How to Succeed In Business in a New World

Diving Deep

    Getting out of town was easy enough but actually getting there was a bit harder without any fixed landmarks. Eventually we found the opening in the side of a remarkably smooth rock wall. The entrance was very clearly artificial and it even had some engravings on the sides. Some were the intricate original detailing of the stone and some was the crude etchings made by visitors ages hence that were comprised of a set of initials and what floor they made it to, there were a few calling out liars or calling into question how many kills that party had actually gotten. It seemed like maybe no one had ever made it to the very end, not that I expected us to, but maybe if we came back some other day and were properly supplied then we could take the plunge and go for broke. There was no guarantee at all that it would be worth it other than for the bragging rights but maybe it would be a fun activity to do as a group, like minigolf or bowling. Though the deeper they had dug this thing then the more likely it was that there would be a higher value prize at the end. But as sound as that logic was there was the fact that anyone who was building giant underground complexes to store their treasures might have been an absolute loon that placed inordinate value on something that wasn’t really too great, it could have been a dead guy down at the very bottom in all likelihood, and I’m not sure how widespread museums and archaeologists were, or how well funded they were for that matter. Comparing the high score list with the deepest level listed on the paper from the guild it had only been usurped once and tied a few times since the printing. I doubt we would be able to get that far with the supplies we had brought unless we really did just make a mad dash for the stairs on every floor. Though I would need to keep in mind that going down a staircase totally nullified the threats of the previous floor as if I were loading a whole new area as if this were one of my games. It was very possible that I could be ambushed from behind by some fodder enemy from back on the first floor that had just succeeded in tracking me down. There was going to be no time to relax and we’d probably need to sleep in shifts even. My feet were starting to get a bit cold but there was no turning back now, unless I wanted to look like an absolute chicken livered bastard. I took a single step over the threshold and as much as I would like to say that I immediately felt relieved at how little difference there was and how advancing would be just as easy as walking down the road, that was definitely not the case. Within the smooth stone hallway the air was several degrees colder and there was a definite smell to the air that was almost imperceptible from the outside. It smelled like moss. I tried to shut my eyes and picture the moss growing out of the stone somewhere just to focus on something else. I was afraid to touch the walls of the hall now for fear that I would reach out my hand and feel a loosely hanging clump of moss but that was a meager price to pay for having my mind focused on something other than what could be dwelling in the darkness ahead of me. A few times the only thing prompting me to take my next step was the bump in the back I received from the golem walking behind me at an unfaltering pace. Each time it brought me that much closer to a heart attack but each time I resumed the journey deeper. Hopefully this feeling would subside once we put the torches to use but I was dedicated to saving them for when we really needed them. After all if we were planning on getting pretty deep we would really need them once we got deeper, not that it would be darker but it was just something of a comfort to be able to see better. We’d need to use them on the way back too so we really needed to get as much use out of them as possible. That would have been another benefit of bringing someone else with us, we would have gotten 50% more torches without really increasing how many we would need. But there wasn’t much we could do about it now, I would just need to be sure to get a rough measure of how long each one would last so I could plan accordingly. It was likely we’d find some that almost entirely burnt out in there but that would be something of a last resort. 

          Once we were through the lengthy entrance hall it was time to shed some light on what we were dealing with. The only way we knew we were now in a cavernous room was how our footsteps now echoed back to us. It did make me anxious about what sounds were coming from us and what were coming from some other more malevolent source. The room wasn’t quite as large as I had initially thought but there were still wide hallways leading off from the center of each wall. There were a few chalk arrows on the floor but none of them seemed to be communicating anything that anyone other than the author could understand. I did pause for a few seconds to see if there was a pointer to the stairs deeper down, I didn’t think we would be finding much towards the start other than trouble. We should try to keep pretty deep first and then explore those floors once we get to them. I really didn’t want to do much unnecessary combat before we got to the really sweet cherries in terms of experience points. That would just be inviting the possibility for dumb and costly mistakes. In theory a straight shot would be the most conventional way to construct any structure really but some adventuring bone in my body told me that left was the right move to make.

