Interlude 2.2 The Rogue Contract

Configuring Contract Requirements for Rogue Contract

Person needs to be deeply disappointed with the "Establishment", resulting in wish to judge everything him/herself instead of following "everyones" judgement.

Person needs to have some experience in dungeon delving, preferably good contact with adventurers

Person needs to be independent and have experience on surviving on his/her own for some years

Person must not be under command or influence of any country or organisation

Person needs to have his/her own sense of honor and stand to bargains and friends Person has to be able to travel to reach a meeting point at the border of the Blackshale Swamp within three weeks of accepting contract

Person may ask for modification of contract rewards before agreeing

OK, the first condition is the best way to look for someone who can accept working with a [Xenotic] without telling it directly, and the other conditions should filter out people who can't help me... the General thinks by himself.

So let's send it out.

The General confirms his acceptance of the contract wording and the system begins to work. As a result someone somewhere on Logronal suddenly receives a system message.

[Ping]

You have been offered a Dungeon Contract

[Accept] / [Communicate] / [Decline]

Communication allows you to ask for modifications to the stated contract

If you decline, the contract will be offered to a different person and can't be reclaimed by you.

Rogue Contract

Details A [Sapient] Dungeon Core has send out a system request for a rogue to work for it.

Requirements Rogue needs to be deeply disappointed with the "Establishment", resulting in wish to judge everything him/herself instead of following "everyones" judgement.

Rogue needs to have some experience in dungeon delving, preferably good contact with adventurers

Rogue needs to be independent and have experience on surviving on his/her own for some years

Rogue must not be under command or influence of any country or organisation

Rogue needs to have his/her own sense of honor and stand to bargains done Rogue has to travel to a meeting point at the border of the Blackshale Swamp within three weeks of accepting contract to meet another Contractor of the dungeon

Rewards/Payment Free and safe access to the Dungeon as required by Contract Conditions, Loot and further rewards depending on missions

Contract Conditions Rogue may ask for modification of contract rewards before agreeing.

Rogue will get his primary class changed to "Dungeon Rogue"

Rogue will get food and a safe room in the dungeon for accepting contract and future missions.

Rogue will get additional rewards and loot for fulfilling future missions, to be discussed depending on each mission specifics

Missions will include spying on adventurers, pretending to be an adventurer and obtaining requested templates. Rogue is allowed to fight and kill dungeon spawns if agreed and neccessary

Dungeon spawns may attack or mock fight the Rogue, but will not be allowed to cause serious harm. Rogue is forbidden to reveal details of the dungeon to others unless specifically allowed to do so by the Dungeon Core

A sapient dungeon core offering me a contract through the system? Sir Marken once said that tamed dungeons are often made to offer those contracts to selected people because they can make those people a lot stronger, but this is obviously an untamed dungeon. Those should usually be rather automatic and primitive if they're freshly sentient, and this one already made a mistake or I wouldn't have gotten that offer.

And I can communicate to haggle as well...

[Communicate]

"I want the safe access and food extended to my sister and my friends, and I have several additional questions and demands. For example, why I am allowed to fight spawns and why is the usual absolute protection from spawns not part of the contract?"

It takes about twenty second, then I hear an answer through the system

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"What would the three most common types of missions be, and what would be my rewards for them?"

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"Is the three weeks for the meeting fixed or can the time be adjusted? And who would I meet then and where exactly?"

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"Let me check with the system for that." I start trying my orientation skills and check what I remember of the map from the bridge post.

Hmm - should I haggle more? I can't risk losing this because without at least some help we won't survive. We are already on our own because we couldn't pay the tax for the inns in Kaarg and Sir Marken's Party wanted to go into a dungeon deeper in Kaarg.

"We can get to the position in about a week - I can't promise if it is seven, eight or nine days however as that depends on foraging luck. And I want to be able to refuse or modify a mission if I consider it too risky. If that is acceptable then I agree to the contract."

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Oh? This dungeon is somewhat better at judging people's behaviour and reasons than I thought...

"OK, I'm willing to agree to the contract under those modified conditions."

