The next day comes and with a little tweaking of the plan by Susan, Ace’s idea works. The boat arrives filled to the brim with 15 people on it. One is of course the captain, 12 plan to delve the dungeon in two parties, and the last two are a bit more tricky. The settlement up the river doesn’t mind the equipment lost within the dungeon, but those four women who didn’t delve still have their stuff.

Of course Ace and company are perfectly fine with getting rid of the pre-system equipment but it isn’t theirs. Those four are technically the owners and while Ace is in the process of making his own little feudal society, the group still very much clings to old ideals. Susan heads up the negotiations between the two parties as both sides would very much like to keep the gear.

Though it wasn’t both the guys who argued for the return of the gear. Instead, only one of them headed that up. The other decided to wander around town and see the sights. Susan, with a cramped smile waves the guy off, “Don’t mind the construction and what not. Lots of things are being built.”

The spy smiles at this. He didn’t only not mind all the construction, it was perfect for what he was here to do. In normal situations, it would be hard to get invited into a house to check on the layout. It is a whole nother story if all you have to do is stand on the outside and look in through a partly put up wall. Though one other thing did interest him. There was a freshly dug hole out in the field. Not much was happening with it but you rarely dig a hole like that without a reason.

However, when the spy got to the gate and looked out something curious was happening. A bunch of people were hauling planks out to the hole and starting to cover it over. This seemed like a good enough reason to go and check it out. Except, of course, for the fact that when the spy was halfway to the hole someone intercepted him.

One of the people working on covering the whole rushes over, “Sir, big of a sinkhole or what have you over this way. Nothing much to see and all that so why don’t you head back to the town proper?”

The spy chuckles, “I know a little about such things, how about you let me check?” And he tries to walk around the guy blocking his way. Of course this leads to the classic routine of the guy moving to block his way. Back and forth a couple times before one of the other people working on the site yell over that things are almost done.

At that point the guy blocking the spy turns around to look. The spy takes advantage of this moment to quietly activate an eye skill. The sclera of his eyes glow blue while his pupils seem to turn from brown to the deepest black. With this he is able to catch a glimpse of the hole close up before it is completely covered and he notices something.

The hole isn’t just a normal hole. Not that he thought it would be. But rather, there are wooden stairs right below the surface that he was able to barely make out. That and the sides of the hole are way too smooth. Maybe if they had tried to claim it was a well, he would be more believing. As it is though, the fact they are hiding something is clear as day to him.

Satisfied the spy returns to the settlement and joins back up with his partner as the negotiations wind down. Though not only is the spy happy, the negotiator is as well. He had been expecting to need to trade something of real value to the town. Instead the settlement is looking for the system coins. He had brought a sack of them just in case he could get away with it, but hadn’t been expecting to.

While upriver the coins do have some value as they can be used in the system stores, overall they didn’t really use them for anything else. Instead, because of being a bigger town there were a lot of dollars around town. Something the older generation was thrilled with, as they had complete control over it, unlike the system coins. After all, any idiot can go and get new system coins by doing a quest. No one was printing new dollars and what do you know? Those at the top happened to have their people go and collect all the dollars left in the town before anyone else thought to.

Of course Ben was against this, going on about how the system coins were the future. But when your entire council is invested in the dollar, it is hard to change once you figure out what they are doing. So suffice it to say, the negotiator is quite stoked to be able to trade away the system coins. After all, as far as he is concerned, the pre-system gear is top of the line. All those system shops their town has access might as well be filled with toys instead of gear in his eyes.

With the arrival of the spy Susan “gives in” and gets the four ladies to agree to sell their gear back to their old town for all the coins the negotiator had on him. A good five hundred coppers and change. The gear is handed over and the two guys leave happy.

On the boat the captain sees them come back, sans a pouch of coins and shakes his head. While most of the people in the town have views similar to the council, most of the people who believe in Ben have a different opinion. After all, while anyone can get system coins, it is a currency backed by the system. As far as they are concerned that is much better than a currency backed by a government that likely doesn’t exist anymore. Still, it isn’t his place to say anything. At least not to the two council toadies. Once back in town, the captain has some news to report to Ben.

