The City and the Dungeon Page 5

  "And the boots," Sampson said.

  "And the boots, if you insist," Mical said. "Anyone else?"

  No one said anything.

  "Let's just get this stuff sold," I said. I just wanted to be done, as if that one interaction had soured our adventure.

  * * *

  But my mood brightened on the way to the Auction House.

  Short the Public Entrance, you'll never see a place as crowded as the Auction House. There may be more who go to the Bank, but they won't stay as long. Nor will you see such a variety of delvers. Everyone, active delver and shopkeeper alike, uses it sooner or later. I even saw surfacers looking around with frowns or excitement.

  Anything—absolutely anything—can be bought or sold at the Auction House. Heartstones and shards are the exceptions, and maybe FOREX forwards. But everything else—consumables, gear, stat items, skillstones, even classtones and housestones—is there. If you can't find it there, someone else bought it or it's not on the market at all. You can even sell yourself there—no, really. You can sell your own employment contract, or you can sell equity in your party. There's plenty in the Law about it, but it's not uncommon.

  Right then, I was too baffled by all the sights and noise to even think of security laws, had I known them. I saw a trio of golden-haired violet delvers in black go up some stairs. Above was a sign reading +100 Charisma item lots, 2:00 minutes. "Is that where the high level stuff is sold?" I asked. "Wonder what it's like."

  "You can watch," Elise said. "The Law gives you the right to go up there any time you want. You just can't buy anything if you can't pay."

  "That should go without saying, no?" Mical asked.

  A young man waited eagerly behind an empty counter. RED GOODS ONLY was written in large letters over the counter. I walked up. "I'm sorry," I said. "I've never done this before."

  "No problem," the clerk said. "Got a Bank account for the party?"

  Mical looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Please tell me you have one."

  "Didn't think of it, sorry," I said.

  "No worries," the clerk said. "Just come back when you do."

  * * *

  I've read that bank architecture is designed so as to present a feeling of power, immobility, safety. The Bank fit that description, being the widest indoor space I had ever entered. Counter after counter served lines of delvers. I saw a variety of spectrums although the highest level delvers tend to have personal bankers. The delvers who didn't were so many that the lines stretched across the foyer. We were at the end of the day when most parties exited the Dungeon.

  * * *

  The guards all around were greens and blues, I suspected some indigo or even violet party from High House Medici was in the vicinity. Should a robber succeed or a sufficiently aggrieved party attack, the damage to the City's economy would be uncountable.

  "You know," I said. "I don't have a personal account."

  "Let he who does not have a Bank account get one here," Mical said. "We may as well get it all done now." She pursed her lips and after a moment, said, "Are we staying together after this? I assumed we were."

  "I was assuming we would," I said hopefully. Up until Luke's departure, I hadn't thought of us as anything but permanent.

  "I'm fine," Elise said. "I like all of you guys."

  "Stay," Andy said.

  "Sure," Sampson said with a flourish that made his cape waver. "I'm sad Luke left us."

  "I'm glad he did, if he was going to be dramatic about it," Xavier said. "I vote 'stay.'"

  "Great," I said. "Let's meet up, um..."

  "I trust you in getting the items sold," Mical said. "Shall we be gathering at an inn? I doubt the Bank will appreciate us loitering."

  "Know a place?" I asked.

  "The Redd's is probably cheap enough for us. That is its virtue. Perchance its only virtue," Mical said.

  "We'll meet there, then," I said.

  * * *

  A long line later, I wished I had been with them.

  "Good day, sir," said the teller who had an orange aura. He was frighteningly short with a long shadow that moved subtly moved around him. He was, in fact, an Imp, one of the subclasses that High House Medici owned. What was the City, where even the bank teller could easily end your life? "How may we help you?"

  "I'd like to open an account," I said.

  "Very well, sir."

  Delvers don't care about money laundering, being that it's impossible to prevent anyway. Just convert it into crystal and hand it to someone. Or leave it in the Dungeon for someone to "find." Nonetheless, there were many papers to sign, most of silly questions. No, I wasn't planning to start a smuggling company.

  Then I did it all over again for my own account.

  I walked away with a checkbook reading 60R. Sixty red. More than I had started with, but not much. Yet, I felt, as a symbol, I ought to send some back home.

  * * *

  I felt out of my depth already in the foreign exchange room at the Bank. Most other delvers were at least green. I tried to find the place where the red delvers gathered and found none whatsoever. I clenched my teeth and walked to the nearest empty counter.

  "Hey," I said. "Um, I'll want to buy some gold dollars."

  "Excuse me, sir," the clerk said. "Are you planning to remit money outside of the City, by any chance?"

  "That's precisely what I want to do," I said.

  He motioned towards a door. "For a nominal fee of 2%, we shall exchange crystals for an external currency and immediately send it to anywhere in the world with our mages. The clerks for this service can be found over there."

