It was the first time Lisa had entered this particular hotel, something that was reserved for nobles and those hired by them. Of course, she could also enter if she was a rank A adventurer, but her level was not high enough for that, and the one gold a night expense dissuaded her too. After getting a busboy to get her things and return her key to her old inn, she ordered her dinner before following Jeff up to his room.
As she entered, she found several constructs idle around. Many of them acted as guards and sentries. Two that were active were dressed in black and white dresses that were popular with nobles for their servants. They were currently in the process of helping the noble undress.
“ Make yourself comfortable, I am going to take a bath then go to bed after dinner. On the desk are my plans for our route Ask the maids if you need any help. They can not talk, but they can understand you fairly well.”
With that, Jeff started moving into the side room as he continued to undress, and Lisa looked around curiously. Other than a locked chest, she did not see anything signaling someone of wealth was staying in the room. With that thought deemed unimportant, she moved over to the writing desk and found several notebooks and maps with some scattered notes here and there. She quickly looked through it all and found this plan was a lot more elaborate and detailed than the strategy session they had had a few days ago. She did note some changes to these plans right after those meetings, however. A shift in dungeon schedules, pathing between dungeons, and even some towns being marked off as being deemed too risky to stay in.
She could not help but nod to herself as she looked over the changes. She knew firsthand how some townsfolk were just as bad if not worse than bandits, and the only reason why they are not outlaws is because everyone in the town gets a cut. Can’t trust the guard when they are in the criminal's pockets.
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After going over the routing, Lisa looked at the plans for the dungeons themselves. The first one, the Smokey Gnome Hole, was a fire themed dungeon that had small humanoid enemies that mainly used contraptions and traps. Overall, not very dangerous but annoying. Mainly due to how some of the traps are set up with secondary effects after being disarmed. For example, having a pressure plate that triggers a dart trap, but if you disarm it, then rocks fall on you from above. She lost two friends from one of those traps.
After the Smokey Gnome Hole, she sees him planning on taking an air dungeon, followed by an earth then water. She agrees to this path as well and starts looking through the notebooks to find they are each guidebooks for the various dungeons. Except for one, which opened up to a list of names. She recognized the names on the list as her own name was on it. It was a list of adventurers. She flipped to a random page to a human man that was in their fifties. The brief description told of a man who was more safe than sorry, slowly climbing the ranks while taking minimum risk. A careful old man who has no noticeable achievement other than a massive string of low difficulty quests that rarely fail.
Next, she went to her own page, where there was a brief history about her, how she went on higher risk jobs as a solo, and that she was far more intelligent than the average orphan from the streets. There were even mentions of her recent large payday and speculation of her retiring somewhere in the country to avoid all the money seekers. Until her new employment changed those plans.
Lisa could not help but laugh at that before closing the book as the bathroom door was opened. She looked up and found Jeff leaving the room with a towel around his waist and nothing else. Lisa could not help but blush a little, seeing how handsome he was as he moved to a dining table filled with their ordered dinner.
“ Care to sit with me? I got to tell you what we are doing tomorrow.”
Lisa nodded in agreement and moved to the table, while Jeff took a spoon full of cream soup and tasted it.
“ Bland as I expected, it as if they do not understand the concept of seasoning... Bah, whatever. Anyways, tomorrow we will be leaving early, before dawn, to leave from the south gate. From there, we will circle east, then north around the city and head to the resort. We will be staying there the night while my guild packs the wagon with what we are missing. This will serve two purposes: one, to throw off any pursuers, and two, to get everything we will need for the next three dungeon dives. From then until we go back to the resort, we will be operating under the assumption that others will be watching us, looking for an opportunity to strike. From bandits to other otherworlders, we must keep our guard up.”
