Jessica raises an eyebrow, “So you aren’t planning on building houses out there normally?”

Ace shakes his head, “We do plan to require a certain level of quality for any building within our walls. Besides that though we plan to leave it up to the person who wants to build the house in the first place. I don’t know if you learned about our situation but we should have a large group of people who were originally living here with us but abandoned the place when they found out that wolves were coming.”

“They should be coming back soon enough. While as a whole our settlement is willing to take them back in, we aren’t going to hand them the fruit of our labors for nothing. If they want houses like what we have, they will have to pay for it in some way.”

Jessica frowns at this, “And so we don’t have to pay?”

Susan shakes her head, “Nope, you are going to be paying for it if you stay. You in particular will be more than worth building a house for. We sort of don’t have anyone with an actual cooking skill. Our food isn’t bad but you can make it more bearable, as well as adding some more flavor variety. The dungeon happens to have a number of herbs in it so you wouldn’t be working with nothing.”

Ace nods, “We have less than thirty people at the moment. There was no way that we were going to have all the needed skills among us. Though of course we don’t need the skills as our current ability to cook food shows. However, people with skills will not only improve the quality but the quantity as well. I bet you alone can cook all the food we need instead of the three or so people focused on it every night. So I guess the question is, do you want to stay knowing that you will be working hard and using your skills every day?”

The four ladies glance at each other before Jessica answers, “I guess once we know if the others lived or not we will have the answer.”

Ace shakes his head, “No, it doesn’t matter if those fools are alive or dead. Do you want to stay? Yes or No. If not, you’re going out on the boat tonight. If yes, it doesn’t matter if they live. You four can stay because you aren’t slaves. In fact, now is the best time to make the decision. I fear that if they do get out of the dungeon, you won’t have much of a will of your own at that point. Tell us you want to stay and you won’t have to see them again. It might cause troubles for us but we’ve had our fair share of horrible people letting the power go to their heads.”

The four stand there in silence, not really sure what to do. The subtle mind screw effect has been released by now but they had been under the idiots control since before the system. Ace is willing to give them the time to decide and so stays silent as well.

Susan, on the other hand is not quite so patient so when it seems this will drag on for a while she bonks the four lightly. “I don’t have all day. You four seem like nice people, if a little weak willed. If anything, at least while you are here they won’t be able to get you. Just think about it, if the town you came from could have taken over the dungeon would they have made a deal with us? Sure, everyone wants to be peaceful but that wouldn’t stop them from deciding they control the area.”

This knocks them out of their indecision and one by one they all answer that why yes, they would like to stay. Ace nods at this, “It’s decided! Susan, you already know them a bit so you should know where they would fit in. Go and get them settled and what not.”

Susan shakes her head, “Not tonight. I’m going to bring them to one of the four man tents and set them up for an overnight stay. No matter how much of a safe bet it is that those fools will die in the dungeon, I don’t want to take a single chance one of them makes it out and uses something to change their minds. By tomorrow I would say it is safe to assume everything is fine but until then I’m keeping them under wraps.”

Ace sighs, “Well, you aren’t wrong about that. I wish there was some way to keep track of if someone was still alive in the dungeon or not. Would make it a lot easier in the coming days to know when to send the next group in.”

Susan shrugs, “With the instances we can safely have a couple groups running the dungeon at once. Though I guess we should get everyone together and try to test it out. With the 27 of us we will be able to figure out what happens when there are too many people and so on.”

Ace nods, “Good point, though we should keep one person behind just in case. Now go get them settled.”

Susan shrugs again and leads the four ladies out, leaving Ace to himself again. Not for long though, as he calls for Kelly. This isn’t too hard, as ever, since she found out about the instances she has been casting spell after spell at the dungeon entrance.

Once she shows up, Ace sighs, “So, have you figured anything more out? At the moment our best plan is to gather everyone and all try to enter the dungeon.”

Kelly rolls her eyes, “As if I could get results for something like this so quickly. I would need more people than we have to really test out some of the things and we don’t exactly have more people popping out of the ground or some such.”

“Anyway, my analysis is that the dungeons theme is related to spatial laws in some way and that there should be a boss floor. Other types of dungeons would normally take much longer to gain instances. On the other hand, that also means there aren’t too many instances yet. My advice is that if you can get us all together for a quick delve, that would answer a lot of questions.”