             “What do you think?” 

“Hmm, I’d say left.” I wasn’t sure how much thought she really put into the matter but since that was my first instinct we could go with it. Of course I wasn’t really expecting the staircase right there but it sure would be nice. There was another stint of hallway before another room, this one was much longer than the previous room though not quite as wide, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a particularly wide part of the hallway, there was even no exits in sight which led me to believe that the only one would be on the opposite end of the chamber. On the walls to either side there were rough depictions of maybe some ceremony or something going on. It reminded me a lot of the Egyptian art you’d see in museums with almost the same style and even some resemblance to the proportions of the figures.

“What do you think of these murals?”

“I think that they could have really spent a little more time on making the characters distinctive from one another, I can’t even tell if these are supposed to be the same people or not!” She had a very unorthodox opinion on what would probably some day be considered priceless peeks into the lives of the past. It was probably for the best that we weren’t here for the purposes of archeological discovery because it seemed like we wouldn’t be the most respectful of artifact hunters. Though there’s no way a day or so with us would be any worse than a few centuries of neglect and decay, and if it was we can just say it was like that when we found it. If we were the first ones to see in in this era then who was gonna know? The perfect sphere of light cast on the floor was interrupted with a change in terrain. It wasn’t quite the wall I had been expecting but there was pretty much just a pit in the middle of the floor. It sounded like there was rushing water inside but we still didn’t have a proper viewing angle to see what was at the bottom. It was only a few feet across, unathletic as I was I could still get over it with a good running leap. I wasn’t sure about Anne but even without exaggeration it looked like Geoffrey would be able to step over it even with his limited at best flexibility. It wouldn’t be much of an obstacle to us but it was at least something to break up the monotony of walking straight. If that wasn’t enough the door came into view just a few steps later, this was really all that was standing between us and progression. It seemed like we really did pick the easiest route unless the others were absolutely brain dead, though it may just be a gentle difficulty curve at first, if this was the way the next floor then we would be running into real foes soon enough I imagine. Unless this whole endeavor would be more a test of our patience than of our combat ability, I’d honestly be more than a little peeved at that but if we could still turn a good profit then I wouldn’t be able to complain about that. Even though I came here for the excitement of a classic dungeon at this point I was sort of shifting my focus to getting out safely and making some money. It’d be great if I could the other two and rack up a hearty chunk of experience points but it was definitely third on my list at this point. If I could get through all of this without a single combat and still make a bundle of cash I’d be perfectly happy, after all that just meant that I would be able to buy another chance at it. I started to be less and less sure that the sound coming the pit was water, firstly because it seemed a tad hard to believe that the plumbing would still be working and even if so what purpose was it even meant to serve. Unless they were abnormally dedicated to the hygenie of the monsters they were seeding down here, this had to be some sort of booby trap. Maybe it was acid or something of the sort, that seemed a bit more believable than water but it still had the same issue of how in the world it was still working. Maybe some the gnolls or whatever they had put down here to guard whatever it was this place was for we’re particularly keen engineers who kept all the moving parts moving. Or there was a much simpler and correct solution to how the moving bits stayed moving, at least for this particular obstacle, which was that all the moving bits were in fact alive. At the bottom of the eight foot or so deep chasm was a swarm of rats moving this way and that flowing almost as if the were a liquid. It struck me as a very odd way to trip up intruders but I also certainly wouldn’t want to be falling in there. I wasn’t going to say I had been traumatized by rats but certainly the experience I had played a part in my aversion to the sensation. The skittering over your body alone would probably enough to drive you insane before the actual gnawing started. “That doesn’t look too appealing.” It was something of an understand but I had to agree.

“That May be something of an understatement but I’d have to agree, I’m not gonna be going down there if I can help it.” I took a few steps back before running forward at full sprint and pushing off from as close to the edge with all my might. I cleared the trench without issue even if I did stumble more than a little and pretty much wipe out onto the floor. 

