Reginald chortled when an adventurer who’d decided to skip riding the platform across the chasm and jump across instead failed to make it to the other side. The [Rogue]’s cries of surrender filled the room as he landed atop the elemental slimes at the bottom, and Vee deactivated the dungeon so that he could be rescued.

“Any interest in buying some burn salve?” Reginald called down as Fa and La extracted him from the pit. “It’s only a few silver fleurs and I guarantee that it’ll help save your love life! Trust me, you’re better off without that awful mustache! Shave the rest of it off.”

The man cursed at the ceiling as he was helped out of the dungeon, and the [Dungeon Maintainers] got to work getting the dungeon ready for the next run. Re and Mi checked the tiles for any signs of damage, while So and Ti swept away the remnants of the minions that’d been destroyed. Do supervised all of them, pointing to places they needed to address before the next adventurer entered Crestheart.

“I’ll bet you he buys some salves,” Reginald said with a grin. “[Rogues] tend to be pretty vain.”

Vee grunted but didn’t respond, so the hat turned and saw that the [Dungeon Master] had returned his attention to the paper in front of him.

The discount monster list was long enough to take up several sheets of paper, and Vee had already skimmed through it. Sadly, the gargoyles he’d had his eye on weren’t listed at all, and Vee resigned himself to having to pay full price for them down the line.

However, he’d been surprised to see that basically all of the minions he’d previously ordered for Crestheart were on sale. He could save some fleurs when it came time to restock!

More interesting than that though was the fact that the union offered several types of minions that he hadn’t seen in his manual. Perhaps it was out of date?

For example, in addition to the box of knights, archers, and mage skeletons that he’d already bought, there was a collection of spear, shield, and flagbearer skeletons as well. Vee ordered a box. Doubling the number of skeleton types in the dungeon seemed like a good idea.

There was also a “deluxe” box that contained all six skeleton variants plus a bonus rider type, but it was far too expensive for him to think about buying. Heck, a box of riders by themselves cost two gold fleurs!

He continued flipping through the discount list, passing on the clearance batch of slimes, since he had Pretzel. Admittedly, the slime offerings from the union’s partnered [Breeders] and [Rachers] were rather interesting. Some of the armored slimes for sale were completely covered in their plating of choice, while others only had a few pieces sticking out of their goo. Seeing as the prices between the two types were similar, Vee had to wonder what factors determined a slime’s – or any minion’s, really – value in the market. Was it size? Strength? Chance of dropping a shard of chaos on death?

The next pages were filled with a variety of so-called “special deals” – better known as minions that nobody wanted to buy and were going for prices so low that the word “sale” no longer applied – and here is where Vee really started hunting for deals.

There were all kinds of bizarre monsters listed inside. Golems designed to look like pieces of toast, spiders made out of silk, a frankly distressing number of snakes and snails, and more than a few statues whose shapes bordered on obscene.

“Those don’t fit the aesthetic of Crestheart,” Reginald said as the hat looked over at a pair of defective steambreathers. The tiny lizards had no more than a drop of dragon’s blood in them, and they’d been a popular pet for the rich and famous before Vee was born. Every now and then they had a kind of strange resurgence, but the hat was right. They didn’t fit the dungeon’s theme.

“But look!” Vee said as he pointed to the sheet. “Eighty percent off these two, ninety percent off those three! These deals can’t be beat! It says so right here! Okay, fifteen percent really isn’t that much of a discount, and neither is twenty percent, but still! These minions are on sale! Talk about making our fleurs go further! I’ll be losing money if I don’t buy them!”

Reginald quivered and closed his eyes. “Mindlessly buying things because they’re on sale doesn’t help the way you think it does. Just think about it a little bit. Where are we going to keep everything if you buy all the minions on that list you’ve been making over there?”

“The menagerie.”

“It’s not nearly big enough,” Reginald said. “Right now, Kai is probably going to have his branches full with keeping the slimes, skeletons and elementals in check. We’re lucky the ghosts are as compact as they are, otherwise, they’d be in there too. Now, in a few more months, we can maybe accommodate a couple more minion varieties, but let’s not go and give the little treant more work than he can handle.”

