Dungeons Are Bad Business

As they drew closer to the menagerie, Vee noticed a peculiar rattling in the air. It was low and gutteral, filled with macabre and discomforting energy. Tapping Reginald’s brim, the [Dungeon Master] said, “Hey, do you hear that?”

“Hear what, boss? It’s as quiet as can be out here.”

Thinking that his hat was simply engaging in a bit of good old fashioned prankery, Vee turned to the twins and repeated his question, only to watch their expressions change from amused to bemused as they answered the same way Reginald had.

“I know you haven’t had much sleep the past few days, but if you’re hearing things maybe we should get you checked out by somebody,” Reginald said quietly.

“I’m fine,” Vee said acidly. He stuck his finger into his ear and twisted it around a bit, but the sound was still there when he pulled it back out. If anything it was louder now that he’d extracted some ear wax.

“You really don’t hear anything?” he asked as the warding hedges came into sight.

“Not a thing,” Reginald said seriously.

Well, that probably wasn’t good. Vee activated [Third Sight] and looked around, but he saw no strange spirits. The ethereal was, however, disturbed. Parts of it pulled and stretched like they were being sucked into a vortex, but the [Dungeon Master] couldn’t identify the source and deactivated his skill. He’d take another look once they got into the menagerie proper.

Kai and Dandelion were hard at work trimming a bit of warding hedge when the group arrived, and the bonsai treant looked over with a big smile! “Hey, Vee! What brings you here this afternoon?”

“These two are helping with the city cleaning and need more slimes to do it,” the [Dungeon Master] said, pointing back toward Tracy and Cooper. “Think you can open the pens so they can go pick out a couple?”

“Sure thing,” Kai said, adjusting the position of the hedge he was holding so Dandelion could cut it properly. “Just one second, okay?”

They waited until the fiend finished snipping the hedge, then Kai stood up and walked over to the large pen in the center of the menagerie. He fiddled with the heavy branch that served as a lock, and popped the gate open.

“Do you need any help?” he asked Tracy and Cooper after they thanked him and walked inside.

“No, we have a skill that will let us find the best ones for our purposes,” Tracy said. “But thanks for the offer, mister.”

She tipped her hat, and Kai closed the gate behind them.

“Just holler when you’re ready to come back out again,” the treant said. “Dandelion and I will be nearby.”

With that matter settled, Kai and Dandelion returned to their work, and Vee went to go take a look around and investigate the peculiar rattling, which was sending shivers down his skin.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it grew stronger and stronger as he approached the skeleton pen, and Vee breathed a sigh that was equal parts relief and concern when he saw what was happening inside.

The big lancer, with even more trinkets in its cape and perhaps a slight tinge to its bones, was sitting on the ground surrounded by a half circle of rank and file skeletons. Now and then it lifted its weapon – which was also adorned with oddities like arrowheads, dented helmets, and what looked like a broken wand – into the air and all the skeletons cheered.

Interestingly, the Expectation around Vee’s shoulders stirred at the sound, and when Vee activated [Third Sight] once again, he saw an unsettling collection of hair-like threads surrounding the evolving skeleton. He didn’t know what it meant specifically, but was a million percent positive about the general takeaway: the skeleton situation was moving into massive-problem territory.

“Really hope that [Necromancer] arrives sooner than later,” he muttered. “Otherwise I might have to nip this in the bud by telling Alforde to increase our minion shrinkage.”

The lancer turned and met Vee’s gaze, the violet orbs of its eyes burning like a brazier. Vee didn’t sense any sort of hostility or malice from the creature, which was good, but neither did he sense anything good either. The skeleton was a void, though Vee could feel energy from the ethereal trickling into its bleached skull.

Interestingly, the longer Vee stood there watching, the faster the flow seemed to go. The other skeletons turned to face the [Ghost Maestro] as well, the chaotic rhythm of their jaws opening and closing adding a nice contrast to the persistent rattle in Vee’s own skull.

Finally, Vee decided that he couldn’t stand the noise anymore and said, “[Do As I Command]. Knock that off, now.”

[Intimidating Presence +1]

The skill activated, leaving Vee feeling like he’d been socked in the stomach, but to his great relief the pen went silent. The big lancer turned its skull sideways, almost like it was confused, but then stopped itself and returned to its previous position. A few seconds later, the rest of the skeletons got up and wandered away in pairs or trios, punching at each other and getting into bits of mischief like they always did.

“I’m going to have Kai add some more wardgrowths around this pen,” Vee said. “That lancer is progressing more than I’m comfortable with.”

“It certainly does seem strange,” the [Core Spirit] said. “Getting some more protection around the pen is a good idea, boss.”

Feeling vaguely mollified, Vee went and took a look at the pen where the elementals were kept. He smiled at the way they built tiny pyramids by stacking themselves atop one another, and chuckled each time one wriggled itself free and caused the whole thing to collapse.

“Now that’s something we can use in the dungeon,” Vee said. “I think some collapsing walls of pillars would be really effective.”

