Dungeons and Dalliances

4.27 – Mining II

Despite having arrived at a seemingly man-made dungeon level, there were still opportunities to find resources. Plants and herbs for Jordan, or ores for Natalie. They were less common, though, and sometimes took some searching around.

In Natalie’s case, she found her first ore vein hidden behind a cracked mirror. Jordan was the one to spot it; she was the most attentive of the group and the person who also identified the most traps. As rogues tended to. Natalie wasn’t sure whether she had a skill explicitly for that, or whether she had a keen eye. She certainly had the latter—but the former might be helping her too.

Either way, Natalie used her hammer to smash out the rest of the tall, elegant eight-foot mirror, revealing the stone behind it. Streaks of vibrant pink snaked across the stone.

“Pink,” Liz said curiously. “What ore is pink?”

“Dunno,” Natalie said, intrigued. There was a period after classes each day dedicated to extracurriculars, and Natalie had been spending it learning more about mining—techniques for gathering and identifying the various resources that she might find in the dungeon. She suspected she was even coming up on level two of her resource-gathering subclass, since she had obviously been mining any ores that she came across. Subclasses tended to keep pace with one’s main class, or even progress faster.

Liz’s question was more of an idle comment than a genuine inquiry. Ore veins could be appraised in the same way as loot. Natalie, and probably the rest of the team, did so.

***

Ore Deposit - Erotite

Quantity - F

Yield - E-

Difficulty - F

***

“Erotite?” Liz asked. “What in the world is that?”

Natalie’s wrinkled her nose. She had a few suspicions about what was going on.

And so did Ana. “If I had to guess,” the mage said, “it’s Natalie’s class once again influencing the dungeon. I’m no expert on mining and ores, but I’ve never heard of erotite. And the prefix?”

“Ero,” Sofia huffed. “And it’s pink. Not hard to guess.”

“But what’s it do?” Natalie asked, eying the pink veins of ore. “Should we be worried?”

“Not sure,” Jordan said. “Probably not? It’s ore.”

“I’m interested to see what a blacksmith could do with it,” Ana commented. “What effects it would provide when turned into armor or weapons. It’s probably suited to your class.”

“What does that mean?”

“That’s for you and a blacksmith to figure out,” Ana said.

“I doubt the ore is trapped, somehow,” Liz said, answering Natalie’s earlier question. “Nothing to worry about from an immediate sense. Go ahead and try. We’ll clear the rest of the room.”

The team hung around briefly to see if Natalie’s first pickaxe impact caused anything worrying, but it didn’t. Rock splintered and clattered to the ground, and seeing it wasn’t trapped, her team wandered off to hunt down any other valuables. Natalie worked away at unearthing the material from the wall.

Quantity, F. Yield, E-. Difficulty, F.

Quantity represented how much ore was present in the vein, while yield indicated how much could be gathered from each so-called ‘unit’ of ore. So effectively they could be multiplied together to give an appraisal of how large of a payday Natalie had run into.

Quantity was random, but yield tended to increase the deeper into the dungeon one ventured. It was also the most important of the two indicators, since high-grade yield meant a lot more ore per minute of gathering.

In the end, though, the total amount of ore collected was what mattered, because blacksmiths could condense bulk material down into powerful metal. Natalie wasn’t completely educated on the details of how armor- and weapon-smithing worked, but she knew even iron armor could be powerful if a blacksmith condensed enough of the material. Though ideally, a person would want a high-tier metal. Iron tended to be the metal of low-level delvers.

Erotite, though. Natalie wasn’t sure where that would fit into the dynamic. Assuming it was related to her class, then what kind of armor, gear, or accessories would it create? Was it a higher-tier metal than iron? Something she’d want to use in the future? What were its upsides and downsides?

How was she going to explain what it was? Natalie shook her head, not looking forward to that disastrous conversation. She might have to open up about her class—at least in a small way—to another person. Shara, the blacksmith she had commissioned previously, had seemed nice. Hopefully, she was open-minded, too.

Halfway through excavating the vein of erotite, Natalie’s earlier suspicion was confirmed: she had been close to a level-up.

