When they had gotten within a few hours of reaching home, the patrol had sent a small group of fast dwarves ahead. It might have made more sense to send Alan and his fellow scouts, but Kargan had them busy watching their rear. He was concerned that the kobolds might try and retaliate.

It was something that a real force might have done, but Alan doubted the dungeon would bother. It seemed like the quest was winding down, and if the dwarves had managed to kill swarms of kobolds for hours on end, what were they really going to be able to do anyway.

Alan and friends were able to rejoin the main group just before entering the cavern containing the village. They were met by a large crowd that included both Kespar and the mayor. Zontun was brought forward and began talks with both men. Chairs, a table, and snacks were brought out. Apparently the mayor of the village was a high enough official for the gnome to make an agreement. No doubt both groups would have to loop in more important leaders at some point, but it seemed like they were able to make an initial agreement.

None of this would have been of much interest to Alan, except he had nothing else to do since the soldiers were forced to stand around outside, watching the discussion. When the mayor and the gnome finally shook hands to seal the agreement, Alan got his quest update.

Quest Completed: Corrupted Ritual (500)

[Together with a small army of dwarves, you stopped the Ritual of Corruption and helped to ensure that everyone got home safely. Reward: one rare Keeper class stone and 500 dungeon points.]

Bonus Reward: Corrupted Ritual

[After leading your own squad and accomplishing a tough objective, you have shown your worth as a leader. Reward: you have been promoted to Vice-Lieutenant.]

Bonus Reward: Corrupted Ritual

[You have secured an alliance between the dwarves and the shadow gnomes that could allow both of their factions to flourish. Reward: 500 dungeon points.]

Bonus Reward: Corrupted Ritual

[Citizens of the Network tried to corrupt the purpose of this dungeon. You foiled their plan and punished the guilty parties. Reward: rare Keeper stone upgraded to epic Custodian stone.]

That was the most notifications he had gotten in a row. As long as you don't count error messages, anyway. The first three messages seemed pretty standard, although the rewards themselves were really good. He was eager to check out what being a vice-lieutenant was going to mean for him.

The last message was the most interesting. It seemed like the Network, or possibly just the dungeon, was thankful for his help in preventing Griff and Oshae from repurposing the original ritual. The reward itself was a little strange. If you were going to ask him which was better, a keeper or a custodian, he would have gone with keeper. It was hard to argue with the rarity tags, though.

Most of the rewards were intangible, just updates on his status sheet, but the new class stone was presented to him in a fancy wooden box. He had gotten similar containers for his rewards in the past, but this one was rather ornate. The wood itself was a silvery white color with a striking red grain. On the top was carved a dragon with its wings spread, clutching a shield in its talons. Alan cracked the lid slightly and saw an opal stone sitting on a grey lining.

Not wanting anyone to notice that an object had just appeared in his hands, he stored it quickly in his necklace. Tamee made a joke only he could hear, asking if he now had another stone in his nipple. She was not gonna let this go anytime soon, it seemed. If he was being honest with himself, the idea of a storage ring that was hidden under his armor, that no one might think to look for, wasn't a bad one, but the reality was uncomfortable. Also, something about the concept of a nipple ring just seemed inappropriate to him, and it was this discomfort that Tamee was picking on.

Once the handshake was over, the troop was disbanded and everyone made their way into the village. Alan could have left at this point, but he didn't want to be rude to Thadrick. Also, this was probably the last time he would ever get to see the dwarf. The dungeon would be closing after this final dive, and there was little chance he would run into him outside in the vast universe.

Instead of exiting, he talked both Thadrick and Bodvar into going to a tavern with him. It wasn't the one Parina ran, this one was closer to Helge's blacksmith shop. Bodvar suggested it so that he could see about dragging her over as well. Alan had told them he was leaving after this and would probably never return, and they thought Helge would want to see her spewn one more time.

It was mid-afternoon when they finally assembled in the bar. The three dwarves and one human spent the rest of the day eating and drinking. Helge even did some singing. It turned out she had a rather lovely voice. Alan could carry a tune okay, but the other two boys sounded like broken glass being ground up by rocks that had been used to abuse some squalling kittens, so he chose not to sing to keep them from joining in as well.

