It was strange to have someone with me in the morning. I had grown so used to sleeping on my schedule that I forgot the nagging feeling you get when waiting for someone else to wake up. When she woke, Ada dug some ingredients out of the spatial backpack. I didn't mind since I was starving and figured that we should use the bag as party storage anyway. After we ate two more rations, we set out for the river. I still had all of the paths marked with my initials, but by now, I knew the twists and turns of the dungeon like I knew my bedroom back at the Earthbound camps. I hadn't thought about them in such a long time. I remembered that the old folks were supposed to be in the dungeon mines. I wondered if any were here with us in a different part of the dungeon, maybe at a camp further in, or if they could be in a completely different dungeon. I knew that the odds were slim, but after we got strong enough, we would search the rest of the dungeon and try to liberate any of our people.
Along the way, using the flat of the pickaxe to pull the Mushrooms of langerous intent out of the ground without disturbing the mycelia. It looked like roots to me, but my identification skills told me that I was wrong again. We placed the mushrooms in the bag, careful not to damage them and trigger their slumber spores. I had gathered twenty by the time I was content with our haul. The glow-in-the-dark mushrooms lit up the bag, making it look like a lantern.
"Dane, I get that these mushrooms make a great flashlight, but with Mana eyes, we don't need it to see. Shouldn't we leave these mushrooms alone since they give off such a paralytic effect?" Ada asked. She knew that out of the two, Dane was the leader, but some of the decisions he made seemed like nonsense. He also wasn't the best at explaining what was going on, so she often would go with the flow. This wouldn't be a problem, but she saw how he fought. He had a death wish and charged into battle without a second thought, making it hard to trust that he would make it out of here alive.
"Just wait and see, they are going to serve a purpose. I want to get you to level 41 in one fell swoop," I said, sure that over-explaining my plan in great detail to Ada, which may have calmed some of her nerves, but would just further hurt our trust. Seeing the look on her face when I explained what the mushrooms did, and also the look of horror as we began to dig away at the dirt where the mushrooms were. A friend once told me that he would show me better than tell me, and I figured I would go with that approach since it always built more trust than just defending my plans. I knew that in the future, we would discuss plans, but until Ada could contribute to the team with more than a couple of HP, this would be a dictatorship.
We waited next to the river until all of the monsters had cleared out for the day. It was interesting that there were predominantly moles at the watering hole, but the wolves still around were much larger and level 50 instead of the level 40s, which Dane had come to expect. That's when we started digging and piling the mushroom up in the shallow hole we had made and marking it with a rock, then burying it again. We then began setting up camp. I found the familiar hole that I had dug out before the slime encounter and began to hollow out more room for Ada, stopping when it was just big enough for two people. I thought about it for a second and then started making it even wider. I'm sure Ada would appreciate not being forced to snuggle with me.
My whole night was tossing and turning. The moles were much more active around the water hole than they had been previously. It made sense they were uncontested, with the slimes gone and the wolves now just three small packs of eight. The moles didn't have ear holes or eyes. I remembered that during one of my skill selections, there was a sensory skill called Moleman. The description said that I would be able to see by using seismic vibrations to see my surroundings. I was a hundred percent certain that the moles used the same type of senses to see, and didn't feel like we would be able to hide from them much longer. The plan needed to be a success. Looking over at Ada, who was sleeping peacefully. She began twitching violently; she must be having a bad dream. I readjusted her blanket, which I had stolen from the barracks; it was a standard green woolen one. Ada used it because I had plenty of clothes to bundle up. Turning around and facing the wall of the sleeping hole, I drifted to sleep.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The wolves showed up earlier than planned. I shot out of the sleeping hole with my pickaxe at a speed so fast it would have made a cheetah look slow. I could barely remember what it felt like to run at a normal human pace. Grabbing my pickaxe with both hands, I hurled my weapon towards the paralytic mushrooms. The tip of my pick plunged into the soft mound and saw the glowing spores erupt from the small hole we had dug out the day before. Ada was slowly getting out of the shelter we had stayed in the night before.
"Ada, accept the prompt when you see it. Wait for the spores to stop glowing, then I want you to send those wolves to hell." Disbanding the party on my end, Ada looked hurt. I saw her eyes go glassy when she read it on her end.
"Why did you disband the party?" She said, confused by the sudden implementation of my plan
"If you aren't in a party, you will get full XP for killing the 24 level 50 wolves. They are going to be paralyzed for a few minutes so you need to spike each ones brain before they start to move or we are fucked." I said, emphasizing that we didn't have time to dally.
She jumped up to level 44, making her four levels higher than me.
"Dane, why is the system saying that I need to get permission from my master before I can distribute stat points and choose a skill?" Anger was bubbling from the beautiful islander.
"Sorry, I forgot to let you know when I removed your slave collar with my skill, Exodus. It allows me to remove slave collars from people, and I am allowed to bind two people to me. I wasn't going to use that part of the skill until I saw that it would give you my number of free statpoints each level." I said, I didn't know that there would be a way for her to tell. She would have never have known I planned on just blaming system fuckery when she would be shocked at getting 25 free points each level. The system was alway a dick and of course would add in that she needed my permission for using the points I guess in a way they were tied to me. I was genuinely not interested in using the binding for more nefarious purposes like complete submission of the subject, but I guess the cat is out of the bag.
"So what, I am your slave because you thought you had more free stats each level than me. This is so fucked up." Ada said, seething. The look of realization on Ada's face when she saw the number of stats she had was priceless. It was a mixture of surprise, happiness, and betrayal.
"I can't undo it now, after I selected the option, I received a notification that you would only be able to remove ownership by killing me or becoming a system-titled noble," I said
"Dane, you can't be serious! Do you know how hard it is to become a system title noble?!" She said, screaming at me just one octave short of something that would have popped my eardrums.
"It can't be that hard, since it made me a Baron," I said
We sat in silence for a long time after that. Ada was right, and I should keep some things to myself. It was awkward for a while after that, but after I permitted her, she distributed the stats and selected the two skills: Disorientate and Life Ward. Disorientate was a spell that would cause a debuff on one target for 30 seconds; the target would lose control and lash out at anything near it, friend or foe. That would be great for large mobs and sowing chaos in the backfield. Life Ward was a passive skill that would give the party a layer of mana as a shield that lasts for three hits. It didn't cost any mana and would regenerate the ward every 24 hours. This was great, now I wouldn't have to worry so much about Ada when we got into fights. We reestablished the party, and to my shock, Ada was appointed as the party leader. No way was I going to let a healer be the party leader. It was a meaningless title, but it gave the authority to disband the party at any time. I trusted Ada, but I did just tell her that killing me would give her freedom, what if she canceled the party and I lost my life ward as the boss was gonna strike. Yeah, I would be scouting out the moles alone while Ada worked on mana control.
