Before we took off to the second delve – the rock golem rift from our first day where I'd be carried through again – our attaché for the day helped show us the pretty cool effects of the rope we received as a reward. It was a common drop from the rift.

It could extend and contract at will with just a bit of mana and was nigh on indestructible, making it useful in general if not that often specifically in delving. The fifteen gold valuation somehow felt both too high and too low but the team assured me it was fair.

When we arrived at the rock golem rift, there were nine people waiting for us, two who were very much not welcome.

Councilor Stavros Klimas was standing there in resplendent robes of bright greens and blues, looking even more smug than when we'd dealt with him on the first day. There was a woman with him who looked vaguely familiar though I couldn't place why. Her bright green hair and matching eyes certainly were interesting, but at the moment, the face she was making made it impossible to think anything but bad thoughts about her. It was like she smelled burning pig shit that was also insulting her family lineage.

As we approached, I sent off a quick AAI message to the team that I'd take point.

"And to what do we owe this… pleasure Councilor?" I asked, walking up to the pair. "We are here to clear rifts and you don't seem dressed for it. So, let's just not do this and then we'll be out of your hair and the area of your fair city that much sooner."

"Ha, you're one to talk about hair. Look at that ridiculous mop atop your head. But no, we are here to discuss terms as the ones negotiated are not fair to our incredible delvers here." Stavros smirked like he just made a winning argument. The woman looked on with admiration. The delving teams looked perturbed.

"The terms are fine and we'll be heading in. Teams, let's go," I said with a wave, heading for the rift distortion.

"Belay that order on behalf of the Council of Struva!" he barked. The teams looked confused and concerned, which I fully understood. I sent off a quick AAI message to Councilor Zita Bartko as I pulled Stavros to the side, trying to end things amicably and calm the nerves of the people who would be protecting me.

"The agreements are in place, I don't get what you're trying to do here. What is your actual goal? Do you not want me to delve? If so, we can all head home, I'm fine with that." I knew it would be worse for the city but I also was tired enough that heading back early didn't sound terrible.

"Yes, please do, that will invalidate the contract and everything you've 'earned'—" he did air quotes to signify it was anything but earned in his mind, "—will rightfully revert to the people of Struva. See Raisa, they aren't the solution to Chazin Mark's problems either. They don't know how to speak to their betters. Maybe that other team from Velez isn't this bad but I think they are probably all tainted." He mocked spitting to the side dramatically.

The woman – presumably Raisa – nodded. "Yes, my uncle has had dealings with this one. His assessment wasn't quite as harsh but I'll be having words with him to keep better company."

I rolled my eyes. "Great, enough grandstanding. What do you want? We need to head in to keep on schedule and this is pointless." I indicated towards the teams waiting to head into the rift. "You were complaining they are paid by the hour two days ago, aren't you wasting city resources?"

"No, you are," he replied with a smile.

"How?" I asked, absolutely floored.

"By not delving right now," he responded with a smile.

I blinked at least seven times trying to figure out how to deal with a petulant moron without it causing issues for the other delvers. I was already protected from him per my conversations with his fellow Councilor Zita Bartko.

Our official escort for the day approached. "Um, excuse me sirs, there is an official order from the Council to allow the teams into the rift with all due haste. The team for the third rift is heading out and they are 100 people strong. They are also paid by the hour."

"That can't be, I'm on the Council and…" Stavros looked to me, extremely pissed.

I shrugged and didn't feel like arguing with a brick wall so I turned, forwarded the AAI message that contained the order to all present, and we headed for the rift distortion.

"Stavros, if you're still here by the time we exit, I'll consider it breach of contract and we'll go home. Sending the same to the Council," I said as I walked into the distortion before he could retort, my protection team hot on my heels.

***

As per usual with the carry teams, the rift went quickly and smoothly. The clear team thought they discovered a few magical resources but it turned out to just be slightly mana-enhanced rock, not worth the effort to dig out.

45 minutes later, the rift reward of a magically enhanced gem in hand, we exited.

Of course.

Stavros was there, looking smug. I sent a quick AAI message to my team and, just as I suspected, he lectured them the whole time we were inside. Or at least tried to – they turned off most of their hearing through their AAI and played a card game with each other through said brain chips. They didn't trust Stavros so they sat in a triangle with their backs to each other just so they could at least see any threats coming.

I sent a quick picture to Councilor Zita Bartko with an explanation that the contract for our last few delves for that day was void and we'd be heading home. She asked that I please wait and give her fifteen minutes to show up.