In every representation of dwarves he had seen on Earth, they could always hold their drink. This was definitely a case where reality matched expectations. It had been several hours and Alan had drunk enough to drown a frat house, constitution seemed to help with the effects of alcohol, leaving him a bit blurry eyed and stumbling. His drinking companions were still bright eyed and joyful, including Thadrick who definitely did not have a constitution class.

Raising his mug, Thadrick toasted his friend again. "To my favorite human! Not only have you saved my life…"

"And my Boddi's!" Interrupted Helge.

Thadrick acknowledged her before continuing, "...you also helped rescue all those villagers, and now allowed me to accompany the King's Patrol on a dangerous mission and brought us home again. My life has taken a change for the better ever since I ran into you. From the bottom of my beard, I thank you!"

"Hear hear!" Echoed Bodvar and Helge.

They all clinked their glasses and Alan chugged another drink, ale this time. Then it was his turn to give a toast, thanking Thadrick for the mining lessons, Bodvar for helping Thadrick to mine the rare ore, and Helge for making his spewn. This was probably the fourth time they all toasted each other, and it wasn't the last before the night ended.

When they finally called it a night, Alan was having trouble staying on his feet and even Thadrick was stumbling as he led them back to his own tent. It was a bit like old times with Thadrick passed out snoring on the bed and Alan stretched out on his bedroll. With so much alcohol in his system, the dwarf's nocturnal emissions didn't bother him and he slipped into unconsciousness.

They both woke late that morning, but Alan was a naturally early riser, so his version of late was still a couple of hours before Thadrick's. Instead of puttering around the house, Alan went shopping. He had some more gold, but he also had a plan. He wanted to cook his friend one last meal.

From the store, he bought eggs, some ham, and cheese. He was gonna make omelettes. His storage still contained a pile of precooked ones, but he wanted to try making one himself. While he was purchasing his items, he had a thought. Asking the shopkeeper, he learned where the eggs came from. Alan wouldn't have been surprised if they were shipped in, since he hadn't seen any chickens running around, but he learned that one of the residents kept a couple of hen houses.

On his way out, Alan made sure to thank Folca, the shopkeeper, for taking such good care of him. In his four trips into this dungeon, Alan had come to feel like this was almost a second home. It was going to be hard to leave all of the people he had met behind.

Following the directions, he soon found the house of the woman who was raising the chickens. He could have bought a bunch of eggs and kept them in his storage, but he thought it would be more fun to try and get some actual chickens for his small farm. He would have to teach Two Socks not to eat them, but otherwise he thought it would be nice to have some more company.

Unfortunately, he couldn't just buy chickens and throw them in his new nipple ring. It allowed the storage of living things, but only in a nascent stage, like the unborn dragon. After talking with the female dwarf for a little while, he was soon on his way with five eggs stored in his special barbell. These weren't regular cooking eggs, these had been fertilized. In addition to eggs, this woman also supplied the occasional live chicken for meat, so she had a small supply of eggs for hatching chicks.

Using identify, it was easy to determine whether an egg was viable or not, so Alan was confident that he could at least get a few chicks from the collection. He had also picked up tips on how to feed them, so he made another trip back to Folca's store. After the required jokes about how long he'd been gone and how he was missed, he bought a decent amount of soybeans and corn for future chicken feed. He also picked up a small sack, non-magical, just burlap.

Then it was time to hurry back to Thadrick's house and get cooking. Alan made sure before cracking each egg that he had pulled out the correct non-fertilized ones. Then he chopped up the ham and cheese and added it to the cooking eggs. It was the delectable aroma of the omelets that awakened his dwarven friend. He had even gotten some more spices to make this last breakfast truly special. He also had plenty left over for his future endeavors in the culinary arts.

It was probably the best meal he had ever cooked himself, which wasn't saying too much, but Thadrick judged it delicious as well. This dungeon run had done wonders for his cooking skill, and while he had dropped a large sum of gold on his shopping, he felt confident that his future meals would be far superior to that half burned half raw goat mess he had started with.

