Silver Spoon Series

"By steel's hard nuts, you're still alive!"

Alan had to smile at his friend's exclamation. Dwarven curses were a unique thing. "Yes, I'm alive. Mostly. Did you ever doubt me?"

Thadrick blushed a little as he explained. It wasn't easy to see due to his thick, dark beard, but Alan's perception had recently risen to new heights. "Well, not at first. We were surprised, but not alarmed, when you didn't come out for the Village Raid, but that ended a couple of weeks ago. Some, not me of course, were starting to worry."

That was hardly surprising. Other than possibly the time he had lost an arm, this was the longest he'd spent in a dungeon. If the roles had been reversed, Alan would have been thinking the worst as well. It had actually been touch and go for him for a while. Without both his healer and seeker classes, he was pretty sure he would have died. It was also the reason that even though he had finished off the last fight after barely a week in the dungeon, he hadn't been able to leave for another two weeks. Those were thoughts for another time, now he could find out how things had been going around the village.

"I didn't actually get any notifications from the Network while I was in there. They all appeared just now so I didn't know about the Raid. From what I can tell, it seems like we did well. What did our victory cost us?"

Dantelion had been hanging around, letting Thadrick reconnect with his friend, but the answers Alan was asking for were things he was better able to explain. Alan couldn't help a slight grimace from taking over his face when the former escort started speaking.

"We figured that about the messages. It's a known potential issue with non-Network dungeons. The victory didn't really cost us anything permanently. None of our people were killed, but some of them took some nasty injuries. Almost everyone is healed up now, but there were a few that needed things restored. We waited a few days to see if you would be back to fix them, but after that the Mayor had us use the regeneration potions you'd made. We didn't quite appreciate how many doses it took to regrow limbs, however. There's one guy who has half a leg, and he will be thrilled to see you."

That was unfortunate. There were probably more or the plants ready to harvest back at his house in tier two, but he didn't have them with him at the moment, and he was running low on quartz powder. Replenishing that stock was going to take some work. At least he could finish healing the leg himself when he got back to town. It would likely take a few days for so much lost flesh, but Alan's healing was at a level he had never achieved before. Before entering the dungeon, restoring half a leg would have probably taken a week.

"I'll want more details later about how you all pulled that off, and what exactly you went through, but how about the gains. What did the village get?"

Dantelion was smiling now. "Well, a few people got special rewards for exceptional accomplishments, but the village itself got quite a few things. The mayor made me promise not to tell you about them without him. He was instrumental in creating the plan that let us win, after all."

That was annoying, but he supposed he owed it to Roger, since it sounded like he was responsible for things going so well. Also, Alan had kinda left the man hanging for weeks. "I was wondering, are you guys here waiting for me or watching for dungeon leaks?"

Thadrick had long given up on trying to hold on to the leadership of his party. He had accepted that the person best suited for that role was Dantelion. That didn't mean he appreciated him butting in on catching up with his friend. He chose this moment to recapture the conversational thread. "A little of both I would say. We've been taking it in turns with the Companions. They raid tier two while we keep an eye out, and then we switch. It woulda been time to switch in a few days."

"Who are the Companions?" Alan didn't recognize the name.

Now it was Gaud who broke in. Alan was honestly impressed she'd been quiet so long. "It's short for the Stalwart Companions. That's Lyonel's party. After the Village Raid he suggested that everyone pick a name for their groups. It was getting tricky to talk about all the different parties."

"I guess that makes sense. What'd you guys go with?" Alan asked.

Gaud must have been excited by the topic because she started speaking faster and faster. "Well, I wanted to be the Invincibles or the Juggernaughts, but the rest thought that was a little too imperious. Dantelion wanted the Warrior Five or the Outfit. Thadrick just said whatever. Elluin had like a thousand names but most of them didn't make any sense to us. It was Nephila who finally came up with the best one."

Gaud turned expectantly toward their insectoid scout, and Alan did the same. He knew she was shy, but maybe she was starting to come out of her shell. It took a moment, but finally she quietly told him the name. "Motley Swarm."

Alan thought about it for a second and decided that they had picked a good name. Gaud wasn't comfortable letting him think about it himself though.

