This seriously helped me understand why so many people were obsessed with discovering new dungeons before anyone else. If basic dungeons gave out 100 Words per room just because you were the first to discover said dungeon, then I couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of rewards we would receive after we got to the end of the dungeon. Or at least to the end of the first floor, anyway, which made me seriously consider what kind of rewards might await us if we tried to push forward to whatever the very last floor of the dungeon was.
But of course, I knew that we didn’t have time to get all the way to the last floor of the dungeon, not with Wolfbrand on the loose. Plus, I suspected that we would all need to be a lot stronger to take on the next several floors, because both Jonah and Ruth told me that the lower floors would probably be even more difficult than the first floor.
Anyway, it was very premature to think about the last floor when we hadn’t even completed the first floor yet. It was chilling, actually, to think about how close we had come to getting wiped out in Room One of the first floor of what was ostensibly a Basic dungeon, which was supposed to be the easiest kind of dungeon. Granted, most of the difficulty had come from the fact that we weren’t actually a great team and didn’t communicate or plan well at all, but that just made it all the more important that we do plan for the next rooms. Or plan as best as we can without knowing exactly what we were going up against, anyway.
Speaking of Trace Glyph, it turned out that my spell had ranked up because I had been using it so much recently. It was now a Rank Two spell, with the main benefit being that any glyphs I traced or inscribed using that spell now lasted twice as long as they used to. At Rank One, glyphs that I traced with Trace Glyph would last only about 60 seconds; at Rank Two, these same glyphs now lasted 120 seconds or until overwritten. I could see that as potentially being useful, mostly for training with longer sequences of glyphs, though it was still not a great combat spell.
But it didn’t need to be, and it was still exciting to rank up a spell for the first time, regardless.
I learned about Trace Glyph ranking up because of a Codex Achievement notification I received after sitting down to review my progress:
Codex Achievement: First Rank Two Spell
Category: Spellcasting
> Description:
> Congratulations on earning your first Rank Two spell! Practice makes perfect, and you will eventually perfect this and other spells with more and more use.
Note, however, that each subsequent Rank takes more time and effort to achieve than the previous. Even so, the Arcane Codex seeks to reward those who put in the work to enhance their spells, no matter their Rank or Chapter.
Rewards:
-
+5 Lines to Spellcasting
-
+10 Words
Codex Note:
> “Growing as a Codexer is about more than just turning the Page to the next Chapter. It’s also about making your spells and Skills stronger. A well-rounded Codexer will take time to focus on all of their domains, not just a specific one, creating a strong Portfolio that will serve them in every situation.”
Now that was an interesting achievement, especially that last part about becoming a well-rounded Codexer. It reminded me of a comment that Isaac had made to me once during one of my training sessions in the courtyard of the North Forest Codexium, about how it was easy for Codexers to focus solely on their Pages or Stats or Skills while forgetting to integrate them as a whole into a true unified set. A Portfolio, I think was the term that Isaac used to describe that, though when I asked him to elaborate, he just said he needed to go get a drink again and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon.
For no particular reason, I suddenly found myself anxious about the fate of North Forest when its only defender was a bitter old man who liked strong alcoholic drinks a bit too much.
So I had dismissed that comment at the time, but maybe Isaac was actually on to something with that comment. I would have to think about it more deeply for sure. Especially as I got stronger and stronger.
I threw the extra 10 Words I got from the achievement straight into my Banked Progress, bringing up my total to 115 Words. It wasn’t much, but I knew that every Word counted when it came to turning the Page in my Codex, so I didn’t complain. Plus, I still had a lot of Words in my Casting Pool because Trace Glyph was a free spell, thus I didn’t need to put more Words there for the time being.
Nimbus, however, complained that he didn’t rank up any of his spells or get any special achievements like I did. I pointed out to Nimbus that if he wanted to get rewards for ranking up his spells, then he needed to actually use his spells himself more often. That seemed to annoy Nimbus, but he forgave me when I gave him a banana.
As for Jonah and Ruth, they had gained a similar amount of Words and other bonuses as I did for completing the first room. That was when I finally sat down and looked at the Party Page to find out how strong Jonah and Ruth were.
It turned out that Ruth was not much stronger than I was. She was only a Chapter One, Page Three—almost Page Four—Harmonic Healer. But Ruth apparently had a lot of Lines in her Healing Skill and received bonuses for using healing spells and medicines to level up. That was part of the reason why she was so eager to heal Jonah so quickly from his various injuries—because it gave her another chance to earn some Words with her spells.
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That almost made me feel better about being so weak until I looked at Jonah’s Chapter and Page and finally understood why he seemed so much faster and stronger than me or Ruth.
Jonah was a Chapter One, Page Seven Codexer, who was this close to getting to Page Eight in his Codex. I couldn’t believe it at first until Jonah let me scan him personally with my portable, which gave me the same information as the Party tab. Apparently, Jonah had received his portable a year ago and had been steadfastly training under Sheminith ever since then, which was why he was so much stronger than me or Ruth. He was the closest to Chapter Two out of our entire Party, which easily made him the strongest member without debate. Even Nimbus seemed to respect Jonah a lot more after we learned what his Chapter and Page were.
Which made me the weakest member of the party. Technically, I was tied with Nimbus, but Nimbus had higher overall Stats than I did, so just going by Stats alone, Nimbus was only the second weakest member of the party. It was more than a little embarrassing to be weaker than a Cloud Rabbit, of all things, even if that Cloud Rabbit was actually a Codex Beast.
