Torres looked through the open door to Crestheart with trepidation, squinting into the darkness and twirling his mustache non-stop as he turned to Vee.

“You’re…quite certain that it’s safe inside? No monsters are going to pop out of the walls and attack or anything, right?”

“I’m positive it’s safe,” Vee said as he rolled his eyes. They’d been having variations of this conversation all morning and frankly, the [Dungeon Master] was getting a little tired of it. There was only so much reassurance he could give, and if the [Stationer] still wasn’t comfortable, that was his business. Vee just wished the man would make up his mind one way or the other; there were still plenty of other tasks he had to see to before the day ended. Like checking in with Juniper and Hanako to make sure that their remaining contributions to Crestheart Day were coming along okay.

“I triple checked the room orders and everything is deactivated. There’s nothing to worry about,” Vee said. “Now, are we going in or not?”

Torres looked like he was experiencing an acute bout of intestinal distress, but he nodded all the same and clutched his pen tight.

Vee led the man down the entrance hallway to the main hub room on the first floor. The hub room was a large heptagon with the furnace the [Dungeon Maintainers] had appropriated from the old forge in the center and a door on each of the room’s six remaining sides. The hallway entrance, of course, had no such door.

Five were identical; gray and brown sheets of wood and ectoplasm marked by a symbol that meant ‘Challenge’ according to Vee’s guide on sigilmancy. The [Dungeon Master] walked forward and demonstrated how it worked. When a door’s symbol was touched, it swung up to the ceiling, giving the adventurer access to the room behind it. All five doors were beneath a circular socket filled with a color-changing crystal. Hanako had been quite proud of herself when she’d delivered them to Vee’s office earlier that day.

The sixth door was far more elaborate and ornate than the rest. It was completely covered in ectoplasm so that it looked like it was made of metal instead of wood, and there were three color-changing crystal sockets above it. Its sigil said ‘Progress’.

“Alright, it’s certainly thematic, but how does this all work?” Torres asked as he uncapped his pen and drew a simple sketch of the room on his pad of paper.

“It’ll be easier to understand if I just show you,” Vee said. “Don’t panic now. The rooms are still inert so there’s no danger, but it’s going to get dark.”

With a clap of Vee’s hands, the room’s lights dimmed. Once it was almost completely dark, the socketed crystals above each door flickered to life. The ones above the ‘Challenge’ rooms were all different colors, but the three above the ‘Progress’ room were all white.

“Each of these rooms contains an orb key that corresponds with the color of the crystal above the door,” said Vee. “By touching the sigil on the door, an adventurer can access any room of their choice. If they manage to enter and overcome the challenge inside, they’ll be rewarded with that room’s orb key. In order to get to the second floor of the dungeon, they’ll need to collect three different keys.”

The [Dungeon Master] walked to the door on the far left of the room and touched his hand to the sigil. Unlike before when the door just swung upwards as soon as Vee hand pressed against it, this time the sigil glowed, and Reginald’s voice boomed throughout the room.

“You have selected the room of Might. Inside are waves of minions you must overcome. Do you wish to enter the room?”

“Just open the door,” Vee said as he looked up at the ceiling. “You can practice your [Announcer] skills later.”

“Killjoy.”

The door slid upwards as it was supposed to, and Vee disappeared into the gloom. When he returned, he held a red sphere about as big as an apple in his hand.

He handed the orb key to Torres, who was surprised by its weight and examined it closely.

“A pleasant size,” the [Stationer] said as he gave it back to Vee and scribbled down more notes. “How does the unlocking process work, specifically? I want to include it in my guide.”

Vee snapped his fingers and the furnace in the center of the room roared to life. The ghastly blue flames seemed to be giggling as they writhed around in the air, and Torres took a step back, as if afraid that a fiery demon was going to take shape before his eyes and try to drag him down to the underworld. Vee watched him with raised eyebrows.

“Once an adventurer obtains an orb, they turn it in like this,” Vee said as he dropped the red sphere into the furnace. The flames turned red for a moment, and after they returned to normal, the [Dungeon Master] pointed to the socketed crystals above the ‘Progress’ door. Sure enough, the leftmost one had also turned red.

“From there, the adventurer will pick another room to clear and repeat the process until they have the three keys necessary to advance, or they’re unable to continue their run.”

“Is there any reason for an adventurer to collect more than just the three orbs? Do they get anything special for grabbing all five?”

Vee nodded.

“Each room has its own chance for treasure and experience, and we’re running multiple race categories with different prizes. The adventurer who gets all five orbs the fastest, or gets the most orbs if no one manages to get them all will get a prize, just like whoever beats the dungeon first with just three. Depending on which rooms are popular, we might also offer some smaller prizes for specific combinations of underchallenged colors. I haven’t totally made up my mind on that part yet, though. It depends on how expensive the prizes are going to end up being. I told Thien to keep the costs down, but we’ll see if she does.”

“And what exactly are the different challenges?”

Vee explained them one by one, and Torres took careful notes. In addition to the room of Might, there was also the room of Wit, Faith, Dueling, and Bravery. The room of Wit contained a puzzle that needed to be solved, with penalty fights for incorrect guesses. Faith’s room tested an adventurer’s sensory abilities, while the room of Dueling pitted them against Shadowforde in an individual bout. Lastly, the room of Bravery was filled with traps, and would be completely dark at all times.

