Despite the oddity of the tasks, Merrick's deliveries went smoothly. The worst part of the day was that he had to lug a heavy satchel along with him. The distance from the bookstore to the deliveries was only a mild inconvenience. If anything, Merrick was glad that the two addresses he was given were close to each other.
On the subway, Merrick waited patiently through stop after stop as he rode from the Old Quarter to Central Station. Once there he double checked the boards among the bustling activity and got on another line headed Northwest. There was standing room only in the subway car, Merrick ended up packed into a corner. He held the delivery satchel tightly, it was not valuable in his eyes, but there was always a chance someone would mistake it for something of importance.
Fortunately, nothing out of the ordinary happened on the trip. As the subway continued on toward the edge of the City, more and more of its passengers filtered out. Eventually Merrick was the only one left in the once-packed car. Even he felt a sense of dread as the subway pulled into the last stop on the line.
Merrick had ridden the length of the Northwest line, which meant that he was now at the unofficially private station for the gated community of Hollow Castle. When he first heard of the community, he had imagined medieval architecture with Middle English mannerisms. Some form of a blend between A Knight's Tale and Shakespeare. Instead, what he quickly found out was that Hollow Castle was just another white washed suburb filled with the lowest branches of the City's upper echelon.
Accountants, consultants, and junior partners at law firms; the residents of Hollow Castle were just rich enough to think of themselves as part of the City's Elite. Though they were not rich enough to mingle constantly among the actual Elite that lived in the tallest of buildings and in the most exquisite of penthouses. If anything, Merrick found them more annoying. It was strange that someone from this area would even come into the Old Quarter, let alone stop at a dilapidated and dusty bookstore.
Not wanting to spend anymore time in the false idyllic scene of Hollow Castle, Merrick made his way quickly to the first customer's address and found himself at a house that, compared to its neighbors, was nothing more than a shack. When Merrick knocked on the door, it opened quickly.
The door only opened far enough for a haphazardly dressed butler to address Merrick, "May I help you?"
"I have a delivery for Martin Aimes."
"Doctor Martin Aimes."
"Yes, for Doctor Aimes." Merrick nodded, "Is this the correct address?"
"It is." The butler extended a hand, "You can leave the delivery with me."
Merrick shrugged and pulled the first order from his satchel. It was not a lengthy order but the variety seemed strange. There were several books that looked like historical crafting manuals but Merrick, despite his collegiate focus on ancient cultures, did not recognize any of the titles. After the manuals there were serialized almanacs from local counties dated 1722, 1822, and 1922. Finally there was a fist edition binding of Chalburn's Depictions of Avifauna, which seemed to be simply an old illustrated book about birds.
Book by book, he stacked them on the butler's upturned palm. It was a little surprising that the butler's hand did not waiver or dip at all despite the thickness of each tome, but Merrick's attention had shifted from the butler to the shadows in the doorway behind him. He could have sworn he had seen something moving inside, just a step behind the butler.
When the last book was placed, the butler bowed slightly, still keeping the books steady. "Thank you for the service, Doctor Aimes was displeased when the bookstore was not open this morning but please let your Master know that he appreciates the expedient delivery."
Merrick nodded uneasily and closed the delivery satchel. "I will let my boss know. Have a-"
Before he could finish, the butler stepped backward and the door shut. Due to how it ended, the whole encounter left a bad taste in Merrick's mouth, but there was nothing he could do outside of moving on with his day. Fortunately, the second address was just a few blocks away and was not another residence.
While most of Hollow Castle was small mansions stuffed between large estates, there were still some businesses within the community for convenience. The second address led Merrick to one of those businesses, HC Pharmacy.
As he walked through the doors, he realized that while it had the same antiseptic exterior as the rest of Hollow Castle, the interior was more closely related to a garden center than a modern pharmacy. There were potted plants dispersed throughout the shelves filled with the traditional medicinal remedies for colds, flus, or aches.
There was a small counter near the door, a sign read: If no attendant is available, please leave a list of what was needed as well as your name or address. For deliveries, please place the items behind the counter.
Merrick walked around to the far end of the counter and unloaded the second delivery into a bin. This delivery consisted of ten blank books that looked like recreations of historical tomes and a new inking set. There was also a bag of soil that had been imported from the Far East. Merrick had no idea why the bookstore would be selling blank books or soil, nor did he know why a pharmacy in Hollow Castle would be buying them, but as he finished his last delivery his mind began to focus on one thing: Dungeons Below.
Beyond the growing distraction of the game, Merrick knew that even if he asked about the items or why they needed to be delivered ASAP, he would only get the same vague answers. In the end, he kept the curiosity to himself and hurried back to work.
When he eventually made it back to the bookstore, after taking the subway back to Central Station and switching lines, it was already well into the afternoon. His boss had left a list of tasks for him to complete which included rearranging a few shelves and what seemed like an abnormal amount of dusting.
