Vee sat as straight as he could at the table inside Angelino’s smoky dining room and forced himself to keep staring into Sacre’s eyes. He could feel the weight of the [Honest Businessman]’s intimidating presence, but was determined to not give in to his instincts and look away. He wished he had a few more points of guts. That would have really helped mitigate the pressure.

It might have been easier to bear if Sacre had been glaring or something, but despite the fact that he’d just come through a rumble with his biggest rival, Sacre looked as calm as he had when Vee had first met him. He was even smiling a little bit!

There was an old saying Vee had often heard about his father: It’s like he’s got ice in his veins. That didn’t apply to Sacre. He must have been made out of ice to be sitting there so calmly.

Sacre held up a cigar and one of the goons standing next to the table leaned over and snapped his fingers, lighting it with a small burst of flame that appeared above his thumb. Sacre took a moment to make sure that the cigar was burning properly, and then let out a long puff of smoke.

“Well, let’s get down to it, eh? You know why you’re here, right?”

Of course. Vee had known exactly what the deal was as soon as he’d opened the envelope in the tower’s office and a menu for Angelino’s had tumbled out with a sketch of the rose lapel pin doodled on the back. There was really only one thing that could mean. Let’s talk about the money you owe me.

Say this for mafia guys: they’re good at making their point without having to use words. Probably kill at charades too.* Maybe there’s a skill that they all have or something.

After cursing his bad luck, Vee had racked his brain to try and come up with as many ideas as he could for earning some more fleurs. As it was, the dungeon was paying its own expenses pretty well, but they really didn’t have enough to pay back the principal of the loan, let alone the interest, which was sure to be significant. Vee had known that he’d need to start figuring that out eventually, but he’d been so caught up with other things that running Crestheart required that it had gotten stuck in that part of his brain that Future Vee was responsible for handling.

Well, the future was now, and Vee wasn’t remotely prepared for it. Still, he had no choice but to nod solemnly and hope that he’d find the right words as he went.

He looked over to his left and saw Walnut sitting at the table beside them. Sacre’s [Left Hand Man] looked rough. His face was covered in cuts and bruises and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Still, the city had breathed a collective sigh of relief when he’d turned up alive outside Angelino’s. Just as Walnut’s disappearance had caused the violence in the first place, his return led to an almost immediate cessation of hostilities.

Walnut met Vee’s gaze and the [Dungeon Master] didn’t blink. After a few seconds, the [Left Hand Man] looked away and muttered something under his breath.

[Intimidating Presence +1]

“Show me your books,” Sacre said with a gesture.

“[Excellent Spreadsheet],” Vee said, and Cecil appeared in front of him, floating just above the table. Sacre snapped his fingers, and the spreadsheet crossed the table until it was in front of him. He took another drag of his cigar before flipping through each of Cecil’s sheets, his eyes slowly roving across the rows and columns.

Now and then, the [Honest Businessman] would pause and he’d soundlessly move his lips as he calculated some figure or ratio before nodding to himself and moving on. Each time this happened, Vee felt an overwhelming urge to jump in and start talking, but he resisted it and kept his mouth closed. Better to be thought the fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

When Sacre finished his review, he pushed Cecil back towards Vee and the [Dungeon Master] dismissed the spreadsheet with a wave.

“I thought you said that you only needed three thousand gold fleurs when you came to me before,” Sacre said. “But unless my eyes deceive me, you’re in the hole for more than four thousand. More than forty-three hundred, in fact. Those weren’t the terms we agreed to.”

Vee gulped. Costs had run a little higher than he’d expected, especially with the need to redesign the dungeon so soon after opening. “You’re right. It’s a lot of money,” he said, “But if I remember correctly, you were mostly afraid that I was going to take the money and run. The fact that I invested more than we originally discussed shows that I’m serious about making the dungeon work, right?”

“Yeah,” Reginald said, “it’s not like he’s spending money on fancy dinners and lots of booze or anything like–”

Sacre held up a hand and a wave of animosity so strong it forced Reginald to be silent erupted from his palm. Vee almost bit his tongue when his own jaw slammed shut. He glowered at the hat, which was sitting on the table next to Vee and took another puff of his cigar.

“Did I ask you what he’s spending it on? No, I didn’t. Let your boss do his own talking or I’ve got a pair of scissors with your name on them. Got it? [Don’t Say Another Word].”

Reginald frowned but didn’t protest any further, and Vee was left to his own words once again.

“Crestheart is earning fleurs but we’re still too small to really turn a significant profit. We need just a bit more time and then we can start paying you back.”

Sacre shook his head.

“Don’t give me any of that garbage. You’re not too small. You’re just crap at running a business. You’re too green, kid. Your floor prices are too low, your treasures and rewards for clearing are too high. You’re not marketing at all, and you’ve only got the one stream of revenue. I could go on and on. But none of that matters, see? What matters is that you’re in the hole for over four thousand gold fleurs and I want to start seeing some payments. [Get The Picture]?”

