Author’s note: So its Father’s day and I can hear my little girls in the kitchen trying to prepare my breakfast with my wife’s help. Needless to say I will be taking off from posting tomorrow. However, I am leaving a poll up to help decide where the story should go next. Please vote for where Alistair will travel next, and sorry for the spoiler.

Alistair stared at the steel dagger in the Summoning Circle. Not but two days ago, both him and Callum were waiting for Fire Lichen or something to happen. Instead, after he asked Callum to start studying the General Help books and they were rewarded. For his part, he wondered about what else they could accomplish. “Callum, so we have more loot being generated. Our circle can now give me experience and our pocket dimension is supposedly bigger. What else can we do? Can I start thinking of other weapons or armor and have the Summoning Circle work on them? Or are you going to work on the Spell: Fire Resistance? That way I have some protection against what the Fire Beetle can do?” Alistair started jumping around feeling the energy of a good solid win, making him itch for a fight.

Callum, twisted himself to look like a large vortex of flame and then came back down. All of a sudden ten more Fire Wisps were summoned in the circle and left to perform their work. “Actually, I was going to see if there was anything I could do to help the circle research the spell. Otherwise, I was going to review some more of the General Help books, while waiting for the Fire Lichen to grow.”

Alistair stopped jumping and looked at Callum, “Wait, are you telling me there is nothing more to do?”

Callum seemed to bob up and down for a moment and then spoke, “Well Alistair that is what I am exactly saying. I have adjusted the amount of Fire Wisps to generate based on the new Mana Focus. By doing so, it is my hope to speed along the Spell Research for Fire Resistance and perhaps the Steel Dagger. See in the book about Dungeon Knowledge, the very first sentence of the book was, ‘Imagination and Mana separate thought from action. However, above all else Imagination must come first, because without thought action cannot occur.’ Anyway, right now we have everything working. The Fire Wisps are starting to create channels for fire mana. The loot table research has sped up to almost completion. Now all we do is wait for mana to settle into the correct spaces and we have ourselves a dagger. Unless you can work out the form of Pa to help the Summoning Circle, there isn’t much else we can do until Fire Lichen appears. Even fighting the Fire Beetle right now doesn’t help because it will die in a day or two.”

Alistair thought about all of this, and something scratched at the back of his mind. The word came to him after a moment of searching: Trade. “Callum, did it say anything about researching Trade?”

Small amounts of ash seemed to come from Callum and finally he spoke up, “Well, the most basic advice about researching anything is ask the Dungeon Demon on the topic. Yes, I know this seems counter intuitive, after all I am the one who is supposed to be working on what it means, but you have history of your previous life, like the dagger to draw upon. By the Gods and Goddesses, I don’t even know why we need more than one copper coin for a creature.”

Alistair laughed at only having one copper dungeon coin for killing something like a Dragon or Minotaur. Yet when he didn’t hear the laughing come from Callum, he began to realize that the spell construct had no idea about money. Quietly, Alistair thought about how to explain money to someone that had no idea. “Well Callum, picture this, a farmer is three months away from bringing his crop to market. Sorry, I forgot you don’t know what a market is. Ok, there is a man walking down a path and he realizes that he needs new shoes. Seeing an apple tree nearby, he picks all the ripe apples and then goes into a town. So he goes to the Cobbler and asks him if he will make him a new pair of shoes. The Cobbler says that the leather and shoe nails take a long time to make, so long that he would need several days of food for one pair of shoes. Placing down all his apples the man tries to give him several days of food. However the Cobbler hates apples and will not eat them. So the man can’t get his shoes because the item he hoped to trade was useless to the Cobbler. Now a dungeon coin is special. They are always the same weight and because of the infused mana are impossible to make outside of a dungeon.”

“Going back to our story. The man goes to a Grocer and sets down his apples. The Grocer looks at him and offers the same amount of food but in different vegetable or fruit, like potatoes or oranges. So instead of trying to figure out what the Cobbler wants to eat the Grocer decides that he will accept one Dungeon Copper Coin for ten apples, or the same weight as the apples in other food. Knowing this the man takes three copper coins goes back to the Cobbler and gives him three coins for shoes, and that’s why we need more than one coin for a monster. Did that make any sense Callum, or did I just confuse you more?”