Neither dwarf nor human cried when they said goodbye. Real men wouldn't cry for something like that. However, they both discovered there was a rather unusual accumulation of dust in the air, making both of their eyes water. With a final thump on his back, Alan was out of the tent and on his way.

He had one more stop to make before leaving. Zontun was being hosted by the mayor, so it was to his house that Alan now went. The gnome was actually sitting at a table in front of the house when he arrived, so he didn't even have to knock. After the customary greetings, Alan passed over the empty sack he had purchased earlier, now filled with blood gems.

"I know you regretted not being able to bring your kin's bodies back with you, here are the gems that were made from them in the ritual. Perhaps you will be able to use these to get some closure."

Zontun also discovered how dusty it was here in the camp, and after wiping away a tear he gave Alan a hug and thanked him for the gesture. The Network also thanked him, with a notification.

Bonus Reward: Corrupted Ritual

[You have helped Zontun and his tribe to get some closure on the death of their kin. Reward: 500 dungeon points.]

Once again he had made a killing on points in this dungeon. The loss of the blood gems wasn't an issue either. They were not of a high quality, and he would have felt weird using them after seeing how they were created. The trip back to the dungeon exit passed in a blur, before he was once again standing out in his valley.

The bright sunny day did not match his sorrow inside. He had gotten a nice boost from seeing Zontun's happiness, but it was still hard to deal with losing his friend. Luckily, such partings were something that you got used to in the military. Moving units, changing stations, and even completing missions almost always led to leaving people you cared about behind. Alan was proud of himself that he still took leaving hard, but he also knew that he would eventually be able to move on. Soon enough the sorrow would turn into treasured memories.

"How you doing buddy?" Tamee's voice caught him off guard.

"I'm alright. It's just that the dungeon and its people had become familiar to me. I'll miss them."

"I thought I saw some tears there."

Alan responded gruffly, "It was very dusty!"

There was a little amusement in her voice as she responded. "You keep telling yourself that. By the way, there is always the chance you'll see them again."

"What are the actual chances of running into any of them again?" he had to ask.

"That depends on you. Most likely that entire mountain is based on a real place in the Network. Remember how I told you that it often took entire settlements into dungeons. It is possible that everyone you met there was from the same area. It makes keeping everyone under control much easier, and the reward for such a thing can be quite impressive. For such a large commitment it can raise the mana quality by a lesser grade or even a whole color."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The reason so many people will volunteer together for a mission like that, is often to improve the level of mana where they live. Anyone with a class will find themselves feeling weakened in an area of low quality mana relative to their own grade. So if you hope to become red or orange grade, and the mana quality where you live is white, you have a problem. It's not just for those with classes either, better energy leads to better resources in the area, which makes everyone wealthier, even serfs. So by improving the quality of the mana, they can improve almost everything about their living conditions."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"What's a lesser grade?"

"So, a grade is an entire color change, like moving from quartz, the bottom of white, to garnet, the bottom of red. A lesser grade would only be a shift of one step, like quartz to opal or garnet to ruby."

Alan was still confused, "Ok, the reward makes a little more sense now, but why would finding them depend on me?"

"Well, you have enough information about the dwarven kingdom and the shadow gnomes, that if they really are part of the same mountain somewhere, you could probably find an information broker who would be able to locate them for a price. It would not be cheap, and it would take time, but it has been done before."

He wasn't going to let the hope bloom inside him. What she said might be true, but it sounded pretty iffy to him. Also, it would only be a possibility if he made it out of this tutorial. With that in mind, he took out his reward. Now that he had a chance to study it a bit, the wooden box was truly a work of art. Looking inside he inspected the shimmering stone.

Item: Opal Custodian Class Stone, rarity Epic. This stone can be used to upgrade the guardian class to the opal class Custodian, a constitution based class that specializes in not only protecting others, but also in guiding and helping them to grow. Requirements: A blunt weapon skill of 50 and the Shield talent in addition to another guardian talent.

The description made him feel better about the class name. He had been thinking about custodian as a janitor, but there were other ways the word could be used. It also seemed like the requirements for an epic stone were pretty high. He was bummed he didn't meet the standards yet, but hopefully the dungeon store had something he could use to fix that.