  "That's... that's what I want," I said. "Sorry for disturbing you."

  I'll admit it, this is what started it. When I was going to send you the money myself, I had planned to write a note with it. But since the Bank would transfer the money for me, I decided I would send the letter separately, when I could afford it.

  * * *

  As if our conversation had never stopped, the clerk at the Red Goods desk began talking as I came back. "Sign this form, deposit the items, and we'll get it sold."

  The form was one page. It took about thirty seconds to fill out. "This isn't that hard," I said as I signed it.

  "We make it as easy as we can, here," the clerk said. "If you do this a lot, we can speed up the process."

  "How long will it take?" I asked. "I mean, for the auction."

  "It'll be done in twenty-four hours at most. Unless you want it done sooner or later, but twenty-four is the default."

  "Twenty-four will be fine," I said. "I'll be back tomorrow."

  "If you're having it directly deposited in the Bank, you won't need to come back at all. Unless you've got more loot?"

  "I hope I will, then," I said. "I hope I will."

  * * *

  The inn looked like a dump—I 'm sorry, that's what it looked like. I can hardly call it anything else. Home? Home doesn't have five stories with broken windows and a fire escape so rusted it looks like it would fall off. Had there been more light to see the peeling paint, it would have looked even worse.

  Mical showed me to our room inside. Barely enough to fit all of us, bare wood floor, two triple-decker beds and a distinct odor. In the wall, a small door led to a mini chest. Elise lay stretched out on one bed, Sampson was asleep on another. Xavier read a book, and Andy sat against a wall, utterly still.

  "I went ahead and reserved it with my own crystal," Mical said. "I am certain they shall understand."

  "The stuff's at auction," I said. "Hey, does Luke get a share of what we'll sell the loot for?" I asked.

  "No, since he left the party," Mical said. She raised an eyebrow. "I read the contract, didn't you?"

  I started to blush. "I, um, figured that since it was a standard contract, I didn't need to—"

  "A good way to end up in trouble," Mical interrupted. "As Luke just did, because he has no rights to the proceeds."

  "I feel kinda bad about that," Elise said. She didn't sou
nd too upset about it, though.

  "I'm just glad he's gone," Xavier said. "Nothing against him personally, but I'd rather not have the drama."

  "You've said that like three times now," Elise said.

  "Because I don't drama. And lo, he will no longer pose any form of drama to us."

  I decided to read the contract, conspicuously holding it out so Mical could see I was doing it. "If we're going to do this long-term," I said. "We'll need to delegate. And establish an order of command." Unlike a chain of command, a party may lose any member in battle, and an absolute order must be made for leadership in any situation.

  "You're the leader, I'm second," Elise said. "That's how we've done it already."

  "Mical, since you've been bossing us around about money, I hereby declare you to be the treasurer," I said.

  Mical chuckled. "Fine, if you consider business advice bossiness. Although this would have been better to decide earlier, so that my name could be on the party account."

  "Can I be, like, assistant treasurer?" Xavier asked. "I'm good at numbers."

  "You can check the books to make sure I didn't make a mistake," Mical said. "Or cheat all of you. It happens to the closest of parties."

  "Sixth," Andy said.

  "I take it you don't ever want to lead us?" I asked. Andy nodded. "So..."

  "I'll be fifth, then," Xavier said. "I'm not a fan of leading, either."

  "If I'm 'bossy,' I may as well be third?" Mical asked.

  "Sampson?" I asked. "Sampson, wake up. We're ordering the party. You OK with being fourth?"

  "Sure," he mumbled and fell back asleep.

  Mical looked at me.

  "Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to insult you. I just didn't want to make a decision without Sampson."

  "Fine," she said. "It's all fine."

  "Since we're starting the party for real," Elise said. "Shall we eat? Our first crystal together?"

  Each of us took out a red, and Xavier shook Sampson awake again.

  "Pop it in your mouth and chew," Elise said. "Believe me, it's great. And it'll never be as good the next time."

  "All right," I said. "On a count of three. One, two, three..." I pushed it in and bit.

  You know those frozen juices you eat? Crystal is similar, in texture at least. It's not cold. In taste, the nearest adjective I can find for red crystal is spicy, or maybe meaty. But it is also very juicy, and the crystal literally melted in my mouth. It was like... the best food ever.

  "It's official," Xavier said. "We're together."

  "Shall we find another to replace Luke?" I asked.

  "Nah," Sampson said. "We're friends. No need to open the door of more drama. And right now, sleep." And so speaking, he took his pillow again.

  "Yeah," I said, yawning. "I'd like some sleep, too."

  * * *

  But that night I couldn't. Couldn't do anything but think about tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. How far had I gotten? From earlier that day, a surfacer, to the leader of a successful party. Soon enough we'd be leveling up, going deeper, fighting more—until soon we would be a strong party, too. Then deeper, and deeper. Who knew where we'd stop—if ever?

