Shovels In Spades

"So what you're saying is, there's a wild event in the Waterford City Centre Mall?" Daz asked his sister.

Rose was busily tapping away on her keyboard as usual. The two were sat at a table that Sandy had created for fun a couple of days ago and Daz was sipping on a cup of water.

"Yup, you aren't deaf are you?" Rose replied as she looked up at her brother with a mocking gaze.

Daz stretched his hand over the table and flicked the ten-year-old girl's head with his fingers. "Just give me the details again, you know I like being thorough."

Rose held her forehead and winced a bit, but she quickly gave Daz a very simple explanation for the second time. "Like I said, the mall suddenly turned into a dungeon, or at least that's what the database is telling me. A dungeon is like a tower that's meant to be an optional challenge for survivors. Apparently, this one has five floors and is the most basic type."

Rose returned to tapping away on her laptop before she continued, "Each floor holds a type of monster and there's at least one boss in the dungeon. You get an item for beating the whole thing and whatever else you find inside the dungeon itself. The dungeons are only meant to appear during the four-day resting period and are entirely optional. Oh, also, only groups of five can enter."

Daz leaned forward and sipped his water again as a ponderous look crossed his face.

"So, are you going to go, Daz?" Rose asked.

"Of course I am. I'm just wondering who I'll bring with me. I'm thinking Maddy, Crusher and maybe Ger or Lyle. I have no idea about the last person though. Hmm, both of them?" Daz replied.

"All of our strongest people, huh? Well, I guess that makes sense since we're not sure how tough it'll be and now we have the soldiers to protect everyone here. Oh, by the way, that last slot, I'll be taking it," Rose suddenly announced, shocking Daz.

"Impossible. Like I'd bring my sister to her death," Daz snorted. It was absolutely absurd to him that Rose would even ask to come to the dungeon in her condition.

"Fine then. Don't bring me if you want to kill every strong citizen of Fort Skip and its lord," Rose quipped back before she stuck her tongue out at Daz.

He very slowly and carefully put his hand into his cup of water and then flicked some of it onto Rose's face. "Stop teasing me and tell me why I need to bring you. You have a reason, right?"

"Ew!" Rose was still a girl despite her crude words, so she very quickly wiped away Daz's water from her face and said, "That dungeon is full of traps, and it just so happens that one of my class' skills lets me detect and disable traps. So you have to bring me along unless you want to get everyone killed."

"There you go," Daz smiled before ruffling his sister's hair lightly, "That wasn't so hard, now was it?" he added with a bit of a chuckle.

"You're such a bully sometimes..." Rose mumbled.

"Only to you. You know I love you really," Daz shrugged and then finished off his water.

Rose pouted and replied, "I love you too."

"Let Lyle go. He didn't get too many merit points during the last attack, but I got plenty from all of the Robots I sniped, not to mention the attention I got from a fair amount of gods," Ger said with a smile on his face.

Daz had approached him first and asked if he wanted to help out with the dungeon, but as he had said, Ger didn't want to let Lyle fall behind, so he was more than happy enough to give up his spot to his ex-employer.

"Sounds good. Sorry to bother you." Daz kept his words short and left to find Lyle.

He walked around Fort Skip and couldn't find Lyle at any of the buildings or gathering areas. "This is annoying. Where is he? It's at times like these, that I'd like a citizen search feature," Daz said to himself with an annoyed tone.

Daz decided to just tell a few people to send Lyle to him if they saw him. It was already late and it would take some time to prepare for the dungeon, so Daz had decided to explore it tomorrow morning.

The young Reaper spent the next hour and a half crafting small blades and tools with the Gnomes in the smithy. They had finished working on his hand shovel and it was still fairly useless, but it was definitely more powerful and it had an enchantment on it now which boosted its attack speed by ten percent.

Daz had given Hamson to the Master Blacksmith as he took lessons with a few other citizens held by the regular blacksmiths. They taught via showing as opposed to telling since they weren't exactly wordsmiths.

Two hours passed and the lessons had ended. Daz took back Hamson from the very hyperactive Gnome and looked at its new stats as well as his improved crafting skill and a new skill that was an unexpected boon.