After Jim’s group leaves the dungeon, it takes a hot minute before they realize there is more to their loot than originally thought. During their running fight with the wolves, the group had managed to kill 19 of them. From a certain perspective, they could be seen as unlucky. Despite every single one of the wolves having a chance to drop a potion, not a single one did. On the other hand, each wolf also had a chance to drop up to five herbs.

The herbs aren’t that important in and of themselves. Rather it is the quantity of herbs that the group got which mattered. Because of the disastrous run the day before, the floor was primed to start dropping them so the first few wolves all dropped at least one herb. After that though, because of how hard the group had to fight, they started dropping multiple herbs, and it didn’t take long for the total number of drops to hit a magical number before stalling out.

From the loot chest, Jim’s group got exactly 50 herbs. That and a box of preservation. In fact, they could have gotten more herbs if it wasn’t for the fact that all the energy had to go to creating the box.

At first no one realized what the box was and just figured it was an oddly convenient drop from the dungeon to hold all those herbs. It wasn’t until the herbs were removed from the box that they noticed something carved on the inside. At that point, they knew something was up.

Kelly does a quick scan of the box before sighing, “Well it’s magical. Give me a moment to identify what the box does. Also, separate out the herbs that were in the box. Who knows what it might have done to them.” Then she moves off to the side with the box to cast some observation spells.

Jeremy scratches his neck, “Well, I guess we have to be careful about everything that gets dropped in the dungeon. Though I doubt the box is harmful. Wouldn’t be too useful with how you can see the carvings.”

Jim shakes his head, “If the magic was harmful, all you would need to do is line the box with something. Though I’m siding with the box being part of the reward instead of a trap. Maybe if it was a randomly spawning treasure chest, I would be more leery. As it is, that came out of the floor’s reward chest. I might not know as much as Kelly or Ace about dungeons but I do know that you can generally trust those types of rewards. At least, as long as you didn’t break any of the floor’s rules.”

At this point, Ace walks over, “Looks like your group had a rough fight in there. Nice to see none of you are heavily injured though.”

Jim turns to Ace, “We did manage to escape without any serious wounds. Still, I suspect we are going to need a good bit of rest after being healed up. The wolves just didn’t seem to let up. We would kill one group and the next would be on their way. Though I suspect that has more to do with us advancing to meet them instead of staying in one place.”

Ace nods, “With our fight we didn’t hear anymore coming when we retreated so you’re probably right. Anyway, did the floor change? It is annoying enough already to have one random maze.”

Jim shakes his head, “We saw the same stuff you did. Though that wasn’t much of the floor so we still have to be cautious. The first area might just be a set piece. Besides that I noticed the floor was going at an upward slope. Not by much but enough so a fight like we had is all the more tiring.”

Ace frowns, “That means there might be multiple levels to it like on the third floor.”

Jim shrugs, “I’ve been paying attention to the layout of floors and I think the dungeon has more space to play with than traditional dungeons.”

Kellinger laughs, “And what do we know about traditional dungeons? This is only the second one we’ve been in and the first one we were only allowed to explore the first floor as part of the tutorial.”

Jim gestures at the dungeon entrance, “That isn’t a normal dungeon and I don’t need to have delved hundreds of them to know that. We’ve mostly pussy footed around the subject, but everything I was taught about dungeons says their entrance will be a part of some physical structure. Something like a tree or even if it is a gate, it will be contained with an arch or some such.”

“Just a free standing rip in space? Whatever type of dungeon this is, it is so rare the guides didn’t even feel the need to mention it, if they even knew this type existed. My guess is that unlike what we were told, the floors aren’t flat. This dungeon isn’t building floors in a building. Each new floor is a sphere of space.”

Kelly joins them at this point, having finished with the box. She doesn’t tell them the results right away, though. The current conversation is too interesting, and she has something to add. “Why would it have to be a sphere? I don’t know how things were in your tutorial dungeon but the floor my group was on had a ceiling so high it might as well not be mentioned in normal circumstances.”

Jim shakes his head, “Far as I can tell all the tutorials took place hundreds of floors deep. Even if the headspace only grew a little bit every floor it would add up. Plus, we don’t really know how dungeons work all that well. Maybe with normal dungeons they can choose to direct their growth horizontal or vertical.”

