Sharlock set the computer aside and walked out of the core hall to go rouse blacksmith Simba. Outside, only a handful of players were still up and about — most were already lying on the ground, asleep. Sharlock didn't mind the peculiar sleep schedule of these otherworld goblins. For one thing, he wasn't the kind of lord who rode his underlings hard. For another, his original plan had been to start with just five goblin laborers — instead he'd gotten a hundred in one go, without spending a single magic stone on them. Even if he did still have to cover their food...
Simba had been dead asleep. His first instinct on hearing someone call him was to grab his hammer and swing — but one eye opened, saw it was Sharlock, and he scrambled upright, all deference:
"Lord Sharlock! What can I do for you?"
"I'm sending the goblins to clear out the nearby Spider Nest. With the materials the dungeon has on hand, what weapons and armor can you make?"
Sharlock asked point-blank.
"Clear out the Spider Nest? Lord Sharlock, you're the first lord I've ever met who plans to send GOBLINS into a fight. Then again, this batch of yours really is something special. Today one of them died running face-first into a wall right in front of me, and another dove into my furnace. Is that some new suicide method you've devised for them?"
Blacksmith Simba rubbed his eyes, got up, and shuffled toward the smithy, Sharlock walking along beside him.
"These goblins — the way they think and act isn't quite like regular goblins, true, but they've got plenty of upsides. Industriousness, for one. Sending them to clear the Spider Nest counts as recreation for them." Sharlock thought of the players' glee and anticipation on the forums over the new zone opening, and added: "At least based on my intel, they're genuinely hyped about clearing the Spider Nest."
"Can't argue with industrious — they out-work every goblin I've ever met. They also out-weird every goblin I've ever met." Blacksmith Simba had already reached the smithy. It wasn't far anyway.
The semi-open smithy sat on the open ground in front of the dungeon's core hall, about half a basketball court in size — two furnaces, an anvil platform; small, but fully equipped. To the smithy's left you could see stacks upon stacks of diamonds, an extremely common stone in the Underworld and a wildly versatile one: besides construction material, it doubled as a standard forging material at the smithy.
Because Underworld smiths could refine metal for weapons, armor, and other equipment out of mass quantities of diamond.
"Thanks to those industrious goblins, our current diamond stock is enough to forge several hundred full sets of armor and weapons. Enhancement, though, is off the table — there's nothing here but rock, rock, and more rock." Blacksmith Simba glanced around, then went on: "You really are a wealthy one, Lord Sharlock. Most lords wouldn't recruit this many goblins in one go. Clearly you mean to build a top-tier dungeon! Say — how about hiring another blacksmith? I've got a brother. Great craftsmanship, very fair prices..."
Hire ANOTHER one? Wouldn't that mean ANOTHER salary? Sharlock was broke — he didn't even have Simba's wages squared away yet. Where would he find the nerve to hire a second? If he couldn't scrape together Simba's hundred magic stones by month's end, the "None Pricier" smithy might just file a complaint against him. He'd wind up blacklisted by the merchants, and doing business in the neutral cities would become a serious problem.
"Your brother can wait. Let's talk gear. Between now and then, I need a hundred sets of armor and weapons, as fast as you can manage. For the weapons — let's standardize on short swords."
The moment Sharlock finished, blacksmith Simba shot back:
"About the gear, Lord Sharlock — there's something highly irregular I need to report." Blacksmith Simba produced a thick notebook, its pages crammed edge to edge with writing. "The truth is, ever since these goblins started working yesterday, they've been coming to me to buy equipment. I've told them the dungeon has no gear for sale yet, but they keep showing up at regular intervals to ask anyway — and they come loaded with specifications. They finally annoyed me so much I put this notebook by the smithy door and told them to write their requests in it. You need to see this."
Sharlock took the notebook out of the blacksmith's hands and started reading:
【KnuckleSandwich】: Hoping to buy fist-weapon class gear. By the way, can the dev team actually see these suggestions we keep writing?
【AnyMilkWillDo】: I want to be a mage or a priest — anything with similar skills works. Can I buy a magic wand?
...
Most of the entries were like that. In summary: they had all kinds of ideas and wanted to buy every random weapon imaginable — and a whole bunch of the otherworld players had written things like "please make the weapon designs look cool."
Readers should know that NovelPhoenix.com hosts the author's posting, copied here without permission; reading there supports them.
As for these outrageous demands, Sharlock's immediate ruling: DENIED. All of them.
He told Simba to pay the weird requests no mind and focus on forging the hundred sets of armor and weapons. Simba nodded, took the assignment, and quickly lit the fires to begin forging. The handful of players still awake were instantly drawn over by the commotion and gathered around to gawk. This wasn't Sharlock's first rodeo with their curiosity, so he paid it no mind — he just used his Dungeon Lord authority to bark at the otherworld players to get back to grinding coins. Then he turned to blacksmith Simba, hard at work, and said: Read the latest chapters at novelping(.)com.
"Oh, and I'll be setting prices on this gear shortly. Put up a price board by the smithy door, and let the goblins buy weapons and armor with their metal currency."
"Wait, gear isn't just handed out for free?" Simba asked, baffled.
"You know my dungeon runs on metal currency as quest rewards to motivate the goblins — currency I bought at the market with magic stones." Sharlock said: "The coins aren't worth much, but if I keep paying them out as quest rewards every single day, they'll run out sooner or later. I need to recirculate that currency — having them spend it shopping isn't a bad method."
