Dungeons Are Bad Business

Vee pulled out the council’s letter and set it down on the table. “I guess we should probably go ahead and read this thing, huh?”

Reginald scoffed. “I doubt it’s going to be much different than what Seidon said, boss. They’re going to compliment you for Crestheart’s recent growth, tell you that they’re excited about the upcoming circuit, and then mention that they have concerns and ask you to address them.”

Vee opened the letter and started reading. Sure enough, the first couple paragraphs were virtually exactly what Reginald had predicted, though they framed their interest as questions instead of concerns.

“They also want to know where our assessment of risks for civilians entering Westown is,” Vee said as he read through the rest of the letter. “Or to commission one if we haven’t already done so. Beyond that, we’re also supposed to provide an estimate of revenues, potential tax liabilities, and a bunch of other things I have no idea about as a part of a development project proposal. How are we supposed to come up with all that? Oh wait, never mind. It says a little bit further down that there’s an [Assessor] we can hire to handle all of that for us if we don’t have the capacity to do it ourselves. The fee is pretty steep, though: it’s fifteen gold fleurs just to start.”

“And I’m sure almost all of that would find its way right back to the pockets of the council before the ink is even dry,” Reginald said darkly. “It sounds like a load of crap to me, boss.”

“Even so, it’s not like we can ignore this letter or decline to get them the proposal, right?” Alforde asked.

“Not outright,” Reginald said. “But we can stall for a while by saying that we’re unsure of our plans and considering our options. Any assessment we produce is going to depend on what we’re actually looking to do, so we should play that up as much as possible.”

“Do you think it’d be a good idea for us to tell Kai to hold off on his verdant construction thing in the meantime then?” Vee asked.

“That’s not a bad idea, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary either. I doubt most members of the council will ever venture out to Westown at all, let alone come comb around to see what Kai is up to. So long as we don’t go around aggressively recruiting people to set up shops out here, we should be fine for a while as we are. My vote is that we just keep on doing what we have been, and only comply as much as is strictly necessary. It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, you know?”

“I don’t think that’s wise. It’s probably not smart to try and subvert the council as a first resort,” Alforde said. “Instead, we should go talk to this [Assessor] and try to get a feel for what we’re looking at cost-wise for compliance. Maybe it’ll end up being surprisingly affordable. At the very least, we should refrain from taking any action for now and consider our options until we get that invitation to the council meeting. Surely no harm can come from that, right?”

Vee nodded. “That seems like a reasonable idea. Do you object, Reginald?”

The hat flapped his brim. “Not enough to raise a stink about it. I’ll just say that I don’t believe the council is going to be our friends. They’re too entrenched, and too corrupt. If you want to finish that quest of yours, boss, I suspect that you’re going to have to drag them along kicking and screaming behind you. If you keep that in mind, there’s nothing wrong with waiting and seeing how the situation develops as long as it doesn’t force us into doing what they want.”

Vee flashed his hat a thumb’s up. “Understood. Don’t worry, we won’t let inaction get the better of us.”

[Patience +1]

“I’m glad to hear that,” Reginald said.

With the matter settled for the time being, Vee went downstairs to work on replenishing some of the day’s ghost losses; a downside of such eager adventurers was that nearly all of his packs had been completely obliterated.

It took a few minutes for the [Ghost Maestro] to get everything ready. He’d found it easier to make steady progress when he had his materials near to hand when he started. As he started feeding a thin sheet of ectoplasm into the first machine, he wondered how many days of dungeon runs he could currently sustain if he stopped what he was doing and didn’t make any more ghosts.

He had no idea…which was probably suboptimal. To remedy the situation, he summoned Cecil, his [Excellent Spreadsheet].

“How may I be of assistance, master?”

“Can you give me a count of all the minions currently available to the dungeon?”

Cecil hummed for a moment, then said, “I could, but it’s been several weeks since my internal counts were updated. It is unlikely that my information is accurate, especially since I don’t have an up-to-date connection with the menagerie.”

Vee swore. He’d meant to make sure that the spreadsheet had ways of updating itself so that its info would always be current, but he’d been distracted by other things and had failed to do so.

Well, maybe Reginald could take some of the blame too, as this was the type of thing he was supposed to handle as Vee’s [Majordomo], but the hat would surely just deflect, saying that the reason he hadn’t done anything was that he lacked mobility.

Speaking of that, Vee needed to get serious about working on the ghosthetic to allow Reginald to travel around. He’d been putting that off for far too long as well.

“I’ll start on that once I finish up this batch of ghosts and do a quick count of the dungeon’s available minions,” Vee decided. “Cecil, can you calculate some averages for how many minions we lose each day?”

“What time frame do you want me to consider, master?”

“Let’s start with the last three or four weeks and see how it looks. I think that’s going to be more useful given the amount of adventurers we’re seeing on a daily basis, and should be closer to the type of demand we’ll see with the circuit.”

“Understood. Give me a few minutes, master.”

