates to every major city in the empire. I hear Merryfield has a lot of gates, as well, but I’ve never been there.”

“That seems pretty affordable, at least for adventurers,” Duncan said.

Cassandra shook her head. “You’re using yourself as a point of reference, and no one should do that. A typical level thirty adventurer earns maybe fifteen gold a year. A worker in Lanport earns maybe three gold a year. You can buy an inn in most towns for a hundred gold. York is a big Duchy, and my mother’s a wealthy woman. But I’m here for three years – I don’t go home during the year end break, because paying twenty-five gold each way for me is too expensive. I came here by boat, and I’ll go home the same way.”

Hmm, I wonder what makes teleportation gates so expensive, then, Duncan mused. I’ll have to go look at the gates here in Lanport someday. And if I can’t find a decent dungeon within flying distance of here, perhaps I can portal to a city that’s near a good dungeon and come back. If it costs me fifty gold for a round trip, I’ll still likely come out ahead if I clear a high-level dungeon.

The next delve into the training dungeon was interesting. David, Amelia and Cassandra all showed up with their new Techniques and their accompanying levels. Paul looked at them, a quizzical expression on his face. “Did you all gain a few levels this week?”

Amelia gave him a big grin. “Hard work pays off, cousin!”

Duncan said, “New Techniques. If there are Technique stones you want, I can get you a good discount on many of them. I find a lot of Technique stones when I delve alone.”

Paul nodded thoughtfully, “I’m getting good money out of these dungeon runs. Perhaps I should invest in a couple of new Techniques. I’ll have to think about what’s available to me.”

They entered the dungeon and began clearing monsters. David was thrilled to find that Water Walking let him stand on the surface of the sewer water instead of having to wade through it, though the mana cost at rank one had him using it only when there was no solid ground to walk on. He could only summon one drowning sphere at a time at rank one, but it served as both crowd control and damage over time. He had to hold concentration to keep it up, so he couldn’t use any other Technique while it was in effect, but that would come with time and rank.

Cassandra used her new Lightning Cage Technique to good effect, as well, trapping an extra rat in almost every room. They eventually broke through, but hurt themselves in doing so, and she was able to finish them off with wind blades or lightning bolts. Her lack of concurrent active Techniques prevented her from trapping one creature and attacking another, but she felt she was close to being able to use two concurrent Techniques and focused on trying that.

Amelia had no new active Techniques, so she was relegated to doing most of the work while David and Cassandra focused on their new control Techniques.

Duncan practiced his Regenerate Other Technique in combat, occasionally killing a creature without using any active Techniques whilst using Leech Mana to give himself an influx of mana. It was a small influx but definitely noticeable. His Blade Echo Technique cost twenty mana per use. If he managed to deal a thousand damage with it (viable against a poorly armored foe), he’d recover a fifth of that, even with the Technique at rank one. As he ranked it up, some of his cheaper Techniques would cost less mana than they returned through Leech Mana, though some monsters would be resistant to the drain, and some would be sturdy enough that he wouldn’t do enough damage to recover the cost completely. But under normal circumstances, he’d have more mana than before for healing and Mind Spikes, his two most expensive Techniques.

Everyone seemed pleased with their new Techniques, and there was much laughter and commentary on them. They’d been doing the dungeon often enough that it was familiar to them, and they weren’t as tense about it as they’d been at the start. Even Paul seemed to have fun with the new Techniques, despite not having any of his own.

The only scary moment came when they ran into a group of slime monsters that wouldn’t normally spawn in the dungeon. They rolled right through both Lightning Cage and Cage of Blades, and couldn’t be drowned, so they couldn’t be trapped, and Mind Spike had no effect whatsoever on them – they were completely mindless. Amelia was struck by a pseudopod from the first one that reached the group, and it turned out the slimes were both acidic and very strong. She was knocked flying even as her flesh dissolved.

Duncan Blinked to her and used Destrin’s Restoration to Regenerate Other, which cost him a significant portion of his mana. Amelia’s torso re-formed instantly, and she took a shuddering breath. Duncan cast a Bladestorm on the slimes and shouted at his group to take Amelia back to the cave entrance. With Leech Mana active, he Blinked to the first monster and struck it with his spirit sword, too scared to use a physical blade on the slime. In his off-hand he wielded his Blade of the Guardian for the first time in actual combat. It was supposed to irritate every hostile creature within twenty meters of him to the point they focused their ire on him instead of anyone else who might be nearby. These things are mindless or otherwise immune to Mind Spike, so I really hope this works.

