A week passed and Doyle has settled down into watching groups as they delve. Not any group in particular, though he does avoid those only hitting up the slaughterhouse. Those people have it down to a routine at this point. Sure, it isn’t safe for them.
Anywhere between one and an entire party will die on the floor in a month. This isn’t even limited to those new to the floor. In fact, most of the deaths on floor six cluster towards the middle. Those with a lot of experience, but not the old hands.
This little fact comes more from hubris than anything else. They will get cocky about things and stop respecting that this is a dungeon and it is trying to kill them. So they’ll get in over their heads and one stampede later finds them squashed. Another common occurrence is if a party decides they can speed things up by splitting up. Which is when the party wipes most often occur.
That was actually a bit backwards from what Doyle had expected, though after all this time, it has started to make sense. When together, the group will notice the danger and maybe lose one or two people as the others retreat. That they take on something they think they can handle and just barely can’t, losing someone in the process.
When split up? If they lose track of someone? Well, all it takes is for one of them to fall to a stampede without notice. Then the monsters continue on to the rest of the group who are now down a person and not expecting the danger.
Doyle shakes himself and so ignores the floor again. It was fun to watch every once in a while, but doesn’t really help when trying to judge the dungeon. Those grinding floor six are more like the people who would speedrun video games. They’re playing the same game everyone else is, but it looks nothing like how regular people actually play.
Honestly, Doyle could probably ignore everything before ten, except for five. He won’t though because of one fun little event that keeps happening. A while ago, he made it so that if you got carried too hard, you might have your progress reset.
Sadly, this mostly hasn’t come up. People will get carried to six, but not to a degree that triggers the reset. Which does make a little sense. The point of getting to six is to farm it, which means nothing if you can’t. Oh sure, those doing the carrying sometimes get reset, but what do they care?
Their job is literally to go from 1 to 6 and by now can do it alone. So, no, they don’t care. Besides, they’re mostly hired on to help against the boss. Which, fair enough. The fifth-floor boss is a bit of a jump in difficulty.
However, there are the occasional neo-rich fools who will try to boost themselves. They’ll manage to get to floor 7 or 8 and stall out. Which obviously can’t be right!
Note the sarcasm. Anyway, they’ll use some of that silver they’re flush with to hire people to get “past the hump”. Beating floor 10 being seen as an important checkpoint since you can’t tell the difference between someone who barely got to floor 11 or catching up to Ace and company.
Then the idiots will tool around on 11, maybe get to 12 on luck, only for it to become obvious and be reset. Which not only does Doyle find hilarious, but their reactions upon re-entering the dungeon and finding themselves back on floor 1? Oh, the tantrums that are thrown!
Ally in particular enjoys watching those crash-outs. Though particularly fun is the fact that why it happens isn’t particularly known. After all, who is going to admit to being carried? Oh, sure, those doing the carrying have a clue, but telling would be a threat to their own jobs. So in the end, it simply seems that occasionally you’ll lose your place in the dungeon.
-----
Up in the town, while Doyle is reminiscing below, Ace is looking forward. After all, they have money now and can afford to improve certain aspects of the town. Especially since, despite some of the worry early on, not even the butcher has caused problems among the system buildings.
But what buildings would help preserve what is important and push the town forward? There weren’t infinite things to choose from, though mostly because the system massively culls what Ace can see.
Did Ace want a hospital? It would be useful, but no. It would also be a crutch. Right now, Doctor was training people from all over not only in using healing magic, but also in traditional medicine. Sure, some of it is obsolete now, but there is value in knowing how the body is put together and all the chemicals that bubble through it.
And that same problem was intertwined throughout every other choice. Ace even regretted a few of the existing buildings. For instance, the soup kitchen. A wonderful and kind thing that ensures everyone in town can have a meal.
Ace doesn’t begrudge anyone that! He doesn’t want to remove it to take that away either. Rather, he wants people from town to run it now. At the start, he couldn’t have afforded it, sure and so it was needed, but now? What Ace needs more is a place to train up people on various cooking skills.
In a strange twist, the butchers, a place Ace was worried about for a very legitimate reason, has turned out as a decent bit of infrastructure. While they certainly don’t need it to process the dungeon drops. You get beef steaks, tenderloins, and so on. All cut up and ready to cook.
No, hardly any meat at all ends up going to the butchers. Instead, people go there to be trained. Which is something the soup kitchen doesn’t offer, Ace had asked. As for why the butchery skill is so prized? Well, it is a harvest-type skill.
Good for if you’re dealing with some new critter and need to field dress it, but that isn’t the reason probably half the town has the skill. No, that lays directly on the fact that having the skill means more meat drops from the sixth floor cattle. So as soon as they can afford it, every single person who hits up floor six for some meat will go and get the skill.
