A Bar a Vampire and the Apocalypse

After getting back to my room and putting my bloody clothes in a bag off to the side to clean later and took a nice warm shower. After I made my way down stairs moving the tables we have been using for the meetings and setting the table with notepads and such for people to take notes and the like. Walking over to the pool table I played myself a few games while I waited for people to get up. It was around 7 by the time the first of my board of people made themselves known. It was as expected, Sarah.

“Morning.”

“Good Morning Vivi, how did your adventure go?”

I grimaced a bit.

“That bad?” Sarah asked while making her way into the kitchen where there was a coffee maker.

“Well there was good and bad. The good I almost doubled my level.”

“Wow that's rather impressive but I guess that's to be expected with how good your class is.” She said,

“The bad is I'm still lower level than the floor guardian.”

There was a crash and a curse from Sarah.

“Are you alright in there?”

“Yeah I just dropped a mug. But you're saying that the floor guardian is stronger than you?”

“In pure states yes it most definitely has higher level skills, maybe not better skill but much much higher level. There is a non zero chance that thing can one shoot me with one of its skills. I still don’t know how much they affect the power level of a person or beast. Stats are an objective measurement of power while skills have more variance. Through reading my skills I can imagine they can hold more power then stats in many cases. My duels with the twins and Edward were good examples of this.”

Sarah made her way out of the kitchen, and sat down at her place at our ghetto conference table.

“Well at least the coffee will be ready by the time everyone gets here. But yes I think in the end skills will hold more of a person's power then their pure stats.”

I laughed and said ”Silver linings and all that, and I agree.” Sarah smiled and pulled out her phone while I went back to playing pool.

It took another 30 mins for everyone to get down here and get their own cup of coffee. I made my way to my seat while everyone got settled. I could see that a few people brought notebooks and folders of their own.

“Okay everyone this meeting is going to be more important than most. First off, before I get into the meat of what I brought all of you here for, does anyone have anything they want to discuss?”

Samantha spoke up first. “After a brief discussion with those that I'm working with on our information retention project we made an executive decision to instead of going throw each subject thoroughly before moving on to the next it would be better to get at least some of everything incase things change in a way we will no longer be able to access the information. Then after we get the basics of everything will go back and get the more in depth stuff. Unless you would like us to go back to one subject at a time?”

Liking this I nodded my head and looked to the rest of the people gathered and asked. “Unless anyone here has a reason to object I am fine with doing things this way. I am not all knowing or I would not do these meetings at all. Getting ideas for all of you helps make our plans better.”

Nobody spoke up in disagreement so we moved on. “Anyone else have anything to add?”

Alex then spoke up. “Nothing that hasn't already been said in previous meetings. Need more people, tools and materials.”

I nodded and started on the main topic of the meeting.

“Well we will be tackling one of those things soon and part of the reason for the meeting. I don't know how many of you hear that I said we would be doing a town hall on Monday,”

A couple people nodded and a couple shook their heads.

“Well we are. I want it to be the true beginning of us working with the local population to give them the opportunity to help us and in turn come under our umbrella of protection. Along with the start of possibly letting some people enter the dungeon.” Everyone straightened at that but I powered on before someone could interrupt.

“I did a deep dive into the dungeon last night. Well deep into the first floor and I learn a number of things that are both interesting and rather troubling. The first of which is that the level of the beast increases the closer you get to the mountains so if people start close to the entrance they will mostly fight lower level beasts.

The next thing is I did find one of the safe areas. It's a bit less than halfway to the mountain range. It will give a system announcement that no violence is allowed in the area. But the beasts are allowed to roam the area so take note.

Now the troubling parts: the Apex Predator of the first floor is a golden eagle the size of a bi plane and level 107 with a class level of 34.”

Everyone took in a sharp breath at that. Todd spoke up first before I could continue. “That is over 10 times the level of an average human right now and that is the first floor. How are we supposed to defend against the dungeon breaks if that is something on the first floor.?”

Before anyone else could speak I did.

“Simple level up. Work hard, know your life's on the line and do not let this new world beat you before the fight even starts. With that in mind I will be taking the combat group into the dungeon for both training and level. I wanted to wait before we went back in but we need to move faster than we are. We don't know when the next phase will come or if it's the phase that will start the dungeon breaks and raids. It's also why I am more willing to let people enter the dungeon to start leveling. The time we have now just got a whole lot more valuable so we need to use it now while we can.

I also saw the floor guardian and its level was 158 with a class at 52. So we have our work cut out for us. But luckily the monsters are lower level than either the guardian or apex predator; they are still high enough for us to use them to level high enough to fight both. The highest I saw was 85. I'm sure there are a few higher than that but I'm also sure people can beat either of them if they work as a group.

I know little more about the Apex predator or the floor guardian but if they are anything like the stories of dungeons in the different books they will most likely have something special about them likely tied to their title and will need a group of people to take them down. I would not be surprised if it could take down someone of similar level and class level easily.”