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Rogue Contract Accepted

Primary Class "Message Runner" from "Acrobat" Class Tree changed to Dungeon Rogue (fixed class, no class tree available)

Secondary Class "Torch Bearer" from "Adventurer Support" Class Tree unchanged, but increased chance for class improval and class change on level-ups and rank-ups

Maximum Rank Potential adjusted based on Dungeon and Contract

Ok, let's see what this contract really gave me. [Status]

Equipment/ Inventory Infos/ Titles Skills/ Abilities Quests Gallery/ Knowledge History/ Log Status Race: Human Primary Class: Dungeon Rogue Type: Traveller Secondary: Torch Bearer [Locked] Name Jason 'Briar' Seaton max Rank [Mythical] Level (L) 5/120 Experience (XP) 237/500 free AttrPts 0/5 Body-Power (BP) 2/120 Endurance (EP) 10/60 Needs: Body-Density (BD) 2/120 Health (HP) 10/60 Food (FP) 46/100 Body-Flexibility (BF) 10/120 Physical Rank (PR) [Limited] Water (WP) 73/100 Body-Kuor'Tel (BK) 2/120 Kuor'Tel (KP) 24/120 Rest (RP) 89/100 Body-Aura (BA) 2/120 Control Rank (CR) [Limited] Mind-Power (MP) 2/120 Astral (AP) 12/60 Mind-Density (MD) 2/120 Soul (SP) 12/60 Weights Mind-Flexibility (MF) 9/120 Mental Rank (MR) [Limited] Equipment 1/4 kg Mind-Kuor'Tel (MK) 2/120 Kuor'Tel (KP) 24/120 Storage 1/2 kg Mind-Aura (MA) 2/120 Awareness Rank (AR) [Limited] Astral 0/6 kg Regeneration and Gain Values EP (10% BP/hour) 0.2 AP (10% MP/hour) 0.2 KP (1% MKP/hour) 1.2 HP (10% BD/day) 0.2 SP (10% MD/day) 0.2 [Locked] Temporary Status Effects Name Effect Malnourished Reduced Endurance and Health-Regeneration (50% effective only)

 "M...M...My...Mythical???????"

Shocked Briar stares at his status sceen. He has been ranked-up to mythical as a result of the contract's class-change. Slowly he begins to smile.

Let's hope that I can handle the tasks the dungeon core will give me - but even if the dungeon core wants to cancel the contract, it can't do that without compensation or it will lose the contract. And this boost will help us with foraging until then - Shandy needs more food and meat, her malnourish state is almost to the second level.

So I'll try to get two rabbits today and hope that we don't get bad luck until my energies are recharged.

Briar continues his slow and silent walk through the forest until he comes to a glade. he can see a pair of deer and a number of rabbits and squirrels scattered through the glade, most of them eating or collecting nuts.

He slowly takes his sling and selects one of the rabbits on his side of the clearing. He swings the sling and releases the stone that flies toward the rabbit. There is a slight shimmering in the air and then the stone hits, instantly killing the rabbit. None of the other animals on the clearing reacts, so Briar targets another rabbit with a second stone.

Again a shimmering speeds through the glade and the rabbit is hit,but this time the remaining animals are spooked and run away. Briar slowly stands and goes to collect the two rabbit corpses.

That was almost too much - I'm down to 2/120 Kuor'Tel. Let's hope that nothing happens in the next several hours until I've got some points regenerated.

Half an hour later he is back at their temporary camp. His sister Rose and Shandy have already prepared a fire for cooking their meal while Ev'lar and Runner were searching for edible plants and herbs. When he presents them with the two rabbit corpses, his sister speaks up:

"Two corpses? That must have depleted your energy - are you sure that you could risk that?"

"Shandy needs the meat - and I got lucky, I might have a job and a guarantee of food and shelter for all of us. I don't know how much I can tell you at the moment - part of the system's contract was a clause to keep the contract secret. But if everything works out, we'll have a home now. We just have to meet someone near the blackshale swamp, that is one week travel in that direction according to the system."

Rose thinks a bit before answering "I admit that we need the food if we were to travel that far in a week, but can you afford to spend that much for hunting? Especially because Ev'lar told me that there will be two or three storms within the next week, we might need to preserve Kuor'Tel to survive those."

"Yes" Briar answers "Part of the contract was a rank-up for me that will make everything easier. It won't be easy, we'll still have to work to get there and hope that I can keep the job, but the contract is confirmed by the system."

At that moment an elven child and a very young human child approach the camp from the other side. The beastkin child, Shandy, points to them and says "The others are back, let's eat - I'm hungry."

During their meal the five children discuss the offer despite the fact that Briar remains close-mouthed about the details, but no one can offer a better solution - they all have been travelling too long since they had to leave their homes, and all cities they passed had no interest in hiring some orphaned street kids. So they set out to meet that "Gunny", whoever that is with such a strange name.