“Pf-Bahaha! Nice one! Where’d you learn how to jump? From a… a uh… Sloth?!” 

“You know taunting doesn’t really work so well when you’re worse at them then what you’re making fun of me for.” I made the jump after all, I just didn’t stick the landing is all, her connection was all that clever and that was with a good few seconds to think about it. “I’d like to see you make that jump yourself instead of letting your little servant carry you across.” I didn’t really have any reason to make fun of Geoffrey other than by association but it was a damn strong association. I could tell she was getting flustered by the fact that she seemed to be doing an impression of a tea kettle with a grumbling whine and her face turning a few shades of red darker.

“I’ll have you know that this is a perfectly viable solution to the problem. A solution I spent years training I might add! There’s more than one way to skin a cat so as long as it gets the job done I don’t want to hear any attitude about it!” Talk about not being able to take what you’re dishing out, she was complaining that I was critiquing her for the same thing she had just made fun of me for. I guess the position I had taken up was pretty hypocritical, trying to make fun of her for a subpar method though the one I had taken was poor. But I didn’t start it so I was in the clear as far as I was concerned. Either way we could just drop it and move on to the next room for all I cared. Our first obstacle had been conquered so we could chalk that up as a win and consider ourselves masters of the dungeon, surely we could now beat the rest of the architects' trappings. That didn’t say much for how we would fare against the actual foot soldiers of this dump. We could only be so lucky with dodging the minions. I did take another deep breath before we walked into the next room, from the small triangle of light it didn’t seem to be posing any immediate threat. I couldn’t hear the clank of armor or anything but I don’t think I would have been able to hear much over the swarming throng of rats. As much as I wanted to have the unliving animate among us go first I didn’t quite get that luxury. I don’t know why I didn’t have that luxury but I didn’t want to be too hard on this guy given his current situation. I really had to pity the guy, I was pretty annoyed with her already and she was just putting pressure on me to do things, she didn’t really have any power over me whereas this guy had to be at her beck and call for his entire life and if ever he gave her a reason to dislike his existence then she could render him inanimate again probably even easier than she had brought him into this world. Not that I was expecting him to achieve sentience some day and revolt but if that were the case then I’m sure she would only be regarded as an even greater sorceress for fabricating an intelligence out of nothing. I don’t know why that’s something that would be prized, wasn’t he more valuable to us as a mindless servant rather than a free actor? What good would that do us? From an academic standpoint sure I guess that would be a big deal but as was often the case there wasn’t any real world application for me. The whole idea of academics for their own sake pissed me off to a certain extent, if there was no use then I didn’t see the point to it. Knowing the highest prime number didn’t help society in any noticeable way so I could only care so much about it. Especially when every few years there’d be a new discovery that completely overturned everything else or so it seemed. Maybe that was just the media making a bigger deal out of things than they deserved and misleading people to believe something was more newsworthy than anyone in their right mind would have thought. For all I knew that was a requirement to become a journalist, not being in your right mind. All of this thinking was to avert my focus from the possibility that my doom was preparing to club me over the head from the shadows. Maybe I was the one who wasn’t in my right mind, I had chosen a profession where I had to worry about the integrity of my skull at every moment. I kept my head on a swivel and didn’t see anything on the horizon of luminosity. I half expected the little twerp behind me to push me in the back just to give me start but I could swear I heard her teeth chattering too. This was stupid, we were stupid, if we were both scared than we shouldn’t feel the need to keep going, we didn’t have anyone to impress or anything. We should just throw down our rucksacks and get out of here. Oh yeah, that’s why we were doing this, because we had already sunk a major portion of our savings into this expedition. I don’t care what threatened to turn my brain into a lumpy paste I wasn’t leaving here until we broke even at least. With my skinflintedness igniting the fires of my heart I stepped proudly into the middle of the room. I only started to regret it in spades when I saw a challenger step forward in a similar fashion. Even without a reference for what a goblin looks like here there was little question to me what this was. Three and half feet, maybe four, of gnarled and warted green flesh wrapped around a bony yet bloated frame. His protruding eyes seemed fixed on me, maybe it was just because of the torchlight in his eyes but I was nearly certain he was starting to tear up. He shook like a leaf in the wind and it was starting to get a little bit sad. He had leather hide armor on and a dented metal helm that sat awkwardly on his malformed head. Either this was their strongest fighter or it was the most expendable of them all. It was impossible to read but if I could sus it out then that would say a lot about this particular goblin society. I had a definite preference for the former but even in the case of the latter then I’d be able to warm up with a fight with what was essentially a punching bag. I really wouldn’t have to worry immediately in either case but there was pretty much a coin flip that things would only be ramping up from here. Though I guess I couldn’t complain