28 (28) Human appraiser

In the early morning before the morning parties started raiding the dungeon, Kraton went to ccheck Psychi's reply.

"Obviously there are counters to all skills, there are passive skills like 'Seek', and active skills such as the advanced 'Analysis' skill, but hardly anyone would use analysis on an empty space."

"What do you mean by 'Innate Talent'? Never heard of it."

Kraton was shocked, how could the genius Psychi not know of something Hato casually told him? But Kraton didn't ask anymore, he quickly replied saying he heard it from a drunkard nearby a human tavern. Kraton wasn't an idiot, if Hato told him something, it probably wasn't a lie, there was even evidence of it on the Data Rock, given the correct Tablet foundation that was. But if Psychi didn't know about it, it meant Hato had a reason not to tell everyone about it. But why tell himm of all Bosses?

As time passed by, Kraton and Lysine became troubled, the time was way past 7:00, almost midday, yet not a single person had entered the Boss room. A moment later, a message appeared on Lysine's Data Rock. The message came from a Naga and a single word was typed out:

"Appraiser!"

Seeing this message, Kraton quickly ran to the far corner of the room, hiding behind a boulder, and activating the skills 'Hide and 'Conceal'. Lysine didn't mind Kraton's behaviour as she herself was preparing, keeping her eyes locked on the exquisite door.

An Appraiser was sent by the humans outside in order to review and check the dungeon's difficulty. The difficulty is determined by the monsters dwelling inside, and by the Boss or bosses as well. This helps provide a level and star-rank for the rest of the community, allowing parties to grind at suitable locations.

The Appraisers are normally 10 levels or more above the previously recorded dungeon level, the career of an appraiser not only needed you to be strong, but also able to survive for a long time, long enough to assess the monster's strengths. They also needed to be able to identify the different difficulties between small and large parties entering the dungeon. If, say the Boss had large amounts of AoE attacks, then the Appraiser is held responsible for putting up warning in addition to the normal description.

Appraisers carry the heavy burden of giving the correct difficulty of the dungeon, which in turn will help the city, or country develop. Even if the dungeon is recorded as low level; no star, the city may still be prosperous if large amounts of new, low-levelled players migrate to the area. An easy dungeon is a goldmine to these players. Sometimes, even non-players will enter with a team of players, But only if the dungeon drops the materials they need, such as herbs, gems and other items.

Loot was a mysterious aspect to the world, there were certain monsters or bosses that always dropped a certain type of loot, such as silk from spiders and more coins from goblins, however not a single being in the world had been able to give the exact reason -with evidence- how, and why these pieces of loot were dropped.

If an Appraiser records the wrong difficulty purposefully, with negative intent towards the city, then there are harsh laws which may range from massive fines to forced labour in dungeons; where the governing bodies will take all the loot they acquire. This law is put in place to prevent espionage from other regions.

Because the residents of the Florid Boulevard region reported that the Boss of Kraton's Burrow had changed, and is now called Ophid Crypt (There was a stone sign at the dungeon entrance), an Appraiser had been sent to investigate and re-assess the dungeon's difficulty.

Because of the official appraising, the governing figures had prevented any party from entering the dungeon whilst the Appraiser was at work. This was to make sure that no monster was missed when investigating. It would be catastrophic if an elite monster resided in the dungeon, but was still in the process of respawning when the Appraiser went through the dungeon. A single Elite could raise the rank by a star, as well as giving the chance to drop rarer loot. These were specifics that the Appraiser needed to record, if they withheld information such as this, it could also be seen as 'deceiving the region'.

The reason why Kraton hid, even going as far as using his skills, was that he still did not want the dungeon's difficulty to be too high. In the rarer cases of a dungeon having 'Double Bosses', either the rank can be immediately raised to 4 or 5 stars, or the dungeons level will be raised depending on how hard it was to defeat both Bosses.

The large door silently swung open, Kraton had just finished covering himself in a newer version of his disguise, and Lysine gripped her curved dagger, ready to strike forward. A tall male figure stepped through the doors, he wore simple, yet seemingly expensive robes and held a long staff in his right hand. The staff was similar to a cleric's however instead of a metal sphere, there was an unrefined gem stuck to the end. The wooden staff wrapped around the base of the gem with root-like tentacles. What was more, was that the whole staff had stange runes engraved into the wood, this was not a cleric's staff, but a high-level mage's staff!

His left hand clutched a large notepad, obviously where he recorded the details of the dungeon. Lysine managed to glimpse at the writing, one of the lines said: Nagas - level 3-5, large swarms, good for elementalists.

The next line simply had the heading: 'Boss(s):' and was left blank.

Before the Appraiser had the chance to put the notepad away, Lysine lunged forward, her wings beat with the initial lunge, then wrapped close to herself in a streamlined manner, increasing her velocity from 0 in an instant. Her dagger was held sideways, with the sharp, curved edge approaching the man's throat.

*Ping*

The runes on the Appraisers staff glowed blue, several layers of a spherical shield appeared around the man. The dagger penetrated past three layers before being deflected sideways. The staff glowed silver and was tilted slightly to the man's left. At the same time a hidden force knocked Lysine to her right, she extended her wings to slow her speed and managed to land back on her tail without rolling over.

"Boss: Lamia; Level: 7; Speed: fast; Power: moderately high; Stamina:____; Combat Level:___; Notes:____"

The man firmly implanted his staff in the ground, making it glow blue again. He then proceeded to scribble down this line of notes in the time it took Lysine to regain her control.

Lysine didn't attack immediately after that, she closed the distance between them bu half, however she didn't approach any closer than that. The man waited as well, leaving his glowing blue staff implanted into the floor, however he felt that Lysine's tail had shrunk a bit after that collision.

...A few seconds passed, but still no-one moved.

Since Lysine wasn't attacking, the man scribbled something else down into his pad, before pulling his staff out from the ground. The runes dimmed and the staff returned to it's original dull appearance.

*Crack*

Lysine suddenly lunged forward once the blue glow had completely faded away, her speed was almost double that of her first lunge, and her tail had stretched, releasing all the built-up tension from when she compressed her tail. Her speed shocked the man, he was originally going to attack, but he didn't expect Lysine to be waiting for him to disperse his shield and was storing up power in the meantime.

The man leapt to the side, barely avoiding the knife and the impact from Lysine. He quickly crossed out what he last wrote, and wrote something else over it. The man then finally put his notepad away and held his staff firmly, pointing slightly forward. His left hand was open, his palm facing up but hovering above his hand were multiple red coloured dots, or nodes as mages called them.

"Barrage" The man sighed under his breath, his left palm glowed a scarlet red and a thin tendril attached itself to the gem at the end of his staff.

"Release"