“The reason I say this dungeon is different is because the increase in floor size isn’t growing at the right speed. I’m a scout, a ranger, pathfinder. Whatever word you want to use to describe me, part of my job is going places others haven’t been and mapping it out. Not only does the dungeon have more rooms than there should be for the current floor, but I don’t think the dungeon is even using all the space available.”

Ace sighs, “Well that’s another thing for me to worry about. Anyway, we can’t do anything about it right now, or ever as far as I can tell. Just another thing to look out for on my already full list of potential nonsense. But that aside, it looks like Kelly has something to say. What have you found?”

Kelly smiles, “Some good news for us. This box is enchanted to help preserve whatever is inside. Well, not quite whatever. The enchantment does have limits on how powerful an item can be before it won’t work but the box should be fine for any mundane objects like food. I can’t be certain but it should work about as good as a refrigerator in keeping things fresh. You can leave a slab of raw meat in the box in the middle of summer and the meat will keep as long as in a fridge despite the fact it doesn’t have any insulation at all.”

As she finishes talking about it, everyone notices that Jeremy is mumbling to himself, so their attention turns to him. It takes him a moment but when he notices that everyone has turned their attention to him, he goes silent as well before fake coughing. “Ah, well, I thought of a thing. You say whatever is inside keeps just as well if the temperature is really high which is nice. Does the enchantment reverse that and keep the same amount when cold or if we had a fridge could we throw the box in and have stuff keep for even longer?”

Kelly frowns, “I’m uncertain. It isn’t like the system has made everything into a real game. While you can get status screens and such for yourself and items there is a lot that isn’t said. I’ve analyzed the carving and from what I can tell the enchantment works off of the natural energy in the air to make sure whatever is in the box will be protected from negative effects. If being colder would preserve whatever is in the box longer, I don’t see why the enchantment would mess with that.”

“Really though, the biggest problem is how simple this enchantment is. In fact, I suspect this isn’t really a full enchantment and rather a fragment of an enchantment. I’m not the most knowledgeable on these things but I feel that some of the rough spots in the design are actually connection points that should be hooked up to something else.”

Kellinger sighs, “And now the question is where the dungeon even got this enchantment. If it was a normal enchantment, I could accept that explanation. After all, the system seems to feed the dungeon new stuff so it can grow. A part of an enchantment? Why would the system give something like that! There isn’t any point to it when the system could just give a normal preservation enchantment. I’m sure they exist in many different forms.”

Kelly nods, “That is a good point. Though we might be missing something. Maybe the dungeon did get the full enchantment but can’t use it yet. Seeing as the design can work despite missing parts this might be the core section of the enchantment. While not quite what I would call modular, it could be seen as that by the dungeon. Plus, I don’t believe anyone on the planet right now has enchanted gear. Let alone someone in the area that would be capable of sneaking into the dungeon and yet die in the dungeon.”

Ace rubs the bridge of his nose and gestures for silences. “Okay, all this is nice and all. I’m sure we will spend many nights around the campfire chatting about it. I just have one final question before we should all get back to work. Is it safe for my group to do another dive today?”

Jim looks up at the sky, “Well, it is past midday and the way through the maze isn’t too long so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting out before night. Has Doctor given you all a clean bill of health to try again? Because that is about all I would quibble about right now.”

Ace nods, “While the injury was serious we got it healed soon enough that the trauma faded quickly. If we had to stick around in the dungeon for too much longer, then Jack would still be in bed. As it is though, he needed a good night’s sleep to be back in shape. Any advice on fighting the wolves? You did a good bit better than my team did.”

Jim scoffs, “As if that had anything to do with our actual ability. We just knew what to expect when you didn’t.”

Ace shrugs, “Doesn’t mean we can’t learn from you.”

Jim smiles, “You wanted to complete the floor first!” Then he laughs, “Not that I care about that. Anyway, my advice for your group is simple. Don’t hold back. That’s what we did and it might have worn us out quickly but it was very good for progressing our combat skills and surviving the floor in general. With how the wolves get back up you need to clear out the current batch of them before the next can get to you.”

Ace sighs through his teeth, “That is about what I expected. I should have been able to see that. Hell, I should have given a completely new floor the respect it deserves. The dungeon doesn’t have to advance its difficulty step by step. There can be bumps in the road.”

Jim pats him on the shoulder, “You’re doing fine. Nobody is perfect so don’t try to hold the world on your shoulders. In fact, don’t even try to hold this settlement on your shoulders either. Everyone is here to help. Now get in there and show those wolves why we won against them the first time round.”