***

[Mining - Lv. 1] progressed to [Mining - Lv. 2]

[Skill: Risky Excavation] earned.

***

Risky excavation?

Sub-class skills were rarely anything incredible, but they did help. Pausing to wipe the sweat from her brow, Natalie hefted her pickaxe out of the wall, then leaned against it as she appraised [Risky Excavation].

***

[Risky Excavation] - Class-bearer is granted bonus yield when excavating ore while naked.

***

Natalie stared blankly at the wall, letting the words wash through her.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” she said.

Seriously?

Just, why?

She looked around the room. The rest of her team was studiously going about clearing the large space. She looked back to the ore.

Well.

Efficiency mattered most. But she wasn’t happy about it.

Cheeks burning, she set her pickaxe aside and started stripping. Halfway through, Ana, who was closest to her, noticed.

“Natalie?” the dark-haired mage asked curiously. “What … are you doing?”

“Mining,” Natalie said, shimmying out of her top and setting it aside. “What does it look like?” She yanked off her gloves, then unhooked her bra.

Ana paused, then said. “It looks like you’re getting naked.”

“Yeah. Sorry if that’s awkward. Look away, if you want.”

Ana didn’t, despite Natalie tossing her bra aside. She didn’t look surprised in the slightest, either. Natalie’s skin tingled at exposing herself, but she didn’t stop peeling off armor and clothes. She was tired of blushing whenever the dungeon—or her class—messed with her. Besides, if things continued in this way, then she suspected everyone would have to get used to each other’s bodies—and perhaps intimately.

“But why?” Ana asked.

The rest of the team was looking over now, too. Natalie peeled off her boots, then pants.

“Got a new skill,” Natalie grunted.

“For your mining class?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it do?”

“When I’m naked, I get more ore.”

Ana paused.

“That makes sense,” the mage said.

Natalie turned an incredulous look at her. “How? How does that ‘make sense’?”

“Because of your main class. And, I mean, look at the ore.” She gestured at the pink vein of metal. “Erotite. Clearly, your mining class is going in that direction.”

“Whatever,” Natalie grumbled. She was glad one of them thought it made sense. “Let me mine in peace, please.” She finally stripped her panties off. She kept her body facing away—her cock hidden. If Ana saw it, so be it. She’d have to learn at some point. That said, she wasn’t trying to completely flash her teammates. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Ana nodded seriously. “Yes, you are. I apologize.” She turned away. She didn’t seem to have noticed what was between Natalie’s legs. She had been keeping firm eye contact as Natalie looked over her shoulder. The mage wasn’t even blushing, a strict professional. The woman was really something.

“Can I watch, at least?” Jordan called out, sounding amused at the situation. Troublesome woman.

“Shut up,” Natalie said, picking up her pickaxe.

The effects of [Stylish] coursed through her, embarrassingly making it obvious that her team appreciated her naked body, and Natalie tried to ignore it.

She felt extremely exposed, and not out of embarrassment alone—though only Jordan was watching her, the rest averting their eyes. Natalie was more literally exposed, too. Lacking her armor made her vulnerable, and this was the dungeon. Danger could come from anywhere, even in a seemingly calm room.

In fact, with a skill name like [Risky Excavation], she wouldn’t be surprised if there was a hidden effect to make ambushes more likely. Or maybe it made other delving parties more likely to show up. Who knew what kind of ridiculous things her class would throw at her?

“You should get an oversized pickaxe,” Ana commented suddenly, an idea apparently popping into her head. “Wouldn’t it work with your new skill? Make you a better miner?”

Natalie paused, then shared a look with Jordan, who also had raised eyebrows.

“Huh,” Natalie said. “I’m not sure. The skill says weapon, not tools, but maybe it would work.”

“Worth trying out,” Jordan agreed. “Good idea, Ana.”

Ana nodded, seeming pleased despite her blank expression, then turned back away. The mage was still hard to read, but Natalie was getting better at it by the day. She thought.

Natalie added the experiment to her ever-growing list of priorities. An oversized pickaxe. Maybe that was something she could commission from Shara, the blacksmith. For now, though, she was stuck with her regular-sized one. And she had a lot of ore remaining, so she got back to work.