Rewarding Experience

"Fuck! Fucking bullshit motherfucking bastard bullshit goddamn!"

Gil was fuming. The team had spent nearly an hour gathering everything in the first floor of the dungeon, the contents of the fridge and pantry, the weapons and clothing of the dead, the accumulated clothes and nicknacks of a small family's life together. Time wasted. As the team filed out, laden with improvised sacks of loot, it all vanished. If he had known that was going to happen, they could have raided the fridge for a free meal and left. Assuming the food wouldn't have vanished from their stomachs, of course.

He didn't need to order Keilnei to take Candress and Blackpaw to the Sanctum for full healing. Candress might not be in any immediate danger, and she refused to complain, but she had taken quite a beating.

All he had to show for his work was 5 credits for a finicky binding, a T1 character card, and a loot box that was probably just a Gacha roll with some fancy trappings. The Dungeon credits were basically useless, unless he wanted to trade them into another binding at a 2:1 rate of exchange; there was no Dungeon shop except for that strange obelisk he'd seen inside, and precious little explanation; he wrote a note on it with a vindictive air.

Shiho Suzui was a Japanese school girl with modestly large breasts; normal large breasts, noticeable but not straining her sweater, as opposed to the giant knockers you see ubiquitously in some worlds. Seriously, some places just seem to have a binary switch; women were either fertility goddesses or they had the figures of prepubescent girls, with hardly any data points between the extremes.

Shiho didn't have all that much to offer, but that's far from saying she had nothing to offer. She was a pretty girl, which had intrinsic value even if Gil was in a buyer's market there. She was apparently a star athlete; volleyball, specifically. High school volleyball wasn't exactly special forces training but there were plenty of people in the world who were far below that standard. Snow, for example. Possibly Candress as well, though she was close enough that it probably wasn't worth the card. She was also female, attracted to men, had a modern era high school education, and looked firmly human.

Even the fact that she was T1 probably could be put to good use, if Gil ever needed to weaken someone in his retinue without killing them. It would be wasteful, but he was pretty sure he could also remove Zena or Candress's mana dependency with a power swap. By the time he was finished mulling over his options, Gil felt much better about the situation.

He also took a look at the card Rose had gotten him in Brockton: Levi.

"Orphan, soldier, addicted to heroin, decorated survivor of a suicide mission, deserter," Gil mumbled to himself as he skimmed the young man's backstory. He was mostly interested in what Levi brought to the table. Firearms and modern weaponry training, addiction defense as a tag, the shifter tag with no explanation as to why, and a lot of other traits Gil wasn't overly concerned about. Levi seemed like he had two obvious uses: making someone in the team a better fighter, or helping one of the elves with their addiction issues. Either one worked, Gil just needed to decide which.

On a related note, Gil checked what the new mission was for Brockton. He wasn't going there this week, but it might impact his choices in the future.

Acquire a vial of "superpowers in a can."

Reward: 5 credits, Lesser Normalization Scroll

Lesser normalization scroll: Make a single specific fact generally accepted. The fact must already be permanently true, no temporary magical effects, this simply has a public relations effect. Everyone will accept that the princess loves you now and nothing will change that, though her fiancé and father might not be happy about it, and the arranged marriage may still happen for political reasons. One use.

Gil snorted. "I'd have looked for something with a name like that on principle."

Having cooled down, Gil figured he was in the right headspace to open the loot box. He went over to the storage crate where all such things spawned, and found a small gem encrusted footlocker with a big padlock hanging off the front. No sooner had Gil touched the padlock than the footlocker started to shake.

A bright golden light shone out through the cracks and keyhole, and several wispy golden streamers swirled around the box for half a second before it burst open. The light grew brighter and turned into a large mass of semi-liquid energy that floated above the box. Five metallic stars formed from the mass, one at a time, shifting from amber, to white, to silver, to gold, to a scintillating rainbow color as each formed. Finally, the mass resolved into a thin tube the length of his forearm, which floated in front of Gil's dazzled eyes.

All the girls looked over at the space in front of Gil, confused and curious. He was grimacing, and pulled out his tablet as he averted his eyes. This definitely deserved a note.

"Less bloom on loot box opening animation. Unpleasant to look directly at." He glanced over at the girls, and the item description floating in front of it. "Maybe put the animation directly onto the tablet, to make it more subtle. Prompts awkward questions."

As if to emphasize the design flaw, a booming voice echoed out across the skyblock.

