Over the next few days, Zeiken continued to follow the trio around, pestering Vee for a job. No matter how many times the [Dungeon Master] explained that he didn’t have the extra fleurs just then – and wouldn’t have any soon – the salamander refused to leave him alone. He swung out of alleys, creaked up behind Vee, slammed through crowds, and opened every conversation with an irritating preference for door themed puns.

“I think I have a handle on the issue now,” he said as he walked alongside the trio while they made their way back to Sculla’s one evening. He’d been waiting for them right inside the gate, which had caused Vee to curse his consistent and easily-predictable schedule. “You don’t have enough reach outside Oar’s Crest. The overwhelming majority of your business still hinges on the local adventurer economy that’s present here, and let’s face it, this place isn’t exactly an ocean of talent. At this rate, you’re going to be able to grow a beard before Crestheart really takes off. Aren’t you tired of scrimping and saving and not really getting anywhere for your efforts?”

Vee scowled, and his hand instinctively and defensively reached up to the soft skin of his chin. The fact that he couldn’t grow a beard was quite a sore spot for him, and he secretly nursed the hope that he’d be able to do so before he turned thirty. At this rate though, it wasn’t looking good.

Before he could offer up a suitably scathing reply, the salamander gave him another one of his unsettling grins and bowed his head.

“No offense meant, Mister Vales. I just think that I could help with that stuff, you know. All you have to do is say the word.”

He raised his eyebrow. “And what word might that be? What exactly do you want to do for us? You know that I can’t afford to pay you, so I don’t understand why you continue to offer your services, whatever they might be.”

Zeiken shrugged, but his eyes were sparkling. He’d never been asked what exactly he wanted to do for the dungeon before, so clearly his persistence was paying off.

“Let me be your [Dungeon Liaison],” Zeiken said.

“My what?”

“A [Dungeon Liaison]. You know, someone who travels the continent and talks to people on your behalf. Someone who builds relationships with other [Dungeon Masters] and adventuring guilds that lead to lucrative future ventures. Someone who can [Open Doors]. Trust me, when it comes to that, I’m your guy.”

For emphasis, the salamander lifted his door up and shook it around a little bit.

Vee didn’t know what to say. He’d been expecting the salamander to want some sort of glorified minion position inside Crestheart. Maybe even something like a [Mini-Boss]. But this? This was equal parts interesting and confusing.

“What’s in it for you?”

Zeiken laughed. It was a bright, musical sound that reminded Vee of warm nights and oddly… pineapple juice.

“The satisfaction of a job well done, and hopefully plenty of fleurs once Crestheart is big enough to support my having them.”

“That’s a really long way away,” Vee said. He’d already explained the debt to Zeiken – multiple times in fact – but the salamander simply shook his head and hid behind his door.

“Maybe not as long as you think,” he said quietly. “If I have anything to do with it.”

“He’s crazy,” insisted Reginald, once the trio was back in their room at Sculla’s and safely away from the salamander. “You can see it in his eyes. Even if you don’t, I do. Classic crazy gleam and everything. Gawain’s balls, he carries around a door! And hides behind it! What other evidence of insanity to you need?”

Vee couldn’t argue with that. There were a lot of questions when it came to Zeiken and not many answers. Where had he come from, what did he really want, and why had he shown up now? The [Dungeon Master] had no idea.

Heck, Vee would have been happy if he’d simply been able to figure out the salamander’s class! Zeiken was surprisingly cagey about it, which the [Dungeon Master] found more than a little odd. He’d met people who were embarrassed or ashamed of their classes throughout his life, but they’d never hidden it the way Zeiken did. That’s not normal.

Doesn’t mean it’s nefarious though.

Maybe it was just a salamander thing. Vee knew that there were some salamander clans around the continent who still didn’t trust other races, largely keeping to themselves. But if that was the case, it was even weirder that the fat, yellow salamander had come and asked for a job so aggressively.

Before he could contemplate the matter further, Vee was distracted by the daily upkeep request from his orchestra. The amount of refined ectoplasm required by two of his three sections had mostly plateaued, but the Medium Section continued to require ever increasing amounts. Vee wasn’t sure why, either. It wasn’t like they were really developing into anything particularly special. They could all hold a conversation now – mostly – but still lagged far behind Do and the rest of the [Dungeon Maintainers] in terms of intellect. Similarly, they hadn’t undergone the physical transformations that many members of the Light Section had, and were largely the same as they’d been when Vee had first added them to his orchestra.

Still, though the thought of disbanding the section had crossed his mind, Vee was curious to see what they’d eventually become and could still afford to be patient. As such, he doled out the necessary refined ectoplasm and took a few minutes to make more. Drawing slow, even breaths, Vee activated [Refine Ectoplasm], pulling the energy out of the air in the room and shaping it. A gentle tickle in his palms guided him as he squeezed and shaped the ectoplasm into the compact cubes preferred by his fiends.

His daily use of [Refine Ectoplasm] had brought him some small degree of mastery, and it now only took Vee a few seconds to make a couple cubes. When he’d started feeding the orchestra, doing that would have taken two or three minutes, if not more. The [Ghost Maestro] smirked as he put together a couple dozen cubes and returned his attention to Reginald and Alforde. They’d apparently finished their conversation about Zeiken and were quiet as they waited for his decision.

Vee already knew that he’d take the salamader’s offer. Building publicity and relationships with other [Dungeon Masters] would only lead to good things, he was sure of that. The only thing that concerned him was Zeiken’s lack of familiarity with how Crestheart did things.

“The next time we see Zeiken, I’m going to invite him to the tower so that he can get a better understanding of how our dungeon functions.” Vee said. “We’ll get to know him a little bit better and hear about where he plans to go first. If his idea doesn’t make sense or he still seems crazy, we’ll re-evaluate then. Any problems with that?”

