Dungeons Are Bad Business

There was still a bit of time before the day’s first adventurer – an elkin [Pyromancer] – arrived, and so Vee set Reginald down on the desk next to him and opened up his handbook. He flipped through the pages to the minion section and settled the book so that Reginald could see the entries too.

“I’m not going to make any changes today,” Vee said. “But depending on how the next few days go, I was thinking about ordering some different tier one minions so that we get more shards of chaos. That’ll cost us more in the short term since we’ll have to pay out for each one, but once we can add a floor to Crestheart, we’ll be able to make more per adventurer. What do you think?”

Reginald looked down at the illustrations on the page in front of him. Tier one minions weren’t terribly interesting, but like Vee, he’d been surprised by the efficacy of the lesser fire elementals and wanted to experiment with other options. “We should go for something thematic. How about gnome statues? Those are pretty spooky.”

Vee flipped to the page that showed the carved stone statues. He started to read from the page. “Approximately knee high, gnome statues appear in unexpected places and strike fear into the hearts of their targets with their unsettling laughter and uncanny grins. Their offensive power is limited to the small stone daggers they carry, but they’re reasonably durable for their cost and are difficult to destroy. Hmm. That doesn’t sound too bad. I could add some ectoplasm paths to some of the rooms for them to run along and pop up in even more places.”

“How much do they cost?”

Vee traced his finger down the page and frowned. “Twenty gold fleurs and two shards of chaos a batch. That’s…more than I want to spend. Let’s look at something else.”

“What about slimes?”

Vee blanched when he turned to the proper page. “Slimes are amorphous blobs that vary in size. Strong against physical damage, they are weak against magic. Slimes are slow and easy to avoid, but they can be quite dangerous if they manage to get an adventurer in their clutches. It looks like slimes are considered the mini bosses of tier one minions, so they’re even more expensive. Thirty gold fleurs and three shards of chaos. I think that’s too much.”

“Not so fast,” Reginald said. He’d read the page too and saw something Vee had missed. “Slimes can be modified more than the other minions, and they have the highest chance to drop shards of chaos out of all the tier one options. If you want to invest so that Crestheart can grow faster, that’s the best option, in my opinion.”

Vee reached up and brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. Before he could answer, he looked down at the image coming from the dungeon’s first floor, and saw that the elkin [Pyromancer] had arrived and was ready to start her run.

“We’ll talk more about this after we close up for the day.”

Reginald trembled. “Mind if I do the voice work today? I’m better suited to it than you are.”

Vee scowled, but after yesterday, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to read all of the scripts again and try to pitch his voice around. He pushed the magnifying crystal towards the hat.

“Can you turn it on and off by yourself?”

A small yellow spirit arm crawled out of Reginald’s right eye. “Let’s see…no, not quite. I can’t reach as far in this body, yet.”

Vee pinched his thumb and index finger together. “[Shape Ectoplasm].” He pulled and poked the energy into a long, thin rod.

“Here you go. That should help you reach, right?”

Reginald took the rod and found that he could now easily reach the magnifying crystal so that he could turn it on and off by himself. A second yellow hand appeared from the hat’s left eye and gave the [Dungeon Master] a thumbs up.

“Now, what’s this lady’s name again?” Reginald said as he studied the page in front of him. “Ah there it is. Casys Perran, enter the dungeon if you dare!”

Vee sat next to Reginald and worked the doors. It was much easier than trying to manage the scripts and everything else that running the dungeon required. He even had enough time to [Refine Ectoplasm]. Running the energy through his hands, he carefully shaped it into cubes and gave them to Dheart to be distributed to the orchestra as needed.

Casys, the elkin adventurer, was making her way through the first floor. She’d struggled with the initial rooms, but braved the mystery water and had been rewarded with a temporary boost to her stamina. That had been one of the neater purchases from the union supply store: enchanted water that could provide slight, temporary benefits or downsides. Making it look gross with ectoplasm had been Vee’s idea. The elkin was only the third adventurer to take the drink so far.

“Think she’s making it to Alforde?” Reginald asked, in an excited tone that Vee now recognized as the precursor to offering a wager.

“I think so,” Vee answered. Reginald’s harrumph told the [Dungeon Master] that the hat had been hoping for a different answer.

