Dungeons Are Bad Business

Wiping snow from his hair and the sleeves of his jacket, Vee pushed open the doors of the adventurer’s guild and saw that it was almost completely empty. A few old timers hung out at the tables, enjoying the guild’s complimentary coffee, and chatting with one another as they played cards.

One of them, a man with a red nose and gray mustache, looked at Vee and nodded solemnly. “[Dungeon Master],” he said. “Here about the snow?”

The man’s companions all looked up too, and Vee found himself meeting all of their gazes in turn. Though he felt a twinge of his old embarrassment at being the object of such serious expressions, something stiffened in his spine and he didn’t blink. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled a little bit, but it wasn’t quite a true shift in the ethereal.

“Yeah, we’re going to see if we can work something out with the guilds using our dungeon’s slimes to keep the city’s roads clear,” Vee said.

“Glad to hear it,” said the man. “We were just talking about what a nightmare the streets were going to be. The last time it snowed like this, the council didn’t do anything and people were stuck in their homes for days.”

“Bunch of useless pricks on the council,” one of his companions said. “They never do anything. What do our tax fleurs even go toward anyways?”

That earned a round of grumbling agreement from the rest of the men, and Vee wondered if he was supposed to say something. Should he agree with them? Something told him that he should, but it was at odds with another impulse to stay quiet. Thankfully, he didn’t have to make a decision; the moment passed.

Vee bid them all a good rest of their day before making his way over to the lone [Receptionist] and asking about setting up a job.

The process was surprisingly streamlined, and to Vee’s great joy, there was barely any paperwork to go along with it. Crestheart would provide ten fire slimes to the guild and instruct the adventurers how to handle them, and then the guild members would take care of the rest. Simple, really. However, the [Receptionist] frowned when Vee mentioned that he hadn’t brought any fleurs to pay the job filing fee or the reward.

“We generally don’t allow jobs to be posted without paying the fee,” explained the [Receptionist]. “After all, how exactly is the guild supposed to earn anything from ‘a discount on future dungeon runs’?”

“Take a donation wagon with you,” said Reginald. “Tell the citizens what you’re doing and why, and see if any of them want to chip in a few fleurs as a way of saying thanks.”

“And we’d be the sole recipient of all funds acquired in such a manner?” the [Receptionist] asked.

“Only until the listing fee is paid. After that we’ll be taking half,” Reginald said.

“What if the job listing fee doesn’t get paid in full? Would you be willing to cover the remainder? Are you willing to make a personal guarantee that the adventurers will get their reward?”

“No, I’m not,” Vee interrupted, surprised at the venom in his voice. “I’ve already offered plenty, and while I’m amenable to splitting the income, I won’t be paying you for the privilege of making sure that the city functions properly.”

The man’s eyes widened, but Vee held his gaze and lifted his chin. He was angry – well, more irritated in all truthfulness – at the way the man balked at doing something which would so obviously help, and not interested in carrying the conversation any further.

[Intimidating Presence +1]

“I understand. Well, uh, here you go,” said the [Receptionist], lifting up a piece of paper with the details of the job and passing it under the window so that Vee could sign it. “I’ll be sure to get it posted right away. When will you have the slimes ready for delivery?”

Vee took the sheet and signed it with flourish. “We’ll have them all over early tomorrow morning,” he said. “We have dungeon runs scheduled that we’ll need to be back in Westown for.”

“Understood,” the [Receptionist] said. “I’ll make sure that whoever is on duty tomorrow is here early.”

Ten slimes wouldn’t be too difficult to transport. He’d probably have to enlist Kai’s help to make sure they could handle them all in one trip, but that wasn’t a big deal. The bonsai treant loved going into the city proper, and would probably be happy for the chance to do so.

Vee passed the paper back under the window and looked over at the posting board. There were probably forty or fifty color-coordinated jobs scattered around on it. He wondered what the different shades meant. Were the colors based on the level of difficulty and danger? Approximate reward value? He couldn’t read the details from here, but when the man posted his job, the [Dungeon Master] couldn’t help but notice that the paper was a light green color that stood out for the fact that it was the only one of its kind up there.

That pissed him off, and he swore that he’d be back with other jobs as soon as he could afford to pay for them.

[Citizenship +1]

[Failed to receive quest! Reason: Citizenship too low (Requires 20 points!)]

With Alforde behind him, the [Dungeon Master] left the adventurer’s guild and headed back into the snowy streets of the city.

The next morning, Vee frowned as he left the boarding house and found himself almost up to his knees in snow. Up above his head, the sky was clear, but that didn’t mean much. There was the whole day ahead for more snow clouds to roll on in.

Sitting on her stoop – which was somehow completely clear and perfectly dry – Sculla smiled at Vee and laughed when the [Dungeon Master] lost his balance and faceplanted into the white powder. If she was cold in her sleeveless vest and thin pants, she showed no sign of it.

“Should let the big guy go first,” the ogre said, taking a long drag of her pipe. “He seems like he’s better suited to it.”

Cursing under his breath, Vee did as she suggested, turning back to wave goodbye to the ogre as he followed Alforde to the gate. Sculla waved back.

“Don’t dawdle on the way back,” she called after them. “Getting lots of boxes in this afternoon that’ll need to be moved.”

“Of course you are,” Vee grumbled, tucking his hands into his pockets to try and keep them warm.

As he’d expected, the roads were virtually impassable, with drifts of snow that reached up to Vee’s shoulders and above. Even Alforde, covered in frost of his own, had to slow down here and there to push through a particularly stubborn snowbank so that they could reach the gate.