Callum hovered in the air for a little while and then spoke, “Some of it did. So a Dungeon Coin can act like another item that someone wants?”

Alistair shook his head and spoke again, “Kind of, see a coin acts as placement token for other goods, and depending on how useful they are and how easily they are made you need more tokens to get it.”

Callum and Alistair spent the next few hours talking about how an item was valued and what was a gift, a contract, and theft. As they continued to talk, Alistair realized that though he was never a merchant, he did think like one. He knew how much coins should come from a ranked monster, how much a potion of healing cost and if the fight would have been profitable. Slowly all the old lessons about accounts and numbers from the Adventurer Guild came back and Alistair starting talking about how an Adventurer could make a profit off of killing mana monsters, and how Dungeon Towns were built to help handle all the items that came out of a dungeon. In fact he even used some of the same arguments that the councilmen of Morack had told him before he went down into the Labyrinth to die.

Callum was surpised by the idea of a Dungeon Town and began asking more about them. Having lived most of his life in a Dungeon Town Inn or Apartment, Alistair told Callum about how craftsmen came to buy cheap Mana Monster Components and Loot from Adventurers, and sell it where it was most needed. Before either one of them knew it, it was the next day, and Alistair was slightly excited at the thought of having a Dungeon Town all his own. Finally, as Callum said he understood why there needed to be more than one coin and how those coins played a bigger role in the world a prompt came into existence.

Event!Your Spell Companion and Dungeon has researched Trade!All actions have consequences, by carelessly assigning loot to monsters you can have your dungeon over hunted or not hunted at all. Finding the right amount of loot to attract Adventurers is a constant struggle and can lead to your death if not watched over. New Options are available for Loot Tables. When needing more copper coins, place two refined Earth Threads with one refined Fire Thread in the Loot chest.

Congratulations! A pathway has appeared in your pocket dimension. Further exploration is needed to determine where it goes.

Alistair looked at the event prompt and smiled at the thought of finally being able to summon his salamanders, but as he read the last little bit he grew nervous. What did a pathway mean? Could creatures or other things attack him in his pocket dimension? Since it came with researching trade did that mean it was a pathway to someplace where he could trade goods with?

Callum seeing Alistair hadn’t closed the prompt came over and took a look at it. It didn’t take him long before Callum disappeared to go to the pocket dimension. Coming back Callum began to shake and release ash, “My Lord, there is indeed a pathway and another book on trade has appeared in the General Help’s Aspect hut. Since, I am getting a weird feeling from this pathway, perhaps we should summon the Salamanders to protect the circle and you go exploring?”

Alistair had dismissed the prompt by the time Callum had come back. Looking at the floating orb, Alistair spoke, “What do you mean, your getting a weird feeling?”

Callum twisted form into a vortex and spoke, “My Lord, I don’t know if I can describe it well enough. See everything in the pocket dimension we can control; the fields, the huts, and the tools. They were all created by your spell and mind, and as such I am connected to all of them and recognize it as part of us. But this pathway, it leads somewhere that is not… us, and I can’t go in there to find out. Additionally, besides the fear of something that is not from us. I get the feeling like an attack could come from it, or great rewards. I guess I just feel afraid, not at something I don’t know, but at something I don’t know about and have no control over.”

Alistair knew the feeling that Callum was talking about. The unknown was scary beyond all doubt, and this was quite the biggest unknown Callum had ever faced. Alistair, could only think of one thing to do. Like his father, Alistair would check out the unknown, to tell Callum it was ok. “Alright, Callum add as much refined Earth Mana and Fire Mana to the loot box to generate coins for the Salamanders. When you get back, we will fix their loot table and summon them.”

Callum disappeared for an hour and then came back. He simply said, “I was able to generate around 60 coins, but didn’t have any more refined Earth Mana.” Alistair nodded at him and they proceed to their normal spots during a summoning. Once there, Callum generated the loot table prompt.