With the spirit’s desire to gamble temporarily frustrated, Vee opened the door that would let the adventurer go down to the second floor. The elkin walked forward warily, and like pretty much every other person who challenged the dungeon, stepped on one of the traps that activated the ranks of lesser fire elementals.

However, unlike most of the adventurers who’d had no choice but to get hit by a multitude of the flames, the elkin simply raised her staff and started absorbing each of the embers as they flew towards her.

“You should deactivate the traps,” Reginald said. “I’m pretty sure that a [Pyromancer] like her is going to find a great way to turn those embers into a problem for Alforde.”

Vee did so, pressing a button on Dheart’s side that pulled back the rows of fire elementals and stopped the barrage. Casys whirled her staff a few times and continued forward. The gem on the end of the weapon glowed like a piece of hot iron fresh from the forge.

Vee activated the magnifying crystal that led to the boss chamber. “Alforde, you there?”

“Sure am, Vee. What’s up?”

“The adventurer heading towards you is a [Pyromancer]. She absorbed a bunch of the embers from the lesser fire elementals on the second floor, so expect plenty of firepower when she gets down to you.”

To Vee’s surprise, Alforde chuckled.

“That’s a good one!”

Normally, Vee would have groaned at the pun, which he most certainly hadn’t intended to make. However, his brain was buzzing and he was focused on the fact that an entire floor had been rendered basically harmless due to the fact that the only real danger present was a single element.

“We’ve got to diversify the minions,” he told Reginald. The hat nodded in his way, and his felty mouth curled into a grin.

“A slime or two would have probably stopped her in her tracks. She’s not particularly nimble.”

Unfortunately for Casys, even her great gouts of blue and red flame weren’t enough to prevent Alforde from swiftly knocking her out of the champion’s ring four times in quick succession. The elkin didn’t seem surprised by the result, standing up and smoothing her robe before shaking Alforde’s gauntlet and heading up the stairs that would take her back up to the ground.

“Good job, buddy,” Vee said once the door to the arena closed once more. “That was an impressive win. You didn’t even get knocked out once!”

“She said that she wasn’t really interested in fighting,” Alforde answered. “Apparently she’s from the union and just wanted to see how the dungeon was. She thought it was a little simplistic, but she had fun. You’ll probably get a chance to talk to her eventually. She said she’d like to share some feedback with you.”

Vee could guess what she wanted to talk about. Even a regular adventurer – heck, even a random person on the street – could have probably seen the downside of having an entire floor be dedicated to a single element. It seemed like such an obvious weakness now.

The [Dungeon Master] looked at the door, waiting for a knock that never came. Eventually, it was time for the day’s second run, and Vee returned his attention to controlling the doors and refining more ectoplasm.

The second adventurer was a burly man with brown skin and curly hair who had a comically large sword slung over his shoulders. Vee rolled his eyes as the man sauntered into the dungeon’s first room. He didn’t know why so many adventurers bothered with such foolish weapons. There’d been a handful of challengers the day before who’d all been equipped similarly, and more than half of them hadn’t even managed to swing their impractical blades a single time before getting bowled over by the ghosts. Maybe some unethical [Smith] had offered a discount while promising instant fame.

This one was no different. As soon as the ghosts charged him, he cried like a child and dropped his sword before activating his escape rope. Vee mentally thanked him for the easy money.

There were only sixteen adventurers today, and after Casys, only two more made it to Alforde. Neither of them beat him either, and it was still afternoon when they closed for the day.

Alforde came up to the office and they counted out the day’s spoils. They’d made three hundred and eighty fleurs after accounting for the day’s expenses, and were left with three hundred and sixty eight after setting some aside for taxes as well. Luckily, not many of the lesser fire elementals had been destroyed yet, which meant that there was still some time before Vee would have to order another batch. That was going to cost another ten gold fleurs, and the [Dungeon Master] was glad to have some more time before needing to pay it.

Unfortunately, only one adventurer had gotten a shard of chaos, and Vee wistfully stared at it as he closed the treasure chests and returned them to the dungeon’s vault. Dheart hummed happily and Vee gave the…engine?...nexus?...heart?...an affectionate pat before leaving.

