Vee reached into the ethereal and grabbed a handful of ectoplasm. He couldn’t say why, but for some reason it felt more like clay than it usually did in his hands, and he struggled to shape it. His goal was to stretch it into thin sheets, which he’d layer on top of one another to make his new ghost – which he’d taken to calling a sponge – but for some reason, it kept clumping in his fingers. As he tried to massage the clump, it broke apart, and Vee threw the pieces to the ground with a frustrated curse.

Closing his eyes, the [Ghost Maestro] took a few deep breaths and tried to consider the problem. What was he doing wrong? Was he working too quickly? Grabbing too much ectoplasm? Trying to stretch it too far?

It could be any or all of those things, but it might also be none of them. Ectoplasm was wonderfully fluid and easy to shape, but it was also not a typical material. It responded to the person shaping it much more directly than something like wood and metal might. Those who specialized in crafting those materials might talk about them “having a mind of their own”, but none of them could compare to ectoplasm. The ghostly energy could – and often did – fight back against a shape it didn’t want to take, or misbehaved if the [Ghost Maestro] working on it was out of their depth.

Vee suspected that the cause of his problems was that last one. He’d made plenty of little ghosts and things like that before, but they’d been simple things. He’d never made an entirely different type of ghost before like he was doing now. It was daunting, and more than a little frustrating. Fairly often, he felt like someone trying to paint an elaborate chapel fresco after only learning how to draw squares and circles.

His design concept, which he’d been so pleased with as he made it, taunted him. It was far beyond his reach. In fact, as he stared at the gnarled monstrosity of green and blue layers lumped together, he didn’t see much resemblance to the intimidating colossus he’d envisioned at all. Instead, there was just a blobby mess.

Well, there was no shame in starting over, right? No matter how many times it took, he could simply dispel the ectoplasm he’d gathered, collect more from the air around himself and try again. Collecting and dispelling ectoplasm was an easy task these days.

Without another thought, Vee did just that, and carefully got to collecting enough ectoplasm for his first layer once more. Pulling on it gently, he stretched the energy enough to fit it over the ghost’s small frame and pressed it into place. Once the whole thing was complete, he’d fuse it properly, but since he expected to be starting from scratch at least two or three more times, he’d wait until the design was closer to done to complete that particular step. Again, ectoplasm was flexible.

Another few layers went on without issue, but after that the same blobby shapes started to appear on the ghost’s shoulders, and Vee decided to stop and start over once again.

“Wouldn’t it be better to just finish the whole thing first and then see what you want to fix?” Reginald asked as Vee swore and made himself a small ectoplasm plate to break. Naturally, he didn’t have any problems with that particular bit of ectoplasmic shaping.

“If you keep starting over like this, aren’t you just going to keep on running into the same issue? You’ll never make any progress.”

Vee shook his head. “If I can just get the start right, I know the rest will come together,” he said, asserting a falsehood that’d tripped up many of his peers in a variety of fields throughout history. Had Vee been a [Philosopher], he would have placed the blame for this unproductive belief squarely at the feet of the [Bards] and [Poets] who glamorized the beginnings of a given journey, but decided to conveniently skip over the drudgery of the middle bits before reaching the crescendo of the ending. Alas.

Instead, he simply clung to his fool’s wisdom with both hands and stripped away the ectoplasmic layers once more. This time, Vee tried to build up a better shoulder structure first, but that also looked weird as he added more layers. Throwing up his hands in frustration, Vee released all of his ectoplasm and put his hands on his hips.

He looked at Reginald, who was grinning at him. “Don’t say it,” he growled.

The hat chuckled. “Wouldn’t dream of it, boss.”

True to his word, the hat stayed quiet for the next few minutes, while Vee slowly collected more ectoplasm. One benefit of his multiple restarts was that he discovered that green worked better for his current purposes, and so he focused on it over the rest of the colors swirling around the room.

While he gathered the energy, he took a few more deep breaths to settle himself. I can do this. I just need to focus. One piece at a time. Focus!

[Congratulations, you are now a Ghost Maestro, Level 27!]

[You can now use Find Flaws (Ghosts)!]

[Find Flaws (Ghosts): (Active) Inspect a ghost or spirit to get an understanding of any issues present. Grows stronger with use and experience. Only affects ghosts, spirits, and other ethereal beings.]

[Wit +1]

Vee activated the new skill, which felt a little bit like he imagined putting a monocle would: there was a slight pinching sensation all around the outer parts of his eye and the world grew a little sharper.

Turning his sight to the ghost, Vee looked for obvious defects that were frustrating his progress. Two thin white symbols appeared on the minion’s frame, and Vee focused his attention on the one near its chest. It was bigger than the other one, and slightly brighter, so Vee figured it was the more pressing concern.

Underlying frame improperly sized.

Hmm, well, that was interesting. What was the other issue?

The second symbol was on the ghost’s shoulders, and when Vee looked at it, the message detailing the flaw appeared in the air as it had before.

Incorrect order of ectoplasmic application.

That was also a good thing to know, but now Vee was forced to choose between which of the two problems to focus on first. He decided that it’d make more sense to focus on expanding the ghost’s frame, since it was a more straightforward type of problem. Once the minion was bigger, he’d start worrying about the proper application order for his ectoplasm layers.

Putting his hands through the ghost’s body felt a little bit like shoving them into a sandbox – the ghost’s base ectoplasm wasn’t particularly high quality – but Vee eventually found the ropes of energy that bound the minion together. He winced a little bit at the poor craftsmanship. It wouldn’t take much of his strength at all to pull them apart. No wonder they made such weak threats inside the dungeon.