She was there in twelve with two burly people – a man and a woman – I figured were guards or similar as well as two other people that I thought might be Councilors from the matching pins they had with Zita.

The Councilor took a few seconds to compose herself then simply nodded to her larger escorts. Both grabbed an arm of Stavros and started jogging back to the city without saying a word. His annoying companion Raisa followed after them, shouting rather obscene things, while the Councilor himself seemed stunned into silence. Then I barely made out his lips moving but no sound coming out.

Ha, probably a skill. I don't think that man has been silent on purpose for any length of time in his life…

I laughed but said, "Thanks for the show but I said if he was still here when I emerged, we're out. He was and we are. And I won't be coming back. I'll also be recommending the teams that work with me – the Tier 2 and Tier 3 teams coming over the next few weeks – cancel their contracts too. Working conditions matter."

The two other Councilors started to talk simultaneously but Zita held up her hand. She gave me a thin smile. "Let's chat." She indicated a space far away from anyone else.

Before they could try to follow, Zita called the other Councilors off. "This is a private, merchant-to-merchant conversation. Oh, and please send those people back to the city, they look nervous. I am suggesting a 20% hardship bonus, please put it through to the Council for approval. I vote in favor of course."

The delve teams looked grateful and started heading back to Struva.

Off a good distance from everyone else, Zita and I went back and forth, negotiating for fifteen more minutes before coming to a deal: our taxes would be cut to nothing for the rest of this trip. On the next two delves, when I wouldn't be with The Order, the city still got a 50% cut of the reward value but that was it. We'd get 100% of the value of the item for the last delve when it was with my team.

In addition, on a future trip, we could remove the tax burden from one delve after we knew the value of the rift reward if we completed at least ten delves in that trip.

I pressed on the obvious way they could screw us there: a guarantee of a request for us to delve ten or more times on a single trip in Tier 1 rifts in the next six months using generally the same terms. She laughed heartily at the idea of trying to be so miserly and easily agreed with a quick congratulations of a nice catch on my part.

Lastly, we discussed the possibility of finding something valuable in the rift I'd be carried through – in a sense – two times in the next few hours if we stayed. There were a lot of contingencies but we finally agreed on a simple framework: since the delve would include 100 people, it wouldn't be fair if I found a natural treasure or something of significant value to only get one percent of the value – I had only gotten one eighth the value for the magical ore I found the first day.

So if I was the one who found something, we would get 50% of the value and the rest of the people in the 'delve' – it was hard to call it a real delve when it was just people chopping down trees – would get made whole at a full one percent of the value. If someone else found something valuable, we would get 25% of the value up to a cap. I started with the cap at twenty gold, she started at five. Zita pushed and pushed but we ended up on thirteen.

"Ha, you really are a pain in the ass in the best possible way. And yes, I'll tell Nikolaj you won and that we didn't meet in the middle on the last point. Now, care to explain the hair?" Zita said with a smile as I headed back to my team.

She burst out laughing at finding out it was Oleg. "Yeah, knowing Oleg, even if it's a legitimate potion, it didn't have to turn your hair pink." She was still chuckling as she headed back to the city and we started running to the next rift.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

***

While some of the delves I was carried through had been anti-climactic, those seemed like heart-pounding adventures compared to my next two hours. The most exciting part was my pink hair slowly falling out, slightly alarming a few people.

The forest we had to 'kill' was simply that, a forest. No beasts, no puzzles, no surprises. To clear the rift, you had to chop down every tree and that was it.

The wood was taken by cart to the entrance and tossed out by a specialized machine. At all times, it was powered by five people using their mana and everyone switched at least once to powering it.

Once the last tree fell, the first rift reward distortion dropped what I thought was a normal stick, a bit less than three feet (1m) in length.

Laughing slightly, I asked to see it.

Steve sent me a desire to hold it so I obliged. Immediately, he was trying to wave it around but it was far too big for him. Still, he sent me a feeling of desire deeper than any he had before, even for his favorite foods.

I promised, as best as I could, that I'd look into buying it.

The next trip through was less efficient as the crew was clearly not used to a double shift.

People were bottoming out on mana and their physical stamina was low, especially as, while most people on the 'delve' were Tier 1.2 to 1.4, pretty much all of them had also donated a lot of their essence so they weren't that much stronger than a freshly Ignited person.

The second time through, the reward was a moderately sized hunk of platinum. While it wasn't actually the one hundred to one value ratio of gold coins to platinum coins, it was still worth a good amount and we only had to pay 50% to the city as their cut.