  I could hardly wait.

  Chapter Six:

  Classes

  A month later, we sat in our cramped quarters resting after our first delve into the 2nd Floor.

  "We're going to need to start classing up," Mical said. "We can't keep gaining experience but not power. And... we're all getting close to 30th Nomad."

  "Oh, boy," Elise said. "Are we all ready for an argument?"

  I knew exactly what they were talking about.

  The most critical choice a delver makes, and the most argued over, is the second class. Every delver starts as a Nomad, a class bad at almost everything, but at least good enough in basic survival skills. After enough levels in Nomad (thirty is the usual number) it becomes not only possible, but critical to switch. Otherwise, you won't be able to survive the deeper floors.

  For many, the choice is almost automatic. Every class has stat requirements, and unless you're lucky enough to naturally fit more than one, that one is most likely your choice. Stat increase items are rare and expensive and well beyond the reach of a starting delver. Some delvers have no other classes available to them, and they're stuck in Nomad indefinitely.

  But it's still not that simple. A party must have a good composition of classes in its members.

  Frontline classes such as Knights and Warriors hold off the melee monsters from killing the more fragile party members, but a party can't have all frontline. Otherwise, ranged monsters will pick off the slow armored delvers before they can close in. The exceptions are Titans and similar Tier One frontlines who have some means to reach those ranged monsters in time. But as a red party, we were nowhere close to the requirements for any Tier One class.

  Midline magic classes, such as Mages and Sorcerers, do most of the damage in a pitched battle. But magic-using classes are expensive for a party—spellstones aren't cheap. And when they run out of magic, as inevitably will occur on a long delve, there has to be someone else to fight until the party gets back.

  Rogues or Thieves are almost necessary for a party to profit from chests, but often times they can go solo. More than one party has fallen apart after paying for soulbound gear and states for a Rogue who then leaves. The Law never forces a delver to remain in a party, even if breaking a contract can be penalized.

  Finally, backline support classes, usually Herbalists, Clerics or Healers, are vital to a party's survival for healing during and after battles. The problem is almost no one wants to be one. You're fragile, and the abuse that support classes often receive from their parties is legendary.

  "How about this?" I asked. "Let's all think of our own class path, and then we'll see if we need to rearrange."

  "I'm going for Warrior, obviously," Sampson said. "Or Paladin, by way of Warrior."

  "Apprentice," Xavier said. "I'll see if I can find the cheapest spellstones."

  "Since I've been unlocking all the chests, look who's going to be the party Rogue?" Elise said.

  "On that basis, I will be a Herbalist," Mical said. "I have the stats, and the Experience requirements are not that onerous."

  "That's going to be a while in the future, I think," I said.

  "Quite a while, I'm sure, but it would be optimal in the long run. If Sampson is already going to talk about Paladin at this point... I will take Healer for the moment."

  "Andy, how about you?" Elise asked.

  "Dig."

  "Digger isn't a class, honey."

  "Dig. Miner." Andy looked like she was going to choke on her words. "Warrior."

  I had decided to step in at the end, making a leaderlike sacrifice and taking the position that wasn't filled. But two Warriors, an Apprentice, a Rogue, and a Healer made a decent composition. "Let me see what I can do."

  Mical handed me one of those pamphlets from the basic guilds. The pamphlet's cover was a grid listing classes along the side and required stats along the top. I could quickly see what classes were available to me.

  It wasn't much. I almost had two more classes, but the only one I could get right away was Healer.

  "Scavenger would be really useful," I said hopefully. "It'd be another fighter and a second kind of thief."

  "It's also impossible," Mical said.

  "Maybe if I work out..." I said. "Increase my natural stats."

  "Doesn't work that way," Elise said. "I mean, it does, but the time you'd take to get to 11 Strength would be a lot longer than we can afford."

  "That's depressing," I said.

  "It's true, though. Life's like that." Elise ruffled her hair.

  "There's nothing wrong with another Healer," Mical said. "We have a good front- and midline."

  I almost objected, but stopped myself. What was wrong with Healer? I knew no one in my party was going to berate me over a botched heal. And while it wasn't as cool as, say, Warrior, it was easily more use
ful. In high demand, too, if the party disbanded.

  "I'll go for Doctor," I said.

  "Hold on," Xavier said. "That's M-Type. I'd want to have M-Type."

  "What's wrong if we both have it?" I asked.

  Sorry. I'm going to have to break here to explain. There are, officially, over seventeen known forms of spellcasting. (It depends on how you count the subclasses.) While it would be easy to say that each has its advantages and disadvantages, there's really no contest between Tv-Type and plain V-Type, or N-Type and anything else. You can only use the type that your specific class gives you for a specific spell.