Whether it was the sword’s effect or just the fact that no one else was in close proximity to them, the slimes focused all their attention on Duncan. He also swapped out his healing efficiency necklace for his acid damage reduction necklace, expecting half damage from acid to be more of a mana savings than twenty percent less mana per heal. Note to self, get resistance items in non-necklace form. That slot should really be reserved for the healing efficiency necklace. Or maybe I can get healing efficiency underwear or something. How many enchanted items can I use at once, anyway?

The slimes turned out to be a horrendous fight. He cast Bladestorm repeatedly, used Leech Mana constantly, and ended up having to stand on a rocky outcropping on the cave wall to attack the slimes through folds in space so as not to get his armor dissolved to nothing. It took him fifteen minutes to kill six slimes.

When the last slime fell, the rest of his party rejoined him. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It was too dangerous for you to help with those.”

“We were happy to leave them to you,” said Cassandra. “I’ve never seen anything as corrosive as that slime. Poor Amelia almost died from a single blow.”

“Ooh, good point!” Duncan used his Extract Resources Technique on the slimes and was rewarded with over a dozen vials of the acid. He looked up to find his friends staring at him incredulously. “What?”

“That was traumatizing, you insensitive asshole,” said Amelia. “I was traumatized. It ate through my armor, my flesh, and my bones. The pain… the smell!”

“Ah,” said Duncan, chastised. “Sorry. I find it helpful to meditate when I get home from harrowing dungeon delves. Think through what happened and what you learned from it, even if you only learned that you hate slimes. Although, I think you’ll find you learned a lot more than that.”

The rest of the dungeon went smoothly, and soon they were in the bath house, cleaning the residue from the sewer dungeon from their bodies.

“Duncan,” said Cassandra as she scrubbed at her hair, “what’s your end goal with this? You’re investing time, gold, and effort in helping us through the dungeon over and over again. What do you get out of it?”

“Yeah, we get dungeon experience, gold, and time under stress to help advance our Techniques, but other than a couple of rare monsters each week, there’s nothing here for you,” added Paul.

“This…” said Duncan, his gesture encompassing the group. “I get to enjoy a dungeon delve with a group. I can see you advancing, and it feels good to help. At the end of the school term, I’ll be leaving the empire, and while I might return in a few years, or decades, chances are none of you will ever see me again. I’m not going to show up in York and demand your firstborn child. I just want to have some fun times in a dungeon with people whose company I enjoy.”

“Now, if I can get you strong enough to delve a dungeon that doesn’t smell like shit, that’d be even better. But really, sitting around like this, after clearing out a dungeon together, it just feels good.” It makes me wish I had a team I could do challenging dungeons with, really. Maybe I could get these guys to level one hundred, but they don’t have strong enough affinities to keep up.

“That’s, well, that’s actually nice,” said Amelia. “It makes you seem more human.” The look she gave him made his heart speed up a bit, for some reason.

Cassandra noticed, “I don’t know about that finding another dungeon talk, though. We wouldn’t want to give up on these after delve baths in magically clean water surrounded by such fine adventurer bodies, eh, Amy?”

“Bah, we’d get plenty dirty and sweaty in a regular dungeon. Besides, after-delve baths are clearly a tradition, now,” Amelia replied. “I’m sure I’d enjoy the experience more without the lingering odor of the sewer… and without the smell of my dissolving flesh, either.” She shuddered violently at the memory.

“Seriously,” Duncan said, “meditate when you get back to the Academy.”

As usual, the run back to the Academy went smoothly, and Duncan spent some time in meditation. I hadn’t realized how much I enjoy delving with a group again until Cassandra brought it up. If I can find someone capable of keeping up with me, I will have to give it a try, at the very least. The delve was pretty ordinary other than the slimes, but the slimes were ridiculous. I’m really glad fold space gives me enough range to attack things like that in relative safety now. I’m also glad Regenerate Other synergizes so well with Destrin’s Restoration. There’s no way Paul could have healed her in time – that instant heal was pretty much all that saved her. I wonder if she knows how close she came to dying, and if that’s what affected her so much.