Chương 200: Psilocybin Thirteen

"Hi there!" I said as I walked forwards with a friendly wave. I had all of my social deception skills running on a low simmer and my most casual 'I'm just in a good mood' smile on. This wasn't entirely off-the-cuff. I had moved back a ways and waited for a few carriages and even some cars to pass through the gate before making my move, though I wasn't so patient that I stalked around the place for hours, just a few minutes. The gate was guarded by two bullies, and that said a lot already.

If these two were normal guards, then it would stand to reason that they were hired by a local company to keep the place secured. But they were police, which meant government, which meant a higher level of investment than what the average company would be willing or able to put into something like this. The wall around the dungeon itself should have been the first hint, really. It was a fence about twice as tall as I was, with a coil of barbed wire at the top.

Not enough to stop someone determined, and as I walked around it a ways I did see that the fence crossed through a few alleys that didn't have any onlookers and I bet that a pair of bolt cutters would let me through, but I didn't have that at the moment. So instead I walked up to the guards, feeling a slight shiver run through me as my magic was tugged out of me and away, towards the not-so-distant dungeon. One of the guards looked up to me and slowly uncrossed his arms.

The other was reading the day's paper and not paying very much attention. The gate here was a simple sliding gate on a set of tracks hanging above the road. There was a door set in the fence nearby as well, in case people wanted to get in without having to move the entire main gate open. The locks on both were undone and left unlocked which was presumably not an issue when there were bullies right there guarding the passage in.

"What do you want?" the guard asked.

"Can I pop in?" I asked.

"Just need to deliver something."

"Hm, you need permission," the guard said.

"Yeah, I know. It'll be five?" I reached up and scratched at my neck, the image of nonchalance.

"My Da' forgot his lunchbox." I patted my satchel where Sir Nibbles was resting. The guard sighed, then looked back in. He was relatively young, which was annoying. Younger, newer members were sometimes more anal about the rules and regulations whereas older bullies tended to not care quite so much. The one reading the paper would probably have been an easier mark, but he was occupied.

"I can't let you in, boy," he said.

"I know, I know. I've been in before, but only with my Da and his pals from work. Look, what if I give ya, uh... this?" I fumbled around in my pockets for a while and fished out a bent pence piece.

"It's enough for a beer, innit?" The guard glared, but the older one looked up from his paper with a snort.

"Lad's got you there."

"My Da forgot his box because I was bothering him and he'll have my hide if he gets home hungry. Said diving's hungry work to begin with, you know? Besides, I'll get the pence back soon enough. I'm thinking of picking up courier work. You know, running things to the divers and back? It'll lemme build up my tolerance for when I go into the dungeon myself."

"Just go in, kid," the guard said.

"But be fast about it, and don't stay underfoot." If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. He did swipe that pence piece away, which was annoying, but I didn't let it show. That was a dozen skewers worth of coin there. Whatever. Small problem surpassed. I slipped a hand into a pocket and fished out a dried mana-rich mushroom and tossed it into my mouth. Then I poked the bag.

"Eat one of those mana-rich shrooms," I said.

"Unless you ate them all already, you fat tub of lard." There was a shift and I removed my poking hand before Sir Nibbles could bite my finger through the cloth of the bag. So, the Wendell-Smith Dungeon. The space around this one was organized similarly to the space around the Ditz Dungeon, only it obviously catered to the needs of a different dungeon. There was the dungeon's entrance.

A strangely artificial stone pillar that rose about three stories up and which had rounded walls except for the very front, which was carved flat. A sign hung about it that read Property of the Wendell and Smith Families. Around that pillar were some facilities. To the north was a long, low building that looked like it was the cross between a barracks and an open mess hall. To the south was a much larger processing plant of some sort.

There was a line of people exiting the dungeon, each one pushing a rather small wheelbarrow towards a large bucket on rails. Once a dozen were emptied in, the bucket was pushed by a team of young men over and around and into the factory space where it looked like it was hoisted up by some chains and dumped onto a running conveyor. People were there, picking out rocks from... other rocks? I couldn't see from so far away, and the area didn't look particularly well-lit.

They must have been shifting through a lot of people all day long to keep that going. There were other collection areas, but the main resource of this dungeon was tin and copper ore. I think there may have been some items in there made from both as well. Combined with the wood from Ditz, it actually allowed City Nineteen to have a decently strong foundry system for the production of small tin, copper, brass and bronze goods.

If I remembered what I'd learned at the Academy correctly, about two to three tons of tin and copper were extracted from the dungeon every day, more or less. Not counting a few dozen items made of the material as well. Then there were the other extracts. The Wendell-Smith Dungeon had a decent quantity of weapons pulled from it, as well as meats. I stood way back as a team of men carried out a beast. Four of them were holding onto a pair of poles, and between them was the carcass of a large mole-like creature.

They brought the body over to a smaller facility to one side, one that stank vaguely of rotting meat. That would go on to fill a few cans, I was sure. There was more, of course. Some salt, some crystals, a few rarer minerals, and then dungeon-made items of one sort or another. Not enough to feed the economy of an entire city, but probably enough to account for a single-digit percentage. I found a spot further out to stand in and just observed while making sure I was out of the way.

I wasn't sure about my plan to dive into this dungeon and use the Rite of Sporemageddon on it. It would be powerful, and for my plan to cripple the city, taking out its second dungeon would be devastating. A lot of the companies of divers that took care of Ditz simply moved on to here. A few had started to branch out to other cities and some neighbouring townships with their own dungeons, but... well, there was a noted tendency for companies to not want to change the way they did things too much.

It was a sort of inverse momentum. They were City Nineteen companies, so they didn't want to move if they didn't have to. Taking out a second dungeon would force their hands. Some would go bankrupt, others would ditch the city for another, but no matter what they did, it would hurt the economy. And that was just the delvers. The factories that processed tin and copper and that needed it several steps up the chain would be hurt too. The city could import those metals, but not cheaply.

The instability and riots that had happened after Ditz closed were over and done with, but they had left several marks and while things felt stable, I was sure that another kick in the pants would set it all over again in a bigger way. So... how to do it? I watched as a team slid into the dungeon. Not delvers, but a team of extraction workers. Hmm... some looked relatively young. That was a possibility, wasn't it?

But while I could sneak in, I wasn't sure I could bring that much gear with me, and if I was going to more or less solo it, I'd want as much stuff as I could bring with me. It was the start of a plan, at least. 🍄︎🍄️🍄︎