Courtney rolls her eyes, “Jason, the drop isn’t going to go anywhere. It doesn’t matter how well you handle pain, let me fix up your arms before looking into that. In fact, Rosha, you go take a look so he isn’t distracted.”

  Jason laughs, “Just a flesh wound! Cover it up and ignore it for a little. It will go away.”

  Courtney raises an eyebrow, “Are you feeling a little loopy from blood loss?”

  Jason continues to laugh, “No clue! If I had to guess, something is up with the pain. I’m good for it, but I’ve got a couple bone deep wounds on both arms. Could be blood, could be pain.”

  Rosha gets back to them and sets something down before lightly smacking Jason’s head. “Have you ever gotten this low before? I suspect you don’t have that big of a pool so that must have cut you deep.”

  Jason frowns, “Does that count as a pun?”

  Rosha sighs, “Anyway, we got a few drops. Three cubes of glass, likely a crafting material related to the deep sky. Shame that the normal tardigroids lose that connection or their materials would be worth a hell of a lot more.

  “Besides that, we got a glass knife. Low durability in exchange for a shockingly sharp blade. As Jason’s arms show, it can cut even tough hides. I don’t particularly need it with my bow. Do either of you want a side arm?”

  Courtney shakes her head, “It sounds nice, but ironically doesn’t match my whole shadow thing. While it would be just as transparent in the dark, it is too reflective while in motion. I need something that stays discrete when I’m rushing through the dark.”

  Jason in turn waves it off, much to Courtney’s displeasure as she admonishes him to not move his arms.

  Rosha shrugs, “It should sell well. Courtney, do you know how much this will sell for?”

  Courtney turns away from Jason and takes a closer look. “Hmm, 100 gold? Give or take a bit depending on the wording on the effects and just how fragile it actually is.

  “The fact it even mentions it directly means it must be horrible. Most equipment doesn’t even include a durability stat. That usually only shows up on special consumables like arrows with high level enchants.”

  Jason nods, “Have to make sure the arrow of insta kill has a limited number of uses. No treating it carefully and keeping it around forever. Anyway, Courtney, now that we’ve seen that variant do you have anything to say about it?”

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  Courtney shakes her head, “While in other dungeons I would be able to tell you about the various alternate monsters, hidden bosses, and whatnot. This dungeon, however, has really random variants as its gimmick.

  “We might be the only ones to see a glass tardigroid in a hundred years. Which is saying something for such a popular dungeon among the locals and players.”

  Jason frowns, “That must suck for the local crafters. While a never ending supply of new materials is good for leveling a skill. It basically kneecaps them on the low end.

  “One high-level crafter is nice, but they cost too much and won’t be interested in pumping out the low level equipment a dungeon like this needs. That doesn’t include crafters to repair gear. You don’t need a master crafter to bang the dings out of a sword someone who delves here would have.”

  Courtney, “That is true for the most part. If this place was more popular with the rich, that wouldn’t be the case. Once they’re out of the tutorial levels, whether player or local, it isn’t all that rare for the rich to finance their kids gear.

  “It is a story as old as time. All the way back in the original mmos you would have twinks and even until now people like to get the top end gear. Sure, it is a lot harder to figure out what the best equipment is. That doesn’t stop the rich from really cranking up the price of whatever is seen as being the best.”

  Jason nods, “So, of course they wouldn’t want to be here. Even with a master crafter, new material would mean less than an ideal outcome. It takes a lot of work to understand the quirks of something like space glass.”

  Rosha laughs, “Not space glass, that would be worth so much more. This is just deep sky glass.”

  Jason, “We both understood what I meant.”

  Courtney sighs, “Anyway, that isn’t actually a problem here because it is a dungeon popular for breaking the third bottleneck. So while the random material that comes out of here every day would make it hard on new crafters, the kingdom in charge exports it all and imports normal material.

  “A really bad idea, by the way. You don’t want to have to ship raw materials if at all possible. Here they make it work because having a good dungeon to breakthrough in is worth more than gold could buy. I didn’t really look too deep, but this kingdom’s army has at least a five percent lead on the surrounding kingdoms when it comes to average level.”

  Rosha nods and then looks over at Jason. “Do we need to call it a day? Those sounds don’t seem to be healing much even with magic.”

  Jason scoffs, “Stupid deep sky glass seems to have some kind of healing prevention going on. I’ve tried to overcome it with one of my skills, but I suspect this is more curse aligned. If it had been poison or venom, I’d be fine already.”

  Courtney nods, “There is a resistance to healing that I can’t pin down.”

  Jason, “Teach me to just accept a blow. I should have tried harder to get out of the way instead of trusting in my own toughness.”

  Rosha, “To be fair, you were plenty tough enough. It isn’t like the thing chopped off your arms or anything. They stayed intact, if damaged.”

  Jason sighs, “I wonder if it was the curse power that made me go a little odd. Anyway, while I want to stick to our plan, probably best we just leave. I’m not the most classic of tanks, but I do my best to keep the monsters off of you two.”

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