Loot Table for Tiny Fire SalamanderTotal Required Summoning Mana5Max Free Mana Creature can have:10Max Value of Loot Dropped:UnlimitedThe Max Value cannot be set below the minimum amount of free mana the Monster will produce on death. Current minimum free Mana produce is 3. 1 Dungeon Copper = 1 Mana.Would you like to set Max Value of Loot DroppedYesNoCurrent Loot Table33.3 % Chance of dropping a Small Obsidian Tooth (Alchemy Component) (Value: 2 Copper)25 % Chance of dropping a Small Obsidian Claw (Alchemy Component) (Value: 3 Copper)Additional Items100% Chance of dropping on average 3.2 Dungeon Copper CoinsPress any additional items you would like to add to the loot table. Press Percentage to increase or decrease chance of dropping loot. Should an item drop and it does not cover total amount of free mana, Dungeon Coins will be used to offset the difference.

Alistair looked at the Loot table and his new options and thought back to all the dungeons that he fought in. The better towns that had sprung around them had creatures that dropped components with a little bit of coin. Mana Monsters that just dropped coin were often over killed and camped by lazy Adventurers. So, Alistair set the maximum value at four coins and increase the percentages so that always one tooth would drop with a chance for a second one, and kept the claw percentage where it was at. Once done he added the chance for a dungeon coin to the loot table. That way it would entice Adventures to fight the Salamanders, but it wouldn’t be worth too much damage to equipment if things started turning bad. It was then that he looked over his loot table for his boss monster.

Loot Table for Boss Fire SalamanderTotal Required Summoning Mana25Max Free Mana Creature can have:40Max Value of Loot Dropped:UnlimitedThe Max Value cannot be set below the minimum amount of free mana the Monster will produce on death. Current minimum free Mana produce is 25, as a Boss Creature the Summoning Mana will always be set as minimum free mana produced. 1 Dungeon Copper = 1 Mana.Would you like to set Max Value of Loot DroppedYesNoCurrent Loot Table300 % Chance of dropping a Obsidian Tooth (Alchemy Component) ) (Value: 3 Copper)300 % Chance of dropping a Obsidian Claw (Alchemy Component) ) (Value: 4 Copper)75 % Chance of dropping a Obsidian Dagger (Weapon Quality: Common) ) (Value: 5 Copper)Additional Items100% Chance of dropping on average 32.6 Dungeon Copper CoinsPress any additional items you would like to add to the loot table. Press Percentage to increase or decrease chance of dropping loot. Should an item drop and it does not cover total amount of free mana, Dungeon Coins will be used to offset the difference.

Alistair set the max value at 25, seeing that it was quite a bit of mana that his circle would have to generate and if someone was just killing the boss over and over again he would never be able to recover the mana fast enough. Sadly, he wondered why the average coin drop was so high. When he pressed the coins to add them, he found that he could adjust the average amount of coins to 10 hoping that Adventurers would feel the loot was decent for a starter level in a dungeon. If not he was going to have to adjust the table again and again till it was just right, and to Alistair that sounded like a pain to do.

Deciding that Alistair was done messing around with the loot tables, he began his summoning spells. The Tiny Fire Salamander appeared looking just like the one he had fought and Callum told him that he was setting their current number to ten. Alistair nodded and began to focus on the Boss Monster he was about to summon. As he took the last step forward and raised his hand in an arcane gesture, a creature about two feet long appeared. Instead of a soft wet looking flesh, it had hard scales and a ridge line of spiked Obsidian shards. There appeared to be a large horn on the front of the boss’ mouth, as well as, spikes on its tail that had grown on a large rounded bone mass at the end of it. For a moment, Alistair almost thought it was a Lizard, but then cracks appeared in its hide. Small drops of lava seem to be coming out of the cracks, when the Salamander charged forward jumping high into the air and diving down into the magma pool to begin swimming around the outcropping of rock to protect it. The other salamander taking its lead from the boss, did the same. While Alistair watched the two of them start their patrols. Looking at Callum he was surprised that there wasn’t more Salamanders, and when he asked all Callum could say was, “The Summoning Circle is running low on mana from the Summoning. More Salamanders will come in the next few days. Should we go to the Pocket Dimension now, My Lord?”

Alistair nodded his head at the thought a visiting his Pocket Dimension and spending some time there. At least now the Summoning Circle was protected. So he pictured the door in his mind and opened it.