considering they were coming single file at least for now. Goblins usually won their battles by overwhelming the enemy with sheer numbers, with a dozen or so dull knives being jammed into your abdomen most things will fall eventually. As long as they could keep filling out their ranks surrounding you it’d really just be a matter of time before their target was down and out. So as long as I only had to take them on one by one I would be able to see the other side of this combat yet. If they did start to form up on me then hopefully I’d be so lucky as to be graced with some crowd control from my companions but I could handle them as long as that could be avoided. More confident in my ability now that I’ve analyzed the probable outcomes I resolved to begin this journey of what may be a thousand miles with a single step. Even just my initial advance made the scrawny monster flinch, he tucked his head into his arms a little in something that may be considered a fighting stance if you were really keen on making a judgement in his favor but I wasn’t so inclined. I mapped out my first few moves like an elegant dance or one of those dance pad games. I readied my butterfly net and gripped it tightly, maybe all I really needed for adventuring to be fun was opponents who were more petrified of me than I was of them. The best way to do that would probably just be to over level until all living things would quiver at the sight of me. It was something of a funny thought that something would be scared of me but I didn’t have time to dwell on it too much, I had work to do for now. As soon as I got writhing range I swung the handle of my net along the ground in a wide arc sweeping the poor things ankles. It didn’t get much time to react before dropping to the floor on its side. I straddled his midsection before he could get up, even my underweight frame was enough to keep him down. I lifted my arm above my head and dropped it like a hammer on to the top of the skull, a cracking sound could be heard between the sturdy vambrace and the bone. I wasn’t quite sure if it was dead but it sure wouldn’t be getting up for a while. Half due to real confidence and half to keep up appearances for any other foes that may be lurking in the dark I got up and continued my tunnel visioned advance. They would probably see me with some sort of night vision before I saw them but I had the range advantage so a rushing ambush would more like end poorly for them. I just needed to react in the time between when they interrupted my cone of light and started to enter into my reach. My hands were a little full between my weapon and the torch but I would have to make do for now until I could pass the duties of torch bearer off to someone who wasn’t being so useful right now. Though I also wouldn’t mind passing off the duty of clobbering these guys. Maybe I could off load both those duties, after all Anne could “fight” and hold a torch at the same time. I could be more of a second line of defense and stand behind the living wall too. I would feel much more comfortable if the blunt objects weren’t liable to hitting my spongy flesh first. There wasn’t too much that could the mass of masonry really other than something like a quarter ton hammer or iron club. Maybe if there was some acid or other corrosive material somewhere within the dungeon he would need to be wary of that too but even if he lost a hand or a head he could still function I imagine, as long as he wasn’t shattered to pieces then he should be fine with anything and everything that could be thrown at him. Thrown, swung, or jabbed at him for that matter. I wasn’t sure they had swordsman that could cut through rock and metal, I had no reason to doubt it, but the odds there would be anything like that in here should be within an acceptable risk. It seemed much more like something that a famous bounty hunter or warrior would be able to do than some dungeon dwelling chump. That kind of ability would almost certainly be recognized and richly rewarded, whether it be in the private sector or among the most elite forces of the most elite armies of the world, be they good or evil. I was almost certain that I heard some other rustling of leather straps on leathery skin off to my left. At this point I was pretty sure that all of the rest would be just as intimidated as the first one was, if not more so after seeing what happened to him. I strolled off in the direction that I had heard the noise, this move was pretty much solely an intimidation tactic. I was aiming for being like a villain in a slasher movie and this is where the tension really builds up before the victims get ruthlessly and helplessly slaughtered. I was having a hard time picturing myself shoulder to shoulder with the most famous of them but really all I needed was to intimidate them into inaction and hopefully have that inaction continue even when I was beating them senseless. I could only imagine they were all huddled in a group now so my best bet would just be to start peeling them off one at a time and incapacitating them however I saw best fit. The hammer fist move was probably my heaviest hitter, pretty good for having just come up with it now. However versatile and nimble I could be with my net there weren’t too many finishing blows I could do with it, for now I’d focus on using it to disarm and brainstorm some attachments or modifications for it later. There was no expectation that it would be perfect right off the bat, from the beginning this was meant to be a continually evolving weapon, getting better after every encounter. I spied the cowering pack of remaining goblins, four of them total. For now they were too petrified to move but I wasn’t going to count on them giving in that easy. They held formation until I was within range and that’s really all I could ask for. With a swatting of the net I captured the bumpy cranium of the one on the far right, predictably the rest ran off in the other direction. Their snared companion tried to follow but with the ring of the net’s