Dungeons Are Bad Business

During the rest of the day’s runs, Vee’s experiment with smaller rooms seemed to be slightly more effective, though they didn’t change the outcome for any of the out of town adventurers. Whether due to their level or the fact that they were simply more experienced than most of Crestheart’s usual customers, the scouting challengers all made it down to Alforde without issue. However, none of them managed to defeat the armorsoul, which Vee took as an encouraging sign of the actual circuit itself.

He noticed that Alforde was somewhat sloppy in his bouts immediately following those in which he used his domain, as if the effort of summoning it was exhausting. As a result, Vee breathed a secret sigh of relief when his friend said that he’d refrain from using [Chilling Tempest] unless the adventurer was proving troublesome.

“It’ll be like a final phase,” Alforde exclaimed as he carried up the day’s earnings. “The adventurer will think that they’ve gotten through the worst of the fight, and then bam out comes the icicles and the wind! Hey, Vee! Do you think we could get some musical crystals installed down in my arena? I think some mood music would be really great for that, don’t you? Maybe something orchestral? Or – I know! – we could get an [Opera Singer] to really bellow out some high notes. You know, some real oooh-ahhh-AHHHHHHH stuff.”

Vee raised an eyebrow as Alforde raised his gauntlets to the sky and shook them in an attempt to demonstrate what he thought an opera singer might look like in the throes of such a musical performance. Privately, the [Dungeon Master] doubted that there’d be any need for such flailing, but he was far from an expert on opera, so who was he to judge?

“…We definitely don’t have the fleurs for that sort of thing right now buddy. Maybe someday down the line, though.”

Alforde’s helmet fell forward.

“Fine,” he said in a quiet, defeated voice. “I just thought it would be cool.”

“It would be,” Vee hurried to say. “It’s just, uh, additional ambiance isn’t really our primary concern right now, you know? Let’s go ahead and count the day’s earnings, and then we have to go and run some errands before heading back to the boarding house.”

They counted up the coins – six hundred and eighty fleurs in total and taxes and other relevant fees – and the shards of chaos, then put them in the vault and sealed it shut.

Vee looked over at Reginald. “How goes the aqua magia absorption? Think your core is ready for more?”

The hat twisted his brim and smiled. “Probably.”

Vee reached into his pocket and drew out the vial. Despite the fact that he’d already poured some into Dheart, it still felt nearly as heavy as it’d been when he’d first received them from Luna. “Same amount you think?”

“Yeah, that makes the most sense.”

Vee added the liquid, closed the panel on Dheart, and straightened up. “Alright, now that that’s done, we’re off to Brice’s place to pick up some dunpla figures.”

It’d taken some searching, but he’d managed to find the card with the twins’ address tucked away in one of his many notebooks.

He drew the card out of his pocket and read the tight, clear handwriting.

Cooper and Tracy Kartine.

4427 Emberberry Lane, Apartment M38

He wasn’t sure where Emberberry Lane was, but that was okay. He’d ask Brice, or if that failed, Torres, and if that failed, random people around the city. Someone was sure to know and be able to point him in the right direction.

A short while later, Vee left Brice’s shop with an armful of dunpla figures. The [Toymaker] had given him an Alforde figure, three different ghosts – which didn’t look entirely like the ones found in Crestheart, but were still easy to identify – a skeleton knight, and a treasure chest. They were surprisingly heavy, and Vee clutched them to his chest as he went to deliver them to Torres.

The [Stationer] glared at them all in turn once Vee handed them over. He twisted and turned them around, examining every part, then set them down and sniffed loudly.

“These are boring. Gray. Lifeless. How can I design something beautiful for something so far from it?”

Vee refrained from rolled his eyes. “They’re supposed to be gray so that people can paint them however they want to.”

[Patience +1]

Torres sniffed again, a scowl darkening his face. “Well, I don’t see the point of such nonsense, but I’ll go ahead and makes some boxes all the same. They should be ready in three or four days, okay?”

“That’s fine,” Vee said. “Go ahead and bring them to the dungeon when you have something for me to see, okay?”

Leaving the [Stationer]’s house, Vee turned down a nearby side street. Torres had pointed him in the right direction to find the Kartine siblings, and in a rare stroke of luck, Emberberry Lane was actually pretty close.

Plenty of people were out and about, the warming weather encouraging them to start the prep work for all that spring entailed. Vee noticed several little flower beds looked like they’d been freshly weeded, and there were other signs of cleaning too. It was nice, seeing the little changes in the neighborhoods. He could only hope that there were still more to come. Nothing could compare to the first days of spring after a long winter, and what a long winter it’d been!

The twins lived in a rundown apartment complex of blue and gray buildings. Everything looked like it needed a fresh coat of paint, except for the sandwich sign out front that promised “Big, clean rooms!”

It was the type of thing that became more unlikely because attention had been brought to it, the same way someone repeatedly telling you how honest they were was often a good sign that you were dealing with a liar. Vee walked past the sign and started looking for the M building.

The complex was surprisingly big and sprawling, and none of the lettering made sense. The O building was between the R and B building, for example. Vee found the M building after fifteen minutes of searching, which was a rather long time to be walking around an apartment complex.

A pair of menacing salamanders stood in front of a door marked “[Alchemist]”, their arms folded across their chests and their eyes following Vee’s every move as he walked by. A terrible smell unlike anything he’d ever come across before wafted into Vee’s senses, causing him to wince. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, and he was glad to have the [Alchemist]’s “shop” behind them.