As he went through the tasks, not a single customer came through the doors. Merrick had grown so accustomed to days like this that when a dozen customers came through at the same time, like what happened yesterday, he was quickly overwhelmed. By the time Merrick finished dusting off the last of the noted shelves, it was time to close up and head home.
His apartment was in the same state as it was when he left. A growing pile of unopened mail slowly growing over the dining table. A fine layer of dust settling over the unused appliances and seats. After spending so much of his day cleaning up the bookstore, Merrick had no energy to start dusting at home now. However, it bothered him enough that he made a plan to spend his next day off turning the apartment back into its previous, spotless nature.
That was a task for another day though. For now, Merrick simply changed into more comfortable clothes while a frozen meal cooked in the microwave. Once it was done, he sat down on the edge of his couch closest to the play area and ate while scrolling through a Dungeons Below forum thread.
Two Adventurers were arguing about the state of the game. One thought that it was doomed to fail, that the experience was far too straightforward and limited. While it seemed at first like the game was going to offer some sort of open world environment with cooperation between players, no one had posted about ever running into another player. It brought to mind a certain space exploration game that made similar promises.
The second Adventurer argued the opposite view using the same points. It spoke to the game's unimaginable scale that out of the nearly five thousand users that actively commented on various forum threads, not a single Adventurer had run into another while delving. In fact the only player interactions that anyone had experienced was the competitive clashes between Adventurers and Guardians.
Merrick finished his meal before reaching the end of the thread, which meant that instead of reading about it, he could now comfortably dive into the game for hours. He decided to bookmark the thread, so that he could read the resolution of the argument while at work tomorrow if he remembered.
It was time to find his dungeon. With his headset on, Merrick returned to the play area and logged back into Dungeons Below.
After loading, it took a second for his eyes to adjust from the decent lighting of his apartment to the dim lighting of his prison cell inside the Elemental Cage. He had been laying down on the straw mattress, looking up at the stone ceiling, and now there were two notifications blocking his view.
Resting in progress. There are currently no serious injuries and the Well-Rested bonus has already been granted. As soon as you end your rest, the timer for Well-Rested will commence.
Crudle can now be resummoned.
Notifications aside, Merrick felt inspired. He had been waiting for this moment all day at work. In a few quick moves he got up from the mattress, checked his gear, and summoned his mephit minion back to his side. The climb from his cell toward the prison's exit had been a struggle, but now he knew why.
There was a chance that the real dungeon's entrance was on one of the higher floors. Merrick was currently on the twentieth floor, or the tenth prisoner floor as his borrowed map had put it. Above him were more prisoner floors, the guards barracks, resource floors, and the Warden of the Elemental Cage. His first excursions upward though were met with harsh battles. First the Golem Operator that had knocked him out and then the Riot Guards that made quick work of him.
To that end, Merrick decided to head in the direction that he had not explored yet. According to the map that he copied if he left his cell and went to the left, he would reach a spiral staircase. Unlike the staircase that the map showed on the other side of the Golem Operator's room, this one only went down.
The only issue was the Sentry Golem watching the hallway in front of his cell. The illusion had worked, mostly, but if Merrick was going to try to explore this floor, he would need to deal with the golem before it could sound an alarm or even log any serious anomalies.
Rather than open the cell door, Merrick walked over and stuck his arms through the gaps between the bars. Immediately, he heard the golem start to power up.
Movement detected at Cell One Zero T.
A few moments later, the golem hovered into view in front of his cell. The energy coursing through its tusks showed that a heat ray had already been prepared.
Prisoner ID One Zero T return your limbs to your cell or you will be forced to do so.
While it was interesting to think of how the golem might force him to return his arms to his cell, Merrick had successfully lured it over with only minimal announcements from the golem. Movement detected, limbs outside of the cell, but no note of a prisoner escaping. It was as good as he could hope to manage.
Exercising care, Merrick released an Arcane Blast directly into the golem's body. The heat rays lanced from the golem's tusks, nearly striking Merrick, as the golem flew backward and crashed into the cell across from his own. As Merrick had learned from his previous encounters, the golems themselves were not overly sturdy and this one cracked to pieces when it hit the bars of the other cell.
Merrick unlocked his cell door and inspected the damage. The second cell, One Zero S as the golem had previously called it, was perfectly fine. The force had been directed only at the golem and the golem's body had broken apart without damaging the cell's gate at all. In the wreckage of the golem, however, Merrick was able to finally get his hands on the cores held within.
The larger of the two, deep purple and glowing slightly, was the golem's main core according to his notes. The second core was smaller, clear with silver veins, and was some kind of information core for the golem. Merrick was not sure how to use them but he knew they might come in handy so he tucked them away.
With the golem taken care of, Merrick turned away from the direction he had previously taken and headed for the darkness at the end of the hall where supposedly a staircase waited. Before he could get there, a voice called out from one of the cells he passed by.
"Are you the one that's been making all that noise?"