Whistling to pass the time, Vee leaned back against the twisted trunk of the tree that marked the entrance to Pisser’s Alley and waited. Now, Pisser’s Alley wasn’t its real name – the street sign said Bloom’s Way – but nicknames had a way of capturing the truth of a place more than the idle fancies of a city planner, and everyone called it Pisser’s Alley instead. The reason for the nickname was obvious; the narrow and winding street was “out back” for no fewer than four taverns, and the drunken patrons who stumbled outside in the wee hours of the morning weren’t exactly known for having strong bladders or caring much about where they relieved themselves. Surprisingly, it didn’t smell as bad as Vee expected.

Reaching up with his right thumb and index finger, Vee used [Shape Ectoplasm] and pulled energy out of the air. A small globe formed in his palm. That wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Shoot. I must have drawn the energy in too fast.

Frowning, Vee pressed his hands together and squeezed the globe until it broke apart. The ectoplasm felt gritty, like wet sand, and Vee brushed his palms clean before letting the energy dissipate back into the air around him. Wiping his brow, Vee took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Come on, Vee,” the [Ghost Maestro] muttered to himself as he closed his eyes and pinched his fingers together once more. “This isn’t hard. You can do this. You’ve already done it a bunch of times. Focus up.”

As he drew the energy towards himself this time, Vee made sure to only allow a trickle of power into the air above his palm. He shaped the ectoplasm into strands finer than hair and wove them into knots. As they collected and congealed, the air started changing color.

At first, Vee wasn’t even sure that he saw the pinkish hue, but after a few more minutes, it looked like red wine was swirling above his fingers. Vee grinned. It certainly looked like he’d made miasma, but he wanted to be absolutely sure. Leaning forward, Vee took a tiny sniff and immediately recoiled. The ectoplasm-thickened air didn’t smell bad, but the miasma was highly noxious, and he got lightheaded pretty quickly.

Reeling, Vee lost his focus and the miasma dissipated away. That was fine. He’d just repeat the process until he got what he wanted. It wasn’t as if he was in any rush. After all, sunset was still a little while away and he needed it to be dark before putting his plan into action.

Crestheart had closed early that day since the overwhelming majority of adventurers weren’t interested in trying a run if they couldn’t fight against Alforde at the end. It didn’t seem to matter to them that, statistically speaking at least, barely any of them would even reach the [Dungeon Champion], let alone have a chance of beating him. Adventurers were weird, man, but then, who was he to judge? He was lurking next a tree!

At least he had a good reason for doing so. With Alforde going to Glenda’s to resume his fitting and Reginald still acting cagey, Vee had been free to spend the day as he saw fit. He’d gone into town, made a beeline for The Grinning Pig, and started asking questions.

Well, really, it was just two questions: Was Norog Stonegief still in town? Where could he be found?

Courtesy of Big Simon, Vee got word that the ogre was in fact still hanging out around Oar’s Crest. Apparently, Norog had taken to spending his evenings in the taverns around Pisser’s Alley and challenging people to drinking contests. The tavern masters didn’t much care for his loud and boisterous manner, nor his penchant for roughing up their businesses, but the adventurer’s pockets were heavy enough with coin to keep him from getting kicked out. Not to mention, there probably weren’t more than a handful of people in the city that could actually force him to leave.

Closing his eyes, Vee practiced summoning miasma some more. Each time, he did it a little faster and felt it getting a little easier too. It shouldn’t be too much longer before –

[Congratulations, you can now use the Summon Miasma skill!]

There it was. He’d been willing to go through with his plan even if he hadn’t gotten a skill to make summoning the miasma easier, but he breathed a sigh of relief all the same. Things would certainly be easier if he didn’t have to constantly focus on controlling the flow of ectoplasm to maintain the flow of toxicity. Instead of balancing it by hand, he could simply increase or decrease his effort on the skill.

With his tactic set, Vee tried to relax. All he had to do now was wait for darkness.

It was an hour or so after sunset when Vee finally spotted his quarry. The door to one of the taverns slammed open, and a hulking figure stepped outside. The horned silhouette was impossible to mistake. Norog. The ogre was swaying like a tree in the middle of a windstorm as he made his way further down the alley to add his contribution to the street’s namesake, and that was when Vee made his move.

[Guts +1]

There were a few other patrons taking advantage of the alley, but none of them paid much attention to Vee as he scurried past them.

He stopped a few feet behind the ogre and waited for the adventurer to hunch forward. When he did so, Vee opened his palms and activated his new skill.