Back in the settlement Susan chuckles as she watches the boat leave. Her plan had been a two-fold success. Just getting the coins alone was a much-needed boost. But going by what the others have told her about the sneaky one’s time they managed to pull off the main deception. The hole was a matter of minutes to dig with magic and those stairs in it only went down a couple steps. Now though, the town upriver should believe the hole hides something. She just has one final question.

Turning to Jimmy, Susan asks, “Can you extend the protection of the town hall down into the ground? Otherwise they are going to get someone to dig in and figure out nothing is there real quick.”

Jimmy nods, “We will just have to excavate a decent sized room down there and put up walls of some sort. My advice for that is stone brick walls. That way it will look even more important than just wooden ones.”

Susan sighs, “That will take a lot of mage time to make.”

Jimmy raises an eyebrow, “I’ve seen a mage or two raise stone walls in moments in the dungeon. I’ve seen them transport multi-ton rocks from the river with ease. Why would a few stone bricks cause a problem?”

Susan shrugs, “There is a difference between shaping stone for combat purposes and for the long term. Those stone walls? They aren’t permanent. Give them an hour or two and the stone would quickly flow back into the shape it was before. Even if you tried to break off the raised section, it would fade away.”

“Of course, the same is true for most instant combat magics. The vines that Ace can summon will wither in minutes even if he keeps feeding them magic. A tree someone bends to block a blow will shift back into place after about ten minutes. Even just rushing the growth of a plant will cause at best the new growth to wither away and at worst kill the whole plant.”

“The only way to make permanent change is through slow and steady shaping. Maybe in the future with the right skills and enough power someone will be able to instantly grow food for us or take a boulder and turn it into a house. For now though any real change is tiring and time consuming.”

Jimmy shakes his head, “Well that sucks. Though you might be onto something with the whole skill thing. Do any of them have skills related to the changes they are trying to make? Because I know that you need the right skills to harvest stuff in the dungeon. While that might work on a different principle, it might be similar. Maybe you need someone with the woodworking skill to properly bend trees as you want.”

Susan nods. “That is possible. Too bad we don’t have anyone we can ask. Stuff like this wasn’t really at the top of our minds in the tutorial.”

Jimmy shrugs, “Well, I’ve got to get back to supervising the general construction. How much time do you think we have before there is enough coin to buy the anchor? If it is soon enough, we can probably settle for wood as I don’t want to be the one delaying the creation of the town hall.”

Susan smiles, “Well they just gave us five hundred more coppers to play with so I’m thinking three days. Ace ended up drawing back the full on delve plans because we do still need people working on the buildings and such.”

Jimmy frowns, “I thought he was expecting more on the lines of five to seven days? If it is only a few days, I really don’t have time. Luckily the people with magic that can affect wood are capable of cutting the stuff now that I know our magic isn’t yet able to just bend it to our will.”

Susan laughs, “If they had been bending the wood into shape it wouldn’t work. As it is, they are instead using magic itself to separate the wood and their wood magic to make sure it comes out strong. Likely the thing that takes them the longest is the knots as they actually have to bend those into shape.”

“Anyway, Ace believes it will take that long because even after my reminder of the new people delving, he is still judging it off of the old drop rates. We were getting enough coins that way but it completely skips the fact that none of us have any real trouble with the earliest floors.”

“From how I understand it, dungeons grow on challenge. Since it isn’t a challenge for us, the dungeon isn’t really dropping all that much. With those guys from up river, though, I suspect we will be rolling in the coins. Nevermind the fact our deal with them means all the coins they do get will likely end up in our pockets. They are clearly here for the meat so when given the choice between the two it is obvious which they will pay out.”

Jimmy nods, “Okay, I can see that. Though it isn’t like we demand that much in return for delving.”

Susan’s smile curls up even further, “That would be the case if not for one little fact I just sussed out. They heavily undervalue the coins. My bet is that we can check what they bring out and ask if they are fine with us just taking the coins they earned.”

Jimmy laughs at this, “You know we can’t scam them forever? Soon enough we are going to have system shops of our own and not just the newb shops either. There will be proper potion shops and what not. So no matter how deluded they are about pre-system gear, they definitely will be hot for the consumables.”

Susan shrugs, “We’ll cross that road when we get there. For now though, well, sheep are meant to be shorn!”