Sarah spoke up at this point. “With how similar the system has mirrored a lot of stories at this point I would not be surprised if the system itself influenced these stories. I mean anything can be true at this point.

But I agree that any titled monster will be much stronger than a monster of similar level with no title. We need to be smart when we finally go to take it down.” Everyone nodded at this.

The discussion moved on from there, most of which was working out what we wanted to tell the population that showed up on Monday and how we were going to go about it. We also started to work on how we wanted to let people in the dungeon and how many to do it. Along with group numbers and level requirements. Along with sign up sheets for helping us build up the area round the bar and any other skills they might have that would be helpful both system based and otherwise.

After a few hours hammering out as much as we could. The combat crew took another run in the dungeon with me supervising and gilding them. We also brought Carl and Todd with us this time. We stayed in the dungeon until everyone was at least level 5 in the class. With the twins and Edward ending up at 6. It ended up taking most of the day but we still took time to work on their skills. Normally I would have worked on the basics more but it was becoming more clear the skill held a lot of power for a person.

Because I was in a way carrying them their skills did not level as much as their class. So we were working on both leveling the skills and how best to use them. After we were done for the day I gathered the group up and talked to them.

“So from now on we will do a dungeon run every other day for now and after we get out of the dungeon we will work on skills. On the off days we will do what I was planning on doing originally. Getting all of your basic combat abilities up to snuff and working on you all being overall healthy, well rounded athletes and combatants.” With everyone nodding I dismissed them.

When I walked into the bar I saw Camron and thought I might as well help her out as well.

“Hey Cameron I'm surprised you're still up, do you have some time and some cloth and thread?” She smiled and walked over and nodded. She had some stuff put aside and I taught her what I know for a while and watched her level.

After I was done with Cameron she met up with Carl. Holding hands at that, how scandalous. While I walked back to my room. Getting there I grabbed my blood soaked clothes with the blood already starting to crust over. Sighing, I grabbed some soap and a brush and went to the bathtub to start cleaning the blood out of my clothes. ‘I guess this time I should try not to get soaked in blood. It will be a nice extra challenge. Who knows it might help with leveling.’

I don't know how long I was washing my clothes before Sarah came in and found me.

“What did you do? Bath in blood?” she joked with a slight yawn.

I was rather surprised she did not have a more extreme reaction to the amount of blood running down the drain.

“I might as well have.” I quipped. “I’m surprised you are not more squeamish about the amount of blood.” I turned to look at her. She had a thoughtful look on her face.

“Believe it or not I used to help my dad butcher rabbits we raised to sell.”

I was a little taken aback by this. I had never known this about her. I squinted my eyes at her a little. She might be my current best friend but there is a surprising amount that I don't know about her.

“You don't say I never knew you had rabbits growing up.” I accused

“Well you never asked.”

“Fair enough. We are going to have to sit down and talk about our pasts more. I know it will mostly be me talking but I would still like to know a bit more about you. Maybe you have a skill you had not thought about. For example, being able to butcher will be very helpful. We will most likely have to rely on the dungeon for food in the future and having people that know how to butcher will be extremely helpful. I mean I know how to as well but I can't do it all myself or spend all my time teaching people things.” Sarah smiled and nodded

“You make a great point Vivi. Maybe by talking about your past too you might remember something or someone that might be helpful to us.”

I nodded and asked. “So was there a reason you came to find me or did you just want to join me in the bath.” I said with a smirk. Sarah’s cheeks colored a bit but she kept her cool and said.

“No, I was mostly here to ask if you were going to go back into the dungeon tonight and if there was anything you needed help with before I headed to bed.”

To my joke, my thoughts drifted over to my Grand skill Sex Goddess. But I quickly shook my head. Nope not the time nor do I want to turn our relationship into that right now it will only make things more messy than they already were.

“Nothing in particular. But thanks for asking. As for the dungeon I do plan on going in there but for a shorter time tonight.”

“Good, I don't know how much sleep you need but you should get it when you can because we don't know when sleep will turn into a luxury.”

Those words were a bit sobering. Something as simple as sleep could turn into a luxury. I don't think things will get that bad. Though it was a great way to throw some cold water on my heated up libido.

“Don't worry, I plan on getting some sleep tonight.” Sarah nodded and wished me good night before heading to my room.

I finished cleaning my clothes and hung them up. I then grabbed another set of similar clothes from my room doing my best not to wake up Sarah and headed down to the dungeon to get myself some more levels, mostly focusing on my skills.

Midnight’s Perfect Assassin has leveled up 15→16 +4 strength +6 agility +2 constitution

+6 dexterity +4 stamina +3 intelligence +3 free stats.

Assassin’s Creed (Advanced) Has Leveled up 3→5

Identify (Basic) Has Leveled up 8→9

Presence of an Ancient (Epic) Has leveled up 5→6

Child of the Night (Advanced) Has leveled up 14→ 15

Moonlight Step (Epic) Has leveled up 8→11

Star Shoot (Advanced) Has leveled up 7→11