"Get it, cause we're all different races and we swarm our enemies."

Thadrick facepalmed and Dantelion sighed. "Yes, I think he gets it. The name isn't as good if you keep explaining it all the time."

It seemed that the Swarm was still a little disfunctional, but in a good way. They had obviously become more comfortable with each other and their foibles. They were becoming a real team.

"Well, I have good news for you guys. You don't need to watch the dungeon anymore. I managed to clear it fully and it should be good for a month or two at least."

After spending so much time in the dungeon studying its energy flows, and talking to the core about almost every topic related to dungeons he could think of, Alan had a pretty good idea of exactly how long it would be before they had to worry about it getting overloaded again. He didn't want to share too much about his aether senses, however. He had previously thought to keep his new ability a secret from Tamee as well, but she had been there with him in the dungeon itself and now knew more of his secrets than he had really wanted her to. Hopefully she really was playing him straight, because she could cause him a lot of problems.

A round of backslapping occurred, and Thadrick was the first to ask what they all wanted to know. "So what took so long? Is it that big?"

"It had eight floors, so yeah, it was that big." Several of the Swarm whistled at that. None of the other dungeons on the tutorial disk were so extensive. "Although, a lot of that time was spent recuperating. That place was no joke, and I don't think anyone else should go in there for now. That dungeon is where the Bodarian recruits met their end."

Thadrick had been worried to hear that Alan, the best healer of his level that he knew, had been injured badly enough that he had needed a long time to patch himself up. Hearing that the dungeon had claimed an entire adventuring party was even more shocking. They had all fought Bodarians in the Battle for Elstree, and they had seen Lyonel's group take on a full party by themselves. That was actually how that group had earned their name.

It was after watching how Lyonel and Hector had defended each other, and then how the rest of the party had rushed to support the group, that people had started calling them the Stalwart Companions. Once he realized the name was going to stick, Lyonel had shared how he thought all the groups should have names. A lot of parties had already been ready, having named themselves secretly a while ago. It was a common trend on Network planets and having never thought they would have classes they were excited to take part in some of the benefits. No one had wanted to be the first to announce their chosen monikers, though, they didn't want to be considered pretentious. Now that the cat was out of the bag, however, a list was soon posted in the town hall with everyone's chosen name.

All that aside, they knew how tough Bodarians could be, and if this dungeon had killed a party of them, and somehow severely wounded Alan, then it was likely too tough for anyone else in Elstree to even attempt. Lyonel's group had previously tried it, but they hadn't even made it past the first level. The Corellians had started talking recently about trying to enter it again to find Alan if he didn't come out. The natives had managed to talk them out of it, explaining that dungeons usually didn't work that way, they were instanced. Only the people that entered together could interact. If Alan had taken any longer to come out, though, they might have tried it anyway.

Elluin wasn't normally quiet, outside of combat he had an almost constant stream of mumble going on, but now he spoke up for everyone to hear. "What'd you get?"

"Elluin, you can't ask someone that!" Hearing Gaud be the voice of propriety was an indicator of just how rude such a question could be. It was one thing if he and Alan were close friends or allies, but the elven mage wasn't even that friendly with the rest of the Motley Swarm. He did have the grace to blush, but Alan chose to answer anyway, at least partially.

"It was a pretty amazing haul. I didn't get any loot drops until I exited, but I did pick up a few resources here and there. All the real rewards were delayed until you left or finished the whole thing. It kinda sucked finishing floor after floor and getting nothing, but the final payout was worth it."

"So what was it?" Thadrick couldn't help asking. It was marginally okay for him since they were friends.

"There was a bunch of stuff actually. I won't get into all of it now, but I got a few magic items, some special resources, and these." Alan held out his hand, now containing two quarter sized coins. The first was a mystery to the group until they used identify.

"What's a Mentor Token?" Thadrick wondered aloud.

At the same time Dantelion asked, "You have a Mentor?"

Alan chose to answer both questions. "I do, it was a reward for a challenge I faced in tier two. This will let me communicate with him for two hours. It's not a lot, but he was incredibly helpful before, and he can probably help me with all kinds of things I've discovered since then."