Replacing the stone and box in his necklace, Alan set out for home. He was looking forward to seeing his wolf friend. Less than a day should have passed, so no new boss yet, but he was confident that Two Socks had kept busy anyway. He always seemed happy when Alan returned. While he ran, he looked into his new Army rank.

Vice-lieutenant wasn't one he was familiar with, but it was close enough to what they used in the army that he had at least a guess of where it stood. Checking the wiki, and asking Tamee, he confirmed his suspicion. It was the lowest rank of officer in the Army Array. It turned out there were three levels of lieutenant, instead of the two he was used to, Vice, regular, and Over.

Even at the lowest level, Alan would now be able to form his own Army. As a corporal, he had been able to command his own unit within someone else's army, but he couldn't have created his own. That rank had also allowed him to add to the overall capacity of another officer's army. Now as a vice-lieutenant, he could still add more slots, up to twenty more, but he was also allowed to form his own Army with up to thirty people in it.

Knowing how much of a boost you could receive by being part of an Army, Alan had thought to exploit the system by making himself an army of one. However, it seemed the Network was savvy to the cheat, and there was also a minimum amount of troops required to form the Army, at least initially. For Alan, it was twenty people, including himself. That didn't seem likely to be an option anytime soon.

Having tried and failed to surprise his lupine housemate before, Alan was unsurprised to see him waiting for him when he got near his farm. What did surprise him was how much he had grown. Again. Perhaps Alan should stop being shocked since he was always growing.

Beast: Stalker Wolf (rare) level 13, threat: significant. A stalker wolf is adept at moving unseen and ambushing its prey.

The first thing Alan noticed was that he was no longer an adolescent, he must now be considered an adult. That wasn't the only change, however. Not only was his level higher, but he was now the size of a real horse, not just a pony. They were both surprised when Two Socks went to jump on Alan, and they realized that he was now shorter than the wolf. Alan jokingly asked Two Socks if he could ride him now, but it was made clear with a growl and a glare that he was no mount.

Alan started off towards the farm, but Two Socks blocked his path before walking in a different direction. It took Alan a moment to realize that the wolf wanted to lead him somewhere. Curious, he followed along. They increased their speed until Alan was running almost full speed beside the bounding wolf. Both were really stretching their legs, but if he had to guess, he thought that Two Socks was now faster than he was.

Their destination was soon obvious. Scavengers were not really a thing here, at least not yet, but the sight of a carcass was easy to make out. It seemed to be some kind of furred, four legged creature. Once they arrived before it, Alan had a better idea of what he was looking at.

It did indeed have four legs, but strangely no tail. The fur covering its body was short and looked a little coarse. The entire creature was very sleek looking, not heavily muscled. Walking around the body, Alan was finally able to make out the head. It had a long face with large eyes. The mouth was currently hanging open, displaying large sharp teeth. It didn't seem to have any horns or spikes anywhere. He kept trying to compare it to a creature he knew, but nothing quite fit.

One thing that was obvious was the cause of death. It's throat was a mess, it looked like something had literally ripped it apart. Judging by the proud way Two Socks was standing gave Alan an idea of who had accomplished this feat.

"Did you do this?" Alan asked as he pointed at the dead beast.

Two Socks looked at Alan briefly, then he distinctly bobbed his head up and down. Not only had he managed to kill this large animal, but he was also demonstrating a higher intelligence than before. Taking another look at the creature, he would say it was about two-thirds the size of the wolf. He had obviously had an advantage, but it was still a good kill.

"Good job, Two Socks. How about I harvest this thing and we can eat some of its meat for dinner."

The wolf lay down on its front paws and watched as Alan went about collecting everything he could from whatever animal it was. His identify skill didn't work very well on dead animals, which was strange since it worked just fine on inorganic things. While he skinned it, he had a question for Tamee.

"So, where did this thing come from? It's too early for the obelisk to have spawned another boss, and it shouldn't be leaking any creatures yet."

Tamee did have an answer for him. "Remember when I told you that the ambient mana could cause things to spontaneously appear? Well, this is probably an example of such an occurrence. I don't recognize the creature, but from its size alone it is probably around level eight to ten."

