Gina was feeling great! Sad for Uden having to sleep in the caverns, disappointed that there was still a pest problem in the dungeon, worried that he little minions would die in her name and unsure if she could take back the dungeon without being discovered and subjugated in some way. But those concerns aside she had hope. With a little bit of hope, some planning, and people to plot with… a better future could be found.

That and she was the proudest little mamma this side of reincarnation! The may not have made that big of a difference yet, but they were trying as hard as their little hearts could stand. Sure, a giant armored ball of teeth, claws and some kind of whirling blades of death would be helpful too, but she wasn’t sure a rabid death machine would fulfil that same spot in her heart that her wee maniacs were filling.

It took this turn around in the dungeon for Gina to realize she had been depressed. Now she was past (Most of) it, all the classic signs were there. She hadn’t been able to enjoy things that had once made her smile, she had lost the will for self-improvement, she had no direction and in that void she had found comfort… But the thing that struck her the most was that this was not just over the last couple of days, the last couple of days were just a repeat of into how she had felt locked in workroom when she was still a goblin. Everything since her reincarnation was like a drug, it was simply freedom to be herself outside of the box others had shoved her in, but that freedom was so foreign to her that the simple act of truly being alive had overwhelmed her, even though she was technically too dead to be alive, it was a rush.

She realized how ineffective she had been, but she also didn’t want to abandon everything she had died to gain, she was not going to be a dungeon! She didn’t have a title for what she was going to be, or even a rough outline of what she wanted to do, but a senseless killing machine she was NOT going to be. She was not about to build according to what others told her to build, follow a blueprint to create the prefect life harvesting machine… She had already lived that life once, and it was time for her to be the creator for once! HER APPRENTICESHIP WAS OVER!

The ground rumbled at that last bit, unsettling those in the cavern and unseating one that was particularly tipsy.

Gina had never been the creator before. She had always been the tool, she was a tool no longer. In a puff of magic the blueprints she had put up on the wall in her workroom, to make it more authentic, disappeared. Gina frowned, and summoned new copies back to the wall. In a puff of fire from a well placed candle then blueprints she had put up on her workroom wall went up in smoke. That was closure. She would take what she had learned and build what SHE wanted to. She wasn’t Goburi the slaving Goblin, She was Gina the magical Lamp… it still didn’t sound right. “OK” She thought “First step on being my own … blank… is to figure out what the …blank… I am going to be.”

The rest of the day was Gina getting organized. She moved the workroom to one side and pushed a brand new room in between the workroom and the bedroom. She kept the bedroom, it felt comforting in a way, it reminded her that underneath all the glows and whirls she still had the soul of someone that was real.

In the new room she carved a marble desk, it was a simple desk with room for improvement, just like herself. She moved the lamp above the desk. Behind the desk she put up a polished wood bookshelf that took up the whole wall. To one side of the entrance from the hallway she put a cabinet and filed away all the stats and abilities of her minions. Remembering the issue with Uden finding the papers she put a lock on the cabinet that had no keyhole, it could only be opened by magic. One last look around the room and she added a chair behind the desk. The chair was made of copper and leather with fabric filling out the cushions. The leather was mounted on wood, she didn’t want the copper to sweat moisture and ruin the upholstery. The chair would be comfortable, but she added some spring-loaded blades she could trigger if anyone invaded her office, and she added some gears and a handle that connected the back to a footrest. One final touch up, a camshaft with padded wooden pegs that would gently struck back of the person sitting there, powered by a manspring so that once it was wound up the one relaxing could sit and enjoy a nice massage.

There was room for improvement, but that was what the office was all about. The chair represented who she thought she was as a person, the desk would be a representation of what the dungeon could be, the empty bookshelf was a way for her to be organized and careful in moving forward. There was no time like the present to figure out who she was, if anything the thieves taking over had taught her that there was no way to go forward if you didn’t know what direction forward was. How she delt with this problem would define what she would become. Would she be a devouring monstrous dungeon? A magical wish granting Gina that lived in a lamp? A small family that lived in quiet seclusion in a few rooms in a cave somewhere? Was there another option? She had to figure it out.

Laughter kept coming from the workroom just to the side of Gina’s new office. She didn’t notice, she trusted her family enough to focus on her needs for now, Sapna would keep them in line. She also knew that filling her needs would allow her to be a better leader of this crew she had pulled together, that the best thing for this dungeon was to focus on being the best possible dungeon master there is.

“OH! One thing checked off the list! I am Gina, Dungeon Master!” Not perfect, but it would work for now and she did have it in writing, well, the contract said ‘owner’, but same thing.

-

Jeremy had a feeling of impending doom that he just could not shake. He was terrified to sit down, he was terrified to stand, he was terrified to leave, he was terrified to stay. After the stew incident earlier in the day, nothing had happened. Not a whisper, not a note, not a knife in the back… nothing. From his experiences whatever a predator left alive struggled and died a slow death of one thousand bites from scavengers and birds. Who would of thought that Nancy was this sadistic? He also never had any proof it was Nancy, it could still be almost anyone that had tried to make him a target.