It was clear that Thadrick and Gaud didn't really know what a Mentor was. Dantelion and Elluin, of course, knew what that position meant, but Alan was surprised to see that Nephila did as well. He wondered if she had one herself, but that was not something you just asked people. Having satisfied their curiosity about the first token, they all turned toward the second.

"A Scarlet Caverns token! That's really valuable. How could the dungeon give you that? I thought only the Network could hand those out." Gaud, and everyone else, recognized the coin immediately.

"That's a good question. But I'm not really sure what this thing is really for. I know it will 'teleport me to the Scarlet Caverns', but I don't know the significance of that."

Alan wasn't playing stupid, he didn't know the answer to this one. The dungeon had given this to him as a reward, which Tamee had been as shocked by as the Swarm was. After having gotten more familiar with the core, Alan had managed to find out how it came to give him one. A group of diamond level adventurers had met their match in the dungeon's lower floors some time ago, and one of them had the token on them. Apparently dungeons could also store the actual items that people had on them when they died in their lair. That was also where the Mentor token had come from.

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While Alan knew where the token had come from, he didn't know why it was so valuable. It was easy to tell it was important, because when he asked Tamee about it she had reverted to her old unhelpful self. It was apparently something he wasn't supposed to know about yet, and she wasn't allowed to reveal anything at this time. It seemed like a silly restriction if it was this famous, though. It seemed like he could just ask anyone about it, so why couldn't she just tell him. Her lack of answers was why he had shown off the token in the first place. He had been hoping someone would recognize it, he just hadn't realized they all would.

"Gaud, would you like to do the honors?" Dantelion could see her turning red with the desire to gaudsplain. That was the term the rest of the Swarm had taken to using to describe how their golemoid tank loved to show how much she knew about topics. She did know about a surprising number of topics, but Gaud derived an insane level of joy in telling people how much she knew.

"Oh my gosh, those are incredibly hard to get, and super desirable. I would say valuable, but you pretty much can't buy them. Even a coin starved adventurer wouldn't sell it. It's just too good an opportunity."

"Okay, that sounds great, but what is it?" Alan had to ask, hoping to get her to the point.

"So, you've reached opal already, so you should know how your aura expanded when that happened." Alan was very aware of that process, he had helped guide it. "A similar thing will happen when you reach diamond, and really at every class upgrade. But, the change from diamond to garnet, the first red level, is a much more drastic transformation."

He actually had an idea of what she meant. Alan had the opportunity to scan the aura of a red grade warrior, Pixel, and he had noticed how different hers looked compared to his own. The Network had done most of the work on evolving his aura when he upgraded to opal, with only a few tweaks required by him, and he had figured it would do so again when he moved to red grade. It seemed there might be more to it than that, though.

"The Network guides the change in our Aura, but even it is not perfect. Some people get more out of the upgrade than others." This was good information to have. Alan had taken a role in his own transformation when he upgraded to opal. It had only been possible because of his aura reading and mana handling skills. He hadn't known until now if what he had accomplished was real or not. If people were aware that the process led to variable results, then he hadn't been imagining things. He hadn't thought he was, but it was always good to get confirmation.

Gaud had no idea what Alan was thinking, and just kept on going. "At higher levels, some adventurers are supposed to be able to influence the process themselves. That's just not a thing for people transitioning to red though. Whatever happens, happens, and some people got lucky and found their aura supercharged, while the occasional person found theirs almost crippled. Then somewhere along the line the Scarlet Caverns showed up."

Finally she was getting to the important stuff. The background wasn't bad, but now he would finally hear why this token was so good.

"No one knows where it actually is, or where it came from, but anyone who gets a token can use it to teleport to its location. Once there, adventurers compete to complete a series of challenges against others who arrived around the same time. The better you do, the more points you earn. At the end of the event, the Caverns themselves will help you upgrade your first class and your aura to Garnet. The more points you earn the better your aura should turn out."