Since it was so dark, it was kind of hard to see the air changing, but Norog’s cough was a good hint that [Summon Miasma] was working properly. Until the noxious mist was fully formed, it’d be no worse for the ogre than sitting too close to a campfire burning green wood. The adventurer lifted a hand and waved it in front of his face, dispersing some of the toxic fumes into other parts of the alley. Thankfully there weren’t any drunks near enough to be caught in the skill. Vee added more power to his miasma and waited, until the ogre eventually stumbled and fell to his knees.

“[Mean Mug],” Vee muttered as he scowled at the others in the alley. “What are you all looking at? Go back inside and don’t breathe a word about this to anyone if you know what’s good for you.”

They stared at him for a moment and Vee silently prayed to Gawain. He breathed a sigh of relief when they finally did so.

[Intimidating Presence +1]

[Your Mean Mug skill is now more powerful! Most people now see you as someone to keep from crossing!]

[Not exactly the most subtle approach though.]

[Devious Mind -2]

That’s great, because if anyone recognizes me and start telling stories, I’m going to be in a lot of trouble. Like a lifetime in prison’s worth.

The [Ghost Maestro] couldn’t afford to focus on that now though. He had to direct his attention to the delicate balancing act of the miasma’s strength. If it was too weak, he’d be in danger of likely-lethal retaliation from Norog, but if the skill was too strong he’d be a murderer before the hour was up. Two equally undesirable outcomes.

“Gluh….coward…” Norog groaned as he tried to breathe through the soupy poison.

Vee knelt down a safe distance away and met the ogre’s furious glare. He shrugged.

“You call it cowardice, I call it caution. For what it’s worth, I suggest not trying to talk too much. Every time you do so, you’re making the damage to your lungs worse. Is any insult worth another week of not being able to breathe right? I didn’t think so. Just blink when I tell you to, okay?”

Stubborn as an ox, Norog tried to roll towards him with his massive hand open. His intent was obvious: he was going to grab the little [Dungeon Master]. There was murder in his beady eyes, and Vee wasn’t interested in experiencing an encore of the ogre’s strength. He scooted back immediately and sent more power into his skill, but it turned out that his worries were misplaced. Before the ogre moved more than a few inches, the strength and coordination sapping effects of the miasma stopped him in place.

“Take it easy now,” Vee said as his stomach rolled. The ogre’s movement had brought the miasma a little too close for comfort there, and the [Ghost Maestro] felt a little bit like he was floating in water. He blinked a few times and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “We’re just going to have a little chat. I’ll start with the basics. Do you recognize me?”

“Ta. Vales…look like…”

Vee waggled his finger and strengthened the miasma a little bit. “I’m serious about not talking. For your own good, just blink. I’m glad you know who I am. That means I can get right to the point and save both of us some time. Your lungs would thank you if they could talk.”

Your lungs would thank you if they could talk? What kind of stupid line was that? Stick to the script, Vee.

Unfortunately, he’d forgotten the words he’d spent so much time carefully preparing. Vee’s smile faded and he tilted his head to the side while raising an eyebrow. Improv it was, then.

“You see, Norog, the reason this is happening to you is pretty simple. You crossed the line in your fight with my friend, and I’m here to balance the books. Understand? Blink twice for yes.”

Feeling drained but satisfied, Vee trudged up the boarding house stairs and opened the door to his room. Alforde and Reginald were waiting for him inside, and Vee held up his prize: a purse filled with gold fleurs. He’d taken it from Norog, leaving a letter in its place that simply said, “Now we’re close to even.”

He hadn’t counted how many coins were inside yet – he wasn’t trying to get robbed – but when he upended the bag on the table, he saw that it was a decent amount. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or forty gold fleurs.

“Where’d you get all that?” Alforde breathed, and Vee recounted his tale with a smile.

He told his friends the full, unedited truth of his encounter with the ogre…except for a few minor tweaks, of course. The most significant of these teeny-tiny changes was that he left out the part where he’d accidently put too much power into his miasma and knocked Norog unconscious right after his “balance the books” line.

One change necessitated another, though, and Vee stretched the truth just a little bit more as he continued. Instead of cursing and making sure that the adventurer was still breathing, which is what had happened in reality, the Vee in the [Dungeon Master]’s version of events – Recollection Vee? – waxed poetic about the nature of righteousness and sportsmanship before explaining that the all the gold in Norog’s possession would make reasonable amends for Alforde’s repairs.

He could see that neither the armorsoul nor the spirit in the hat totally believed him, but they didn’t call him out on it either. It was hard to argue with gold.

