Now normally the dungeon would have more important things to think about. Take for example getting that falling bit of dust right. Too much and people think it’s a cave in. And rightly so as most of the dungeon has this trap. Too little and it won’t even be noticed if they shined a beam of light through it. Just unnoticeable particles floating in the air.

But today, today the dungeon had something mildly important to attend to. His idiot quatro had come back. Now, normaly he wouldn’t expect much from these fools. But they had not only succeeded in one, but two missions, one of which was a side objective. And they hadn’t even messed up! On second thought he better proactively scold them for the inevitable trouble it will cause and figure out what they did wrong. Even his dungeon side was focused on this and he needed to make sure. Since it was them it wasn’t an overreaction to say they already had, he just really really hoped it wasn’t too bad…

He needed to prepare for the worst didn’t he? Could they have destroyed the kings treasury? Hmm, no, the adventurer’s guild and merchants guild had major sway here. Did they burn down a guild branch? Steal from a guild vault? Depending on which happened to which it could be anything from moderate damage he could pay off to something impossible to recover. Oddly enough it wasn’t what you thought it was. You could steal from the merchants guild but you had to pay it back at 1.5 the rate. You could burn down the adventurers guild but you had to pay off their pensions and death benefits and 2.5 times the rate. But you couldn’t steal from an adventurer’s guild vault or kill off merchants without the guilds chasing you down. It was funny yet truthful when they said that adventurers died for money. They were much more the misers over a few copper coins. On the other hand, the merchant’s guild would only truly be angered by death, as it was something money couldn’t buy back if they hadn’t acted quick enough.

Hmmm, with his luck, he needed to prepare for the worst. He was going to start berricading his dungeon. He had set down his orders… oh shit it was worst then he thought wasn’t it? He needed to sacrifice all his hard work raising those civilisations in his dungeon. Yup, he was going to have to destroy it all and start fresh. He decided to blow all of his dungeon points… Oh they came in. Well he could see what they had done from their own mouths first. Dungeon points weren’t exactly easy to get, the distillation of souls he used their weight of will to impose new rules or create new creatures from nothing. This was what dungeons were at the core, anything else was a lesser dungeon, or not a dungeon in the first place. He remembered back to the good old days when he couldn’t even do these simple things. Not realising that the very rules he was imposing were rules that he was imposing onto his own slice of the universe. Ahh, memories.

The avatar of the dungeon looked around the table, he had placed blood in a goblet for the leader. He had placed corrupted water in another for another monster. He had placed a seafood dish for the third. And finally there was a pile of meat for the last fool. He wouldn’t eat anything but beer and meat anyways, and since the avatar, nay, dungeon couldn’t afford these fools drunk in their reports at this time he just fed them a giant pile of meat. It would be a pain, but he could probably piece out what the fool was saying. On the other hand, if he couldn’t then the other fools had long since learned how to piece together the ‘fool mouth language’. Ahh, he couldn’t help that little play on words, it was beneath him though. Well, maybe not. As a dungeon, he had had far too many traps based on a simple play on words or other linguistic puzzles.

The four walked in. The noble one plopped himself in front of the blood. The smart, and competent one in front of the water. The capable, charming, and sturdy one in front of the aquatic delicacies. And the dumb chihuahau in front of the meat. He rolled the dungeon core onto the table, the bonus objective. The avatar rubbed his eyes, glad he was doing this as his avatar so that he could show such reflexes. It was amazing that exasperation was something the dungeon core still physically felt the need to express considering he didn’t have any of his other mortal needs. But exasperation for his creations? That was something he felt regularly. And in his early dungeon life felt a great regret in being unable to portray to his useless minions.

And that was why the dungeon had gone a much different route with this companion core. Instead of calling it a dungeon core, it would be more accurate to call it a civilization core. This was the core that contained the avatar and it’s upgrades so it could walk and talk and all of that. Which was why the dungeon was so excited to have another core laying in front of himself. It was also unfortunate that it meant these two fools, and two treasured companions, had surely messed up somewhere. Oddly it wasn’t the ones you would think it was that messed in any given situation.

So the dungeon core said, “So how did you mess up?” *cough, cough*x3 *hack wheeze*x2 *oblivious chomping*x1.

“What do you mean master? Why would you ask such a thing of us?” Hissed out the monster in front of the aquatic cuisine. *Oblivious chomping*

“Oh, really? Do I have to count down or should I let you all figure it out?” said the avatar. *Oblivious chomping*

“Hmmph, ffaf wff, morph chomp, aph sffuff uffs.” said the one that couldn’t stop chewing.

The one quietly tasting the corrupted water stated “He said ‘he means that we are screw ups.’” without missing a beet.

The one downing the blood in the goblet like a drunkard at a bar said “My lord, you wound mean! Name a time and a place that we have failed you and I will seek to rectify it with my life staked on it!”

“That time we caused a war between two neighboring nations.” Stated the one still obviously swirling her water.

“That time we lead an entire crusade towards the dungeon even though they were meant to attack somewhere else.” Stated the one enjoying her fish dish.

“Ffaff fim eff mmphifft ffee ffunffeen if ffee wff off ffee ffoffins, ffeffoin fffaff ffee ffonffinffaff anff affoffin ffee ffoffins ffo oowoo ffo aw ffonffreff ffeas.” said the one that couldn’t or wouldn’t stop stuffing it’s face.

“That time when...” Started the one still invested in her glass of corrupted water.

“Alight, alright, enough! I get it. But if I remember right, none of those times we truly failed our lord, we just simply had… complications...” said the blood drunkard.

“Oh then that time we...” Hissed out the one enjoying her crustation cuisine.

“Fine, my noble self knows when they have been beaten. I will admit my defeat and take back my words and oath. My noble honor is not above admitting when I am wrong. Nay, it is not admitting my wrongs that will impune my noble honor!” Said the lier and cheat. *scoffs*x4

“Enough of this. I need to prepare for your failure. What have you done?” Asked the avatar.

“Nothing actually. The first mission was a resounding success and the kingdom had a vested interest in stopping it as well. Since it affected both sides we are in alliance if temporarily and unknowingly. And while those in themselves usually go wrong, it is never after the fact. As for the second mission, the chihuahua was known to the guild when he stole the core from the mission, however, this is nothing truly noteworthy, and if I may, the guild practically expected it as such. This being the point it would fall on the guild master themselves and not us. However, we mayhaps send an apology gift for their valiant efforts in procuring this core for us and we should be able to make more than amends.” stated one of the two competent ones still enjoying the fine corruption of the tiers of a child losing their innocents to the fires of war.

It was times like these that the dungeon’s avatar was glad that these two were in it’s outbound crew of the moment. It had many competent companions over the years but making a truly competent crew required a legitimate track record. Who would people believe was the spy? Someone with no record or someone with a record that had a few points that were circumspect? It was simply the earlier every time. It was why people would buy crap that they were aware was crap over new things that were much better, shown to be better in every way, but were new. And if there was one thing an immortal dungeon had, it was the time to set things up properly. Though there were many occasions that the dungeon would only be able to regret those decisions centuries in advance...