Actually, beyond that reason, Sharlock had already discussed it with the core "Bru": these otherworld players much preferred earning their rewards through their own sweat and labor over collecting free handouts from Sharlock. It kept their motivation inside his dungeon much higher — let them feel like independent individuals who could change their own lives through hard work!
Sharlock wasn't entirely sure what life a goblin imagined he was changing, exactly, but for motivation's sake he'd adopted the core "Bru's" suggestion. These otherworld players simply could not be understood through this world's common sense: no magic-stone wages required, working like maniacs anyway, ecstatic over a fistful of metal coins, determined to pay for everything in coin. They plainly didn't see themselves as the dungeon's grunt laborers — they saw themselves as the dungeon's residents and builders.
Sharlock figured that was just fine. It boosted their sense of belonging to the dungeon and made goblins running off or turning traitor far less likely. And the best part: they were doing grunt-laborer work AND saving him magic stones.
Soon the first longsword and first suit of armor came off Simba's line. An ordinary smithy with an ordinary smith might need the better part of half a day for that — but a smithy bought for eight hundred magic stones was no ordinary smithy, and a Simba on a hundred magic stones a month was no ordinary smith.
Sharlock picked up the cooled first longsword and studied it. No hilt — his dungeon had no wood and no carpenter — so the grip felt a bit rough, and going hilt-less cut into your efficiency and power besides. But these were the scrappy startup days, and Sharlock trusted his goblins to tough it out.
The weapon looked perfectly unremarkable to Sharlock. Sized right for a goblin; wrong for Sharlock himself — he stood a whole lot taller than those goblins.
"My lord, I suggest we attach stat-sheet descriptions to this equipment — it will help the otherworld players understand gear in our world, their way." While Sharlock was still studying the longsword, the core "Bru" spoke up: "In fact, I have already drafted the equipment descriptions. Your review, my lord."
Sharlock nodded, and "Bru's" draft came through: beside the hiltless short sword appeared a description panel:
【Hiltless Diamond Shortsword (Common (White) gear)】
【Attack Power: 0-10】
【Weight: 10】
【Durability: 10】
【Forged by: Blacksmith Simba】
【Required Rep Level: Dungeon of the Eternal Kingdom, reputation level 1 (starter tier)】
【The most common standard-issue weapon in the Dungeon of the Eternal Kingdom, refined and forged from diamond】
A description panel appeared beside the armor as well:
【Diamond Armor (Common (White) gear)】
【Defense: 10】
【Weight: 20】
【Durability: 10】
【Forged by: Blacksmith Simba】
【Required Rep Level: Dungeon of the Eternal Kingdom, reputation level 1 (starter tier)】 Visit g.com for the full chapter.
【The most common standard-issue equipment in the Dungeon of the Eternal Kingdom, refined and forged from diamond】
You had to hand it to "Bru" — the equipment descriptions were thorough. The reputation concept was one "Bru" had already pitched to Sharlock: a way for the otherworld players to express their adoration of him, and a way to deepen those otherworld goblins' sense of belonging to the dungeon. Anyone who contributed to the dungeon could earn dungeon reputation; "Bru" would track that rep in real time once the new zone opened. Players who completed quests and turned in materials would earn rep — higher-rep players would be allowed to equip better weapons and armor, with more perks to follow down the line.
People who worked hard and contributed outstandingly deserved recognition, and Sharlock heartily approved of "Bru's" reputation reward system — signed off with one grand sweep of his hand.
With the miscellaneous business settled, Sharlock returned to the dungeon core hall and pulled up the official forums and the forums in the computer's browser. Reading the otherworlders gush about his dungeon, Sharlock actually caught himself looking forward to seeing how the otherworld players would react once he opened up his carefully prepared Spider Nest. He couldn't say why, but managing the players this way gave him the same warm fuzzies he'd known as a little demon playing games with the other demon kids. Speaking of childhood — now THAT was a time worth missing...
Between browsing the web and the forums and wallowing in nostalgia, the clock crept toward seven in the morning. Out in the dungeon, otherworld players were stirring awake and getting active, and soon all hundred beta testers were present and accounted for — full attendance, not one missing. The second these goblins woke up, they spotted blacksmith Simba sweating away in the smithy, and whoosh — the whole crowd swarmed over at once.
"Whoa?! Simba's already forging? Is he making gear?"
"Can WE forge too? Where do you learn blacksmithing?"
"Quick, look — see if we can teach ourselves!"
"There's a weapons and armor price list over here!"
"Wait, shouldn't they take the servers down for maintenance before opening a new zone? This game patches while the servers are still running?"
"Cuz the tech is straight-up black magic!"
"Yo, look quick — new quests are paying out reputation now! Dungeon rep! They added new stuff!"
"New gear, a new zone, AND reputation — that's a fat patch today. I can't wait!"
...
While the otherworld players crowded around the smithy yakking back and forth, Sharlock came walking over. He cleared his throat, released the dominating aura of his rank as a demon, and — as the otherworld players turned to face him one after another — proclaimed at full volume:
"Citizens of the Eternal Kingdom! I, the Demon Lord Sharlock, hereby issue you a new quest! GO — clear out the Spider Nest! For the Eternal Kingdom Dungeon!"
══════════════════════ DUNGEON LORD'S NOTE ═══════════════════════
Simba keeps a notebook for player gear requests — fist weapons, magic wands, 'make the designs look cool' — and Sharlock's ruling on every one: DENIED.
What gear would you petition the dev team for?
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