Leaning forward, Vee picked up a coin and examined it. “This is a good chunk of change,” he said. “We should put it to good use. Alforde, how do you like your new arm? Would you be interested in a full-body upgrade? There should be more than enough here for that and then some. We can even buy you a sweet new hammer too and still have a bunch left.”

Alforde lifted his all-new left arm. Color wise, it was somewhere between blue and gray, and when he swung his gauntlet around, a whisper of a chill lingered in the air afterwards. Bigger and sleeker than his old arm had been, the armorsoul’s new body part was covered in a series of interlocking plates and adorned with small spikes along the side that Alforde could deploy and retract as he desired. He demonstrated this feature several times.

“Isn’t that cool?! Anyways, it’s going to take me a while to fully assimilate this thing, but a full upgrade to frostnickel would be great. It’s a lot lighter and stronger than my current body.”

Armorsoul anatomy was definitely a little bit strange.

“We can go talk to Glenda about it tomorrow,” Vee said. “The way I see it, you’re probably going to be out of commission for a few weeks at the very least. We might as well make sure that you’re really something special when you do come back.”

“Can I have a cape too? That’d be pretty special!”

Vee shook his head, but he was smiling. He was glad that his friend was still so enthusiastic about being Crestheart’s champion. Secretly, Vee had worried that his friend wouldn’t want to return to his duties once he recovered.

“A cape? Seriously? I was thinking something more along the lines of a new hammer, but if you have your heart set on a cape, we can do that too.”

Alforde’s eyes lit up and he clapped his gauntlets together. The frostnickel made a ringing sound, while the old metal simply clanked.

“Yay! It’s going to be so cool! Imagine this: an adventurer walks into my arena to challenge me and I’m in the center of the ring, cloaked in shadows. Well, technically, my cape. But the cape looks like shadows. Anyways. The adventurer will slow as they approach, wondering what sort of trial awaits them. Then, when they get close enough, I’ll dramatically take off my cape and throw it to the side! Then I’ll pose! Maybe I’ll turn sideways and point at them while staring at them condescendingly over my right pauldron or something.”

Alforde stood up and showed them what he meant. Vee cocked his head to the side.

“Wait, isn’t that the pose of that bizarre comic book character you like with the silly belts and the random chain on his jacket? The one with the stupid hat that doesn’t cover all of his hair. You can’t just copy that!”

“But it’s so cool!”

“That’s because it has to be,” Vee said. “The guy has the personality of cardboard. Coolness is all he has going for him.”

The friends argued back and forth about the value of so-called protagonists who had their friends do all their fighting for them. For a little while, nothing else mattered.

Later, once Alforde had gone to rest, Reginald watched Vee. The [Dungeon Master] sat at the table and slowly twirled a green and gold fountain pen between his fingers. Reginald recognized Vee’s brooding behavior and decided to try and start a conversation.

“What’s on your mind, boss?”

“Norog’s money,” Vee said. “It’s been bugging me since I poured it out on the table. Where did he get so many gold fleurs? He only won like a hundred and sixty silvers from our dungeon, and if he had this kind of money, why would he waste his time coming to Crestheart in the first place?”

Reginald forced his mouth to remain neutral. Good. He’s learning. It’s not the way I would have chosen for it to happen, but I’m glad to see it all the same. I guess this path is worth my effort for a little while longer.

“That is indeed troubling,” Reginald said. “Let’s discuss the possibilities. What do you suspect?”

He let Vee talk, and piped up when he had a question or noticed a flaw in the [Dungeon Master]’s logic.

[Congratulations, you are now a Majordomo Level 8!]

[Faith +1]

[Ambition +1]

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 22

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 11

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 4

Might: 9

Wit: 28

Faith: 18

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 9

Plotting: 13

Charisma: 5

Devious Mind: 13 (-2)

Leadership: 12

Guts: 8 (+1)

Intimidating Presence: 7 (+1)

Citizenship: 5

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 17

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 11 (+1)

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

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 3

Might: 25 (+1)

Wit: 10

Faith: 24 (+1)

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 7

Endurance: 11

Intimidating Presence: 7

Heart of a Champion: 2

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 3

Vigilance: 4

Reginald:

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 36

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 8 (+1)

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 3

Might: 1

Wit: 27

Faith: 9 (+1)

Ambition: 25 (+1)

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 30

Manipulat#$%@: &8

F%^*#@: ~

[*#&$#*#&$--#@$--]

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 2