All of the adventurers had cleared out, and Vee didn’t see anyone else nearby. He summoned his full orchestra and told them about his desire that they start cleaning up the trash.

After he finished, one of the fiends from the heavy section stepped forward, moving slightly awkwardly in its tight green uniform. It bowed. Or at least, that’s what Vee assumed it was trying to do. It simply bobbed its head and shrugged its shoulders.

“Master, what we do with trash once cleaned up?”

Vee was so shocked that the fiend had spoken to him that he didn’t know how to respond for a second. Sure, the fiends had communicated with him before, but that had been through their bond of servitude, and had been pretty simple: Want ectoplasm. Understood. Task Complete. Things like that. A fiend forming a full sentence that could be heard by a regular human’s ears – even if it wasn't grammatically perfect – was unheard of.

“Uh…uh…why don’t you just stack it up in a pile down one of the alleys. I’ll finagle some way to remove it from the area once that’s done.”

“Will do.”

Vee watched the fiend walk away, and then held up his hand. “Wait a moment.”

The fiend stopped and turned around. Vee stared into the creature’s eyes, and instead of the empty void he’d first seen when he and Alforde had gone up to clear out the tower, he saw the first glimmers of intelligence.

“Yes, Master?”

This was genuinely huge! He needed to draft a letter to the Academy right away! Fiends were thought to be nothing more than a collection of antagonistic thoughts and feelings. For them to develop sentience as the result of being bound in an orchestra was astounding.

“Do you, by chance, have a name?”

The fiend stood still for a moment, as if pondering the question. Finally, it met Vee’s eyes once again.

“Section call me Do.”

“Do? What kind of name is that?” crowed Reginald. Despite the fact that as a spirit himself, he should have known just how big of a deal it really was that the fiends were talking and had taken names, the [Majordomo] didn’t seem to think it out of the ordinary. Maybe it’d been too long since he himself had developed a personality.

“Do is not only section member with name. Also Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, and Ti. Other questions?”

Vee shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, but he’d need time to process all of it. “Go ahead and get to your work, Do. I’ll speak with you more another time.”

[Thanks to your bond, your orchestra members have started to develop personalities. You are now a Ghost Maestro, level 18!]

[Wit + 3]

[Faith + 3]

A voice Vee didn’t recognize interrupted the [Dungeon Master]’s thoughts.

“A talking fiend? Now that is interesting. Mister Vales, you seem to be anything other than the bland [Dungeon Master] your dungeon would suggest.”

Vee turned and found himself uncomfortably close to Casys Perran, the elkin adventurer. Where had she come from?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “Since I assume that you already know my name, I’ll spare you the bother of introducing myself. Would you mind terribly if I walked with you back to the gate? I have some feedback about Crestheart that I’d like to share with you. Of course, if you’re not interested, that’s fine as well. The union gives [Dungeon Masters] quite a bit of freedom in how they run their operations.”

Too many things were happening at once. Vee shook his head and then caught himself and nodded instead. “Of course, Miss Perran. I’d love to hear your thoughts.”

With Alforde behind them and the fiends already busy at work in the street, Vee and Casys started heading back to the gate.

Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 18 (+3)

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 6

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 1

Might: 6

Wit: 26 (+3)

Faith: 15 (+3)

Adventurousness: 8

Ambition: 7

Plotting: 6

Charisma: 3

Devious Mind: 9 (+1)

Leadership: 7

Guts: 4

Intimidating Presence: 3

Citizenship: 3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 14 (+1)

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 8

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 8 (+1)

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 4

Might: 27 (+1)

Wit: 10

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 5

Endurance: 8

Intimidating Presence: 7

Heart of a Champion: 2

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 1

Reginald:

Primary Class: Core Spirit (Unknown), Level ???

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 29

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 4

Might: 1

Wit: 24

Faith: 3

Ambition: 23

Greed: 18

Deceptiveness: 32

E$@$: $%

[-------------------------]

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 1

Do (Heavy):

Primary Class: None (Vee Vales)

Secondary Class: None (Vee Vales)

Might: ???

Wit: ???

Faith: ???

Citizenship (Bound - Vee Vales): 1