36 C36 Friendship and Planning

The meeting ended as quickly as it had started, the group still in shock as the woman exited without another word. Azo even thinking through multiple options as he felt like tossing furniture around the room. He had never been discovered before when doing recon; the woman was someone with connections that allowed her to sense the dogs sniffing around her.

"Hey, boss man, no worries man this will be easy, just another mission we can crack down and complete!"

Bull stuck his thumb up, his smile reminding of a child who had just done something mischevious. He would then let out a laugh that also sounded like he had just done something that would get him in trouble.

Azo felt his spirits lifting as the man tried to calm him down, while Bull was not the brightest he was very emotionally sensitive, able to tell the mood and also ready to cheer people up.

"What about you becoming the boss, it won't work well if you keep calling me boss you know?"

Azo responded while leaning in the back of his chair, a smile cracking onto his lips as he started to let go of the anguish and torture this woman had brought to his doorstep.

"Oh come on boss. I want to count the money and split it correctly, the management stuff is boring and suits you perfectly."

Bull laughed again while his hand slapped Azo's shoulder, his body moving closer as he continued to smile, trying to cheer the man up.

"Oh, so now I'm boring. Thanks, Bull you know how to cheer someone up."

Azo laughed as he turned to look at both the twins, both of them raising a thumbs up at the man to show support. He felt tears trying to push past as he quickly looked away from them.

"My, my. What shall I do with you three?"

He let out a sigh as he let go all of the worries that clouded his heart, pulling himself forward as he pulled out bits of paper.

"Well let's get to planning, shall we."

Azo started to put out many different papers that they had kept over the many years of adventuring. He had been with many teams before, but his current one had been the longest and most successful due to the previous mistakes he had made.

"Last time it took roughly four days to get to the eighth floor, the floors get shorter the deeper we go, so it should only add another day or so to get to the tenth."

He nodded his head as he made some adjustment's, Azo would have to get enough supplies to cover this lengthy adventure, he would need to consider many other areas.

"So, let's say two weeks of supplies, sadly we will be eating dehydrated mage food since we are unable to carry all that much food and everything will start going off fast with the amount of death magic."

The mood shifted when hearing about the food situation, they all hated the dried biscuits that they had to eat, they tasted rather unfortunate, and after a few days inside the dungeon, they would begin to smell like someone's backside.

"I'm out; I can't take eating ass biscuits!"

Bull would begin to stand up, making up his mind that he would rather eat like a king then die while eating something that smelled worse than his backside.

"Sit" "Down" Renade began with Mirya cutting her off quickly in the sentence, both woman looking at him with serious expressions. Bull would slowly sink back into his chair, a few inches lower than before as he just nodded his head.

"Fine..."

"Bull do not worry; the biscuits are safe to eat even when they do smell funny."

"That does not make it easier to swallow ass!"

Bull's innuendo made the rest of the group laugh as his face was bright red in frustration.

"Well, we have gotten the food situation, I think we should buy some magical potions this time around, we used our backup potion last time, and I think this time we will need more. I'll cover things through our mutual funds, so we don't use personal expenses."

The group nodded to the idea, magical items tended to be expensive and in the vortex having that price jacked up five or six times would generally make it so expensive that only the super wealthy could afford it.

"Can you make it cherry flavoured?"

"Bull, I'm not going to ask the Alchemist to brew you a cherry flavoured healing potion."

"Can I ask them? I have no shame!"

"We all know bull that you have nearly zero shame."

Bull laughed again as his hand slammed against his chest, brightly smiling as he knew his attitude was childish still.

"Do what you wish. Next item is the consumables. It's going to be difficult, but I will have to ask that we try to be very sparing with our items, arrows only on high-value targets, if we find a large node of Death Mana Stones, then we should mine them so I can cast more spells. Arrows, potions and all other consumables will not last very long. So let's be careful."

The team would conclude as they stood, ready to spend the money for the mission as they left the back room, heading to the counter as they would pass over the list of requested items.

The male behind the counter was very short, his appearance not as stout as the usual Dwarf but not as sharp as a halfling. His ginger beard was covering his entire lower face as he started to collect the items, calculating the prices as he went.

"So, what crazy mission are you guys going on this time?"

Azo smiled at the small man, nodding his head as he had some respect for this former mage who retired from adventuring over a year ago.

"Well, Benard we are heading into the dungeon under a private request from that woman."

Benard stopped as he looked to the man, his hand moving over to a particular package as he pulled the covered item over, placing it down in front of Azo.

"I was told by that woman to give this to you; she said that everything is covered and that you need not worry for supplies. She hopes for your success."

Benard's face was pale as he was still part of the guild, he had seen the details of the job posting, but he did not know who was going to accept it. He had adventured down deep but still only managing to get to the fifth floor himself.

"Good Luck," Benard said, his final words to them as he would look at them with worry.