It was true, he did remember her telling him that, it was one of the reasons he had worked so hard to make a shelter. He hadn't expected anything quite this large, however. It didn't take him too long to gather what he could. He stored the pelt, it was in decent condition, except for the neck. He had no way to fix that. He also got a pretty large collection of meat. Hopefully it would be tasty.

With another congratulatory scritch between the wolf's ears, the two of them started back toward the house. Once they arrived he noticed that everything seemed to be in good shape. While Alan was looking it all over, Two Socks made his way to one of the blueberry bushes with the overloaded mana.

It was impressive how such a large predator could so daintily suck berries off the bush. After he had cleaned a few branches of their juicy blue orbs, Alan couldn't see any sign of trauma to the bush. It seemed that Two Socks would be able to feed himself just fine if Alan was gone for a while. He mentally changed that to when, not if. Even if he didn't get stuck in another dungeon for a while, he was still going to be leaving the area when tier three opened up in less than a week.

Checking his grill he saw that it was still in good shape. No need to clean it yet, besides, any residual drippings should just add flavor. Next he took out two of the new mystery steaks and placed them on top. He chose a larger cut for his furry friend and a smaller one for himself. Even though it was nighttime here, he had eaten his own breakfast not that long ago. Also, the wolf probably weighed at least ten times as much as he did.

While they cooked, Alan decided to do some shopping. He still needed to upgrade his guardian and scholar classes before he was truly at the opal level. The new stone he had gotten would help with one of those, but he wasn't able to use it yet. Hopefully he could purchase some talent stones from the dungeon store.

A quick scan confirmed that there were still talent stones. He could buy a general one, which would give him a random quartz talent that could come from any of his classes. It was important to make the quartz distinction now, because while he was still able to unlock the original six talents for each of his starting classes, the upgraded opal versions could also offer some new options. The normal talent stones wouldn't be able to unlock one of these opal talents.

Those general stones cost three hundred points, a not inconsequential amount, but they could end up unlocking something from the wrong class. It would be helpful, but it wouldn't do anything for meeting the requirements of the new class. For five hundred points he could get the class specific version. These would still be random talents, but they would be limited to the chosen class at least.

There didn't seem to be any specific talent stones, but those would have likely been prohibitively expensive. While browsing, he also noticed that there were opal class stones for each of the basic quartz classes. They were all common versions, but it was nice to see that was an option for his scholar class. While the general ones were cheaper, it was more cost effective to buy the guardian specific talent stones, unless he counted on being extremely lucky.

New Guardian talent unlocked: Block

Well, that was almost like Shield, at least it sounded that way. From his talk with Pixel he knew that Block would allow him to better utilize his shield or weapon to intercept strikes, and that Shield, ironically enough, would actually help him get in between allies and attackers. He would be 'shielding' them from harm. The talent would somehow allow him to judge positioning and threat vectors better. It made sense that his new class required it.

Well, that was a third of his last dungeon reward and he had gained a valuable talent, but not the one he'd needed. He had only had a one in four chance, so it was hard to be upset, but he still held a little grudge against the Network. It had given him a stone with the requirement, it could have also helped out in getting the talent unlocked. Spending five hundred more points, he bought another stone.

New Guardian talent unlocked: Shield

There it was! Alan had been so caught up in trying to get the Shield talent that he hadn't been paying proper attention to the steaks. He had already flipped them both, but his was now starting to blacken. Two Socks had already retrieved his own steak from the grill and was happily devouring it. Alan liked some pink in his steak, but the wolf preferred his to be downright bloody.

Shutting off the fire runes under the steak, he was impressed he had actually managed to burn the meat. He was using his fire stones to heat the steaks and had to concentrate to allow mana into the rune to activate them. His ability to split his focus had improved to the point where he could be concentrating so hard on his talents that he didn't notice the steak overcooking, while still being able to pour mana into his heating stones.

After letting the meat rest for a little, he transferred it to one of his plates and cut in. The steak was a little past well done, but not really charred yet. The crispier parts ended up just having a little extra flavor. While not as good as the boar meat, this was chewy but still fairly tasty.

