Chapter 30

Caleb walked back out of the Dungeon not even half an hour after entering it. He used the Faction Emblem to claim the Dungeon before leaving, bringing The Three Peak’s total number of territories to two.

He wasn’t sure the benefit of claiming territories, but a bit of digging in the Faction’s dashboard screens and he was able to find some information about it. Apparently, increasing the amount of territories that your Faction controlled was one of the main ways to increase your Faction’s grade. Increasing the grade came with a whole host of benefits. You could have a greater total number of Faction members, more buildings and items available for purchase within the Aether Shop, and several Faction specific perks and buffs.

It was cool, but most of it didn’t really interest Caleb. He’d let Chloe or someone else handle all of the minutia of managing the Faction, he would focus on increasing its territory.

The dry air of the Dungeon was replaced with the cool breeze of the redwood forest as Caleb’s feet materialized on the soft ground.

He glanced around. All of those weirdly silent people he’d met before going into the Dungeon were still just hanging around, doing nothing. They looked confused, like a pack of lost puppies. Didn’t they have things to be doing? Or maybe since he’d killed all of the monkeys they’d lost their sense of purpose. Whoops.

“Dungeon’s cleared,” Caleb said. “Are you all planning on just hanging around in the forest?”

A few of them shook their heads. Most just stared at him. Did he have something in his teeth? Ugh, this was why he hated public speaking.

“Do you not have anywhere to go?” Caleb asked.

The one who’d spoken to him the first time – the guy wearing a military uniform – spoke up. “No. We don’t. Until just before you arrived, we were locked in these cages. Do you know of somewhere we can go? Are you from some sort of resistance?”

Hold on. The wooden treehouses all around him weren’t built by these people? They were built by the monkeys? And these people were… prisoners? Ah, god.

“Resistance? Not really. Look, there’s a Faction over in that direction.” He pointed toward the West, from the direction he’d come. “They have something resembling civilization. Head over there and ask to speak to a woman named Chloe Han. Tell her that Caleb sent you.”

The man in the military uniform nodded slowly, as if coming to terms with what Caleb had said. Then he perked up, doing his best to be a leader to this downtrodden, sorry group. “You heard him,” he called out. “Let’s get moving, everyone.”

The group mumbled to themselves before slowly starting to disperse, grabbing what meagre belongings they had and moving West. Should he have told them to speak to Hudson instead of Chloe? Maybe. But that guy was a dick. Asking for Chloe and saying they knew Caleb was more likely to end positively.

A girl with blonde hair and blue eyes walked up to Caleb. Dirt covered her face and clothes as it did for so many of the refugees. She looked like she wanted to say something, then stuck out a hand.

Caleb took it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Uh, sure. No problem.”

Then she turned and followed the rest of her group.

***

Hopefully those people would make it to Ridgeway safe and sound. Caleb hadn’t run into any monsters besides the monkeys on his way here, so the path was likely pretty safe. But, then again, everyone in that group was terrifyingly weak. He hadn’t bothered scanning everyone, but the few that he had were all still level one or two.

Suppose that’s what happens when you get thrown into a cage the second the System arrives. What would have happened to them if Claeb hadn’t arrived? He shuddered and put the thought out of his mind.

Caleb set the chest from the Cracked Sands Dungeon down and flipped it open. It was just full of Aether Credits.

He groaned. Was he really going to have to lug this thing around with him everywhere he went. He’d been planning on going around and clearing as many Dungeons as possible. It’d start to become a real pain if he had to carry three, four, ten chests.

The System read his desires. A screen popped up in front of him, hovering over the Aether Credits.

Would you like to Absorb Aether Credits?

Aether Credits can be absorbed and placed into your Personal Credit Storage or your Faction Credit Storage. Aether Credits within your Personal Credit Storage are accessible and usable by only you, while Aether Credits within your Faction Credit Storage are accessible and usable by anyone in your Faction that has the proper permissions.

Well that was nice.

Caleb placed all one thousand of his new Aether Credits into his personal storage. The credits in the chest glowed, then faded into motes of light that absorbed into his chest. A new tab appeared in his status showing how many credits he had in his personal storage. Then he decided to check on the Faction storage as well.

It seemed that Chloe or Tyler had figured this storage system out too. The Faction storage was sitting at just over nine thousand Aether Credits.

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Caleb clapped his hands together, brushing imaginary dust off of them, and stood back up. That had been convenient.

He started jogging North. His plan was to make a wide circle around Ridgeway and clear all of the Dungeons around it. Then, he would expand further.

Hopefully the next Dungeon would be more challenging.

***

Welcome, Caleb Ward
You are entering a Dungeon: Silent Marsh
Grade: F
Completion Objectives:

• Kill the Murkdrenched Croc

Completion Odds: 99%

The Silent Marsh was the third Dungeon that Caleb had entered, and by far the creepiest.

Trees grew gangly and weird. Long trails of greenish black moss hung from their branches, quietly drifting in the subtle breeze. A dim moon barely shone behind a veil of clouds, casting just enough light around that he always thought he saw movement in the corners of his vision. Bugs and distant creatures scuffled in the tall grass and shallow water, always out of sight.