Dungeons Are Bad Business

Folding his arms across his chest, Vee glared down at Reginald and said, “Alright, you’ve got thirty seconds. Explain this misunderstanding.”

Reginald grinned, his felty mouth curling into a wide smile that reminded the [Dungeon Master] of a door-to-door salesman. “Well, you see, boss, I was getting information, it took a little bit more out of me than I expected it to.”

Vee expected to hear the shrill noises he associated with [Detect Lie] or [Detect Falsehood], but his head was remarkably silent. The hat was telling the truth, it seemed. Wanting more context and information, Vee twirled his finger around in a slow circle, but Reginald didn’t get a chance to go on, as Zeiken raised a hand and interrupted.

“He was delving into my sheet. I hadn’t thought such a thing was possible, but apparently your [Majordomo] possesses a way to convert his own levels into fuel for his skills, which means that he’s far more than he appears to be.”

“Speak for yourself,” Reginald grumbled. “You should see this guy’s levels, boss. They’re crazy high.”

“My levels aren’t important right now,” the salamander said icily, cutting off Vee’s line of inquiry before the [Dungeon Master] could even start to pursue it. “Instead, I suggest that we focus on understanding and resolving the current issue. We’re going to have a difficult time dealing with adventurers if we can’t even keep the lights on and the dungeon working properly.”

As if to punctuate his point, the lights above their head went out completely, and the tower fell eerily silent. All the hums and groans that Vee had gotten used to were gone, and the [Ghost Maestro] felt more than a little out of place with their absence. The silence was nearly too much, and he picked Reginald up intending to give his [Majordomo] a rather large chunk of his mind.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I can fix this,” Reginald said, talking so fast that the words all seemed to blend together. “I just need a little bit of time to get a handle on things.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that he’s trying to figure out how get his levels back as fast as he can,” Zeiken said. “I assume that his [Core Spirit] has been providing the energy for Crestheart?”

Vee nodded out of habit, then realized that the salamander probably couldn’t see the gesture on account of it being so dark. “Yeah. He said he’d stored plenty and made more every day so it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“And that was true!” Reginald insisted as Vee put the hat back on. “Had I not just burned….I don’t know…too many levels, we wouldn’t have had any issues!”

“Then you should have controlled your curiosity,” Vee said. “Now we have to scramble and figure out a way to either get your levels back or find some sort of workaround so that Crestheart can function normally. But before we get to work on either of those things, we’re going to go take stock of the rest of the tower and the dungeon itself to see what the situation is.”

Reginald tightened his brim. “Understood, boss. Where to first?”

Vee thought for a moment, weighing potential hazards and downsides of losing power in each part of the tower and dungeon. “The lab, I think. I want to make sure that my safeguards are still in place, since I don’t want to have to try and deal with Nock if he got out. Zeiken, are you planning to stay here?”

The salamander shook his head and stood up, picking up his door and walking toward the stairs. “I’ll come along with you as well, if you don’t mind the company. We can discuss the meeting as we go, if you’d like.”

“That’s fine with me,” Vee said. Resting a hand on the wall to help him keep his balance, Vee followed the salamander up the stairs to his lab.

Before he opened the door to his lab, Vee drew his [Ghost Baton] out of his pocket and readied himself for trouble. He didn’t want to use [Banish] on Nock unless it was absolutely necessary, but the weaponsoul had been strong enough that Luna had struggled to bring him down, and the [Ghost Maestro] wasn’t going to take any chances.

Thankfully, the lab wasn’t in as bad of shape as he’d thought it would be. A few of his ghosts were roaming around aimlessly, but they weren’t any danger to Vee. He’d rig up an ectoplasmic cage for them and tell them to wait as soon as he made sure that Nock –

“Was wondering if you’d come by, Blue.”

Vee turned and saw Nock’s grinning projection reclining against his workbench. The figure held the bow in his hands, and Vee tightened his grip on his [Ghost Baton]. He bit back his impulse to immediately [Banish] the weaponspirit, and feigned a confidence he didn’t actually feel.

“Are we going to have trouble, Nock?”

The projection shook its head. “Not from me, Blue. Had this happened before we came to an agreement, I might have considered getting out of here, but I’m in the business of following through on my contracts.”

“Good thing!” Reginald crowed. “Otherwise the boss would have [Banished] you so fast your string would have snapped.”

Nock’s projection laughed. “Is that what that little wand he’s carrying supposed to do?”

“It’s a baton,” Vee protested, and Nock laughed even louder. His projection slapped its knee and shook its head, then reached up like it was brushing a tear from its eye.

“Beware! The mighty [Dungeon Master] and his fearsome baton! Ruuuuun! Sorry, Blue, but when you’ve faced [Magiknights], [Time Priestesses], [Unrestrained Accountants], and [Embermane Exiles] in the same battle, you see things a little differently.”

“You know what [Banish] does, right? It’s not a mere get out of my sight,” Vee said quietly. “It’s a cease to exist in this plane.”

Nock’s projection looked at him and shrugged. “Still faced worse.”

[Intimidating Presence -1]

Vee decided not to push the matter any further. Since neither of his truth-detecting skills had done anything, he figured he could tentatively trust the weaponspirit for now and assume that there wouldn’t be any trouble coming from the lab for now.

Activating [Shape Ectoplasm], Vee built a simple box to store the other wandering ghosts in and left. He’d come back later and tidy up once things were back to normal, but for now he wanted to go check the rest of the tower before heading over to the dungeon.

