Vee leaned forward in his chair and watched the last adventurer of the day – a salamander [Magic Fencer] – finally dispatch the last ghost on the first floor of Crestheart’s red path. He’d been surprised to see how much she’d struggled with each of the battles so far. She seemed like a competent fighter, but her rapier wasn’t suited to battling multiple foes at once, and apparently neither was she. Her primary skill, [Icicle Stab], was quick and deadly, but it was single target and the cooldown between uses seemed fairly high.

She stood up straight, stretching her arms, back, neck and tail. Vee had seen other adventurers doing similar things, and it almost always meant that they were just about out of energy. He hoped that would be the case here too.

After checking for traps on the stairs, the salamander got down to the second floor. She deciphered the clue in the second room and was the first adventurer to solve the riddle that led to hidden treasure – a small silver bauble from Thien’s shop – but visibly flagged when she saw saw the first group of fire-elemental-carrying ghosts toward her. Without even a shred of hesitation, she activated her escape rope and gave up on her run. She was gasping for breath, and once Vee restored the torches to normal, he could see that she looked hollow. Her eyes were sunken, and her cheeks were pale, even by salamander standards.

Vee grinned. Adventurers quitting early was the best possible outcome for each run. Reaching down to his desk, Vee pressed the button that deactivated all of the dungeon threats and unlocked all of the doors. He activated his magnifying crystal.

“If you turn around and go back up the stairs to the first floor, you’ll see some glowing green crystals on the ceiling that will lead you to the exit. Thanks for running Crestheart today, and we hope to see you again soon!”

With that done, Vee also activated the magnifying crystal to Alforde’s arena, letting his friend know that the day’s attempts were over, and he could go ahead and come back up to the office.

As soon as the [Spell Fencer] left the dungeon, Do and the rest of the maintenance crew went to work, filling in the cracks in the walls and replacing all the tiles that had been damaged. They didn’t speak to each other, but somehow they all seemed to know what needed to be done. Working in pairs for the most part, the fiends were still a little slow at handling their new tasks, but they took to them with an enthusiasm that spoke well of their potential to become experts of their craft. Fascinating. He’d have to mention these changes in his next letter to the academy, though he had yet to receive a response to his first one. That was fine. He had the feeling that the more time that passed between letters the more interesting the end product would eventually be.

Alforde was singing old songs as he came up the stairs and into the office. He hadn’t lost a single match that day, and his eyes were bright and cheerful as he walked over to the desk to help Vee with the day’s counting.

The [Dungeon Master] had already summoned Cecil and was updating Crestheart’s ledger. “Fourteen adventurers, with twelve paying to challenge Alforde.”

“Understood,” the spreadsheet said. “After accounting for taxes and expenses from rewards, we earned four hundred and one silver fleurs today. Next up is shards of chaos. How many did we add?”

Vee held up three fingers, and a little redundantly, Cecil confirmed that they now had three shards of chaos in total. They’d spent every shard of chaos they’d earned up to that point on improving the dungeon – the slimes, fog machines, and other new additions all required shards of chaos in addition to fleurs – but Vee had a good feeling about their situation. Their investments were sure to pay dividends. He knew that they were still every bit as far away from adding another floor to the dungeon as they’d ever been, but this newest batch of changes meant that the rate at which they earned shards of chaos should be much higher. Hopefully they’d get there soon.

“Not a bad take, huh?” Vee said as he watched Alforde carry the money and shards into the dungeon vault.

“Might not look so good when Do comes up and tells us about how much repairs are going to cost us for the day,” Reginald said. “That kitrekin [Earthshaker] did a number on the first floor of the blue path with that [Seismic Wave] skill. I thought he was going to bring the whole building down on himself, and maybe the tower with it.”

“Yeah, that would not have been good,” said Vee as he made himself a little ball of ectoplasm to play with while he waited for Alforde to return. “Eventually, we’ll have to do something to reinforce the structure to handle area of effect skills better. A few fleurs now might save us a lot of fleurs later.”

“Since you’re amenable to spending money right now, we should order more of the slimes too,” Reginald said. “We lost four today, and will probably lose more as the week goes on. I think they added a nice bit of challenge to the dungeon. Didn’t you think so?”

Vee agreed. The slimes had definitely done a number on the adventurers – especially the ones that he’d fed some of the lesser fire elementals to. They were still smaller than he would have liked, which meant that he needed to risk more of them per trap, but hopefully the survivors would grow as they got older, and he could start dropping down to only having one or two per trap instead of five or six.

The spirit of spending was upon Vee. To add more variety and keep expanding the dungeon’s options, the [Dungeon Master] also ordered a batch of lesser ice and electric elementals as well as the second batch of slimes. He wasn’t sure if he’d use them by themselves – combining the lesser fire elementals with the ghosts had worked wonders – but they’d definitely add some zing wherever they ended up.

Now that he’d gotten a taste of tinkering with his minions to give them different properties, an entirely new world of possibilities opened itself up to him. For example, he’d had an idea – and made a few sketches so that he wouldn’t forget it later – for a series of turrets. Elementals could be placed inside the turrets and then Vee could simply point them whatever direction he wanted and watch them do their thing. There’d be basically no risk of friendly fire, and beyond just dealing damage, Vee could use the turrets to steer adventurers into traps or other places they weren’t prepared for.

Technically, managing such devices would be another thing for him to do during runs, but that was fine. Ever since giving over the announcer duties to Reginald full time, he’d felt a little bored watching the adventurers make their way through the dungeon, and was eager for more things to do.

After all, Vee definitely didn’t want to be one of those [Dungeon Masters] he’d seen on Mr. Watson’s vision sphere. They’d been a bunch of surly old folks, sitting in a chair and doing nothing more than glaring as the adventurers made their runs and clapping politely whenever the adventurers overcame one of their challenges.