Vee nodded as the skill gave him a crystal clear understanding.

“This is how this is going to go,” Sacre said in a silky tone that brooked no argument. “I like you well enough, kid. Walnut told me about how you had your armored friend there hold that prick Seidon out the window of your office a little bit. That’s a mark in your favor. I like your dungeon too, it’s good for the city. So, I’m going to be generous. Don’t make me regret it. We’re going to start your payments at a minimum of five gold fleurs a week. Every week, that minimum is going to go up by another five gold fleurs until the entire principal is paid back. With me so far?”

Another nod, as Vee started crunching numbers in his head to try and find out how long it’d take to pay back the loan at that rate.

“Good,” said Sacre. “Because then, once the principal is paid off, you’re going to pay me interest. Deal’s the same. The payment keeps going up by five gold fleurs each week.”

“And how long do I have to do that?” Vee asked.

“Two weeks for every month it takes you to pay off the principal. If you want to pay extra to get it done with sooner, I won’t stop you.”

Vee was tempted to resummon Cecil and plug all the numbers into the appropriate places to figure out how long and how expensive that would end up being, but didn’t. He’d do it later.+

Sacre smiled as he flicked the ashes from his cigar into a nearby ashtray. There was no mirth in it. “Oh, one other thing, kid. If you miss one payment, the rate for the week starts going up by ten instead of five. Miss two payments and you’re going to have a hard time walking. Miss three payments and…you’re smart, right? [Get The Picture]?”

“I do,” Vee said, as the image of himself being thrown out the window of his tower formed in his mind.

“We’re done for now, then. Since I know that the recent unpleasantness caused things to slow down for you, I’ll wait till next week to have Christopher come by and collect the first payment. Go on ahead and get out of here.”

And with that, Vee stood up, picked up Reginald and nodded to Alforde. The three of them left Angelino’s and headed back to Sculla’s.

“We are so screwed,” Vee said as he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

For once, neither Alforde nor Reginald offered any arguments to the contrary.

*Figuratively or literally, could really go either way.

+ Since the debt is currently 4391 gold fleurs, the repayment plan works out to 9121 gold fleurs to be repaid over approximately 65 weeks, assuming Vee doesn’t miss a payment. “What does the scanner say?”, etc.

***

Somehow, despite the fact that every building near Sculla’s had had its windows smashed and doors broken in half, the boarding house itself was completely untouched. The ogre smiled at Vee when he asked how she’d been spared and flicked her pipe dismissively. Some embers smoldered on the ground for a moment before being extinguished. There was mischief in her eyes.

“Got lucky, I suppose.”

Vee suspected that her “luck” had more to do with the boxes she was always having them carry into the basement than anything else, but let the matter drop. There were too many other issues to worry about just then. He followed Alforde up to their room and flopped down on the bed. Tossing Reginald onto the table, Vee summoned Cecil, got out a notebook and one of his fountain pens and got to writing.

“Alright, how do we make these payments? The good news is that we can cover the first few with what we already earn, but we’re going to fall behind pretty quick of we don’t start bringing in some more money.”

“We could raise the floor price a little bit,” Reginald suggested. “Like Sacre said, we’re probably not charging enough. If we bump the fee up to fifteen silvers for each of the main floors and twenty for Alforde’s, that’d be a huge boost to our revenues.”

“Fifteen silvers for a normal floor? Won’t such a steep increase stop people from coming though?” Vee asked. “I could see going to twelve or thirteen, maybe, but I think fifteen is too much. We don’t want to scare the adventurers away. Then we’d be worse off than before.”

“I don’t think adventurer demand is particularly elastic*,” Reginald said. “Most of them are trying to get as much experience as possible, and fifteen silver fleurs really isn’t that much for a floor’s worth of fighting and puzzle solving. If the dungeon hadn’t been updated, you might have a point, but with all the improvements we’ve made a price increase is more than justified. Especially if we keep buying better monsters.”

Vee summoned Cecil and used the spreadsheet’s functions to calculate how much Reginald’s proposed increase would boost revenues. Up until the recent closures, they’d averaged around fourteen adventurers a day, with almost all of them choosing to challenge Alforde for the additional fee. If that challenge rate stayed the same, increasing the floor costs would raise their weekly revenue to almost fifty gold fleurs a week. That’d help get them through the first couple months of repayment, but it was far from solving all their problems. If only it didn’t cost so much to add another floor to the dungeon! If Crestheart was five or six floors deep, they could really make some money!

“Is there any easy way we could get more adventurers to come to the dungeon?” Vee asked. “If we could get boost the amount of challengers to like twenty a day or something that’d be huge.”

