Dungeons Are Bad Business

With the Westown strip coming along so nicely, Vee decided to go ahead and dedicate some time and attention to another task that he'd been putting off: convincing the council to let him open the gate to Westown full time. While he didn't yet have any tenants who would take advantage of such a schedule, Vee was hopeful that Westown would eventually turn into a part of the city like any other and have things to do no matter what time of day or night it was.

Armed with a notebook, a pen, and a bag of Joleimna's finest caramel apple candy, Vee sought out Sculla. The ogre was where she usually was, lounging on the stoop of the boarding house with her pipe dangling from her mouth and a bored expression on her face.

She looked over at Vee and raised her eyebrow. The [Dungeon Master] grunted, feeling suddenly like an invisible pair of hands were gently pressing down on his shoulders.

"What do you want?"

Vee didn't answer, but like a [Priestess] making an offering, Vee bent over ever so slightly and gently set the bag of candy down next to her. He looked up and gave Sculla a hopeful smile. "I was hoping you could help me with something."

She looked down at the candy and took a long draw from her pipe. After a moment she picked up the bag and withdrew a single piece. She popped it into her mouth and chewed twice, then swallowed. "For what it's worth, I prefer Joleimna's cinnamon stars. I think these are a touch too sweet. That said, I'm listening. What's on your mind?"

Vee explained what he wanted, and Sculla rubbed her chin. "A primer for understanding the members of the council? Sure, I can do that, but wouldn't it be easier if I just went and did it for you? Probably faster too."

"That's true, but this is something I feel like I should do myself," Vee said. "It might seem kind of silly, but I suspect that I'm going to have to deal with them a lot in the future so I might as well start getting used to it."

"Makes sense," Sculla said, eating another couple pieces of candy. "It never hurts to get familiar with those you're going to be interacting with on a regular basis. Alright, sit down next to me here, and I'll give you an overview. It's not like I have much else to do today anyway."

Vee did as directed, and for the next hour or so he listened to the ogre talk. Sculla spoke in a relaxed, even tone that gave the [Dungeon Master] just enough time to write down everything she said. His hand ached – it'd been quite some time since he'd last written so fast for so long – and he felt a little bit like he was back in one of his many lecture classes, frantically writing down what he heard without so much as processing it. That wasn't a particularly happy memory; Vee had never been particularly fond of those lecture classes.

Similarly, he swore under his breath when a notification popped up in front of his eyes and told him that he was suffering from the Cramped status effect. While relatively minor, Cramped was annoying, and it meant that Vee would now have to go out and seek an actual remedy if he didn't want to wait hours for the pain to go away. That was, in a word, a pain.

When Sculla took a short break to refill her pipe and presumably catch her breath a little bit, Vee looked down at his mess of notes and started reading them over. At the end of each month – specifically the fourth Friarsday – the council met in their office to discuss both old and new business, and petitions needed to be filed at least a week before the meeting. Since there was still nearly two weeks until then, Vee had plenty of time to make and fine tune his pitch, which he fully intended to take advantage of.

There were seven members of the council in total, and while they were ostensibly equals who all needed to vote on any given matter of business there was a clear and distinct hierarchy between the members. Seidon was on top of this arrangement, the chairman of the council in charge of directing their efforts and setting their schedule. He was the one who decided which petitions got heard and which ones did not, which didn't bode especially well for Vee.

The other six members – including the two Vee had met previously – were tasked with various jobs: treasurer, secretary, commerce liaison, adventurer liaison, community outreach manager, and rulecorder. That last role, apparently, was somewhat vestigial, having lost most of its original purpose to the secretary. However, life went on, and the rulecorder – a salamander named Neila – now served as the de facto head of Oar's Crest's [City Guards].

"If you're thinking about trying to butter one or two members up a bit before you go and pitch your idea to the whole council, I'd suggest you go ahead and start here," Sculla explained, reaching down and tapping Neila's name. "In terms of duties she's the closest to your request, and having the closest member to an issue on your side when you walk into the room is worth its weight in dairy gold."