That explanation left him with a few more questions, and possible disappointment. He had been able to assist in his own upgrade at opal, did he really need this to upgrade to red? He would keep an open mind, though. Pixel's aura had been drastically different from his own, perhaps a little help wouldn't be bad when the time came. He should at least explore how it worked before he judged whether it was worth it.

"When you say 'around the same time', how long are we talking?"

Gaud knew the answer to this too. "It's about a month. People think that it is actually based on how many people arrive, not a set time. It's just that it usually takes about a month to get the right number of people. And before you ask, that's around a thousand."

That was good to know. Alan couldn't use the token now, he wasn't ready to upgrade to diamond yet, let alone garnet. However, if he was still in the tutorial when that happened, he couldn't afford to leave for a year to do this thing. A month was much more reasonable, but he'd have to see what was happening when the time came. The fact that a thousand people would show up every month suggested this token wasn't really that rare, but then again, the Network was supposed to contain millions of worlds, if not more. Thinking about numbers that big was actually hard to do.

"What kind of challenges?"

"That's harder to answer. There is some kind of rule about revealing too much about what happens there, but people have been able to figure some of it out. Puzzles are definitely part of it, as are dungeon runs. The final event is usually some kind of grand melee."

That actually sounded like a lot of fun. He had always enjoyed tests and measuring himself against others. Alan realized that he was probably slightly unusual in that respect, but then again, most adventurers had to enjoy challenge and battle. Those that didn't wouldn't make it very far. His earlier disappointment was fading. Even if he didn't need help making his evolution, the actual experience sounded like it would be great.

"Is the only reward the aura upgrade?"

"Well, no. There are other things you can use your points to purchase, but the aura is the most important. The more efficient your aura is, the better your abilities work, and other stuff I think." It seemed Gaud wasn't as knowledgeable about the topic as she thought.

"Stats too. The efficiency of your stats is affected by the strength of your aura." Elluin added. The discussion of the Scarlet Caverns had been interesting enough that he felt the need to throw his own two cents in.

"Hey, Alan, how good a friend am I?" Thadrick asked suggestively.

"Not that good. You can't have it." Alan laughed as he stored his tokens back in his nipple ring. It probably looked like it went into either his necklace or one of the rings on his finger, but these tokens were indeed spectacular, and he wanted to keep them close. Uncomfortably close. He really wished it had been a toe ring, or possibly even a bellybutton ring. Nipples weren't supposed to be pierced.

After a little more discussion about how important auras were, what information Alan was willing to share about the dungeon, and a little more about how Elstree was doing, they started making their way back to the village. The Swarm was being very unhelpful when it came to giving details about his town, but they had apparently promised Roger. The strategy wasn't totally effective at keeping him in the dark, however, there were benefits to being the owner.

Using the town menu, he was able to learn quite a few things. Alan had never claimed to have a photographic memory, but it didn't take too much mental fortitude to remember that the population of the village had started with a six before he went into the dungeon. Now it started with a seven. In addition, the map showed quite a few more buildings and the descriptions were interesting. In the end, he decided Roger had earned his opportunity to show off, and so he didn't dig too deeply.

Instead of pushing them for details, Alan decided to catch up with Thadrick. He was the closest thing he had to a best friend since the world ended and he wasn't going to ignore him like he had his last one. Alan had already heard some about Thadrick's life before he signed up to become an official resident of the tutorial. What Alan didn't know is how things had been going for the dwarf while he had been stuck in the wild dungeon.

It seemed that becoming a healer wasn't all he had expected. His party usually did well enough that his new talents weren't needed. This meant he spent a decent amount of time as a bodyguard. Elluin was their only real source of magic damage, and so it was Thadrick's job to keep him safe. He occasionally had to do some healing, but when he wasn't swinging his axe he was mostly buffing his allies. It was a facet of the class that Alan had no experience with. Not only did he lack a talent for it, but he also hadn't gotten any spells to do it. That actually suited Alan just fine since he didn't really have anyone to boost normally.

The Motley Swarm had been doing well when they had a chance to go dungeon diving. They were the only other team beside the newly named Companions who were capable of handling the tier two dungeons. Originally they were all quartz class, and so Lyonel had given them a map showing the easier dungeons that they should stick to. Since then, everyone but Thadrick had evolved at least one of their classes to opal. His friend was waiting until he got his healer class to a hundred percent. Since he was switching his role, he wanted to upgrade that one first. He was getting there, but he had the farthest to go of all his teammates, and so he was still stuck at quartz.