“We could try to take out an ad in the paper,” Alforde suggested. “But I guess that’d cost money too and since none of us really know how to write good ads, we’d probably just be throwing our fleurs away.”

Vee drummed his fingers on the table and chewed on the cap of his pen as he thought. He wrote down “Ads? Look into hiring [Copywriter] for campaign help.”

He was feeling a bit better. Now that there were some tangible ideas to start pursuing, the task of repaying the loan didn’t seem as daunting as it originally had. It was still somewhat terrifying – especially given the rapid nature of missed payment escalations – but so long as they were smart about their next moves, everything would be okay. At least, Vee hoped so. We can get through this, and then we’ll never borrow another tin fleur from the mafia ever again.

Vee’s thoughts turned to his idea to animate the mannequins and have them work as shopkeepers. He’d been planning to wait a while before really jumping headlong into the tedium of drawing up orders and testing transactions, but with this new pressure, he really couldn’t afford to wait.

First though, he needed an inventory of things for them to sell. Standing up, Vee threw his coat back on and tossed Reginald onto his head.

“Where are you going?” asked Alforde. “It’s already pretty dark out. What if there’s still some angry gangsters out and about?”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s what you’re here for. Besides, there are plenty of regular folks out on the streets trying to get things cleaned up. I bet most places are still open. Let’s go look for an [Alchemist] or [Apothecary] who’s willing to work cheap,” Vee said. “Either of you know where we can find one? I want to see about getting some low-level potions made.”

“There’s an [Apothecary] over by the market, I think,” said Alforde. “I’ve never been in, but the place always had a customer or two whenever I went into the bookstore.”

“Perfect. We’ll start there then.”

*See Author's Note at the end of the chapter

***

Unfortunately, along with most of the block that it was on, the apothecary that Alforde was thinking of had been almost completely destroyed in the battle between Sacre and the Don. The windows were all smashed and the interior was a wreck. There was a big person-shaped hole in one wall too, and bits of flowers, powders and other ingredients covered the floor.

Vee cursed. “So much for that, I guess. We’re not going to get any potions here. We’ll have to go find another shop.”

Reginald turned to a middle aged woman who was sweeping out the storefront next to the ruined apothecary. "Excuse me, ma’am. Do you have a moment?”

The woman looked up and wiped the sweat from her brow. “What is it? I’m a little busy here, if you can’t see.”

“Do you happen to know anything about the [Apothecary] who runs this shop?”

“You mean Juniper? She was no [Apothecary]. Just a [Herbalist] who could make a few tinctures, teas, and tisanes. Poor dear. She’d only opened her shop up less than a year ago too. What do you want with her?”

“We were hoping to have her brew us a few potions,” Vee said as he introduced himself and explained what they were looking for.

“Minor buffs and restoratives? Well, that doesn’t sound too complex. Juniper could do that for you, I’m sure,” the woman said. “She used to make this wonderful tisane for my husband. It was made with vimcherries and spearmint, I think. After he drank it, it was like we were twenty again and–oh, I’m sorry.”

Vee’s eyes had grown wide, and despite the near total darkness, his cheeks were visibly red. There were some things you just didn’t talk to strangers about.

“It’s fine,” he forced himself to say. “Do you happen to know where she is?”

The woman smiled and waggled a finger. “Sure do. I can tell you where to find her. For a small fee of course.”

“I’m afraid that we don’t really have a lot of extra fleurs right now,” Vee said, but the woman chuckled and held out her broom.

“No coin required, Mister Vales. You don’t look like much, but I’d be willing to bet that your friend here can move some serious rubble without much effort. I’ve been at this for two days now. My lower back is killing me. Help me and I’ll help you, eh?”

Vee nodded at Alforde and without a word of complaint the armorsoul stepped forward and bowed a bit as he took the broom from the woman’s hands. “I’d be happy to lend you a hand, madam.”

For the next two hours, Vee sat on a broken piece of stone and watched Alforde scoop away shovelful after shovelful. When the woman decided that he’d helped enough, she pulled a scrap of paper out of her pocket and scribbled down an address. Since it was so late, the trio decided that they’d wait until the next morning to go pay the [Herbalist] a visit.

Vee grinned. He’d had an idea.

[Plotting +1]

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 21

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 9

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 2

Might: 8

Wit: 28

Faith: 16

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 9

Plotting: 11 (+1)

Charisma: 3

Devious Mind: 12

Leadership: 10

Guts: 3

Intimidating Presence: 5 (+1)

Citizenship: 5

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 17

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 10

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 10

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 4 (-1)

Might: 29

Wit: 10

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 6

Endurance: 10

Intimidating Presence: 8

Heart of a Champion: 2

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 3 (+1)

Vigilance: 3

Reginald:

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 33

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 6

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 2

Might: 1

Wit: 27

Faith: 3

Ambition: 23

Greed: 18

Deceptiveness: 31

[email protected]$: $%

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 2