They went up to the office proper and checked on Dheart. The dungeon heart informed them that things were indeed not working properly, and asked them if they wanted to report an issue to the union. Vee declined, though he asked Dheart to get ahold of a list of supplemental cores for sale. He had no idea what such things cost, but had a sinking suspicion that it’d be more than he wanted to pay just then.

That was how it went with costs, Vee thought to himself with a frown. They ambushed you when you were least expecting it; things would be going along nicely, and then every Gawain-forsaken shoe would drop all at once and you’d be broke in an instant. Eventually, he’d have enough of a backup fund to handle these things as they came up, but right now he was definitely feeling a bit of a financial crunch.

Ultimately, Deina and Hendon had talked the others into hiring the storymaker for the dungeon circuit. They’d said that the cost would pay for itself in no time at all, since apparently Richter Arnis was also something of and popular [Food Critic] and [Travel Guide] who had enough of a following that cities containing dungeons he recommended tended to see double-digit revenue increases in the months following his runs. However, like people who claimed that spending money in a given irresponsible manner was a write-off, they hadn’t really gone into the specifics of how the extra city revenue helped the [Dungeon Masters] make their money back.

Maybe he was supposed to go lean on the people who owned the restaurants and accommodations and try to collect some of their extra earnings? That wasn’t something he was particularly interested in; it reminded him too much of Sacre.

And his father, for that matter.

Chewing his lip, Vee pushed the matter from his mind and led his companions down to the dungeon.

Do and the other [Dungeon Maintainers] were waiting for Vee when he walked into Crestheart and saw the extent of the issues. Doors and the hidden compartments they’d set up for minion ambushes were all stuck wide open, every torch and light source spluttered, the floor orders faded in and out of existence, and none of the floating platforms were movable.

“Is the entire place like this?” Vee asked as Do led him down to the second floor. “I’m guessing none of the special rooms are working either?”

“If anything it’s worse,” Do said. “We think the first floor is roughly half-powered, and it goes down by about half again with each deeper level.”

Vee swore, and Reginald was conspicuously silent.

“Any chance you can shuffle things around to make the power we have go any further?” Vee asked.

“Hard to say. We are not experts in such things, but I promise that we will do our best, Master.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Vee said with a smile. “Thanks Do, I know you guys are going to do your best.”

The fiend stood a little straighter, as did the other members of the [Dungeon Maintainers].

[Leadership +1]

I guess you win some, you lose some, Vee thought with a smile as he dismissed the notification.

When Alforde, Vee, and Reginald made their way back to the boarding house for the night – Alforde was in the lead because he was eager to get back to the book he was currently reading, a thrilling adventure novel about an apprentice [Alchemist] who went around hunting monsters – Vee took Reginald off and set the hat on the table.

He sat down across from his [Majordomo] and folded his hands on his lap. “How fast can you get those levels back, and how can I help you do it?”

Reginald hemmed and hawed for a moment, but then said, “After the dungeon closes each day, you should take my core out of Dheart and use it to power something else. The experience of powering things is the fastest method of increasing my [Core Spirit] levels that we can really try and do here. If we’re diligent and lucky, we can probably gain a level or two each week like that.”

“That’s not fast enough,” Vee said. “What other methods are there for recovering your levels that we can’t do here? What would we have to do to get them?”

“We’d have to leave the city and go exploring. There are…well, I guess you could think of them as reservoirs of power here and there in the mountains outside the city. If you bring my core to them, we could probably harvest some of the excess power located there and use that to boost my level a little bit.”

“And would there be any sort of guardian or other group who might take offense at us trying to do that?” Vee asked.

Reginald flapped his brim against the table. “Not sure. There didn’t use to be, but it’s been nearly a century since I last visited. For all I know, the reservoirs might not even be there anymore.”

“Are there any visual indicators we could use to check? Glowing lights in the rock? Balls of energy floating out of the ground, those sorts of things?”

“Any adventurer with [Find Hidden Treasure] could probably locate them without much trouble, but its not the sort of thing that a regular person could just see on their own. I suppose we could always put up a bounty and see if anyone takes it?”

Vee groaned. A bounty would be another expense, but surely it was worth paying for the information if it meant getting Reginald’s levels back so the dungeon could function properly.

He just hated the thought of spending more fleurs. After all, another collection day was rapidly approaching.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 30

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 21

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

Might: 14

Wit: 35

Faith: 21

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 14

Plotting: 20

Charisma: 15

Devious Mind: 24

Leadership: 18 (+1)

Guts: 14

Intimidating Presence: 9 (-1)

Citizenship: 21

Public Relations: 8

Determination: 2

Persuasiveness: 3

Bargaining: 1

Patience: 1

Competitive Spirit: 1

<3***Infatuation***<3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 26

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 14

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 16

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 9 (+1)

Might: 48

Wit: 13

Faith: 28

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Endurance: 26 (+1)

Intimidating Presence: 12

Heart of a Champion: 11

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Vigilance: 6

Vanity: 1

Reginald:

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

--~%@(%$@ &% (*$ #&#e !i$$ (#$%#$%#$@!)~--, #$v@& ????

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 40

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 16

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 8

Might: 1

Wit: 33

Faith: 15

Ambition: 27

Greed: 23

Deceptiveness: 27

Manipulativeness: 38

$#&*!@!!: !!!

Loyalty: 47

Patience: 8

Irritability: 22

Remorsefulness: 16 (+1)

[#&%%%@%!#@__--#%]

Hop@#!! @#$@!@#

@#$@%%^

#4^5#*&_!+++#(@$#

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8