Doing his job like that didn’t appeal to Vee in the slightest. Talk about boring!

When Dheart finished processing Vee’s order, a popup appeared in front of Vee and the [Dungeon Master]’s eyes grew wide when he read it.

[Congratulations, Crestheart is now a Level 2 dungeon!]

[Your dungeon auras are now more powerful!]

[+1% Bonus chance for minions to drop shards of chaos when defeated!)

[You may now choose one of the following perks to make your dungeon more powerful!]

[Option 1: Customizable Golem]

This powerful minion can serve as an effective mini-boss. With six possible slots for equipment, it can modified to suit the theme and aesthetics of any dungeon. So long as the golem is kept inside the dungeon, it will be supported by [Self-Repair]. Thanks to its leveling core, the golem will continue to improve and develop as it gains experience inside the dungeon. Selecting this option will increase your dungeon’s chance for being offered other golem perks at higher levels.

[Option 2: Cloudy Mirror]

Poured by apprentice [Mirror Smiths], this device can create a duplicate of any dungeon minion. Usable once per run, this mirror is best used on powerful minions or [Dungeon Champions]. Continuous use will improve the mirror’s power. Selecting this option will increase your dungeon’s chance for being offered other artifact perks at higher levels.

[Option 3: General Dungeon Improvement]

All minions will receive basic elemental resistances, deal slightly more damage, and be slightly more durable. Selecting this option will also give your dungeon an allowance of three shards of chaos per week and increase its chances for being offered other dungeon improvement perks at higher levels.

Vee looked at the options and scratched his head. “I can see all of these being useful. What do you guys think?”

Alforde and Reginald read over the popup for themselves.

“I’m not crazy about the golem,” Reginald said. “It seems like it’d start as a generic [Fighter] class. We’d have to buy equipment for it in order for it to be able to do much of anything, and that’s sure to be expensive. Most of those golems are massive. Then, once we got it outfitted, we’d have to make sure it doesn’t seem too much like Alforde. We don’t want a golem overshadowing our [Dungeon Champion].”

“That’s true, but depending on how we equip it and level it up, we can use it to take some of the strain off Alforde,” Vee said. “Like if we made it a ranged fighter or something. Covering Alforde’s weaknesses and hedging a little bit might be useful to have once Crestheart grows some more. Right now, we’re dealing with mostly low level adventurers who only have one set of equipment and rely on a single class, but there are adventurers out there who basically turn into different people by changing their setup and gearing themselves to supplement their secondary or tertiary class instead of their primary one. I think it’d be good to have a second big threat to deal with those adventurers.”

“I like the mirror more,” said Alforde. “Imagine, adventurers battle their way down to my arena and then right before we start fighting I activate the mirror and now they’re facing two [Dungeon Champions] instead of one. Dodging two hammers is harder than just dodging one. That’ll give me an edge against those shifty adventurers you were talking about and doesn’t require a stupid golem.”

Sadly, if either Vee or Reginald noted the armorsoul’s sour tone, they didn’t mention it.

“Meh,” said Reginald as he read over the descriptions once more and rocked from side to side. “Says here that the mirror was made by apprentices. You know how apprentices are. They’re worthless, or as close to it as they can be. That means the copy of the monster the mirror makes probably isn’t too powerful. Besides, do you really want to share the spotlight with a clone? Makes it a bit less impressive if you’re winning fights two-on-one, you know?”

Alforde reached up to his helmet and thought for a moment. “Hmm, that’s a good point, but I still want the mirror. Even if I wasn’t opposed to having a stupid golem trying to steal my spotlight, having a second pair of hands or a second hammer would give me some really great new options. I could maybe even learn a [Combination Attack] or two! How awesome would that be?”

Alforde started to launch into his list of favorite [Combination Attacks], but Vee held up a hand to stop him before he really got going. He didn’t want to be stuck hearing about the glories of the [X-Strike], [Y-Slice] and [Z-Slash] for the millionth time.

“What do you guys think about the third option?” Vee asked. “The general dungeon improvements one? It seemed good on first glance, but now that I’m thinking about it a bit more it seems like it’s the weakest of the three by far.”

“Hard to be sure, but that’s probably the case,” said Reginald. “I doubt the minion buffs would be noticeable because all of our minions are only tier ones. If they were stronger, higher tier minions, the bonuses would probably be more meaningful. A few percent stronger goes a long way when you have a bigger base value, right? Sort of the opposite problem for the shards of chaos, though. They’d definitely be nice right now, but if we grow the way we want to they won’t be much use. That perk has to be the worst option of the three. The opportunity cost is just too high.”

Vee scratched his head and looked over at Dheart. “Is there a time limit on this? Do I have to pick the perk now, or can I think about it and make my decision later?”

Dheart hummed for a moment and then said in its chirping voice: “You can take as long as you want. However, once you choose, you will be unable to change your selection, so consider the options carefully before picking your perk.”

“Of course that’s how it works,” Vee grumbled. “I’ll sleep on it for a couple days, then.”

Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 21

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 8

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 2

Might: 8

Wit: 28

Faith: 16

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 8 (+1)

Plotting: 10 (+1)

Charisma: 3

Devious Mind: 12

Leadership: 9

Guts: 3

Intimidating Presence: 4

Citizenship: 4

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 17 (+1)

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 10

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 10 (+1)

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 5

Might: 29 (+1)

Wit: 10

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 6

Endurance: 9

Intimidating Presence: 8

Heart of a Champion: 2

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 1

Vigilance: 1

Reginald:

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 33 (+1)

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 6 (+1)

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 2 (+1)

Might: 1

Wit: 27 (+1)

Faith: 3

Ambition: 23

Greed: 18

Deceptiveness: 32

[email protected]$: $%

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Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 1