Book 2 Chapter Nineteen: Bigger Fish

NINETEEN

Roan was halfway through his second steak when the others showed up. Harris and Darren both looked wretched, their bodies curled upon themselves as they hurried over. Roan could smell them from half a block away, even scrubbed clean of the oily-gunk that was expunged by body tempering, the stench stayed on them. Taoya, Moira, and Tyler were walking upwind of them, chortling at the state of the duo.

“Over here,” Roan said, waving his hand at them. He was glad he’d chosen the patio as they all entered. Taoya pointed to a corner away from the rest and Darren and Harris both retreated to it, looking at the mostly eaten steak on Roan’s plate with a ravenous hunger.

“Good to see you again, Tyler,” Roan said, nodding to the tall woman. She waved a slender hand at him, sitting primly on her chair with near perfect poise. Her eyes hadn’t left the steak though.

“That does it. We’re going to have to look at buying better rations. The mana enriched ones for those who’ve finished tempering. Look at them,” Moira said, waving her hands at everyone around the table.

“What grade is that?” Roan asked.

“Same grades, but instead of regular rations they’re called enriched. Ten times the cost for the same amount of calories,” Moira said. Taoya nodded grimly while Roan sucked a breath in. Five hundred credits for a thousand enriched calories was brutal. A thousand credits a day just for food was going to put a strain on the lower level of fighters. His two steaks had only cost two-hundred.

“We’re going to need to look for skills for cooks and butchers. We can hunt mana rich monsters,” Roan said and everyone nodded along.

“We had already talked about it. Could be something for all of us to buy depending on the price. But, that’s for later, right now we need to figure out what we’re going to do to survive this floor,” Tyler said, steering the conversation toward their current problems.

“Darren’s suicide charge?” Moira said, turning to look at Darren in the corner.

“It’s not a bad plan, but we can make it less suicidal,” Roan cut in before Darren could say anything. He folded the last of the steak in half like he’d seen Taoya do and chewed rapidly, taking a swig of water out of his canteen before continuing.

“When I led it on the chase I realized a few things. Its really fast, not very bright, and can’t turn to save its life. Instead of one person, we stagger a few of us around the forest so it’s not on Darren to lead it around constantly.”

“That doesn’t fix the problem of running in the dark in a forest full of goblins,” Darren countered from his isolated corner.

“It doesn’t, if we were running blind. We go a few hours before night falls and map our routes. Those who volunteer to do it, they’ll have to have tempered and be ready to run. It’s going to be risky, but we can pay our own rewards as they miss out on earning anything,” Roan said, battling his irritation at being interrupted. He’d already started talking about this before with the others, but he’d refined it a bit since last night.

“Alright, so it’s less deadly as they run pre-mapped routes. They’ll need to be strong enough to divert the dragon’s attention too, not many people here can do that.” Tyler spoke quietly, but everyone listened.

“True, but we can work on that with enchantments or alchemy. Moira, I’m sure there’s something explosive or acidic in your recipe manual?” Roan asked. He’d been having a hint of a plan in the back of his mind about the empty village, but he needed her answer.

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“Yes. Explosives aren’t that hard actually. Stable explosives that detonate when we want them to on the other hand,” Moira said.

“How unstable?” Taoya asked. Before they could say anything the waiter arrived with an armfull of plates, dropping the food in front of everyone. The next few minutes were lost as everyone ripped and tore into their meals, eating with a savagery that bordered on animalistic.

“Matters. The more powerful it is, the more unstable it is. Once I upgrade the skill a few times, that’ll change, but for now think of it like nitroglycerin. Powerful but unstable,” Moira said after she finished her food.

“Heat would set it off? Like a shaman staff fire?” Roan asked.