The stick it turned out was not an unusual reward, though the length was. Often used for creating martial weapons, usually bo staffs, it was valued at only five gold because it was so short. I picked it up for Steve even if he probably couldn't use it for quite some time, if ever.

The platinum was worth 45 gold so 22.5 went to The Order and nine of that went to me personally.

Our trip ended on more of a whimper than a bang excitement wise as we fought through a rift in a sparse forest populated with bears. There wasn't any major trick to taking them down, just solid defending and whittling them down. Plus, they only ever came one at a time. Romie used them for good target practice and we all managed to hone our skills just that bit more on the tough but simple creatures.

The reward seemed to follow the challenge and we received a small lump of gold worth two and a half gold coins.

For that rift, I had Steve allow more of the null essence he was receiving to flow into his cores rather than the circlet. After constantly trying to check on him mentally, he eventually just numbed our connection until I opened three of his treat compartments.

He seemed completely fine of course.

Despite a lackluster ending, overall it was an incredibly successful trip monetarily, netting our team exactly 125 gold coins and myself 50, though I paid 35.5 gold out in total, 22.5 to Nikolaj, eight for the null essence stone, and five for Steve's new magic stick.

We headed back to Velez, once again on the ultra-fast horses, courtesy of Councilor Zita, with Jasna and Nikolaj riding alongside us.

***

Notes App

AAI Accounting for 'The Struva Delves' Trip #1:

Day One:

First Rift:

Enemy: Combination armadillo-hedgehog

Who: The Order

Reward: three qi stones

Total Value: 31.5 gold – 30 gold for rift reward (taxed at 50% = 15), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 16.5 gold in total; Terry = 6.6 gold

Running Total: The Order = 16.5 gold in total; Terry = 6.6 gold

Second Rift:

Enemy: Giant tortoises

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: four large chunks of gold; magical ore discovered as well

Total Value: 61.5 gold – 20 gold for rift reward (50% to clear and protection team + taxed at 50% = 5), 40 gold for magical ore discovered (12.5% or one eighth cut based on number of people in the rift = 5), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 11.5 gold in total; Terry = 4.6 gold

Running Total: The Order = 28 gold in total; Terry = 11.2 gold

Third Rift:

Enemy: Floating squid monsters

Who: The Order

Reward: bottle of blue slime (alchemy ingredient)

Total Value: 1.5 gold – blue slime valued at zero, given to team, 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 1.5 gold in total; Terry = 0.6 gold

Running Total: The Order = 18 gold in total; Terry = 11.8 gold

Day Two:

First Rift:

Enemy: Rock golems

Who: The Order

Reward: a natural treasure that makes it so you don't need to go to the bathroom

Total Value: 1.5 gold – To be determined for rift reward (taxed at 50% = TBD), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 1.5 gold in total; Terry = 0.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 31 gold in total; Terry = 12.4 gold

Second Rift:

Enemy: Goblins

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: Enchanted dagger

Total Value: 41.5 gold – 40 gold for rift reward (50% to clear and protection team + taxed at 50% = 10), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 11.5 gold in total; Terry = 4.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 42.5 gold in total; Terry = 17 gold

Third Rift:

Enemy: Combination armadillo-hedgehog (again)

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: chunk of Palladium

Total Value: 81.5 gold – 80 gold for rift reward (50% to clear and protection team + taxed at 50% = 20), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 21.5 gold in total; Terry = 8.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 64 gold in total; Terry = 25.6 gold

Fourth Rift:

Enemy: Flying spiders

Who: The Order

Reward: 73 bolts of mundane cloth (birds of paradise print)

Total Value: 6.5 gold – 5 gold for rift reward (taxed at 50% = 2.5), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 4 gold in total; Terry = 1.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 68 gold in total; Terry = 27.2 gold

Fifth Rift (Dungeon):

Enemy: Undead (skeletons, zombies/ghouls, ghosts, lich)

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: null-affinity essence stone (Terry) and cheese cubes (Steve)

Total Value: 9.5 gold – 8 gold (taxed at 50% = 4), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Special value note: as all delvers to a dungeon get a reward, only the individual reward is taxed; cheese cubes were not assigned a value

Rift Value Received: The Order = 5.5 gold in total; Terry = 2.2 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 73.5 gold in total; Terry = 29.4 gold

Sixth Rift:

Enemy: Puzzle rift (spiders, beetles, harpies, etc.)

