Vee and Alforde walked through the gate and headed for Crestheart Tower. It was a cloudy morning and rather cool, but the first snow of the year had yet to fall. Vee didn’t have terribly high hopes for how the city handled winter, so he hoped it would be a mild one.

Alforde had a new spring in his step, courtesy of the gray and black cape that hung from his pauldrons. Vee thought the thing looked ridiculous, but Alforde clearly loved it, having spent over an hour that morning on practicing his “dramatic removal” technique, so he kept his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself. That’s what it meant to be a friend, sometimes.

He looked down at the street and was pleased that the Light section of the orchestra had once again worked their magic. The trash and debris left behind from Crestheart Day were virtually all gone. It wasn’t as clean as it normally was, but Vee was sure that with another night or two of his fiends’ attention, it’d be beautiful again real soon.

The street fair had been a resounding success, but it’d left behind quite the mess. Next year, Vee was going to double or triple the number of trash cans around the area so that the fiends didn’t have to work so hard. He’d felt bad watching them cart discarded plates and bits of parchment paper. Vee wasn’t sure if the fiends had developed enough to truly understand the concept of a “bonus” yet, but he’d given them twice the amount of refined ectoplasm that they needed anyways to thank them for their efforts. They’d certainly earned it, and based on how quickly they’d consumed the entire payment, it appeared to be appreciated.

Turning to his friend, the [Dungeon Master] smiled and rapped his knuckles against the armorsoul’s upper arm to get Alforde’s attention. A chill surged through his fingers and ran up his entire arm before he managed to jerk his hand away with a grimace.

“Gawain’s balls, that new armor of yours is cold,” he said when Alforde looked down at him with a quizzical expression. “Was it always like that?”

“Hmm? Is it really that cold? I haven’t noticed anything like that.”

Vee blew on his hand and stuck it under his other armpit to try and chase away the chill as he nodded. “I thought frostnickel was only supposed to have a minor ice enchantment on it. That was definitely colder than minor should be.”

Alforde looked down at his armor and shrugged. It wasn’t like there were icicles or anything popping out of the plates. “I’ll talk to Hanako about it the next time I see her,” he said. “Is your hand okay?”

“I think so,” Vee answered as he examined his fingertips. They were a little red, but didn’t hurt or anything.

They stopped in front of the tower and bid each other farewell and good luck, but in light of the newfound chill of Alforde’s armor, the friends forewent their typical ritual of a fist bump. Instead, Vee simply held up his hand and Alforde did the same with his gauntlet.

“Good luck today, buddy. I’ll try and make sure that whoever gets to you is nice and worn down,” Vee said.

Alforde chuckled as he entered the dungeon and headed down to his arena. Do and the other [Dungeon Maintainers] had returned Crestheart to what it’d been before the race layout for the most part, but Vee kept a few of the elements he’d liked from Crestheart Day too.

He’d added his controllable traps to the dungeon’s main hallway and installed a small chasm on the second floor that required riding on a moving platform while enduring a barrage of lesser flame elemental attacks.

Beyond that, he’d added a few moveable tiles behind the walls. When he pressed the appropriate button, the tiles rotated so that the orientation of the pack would change. This was done so that Vee could send any minions Marked by [Boost Drops] to be fought – and hopefully destroyed – first by the adventurers, maximizing the value gained from the skill.

The installation of the rotating tiles had taken Do’s crew more time than it should have, and so unfortunately, they hadn’t been able to put in the rest of the dungeon improvements Vee and Reginald decided on after watching all the races. Notably missing were the ladders and rope swing elements that Vee wanted on the first floor, but that was fine. They’d be added in throughout the week as the [Dungeon Maintainers] had time to do so.

Once he made it up to the office, Vee examined every inch of his control setup, making sure that nothing was out of place.

“What are you doing?” Reginald asked.

