At the top of the list for supplies was explosives, I have a few defective prototypes that uncle made, but I doubt it’ll be enough. So naturally we found a place that sells them, it’s a pretty popular commodity around here apparently, likely pretty useful somewhere in the dungeon.

The explosives here turned out to be pretty cheap, with all the materials for them coming from the dungeon, and well made, with the people making them having worked with the materials available near constantly for years. Currently I have more than enough cash on me for getting the entire recommended list of supplies with it only leaving a small dent, so naturally, I tripled the number of explosives, as well as going with the best-made ones we could find. Money isn’t nearly as big of a deal as getting to the top of this dungeon.

It happened the same way with almost everything on the list, with the exception of most potions. For potions I am supplied by uncle, and have more than enough for this dive, though I’ve never been good at drinking a potion during a fight.

The sheer excess at which I’m buying materials shocked both Riki the She-Devil and the people selling the materials.

All in all, it took around an hour and a half to get everything. Now we have to meet back up with the rest of the party and start the dive, apparently, we are going to meeting up by the entrance, and it doesn’t take long to get there.

“Got the materials needed.” Jack

“I hope the three of you didn’t cheap out on us, if one of us dies because of you being cheap, it will be one of the three of you.” Thomas

“They definitely didn’t cheap out on that, he bought more than we might be able to use actually, except for potions which I thought was odd.” Riki

“A relative of mine is one of the best alchemists on this continent, if not the world, at least of his generation.” Jack

“We’ll take your word for it.” Grat

“I’m assuming you already know how the first hundred or so floors work, yes?” Riki

“That is right.” Jack

“Well, the rest of the dungeon plays out in much the same way. Every ten floors there is a miniboss with every hundred having a big boss. The first big boss is particularly painful, not difficult to fight, just a pain in the ass. Tell me, how much do the three of you know of arias.” Riki

After a moment of conferring with the others, I replied.

“Less than what we imagine most do. didn't exactly come up when we were studying the magic of any sort.” Jack

“A shame. anyway, time to get going.” Riki

With a nod, we followed into the cave. The first several floors were really just us walking towards the exit. Creatures this low were pathetically weak, I guess enough of them could kill a novice diver, but we are way above that. Also, the loot that dropped was not worth the amount of time it took to bend over and pick it up. The miniboss on level twenty managed to survive a backhand from Grat didn’t survive the second one though. The short sword he dropped could probably sell for around twenty jaers, twenty-five if you’re lucky.

It took till floor fifty before common fodder were taking a hit without dying. Even then it wasn’t much. I could see how this would trouble many weaker people, and the loot for everything but the minibosses is trash. But this is still the lower floors. And, in my experience at least, this rate of progression in difficulty for a dungeon is pretty extreme, so I’m looking forward to a good fight at the upper floors.

The sixth miniboss actually managed to land a hit on Thomas, it didn’t seem to faze him, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive. At this rate, it should start to be a challenge to us by floor two fifty, three hundred at the latest.

The floor eighty miniboss dropped a piece of candy. It wasn’t more magical than anything else really, it was just a piece of candy. It started one of the worst instances of internal fighting among a party that I have ever seen. I thought for sure someone was going to die. The only thing that managed to make them stop was it almost being crushed. Ultimately the candy went to Riki and based on the blissed out expression on her face for the next couple minutes, the candy was really good. Now I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t get to try it.

Overall it was a pretty typical power dive. Though that is certain to change pretty quickly.

When we finally got to the first big boss we expected to find a defense focused mage, because of what Riki said before we entered the dungeon. Instead, we heard the choir start to sing.