continued - 4/5

"Hello, good blacksmith!"

"Adventurer! Your common has improved significantly!"

"I have been studying well and diligently."

"Excellent. Are you here for your strange cloak holders? Why do you need so many of them?"

"Ah, they are not cloak holders. They will be of use to us in the dungeon."

"Truly. Strange."

"I'm sure it seems like that. Are they ready?"

"They have been complete, sir."

"Thanks. I'll take them now, if it's OK?"

"Certainly, good sir," the blacksmith replied before turning to another young boy in the back, "Boy! Retrieve the star contraptions. The owner is here for them."

"Yes, sir," the boy replied before scampering into the back of the store. He began bringing them out one at a time until the blacksmith shouted out for another older boy to help out, and the two were bringing them out in ones and twos quickly enough. Joe quickly began organizing them, trying to get them close together to bundle them up in some rope, but then he realized that he'd not brought any rope with him for the day. He'd forgotten about the whole thing.

"Blacksmith. I apologize, but do you have two lengths of rope available? I will pay, of course."

"Certainly, adventurer," the blacksmith replied, quoting a price before sending another boy to bring out a couple ratty pieces of rope. Joe inspected them carefully and found them in decent condition if lacking any appeal. Joe was quickly able to bundle up the star weapons into two bundles of ten, although they were a bit bulky. He hefted one on his right shoulder and turned to Garnedell.

"Think you could pick up that one, Garnedell?"

Garnedell grabbed it, struggling slightly to lift it before settling it on his shoulders, "I can lift it, Joe."

"Could you carry it to the dungeon each day? You would be OK doing that?"

"I think so, Joe."

Joe nodded and dropped his bundle back down but told Garnedell to keep his up, not wanting to have the boy have to lift it again. He pulled out the coins and dropped it into the blacksmiths hands, "Thank you, blacksmith. These look wonderful."

"I hope they are useful to you, adventurer."

"I hope as well, or I have wasted quite a bit of coin on these!"

The blacksmith offered a polite laugh as Joe lifted up his new star weapons and the two turned to head to the dungeon. The pair made a strange sight walking down through the streets with their bundles, although they did look like typical laborers so did not raise too much attention.

However, when the two arrived at the dungeon and stood in line to begin their exploration, the crowd quickly reacted to the two, some calling out questions while others taunted. Joe simply smiled at the commentary, politely sidetracking the conversation of the first while ignoring the taunts of the second. The guards asked a bit more pointed and serious questions regarding the strange contraptions and Joe passed them off as a form of defense, hoping that that seemed at least a possible answer. Joe's response seemed to garner some attention from the other adventurers around, but the guard questioned further.

"Where are you going? The first and second floor?"

"Yes. We will not go deeper."

"Ah, OK. These might work in mazes, but they will not work on the other floors. Only the first two floors of this dungeon are mazes. These would not work to well in other places."

"Well, we do not plan to go deeper. Thank you for the advice."

"Certainly. Enjoy your delve."

"Thank you. Enjoy your day," Joe replied. Delve? Delve… interesting. The translation magic seems to not be perfect, turning it into a noun. Oh well, it made sense well enough.

The two found themselves in the depths of the dungeon and turning into the dead end mazes at the beginning of the maze, and familiarity cloaked Joe's shoulders. When they came to their first spark guarding the way deeper in to the rooms, Joe set down his star weapons and untied them, pulling out one and pushing up into the sparks body, using his wooden spears to move the asterisk weapon. As soon as the weapon came into contact with the spark, Joe retrieved his wooden spears and Garnedell replied with surprised excitement.

"That is what these are for?"

"Yes. I thought you understood, Garnedell."

"I did not understand. It was a surprise to me."

Joe laughed a bit as he retied the bundle of stars. He'd only need one to clear out the passage way until they got to the room, "Well, I figured we wouldn't have to hold up the metal spears and we can clear a room out all at the same time if we just set all twenty of these up at once."

"That… would be amazing!"

"I think so. We might lose a bit of time having to untie and retie in each room, but we gain a whole bunch of time killing twenty at once. Ten for you, and ten for me!"

Garnedell's smile was quite large and after another three kills, they arrived at their first room. Joe sat his weaponry down, as did Garnedell, and in a matter of moments, they were carrying the stars around with two small spears through the loops, dropping them down on the sparks before retrieving and dropping another. They had the whole room mined within minutes, and the sparks were spazzing as they died, electrical discharge driving down into the floor. While the whole effect turned out to be not as effective as he had hoped. It did save him time, but not as much as he'd hoped, only halving the time. And only truly halving the time when they had at least fifteen to twenty sparks to kill. It was diminishing returns outside that range, although there weren't any rooms in the maze that had more than twenty sparks, so, Joe could only guess that it seemed to be a bit less after that. The setup worked great, but the iron was really hot by the time the sparks died, and trying to bundle them all up again to carry them was quite painful if they pushed themselves too fast. Despite that, it was still an excellent return on their work.

Not only that, by the time Joe made the first room, he'd already reach level six, receiving ridiculous amounts of experience for each kill as his learning was already incredibly high. Joe was even more excited when he saw what he was gaining for his stats. His mental stats, of course, gained a significant boost. But the surprise came in the form of some magic capabilities and the highest learning he'd seen ever, so far. In fact, it was the highest of any stat he'd seen, so he was quite excited.