Chapter 63 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

POV Carl

As soon as I stepped out of the gateway, the noise of civilization hit me, and I cringed a little bit. Not so pleasant memories hit me, but I pushed them down and started to purposely head towards the edge of the gate hub area.

My first target was a food vendor, and it was hard not to drool from the smells of cooking meat. I placed one copper coin into the waiting hand and took the two sticks of meat and vegetables and, while walking to my next destination, ate them. The first one disappeared fast, but the second one I ate slowly.

My first destination was in the lower shopping district, which took me about 10 minutes of walking to reach. It was a pawnshop that was not that well-kept, and when I walked inside, there was barely any merchandise.

The shopkeeper looked grimy, but I had seen him slap around people that were stronger than me. He smiled when he saw me, and I pulled out the necklace with our guild token on it. He ever so slightly moved his head to the right, indicating that this time the right staircase would be the correct one.

The entrance to the underground area changed, but that was an expected amount of security for our headquarters. Instead of taking the staircase up, I walked underneath it and then through the illusionary wall.

The right staircase tunnel was left, left, right, right, down, right, left. The tunnels themselves were completely pitch black, and no matter what lighting was used, it would be snuffed out. It was actually an enchantment that was banned from being used inside the dungeon, as no one wanted any rooms to have that, but we were supposed to have guilds down here as well.

The door itself, I did not know what it was made out of, but it looked like wood, but to the touch, it was like metal. First, the guild symbol. Needed to go to the correct hole, then I needed to pull two levers to the side, and the last part was quite hard in the dark, but I needed to touch two spots at the same time and then click; the door swung open.

The darkness enchantment immediately started to work to spread even further inside the now open doorway, but as soon as I closed it, light returned, and I could see the door from the other side.

Once again, noise hit me, but this time it was mostly excited voices. This time, at the end of the tunnel, there was a more simple door with four guards sitting beside it. Everyone knew that I was on a run, and smiles immediately came to their faces when they saw mine.

While we were all, in a way, competing against each other and sometimes even getting angry at each other, whenever someone pushed the limit forward, everyone celebrated.

When the door opened, I was on a walkway overlooking a large underground area. We owned the entire block above, and the entire area underground was the headquarters. On one side of the room was a large board with all the top runs with the runner’s names and their times.

Almost half of the space was taken up by our own market, but the rest of the space was for people to do research, compile new information gathered, or to do other guild-related tasks. It was a busy place, and I did not particularly like the headquarters; I more enjoyed the smaller establishments we had.

I immediately headed towards the more important offices on this level. The office I was looking for was named ‘Run Verification.’ They had some sort of a larger device that was connected to devices similar to the one on my belt, but they needed to interact so the large device could confirm that the smaller device hadn't malfunctioned and everything was correct.

I needed to wait, as there were three more people ahead of me, but this process wasn't long, and soon I walked out with a golden guild token that indicated I was currently one of the record holders.

I kept it hidden, as I didn’t want extra attention, but I did need to show it to the receptionist in charge of information distribution. The way his eyes opened when he saw it! "Congratulations, Carl, it was inevitable that you would get one of those eventually. Would you like the standard information packet? I'll prepare the crystal immediately."

"Yes, but I would also like any information you can give me on any unusual discoveries or ruins. And if you could, I would like that information in paper form," I said with a little bit of hesitation. He did raise an eyebrow, but his genuine smile didn't waver.

"Not a problem for someone with that token. That packet now has a lot more detailed information, so be ready when you absorb that crystal." I gave him a firm nod and went to wait until everything was prepared.

It took two hours, mainly because of the special requests I had, and I did have to pay for the crystal and paper, but that wasn't much of a cost. That thought stopped me for a moment. With that amount of coin, I could have lived for a few years in absolute luxury.

I guess it's true that the more coin you have, the harder it is to understand its true value. When was the last time I sent a donation to the orphanage? I should really do that as soon as possible. I still hadn't moved from my spot because, why wouldn't I do this right away?

So, I changed my destination and headed to an office dealing with the outside world, but mostly letters and things like that. The process was fortunately easy when I mentioned that I wanted the service of cursive writing.

The only thing I knew about that was it was even harder to understand the letters, but at least that way I didn't have to write it myself and let everyone know that I couldn't write or even read. The letter was quite simple, just me telling them that I was donating and the banknote that they could use to get the coin I was sending them.

All of this took longer than I expected, but now I headed back up to the surface; however, I needed to go basically to the other side of the city. This time my destination was an inn, but it was actually one of our establishments with another underground area, but this one was more for relaxing and not business.

When I reached it, the barman greeted me with a big smile and showed me a thumbs-up. I gave him a nod and an even wider grin split his face.

"The conquering runner has returned. Three cheers!" he said with a voice that carried to everyone. People were in different states of soberness, but everyone cheered three times. And after that, the barman placed three shot glasses in front of him and filled them up with my preferred spirit.

When he was done, I was in front of him. "There's really no need for all of this," I said. Immediately, he started to shake his head. "Nonsense, you don't believe that, none of us do," he said with a laugh.

I downed the first shot to find the barman looking at me expectantly. "What?" I said. To which he just shook his head while smiling. "The fact that you can drink that without showing any reaction is just unnatural. You know that you are the only one who actually prefers the clear stuff over the brown. Not to mention that you have never ordered a beer." I just shrugged my shoulders.

We continued to talk for a little while, but then I indicated that I needed to speak with him without anyone not of our Guild hearing, because this was an establishment open to everyone. I saw the barman looking around.

"Don't worry, everyone here is with us." I was still a bit hesitant, so I spoke in a low tone. "You know the crazy explorer guild member Tristan, that I did a job for?" He nodded his head. "I need to get information on his current whereabouts."

The barman contemplated my request while I cursed in my head that I still didn’t know his name. It was way too late to ask him, and for some reason, no one actually called him by his name; it was frustrating. Eventually, I saw recognition in his eyes.

"Carl, you are in luck. He came about two months back looking for you but ended up hiring a group of outsiders that were staying in the inn. They came back a while later, and while I didn’t overhear a lot, I’m pretty sure that they completed the job for Tristan successfully. After that, I haven’t heard from him, so he's probably at one of their guild establishments."

That was good news and bad news. I talked with Tristan quite a lot, and usually after his jobs, he spends some time going through his findings and then starts to grind some coins. So he was either who knows where in the dungeon or in the explorers' establishments, most likely their headquarters.

"Can you get me a visitor token for the Explorers' Guild?" I asked the barman; his smile dropped a little bit. "That's going to be mighty expensive."

I winced at that. There was also the option of just waiting, but that idea brought up bad memories. I lifted my backpack from the floor and opened it up to show a nasty-looking dagger-like claw. "It has the Trinity skills for blades," my words made him dry swallow.

"That will get you that token and a three month's stay here with breakfast and dinner." I gave a firm nod and allowed him to take that claw. Something so valuable and light was something I was not going to leave behind, even when I was doing a speed run. "I will have the token tomorrow; today's code word is 'black apple'," and with that, I left for the underground area.