After cleaning his dishes in the stream he dried them with a small towel he had purchased and then hung the towel on the side of the house. There were plenty of nails that weren't quite flush to pick from. Because of the way spacial storage worked, he couldn't just stick the towel in now, otherwise when he retrieved it later it would still be damp.

"Ok buddy, I'm gonna go inside and level up one of my classes. You can come with, or do whatever."

Two Socks chose to scamper off. Watching Alan sit in place for a while wasn't very interesting for him. Sitting down inside the house on his bed of furs, Alan once more retrieved his epic class stone. He was curious how it would compare to the rare and uncommon ones he had already unlocked. After willing himself to absorb it, he found the first difference.

New Class Unlocked: Custodian

Choose a Talent or Class Ability from those below:

Talents:

Assess

Shelter

Thick Skin

Class Abilities:

Absorb

Stunning Blow

So that was different. It seemed like he was only going to get one, which was a bummer, but he would be able to choose. Not only that, but he was also able to get a description of each one from the Network.

Assess: Allows you to better determine the threats around you. This talent will improve the effectiveness of your identify skill and your instincts when it comes to surrounding danger.

Shelter: This talent improves your capability of protecting another. Any skills or abilities that aid in this endeavor will be boosted.

Thick Skin: Your skin will resist damage better. It is most effective against slicing damage, but it will also help with piercing damage, and provide a limited resistance to blunt damage.

The Shelter talent didn't seem too useful to him, he didn't really have anyone to protect, but the other two both seemed great. Reducing damage was also a good thing, and improving his identify skill would most likely pay off in a number of ways. Now it was time to check out the abilities.

Absorb: By activating this ability, you will be able to redirect some of the damage dealt to a chosen target to yourself instead.

Stunning Blow: When striking with this ability, it will briefly stun the target depending on your relative constitutions.

Absorb was intriguing. How would that even work? Let's say Alan was trying to protect Thadrick, and a kobold stabbed Thadrick in the chest, would Alan now have a chest wound instead of the dwarf? It sounded cool, but again was not something he needed right now.

Stunning blow sounded great. Briefly is not a well defined term, but even a moment of stunning an enemy could make a huge difference in combat. There didn't seem to be any downsides or reasons not to pick it. However, thick skin and assess also had only plusses and no negatives.

Alan was not great when it came to making decisions outside of combat. As good as stunning blow was, he crossed that one off the list first. It was for a strange reason too. As an ability, he would learn what it did when he gained it. Talents, on the other hand, were not usually described by the Network. Alan had somehow lucked into explanations for three of them. It would be wasteful if he didn't take one now.

After eliminating the abilities, he was down to two choices. Thick skin or assess. Alan did use his identify quite a bit, and any improvement would be helpful. However, he had also seen how effective Griff's robe was at preventing Alan from harming him. Time to go with the sure fire, insanely logical method for making a decision.

"Tamee, pick a number from one to a thousand."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, please."

"Two hundred and sixty-five?"

"Odd, thanks!"

So that meant Thick Skin. Willing the selection, he felt the usual aura shift that came with upgrading his class. Refocusing his senses inside, he helped his pathways reach their optimal configuration. Then he felt the flood of information. It was more than any of his previous upgrades. Soon enough that part was over as well.

Studying his status sheet, he was pleasantly surprised to find that in addition to the talent Thick Skin, he had received the class ability Absorb. It wasn't the ability he would have chosen, but free stuff was good stuff. His constitution had gone up the regular three points, so that was still the same. Now he just needed an opal stone for his scholar class and he could start leveling up his classes again.

Alan briefly considered getting the common stone available from the store, but it seemed like a let down. Also, at only three hundred points it seemed like the Network didn't value it that highly either. He would take the night to think about it.

It was past midnight here but he had only woken up about eight hours ago. Combined with the lower need to sleep since the arrival of the Network, he was not tired at all. He needed another way to pass the time until sunrise. He could check out his farm, but his brief survey from earlier hadn't shown anything that needed help. He did have some new seeds he could plant, though.

That got him thinking about the chicken eggs, and then that led to the dragon egg. It seemed like he had a lot of things to accomplish tonight. The sudden flood of possibilities made sleep seem like a better option, but lazy men don't become Green Berets.

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