Dungeons Are Bad Business

Vee’s throat was dry as a desert as he stared at the blue-haired witch. The snowflakes in Holly’s eyes shimmered and shifted between silver and white, and there were no signs of humor anywhere to be found in her features. Though he wished otherwise, it seemed that Sacre’s daughter was dead serious about her warning.

“How do you know that?” Vee croaked. “What is he after?”

Holly shrugged. “I don’t know many of the details,” she said. “I just heard my dad yelling at Walnut about it right before I headed out to join the open call. He was louder than he’s been in years, which means that he was pissed. He said something about not caring how many locks there were, and not wanting that mangy prick to get any more of a head start than he already had.”

“Mangy prick?”

“Curlytail.” When she saw his blank expression, Holly rolled her eyes and shook her head. “The Don? You know? My dad’s rival?”

Vee cursed as the pieces snapped into place. That was the reason that the three kitrekin [Enforcers] had shown up at the Grinning Pig the other night.

“But what could they want out here in Westown? It’s just abandoned old forges and empty buildings, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what they’re after, but my dad doesn’t get angry like that if it’s not a big deal,” Holly answered. “He prides himself on staying cool under most circumstances. The last thing I heard him say was that he wanted constant patrols and presence in the area until someone – I didn’t catch the name – was finished cracking the locks they already had. I don’t know if there’s anything you can do about it, but I figured that you should know all the same.”

Vee scratched his head as he thought it over. Locks? What sort of locks were out there in Westown that needed to be cracked? Surely if there was a building or something else like that Sacre wanted into, it’d be faster and easier to just break down the doors or go through a broken window. Right?

“Did you hear anything else?” he asked.

Holly shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I heard another one of his guys coming down the hall and didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. My dad takes a very dim view of that, even for family members.”

Vee couldn’t fault her for that, so he thanked her for the information and they went down the stairs together to catch up with everyone else and see if the office had proven suitable for storing the weaponsoul.

As he clambered down the stairs, Vee’s mind started racing. He thought about the plots from old books he’d read where mysterious [Cultists] gathered in abandoned spaces, dedicating their life energy to summoning eldritch beings. Gawain’s balls, he really hoped that there wasn’t a group of black-robed lunatics hiding out in Westown, working on summoning something that would eat everyone’s faces off, including their own.

That was the problem with [Cultists], he thought, they never seemed to understand that their malevolent deity hated them just as much as it did everyone else.

Inside Vee’s lab, Reginald was giving Rortenferry and Duvian the grand tour, pointing out all of Vee’s experiments and telling the guests how they’d been used in the dungeon.

“That started out as a tank ghost that Vee wanted to call the Sponge. Terrible name, right? I tried to tell him that he needed to call it something else, but he can be stubborn sometimes, and dug in his heels on the matter. Anyway, he ended up not using it. Oh, hey, let’s go over there so you can get a better look at the prototype ghost arms. Some of those are fun.”

Rortenferry studied each of Vee’s workings with a serious gaze. He ran his finger along the ectoplasm curves and angles, checking their joints for cracks and tapping intermittently along their length to seek out thick or thin patches of energy. To Vee’s surprise and pleasure, his old [Professor] looked impressed for the most part, and gave him a small smile when he turned and saw that Vee and Holly had joined them in the lab.

“What do you think?” Vee asked.

“Well, it’s a little messy and unorganized,” Rortenferry said as Vee walked over to Duvian and reclaimed Reginald from her spindly arms. The hat flashed him a crooked grin and Vee shook his head before he put Reginald back on.

“However, I can’t honestly say that my own lab isn’t a proper mess too,” Rortenferry laughed. “I’m pleased with how sturdy your constructs are. These ghost arms are well-built. You must’ve spent a good bit of time using [Shape Ectoplasm] these past few years to have such consistent control.”

Vee felt his cheeks warm at the compliment, not least because he saw that Luna was smiling at him too.

“It’s probably my most used skill,” the [Dungeon Master] said.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Rortenferry said. “It’s one of the pillars of our class, after all. However, I couldn’t help but notice that there’s plenty of room to improve your security measures and some of your other assemblies. A couple of the gaps in your glyphs are…concerning to say the least. Something unpleasant could possibly worm its way through if you start throwing around a lot of power in here. As a way of saying thanks for allowing me to store the weaponsoul here, I’d be happy to give you some remedial lessons on proper workshop setup and precautions.”

Vee’s first instinct was to snap back at the mention of remedial lessons, but reason won out and he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t need the little tickle in the back of his mind to remind himself that the reality of his situation was that he’d knowingly skipped some corners in getting his lab set up, and that the fact that he hadn’t had any issues yet was mostly luck.

It would be good to go through his glyphs with an expert and make sure everything was setup the way it was supposed to be, Vee told himself. And then, maybe he could even ask for more help than that! Vee was certain Rortenferry could help him set up the necessary devices to make it easier to crank out low level ghosts. Or even higher level ghosts! His old [Professor] was a wellspring of knowledge and experience!

If he played his cards right – or just avoided burning the bridge to soothe his scratched pride – there was a good chance of Crestheart coming out ahead when this was all said and done.

“That’s very kind of you to offer,” Vee said. “I’d be pleased to take you up on it.”

Rortenferry clapped and turned to the far corner. “Excellent, lad, excellent! We’ll get started – “

“Tomorrow,” Duvian interrupted. “It’s late, Artem. Mister Vales is probably tired from his day’s work, and you need to be getting some rest as well. I can sense your exhaustion, even if you’d rather try to ignore it.”