Doubly convenient since the system itself provides the material to train with. And Ace is pretty certain the system is just copying the cattle from floor six. Not that he minds.
Oh sure, the butcher running the place is still a creep and Ace figured he’ll need to do something about them, eventually. But for the moment, things are holding. And yes, he realizes that means now is the best time to handle things and not when it all goes sideways. But Ace has a lot on his plate and so many things to handle.
Anyway, after a week of thinking on things during the brief periods when Ace wasn’t actively doing something and two council meetings. The next bit of system infrastructure has been decided on.
It is technically something they could eventually handle on their own. In fact, if they really worked at it, those preservation boxes the dungeon drops could be used to mimic some of the functionality. Though they’re too small for some of the things that need preserving.
Besides that, it doesn’t come pre-stocked. Sure, there are the usual system-provided workers that will run the place. But until the quarantine drops, everything will need to be provided by the town.
Ace looked around the table, a pile of gold plates sat in the center. Plates used instead of pieces as they stacked better, even if it made the number of coins look quite pitiful. “So, it is decided? We’ll be spending a good three-fifths to three-quarters of our savings on this building. This is the last chance to raise any concerns.”
Around the table, Doctor, Ruby, Jeremy, Kelly, Kyle, and Jimmy all sit still. While the main discussion had only taken a week, that is only because other options had been removed over the months. Besides, they were in a bit of a time crunch for this specific thing. Also, the rest of the inner circle had already signed off on it.
Ace nodded and signed the paper in front of him before passing it around for the others to sign.
Once the paper returns to Ace, he claps his hands, “And done. Now we just need to decide where to place it.”
Jimmy laughs, “Like you have a choice. It can’t be in the inner circle. This will be storing our heritage and regular people need access to it.”
Kelly nods, “And obviously it needs to be near the tower.”
Doctor, “I’m also partial to it being nearer than not to where I’m training people.”
Ruby shrugs, “Kelly already said what I want out of it.”
Jeremy and Kyle both fold their hands. While they’ll certainly be making use of the building, where it resides isn’t something they’re worried about.
Ace shrugs, “How about in the wall, halfway between the tower and the healers academy.”
Doctor snorts, “I wouldn’t call it an academy.”
Ace raises an eyebrow, “Well, it has certainly started to look like one. You have even managed to gather other pre-magic doctors and nurses to help teach people.
“It won’t be long now. Soon those who ‘graduate’ will be seen in the same light as those who went to a prestigious medical school.”
Doctor waves it away, “We’ll get to it, when we get to it. I would honestly prefer we figure out a way to make diplomas that can’t be forged. The system makes sure counterfeits aren’t a problem with money, but there is a ton of stuff where making a close enough forgery is still profitable.”
Ace sighs, “I can’t really deny that and I respect you not wanting to make things official until it can be properly official. Though no matter what you do, someone somewhere is going to pull it off on the unsuspecting.”
Kyle nods, “I must admit, I’m in a similar position. I have worked to train people in the mindset needed to work with rules and laws. Sure, I can’t really train people on specific laws, but knowing what to look for and how to read a rule from every angle is still important. And without a way to confirm I trained them and they passed, I’m not handing out titles or certificates.”
Ace sighs, “Well, maybe this new library will have something to help us fix this problem.”
Jeremy, “Except we are specifically getting a ‘pre-contact’ cultural preservation library. The point of this is to preserve our pre-magic books and maybe even help restore some of them. It has been years since the system came, and what books we are finding now are either preserved by people or falling apart.
“College worth of textbooks isn’t anywhere near enough and this library promises to help. And honestly? If it didn’t cost so much, I’d be saying we should have bought this place right at the start.”
Ace raises his hand to quiet everyone down. “We can argue about this later. Is anyone against the library being in the wall, halfway between where Doctor trains people and the mage tower?”
No one had anything against that and so Ace calls the meeting to a close. “Now all we have to do is go and make sure the space is cleared out and then the system will take care of placing everything.”
Jimmy frowns, “I don’t really like giving up control of our wall to the system. Though not much we can do if we want this place to work properly.”
Kelly shrugs, “The system seems to have good sense. Well, or it employs people who do. So whatever is put in place won’t be a weak point. Besides, I would be rather disappointed if we let some force get all the way to the inner wall.”
Jimmy shrugs, “Well, I’m more worried about threats from within. The general population.”
Ace rolls his eyes, “Give us a decade or two and once the town has grown enough, we can add another wall. Then those within the current outer circle can be those we trust.”
Jimmy, “Except for everyone that will be coming through to visit the mage tower, get trained as a healer, visit our soon to be library, and so on. We won’t be able to make a noble’s district or some such.”