Jeremy went through a long mental list of anyone that would have it out for him, it was so long he had to mentally divide the list into three categories. People that he annoyed at work, people he had robbed while working and people at work that would benefit directly from his death. Everyone from work was on one of the three lists, some in more than one of the columns.

-

Throughout the day things kept happening in the inn. Slippery floors, rocks in pillows, soap that burned when it was used. Everyone was on edge, few were more on edge than they three administrators in charge of the local branch of the Silver’s Debole. They had been observing everyone as well as they could, it was draining to be on alert constantly, to listen to every conversation and question every motive. Jason, the head of security, could hear everything in a 20 meter radius as if it was right next to him, so he sat in the bar and monitored conversations in the kitchen and inn. Bobert the accountant was able to tell if numbers that were written down were accurate, so he was busy trying to calculate each team members personal income to look for major discrepancies. Most of Shelia’s skills helped with travel, but she had a real talent of being exactly where people expected her NOT to be, she used this talent to great effect, it was the guilty ones that tried to hide their fear.

The only problem all three of them found, was that there was no problem. It was the end of the second day after the disappearance, the prior day was the interrogations. Faul didn’t plot or break down, the pranks kept happening, no one tried to move into Nancy’s vacated position. There was a rumor going around that the position was cursed, some of the crew were seeing the current rash of incidences as a threat by the supernatural. The administrators largely ignored the rumors of spirits and the mystic, you get a large group together, keep them locked away from normal people and have death a constant fact of life… things were bound to get weird.

Normally they would have just moved on, but this time it was different. There was no real motivation for Nancy to leave, usually there would be some loose stitch to pull on, but this time there was no hint to what happened.

It was after closing and the three were alone in the bar, they looked at each other and knew what they had to do. They would have to pressure the crew until the guilty party broke, unfortunately for the crew the administrators were very good at their jobs. They shared a grim look of determination as five angry fuzzies jumped down from the rafters and started clawing up their faces.

-

Everyone in the Gina’s workroom laughed, even pappi who’s chuckle sounded like rain on a wooden drum. The latest attack was a coordinated effort between Pappi rounding up some feral fuzzies and convincing them to sit quietly until Kawn could teleport them all into the rafters one at a time. Nothing brought a family together like an evening together working on a shared hobby. Suddenly they were very aware of Gina’s focus on them, Pappi gave a shy smile and waved, hoping Gina didn’t think that they had gone to far.

Gina mostly ignored the antics going on through the four different windows, each giving a different view of three thieves trying to stomp on fuzzies. It was hard to ignore the yelling and curses that really highlighted the words “Dirty”, “Diseased” and “Kill them!”. Pappi looked down at the floor with a little bit of shame and suddenly the lead fuzzy looked around and they all scrambled off on their little feet, their button like eyes finding the way out of the cave and into the night.

“Family, I have had time to think and I want to say I am sorry.” The minions looked up at her, not knowing really what Gina was getting at. “I was treating this place and your lives like a toy, I wasn’t taking it seriously. Considering that I died of old age once already, it’s sad to admit I was acting like a child. I also refuse to just sit here and live another life away from the world. I am not going to fail out of fearing to try to make my, our, lives better. Once the thieves are gone, we are going to turn this into a business like the world has never seen before. We are not going to just be an inn, we will be a destination of wonder and magic like the world has never seen before. “

She stopped to figure out the reactions of her minions, she shouldn’t have worried, each and every one of them had their eyes on her, waiting with a light of excitement she hadn't seen in them before. Except one of the wisps that was still glancing at the window and giggling as the skinny thief was trying to look at a bite on his behind without the lady thief seeing, falling in the process and taking a chair down with him.

“Now, I don’t know exactly what this will look like, we will start slow and build our way into something amazing. What we do have is the best team of minions I have ever had the opportunity of leading. We have an entire mountain to work with. And I have a lifetime of dwarven knowledge that we can use to make this a reality.” She stopped again, she hadn’t really wanted to make another speech, it was more of just trying to get everyone on the same page, but now she felt like she had to bring it home. “We are no longer just a disorganized cavern full of monsters! We are a dungeon! And I will be your dungeon master!”

Shale looked up in awe. “Just let us know what you need master mum.”

“As you wish Master Mother” Kawn added in with formal reverence.

“STOP! After hearing it out loud, maybe master isn’t the best tile, how about you call me mother or mum or whatever you want, but my official title will just be boss. I will be your Dungeon Boss and keep every one of you safe.”

“than what is Uden?” one of the Sylphs add in.

“She is the floor one boss. We will have to get a boss for the maze floor and I am the dungeon boss. The Final boss. The one that will get destroyed before I let any of you get used by anyone. You will all be free in my dungeon, all I ask is you help move us towards our goals.

“YES BOSS” came the unanimous reply.