frame resting against his neck he very quickly realized that wasn’t a very sustainable course of action. I pulled him in close a few good yanks before forcing him to the floor, I really had full control of him in the previous position and the leverage I had was enough to counteract all of his unwanted movements but I could really advance the game state from there. I’d have to get physical with him to do some real damage, the only thing was that I couldn’t be sure if he’d have the guts to take a stab at me when I got close for my finisher. It was a real enough possibility that I didn’t like it so I should really try to find some other way to get him down for the count. I called on all of my combat knowledge but it didn’t take long to remember my very first kill in this world, strangulation followed by a slitting of the throat. I saw no reason why it wouldn’t work here so I twirled the shaft of the net between my fingers to reverse the business end. I laid it as flat as possible against his neck and got to work pushing down on it as hard as I could. I felt the handle jitter as he flailed and his Adam’s apple traveled between either side of the stick, so without every bit of my weight I leaned on the pole to push it down and deny him any air whatsoever. It would have taken a lot longer for his lungs to start wheezing and taking in nothing had he not been flailing uncontrollably, clawing at his own body in a maddened effort to free himself. I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to him at the moment so I stomped on his chest until I counted most of his ribs sound off as broken. I was huffing a lot more after this one than the first but there was a solace to be taken in being two-fifths done. My heart was pounding in my ears a bit more than it should have been, and that seemed to explain why I hadn’t heard the crushing crunch of stone against stone with a veneer of bone and flesh in between. Blood was splattering a plenty like when you’d stomp on a juice box. The three goblins I thought were remaining had been spilled and splashed across the adjacent corner of the room. It seems that I was more done than I thought I was since we had unbeknownst to me taken a divide and conquer approach. It was a bit sickening to see the corpses twitch and convulsed with nothing but spinal reflexes but it sure did clear up what our position on survivors was. I didn’t relish killing of the two I had seen combat with but I also didn’t regret it. They may have been tremendously afraid of me today, but were this a different day, and a slightly different scenario, they wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to me. Maybe goblins just had terrible PR but I still saw them as violence crazed little lunatics that would stab their own mother just to get a chance to stab her again. Though with that blood thirst there came a deep seated greed as well, so I was really looking forward to searching the corpses and the room for loot, the occupants didn’t quite seem to follow the ultra violence part too well so it was yet to be seen if they mimicked the desire for all things that glimmered and twinkled was yet to be seen and it was of particular interest to me. After all they wouldn’t be needing it anymore so I planned on helping myself to whatever looked ripe for the taking. Even just their rough and sloppily handicrafted armor had to be worth something to the right buyer, the main question was whether it would be worth investing our carry weight in them. The rucksacks our purchased equipment came in had a good deal of extra room so it wouldn’t be much of a hassle to carry them around but if we were only gonna be getting a few dollars off them a piece it might not be worth it to put the strain on my back. If we would just be replacing it with something more worthwhile as soon as we came across it then there wouldn’t be much point to it. I took all of their knives to start with, they weren’t much for sharpness but just as throwing projectiles they could probably come in handy. Not to mention that they can easily be sharpened once we got home, though not much could be done about the rust. A point had been made to me at some point in elementary school or there about how washing a car before you sell it can get you hundreds of dollars more. I couldn’t quite recall who it was that said it, maybe it was some guest speaker who had come in to talk to us about thrift and entrepreneurship and those sorts of topics. It seemed like it would have been a bit too early for them to be teaching us about that sort of thing but that didn’t necessarily mean I was mistaken about it. So I may be able to get some decent money for the worthless dull blades if I just invested a little time in and made them decent cutting tools again. Of course still probably not for any intensive use but there had to be someone who had throwing knives as their weapon of choice and I could only imagine what keeping a healthy stock was like for them. It seemed like a pretty good weapon to use, some decent range, not as much time as a bow. If I could hit the ground with the right end that would be cause for celebration so it wasn’t exactly for me. At least not at the present point in time, maybe if I put in some time practicing then I would be throwing knives around like a pro. I guess I would technically be a professional if it was part of duties as an adventurer. Maybe it would be a nice supplement to my other weapon, a way to get some blood flowing before either of us gets in arms reach would be a welcome addition. It certainly wouldn’t necessarily even be limited to basic knives either, a whole new world of being able throw things accurately would be a harbinger of infinite possibilities. For now I could really only think of poison tipped knives and maybe darts but there had to be loads more waiting to be conceived of. Depending on how long this passing fancy lasted I may practice with all my free time or I may just dump the knives on the first buyer I can find. Either way they were coming with me for now. 

