Lucas went back to the menu and then quickly purchased nine high-quality steel weapons for the ten-man patrol he had managed to get working. He was 4.5 gold short of buying the tenth weapon and fully gearing the entire group. When he bought the weapons, the system immediately displayed a prompt asking him which guard he was assigning which weapon to, so equipping the gear was as easy as positioning the guards. He closed the menu at last, satisfied that he had improved his dungeon and confident that he had nudged the guards a little closer to being real threats. Their first level had put them to 6, the training had raised them to 7, and the high-quality steel weapons had increased them to 9. For the six out of the 10 that were using two-handed weapons, which had a base value of +1, they had already reached an attack value of 10, a full 100% increase over a standard Level 1 guard’s capabilities. Lucas wasn’t sure how long it would take, but he couldn’t wait to see them eventually capable of taking out equal-leveled players.

“Alright, boss, our turn for attention,” Bonnie said, dragging him away from his thoughts and his dungeon building. She pointed to a map that had numerous red pins stuck in it that had been laid out in front of him. “We found a ton of good mobs, but this one’s the best.” She indicated a spot that was slightly closer than the rest.

If they had a dungeon master’s HUD like me, they wouldn’t have to go out and get those, he thought as he looked over all the spots. There were two in the water, ones that Katie had probably found since they were marked with tiny, little snake crests instead of the red-ball-tipped pins that marked the other monsters.

“What makes it the best?” Lucas asked.

“Well, it shouldn’t take long to get, and it’s a flier. You mentioned something about wanting to have all of our bases covered, and this should do it. It can soar through the sky and swoop down on anyone trying to enter the manor, acting as a sort of gatekeeper,” Bonnie explained. “Ain’t that exactly what ya want, boss?”

“Yeah, it is,” Lucas said. “So, let’s do that one.” “Don’t you wanna know what it is?” Bonnie asked, looking a little dejected that Lucas just agreed before she could make her sales pitch. “Does anyone think there is another, better option?”

He had gotten caught up in making sure that his dungeon would survive while he was gone, something he wanted to concentrate on more in the future, and didn’t want to waste time just because he couldn’t trust a reliable teammate. No matter what, he just couldn’t shake the feeling that a revolt was going to happen sooner rather than later despite the fact that he had been able to kill the Were-Bear Ash. This meant he needed to secure things here and as quickly as he could and then get to Rowland’s territory before the rebellion occurred. I don’t want that bastard who killed a man’s wife just for something so petty as a title to get away with his plan.