Vee reached down to the chair next to where he was sitting and pulled out a bottle of water. He took a sip and felt the liquid flowing down his throat and into his chest. After wiping his mouth, he turned to Reginald and asked, “How many more adventurers are there?”

The hat looked down at the stack of papers on the desk next to him. It was the applications for each adventurer that had paid the full entry fee to run Crestheart that day. It was still thick, but substantially thinner than it had been when Vee had first come back to the top of the tower and settled in for the runs. “Hmm, maybe four or five? It’s kind of hard to tell.”

“If that’s all that’s left then I can handle that,” Vee said as he took another sip of water. His throat ached, and he was looking forward to spending the rest of the day in silence. Part of his responsibilities as [Dungeon Master] included a fair bit of voice acting at multiple points throughout the dungeon, and doing so was taking its toll on him. Given that Vee had only two voices that he could reliably imitate – Alforde with a cold and female Alforde with a cold – his performance probably wasn’t too great. He had to hope that the rest of the dungeon challenges were keeping the adventurers from noticing.

Thank Piper he had decided against including the logic puzzle that he’d been considering. It would have required him to read the entire setup, the clues, and respond to guesses. Reginald had been right that it would have been way too much reading.

In addition to the voice acting, he also had to manage the doors and traps during each run. This mostly required Vee to press buttons on Dheart and wasn’t too strenuous.

Together, his efforts had earned him another level of [Dungeon Master].

He was pleased with how the runs had been going so far. He’d lost count of how many adventurers had tried to clear Crestheart – it was definitely close to thirty, if not more than that – and so far, only six had managed to reach Alforde. Of those, only one – a short and fat kitrekin [Martial Artist] with blue fur – had managed to knock Alforde out of the champion’s ring four times to claim the dungeon’s final prize. He was impressed by his friend’s speed, strength, and stamina.

It was a little weird that so few had reached the third floor. Apparently, the hallways of flame had worked wonders when modified by the dungeon’s [Disorientation] aura, and the lesser elementals of flame had paid for themselves probably twice over.

Honestly, Vee still had a tough time believing that so many of the adventurers were so defenseless against fire damage. If he’d been an adventurer, fire damage would have been the first thing he would have protected himself against. Or, at least, one of the first things.

Oh well. Their losses were his gain. He hadn’t crunched the numbers, but it was looking like today was going to end up being very profitable. Much better than expected, to be honest.

“Who’s up next?”

Reginald shuffled a little bit and looked at the top sheet on the pile of remaining adventurer applications. “Name is Pierre St. Drod. He’s a [Balloonbarian].”

“A what?”

“A [Balloonbarian]. It’s a hybrid class. Mixture of [Clown] and [Barbarian], I think.”

Vee had never heard of such a class before. Hybrids? Sure, he’d met a few people at the academy who’d had hybrid classes, but never one so silly sounding as [Balloonbarian]. “How does that happen?”

Reginald did his little shrug. “Has something to do with parents both wanting their kid to take their classes. If the kid can’t pick one or likes both for different reasons for a long enough period of time, they kind of merge together and you get a hybrid class that takes some skills from both.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Vee said. “I know how hybrid classes are made. I meant – no, never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

Taking Pierre’s application from the stack with a shrug, Vee looked at it for himself, since he wasn’t entirely sure that Reginald wasn’t just screwing with him. Sure enough though, [Balloonbarian] was written right there in big, bold, silly letters. It was time to see how he did.

Staring at the glowing blue sphere in front of him that displayed each room of the dungeon as the adventurer passed through them, Vee held out his hand and said, “Alright, Dheart. Let’s go ahead and send him in.”

***

Pierre wanted his hands to stop shaking. No matter how he clenched and squeezed his fingers though, they still trembled. He looked around at the last few adventurers standing in line to challenge Crestheart, and wondered if any of them were suffering from nerves as badly as he was. It didn’t look like it. They all loitered around in various states of boredom, with arms crossed over their chests or sitting on the ground and looking at the festival.

The delicious scent of roasted meat permeated the air, and the barricaded street leading from Northtown to Crestheart sounded like one heck of a party. For a few moments, Pierre thought about forgetting the thirty five fleurs he’d paid to run the dungeon and leaving the line to go hang out in the celebrating crowd. He could [Juggle] and [Clown Around] instead of fighting ghosts in the depths of Crestheart.

“Can’t think like that,” he muttered to himself. “Can’t let your nerves get the best of you, Pierre.”

His stomach twisted itself into knots and Pierre fought back the sudden urge to vomit. That’s normal, nothing to worry about. Just nerves. After all, he’d only been an adventurer for two months, and this was his first attempt at running a dungeon.

