Chapter 483 – Dungeon Core Distribution

Revanos left after dinner with a promise to return in a few weeks, whether or not he thought they needed help.

Sophia waved goodbye with mixed feelings. “He doesn’t think he’s our stepfather or something, does he?”

“Nah,” Leo waved a hand dismissively. “He’s more like those people who volunteer to help kids. They’re assigned a kid, well, they get some choice, then they check in regularly and whenever they think the kid needs help. He acts like them when they’re around the kid; interested and caring but also a little distant.”

Sophia blinked at Leo. “You knew people like that?”

Leo shrugged. “A few of my friends had big brothers. They were … well, Kaitlyn really was more like Livia’s big sister, but Noah and Eric were like Revanos. They tried to be interested and sometimes they were, but they never forgot they were there to help.”

“You always did have more friends than I did,” Sophia muttered. It wasn’t a competition, but sometimes it felt like one she was losing anyway.

“So what are we going to do about the dungeon cores?” Leo changed the subject. “Bunny really wants a Tower. They all do. I don’t want to go through that again.”

“It wouldn’t be as bad at a shorter Tower,” Sophia offered, “And it sounds like most of them are shorter.”

“I could sneak in, the way I did here,” Leo started planning. “I was only caught because of the mana surrounding the pillar, so if it’s not there I can place a dungeon core or at least try to find that way down you said was there in the Kestii Tower. Maybe we can check it out as an example first?”

“You’re missing the easy solution,” Dav interrupted. “Why don’t you just sell them?”

“What? How does that get them into a Tower?” Leo looked confused, then indignant. “We don’t want someone to break them to use them as components, they want to have their own Towers.”

“Yes, exactly,” Dav nodded as he spoke. “Sell them as improved Tower controllers, the things the Mage and Builder were trying to make. Well, the other half of what they were trying to make. Then you don’t have to handle delivery or installation; you can make people pick them up here. We might have to do one on site so that we can give good instructions in case they’re not as easy as Cliff was, but one is manageable. Four would be, too, but I assume the tree’s going to keep producing dungeon cores?”

“I think so?” Leo didn’t sound confident. “There are a few flowers and several tiny seeds, but they’re not ready yet. There’s no one in them. I bet there will be some more, I just don’t know how many. The problem is … I’m not sure how long they’ll last without someone taking care of them once they’re off the tree. I’ve been feeding the first three mana every day and they’re doing okay so far, but dungeon cores aren’t supposed to be outside a dungeon for long.”

Sophia frowned; she hadn’t thought about that. It was possible to move a dungeon core, but how long it would stay intact after it was removed from its home could vary a lot based on the shape it was in and who was moving it. A healthy dungeon core moved by someone it trusted who had the right Skills could easily last a year or two before it was placed in an unoccupied leyline nexus to create a new dungeon. Without any of those, the time went down quickly. Cliff was a good example of the opposite, since he was torn out of his home dungeon by people who were trying to hurt him. Sophia wasn’t certain how long he’d have lasted without the Guide’s intervention.

She was still ticked at the Guide over that. She’d have said yes, and the time required to ask wouldn’t have noticeably damaged Cliff’s chances of making it through. If he were that badly hurt, he wouldn’t have made it through the Origin intact.

“How long?” Dav frowned. “We can include care instructions, as long as that will help them make it.”

“A few months?” Sophia guessed. “Leo, do you have a better idea? It’s been a while since the first three came out of the World Tree.”

Leo reached into his backpack and pulled out an elongated purple crystalline spike. Sophia knew that was one of the three original dungeon cores, but she wasn’t sure which one; it wasn’t Bunny, so maybe it was Hail? 

Leo’s hands glowed with mana for a moment. “Flame says she’s fine and will be fine for a while; being in the World Tree helps and so does the mana. She’s not very clear on time but she says that nothing’s going to change any time soon. She’s confident that we have longer to find her a home than it’s been, but she can’t tell me how much longer.”

“And she’s been in your hands for months.” Dav sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I should have thought of that. Months should be enough time to both find a buyer and have the dungeon core reach its destination; we’ll have to add warnings and make sure other people can feed them mana and that other Towers are as good for them as the World Tree, but that sounds doable.”

It did sound doable. It also sounded like a lot of trouble, but Leo was Sophia’s brother and the dungeon cores were his. They’d have to figure out how to set everything up so that it could continue without their presence. Sophia hoped they’d be able to set everything up before she finished her repairs so that it wouldn’t delay them, but if there was a delay, she’d just have to live with it. 