One of his most recent dungeon runs had paid off well for him. In addition to leveling their classes, in order to upgrade, they also needed an opal stone. Dantelion and Gaud had been first to evolve. They both had brought some class stones with them. Each of them had started with their fighter classes. Thadrick wasn't the one to share this part, each member of his party shared what they were comfortable with. Talking about other people's classes was like asking a woman how old they were, some things just weren't done in the Network. However, since Alan was the one bankrolling them, they felt it appropriate to share. Also, it was the class they identified as when scanning them, so there was little point in trying to hide it.

Dantelion had brought along a rare fighter class called Champion. It had been a final gift from his mother and sounded pretty impressive. The man shared that he had upgraded his rogue class to Skirmisher as well. That was an uncommon class stone that he had purchased on his own before arriving. From the way Thadrick talked about him, Dantelion was quite the swordsman and his new classes had only built on that.

Gaud's first opal class was Combatant. It was only a common class, but it was apparently working for her. She had also gotten an opal stone from one of their dungeon quests, this time it was an uncommon spirit based class called Medium. That word had a loaded meaning back on Earth, but he had to remember that things worked differently here. Once Alan got Gaud talking about it, he learned everything there was to know about the class.

"An upgrade to my seeker class is great. Not only does it boost the energy running though my aura, but I am now better able to handle people trying to curse me or cast spells on me. It really is an underutilized class for tanks. The best part is, I gained an ability called Aura Sensing. It really saps my mana to use, but while it's running I can read peoples' auras. It's not as good as the skill aura reading, but the fact that I have the ability means that I can probably get the skill later."

It would have been informative to compare his aura reading skill with her new ability, but he wasn't going to share that he had it. The skill was incredibly rare, even at the red grade, so it would behoove him not to let on that he had it. Alan would try and get her to talk more later, but now Thadrick was sharing his own news.

"I got a rare healer opal stone. It's a class called Inspirationist. Not only is it rare, but it sounds like it's right up my alley. It focuses more on helping others than healing them, but it's not like I lose that ability either."

Hearing about other people's classes was good for Alan because it gave him a broader picture of what others were capable of. It also gave him a sense of how varied adventurers could be. Everyone had the same eight classes to begin with, but from there things really started to get interesting. The discussion provided a nice distraction for Alan as they made their way back to Elstree. There were a couple of things he couldn't take his mind off of, though.

The first was where the new people had come from. Elstree had been able to grow originally because the Network brought in people every week, but also because it attracted immigrants from the neighboring villages. Since Alan had officially claimed Elstree, the border barrier between the zones had closed for everyone. At first, Alan and the other recruits had been blocked from passing through, but the villagers could travel freely. Trade caravans had been a necessary thing in the beginning. They even had a few villagers who had been working on becoming merchants.

Now that the village was claimed, that was a thing of the past. No one could get into their area, and none of the villagers could leave. That honestly suited Alan just fine, and if he'd realized it earlier he would have claimed the village even sooner. To the north of the village was the town of Dewhurst and the home of Chrisly and his family. They were an odious family of aristocrats who had been a plague on Elstree before Alan took over. He had delayed claiming the settlement until he could deal with the man and his party. Turns out, taking over would have solved that problem.

The other thing that was troubling him was a bond that had been growing stronger recently. He knew what it was, and who it connected to, but until a few days ago he hadn't known that it was syphoning off energy from his aura. After he had managed to stabilize his injuries in the dungeon, he had started exploring his different reading skills. It was while trying to find the difference between his aura and his qi channels that he sensed the parasite sucking on his energy.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening once he found the problem. The other issue was that he could sense that the one who held the bond was getting closer. Previously, such information had been cloaked from his senses, but now he could get a lot more information out of it. In addition to getting closer, he could tell that the bond had strengthened quite a bit. That was something to explore, but first he wanted to know just what Akilatjin was doing here in tier three.