He tried to psych himself up. Crestheart wasn’t terribly impressive, he told himself. Ceremony and speech by the [Dungeon Master] aside, from where he was standing, Crestheart didn’t look…particularly great. Unlike the pictures of the great dungeons of the continent that he’d seen in Adventurers Monthly Magazine every four to six weeks as a child – the publishers had a different definition of “monthly” than most people – Crestheart looked an awful lot like a hastily constructed warehouse. There weren’t any towering statues of horrors in front of the door, nor any gold plated stairs that hinted at great wealth hidden inside. There wasn’t even any music playing to help set the mood.

Rationally, Pierre knew that this meant the [Dungeon Master] – and probably the [Dungeon Champion] too – were as green as he was, but knowing that in his head was different than knowing it in his gut, as his mom used to say. He couldn’t shake his unease.

Since he was up next to go in and start his run, he hastened to get ready. For some light stretching, he activated [Clown Around]. One handstand, two cartwheels, and three somersaults later and he felt a bit better. He took off his shirt, poured some oil on his shoulders, chest, and back, and then activated [Oversized Pockets]. From inside his right pocket, he took out his big shoes, rainbow wig, and red rubber nose. He put them on quickly and then drew his tube from his left pocket and a handful of offense and defense balloons. He inflated one of the impact balloons and fitted it to the end of his tube to activate [Balloon Mace]. There, now he was ready.

As he’d hoped, the act of putting on his gear and readying his weapon had substantially calmed his nerves.

Pierre stared at the door to Crestheart. It was big and heavy, and it had a pair of bulging eyes that never blinked.

With a creak, it swung open and a crackling voice that sounded a little bit like a child imitating an adult came out of the bushy mustache just above the knob. “Pierre St. Drod, enter the dungeon, if you dare!”

Raising his weapon, Pierre walked through the door and it creaked shut behind him.

***

“I’m telling you,” Reginald said once Vee deactivated the magnifying crystal. “You’re saying that wrong. It’s ‘dare’, not ‘daaaaare’. It’s supposed to be a challenge, not a groan!”

“It’s spookier my way,” Vee countered. “Crestheart is a ghost dungeon, and I want adventurers to be creeped out when they go inside.”

“We have [Aura of Fear] for that,” Reginald said. “Don’t ruin the mood.”

Vee huffed. “I need to watch the first room so that I can unlock the door if he clears it. We can talk about this later.”

***

It was pretty dark inside Crestheart, but a few flickering blue torches on the walls gave Pierre enough light to see where he was going.

The first room of the first floor was a big square space, and as soon as he reached the center, a trio of ghosts phased through the wall and flew towards him with their hands out. Pierre cartwheeled away from their first strike and dispatched them easily enough with his mace, but he hit the third one wrong and his balloon popped. He’d probably overfilled it a little bit.

Cursing, Pierre snatched another impact balloon from the wad in his free hand and hurried to inflate it. He’d just finished attaching it when another trio attacked from behind, and this time he wasn’t fast enough to dodge the first minion’s attack. Three claws sank into his shoulder and drew blood before he jumped to safety and smashed the ghost to smithereens.

The adventurer checked his wound with a smile. It didn’t hurt much, but it would boost his rage multiplier. He’d wanted to make sure and take some damage before making it to the champion’s arena so that his [Barbarian Strength] would be good and primed. This was the best kind of wound to take.

There was a loud clunk and a quartet of ghosts surged toward him. This time though, they weren’t all the same. One of them looked like it was two ghosts stitched together – poorly – so that it was heavier and tankier than its peers. Pierre didn’t need [Clown Around] to dodge the slow attacks, but he still leapt into the air to get behind it so that he could deliver a mighty blow with his [Balloon Mace]. Always be clowning, just like his dad taught him. The impact balloon popped on the ghost’s back, but seemed to do no real damage.

Two of the other ghosts got their claws into him and left him another handful of scratches. More pain. More rage. This was fine. Another impact balloon dispatched the trio of normal ghosts, but popped immediately against the tank once again.

Time for a change in tactics, then. Drawing out a pierce balloon, Pierre reactivated [Balloon Mace] and drove the spiky sphere into the ghost’s face. This time his attack worked, and the monster vanished. It left behind a small purplish gray stone – a shard of chaos – and Pierre scooped it up and tossed it into his back pocket.

There was loud groan and the red light above the only door he could see in the room turned blue. It hissed and opened, and Pierre went through it. He’d cleared a room! His heart was racing and his shoulder ached, but that was fine. One room down, five to go on the first floor.

