Gamer Guild’s Dungeon (First Break Room): Secondary Objectives

--- Maya ---

(Is there really a choice here?) Her inner logic asked.

“Uh, what do you mean?”

(We’ve already established the rule that we wouldn’t use any power-ups meaning that this choice is somewhat pointless.)

(Wait, we really aren’t taking a power up?) Her inner madness whined. (That means all the loot we find is completely pointless!)

She couldn’t help but grimace at that, the idea hurting her inner gamer.

(Yes, yes, it really does hurt, thank you!)

“Well, maybe we can take the potions with us?” She tried compromising. “I mean, even if we don’t take them, maybe we’ll find something useful if we study them back at the lab.”

(As long as we aren’t taking it ourselves, it should be safe.) Her inner reason accepted.

(Ugh, fine…)

With that settled she made her way to the chest and the moment she put her hands on it the other two flashed out of existence. What was far more interesting than this detail however, was the tune that began to play in the background at the same time.

(Is that?)

(It’s close but not quite accurate.)

(Probably need to protect themselves from copyright infringement.)

Opening the chest as the music built to a crescendo revealed a single red vial similar to the one she’d found just a little bit prior.

“Only one potion?” She frowned, picking the vial up as a second tune played in the background before leaving her in silence.

(Well, it is only the first floor.) Her inner logic reminded her.

“I guess, still a disappointing loot drop.” She sighed, stashing the vial with her other one. “So where to next?”

A nearby stone wall began to shake before sliding open to reveal a hidden passageway.

(That answers that question.)

Walking closer to the exit she found a set of stairs and torches similar to the ones she’d gone down to enter the dungeon before making her way down them.

After another flight of stairs she found herself in front of another stone doorway.

“Alright, second floor let’s see what we’re up against.” She told herself as she began to push the doors open.

Only instead of finding another room full of monsters she found herself looking at another set of stairs across from her and a ladder leading up to a light in the ceiling on her right, while on her left was-

“Is that the Merchant?!” She squealed.

(He looks more like an expy, similar but not quite the same.) Her inner reason disagreed.

(Okay, I don’t care about copyright protections. You’re ruining the fantasy.) Her inner passion growled.

(Agreed.)

The figure in a blue trench coat and wearing a scarf over his face gave her a laugh while calling, “Over here stranger.”

She started to excitedly make her way towards the merchant only to freeze as something occurred to her.

(No.)

(Is he going to be selling anything other than power ups?)

(No. No. No.)

She couldn’t help but grimace as she realized that in all likelihood the dungeon Merchant, only sold supplies for the dungeon and in all likelihood they were going to all be power ups similar to the dungeon’s as well.

(Don’t you two fucking ruin this for me!)

“Fuck…” She groaned, realizing what she had to do.

(Motherfucker! Tu pinche brujas!)

Forcing herself to look away from the Merchant and the temptations of his store, she instead turned towards the stairs and forced herself to walk down them without talking to the man.

(Fucking hell!) Her inner madness cursed, before continuing to curse for the next minute straight only stopping when they came to another set of stone doors and a sort of chime cut through the air.

“Oi, Gamer Girl, can you hear me?”

“Decker?” She frowned.

“Ah, good you can.” Decker told her before elaborating that he, “Needed to ask you something about this next floor before you instantiated it.”

“Uh, what did you need to ask?” She asked with a fair bit of trepidation.

“Okay, so you remember how I told you the GM was hiding several things about the Dungeon? Well, one of the anomalies seems to be on this floor.” Decker answered. “Admittedly the GM has this patch over it that keeps most players from running into it, but there is still something going on with this floor and I was hoping you could check it out.”

She crossed her arms. “What exactly do you need me to do?”

“Well, I told you that the longer you’re fighting in the dungeon the more info I can gather, that still holds true, but if I load the unpatched version of the floor then I’ll be able to gather more info about what’s going on.” The Guild Lieutenant explained. “But at the same time this unpatched floor will probably be tougher than the floor normally is, and in a way that I can’t really figure out without you being in the middle of it for a fair bit.”

“Okay, so you’re giving me a heads up that this next floor is going to be harder?” She figured.

“Eh, not quite.” Decker disagreed. “Like I said this next floor hasn’t actually instantiated yet, meaning that I can still load the patched or unpatched versions of it. The reason this is something I’m bringing to you is because while loading the unpatched version will give me a better idea of what happened in the dungeon, the higher difficulty will also burn through your resources faster. Meaning you might not be able to go as deeply into the dungeon overall, which honestly will be a bigger deal for you than me given how it affects your End of Dungeon score.”

“My what?” She frowned.

“Basically it’s the score that decides what kind of prizes you get when you exit the dungeon.” Decker elaborated. “It’s mostly based on how many floors you manage to clear overall, though certain secondary objectives can also influence it. Though given how I’m not supposed to be DMing right now, mine will be under more scrutiny so I won’t be able to give you any points for helping me out with this.”

“I see…”

Essentially Decker was asking her if she wanted to raise the difficulty of this next floor for no extra benefit to herself. Which would likely put her through a ringer and exhaust her faster than running the dungeon at its base level would, thus reducing how deeply she could go into it. But in exchange, doing this would help him along with his investigation of whatever was going on with the Gamer’s Guild.

“So which version of things do you want me to load?” Decker asked her after a moment.

She thought about it for a little longer before telling him to