Reginald shifted a little bit, but didn’t complain, and Alforde simply shrugged his pauldrons as he opened his current book – a historical romance novel about a prince and a daring [Laundress] who was suspiciously good at martial arts – and looked down at the pages.

Figuring the matter settled for the moment, Vee lay down on his bed and went to sleep. His dreams were strange, filled with a journey across a mountain range that always seemed to have just one more peak.

Surprisingly, Zeiken was nowhere to be seen the next morning.

Vee kept looking over his shoulder as he walked alongside Alforde, expecting the salamander to appear out of nowhere as he constantly did, but they made it all the way to the tower without any issues.

When he got up to the office, Dheart let the [Dungeon Master] know that he had a message waiting for him from the union.

Walking over to the dungeon heart, Vee picked up the letter and unfolded it. It was printed in a nice, professional manner and bore the union’s insignia on the upper right corner.

Dear [Dungeon Master] Vales, it started. We’d like to thank you once again for your recent purchase.

Vee groaned. There’d definitely been some sort of problem. He read on to see what it was.

We regret to inform you that, due to an unexpected surge in bandit activities along the major roadways throughout the continent, it appears that your order will be delayed or might not arrive as expected. We know that this isn’t great news. [Dungeon Masters] like you all around the continent depend on our services to keep your businesses and we take our responsibilities seriously. We’re working closely with our partners in law enforcement around the continent to try and resolve the bandits issue.

If your order is more than two weeks late, please contact us and we will do everything that we can to remedy the situation.

Our most sincere apologies, and we look forward to continuing work with you further in the future.

With a huff, Vee dropped the letter onto the table and summoned Cecil.

“How can I be of service, Master?”

“I’d like to see the minion inventory, please.”

“As you wish.”

The spreadsheet flipped to the appropriate sheet and Vee scowled as he looked at his ever dwindling reserves of skeletons, ghosts, and lesser elementals. He had only a quarter of his skeletons left – for some reason, [Boost Drops] tended to Mark them over the other minions in the dungeon and the small chance they had on reviving themselves between runs hadn’t really done much to stem the tide of losses – a third of his ghosts, and about half of his lesser elementals. He wasn’t in dire straits yet as far as keeping the dungeon filled, but it was definitely going to be tight if the delivery was waylaid.

More poetry practice was definitely in the cards, but in the meantime, Vee had a different idea.

[Ambition +1]

He checked the time. There was a bit of time left before the day’s first run, so Vee went down to his lab and instructed Do to bring up a regular ghost from one of the packs.

While he waited, Vee let his mind wander, the way he often did when he wanted to be creative. Trying to make the world flow by, his dad had called it.

Maybe the shipping problems were a sign that it was time for him to start experimenting with his own ghastly creations for Crestheart. He couldn’t do anything about the skeletons or elementals, but he was a [Ghost Maestro] and should be able to ease the burden on the minion count a little bit by modifying some of his existing ghosts into stronger variants.

The [Dungeon Maintainer] brought up the small gray minion, and Vee studied it after the fiend left. He’d made a few simple modifications to some of the ghosts since opening the dungeon – giving them slightly more elemental resistances, for example – and making them, for a lack of better word, more of what they already were. However, he had yet to really dive in and try his hand at shaping a ghost into something completely different.

He pinched his thumb and forefinger together and activated [Shape Ectoplasm]. Grabbing a spare pair of experimental ghost hands that he’d been tinkering with a few days before, Vee tried to attach them to the ghost, but found that they wouldn’t stay in place and fell off after he let them go.

Consulting the manual on ghost anatomy that he’d borrowed from the library during his last visit, Vee looked at potential causes. There were a series of elaborate diagrams that caught his eye, and the [Ghost Maestro] followed them as he poked and prodded around the ghost. Sure enough, one of the ethereal hooks wasn’t shaped properly, and Vee straightened it out before trying again.

As it often did, working so closely with ectoplasm reminded Vee of why he’d become a [Ghost Maestro] in the first place. Twisting strands of yellow energy into a lattice was deeply satisfying, and fusing the ghost hands to said lattice before attaching them to the ghost’s body was a lot of fun. Vee emptied his mind and let his hands guide him. He didn’t exactly know where he was going with his design – was he making a multi-armed horror? A better brawling ghost? Something quick and nimble that would drop down from the ceiling and try and knock adventurers down to the ground? – but that sense of uncertain adventure was the point. If he wasn’t thinking too hard, he might accidentally stumble into something really special, and if not, he'd gotten some more ideas for later.

Just like Rortenferry, one of his professors back in the Academy, had always said, ectoplasm was an almost infinite canvas for exploring the world.

[Congratulations, you are now a Ghost Maestro Level 25!]

[Wit +1]

[Your Shape Ectoplasm skill is now more powerful!]

[Your ability to control your orchestra grows stronger!]

Whistling to himself, Vee lost himself to his tinkering and was sad when Reginald’s voice filled the room.

“Better come on up to the office, boss. Day’s runs are about to begin. The first adventurer is walking in now.”

Ordering the ghost to remain where it was in the lab and not get into any trouble, Vee dusted the ectoplasmic dust off his fingers and headed back up to the office.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 25 (+1)

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 17

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

Might: 10

Wit: 26 (+1)

Faith: 18

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 12 (+1)

Plotting: 15

Charisma: 10

Devious Mind: 17

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 1

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: 5

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 11

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 6

Might: 1

Wit: 29

Faith: 10

Ambition: 25

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 28

Manipulativeness: 35

F^#$#$%@#

Loyalty: 44

Patience: 12

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 4