FINAL CORE - Chapter 58 (Patreon)

Rest?

Adventurers don’t get to rest.

While high-level, top ranking adventurers might make a mean take-home income, the average adventurer lives in the realms of poverty. A level ten, rank D- adventurer without a party stands to reach the first boss of a dungeon, assuming they live in a city with access to a low-level dungeon.

This means that they might earn across all ten floors roughly five-hundred Obols in total, after selling all looted monster components, assuming the drop of one boss-core and one unusual item, found on the monsters.

A loaf of bread costs ten Obols, at most local bakers. Water is free. However, a room at the adventurer’s guild, while permanent, requires an investment of ten-thousand Obols, which are able to be paid back as a debt over the period of one year.

Equipment must be purchased and then often repaired. Casters and alchemists require regents. Archers require arrows. Everyone requires boots and they wear out fast in the mud and the stones of the dungeons.

Add in any other daily expenses, such as medicine or family costs and those original five-hundred Obols dwindle, very, very quickly.

Not to forget that the five core dungeons of our nation, the oldest dungeons that we control, only do a hard-reset every two weeks, together with the new moon. Which means that an adventurer can only clear floors one to ten in their instance every two weeks and not every day.

This is why you will never see an adventurer of low rank sitting in a tea-house or at a restaurant. There is simply no time and no money for them to breathe.

Only after an adventurer reaches roughly level twenty and rank C-, do things start becoming more comfortable. But this is a long grind when starting from the depths of poverty with poor equipment, training and luck.

~ Of adventurers. More fable glammer than actual glory? A local article in a publication, circulating around the adventurer’s guilds.

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New (HOLY) ability - Garden of Peace

• WIld plants and animals, in tune with the HOLY attribute, will begin growing around the tower.

Isaiah has decided and selects the new ability. While its uses may not seem as immediately apparent as the uses of some other of its ability choices, there does indeed seem to be a strong case to make for the perk.

Plants and fauna imbued with the holy-element will be extremely useful for the development of the region, the territory, as a unique place in the world. Furthermore, these will be critical as ingredients in all manner of new potions and salves for the tower alchemist, Caeli, to make. Although Isaiah is sure that Rorate will find some use for them too, given her tendency towards such brews.

Finally, it just feels right. The forest, now the island, is already naturally beautiful. That is why it had chosen to live here, in its life as a blackbird. This radiance was only enhanced when it had taken its very first ability, as Isaiah, which had spread a holy influence across the landscape, painting and tinging it with an otherworldly aura of wholeness.

Isaiah recalls the world, from the eyes of a human.

There are places that are good and places that are bad. But these places were given these meanings by other people, who had painted these contexts over them.

A meadow was a good place, because beautiful flowers bloomed there.

A forest is a bad place, because terrible monsters hide in the darkness.

This is how humans see the world. But for a blackbird, it is the opposite.

A meadow is a bad place, because there is nowhere to hide from hawks.

A forest is a good place, because it offers food and shelter from predators of all nature.

What Isaiah wants for the tower, for the island, is for it to be a place that is simply good. A place that is good when standing free from all contexts of all species and cultures. It wants a place that humans think is good and it wants a place that blackbirds think is good.

It desires deeply for them to think this. And this belief will serve to strengthen the tower’s growth. Every day, they press towards the sky. Floor one-hundred is upon them soon.

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“Break off a piece of the land,” orders Isaiah, pointing off to the side, towards a spot in the middle of the air, above floor eighty. “Create an island here, in the air,” it orders. “Upon this, we will build a separate tower segment, detached from the core-tower, like on floors seventy to eighty below.

“I mean, sure,” says Crystal. “But it’s going to make the architecture… challenging,” he explains. “The stability of the tower needs to remain plausible, or the dungeon-magic won’t work to hold it upright.”

Isaiah nods. “Then make it plausible.”

“Will do,” affirms Crystal. “So, is there a reason you want to go a little ‘extra’ here, or is it just for the flair?”