“Heck of a place,” Reginald said as Vee spotted the M building. It was next to a lot filled with overflowing dumpsters. “Do you think we’ll find someone advertising their services as a [Personal Disposal Specialist] too?”

“Shut up,” Vee said, quickening his pace and climbing up the stairs to the third floor with Alforde right behind him. He found the apartment they were looking for and knocked on the door.

Nobody answered at first, so Vee knocked again. Someone came to the door, and a growling voice said, “Who are ya and whaddya want?”

“My name is Vee Vales, and I’m the [Dungeon Master] of Crestheart. I’m looking for Cooper and Tracy. They helped me out with some work a few months ago, and I was hoping to get their help again.”

“Hey, kids! Get out here! Got a weirdo in a blue coat here looking for you,” the voice hollered.

It was silent for a minute or two, then a series of clicks and clunks came from the door and it opened up halfway. Cooper and Tracy were standing behind it, curious expressions on their faces.

“Mister Vales? What do you want?” Tracy asked. She was slender and a bit shorter than her brother – though still a few inches taller than Vee, a fact that irked the [Dungeon Master] more than he cared to admit – with shoulder length blonde hair. Her and Cooper both were dressed in rough, homespun clothing, but their eyes glinted with the same determination.

Vee liked the twins. They’d come to help with the slimes because they were Driven to earn enough money to move their family out of Oar’s Crest. Their dad – presumably the owner of the growly voice who’d first opened the door – had been injured in a job site accident of some kind and had taken to drinking his pain away, and their mother barely earned enough to keep them fed.

Vee smiled. “Well, I actually came here with a job offer for you two. There’s a dungeon circuit coming to Oar’s Crest in a few more weeks, and I’m trying to make sure that the city looks as nice as it can before the adventurers and media start arriving. It’s the same type of thing you did with the slimes back at the beginning of winter, but this time you’ll be having them eat trash and debris along the streets instead of melting snow. Would you two be willing to help again?”

Cooper folded his arms across his chest. “How much are you paying?”

Vee shrugged. “Same rate as last time? Fourteen bronze fleurs per hour.”

Alas, the boy shook his head. “Wrangling those slimes was a pain,” he said, looking at Tracy. “They wanted to get into everything.”

“Add another five and you’ve got a deal,” Tracy said. Cooper closed his eyes, and his sister coughed before saying, “Actually, make that six.”

“Twenty bronze an hour and we’re in,” Cooper confirmed. “We won’t do it for a single fleur less.”

Vee shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s too much. I could maybe go up to sixteen bronze an hour, but that’s the limit of my budget, I’m afraid.”

“Nineteen.”

“Sixteen, and you can also take the slimes around to other places in the city and offer to clean them for a fee once you’re done with the areas I assign you each day. You can keep everything you make from those jobs, if you get any.”

Both twins’ eyes flashed at that, and Vee felt compelled to add a quick caveat. “Of course, I’m going to expect that you handle my work first and to the best of your abilities before you go off soliciting other customers. What do you say?”

Cooper and Tracy stared at each other, and Vee wondered if they had some sort of [Twin Speak] skill that let them communicate telepathically. That type of thing was far more common in identical twins than fraternal ones, but their frequent silent stares at one another and uncanny knack to be on the same wavelength didn’t leave many other explanations open.

Finally, they both held out their hands at the same time and said, “Deal.”

Vee got a notification when they shook.

[Bargaining +1]

[You can now use the Marginal Persuasion skill!]

Vee closed his eyes, performing a quick check of his soul’s mirror.

[Marginal Persuasion - (Active): Once every twenty-four hours, gain +2 Charisma and +1 Bargaining for a duration of three minutes (can be extended with a greater amount of Bargaining).]

That wasn’t bad at all, Vee decided. He’d have to be mindful about the best times to use it, but getting a little boost to his ability to convince others was most certainly going to be helpful in the future.

“Come by the dungeon tomorrow afternoon and we’ll get you both your slimes, okay?”

The twins nodded, and Vee turned to leave.

With his two biggest tasks for the day taken care of, the [Dungeon Master] decided to go ahead and take the rest of the evening off.

Main Character Sheets:

Main Character Sheets

Vee Vales

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

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 23

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 6

Might: 15

Wit: 36

Faith: 25

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 15

Plotting: 19

Charisma: 15

Devious Mind: 24

Leadership: 19

Guts: 14

Intimidating Presence: 10

Citizenship: 22

Public Relations: 8

Determination: 4

Persuasiveness: 5

Bargaining: 3 (+1)

Patience: 1

Competitive Spirit: 1

<3<3 Infatuation <3<3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Specialist (Self), Level 5

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 17

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 18

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 10

Might: 55

Wit: 14

Faith: 28

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Endurance: 29

Intimidating Presence: 13 (+1)

Heart of a Champion: 14 (+1)

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Vigilance: 9

Vanity: 2

Reginald (Unchanged from last chapter):

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

#$&Q#$)(@#$#@#$%!@#$##%#%()@#$**@@##

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 41

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 19

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 11

Additional Class: Hyperthymesiac (Self), Level 5

Might: 1

Wit: 37

Faith: 17

Ambition: 28

Greed: 24

Deceptiveness: 27

Manipulativeness: 41

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

Loyalty: 47

Patience: 10

Irritability: 22

Remorsefulness: 17

Expository Prowess: 23

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

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

@#$@%%^

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8