After a cursory check around the room for any loot that wasn’t nailed down we were on our way. I guess it made sense that they wouldn’t have much in the way of valuables considering how they nearly pissed their collective pants when they saw me, one of the least intimidating people in existence. You aren’t gonna find much of value if you aren’t able to pry it out of someone else’s hands. I made sure Anne didn’t want any of the half rotted meat that they had stored up and we were on our way, there was no door on the other end of the room so it was back the way we came. Frankly the pit of rats probably posed more risk to us than the battalion of goblins. Which gave me pause for a few seconds, if that was true for us than it was probably the case for other adventurers that had come before us, meaning that in all likelihood the rats were more likely to have gotten some kills. Which would mean that they might just have some equipment of worth. I had no idea what the rodent’s habits were, whether they would carry off the bounty of their kills or they just pick the bones clean on the spot and simply scurry over the non edible equipment from then on. If it was the latter then there might be some stuff worth searching for down there. As macabre as it was to be thinking about the deaths of those in my profession, that was just the way this business worked sometimes. To make an analogy of it there are times when the only way you can get a step ahead is if the guy in front of you loses a foot. It’s not even like I was killing them myself or anything, they were dead long before I got here, maybe even before I had even gotten to this world. I was just reintroducing the materials back into the economy, in my past world of eco-coconscious consumers that would be a major selling point even. Who cared if this wood was from the ship of a bloodthirsty pirate or had been a town’s gallows, what was really important was that it was “reclaimed”. It may seem obvious from my personality but I was never one to go in for those trendy buzzwords, but despite that I’d have no qualms about using them myself if it would help me move some product. Though moving the product was the exact challenge I was facing now. 

“Hold on, I want to see if there’s anything of value down there.” I gestured to the hole even though it should be somewhat obvious what I was referring to. 

“Oh yeah? What are you looking for, your sense of self worth? you're willing to dig around in that filth hole for what? Maybe a few bones that the rats didn't feel like eating?"