Isaiah holds its hands behind its back, staring. It looks at Crystal for a moment, before turning back towards the tower. “I think that I have come to learn much about imagery and presentation,” it explains. “At first, I had assumed that such vanity was pointless. A simple tower, straight up, was the fastest and most efficient idea.” Isaiah looks at the structure and at the mass of colors moving down at its base. People. “But now I see that there is power in vanity. It is the power of legitimacy.” Isaiah shakes its head and looks towards the clouds. “After all. Would the gods not build a grand, ornate design?” it asks. “A cathedral of greatness? They have the power to do so. The gods have no need for bare efficiency.”

Crystal nods. “Makes sense to me. I’ll get started, but uh…” He rubs the back of his head. “Are uh, are we still taking that day off once a week like you said?” Isaiah looks his way again. “Because if we are, it’s tomorrow and I can’t. The adventurers are breaking too much stuff in the dungeon that needs to be fixed.”

Isaiah tilts its head.

“I have an idea about that,” it replies.

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[Fierra]

Half-Elf, Female, Shieldswain

Fierra yawns, stretching herself out as she opens her eyes for the first time that day. Her long, too thin arms crack, together with her back and her knees at the same time. She lets out a sharp exhalation as she tries to recover from her night’s worth of rest.

She had a very sudden and strong growth spurt in her adolescence and ever since then, she’s had all sorts of aches and pains with her joints and back.

The elf sits upright, rubbing her eyes as she yawns again. Her head brushes against the top of her tent. It’s time to get ready for work. The others will be awake soon too and they want to go into the dungeon again today, just like they’ve been doing every day for two weeks now. If that hot-spring wasn’t here to soothe her aching muscles, she’s sure they would have all fallen off by now.

The elf gets ready for her day and crawls out of her tent, taking care of whatever it is that elves have to do to get ready for a day full of monster-slaughter and endless staircases.

She hates the staircases in the tower. It really gets to her knees. She isn’t even that old.

Fierra sighs, slapping her face to perk herself up, a little while later. The others gather around her, all of them appearing to be in various states of chipperness for another productive day at work.

“Is everyone set?” she asks, looking at her party.

“As much as I can be, considering I was impaled yesterday,” replies their party healer, who had died in yesterday's failed run on the tower. His body is healed. But people don’t forget the sensation and the pain of being stabbed.

Some people have it worse, though. Getting stabbed is one thing, but there are some really, really bad ways to die in the tower.

She slaps him on the back with a lanky arm and picks up her shield. “You’ll get over it.” She nods her head to the dungeon-gate. “Come on, let’s g-”

A quest pops up on the questboard.

[Quest]

The Day of Rest

Difficulty: Extremely Easy

Description: Today is declared to be a day of rest for everyone. Sleep. Eat. Bathe. Enjoy the good season while it remains and while we remain in it.

Objective: Do not enter the tower. Do not hunt wild monsters within the dungeon-territory.

Reward: 1 x [Gold Nugget]{50g}

Bonus Objective: Pray at the shrine.

Bonus Reward: 1 x [Potent Herbal Remedy]

Murmurs go around the campsite, spreading to the stalls and the crowds, beginning to form for the day.

Fierra reads the quest and then looks over to her party. “Is… is the dungeon telling us to take a vacation?”

“I can’t afford to take a vacation,” replies the fighter, looking her way.

The man next to him sighs. “That’s because you can’t read.” The fighter frowns, looking away. He puts a hand on his back. “It’s a good deal. It says we’ll get a piece of gold if we don’t do anything.”

“A good deal?” asks Fierra. “Do you know what fifty grams of gold are worth?”

“No?” asks the man. “How much?”

Fierra shrugs. “Hell if I know. But it’s enough that it’s a good deal and that we can take a day off. I’m taking the quest.”

“Me too,” replies the priest. “I… I could use a day.”

Fierra nods. “I’m gonna go into the hot-spring and stay in there until I look like a wrinkly goblin.”

She smiles, looking around the area. What an unusual place. What an unusual dungeon. What an unusual day, today is promising to be.

The elf yawns and walks over to her tent, throwing her shield back inside, before dragging herself towards the hot-springs to take her first day off ever.