"Hypnotic Dart Gun- anyone struck by this dart will have their willpower sapped to nothing and be placed into a hypnotic trance. For three hours they will comply with any orders given by the user, if phrased appropriately. After the effects wear off, some changes will linger, based on what behaviors or beliefs were most reinforced by the commands given and obeyed."

"Well. Hot damn." Gil said, scratching at his chin and glancing at the worried faces of Keilnei and Snow, and the knowing faces of Zena and Candress. "That's dangerous."

Naturally, he immediately carried it to the armory and popped it in. Possibly due to the consumable nature of the blowdart, it was only worth 5,000 as opposed to the Bikini Armor's 10,000. That was still enough to functionally arm and armor his entire team with the best hardware he could get his hands on for the foreseeable future, as the progression he'd seen so far put well made medieval weaponry at far below 100 marks to purchase.

He doubted mass produced firearms would be all that much more expensive, and he was pretty sure a handgun in practiced hands would put down most of the threats he'd encountered thus far. Further, it would potentially allow him to purchase a high end consumable in the future, should he ever get the opportunity to raid a large armory. It was a sacrifice, but Gil wasn't exactly hurting for ways to control people around him. More importantly, his girls had heard the booming voice declaring his prize and half of them were not pleased by what they heard.

"I mean sure, it could be useful in an extreme situation, but I don't think we need to have that laying around." Gil explained to Keilnei. "I just can't think of an immediate use for it, and this way we can all get our own bows for practice."

He specifically didn't express disdain for the item, so as to not create an overly dissonant persona, but the Draenei were a bit too moral for Gil to be completely upfront. Keilnei would kill an enemy without a second thought, but he suspected that she'd object to what he did to Candress at least as strenuously as Ireena had, if not far more so. He needed to build some trust first.

Snow, on the other hand, actually thought Gil was a good person. A wandering itinerant hero. On some level, she made him want to play the part. It was as good a way to play this game as any, and he could justify most of what he'd done so far as being broadly benevolent. Well, everything outside of Brockton Bay. He could have probably gotten away with keeping and using the dart gun if Snow hadn't gotten a detailed explanation of how it worked, but she'd be curious if it vanished now at the same time he brought a new girl home to meet the family.

After Candress and Blackpaw were in better shape, Gil joined the team in archery practice. The dungeon, it seemed, had a cooldown. Like so many things, it reset when he opened a new portal. Even after escaping with a third party method, he wasn't getting back in until he finished his work here.

••••••••••

"We are rather concerned with your behavior in the last few weeks," Director Piggott said, shuffling a few papers on her desk. "Excessive sleep, erratic behavior, patrolling unaccompanied, failure to respond to comms… I will give you one opportunity to explain yourself."

Rose sat primly, her hands folded in her lap, and considered her answer. Obviously she couldn't say the real reason for her radio silence the day before, that she was busy possessing a member of the merchants to push them into a dangerous trial of courage. That would require far too much explanation on a number of levels. She wasn't supposed to go alone that close to gang strongholds, and that would be the least of Piggot's concerns.

"I pursued a man who had assaulted a woman, and lost track of where I was." Rose lied. "When I realized, I turned off my comms to ensure radio silence. The Merchants have been amassing more parahumans every week, and I worried that they might have someone with enhanced senses."

The PRT director steepled her fingers. Director Piggot was a distinctly unlovely woman, her blonde hair cut in an unflattering bob. She had a large nose and a thick layer of fat; the Rose side of Flechette had never seen anyone, man or woman, half as flabby as the director. It was hard to believe a woman like this was a decorated veteran of the PRT's task force.

"You realize of course that this is unacceptable." Piggot said, and it was not a question, "If we can not trust you to exercise adequate judgement, you will be given additional oversight. You are to maintain line of sight with allies at all time for at least the next two weeks when in the field. If you find the company of your fellow wards so onerous, you may instead stand watch at key PRT installations where you can be provided adequate adult supervision."

Rose clamped her jaw closed, taking a few seconds to master her irritation. Mama had taught her that trick, mostly through punishment. Backtalk didn't work well with a woman like this.

"Understood." She said, instead of any of the things she was thinking. "Will that be all?"

"Yes." The director said with a sigh. "You are dismissed."

Rose returned to her room, irritated. At least she could still invade Missy's dreams easily enough. The petite blonde had finally reached the point where she wouldn't reject dreams with just Lily out of hand. A few more weeks, and Rose might convince her to blow off some steam. A girl could hope.