“Then we’ll make the menagerie bigger,” Vee said, feeling an impulsive and impatient tickle starting to form in the back of his skull. “Nobody cares about the buildings over there, so why don’t we knock them down and expand Kai’s operation? I’ll get the Medium section on it right away.”

“Before you do that you should really talk to Kai about it,” Reginald said before being distracted by having to repeat a series of instructions he’d given to the next adventurer. “It’s not fair to him, otherwise.”

Vee drummed his fingers against the desk. He was oddly frustrated with Reginald. The desire to spend was strong in his heart and demanded to be satisfied.

Eventually, reason won out and the urge settled down. There will be other sales, he told himself, but he still felt as if he’d been deprived of dessert after dinner and sulked for the rest of the day’s runs.

“On the whole, I think that went really well,” Alforde said once he put the last box of fleurs into the dungeon’s safe. “[Frostvent] was much more effective than I’d been expecting it to be, but I still need to get used to using it. I’m pretty sure it would have saved me in that [Bouncer] match, but I didn’t even think about trying to activate it. What’d you think, Vee? How’d we do today?”

Summoning Cecil, Vee checked the day’s results. Twenty-two adventurers had challenged the dungeon, and every single one of them had been interested in challenging Alforde. Two had squeaked out wins against the armorsoul, so after accounting for taxes, minion replacement fees, prize payouts, and the extra rewards for the shards of chaos – [Boost Drops] definitely worked – they’d only been able to sock away eight hundred and fifty silver fleurs. There was still plenty of week left to keep earning, but in order to improve the dungeon’s profitability, Vee knew that he had to find a way to cut costs.

Reducing the minion replacement cost that wasn’t tied to his Marked monsters seemed like the best place to start. The math didn’t lie: he was simply throwing away fleurs by tossing so many monsters at the adventurers.

Doing that meant including more tests of physical prowess like the obstacle course that he’d used in the race version of Crestheart, but it also meant incorporating more traps and puzzles…

…the latter of which meant poetry.

He’d never been particularly gifted when it came to the singsong style of writing that people loved to get really into over-analyzing, but he knew that he’d need to muddle through for the dungeon’s sake. After all, in order to be a proper dungeon puzzle, the clues for solving it had to obscured in verses that were as simple to see through in retrospect as they were annoying.

One day, he’d simply hire a [Poet] or a [Bard] or even just a witty [Writer] to handle that job for him, but for now he had no choice but to roll up his sleeves and try to come up with couplets and quatrains and rhyme schemes and all that other crap he’d never been terribly interested in.

[Congratulations, you are now a Dungeon Master, Level 17]

[Your Walking Walls skill is now more powerful!]

[Plotting +1]

[Charisma +1]

“Mmm, yeah…everything looks fine,” Vee said as he scratched out his first attempt.

Golden as a summer’s evening, your eyes make my heart sing.

Dungeon poetry, Vee. Not love poetry! Wait…love poetry?! More like like poetry! Regardless, this is not the time!

[Wit – 1]

Vee mentally kicked himself. Shaking his head and running his hands through his hair, the [Dungeon Master] stood up and paced back and forth. Maybe Torres or Juniper could help him pen a few verses? They both had careers that were, albeit loosely, connected to poetry. Or at least, they were closer to it than any of his were.

Or, maybe he could get Hanako to help out? She was a proper teenager growing up in a rich family, so there had to be some good old fashioned misplaced angst in there somewhere, right?

Vee looked out at the city below. The empty buildings and decrepit streets seemed to writhe for a moment in his vision, but when Vee blinked everything was fine. He blinked a few more times and everything stayed fine. Hopefully he wasn’t catching a cold or anything. Falling ill just then would be extremely inconvenient.

He hurried to look around for a piece of wood to knock on, and had to settle for the door, as it was the closest.