“It’s definitely something we can look at when it comes time to add another floor,” Reginald said. “Come on, this is boring. Let’s go see how the twins are doing.”

Judging slimes was apparently quite the long and involved process, because neither Tracy nor Cooper had selected even a single one by the time Vee returned. The [Dungeon Master] watched them pick up the slimes one by one, give them a good stretch and squish, then set them down on the ground with varying degrees of disappointment.

After telling Kai about the skeletons and getting the treant’s word that there’d be another layer of wardgrowths around the pen by the end of the day, Vee sat down next to a pile of soil, a few planter boxes, and a scattering of seeds to watch. His patience was like a stack of logs in a burning fireplace as the search for suitable slimes went on.

And on.

And on.

Cursing under his breath, Vee tapped Reginald’s brim and said, “Next time something like this comes up, I’m leaving it entirely to you.”

When he finally got back to the dungeon, Vee bid the twins a slightly less polite farewell than he would have under different circumstances and headed into Crestheart.

“How many rooms didn’t work right?” he asked as the door closed behind him.

“Nineteen,” Reginald answered. “First one is the fourth room on this floor.”

Nodding, Vee made his way to the room in question and started the laborious process of examining the tiles. Thankfully, the floor orders were largely concentrated in just a few tiles per room, so Vee didn’t have to do anything ridiculous like inspect every single one of them individually. That would have taken forever.

Instead, he knelt down on the cold floor, wincing at the way it dug into his knees, drew out his [Ghost Baton], and freed the tile from its neighbors so that he could get a proper look at it.

Like Sigilmancy, floor orders were made by combining symbols together to form strings or chains that moved in a linear fashion. There were all sorts of little syntactical elements, and Vee had to run his finger over each and every symbol to make sure that he wasn’t unconsciously missing an error.

Convinced that the first tile wasn’t the problem, Vee moved to the second tile and repeated the process. Luckily, he spotted the problem right away: he’d forgotten to put the second instance of the closing symbol on the bottom of the tile.

“Really wish there was a way to automate fixes like that,” the [Dungeon Master] muttered as he returned the fixed tile to its proper place. Tapping the first tile once again, Vee went ahead and tested the room to make sure that it was fixed and working properly.

When he was satisfied, he sat back on his hands and said, “You know, if I’d just done that when I first wrote the stupid orders this wouldn’t have happened.”

“That’s true,” Reginald said. “But we were rushing to get everything done since you were pretty sleep-deprived by then but somehow in a groove.”

Truth be told, Vee barely remembered the details of that night. Much like being drunk, being overly tired had a nasty way of screwing with his memories. Still, he silently vowed to himself that from then on, he’d make sure to do the jobs he needed to properly the first time, so that this type of thing didn’t happen again.

[Determination +1]

“Alright, let’s keep moving. Where to next?” he asked.

Reginald hummed for a second. “Room after the next one. The ghost hands didn’t properly activate when adventurers walked over their trigger.”

“Got it. Let’s go take a look.”

Slowly but surely Vee made his way through the rest of the nonfunctional rooms inside Crestheart. For the most part, the needed fixes were simple and easy to take care of, but now and then the [Dungeon Master] stumbled across a tile that was virtually incomprehensible. Rather than spend several minutes trying to ascertain what his sleep-deprived mind had tried to do, Vee found it far more expedient to simply wipe the tile clean and start again, even if it was frustrating to do so.

Finally, he finished and tested the last room that needed to be repaired, and headed up to the office where Alforde was waiting. The armorsoul was deeply engrossed in a book – Vee couldn’t see the cover, but the back flap was covered in nonsense about swords and kingdoms – and didn’t notice Vee until the [Dungeon Master] went over and rapped his knuckles loudly on the table.

“Oh, you’re back,” Alforde said, carefully marking his page and standing up. “Are we all done here for the day?”

“I think so,” Vee said. “We’ll have Neil or one of the other [Bellwethers] test the new layout tomorrow to see what they think.”

“Excellent,” Alforde said. “I can’t wait to see how they fare!”

“Same here,” Vee said, and the trio left the dungeon and headed back to town.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 32

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

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

Might: 15

Wit: 39

Faith: 26

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 15

Plotting: 19

Charisma: 16

Devious Mind: 27

Leadership: 22

Guts: 14

Intimidating Presence: 11 (+1)

Citizenship: 23

Public Relations: 8

Determination: 5 (+1)

Persuasiveness: 5

Bargaining: 3

Patience: 2

Competitive Spirit: 1

Pragmatism: 1

<3<3 Infatuation <3<3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Specialist (Self), Level 5

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 18

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

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 11

Might: 58

Wit: 15

Faith: 29

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Endurance: 31 (+1)

Intimidating Presence: 14

Heart of a Champion: 14

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Vigilance: 10

Vanity: 2

Reginald:

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

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 41

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 20

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: 42

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

Loyalty: 46

Patience: 11

Irritability: 24

Remorsefulness: 17

Expository Prowess: 23

#%$Pragmatism*#$: @#61$5

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

@#$@%%^

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 9