“Making sure that Seidon didn’t sabotage anything while I was gone yesterday,” Vee said as he flicked a switch back and forth and frowned when a door that was supposed to open stayed shut. He closed his eyes and alerted Do to the problem, which turned out to be a simple connection issue on the fiend’s part and was quickly fixed. Still, he was glad that he’d taken the time to check before the day’s runs started.

[Devious Mind +1]

Vee sighed and turned his thoughts to other matters. There were still a lot of upgrades he wanted to work into the new control setup – traps he wanted to add controls for, platforms that he could move, etc. – but for the moment his priority was collecting the two hundred and fifty shards of chaos necessary to add a fourth floor to Crestheart. Everything else could wait.

After all, the lack of business while Alforde was injured meant that finding ways to boost the marginal revenue per adventurer was going to be critical if they were going to keep their repayment schedule.

Thankfully, Vee had a few options available to help with that. There were still a few of Juniper’s burn salves from race day, and Vee was going to see if adventurers were willing to buy them from the mannequin shopkeepers to soothe burns they got from the lesser elementals or the elemental slimes. Since they were a more niche product, Reginald suggested selling them for three silver fleurs apiece. If they ended up being popular, Vee was going to try and expand the inventories of the mannequin shopkeepers with other specific curatives once he had minions in the dungeon that could consistently apply the relevant status effects.

Right now, he didn’t have a ton of options, so he was happy to start with just the burn salves. However, he’d had his eye on a series of miniature gargoyles in the union handbook that were capable of applying [Minor Petrification] to targets they stared at for a while, and the [Dungeon Master] was interested in purchasing a batch to test out.

A second potential source of additional revenue didn’t directly rely on the dungeon. While he’d been out walking around with Luna – had that been a date? Vee wasn’t sure, though just thinking about it now made him smile – he’d bumped into a boy and his sister who’d seen Vee and Juniper cleaning up the bugs with the slimes. Since they were aspiring entrepreneurs, they were interested in starting their own little business to do the same thing. They talked about getting rid of the trash and crap around their neighborhood, and had asked if they could rent a few of Vee’s slimes to do so.

He'd have to crunch some numbers first and make sure that he was covered liability-wise in case something happened while the slimes were out, but since he’d had a similar idea himself, he saw no reason to refuse their request.

It didn’t matter that they probably wouldn’t make much money, either. Vee didn’t need all the slimes he had as it was – and Pretzel was going to be creating more soon, if the things he’d read about Royal Slimes were correct – so it wasn’t like renting them out was going to really cost him much at all. The only thing he’d really have to go out of his way to provide were the ectoplasm leashes, and since he’d add their cost to the rental fee, that wouldn’t be a problem.

He wished Reginald luck as the first adventurer walked up to the door and opened his guide handbook to browse the other monsters available for purchase. For the first time, he noticed a bit of fine print on the bottom of one page.

Contact Union office for weekly discounted monster list.

How hadn’t he seen that before?

Vee turned to Dheart.

“Oy, can you get me the weekly discounted monster list?”

The dungeon heart thrummed a few times, and then replied cheerfully.

“Of course, Master. I’ll have it to you in a few moments.”

Vee leaned back in his chair. If there was one thing he loved, it was a good discount.

Alforde paced back and forth inside his arena, stopping now and then to take a bit of a practice swing with Slammy. Though it felt like it had been weeks since his last real fight in here, it really hadn’t been that long, and the armorsoul was perplexed at the vague sense of unease that lingered around his chest.

Closing his eyes, the [Dungeon Champion] imagined himself up against another adventurer and began to go through his warmup routine. He lunged, retreated, and utilized all of the little jabs and swings he’d worked on with Shadowforde’s help, making sure that all of his plates were nice and loose as he did so.

The armor was finally starting to feel right, as was the new style of fighting he’d been learning to go with it.

“You’re still not moving fast enough,” Shadowforde’s voice said as Alforde finished his last movements. The armorsoul opened his eyes and looked at his Reflection. “Remember, move into position and then strike. Don’t give your opponent a chance to dodge if they let you get close. You’re like a glacier, advancing slowly until there’s nowhere for your enemy to run.”