His [Ghost Maestro] professors back at the Academy had insisted that proper ectoplasm bindings should feel like a nice puzzle with interlocking pieces, but this ghost – and probably the rest of the ones in the dungeon – had clearly been haphazardly slapped together in the name of quantity over quality.

Which, of course, made perfect sense. These were tier one minions, and probably the least valuable of them. It’d be foolish to agonize over their construction, but Vee felt a bit sad about it all the same.

“Ghosts don’t have to be cheap,” he muttered as he pulled the shoulders free of the torso bindings and moved them further apart. I’m going to learn something from this, he thought to himself as he added his own bindings and reattached the shoulders.

Vee repeated the process for the lower part of the ghost’s torso, and was feeling quite accomplished when Reginald informed him that it was almost time for the day’s runs to start. He examined his handiwork. The ghost was definitely a bit bigger now, but the ectoplasm covering its frame was thin and looked oddly stretched.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think it looks entirely too frail to be something that takes a lot of hits,” Reginald said. “Maybe you should start from scratch instead. If you’re going to have to reinforce and rebuild the whole thing anyways, you might as well give yourself the best start possible.”

“Good point.”

Sadly, though he would have been quite content to simply stay down in the lab and do so, Vee knew that he had other business to attend to. Dusting the last bits of ectoplasm off his hands, the [Ghost Maestro] reminded the minion to stay out of trouble. Picking Reginald up and putting the hat on, Vee headed up to the office.

Sacre’s man, Walnut, was waiting outside the door with his arms folded across his chest and a sour frown on his face. He was dressed in fancy clothes beneath a leather jacket and had his hair slicked back. Inexplicably, he was also wearing a pair of those stupid fingerless gloves that people seemed to think look good for some reason.

“Where you been, Blue? I’ve been waiting half an hour already.” he asked as Vee walked up. Walnut smiled, but there was something feral in it, and his eyes glittered with an unspoken threat. Vee shrugged. If Walnut tried anything, he’d be surrounded by miasma so quick that he wouldn’t even have time to blink.

“Did you forget what day it was?”

Vee had, in fact, forgotten that it was collection day. In some ways, it felt as if it’d been months since he’d last dealt with the man, though he’d seen him only a week before for the dungeon’s third repayment. Still, he couldn’t say that, so he simply walked past Walnut into the office and summoned the vault. Tossing Reginald on the table, the [Dungeon Master] knelt down and flicked open the chest where he kept the gold fleurs. In the meantime, Reginald welcomed the day’s first challenger and got to work.

When he finished counting out the twenty Sacre was due that day, he turned around and saw Walnut looking around the office.

“Really ought to think about decorating this place a little bit,” he said. “It’s freakin’ depressing in here. Empty walls, boring desks. Weird eldritch heart thing. You don’t have much of a sense of style, do you? Or is it that you’re not sure you’re going to be around here for long?”

“Ignore that last bit, but he’s got a point about the decorations, you know,” Reginald said. “The place is a little bare. I bet Hanako could help make it look nice.”

“Hanako?” Walnut asked, suddenly interested. “That wouldn’t be Hanako Maluw by any chance, would it?”

“What’s it to you?” Reginald asked and the man held up his hands.

“Didn’t mean nothing by it,” Walnut said. “Just curiosity. It’s not every day that you hear about the heir of old man Jacques Maluw spending time in a dump like this, that’s all.”

Vee glared at Reginald – to which the hat silently mouthed “my bad” – and handed the money to Walnut. The gangster took the coins, counted them, and then stuck one in his pocket.

“Looks like you’re missing one,” he said plainly.

“What are you talking about?” Vee asked. “It’s all there.”

Walnut cocked his head to the side and smiled once again as he raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re missing one,” he repeated. “My time isn’t free, understand? Next time you’re late to showing up, I’ll come looking for you, and I don’t think you’ll like that too much. I’m a busy man, Blue.”

Vee felt the gangster’s Intimidating Presence fill the air, and though his own stat wasn’t enough to meet it equally, his [Stiffen Spine] activated and the malicious effect flowed over him like water. He didn’t look away from Walnut, but instead reached into his pocket and pulled out a trio of silver fleurs.

“Count it again and you’ll see it’s all there,” he said as he tossed the coins to Walnut.

The man snorted, but he snatched the coins out of the air all the same and looked at them.

“Be seeing you next week, Blue. Be sure that you’re here on time, eh?”

Vee watched the man leave, and then sat down at his desk. The first run had started, and the [Dungeon Master] didn’t have time to dwell on his debt as he activated [Boost Drops].

As the [Axeman] headed past the shopkeeper without purchasing anything, Vee consulted the locations of his Marked minions. They were all skeletons on the second floor, which meant that Vee didn’t have to worry about changing the positions for any of the packs on the first floor.

Reaching over to his console, Vee pressed a trap button and watched as his dungeon’s fog machine activated and filled the hallway with eerie blue vapors.

Once he was sure that the adventurer wasn’t able to see properly, Vee pressed a second button and activated the wall of ghost hands that would grab the adventurer and hold him in place. The man cursed and Vee pulled another lever. This activated the pack of slimes set to drop from the ceiling, and they fell onto the adventurer’s head.

As the sounds of battle rang out, Vee smiled. He was free to let his mind wander for a little while now, and his thoughts turned to his new ghost.

He was going to start over once the day’s runs were done.

After all, if something was worth doing, it was worth trying to do it right.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 27 (+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: 27 (+1)

Faith: 19

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 12

Plotting: 15

Charisma: 10

Devious Mind: 18

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 12

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 1

Might: 32

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: 30

Faith: 10

Ambition: 25

Greed: 21

Deceptiveness: 28

Manipulativeness: 35

F^#$#$%@#

Loyalty: 43 (-1)

Patience: 12

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 4