That was fine by Vee, who had plenty of work to occupy him in the meantime. While he thought about the dungeon and the issues it currently faced, he fed sheets of ectoplasm into the machines, pulled them free, and fit them together to make the basic ghosts that were common in Crestheart. The routine allowed his mind to wander, and he found himself dwelling on the idea between quality and quantity. Since it was still unlikely that Reginald would manage to get all his [Core Spirit] levels back before the start of the circuit, maybe he could help bridge the gap between his expectations and his current reality with some better minions?

He put that question aside for a moment, returning his attention to the assembly job at hand. He popped a trio of ghosts together and made sure that they were all fit properly, grinning at how much faster the job was now compared to what it’d been when he’d first been starting out as a [Ghost Maestro]. When he’d been naught but a fresh graduate from the academy, he’d struggled to put together even a single ghost. His ability to manipulate ectoplasm and use sigilmancy had both been laughably bad – though he never would have admitted such a thing.

In the years after that, he’d improved, albeit slowly, but it hadn’t even that long ago that the idea of making a dozen ghosts in a day was something he’d only been able to aspire to. Now he could do that in less than an hour, and was getting faster by the day.

If he kept improving, would he someday be able to make a thousand or more ghosts in a day?

Maybe with some more machines and a few extra helpers, he thought with a small smile. That kind of speed was still a long, long way away, and he wasn’t even sure it was something he wanted to achieve. If the ghosts he bought from the union were any indication, mass production came with its own downsides.

“How are we looking, Cecil?”

The [Excellent Spreadsheet] hummed again, mumbling something about errors and names that Vee didn’t understand. Finally, it stopped and said, “During an average day, we lose 306 ghosts, 18 slimes, 23 elementals, and an undefined number of skeletons.”

“What do you mean by undefined?”

“Unlike the other minions we have, master, skeletons possess a passive skill that occasionally prevents them from being killed when they’re defeated. Beyond that, for some reason my records indicate that no skeletons have actually been destroyed for the past four days.”

Well, Vee had been a [Dungeon Master] long enough to realize that sounded like a problem in the making. He knew for a fact that several skeletons had been defeated by each adventurer coming through the dungeon, and sincerely doubted that a twenty-five percent proc chance would have somehow kept all of his skeletons intact for multiple days in a row.

“It’s always something,” Vee muttered. He’d have to go and give Kai a head’s up to increase the skeleton security in the menagerie even more until he heard back from the [Necromancers]. Hopefully they’d respond sooner rather than later.

Cecil hummed again. “Is there any further way I can be of assistance, master?”

“Yeah. Using those numbers you just gave me, go ahead and create an estimate of how many days we can sustain current dungeon activities with our minion reserves. Don’t worry about the fact that your numbers aren’t current. Just set up the measure, and then I’ll make sure that you get better information. Okay?”

“Understood, master. I estimate that we have four days’ worth of ghosts, seven days of slimes, twelve days of elementals, and an indeterminate amount of days of skeletons.”

Vee thanked the [Excellent Spreadsheet] and dismissed it. By far, the biggest drain on the dungeon’s minion count were the ghosts, which was only to be expected given how common they were inside Crestheart.

Frowning, the [Dungeon Master] decided to go ahead and push Reginald’s ghosthetic back until after another batch of ghosts. He wanted the hat to be able to start carrying his weight properly, but not as much as he wanted to have at least a seven days’ supply of all the dungeon’s minions.

Running out of minions would be terrible right now, especially since the dungeon didn’t have full access to its traps to help bolster its experience.

Once again though, Vee wondered if this was a sign that it was perhaps time to reconsider the dungeon’s minion mix. He didn’t have any complaints about the current packs, but if he developed some stronger ghosts, perhaps he could provide a similar level of challenge while reducing the amount of ghosts he needed to replace.

He mulled it over and kept cranking out new ghosts until Alforde came down to get him a little while later.

As soon as he saw his friend, Vee’s face lit up. He’d completely forgotten about the gauntlet ghosts he’d designed with Rortenferry!

[Devious Mind +1]

“I think I just had a great idea!” he said. “Or…remembered a great idea I had a while ago. Give me a second, Alforde. I want your opinion on something.”

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 31

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: 26

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 15

Plotting: 19

Charisma: 15

Devious Mind: 25 (+1)

Leadership: 20

Guts: 14

Intimidating Presence: 10

Citizenship: 23

Public Relations: 8

Determination: 4

Persuasiveness: 5

Bargaining: 3

Patience: 2 (+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: 56

Wit: 14

Faith: 28

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Endurance: 29

Intimidating Presence: 14 (+1)

Heart of a Champion: 14 (+1)

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Vigilance: 9

Vanity: 2

Reginald:

Primary Class: Core Spirit (Unknown), Level ?? (+1)

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

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: 23 (+1)

Remorsefulness: 17

Expository Prowess: 23

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

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

@#$@%%^

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 9