With the day’s business done, the trio made their way back to Sculla’s, chatting with the [City Guard] stationed at the gate for a little bit as night fell. He congratulated them on a successful Crestheart Day, and expressed some hope that eventually the gate to Westown could simply remain open.

“That’s the goal,” Vee said as they bid the man farewell. “Talk to the rest of your peers about it!”

They stopped in at the Grinning Pig for a bite to eat, and Vee found that the stares and whispers he noticed directed his way didn’t bother him as he munched on his mashed potatoes and pork chop dinner. In a way, it was kind of nice to be the center of attention…so long as the attention stayed nice. It wasn’t hard to imagine different circumstances where it wasn’t so fun.

However, there was one thing about it that he still didn’t like.

“Really need to get that haircut,” he muttered. Tomorrow, after the day’s runs are done.

Sculla was in her normal spot on the stairs when the trio made it back to the boarding house. She was smoking her pipe like usual, but instead of pointing down the street and telling them that there were boxes that needed to be picked up, the ogre simply grunted at them as they approached.

“New boarder,” she said by way of explanation when Vee asked her about it. “Bit of an oddball, just like you three.”

Pleased at the prospect of someone else having to do irritating manual labor, Vee ignored the gibe and veritably skipped up the steps. With a big grin on his face, the [Dungeon Master] threw open the door to the boarding house and took a step inside.

Right in front of him was…another door.

It was just standing there. Right in the middle of the room. It was made out of dark red wood with a small square window at the top and a handle that looked a little bit like the point of a spear. The [Dungeon Master] squinted at it, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to expect but ready for anything.

Minutes ticked by and nothing happened, but when Vee tried to walk around it, the door shimmied across the floor and continued to block his path.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Reginald asked after the third or fourth time this happened. “You looking for trouble, door?”

The door didn’t answer, but a fat yellow salamander poked his head out from behind it and grinned.

“Well, what did you think? Pretty inconvenient, right?”

There was something unsettling about the salamander’s grin, and Vee instinctively took a step back so that Alforde was slightly in front of him. The armorsoul didn’t seem overly concerned by the stranger’s appearance though, and Slammy remained in place, comfortably resting atop Alforde’s pauldrons.

“Right?”

“Uh, I guess so,” Vee said. “Is inconvenient what you were going for?”

Leaving the door behind, the salamander scurried forward and extended a scaly hand to Vee.

“You’re Vales, right? Blue? Right? Vee Vales? You’re the [Dungeon Master] of Crestheart, yeah?”

Vee nodded as he shook the salamander’s hand. When thirty seconds passed and the stranger didn’t release his grip, Reginald growled, and the salamander leapt back.

“Whoa! You’re the mascot hat! Reginald! Cool! I’m Zeiken, it’s nice to meet you!”

As if suddenly realizing that he was out in the open away from the comforting safety of his door, Zeiken looked back and forth with an expression of abject terror and bolted back to hide behind it once again.

“Well, that’s a heck of a way to greet someone. See you around, weirdo,” Reginald muttered as Vee once again tried to step around the door.

Zeiken kept blocking his way.

“Is there, uh, something I can help you with?” Vee asked.

Cautiously, Zeiken poked his snout out and nodded.

“Any chance you’re hiring? I could really use a job.”

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

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

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 17 (+1)

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

Might: 10

Wit: 25 (-1)

Faith: 18

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 11

Plotting: 15 (+1)

Charisma: 10 (+1)

Devious Mind: 17

Leadership: 15

Guts: 11

Intimidating Presence: 8

Citizenship: 16

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 11

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 1 (-1) WARNING: FURTHER LOSS OF LEVELS WILL LEAD TO LOSING THIS CLASS

Might: 31

Wit: 11

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Endurance: 16

Intimidating Presence: 11

Heart of a Champion: 3

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 6

Vigilance: 5 (+1)

Reginald:

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

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 39

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 11 (+1)

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 6

Might: 1

Wit: 29

Faith: 10

Ambition: 25

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 28 (-1)

Manipulativeness: 35 (+1)

F^#$#$%@#

Loyalty: 44

Patience: 12

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 4