Regardless, that just gave me even more motivation to get stronger and take advantage of as many of the rewards and opportunities that the dungeon gave us as possible. It was the only way I could stand up to Wolfbrand once we ran into him again.
We also took the time to work out a rough plan of action for Room Two. After that, Nimbus and I went around the room collecting the fallen throwing knives from the decaying remains of the vines and roots that had attacked us earlier. You might be wondering why we wanted these throwing knives, as they were not very valuable at first glance, but there was a method to our madness.
First, they could act as extra weapons for either me or Ruth or Jonah in the later parts of the dungeon. I was no knife specialist, but I had some experience with bladed weapons from an Arcane Simulation when I had been given a standard-issue Fang Blade to help me get through the simulation. These throwing knives were much smaller and weaker than my old Fang Blade, but they could still be useful in a pinch, I was sure.
Secondly, I was thinking of how valuable they might be outside of the dungeon to merchants. When I floated the idea of taking the throwing knives, Jonah had actually been very supportive of the idea because, apparently, dungeon loot from newly discovered dungeons often went for a much higher price than the same loot from an already discovered dungeon. Loot from a new dungeon could fetch a price sometimes as high as two or three times as much as the same loot from a known dungeon. That didn’t make much sense to me, but Ruth mentioned something about supply and demand and how demand was affected by market forces, and then she lost me.
But I understood the concept of making more money than I would otherwise get, so even if we didn’t use these throwing knives for the rest of the dungeon, they could still make me some good coin later on.
And finally, they could also be used as crafting material. Unfortunately, none of us had any kind of crafting abilities or skills, so they were not immediately useful to us as crafting material. But if we ever ran into someone who did have crafting skills or a Discipline related to crafting, then we could ask them to make something out of these knives for us. My immediate thought was that they would probably just make us a nicer knife or some kind of sword, but Jonah indicated that dungeon crafting material could be used to make all sorts of interesting and useful weapons and equipment, especially if the crafter in question extracted the glyphs from the crafting materials that made them so valuable. I wondered what extracting a glyph from a crafting material entailed, but Jonah or Ruth didn’t seem to know, either.
I actually had trouble with storing all of the throwing knives until Ruth kindly showed me how to use my portable as a way to store inventory. Apparently, portables could be used to store weapons, equipment, money, and various other items and objects that a Codexer might want to carry with them but not encumber themselves with so much extra stuff. There was a limit to how much inventory portables could carry, however, capping out at 100 items, but she said that it was possible to upgrade the storage space if you took your portable to the Node Makers Guild or found a Node Maker who would be willing to upgrade your portable for a price. I squirreled away that information for later.
Storing an item inside a portable was a simple task. All you had to do was touch the item to the portable, and then a notification would pop up asking if you wanted to store it. Once you said yes, the item would be turned into mana and then get sucked into the portable. Retrieving items was just as simple as storing them, because all you needed to do was think about the item, and it would appear in your hands instantly.
This was a huge discovery to me, but Ruth and Jonah, as usual, acted as if this was common knowledge that all Codexers should know. At least Nimbus didn’t act like he had already known about that ability, though he expressed annoyance that Codex Beasts didn’t have a similar inventory system. Otherwise, he would have stored 100 bananas in his inventory so he would always have bananas to eat at all times.
Regardless, storing all of the throwing knives in my inventory without having to put them in my pack was great. I also took a few moments to go through my pack and store any objects I didn’t want to carry on my person. Though my pack was light enough, I didn’t want to be encumbered by extra weight if I didn’t have to be.
By the time we were done with our preparations, there was only half an hour left on the dungeon timer before we were forced to enter the second room. We knew this because the timer had flickered into existence above the entrance to the Rootbound Gate after my previous notification warned us about lingering too long in this room.
But that was fine. We had done as much preparation as we could without knowing exactly what awaited us on the other side of the Rootbound Gate. I would have loved to have spent more time planning, but we needed to keep going anyway, regardless of the timer. After all, we still had a week left in here before we either reached the end or failed.
So the four of us assembled in front of the Rootbound Gate, with Jonah in the lead. But rather than rush recklessly into the next room, Jonah put a hand on the wooden handle of the door, and this notification appeared before all of us:
Warning! You are about to leave the first room of the first floor of the Verdant Seal. Once you pass through this door, you will be unable to backtrack. Do you still wish to proceed?
None of us needed to tell Jonah that we agreed, so Jonah went ahead and agreed for us. The notification disappeared, and then we heard a click coming from the door, likely an indication that the door was unlocked and ready for us to step through.
So Jonah pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold. Ruth went next, and then Nimbus and I took up the rear, just as we had all agreed on and planned.
It was a simple plan. Jonah would go first, using his barrier spells to keep himself and us safe from any monsters or traps waiting on the other side. Ruth would go next, using some of her support spells to buff or heal Jonah as needed, and then Nimbus and I would be backup, using our spells to protect the group as a whole or provide extra support to Jonah.
It was a simple and adaptable plan for just about any circumstances. It could have been better, but without knowing exactly what awaited us on the other side of the door—other than it was related to the themes of Life and Decay—this was the best we could do for now. We deliberately designed it to be simple and adaptable so we could adjust depending on the exact circumstances of the next room.
I felt quite proud not just of myself, but of our whole party for coming up with this plan. It felt like a real step forward for us, a sign that we were on our way to becoming a true Dungeon Party. Even if this Party only lasted as long as this dungeon, that was fine. We were a team now.
So, naturally, when Nimbus and I walked through the Rootbound Gate, it was to discover that we were entirely on our own—
And surrounded by dozens and dozens of glowing spiderlike creatures peering out of the fog around us, like the eyes of a demon.
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