Who: The Order

Reward: small lump of gold

Total Value: 4 gold – 2.5 gold for rift reward (taxed at 50% = 1.25), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 2.75 gold in total; Terry = 1.1 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 76.25 gold in total; Terry = 30.5 gold

Day Three

First Rift:

Enemy: Giant tortoises (again)

Who: The Order

Reward: Magical rope

Total Value: 16.5 gold – 15 gold for rift reward (taxed at 50% = 7.5), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 9 gold in total; Terry = 3.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 85.25 gold in total; Terry = 34.1 gold

Second Rift:

Enemy: Rock golems (again)

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: Magically enhanced gem

Total Value: 26.5 gold – 25 gold for rift reward (50% to clear and protection team + taxed at 50% = 6.25), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 7.75 gold in total; Terry = 3.1 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 93 gold in total; Terry = 37.2 gold

Third Rift (First Run):

Enemy: Normal trees

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: Enchanted stick

Total Value: 6.5 gold – 5 gold for rift reward (50% to clear and protection team + taxed at 0% = 2.5), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 4 gold in total; Terry = 1.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 97 gold in total; Terry = 38.8 gold

Third Rift (Second Run):

Enemy: Normal trees

Who: Struva-provided clear and protection teams

Reward: Small bit of platinum

Total Value: 46.5 gold – 45 gold for rift reward (50% to clear and protection team + taxed at 0% = 22.5), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 24 gold in total; Terry = 9.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 121 gold in total; Terry = 48.4 gold

Fourth Rift:

Enemy: Bears

Who: The Order

Reward: Small chunk of gold

Total Value: 4 gold – 2.5 gold for rift reward (taxed at 0% = 2.5), 1.5 gold for delve fee

Rift Value Received: The Order = 4 gold in total; Terry = 1.6 gold

Running Total (all days): The Order = 125 gold in total; Terry = 50 gold

***

Notes App

Top-Level Priorities:

Priority #1: Personal and Steve safety – no real update

Tasks:

#0 Continue with Steve healing – treatments #2 and #3

#1 Continue to get stronger and harder to kill – pick up armor

(New) #2 Get AAI guarantee from Maksim about disclosure of Steve's Innate Capability

#3 More training, especially against human opponents

(New) #4 Start pushing back far more on people who mess with us – develop a reputation as someone not to mess with

#5 Develop code phrases with everyone to prevent imposters

(New) #6 Get full list of available spells and start to plan out kit

#7 Get more potions

#8 Prevent future assassination attempts

Sub tasks:

#1 Get into Zalano to speak with Dorota Prendi – pair with Gabor on his plan

#2 Obtain more info on the Church of Unullification – pair with ??? Aleksandra Podlipa?

Priority #2 (from #3): Figure out Barry issues

Tasks:

#1 Wait on Jasna's friend

#1 Start to figure out who Barry interacted with and get more info on him and his exploits – Stannis? Tilda?

#2 Finally talk with Cornelius

#3 Talk with Barry himself, figure out if I want revenge or to just chew him out

Priority #3 (from #2): Prevent shackles – golden or otherwise

Tasks:

#1 Develop relationships with other cities – make it a political problem to shackle me

Sub task:

(New) #1 Require introductions to city Councilors and other important people on any delving trips to other cities

(New) #2 Prior to trips, get an 'asshole' list from someone I trust to head them off before we have to deal with them (see Stavros Klimas)

#2 Repair fractured relationships and reputation with Zalano (and Pitola?) – find who to partner with

#3 Continue to balance between reasonable and building out power base – no trying to beat everyone into submission; more contracts-based wins

#4 Build out financial services in other cities that need it to spread out power base

Everything Else:

(New) Start to build up better nest egg for numerous purposes

(New) Renegotiate agreements with team (The Order of the Ever-Consuming Glider) relative to delves where I'm carried through and they aren't involved

(New) Weekly chat therapy-style sessions with someone? Tiesa, Gabor, Jasna, Vana, Risto, etc?

Figure out essence allocation to be able to absorb more essence quickly

Investigate more on what is causing null essence in rifts and dungeons – either all essence or just concentration – to spike

Find a place to deploy Gabby as an actual dungeon

Decide relationship direction with Katarina Illeva

Purchase new backup weapons

Figure out build changes and which spells to take

HAIRCUT

Additional testing with Ratmir and Steve re Steve's intelligence circlet

Pay back Nikolaj 22.5 gold (due soon), Tiesa 88.5 gold, and Jasna 84.9 gold

Secure potion supply outside of Velez Council + agreements

Figure out who on the Council tried to pull some shit re getting Goran as one of the dual affinity cultivators

Get far deeper on AAI guarantees and contract agreements with Nikolaj

Self-reflect on why I've been so trusting

Talk to Tiesa about asking Jasna out?

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