The Gift of Loot Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Followed

Read chapter 38 of The Gift of Loot by Jack_Golightly on NovelPedia.

They got started on their trip to Reno the next day around noon, which was a little later than Thomas would have liked. That had been at Zach's request. He suspected the man had taken the first part of the day to track down and send a message of his own to the dude-bro group. Thomas had spent the beginning of the day productively as well, running the Chipmunk Forest Fire dungeon twice over. While it had been a certified chipmunk slaughter, he'd been forced to bypass the juvenile Phoenix Boss both times. Well, the first time he'd gotten the bright idea to throw his poisoned mace at it. (Hey, it worked for the grizzlies.) But the Phoenix chick was a lot more mobile than the big hulking bears, and possibly smarter too, because it had simply hopped out of the way. Then Thomas had a devil of a time trying to get the weapon back without getting burned. He didn't even try the second time. But he had come out with a basket full of level two fire mana crystals, and another firestone. He really hoped that the dungeon remained undiscovered for some time. It was a great source of high quality reds. His problem was now becoming how to offload all these crystals. Most of them were above C grade with occasional A's thrown into the mix. He couldn't just dump those into the low-grade crystal ATMs that were starting to pop up all around, and he had to use those sparingly as well. "I'm DJ Khaled, Suffering from Success ," he muttered. "Huh?" Zach asked. They'd been driving for a good half hour, and he had been dozing in the passenger seat. "Nothing." Thomas returned his attention to the road. He had driven so many times to Reno in his life that he barely needed to concentrate. "So, tell me more about how old families tend to guard these feeder dungeons?" Zach stretched before answering. He and Thomas had met up around noon as promised, and the man hadn't looked like he'd gotten into a physical fight, so Thomas figured that his "talk" with the Dude-Bro Group hadn't been a bloody one. "That's like asking a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string question, dude. It depends on the dungeon. If the family itself wants to dive it, then everybody's on alert when the boss is coming up. When I swung through the other day, there were minimal guards. The family has to be somewhere else." "Do you think they'll notice that you broke into the gatehouse?" "Nah, it wasn't even locked. The guides were just sitting in a cabinet right behind the coffee machine. I don't think they're gonna notice a thing." Thomas nodded and thought. "What's on your mind, mana man?" Zach asked, after a while. "I'm not as worried about diving the dungeon as I am sneaking in," Thomas admitted. "I think we're going to need more help. That lady I told you about in the Grizzly Dungeon? Her Gift allows her to hide herself and at least one other person. Maybe more, I'm not sure. I just don't want to get discovered going in, and then when we get out, we'll have to fight." Zach didn't answer right away. He was thinking hard about it too. "If you're found out and you're with me," he said at last, very reluctantly, in the way he always was when he alluded to the Old Families, "they won't kill us, but yeah, they'll take the loot and gear. And maybe rough us up a bit before they kick us out. I figured if we find anything good in the dungeon, we absorb it right away. No one can take that." He flashed a half smile. "But that's only if we get caught." "Still," Thomas said, "getting caught doesn't sound like a good time. And if this dungeon is good, I wanna sneak in. I wanna run it as much as we can get away with." Zach started in surprise, as if it had never occurred to him to re-run the dungeon. Thomas half suspected he'd suggested the place as a FU to the Old Families. Then he nodded, looking more thoughtful. "If it's good enough, it could be our feeder dungeon." "Only we're not caught," Thomas reminded him, "And I'd like to treat it as a test run for Jo, too." "What's her level?" "One for now, but I g