"Butter up?"

Sculla nodded. "Yeah. The sticky palm gets the grease, you know?"

Vee wasn't entirely sure he'd ever heard that idiom before, but in the grand scheme of things it really wasn't worth pushing back on. The meaning was plenty clear enough.

"I see. How much 'butter' would I need for such a thing?" he asked. While he would have much preferred to avoid any sort of bribery, he was clear-eyed enough about how the world worked to understand the inherent naivete in such a wish. After all, fleurs – or some other good with sufficiently plausible deniability for both the giver and receiver – made the world go round.

Coxin shifted on his shoulder, and Vee got the distinct impression that the snake-dragon disapproved of that mentality. He frowned. Perhaps he should reconsider.

"That's a good question. See, Neila is a bit of an odd one," Sculla said slowly, her eyes twinkling as she met Vee's gaze. The [Dungeon Master] wondered if she was aware of the Expectation's rebuke or if it was born from something else. "Unlike a few of the other council members whose votes you could reasonably buy for a few dozen golds, she's not at all interested in wealth. I mean, sure, if you offered her enough coins she might be willing to vote however you'd like her to, but I doubt you've got a hundred platinum fleurs laying around."

"I wish," Vee muttered, unable to stop himself from thinking about all the peace he could buy with that kind of money. "But if she doesn't care about money, what can I offer her instead?"

Sculla shrugged and ate the last pieces of candy, burping a moment later as she handed the empty bag back to Vee. "Sorry, it wouldn't be fair to tell you that. Some things you have to figure out for yourself. Otherwise what are you going to do if I'm not around some day for you to go and get advice from, eh?"

That was a fair point, but as was often the case, "fair" didn't mean "fun". Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Well, can you at least tell me how I should go about figuring that out?"

Sculla blew a smoke ring into the sky and looked up at the clouds. "Why should I? Surely you've got people you can rely on for that, right? Your [Majordomo] or your [Right Hand Man] wouldn't be worth much if you can't lean on them to solve your problems."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Vee frowned. "Well, I suppose there's nothing stopping me from asking Alforde or Reginald for advice and suggestions, but they're both fairly busy with the Westown Strip and I'm not really doing much over there. From a like, division of duties perspective, it'd probably be best if I can handle this one on my own."

"Then I suggest you get to thinking," Sculla said.

"Can you tell me where I can even find her?"

"Neila lives over in Southtown, near Whiskerton's Way. If you ask around, I'm sure someone can point you in the right direction"

Vee jotted that down on his notes, trying to recall if he'd ever been to Whiskerton's Way before. He shook his head; if he had he had no recollection of it.

Sculla took another big puff of her pipe. "And with that, I'm going to go ahead and end our discussion here. I've got clouds to watch."

Unsurprised by the dismissal, Vee nodded and thanked the ogre for her time. He stood up and walked away, meandering back toward Westown when Sculla coughed and spoke up again.

"If you get stuck and want some more advice, bring me something else. Not candy though; contrary to popular belief it's extremely easy to have too much of a good thing."

Vee felt another strange twinge in his chest, as if he'd been added to a pact that was greater than it seemed on the surface, but promised to keep that in mind as he walked away. He had no idea what he'd bring for such an event, but didn't want to invest the time or energy into thinking about it just then, lest the prospect of a task that begat another task invite a bout of Fetchquestitis – a status effect that caused extreme irritation and digestive issues.

He ultimately decided against going and trying to find Neila that day. There was still some time yet before he needed to submit his proposal for the council meeting, and it would do him no good if he went to find her.