“Huh, that’s not half bad,” Torres said when Vee finished his explanation. “You know, I always thought that your designs were pretty generic and boring when I was making my guides, but these are a big improvement. You’ve got some traps, a nice puzzle, and the monster packs you’re using are more interesting than the ones you’ve had in the past. It’s still not great, to be sure, but you’re definitely improving when it comes to making a more interesting dungeon."

Vee squinted, unsure of whether or not he should be offended by the casual criticism or pleased at the compliment, backhanded though it might be. He decided on the latter, as he was starting to see that Torres was probably just one of those people who didn’t think through their words before speaking. There wasn’t anything to be gained by getting upset about it.

“Thanks,” he said. “Here, follow me, I’ll show you the second floor and then you can get to work on your guides.”

Vee led the [Stationer] down the stairs and they stopped on the edge of a ledge. The second floor was now a large obstacle course, filled with staircases and “floating” platforms – courtesy of some nifty tricks of the light and a good bit of ectoplasm – as well as large spaces that looked like they’d be perfect for brawling and narrow paths that were likely going to be home to more traps.

At the far end of the room was a pedestal with a large golden sphere on it.

“It’s pretty simple on the whole,” Vee said. “Adventurers have to get across the room and touch the sphere while overcoming our attempts to stop them from doing so. However, one of the cool things about this floor is that it incorporates elements from all the challenge rooms of the first floor. If an adventurer only did the bare minimum to get down here, they might be in for a few unpleasant surprises when they come across something they didn’t see before. Beyond that though, this floor is going to be a great test for an idea I’ve had lately. If it goes well, I’ll be keeping it around once we properly reopen.”

“A new idea? And what might that be?” Torres asked.

“Well, I’ve been wanting to take a more active role in the dungeon runs beyond just moving the walls around and opening the doors, so there are a few elements on this floor that I’m going to have more control of than necessary. For example, do you see those platforms over there?”

He pointed over to the right side of the room, where two “floating” platforms were lined up end to end.

“The one that’s closest to us will be moving horizontally,” Vee said. “The one farther away will be moving vertically. In order to progress, an adventurer will need to get from the first to the second without falling down, since there will be fire elemental slimes all along the ground. I’m setting something up that will let me adjust the speed of both platforms during runs. There’s going to be some minions attacking the adventurer while they’re trying to go from one to the other, so I’ll be modifying the speed based on how good of a fighter they are. Worse fighters will have a slower platform that’s easier to cross, while better fighters will have less time to aim their jumps to get across safely. Now, you might be thinking that it’d be better to just make the platforms move fast all the time, but Reginald insists that having them go slow sometimes will make more for an interesting story if the adventurer has to stay put for a while and fight off the monsters while they wait to get across.”

Torres frantically scribbled as much of that down as he could, his pen slashing across the paper like a sword, and Vee was impressed by the man’s dedication to his craft.

“Is such interference by a [Dungeon Master] allowed during a run?”

“Yup. I ran it by the union yesterday, and they said that it’s totally okay so long as my actions are reasonable and consistent. Apparently a bunch of the eastern [Dungeon Masters] do it. To comply with the union rules, there are three speeds for each of the platforms and they differ from one another, so with just mixing and matching, there’s a bunch of different combinations available for me to use. There are going to be a few other elements on this floor that I can control, but I think the runs will be more fun if your guide isn’t perfect. This is a fun, laid-back event. I don’t think the adventurers will mind too much.”

“But then how will I justify my prices?”

“Charge less for these guides. We won’t take our cut for the duration of the event. I know things haven’t been great for you either, lately. Once we reopen though, it’s back to business as usual.”

Torres bowed.

“That’s most generous of you, Mister Vales. I truly appreciate it.”

Vee shrugged.

When they were finished reviewing the rest of the second floor, Vee led the [Stationer] back out of the dungeon and watched as Torres ran off to go and get to work on his guides after an elaborate and flowery farewell.

Time was running out. Luckily, the city approved Vee’s permit request, and the street fair was in two days. Not much time left to finish the last few things that needed to be done.

However, by all accounts, it was going to be quite the event. According to the initial estimates from the adventurer’s guild, over fifty adventurers had already signed up for the dungeon race, and they insisted that more would do so before the deadline passed. A bunch of Vee’s vendors reported that their customers were excited and many were making special plans to spend the day in Westown.

If Vee played his cards right – and nothing went wrong – Crestheart Day was going to make the dungeon a lot of money. Fingers and toes crossed!

Shaking his head, Vee turned and headed over to Juniper’s shop. He couldn’t stop for the day just yet, there was still so much left to do.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 24 (+1)

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 15 (+1)

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

Might: 10

Wit: 26

Faith: 18

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 11

Plotting: 13

Charisma: 8

Devious Mind: 15 (+1)

Leadership: 14

Guts: 11

Intimidating Presence: 8

Citizenship: 12 (+1)

Public Relations: 3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 19

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

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 11

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 2

Might: 29 (+1)

Wit: 11

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Endurance: 15 (+1)

Intimidating Presence: 10 (+1)

Heart of a Champion: 3

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 5

Vigilance: 4

Reginald:

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

--~%@(%[email protected] &% T*$ #&#e !i$$ (#$%#$%#[email protected]!)~--, L$#@& ????

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 37

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 9

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 5 (+1)

Might: 1

Wit: 29 (+1)

Faith: 10

Ambition: 25

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 29

Manipulativeness: 34

F^#$#$%@#

Loyalty: 42 (+1)

^^^^^^^^^^^

[*--__#4%_--------]

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 3