A Bar a Vampire and the Apocalypse

By the time 1 o’clock came around it was turning out to be a beautiful day with light fluffy clouds drifting lazily through the sky. It was a nice 76 outside with a light breeze. We were going to need the nice weather seeing as we already had more people then we had on Friday. With an hour more to go I was starting to get worried we would not have enough room in the back. Knowing there was nothing I could do about it now I stayed standing in front of the dungeon entrance keeping people from sneaking their way inside. There was even one person with what looked to be some kind of stealth class who tried to sneak by me but once I made eye contact with him and shook my head he ran off.

With so many people bringing their kids and such even the inside of the bar that had only a handful of adults and only kids was getting rather full. But that was nothing compared to the number of people that were here just before 2. There had to be north of 3 thousand people. They were spilling into the street from the entrance to the parking lot. At this point both Edward and Steward were standing guard at the dungeon entrance.

Looking around knowing that there was no helping the fact there were so many people I walked up onto our makeshift stage the whole crowd started to quit. Sarah was next to the stage along with Samantha and Alex. We decided having a couple people a bit older with us would be a good idea. I looked no older than 24 and the rest of my crew were all in their early to mid twenties. By doing so it gave us a bit more of a look of legitimacy.

Once the crowd quieted down I looked over all of them. I could not see all of them because some were blocked by the buildings but I hoped they would still be able to hear. Taking a deep breath exhaled and did my best to project as I spoke.

“Greetings everyone, I am both glad and surprised to see so many people show up. It start with I am Viviana but I go by Vivi, I am both the owner of the bar to my right.” I gestured to the bar. “But also the Dungeon Handler of the dungeon behind me, the Forest of Stars. What that entails mostly just means I am the emissary of the dungeon master for those on the surface. With that being said after both discussion with the dungeon master which I have limited access to her time, and discussions with those that I trust. I will now be letting people in the dungeon.”

Parts of the crowd cheered while others were whispering to each other. After people settled down some I raised a hand for silence.

“I have been in the dungeon and have seen some of the dangers within it. With this in mind on top of the rules of the dungeon that the dungeon master has passed onto me I will also have some rules about being let in the dungeon. I want to do my best to make sure we don't end up with widows and orphans from people dying in the dungeon.” That seemed to sober the crowd a bit.

“To start with I will go over the rules the dungeon master had handed down to me. There are only 3 major rules short of trying to kill the dungeon master and destroy the core of the dungeon. The first is that there is to not be any meaningless destruction of the dungeon. The name of the dungeon is the forest of stars so no trying to burn it down. Or trying to collapse caves and such. Harvesting of resources is fine as long as you do not go overboard in one spot. The dungeon will repopulate but that does not mean the dungeon master would like to have to recreate a whole section of the forest that was logged.

Second there will be off limits areas that will be obviously displayed either to you throw magic or the system. Should you ignore the warning all the inhabitants of the floor you are on will begin to move on you to kill you. Should you manage to fight off a whole floor the next floor will begin to make its way to kill you. So do not be stupid and listen to the warnings.

Lastly we are not to try and modify the entrance of the dungeon in any way. Though this is more of a rule for me the rest of you don't try anything.

Now there were a couple other things I picked up in the short discussion with the dungeon master. There will be no permanent or semi permanent structures allowed. There are at least two bosses per floor. The first being what the dungeon called an apex predator. This is a roaming boss on the floor. The second is the floor guardian which guards the entrance to the next floor.”

I paused for a bit to let the information sink in. There was some murmuring for a bit. Once I thought enough time had passed I moved on.

“Before I move on to my rules I would like to tell you some of what I know about this dungeon. To start with, it is massive. The dungeon will for the most part stick to the theme that is derived from its name. But I was told that will not always be the case.

As for the first floor it is as implied, a forest with a sky full of stars and a well lit moon. It is rather bright but not like day. In the far distance of the floor is a mountain range and we believe that is where the entrance to the next floor is. From what we saw the lowest level beast on this floor is 8 with no class. But lucky or unlucky I was able to see and identify the apex predator of the floor and its level was 107 with a class level of 34. It was a golden eagle the size of a bi plane.”

You could see the fear in the eyes of the crowd. A level 107 was almost 11 times the level of an average human. Before there fear could grip them too much I continued,

“Don't worry about the eagle too much I was just barely able to identify it and I was able to go deeper into the dungeon thanks to being its handler. The big thing to take away from this is that the first floor has a level range of 8 to 107. It also appears that the closer you are to the entrance the lower level the beast are and the less likely they are to have a class. So for those of you that do enter the dungeon be sure to not to venture too far in before you are ready, both in experience in fighting the beast and levels in skills and class.