Ace sighs, “I’ve already got that planned for after tonight’s boat leaves. Though we picked up four lost little sheep to take care of so someone will have to stay behind. Luckily at least one of them has a useful skill and will be able to cook for us so it is worth the trade off. Do you have anything more you want to do right now with just a handful of people? Because that is all I can spare you.”

Kelly nods, “I understand that you want to know if those guys from the town up the river are still alive? I can’t tell you that exactly but if I’m guessing right I can at least figure out if they are on the first floor or not with four other people.”

Ace shrugs, “Sounds like a plan. I don’t have much else at the moment as it isn’t like the coin count is going to change right now. Let’s go grab a few other people and see if your idea works.”

Kelly nods and the two of them head out to grab more people. Once there are enough, she instructs them to enter the dungeon one at a time and go to check if there are goats in the second room or not. All five of them enter and after a quick check they confirm there are in fact goats in the second room.

Ace sends the other three off before turning to Kelly, “So, what does that prove?”

Kelly smiles, “It proves that they aren’t on the first floor. If they could make it to the second floor, then that is a possibility but they can not be on the first one. Sadly, I don’t have enough people to test some of the add on questions from this but that can wait till later. For now though let me explain.”

“There is one important feature of a dungeon, they can’t restock a floor if someone is on it. Since all five of us were able to enter our own instance and each of those instances had a full complement of goats, any that got killed must have respawned. Also, while I can’t be certain yet I have to assume if an instance has six people in it already the dungeon would not have sent someone to that instance until the others are full as well. As we did all get our own instances that points towards either the group not being on the floor or having lost at least one person.”

Ace frowns, “Close but you missed one thing. I highly doubt it, but if they managed to get through the room killing none of the goats, we wouldn’t be able to tell. To be sure we would have to kill at least one of those goats and then exit and re-enter. At that point if the rooms have respawned we can be mostly certain.”

Kelly nods, “Fair enough. Though honestly, if they can get through the first room without killing the goats, they likely won’t have a problem getting to the second floor. I do however have a way to check going forward though. Of course it requires the ones who are going to need the assistance of those who are delving. All we have to do is have them put a chalk mark on the left side of the entrance portal. That way once the floor is clear the dungeon will remove the chalk mark for us.”

Ace sighs, “Of course that does require them to remember to do that in the first place and you just know that whether through forgetfulness or malice people will either not place a mark or put it somewhere else. It would be much better if we could have some kind of linked tag that would let us keep track of them or at least see if they are alive.”

Kelly shrugs, “Once you have someone able to turn out masterworks on the cheap we can consider something like that. Everything revolves around masterwork quality results. Even alchemy does after a certain point. Sure, to start you’re using the plants’ own magical effects and so don’t need to. At the high levels though? Sure, there are plants that will restore someone from ash but you wouldn’t need to turn that into a potion. No, at that level you need a masterwork to pour more magic into the potion.”

Ace nods, “A man can dream. Though I figure if you do it right, you would only need one part to be a masterwork. It’s like a ticket dispenser for a subway. The ticket itself is just a piece of paper. Maybe if we figure out the right enchantments, we can make a similar sort of thing. If the base station was able to attune itself to a piece of wood and detect when the wood stopped existing we could mimic the idea. It would still depend on the delver keeping the tag on them though.”

Kelly shakes her head, “A good idea but it won’t work. Any one piece of wood isn’t going to be unique enough to latch onto like that. Maybe if instead of just sending the whole piece of wood in the machine snapped off a piece to keep track of the other half, it might work. Sadly though you would need each new tag to be from a different tree. Otherwise not only would it detect the piece in the dungeon but every other bit of the tree that hasn’t been reduced to sawdust.”

Ace sighs, “I’m actually a bit annoyed at the instances now. Before, it would have been very easy for us to check if someone was still in the dungeon by using one of our teams every other run. If they hit a floor and monsters still haven’t respawned, then the floor still has the other party on. Now with instances it isn’t that simple.”

Kelly shrugs, “We might not have thought of this method if the instances hadn’t come along. That’s how science is sometimes. You only discover a better method once it is obsolete.”