For selling something, Sophia would normally lean on Xin’ri, but Xin’ri was gone. She wasn’t certain when she’d be back, either, which meant they either had to wait or figure out another way to sell things. Maybe they could try the auction house? It wasn’t the best way to sell the same thing over and over again, but it might generate some buzz and let them find someone who could take care of the day-to-day part that would continue after they left.

Dav had a different idea. “Arvinn, Reko … I know your parents are craftsmen. Do you know if any of them have the sort of contacts that would be needed to sell something that could affect a whole Tower?” 

“Grandma Morel knows some fourth upgrade Archons,” Reko volunteered, “I don’t think any of them work for the Tree, though. Most of them do something with their Clans.”

Arvinn bit her lip in thought, then nodded. “Mom might be able to find someone. She works at a small restaurant owned by the Et’Fola Clan. The console I used when I registered the harvest had the Et’Fola sigil.”

“We’re supposed to register things we take out of the World Tree?” Sophia didn’t like that. It sounded annoying and entirely too much like the sort of thing that resulted in a tax statement. There were rules like that back home, but they were inconsistently enforced. You really only had to report things that you planned to sell; even then, if you didn’t want to deal with it, you could report an aggregate quarterly number or a standard amount per delve, which was probably a little lower than the true average but close enough no one really cared. 

You couldn’t avoid paying taxes on delves; the Adventurer’s Guild was required to report how many delves people took through them and most people delved through the Guild. You could reduce the number based on what you had to buy to delve safely and on healing costs, but that was all.

Sophia was glad the family accountant took care of the paperwork for her. The first two years she delved, Rissa made Sophia work with the accountant on it so that she’d know what was going on and how to catch it if her accountant was cheating her; since then, even her mother agreed that the Guild’s normal reporting was enough and all Sophia had to do was spot-check it.

Not having to deal with that nonsense was one nice part of the Broken Lands. 

Arvinn eased Sophia’s fear of more paperwork with a shake of her head. “No, the registration isn’t on the fruit; it’s on the regular use of the entrance for harvests. We only got one dungeon core today, but each of the other trees produced most of a basket, and they’ll do that again in a few days as long as we tend them properly. I’m hoping it will continue like that for months, but you never know in the World Tree; some things can be harvested for a long time and others run out after a few harvests. Either way, it’s better to register early; if you don’t get much, you can cancel the slot. Getting one added after you’re caught not having one is a pain. At least, that’s what Dad says.”

She waved towards the wall and Sophia nodded as she saw the stacked baskets. They weren’t the small things she thought of when she heard the word “basket;” instead, they were closer to crates, roughly three feet in length and two feet in both width and height. They had rounded corners like a proper basket and were wider at the top than the bottom but were made to be stacked, with handles that could be folded to make a solid surface for another basket on top. They were loaded three deep on rolling platforms that would make them easy to get out of the tunnels … but with fifteen trees, fourteen other than the one that grew dungeon cores, that meant it would take five trips to get the day’s produce out of the Roots. With five people, that was easy, but Sophia could see where it would be harder once the only people pulling the fruit out were Arvinn and Reko.

Sophia somehow doubted that two or three trips per person for two people was what an entire registration system was designed for. Maybe she was projecting her own dislike of tax paperwork on the kids, but that level of preparation said they were planning for more than this. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a grin. “You’re also planning for the future, aren’t you? You want to plant more trees somewhere.”

“I don’t really expect it, but sometimes the World Tree adds to a Challenge Chain after you complete it enough times. Having a test plot unlock access to a real orchard has happened before.” Arvinn frowned. “It kind of has to if we want this to be worth much in the long run. We took the fruit to one of the farmers Reko’s Dad knows and he thinks that most of it won’t grow outside the World Tree. I didn’t understand the explanation really but it was something about it breeding back to base stock; I got that much.”

Sophia didn’t know enough about magical fruit to comment. It was better to move things back to what they planned. “Can you talk to your Mom about selling the dungeon cores?”

Arvinn nodded. 

“I’ll talk to the Prelate of the Way,” Dav volunteered. “He might know something, and he definitely knows someone. That will probably be slower than working through Arvinn’s mother’s job, but we may need more avenues.”

They had a plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was more than they had before. Sophia hoped it would work; if it did, she probably didn’t need to do much and that was a good thing when it came to selling things. Sophia’s ability to sell things was terrible; she was pretty sure the only reason she ever managed to sell girl scout cookies was because her extended family took pity on her. 

Well, the fact that Becca Taylor, the lady who ran the New York City Adventurer’s Guild Hall, made sure the Guildhall was always well stocked with the cookies and split the credit between all of the girl scouts that were related to Guild members helped a lot. She was basically just extended family, anyway, just like her husband Legion Carl.