One bit of information I was able to get from the dungeon master was about leveling speed.” There were a couple of gasps at this. “First you gain progression and in turn levels in both skills and classes by doing things that relate to your class. For a cook it is to cook, for a teacher it is to teach. But if you are a cook, killing something you plan to cook will also give you experience. Or if you are a teacher saving one of your students from something would also gain you experience. But for both of them the ladder sinaero may give you less progress towards a level.

The kind of situation you are in also has to do with your progression. Being in danger seems to act as a multiplier on leveling speed. For example a doctor in a safe room trying to save someone's life would give less progress than a doctor trying to save a soldier in an active battle.

The same with how difficult a task is. It is much harder to make a wedding cake than a basic birthday cake. If you have a baker class the former would give more experience than the ladder.”

There were a few people that spoke up asking questions such as “Did the dungeon master tell you anything else about the system.” and “What does this dungeon master want?”

It took a bit of time for people to settle down again but I waited patiently, showing that I would not talk unless they quieted down. Once I was sure I could be heard by most everyone again I continued.

“I will have a Q&A after I am done. So please be patient. Moving along, A dungeon is a unique place while normally for example a miner would get little to any progress from killing something in a forest. But in a dungeon he would gain a bit of progress. Not as much as if he just went out and mined something but progress nonetheless. I would also imagine he would get more progress than normal if he were to mine in a dungeon.”

I paused again to gather my thoughts for the next part. Gathering myself I went on.

“Now on to my rules for entering the dungeon. First you will need a combat class to enter and a passable weapon to go with your class unless you are a class that does not need a weapon such as a martial artist of some kind. Next everyone must be in a group of no less than 5 people. You must also show a basic ability to work together. Lastly though I have no way to enforce this do not fight anything more then a couple of levels higher than the lowest level person in your group. Some of these rules will change as people gain levels but right now we are walking into the unknown. We need to be careful. In this case slow and steady will win the race because those that are not might not ever finish the race. But we still as a community need to grow stronger” From what I could see the crowd for the most part agreed with me and my rules. There were some that looked displeased but that was to be expected. You can't please everyone.

“To make sure no one rushes too much to get in the dungeon the first groups will be allowed to enter the dungeon on Saturday. Now next, me and my bar will be offering up limited bounties of mostly intact beast bodies to butcher. With supply chains being in disarray we would like to have a steady supply of meat. It's also to see if the meat is safe to eat and if it has any extra effects.

We will also be looking for people to come to work for us. We need a wide variety of professions and skills. After the Q&A Sarah, Samantha and Alex will be on the stage.'' I gestured to the three of them and they waved to the crowd. “If you would like to see if you have some of the skills we need please come up here and talk to Samantha and Alex. We will be paying a good wage in U.S.D. We will also be in the near future giving out a custom currency along with your payment in U.S.D. What we plan to do with this extra currency has yet to be decided. But in case of the unlikely event the dollar is worth less than toilet paper this can be a substitute for those of this community. “ The crowd blew up at this. Not really with questions but more less discussion between everyone at what I insinuated. It took a couple of mins for people to settle back down again. I simply waited patiently. I had nothing better to do today. Once things quilted down again I moved on like nothing happened.

“For those of you with what you think are interesting classes and skills and think they could also be useful speak to Sarah. She will take inventory of your class and skill and if we think they will be immediately helpful we will do our best to reach out.

With that in mind we also plan on setting up an area where we as a community can come together to learn and experiment with skills. To not only learn how to use and level them but how to obtain them. By doing this we can grow stronger faster and be safer in a world that can go wrong at any moment.” There was more commotion at this but I powered on this time and people quieted real fast when I kept talking.

“We know a lot of you have kids that both are too young for the system to activate and those who have it unlocked. We also know that because of all that is going on schools have been closed. We would like to make sure our kids are still learning so under my protection I would like to have any teacher and parents willing to step up to teach our youths. For those who have the system already I or someone of sufficient power will be present in those classes for the time being to keep the peace.

Another thing we plan on doing for our community is once we know the meat from the dungeon is safe we will be doing an at cost food kitchen here. Those of you that have a cooking class are welcome to help us and level their class and skills.

Lastly we will be in the market for weapons of all kinds with a priority on non firearm weapons. From what we have learned online firearms without a class to back them up are significantly weaker than they should be against the beast of dungeons. We do not want all of your weapons but if you have an extra combat knife for us to use and hand out to the people going into the dungeon we would be grateful.”

Right as I was about to rap up and start the Q&A I heard screaming from the back and groaned. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ I thought to myself.