Instead, he headed for the nearest [Apothecary] shop to ease his aching wrist, thinking with every step what sort of things he had to offer to Neila. Or anyone, for that matter; it wasn't like his toolbox was so well stocked that he had a bevy of options available to him at all times. There were only so many things he could do with ectoplasm, he thought, and he doubted that a council member would have a burning desire for anything he could make with it. She probably wasn't the type to be into dunpla figures or "freeform" ectoplasm sculptures – especially given the fact that Vee had next to no experience with such things. It would be the rare person who was moved to – admittedly temporary – loyalty by the sight of a misshapen blob.

Maybe he could offer her some sort of custom ghost assistant? With time and effort, he could probably craft something that was reasonably complex and useful, but even accepting that, what sort of assistant could he even make?

Dozens of ideas, each feeling worse than the last, fluttered through his head, and Vee grew increasingly frustrated as he dismissed them one after another.

Worse, it wasn't like a solution was going to just fall into his lap, either. While it was true in strictest sense that there was some degree of, say, fuzziness, to the world and a person could reasonably expect a chance meeting or other bit of coincidence to offer solutions during times of trial, Vee had read his fables and knew that people who relied on those things tended to end up in not such great places. For his own benefit, he needed to think carefully and come up with a proper plan. One with lots of bullet points and differently lettered contingencies. Yes, that would do it.

[Wit +1]

"Plan A. No, wait, make that Plan One," Vee said, trying to summon such a plan into existence within the confines of his skull. There was something formless there, he thought, but before it could solidify further, Vee slammed into something small and light.

"Ow! Watch where you're going!"

A woman's voice. A slightly reptilian woman's voice. Vee looked down, and saw an angry-looking salamander with pink scales on the ground in front of him. She was dressed in a dignified manner, and Vee felt something strange in the air as she started to get up.

Quickly glancing skyward and wondering if this was just one of those times he'd been thinking about, Vee extended his hand.

"Sorry about that, let me help you up."

The salamander swore at him, but took his hand and let Vee pull her to her feet. The act of doing so sent a wave of pain through Vee's Cramped wrist, but he ignored it.

She dusted herself off, and Vee decided that he might as well ask and see if life was having a laugh at him once again.

"Um, excuse me. I know this is going to seem both strange and random, but I have to know. Is your name Neila?"

A moment that felt like an eternity passed, and Vee stared into the salamander's eyes.

"No."

And with that, the moment was broken, and Vee apologized again before resuming his trip to the [Apothecary]'s shop.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Cramped (Left Wrist, Left Forearm)

Primary Class: Ghost Smith (Self), Level 10

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar's Crest), Level 25

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 8

Might: 18

Wit: 43 (+1)

Faith: 25

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 16

Plotting: 22

Charisma: 18

Devious Mind: 30

Leadership: 22

Guts: 16

Intimidating Presence: 12

Citizenship: 25

Public Relations: 8

Determination: 7

Persuasiveness: 6

Bargaining: 8

Patience: 4

Competitive Spirit: 1

Pragmatism: 1

<3<3 Infatuation <3<3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Specialist (Self), Level 6

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 20

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar's Crest), Level 18

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 14

Might: 63

Wit: 17

Faith: 27

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Endurance: 36

Intimidating Presence: 16

Heart of a Champion: 15

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 10

Vigilance: 11

Vanity: 2

Single-Mindedness: 1

Reginald:

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

#$&Q#$)(@#$#@#$%!@#$##%#%()@#$**@@##

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 43

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 21

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 14

Additional Class: Hyperthymesiac (Self), Level 5

Additional Class: Curmudgeon (Vee Vales), Level 1

Might: 3

Wit: 38

Faith: 17

Ambition: 29

Greed: 24

Deceptiveness: 28

Manipulativeness: 43

$#&*!@!!: !!!

Loyalty: 49

Patience: 11

Irritability: 27

Remorsefulness: 17

Expository Prowess: 23

Pragmatism: #@$%@$

Hop@#!! @#$@!@#

@#$@%%^

#4^5#*&_!+++#(@$#

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 10