The [Professor] pouted, which Vee thought was kind of funny. Rortenferry and his ghost companion were silent for a moment as they stared at one another – doubtlessly arguing through their bond, but eventually the other [Ghost Maestro] hung his head and the spirit looked vindicated.

“Indeed, my [Seneschal] once again makes a fine point,” Rortenferry said. “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow, after I examine your fiends.”

“That’s fine with me,” Vee said, and the group left the lab, heading down to the street. As they walked back toward the gate, Vee found his gaze lingering on the buildings and alleys all around him. There was something out there that Sacre and the Don wanted, but he didn’t know what it was. Admittedly, he didn’t have much to go off of, just that there was a lock or multiple locks involved.

That…didn’t really narrow it down much, and as Vee trudged along, he realized that he didn’t really know…well, anything about how the gangsters functioned. Oh, make no mistake, he’d pieced together a few things here and there – like the fact that they both collected protection money from merchants around the city and Sacre offered unfair loans – but he lacked any real insight into the bigger picture. How did the two criminals interact with each other? What industries were they focused on? Organized crime was almost always about money, so how did Sacre and the Don make theirs?

Normally, his ignorance on the subject wouldn’t have bothered him. He wasn’t particularly interested in the underworld – his focus generally aimed squarely at the ethereal – but he couldn’t shake the feeling in his guts that this was a gap in his knowledge that he desperately needed to correct. After all, while Sacre and the Don had been content to nip at each other’s throats and generally leave the rest of the city alone for a long time, the [Dungeon Master] had a sneaking suspicion that wouldn’t always be the case.

Worse, the tickle in the back of his mind gave him reason to think that he might find himself a target in their sights at some point down the line.

Now that wasn’t exactly a fun thought.

Vee looked up at the sky. The night was clear but for a few thin clouds, and the moons were shining with bright silver light. It wasn’t very cold either; Vee could barely see his breath. The stars were out and Vee came to a decision then and there.

He was going to expand his knowledge, and he knew just how to do it.

“Hey, Reginald?”

“What’s up, Boss?”

“When we get back to the boarding house, there’s something I want your help with, okay? I need to pick your brain about a few things.”

“What sort of things?”

“City stuff. Gangster stuff.”

“Sure thing,” the hat said, sounding ever so slightly pleased. He was stopped from responding further by Holly, who was gesturing at him and Alforde. The [Snowmancer] looked at Vee, then pointedly at Luna, then even more pointedly back to Vee again.

Reginald’s eyes widened, and his mouth curled into a broad grin as he understood exactly what the blue-haired witch was getting at.

“Hey, Boss? That actually reminds me of something,” Reginald said. “Rortenferry wanted to talk to me and the big guy about something down in the lab, earlier but we got distracted. Would you mind if we went over and did that now? I don’t want to leave it until tomorrow.”

Vee had turned attention back up to the stars, and said, “Sure, that’s fine,” absentmindedly. “Go ahead and do what you need to. I’ll just hang out by the gate until you’re done.”

Taking off the hat, Vee handed Reginald to Alforde and the pair walked over to join Rortenferry, Holly, and Duvian.

The gate creaked open, and the group stopped just beyond it. Caught up in his thoughts as he was – what was he going to do if the gangs started causing problems near Crestheart? – Vee didn’t see everyone but him and Luna slowly slide into the shadows.

Indeed, it was something of a shock when he realized that he was all alone with the [Pumpkin Witch], though Vee was then quick to realize that he’d been set up. He glared over at his friends and old teacher, but Reginald simply cackled and winked, and Alforde looked amused as they all headed off together into the night.

“Those guys are something else,” Vee muttered as he looked at Luna. The [Pumpkin Witch] giggled, and Vee’s heart started to race.

She really was extremely pretty, especially since the pumpkins in her eyes reflected the light of the moons.

“It’s not just them. Holly is a piece of work too,” she said.

They were both quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say next.

Clearing his throat, Vee asked, “Um, is your arm okay? Does it hurt or anything?”

Luna shook her head. “The wound wasn’t too bad to begin with, and we had a good [Medic] in our party who had it mostly taken care of by the time we got back. However, he said that I’d be better off if I waited a few more days before removing the bandages.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Vee said. “I’m glad that you’re okay. It would have been very not good if you’d gotten seriously hurt.”

He winced inwardly. Gawain’s bald head, that sounded stupid out loud. Vee’s cheeks flushed, and he hurried to come up with an excuse that would let him exit the situation with some measure of dignity intact.

However, just as he settled on one – Well, I’m afraid that my knees are aching something fierce from the cold, so I’m going to have to go ahead and leave now, but it was great to see you – Vee had a thought. Well, not so much a thought as a sudden realization that this might well be one of those crossroads in life that self-help types were always ranting about. It had all the classic signs of being one; namely that Vee thought it was.

Later in his life, the [Dungeon Master] would occasionally think back to this moment fondly. During his more pensive moods, he’d wonder if he’d been under the influence of a skill of some sort, just a cog in the machine of something much bigger than he was, or if what happened next had been nothing more than the moons and stars simply working their magic on him the way they had countless other young people since the dawn of time.

Regardless of the ultimate cause, there beneath the open sky and surrounded by piles of snow, Vee stood up straighter and looked into Luna’s eyes.

“Would you like to go out some time?” His voice wavered once, but didn’t crack or break as the words spilled out. “On a date, I mean. We could get coffee, or dinner, or even just take a walk or something?”

[Guts +1]

Luna returned his smile and Vee felt as if his feet might lift off the ground.

“I’d like that,” she said. “I’d like that a lot.”

Side by side, the [Ghost Maestro] and [Pumpkin Witch] continued making small talk as they followed their friends into the darkness.