Alforde nodded and the pair went through a second series of warmups, with Shadowforde acting as an enemy to test the armorsoul’s footwork and spacing.

Since he’d been training with the Reflection so much, Alforde was comfortable with all the moves and tactics his counterpart liked to use, but he gave the bout his full attention and moved as quickly as he could all the same.

By the time Vee called down that the first run for the day had started, Alforde felt ready to fight, and he opened the box of enchanted crystals he’d gotten from Hanako to select his first skill crystal of the day.

To be completely honest, he’d somewhat neglected his practice with the gifts Hanako had given him. Learning how to use so many different skills was going to take time, and Alforde had decided that his efforts were better spent focused on regaining his melee proficiency. He’d won almost all of his bouts with nothing but his hammer and his tenacity, after all. The skill crystals were simply a bonus to help out if he met a particularly troublesome opponent.

“Any ideas on which one I should start with?”

Shadowforde was quiet for a moment and then pointed to [Frostvent]. “Why don’t we try a few fights with that one, and then if you’re not feeling it we can swap over of a different one.”

A nice, simple area of effect skill. Alforde couldn’t argue with that. Though it was far from the most powerful crystal he had access to, [Frostvent] was surprisingly easy to use and complemented the armorsoul’s existing fighting style of getting close and dealing damage. The chilly air would slow adventurers down and make it easier for the [Dungeon Champion] to land a truly heavy blow.

“I’ll call you when I need you,” Alforde said, and Shadowforde nodded as he returned to the mirror. With a twist of his gauntlets, the [Dungeon Champion] opened up his weapon and socketed [Frostvent]. He gave the skill a few tests to make sure that it was properly seated, and then made his way over to the edge of his arena to wait for his first opponent.

He shook his head and tapped his boot on the ground. One thing that hadn’t changed in his absence was the fact that he hated having to wait.

Vee watched the sturdy mace-wielding [Marauder] walk into Crestheart and activated [Boost Drops]. The man was muscular and looked like he knew how to use his weapon, so Vee didn’t fear wasting a charge of the precious resource.

“[Excellent Spreadsheet].”

Cecil appeared next to Vee, and the [Dungeon Master] opened the sheet he was going to use to track the efficacy of the skill. He’d used the skill twice the day before, and the results had differed, so he suspected that there was a degree of randomness to how many minions it affected.

“Let’s see,” he said as he pored over all his minions. “It looks like there are…three slimes, one skeleton, and five ghosts who got Marked. Would you jot that down, Cecil?”

The spreadsheet acknowledged the entry, and Vee turned his attention to making sure that minions with purple triangles on them were sent into the adventurer’s way first. He flipped a pair of switches and fiddled with a few knobs to make sure they were positioned properly and let things go from there.

Thankfully, the [Marauder] made quick work of them, collecting three shards of chaos for his efforts and Vee leaned back. His next opportunity to directly affect the run wasn’t for a little while, so he might as well relax a little bit beforehand.

It was good to be back in business.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 24

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 16

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 5

Might: 10

Wit: 26

Faith: 18

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 11

Plotting: 14

Charisma: 9

Devious Mind: 17 (+1)

Leadership: 15

Guts: 11

Intimidating Presence: 8

Citizenship: 16

Public Relations: 4

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 20

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 12

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 11

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 2

Might: 31

Wit: 11

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Endurance: 16

Intimidating Presence: 11

Heart of a Champion: 3

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 6

Vigilance: 4

Reginald:

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

--~%@(%[email protected] &% (*$ #&#e !i$$ (#$%#$%#[email protected]!)~--, #[email protected]& ????

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 39

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 10

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 6

Might: 1

Wit: 29

Faith: 10

Ambition: 25

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 29

Manipulativeness: 34

F^#$#$%@#

Loyalty: 44

Patience: 12

[#@$%%^*!#@__--#%]

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 4