“That was quick, were there any problems in there?” one of the guild guards asked as I exited the dungeon.
“No, I was able to clear it, nothing unusual that I could see,” I said. There was no way I was going to go into any details about Tzes’zod tearing through all the dungeon creatures in minutes. At least there wasn’t any kind of funny business going on with the dungeon itself that I could determine.
“Odd, the readings for the dungeon steadied once you went in. I’m not sure what you did, but it helped,” the guard said, waving me forward to clear the space for the next group in the queue.
The only thing I could think of was that clearing the dungeon so quickly must have strained the dungeon core, postponing whatever shenanigans it was planning. I made my way outside the building, sitting at one of the tables outside as I processed everything that Tzes’zod had told me.
My confrontation with Gary was getting closer and I didn’t feel at all ready to take him on. It seemed like the lich had negotiated well and placed as many restraints on Gary as he possibly could. Not having him in the actual fight was a disappointment, but if what he said was true, the lich would have been restrained by his tier and rank to the point that having him join the fight would have been little better than another decent consumable figurine.
While Tzes’zod wouldn’t be able to fight with me, he was supposed to be able to grant me some kind of mysterious boon during the fight. That reminded me to look at the scroll Tzes’zod had handed to me. Supposedly it was a “generous” system concession, and I would take any help I could get.
Writ of Dungeon Expedition. This item allows you to send 1 of your minions on a separate dungeon expedition. While on an expedition, the minion sent will be unavailable until it is destroyed, or its mission is completed. Any abilities that summon your minion will be disabled while it is on an expedition.
Should your minion successfully complete its expedition, you will receive a reduced experience reward for its journey, as well as half of any monetary rewards your minion might gather. Items and other rewards cannot be gathered during an expedition. Your minion must journey solo and cannot be added to other existing groups.
This was exactly what I needed. Tzes’zod really came through with this concession. The dungeon runs at the academy hadn’t been very lucrative as far as experience. If I could be doing something else and have one of my minions still earning me even a small bit of experience, it could turn things around as far as my leveling progress was concerned.
The drawback would be that I was going to be short a minion when called for other duties. So far, the Earth summonings hadn’t been that challenging given the limited mana levels there. If I somehow ran into a powerful foe on a summoning, I would be at a big disadvantage.
I could also be thinking of this entirely wrong. The wording of the writ didn’t necessarily say that I would be shorted a minion for any summonings. It could just mean that the minion on an expedition wouldn’t be available for selection in my normal pre-summoning preparations. If that was the case, I’d still be in decent shape, as I’d still have two minions with me everywhere I went.
The only way I could test things was to activate the writ. Maybe it would give me a bit more information once it went live. It turned out to be like most of my magic items, I needed to just push some mana into it for the writ to activate. As soon as I activated it, new system prompts appeared.
You have activated the Writ of Dungeon Expedition. There are several nearby dungeons that are compatible with this item. Please select a minion and dungeon you wish to create an expedition for.
Available Dungeons:
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- The Blighted Village of Baern. Tier 1, Rank 5.
- The Smoldering Vault. Tier 2, Rank 0.
- Grotto of the Shunned Emperor. Tier 2, Rank 0.
- The Savage Plains. Tier 2, Rank 6.
It was an interesting mix of options and at first glance, I thought the system was limiting me to dungeons I had already completed, but the tier one, rank five village wasn’t one I’d done yet. I was pretty sure the system wasn’t following the guild’s level cap either, but it didn’t seem to want to offer dungeons that were too high for a single minion to have a chance of completing.
It could also be that the system was offering dungeons that had an timely opening in the queue for me. I wasn’t sure how the system integrated this writ with the guild queue, but that was out of my hands and not my problem. At least to start, I figured to give the chosen minion something easier.
You have selected The Blighted Village of Baern. Tier, 1, Rank 5.
Select the minion you wish to complete this expedition.
- Mana Slayer Drone.
- Elida Silverbarrow, Battle Mender.
- Glem, Glamb, and Glurk, goblin kill team.
That was interesting, the system was giving me the option of having the goblins count as one selection. I had been a bit worried I could only pick one of them which would pretty much cut them from the selection as their power was as a team. For my contracted summonings, I preferred to use the drone and Elida for the most part, so maybe this would be a good way to make full use of the goblins while I kept the pair of minions that I was most comfortable with.
You have assigned Glem, Glamb, and Glurk, the goblin kill team for this expedition.
Do you wish to assign them for a single run, or assign them to a continuous expedition?
There was no reason to hold off on letting them do multiple runs, so I selected that option. I needed to keep the experience flowing and didn’t want to miss a dungeon run because the system was waiting for me to activate the item again.
You have selected a continuous expedition for your minion. Would you prefer to lock in the same expedition location, or allow your minions to access the soonest available dungeon after they complete their first run of The Blighted Village of Baern?
I knew that running the same dungeon over and over often had diminishing returns, so spreading them out over several dungeons would hopefully negate some of that. It would also mean that the goblins could fit more runs in since they would be able to access whichever dungeon was available. A final system prompt had me confirm my choices.
You have locked in your selected minion for a continuous expedition of the current dungeon offerings. They will initially delve into The Blighted Village of Baern, and the estimated time until they begin their expedition is 1 hour, 29 minutes. Should you wish to end the continuous expedition, simply activate the writ and select the cancel option. Any current expedition will be completed and then your minions will return to your barracks.
Nice, the system even gave me an estimate of when their next run was going to happen. I could also cancel them, though if they were in the middle of a run, I’d have to wait for them to finish. Unless I decided to swap out minions, I couldn’t see any reason to pull them from their task.
With the goblins in the dungeon queue, and my run in the Savage Plains over, I headed back to the academy. While this area seemed safe enough, I kept my minions with me when I was outside the academy. Gary may have had his teeth pulled by the system, but there was always the chance that he could have some complicated machinations going on to cause me trouble.
I felt better about my chances now. Clancy was out there earning me money and looking for items I might need, and the goblins would be earning me some experience. This gave the time to focus on my task with the academy as well as waiting for my next summoning back home.
On the way back, I stopped in town to do some more shopping as well as get Melvin a snack. After a few hours, I received a notice from the system about the goblins first expedition.
Your minions have successfully completed an expedition. You have earned 2 experience. Minor injuries were sustained during the expedition and your minions require 3 hours, 27 minutes in the barracks to fully recover. Do you wish to allow your minions to fully recover between expeditions?
The experience wasn’t great, but it was only a tier one, rank five dungeons, and I knew there would be reduced experience for the expeditions. I wanted the goblins to do as many runs as possible but having them injured would tank their chances of success in the more difficult dungeons Failing to complete one would likely cost more time than waiting a few hours for recovery.
You have opted to have your minions recover between expeditions. The total time for their recovery and the start of their next expedition is estimated at 8 hours, 21 minutes.
They were all set; all I had to do now was wait for the experience to continue to trickle in. Of course, I’d be doing my part, and was about to have another chance at it as a new system prompt appeared.
You are Summoned!