The second room was similar to the first, except that instead of coming at him in small teams, the ghosts constantly streamed towards him from all corners of the room. He cleared it without taking any more injuries and then it was onto the third room.

The third room looked like a library of sorts, with shelves of books all around. There were sheets of paper on the ground too, but they were all blank. Not a real library, then. Pierre walked forward slowly and carefully, expecting an attack at any moment, but none came. In the center of the room was a bubbling fountain with a statue of an angelic child in the center. Okay, that was a little weird.

He couldn’t tell if it was because of the light or something, but the water didn’t look right. It looked, greasy, somehow.

A voice came out of the statue’s mouth.

“Ahem. Adventurer, do you daa – shoot, wrong line. Stop it, Reginald, don’t give me that look. Yes, I know its on. Shush! Adventurer, are you weary from your trials? This water can soothe many ailments.”

Pierre raised his eyebrow and looked down at the murky green liquid. Then he returned gaze to the statue and shook his head. The water looked like it’d soothe something alright; a deathwish. “No thanks,” he said.

However, once he passed the statue and started heading towards the door, the voice in the statue cried out “You have angered the spirits by refusing their gift! Now you will SUFFER!...Okay, how was that? Crap, forgot to turn this –”

At once, books started floating up off the shelves and spinning towards the [Balloonbarian]. Now, he’d been struck by a lot of different things in his life, but these books hit different. Their corners were like daggers, their spines felt like hammers and there were too many for Pierre to dodge properly. One hit him in the face and knocked his nose off – his clown nose, that is – and it took him almost two minutes to find where the darned thing had rolled off to. Jamming it back on his face where it belonged, Pierre pushed the door open and walked into the fourth room just as another book left a nasty gash across the middle of his back.

More ghosts, though this time fighting them was made harder by a series of spring traps that sent spikes out of the walls and ground depending on where one stepped. Pierre almost landed on one particularly nasty looking spear, and thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t. Even his shoes wouldn’t have been able to prevent him from being seriously injured.

There’d been two of the tank ghosts in the fourth room, and the fight had been much harder than the one’s in the first two rooms. Pierre was breathing hard and sweating profusely – helped in no small part by the fact that it was quite warm inside Crestheart – but his rage multiplier was pretty high and his [Barbarian Strength] was almost maxed out. Once that happened, his blows would be approximately twice as strong as they were normally, which would be a big help when it came to knocking the [Dungeon Champion] out of the ring. He just had to get there first.

The fifth room was one of those “walls start closing in on you” traps, and [Clown Around] let him quickly dispatch the quartet of tank ghosts and pick up the door key before he was in any real danger.

The sixth room was the first floor’s loot room, and after kicking the treasure chest a few times to make sure that it wasn’t a mimic, Pierre opened it up and saw that it contained a few small crystals. Each one was marked with a value, and Pierre was holding twenty silver fleurs worth of prizes. Pretty good, all things considered. He had two more floors to make back his entrance fee, and he didn’t know how much he’d get paid for the shard of chaos he’d picked up earlier.

He smiled. So far, the dungeon hadn’t been too bad. After taking a few moments to rest and catch his breath, Pierre descended down the stairs to the second floor.

***

“What do you think?” Reginald asked. “Care to make a wager on it?”

Vee looked down at the ridiculous looking adventurer. He’d been surprised by the way the [Balloonbarian] had handled the rooms of the dungeon. Of all the adventurers to clear the first floor, Pierre had been the lowest level by a good bit. “He’s better than I thought he’d be, but I don’t think he’s going to beat Alforde. It might be close, though. Let’s see how he does on the second floor, and then we can bet.”

Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 15

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 6 (+1)

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far, Level 1

Might: 6

Wit: 23

Faith: 12

Adventurousness: 8

Ambition: 5

Plotting: 6

Charisma: 3

Devious Mind: 8

Leadership: 6

Guts: 4

Intimidating Presence: 3

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 10

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 8

Tertiary Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 5

Additional Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 4

Might: 22

Wit: 10

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 5

Endurance: 6 (+6)

Intimidating Presence: 5 (+5)

Heart of a Champion: 1 (+1)

Reginald:

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 29

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 4

Might: 1

Wit: 24

Faith: 2

Ambition: 21

Greed: 17 (+1)

Deceptiveness: 35

[---------RESEAL ATTEMPT FAILED------#$%#%#^----]

BONUS: Pierre Character Sheet

Pierre St. Drod

Primary Class: Balloonbarian, Level 6

Secondary Class: Cook, Level 5

Might: 11

Wit: 10

Faith: 2

Adventurousness: 8

Guts: 9

Silliness: 5