Thankfully, the road to Crestheart itself was far more manageable, thanks to their efforts with the slimes the night before. Vee only tripped once.

Kai was waiting for them outside the tower, basking in a patch of sun atop his barkbody like some sort of leafy cat. The blooms on his shoulders were bigger and more vibrant than Vee had ever seen, and the bonsai treant was grinning and waved cheerily as they approached.

“Finally! I’ve been waiting here for hours!”

Vee smiled. The treant’s timeline wasn’t quite correct, but it wasn’t a big enough deal to bother correcting. He’d asked Kai to come to the tower no more than an hour beforehand, reaching through his bond with the member of the medium section now known as Dandelion to do so.

The way the fiend had taken to assisting in the menagerie was interesting, and Vee wondered if the rest of the medium section might find similar enjoyment of other tasks. For some reason, they simply weren’t like the heavy or light sections, and weren’t interested in becoming a collective entity.

Perhaps he could convince Torres or Hanako to accept fiendish assistance, and expand the support corps of the dungeon over time.

Shaking his head, Vee dismissed the thought. That was an issue for Future Vee. Right now, he needed to focus on delivering the slimes to the adventurer’s guild and getting back to Crestheart before the first runs of the day.

Pinching his thumb and index finger together, Vee used [Shape Ectoplasm] to make a handful of leashes that he had Alforde attach to each fire slime’s core. The armorsoul had learned from his previous experience, and the job went much faster. After that, Vee put together an ectoplasm box for each of them to protect them from any snow that might fall that day. The [Ghost Maestro] chatted with Kai while he worked.

“So, how are things going in the menagerie?” he asked.

“They’re great,” said Kai. “Dandelion has been really helpful, and I think I’ve got a nice pen set up for Pretzel. There should be some more slimes soon.”

“And the skeletons?”

“Still coming up with novel ways to try and escape, but the warding plants are keeping them penned in.”

Vee nodded.

“Good to hear.”

Once the slimes were ready to go, Vee divvied them up and headed back to town. Knowing his own strength all too well, Vee only took two, and Kai took the same amount. That left six for Alforde to wrestle with, but the armorsoul didn’t seem to mind. He kept looking back at his cape and giggling.

The ground around them hissed as the slimes melted the snow beneath their feet. It was a strange sensation, and Vee kept a wary eye on their colors as they walked. For now, things seemed to be fine – all the slimes were still bright red and glurbling happily – but eventually he knew that they’d need to be fed some crystals. Admittedly, this was one part of his plan that he didn’t feel particularly great about; the bag of crystals was filled and heavy, but would there be enough “fuel” to keep the slimes in peak shape? He doubted it. Whoever ended up handling the slimes would probably have to take breaks every few hours to let the critters “recharge” next to a roaring flame unless they had access to some sort of [Fire Magic] of their own. Oh well, that wasn’t his problem.

Luckily, the lack of falling snow seemed to really slow down the rate at which the slime’s energy depleted; they were still a healthy shade of red by the time the trio made it to the guild. In their wake was a wide path of cleared sidewalk, which the citizens out and about had already noticed and thanked them for.

Walking up to the [Receptionist]’s desk, Vee completed the paperwork to let the guild take control of the slimes and gave the woman a simple explanation of proper slime handling procedure. Basically, it boiled down to ‘hold on to the leash no matter what and make sure the slime doesn’t get too pale’. Pretty simple stuff, really.

Once that was done, it was time to hurry back to the dungeon for the start of the day’s runs.

A handful of adventurers were waiting outside Crestheart, and they nodded to Vee as the [Dungeon Master] made his way inside. He was pleased to see that so many had showed up – his quick count was fifteen – and hoped that a few more would trickle in as the day went on.

Setting Reginald down in the office, Vee took his seat and waited for first adventurer to enter. It was a big elkin [Fighter] bearing twin swords, so Vee wasted no time in expending a charge of [Boost Drops]. The adventurer looked like the type to really take his time destroying all the minions. Two skeleton mages and a pair of ghosts on the second floor were Marked, and Vee fiddled with his dials and knobs until they were all as he wanted, then gave the go ahead for the run to start.

The [Dungeon Master] was impatient as he watched the adventurer slowly walk into the first room. This run wasn’t particularly important. Instead, Vee’s attention was fixated on the run after he’d used all of his charges of [Boost Drops], though he couldn’t be sure when that would be.

He’d already decided that he was going to try and push for another use of the skill today, with the goal of “marking” two minions on the final cast. It was impossible to know when he’d finally unlock a fourth true cast of the skill, but Vee was determined to keep pressing forward a little bit at a time until he got there.

Just as the adventurer finished the first floor, there came a knocking sound that almost caused Vee to fall out of his chair.

After all, it came from outside the window.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 28

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 17

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 5

Might: 11

Wit: 29

Faith: 20

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 12

Plotting: 15

Charisma: 10

Devious Mind: 19

Leadership: 15

Guts: 11

Intimidating Presence: 9 (+1)

Citizenship: 19 (+1)

Public Relations: 4

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 20

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 12

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 13

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 2

Might: 35

Wit: 11

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Endurance: 16

Intimidating Presence: 11

Heart of a Champion: 6

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 7

Vigilance: 5

Reginald:

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

--~%@(%$@ &% (*$ #&#e !i$$ (#$%#$%#$@!)~--, #$v@& ????

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 39

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 12

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 6

Might: 1

Wit: 30

Faith: 10

Ambition: 25

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 28

Manipulativeness: 35

F^#$#$%@#

Loyalty: 44

Patience: 12

[#@$%%^*!#@__--#%]

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 5