A great shadowy figure swooped down from the sky. For a single, perfectly crystalized moment, Vee recalled every tale he’d heard as a boy of dragons snatching up helpless soldiers and devouring them like honey-roasted peanuts.

“Gurk,” he said. Or something that sounded like that.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a dragon or any other sort of terrible monster bent on his immediate destruction. Instead, it was a [Griffin Carrier] from the Union, delivering Crestheart’s next perk. Vee felt a little foolish at his momentary terror – Dheart had even told him that the perk was poised to be delivered that day – but he hadn’t been expecting the courier to be a griffon.

The rider was dressed in a thick gray overcoat, with a hat that covered her ears and her eyes hidden by a pair of black goggles that gave her a vaguely insectoid appearance.

“You’re Vee Vales, right? Gots a package here for ya from the Union of Dungeon Masters. Sign here, please.”

Handing him a clipboard and pen, the woman hopped down and started tending to her mount. It was an older griffon, with streaks of gold and silver here and there among its brown feathers. The beast’s eyes were sunken and heavy, and it was panting hard from the effort of its trip.

“Easy, now,” the woman said as she nuzzled its beak. “That’s a good boy, Vermes. You did good. [Take A Rest], okay?”

The griffon purred beneath her hands as she rubbed it down and closed its eyes. As the light faded, it sank to its stomach and closed its eyes.

“That’s a pretty nifty skill,” Vee said as he handed back the paper. “Is he actually asleep?”

“Sort of,” the woman said as she opened up the saddlebags and took out a pair of small boxes. “It’s more like a hypnosis than true sleep, but it helps him get through these cold days.”

Vee took the boxes and thanked the [Griffin Carrier] for delivering them. Leaving her to care for her exhausted mount, the [Dungeon Master] took the boxes up to the office and opened them up.

The first thing that Vee noticed was the amount of packaging present. Thick gray sheets of dried mycelium lined all sides of the box, and there were plenty of cubes and smaller pieces as well. By the time Vee took it all out and threw it on the floor, he was left with a pair of silver discs the size of his palm. They were covered in swirling shapes and symbols that seemed to flicker and shift the longer he looked at them. His eyes were exhausted when he finally looked away and blinked, and Vee turned his attention to the small packet of instructions that’d come with it. The words were all gibberish, but the pictures were nice and easy to follow. Both were adorned with small gold bezels, and when Vee turned the first to the position in the directions, the disc in question came to life with a sound like windchimes.

Tearing a hole in the air a few feet above the ground, the portal grew and stretched until it was almost as tall as Vee. It smelled like ozone.

“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” Vee said to Reginald, surprised to hear that his voice was suddenly echoing in a way that it hadn’t been before activating the portal.

“Same here,” the hat answered. “Let’s go ahead and activate the second one too, since I think they need to pair to each other in order to work properly.

The second portal was exactly like the first, except that it was orange instead of blue. After being activated for a few minutes, the smell dissipated and the portals stopped swirling.

“Should we give it a test?” Reginald asked.

Vee looked around for Alforde, sure that his friend would have something to toss in. Oh, right. Alforde wasn’t there. Frowning, Vee wrote ‘test’ on a sheet of notebook paper and crumpled it up. He lobbed it into the blue portal and it came right back out through the orange one.

“Seems good,” Vee said.

After unpacking and testing the other set of portals, Vee summoned Do and gave him the plans for how he wanted the portals installed. The [Dungeon Maintainer] looked at them for a moment, studying the shapes and nodding.

“Think we can do this, Master,” the big fiend said as it tucked the plans away and picked up the portal devices. “Is there anything else you need?”

Vee shook his head, and the fiend bowed before leaving the room. Heading to his console, the [Dungeon Master] used [Walking Walls] to rearrange the room where the new encounter would take place, forming it into hexagon.

Do was extra careful with the portals in its arms as it made its way down to the room where the new encounter was to be installed. The fiend moved neither quickly nor slowly, reaching out to its fellow section members as it passed through the darkened halls of the dungeon and informing them that there was another job to be done.

The master would like us to install these new devices. Attend.

Re, Mi, and Fa were pleased by the news and hurried over right away, but So, La, and Ti were all displeased by the prospect of being pulled away from their other duties. They meandered in the halls as they procrastinated on their way over, and Do frowned.

The head of the [Dungeon Maintainers] frowned at their poor attitudes, chiding them as soon as they were all assembled.

When our master orders something, it is our job to do it quickly and to the best of our ability, the fiend said as it looked into each of its comrade’s eyes. So, La, and Ti were good workers, but they’d grown increasingly temperamental in recent weeks, for reasons Do could not comprehend. But that was fine, it wasn’t the fiend’s job to understand the mental intricacies of its crew, it was to maintain Crestheart, and to that end, it put down the portals down on the floor.

What are the master’s wishes? The fiends chorused.

Do swelled with pride. It was an honor to be the one tasked with bringing the word of the master to the rest of its section, and it took the obligation seriously. After all, it still remembered the frothing mess of anger and fury that had been the entirety of its existence not that long ago and had no desire to return to such a state.

We are to install these portals behind wall tiles that the master will decorate to look like paintings. My [Sense Weight] indicates that [Adhesive Touch] will be insufficient to hold them in place by itself, so use additional fasteners as well.

The tiles themselves are to be squares, approximately three-and-a-half feet long on all sides. Once the portals are secured in position, they are to be mounted on walls one, two, five and six. Any questions?

[Clear Communication +1]

None of its crew had anything to ask, so the fiends got to work. Do took a portal and began to work on a tile by itself, but the rest were taken care of by a pair of fiends apiece. In abstract, the work was simple, but that meant that it was a great opportunity to focus on quality and make sure that every aspect of the project was executed perfectly.

Reaching down to its toolbelt, Do retrieved a small knife. Fashioned from a blackened scrap of wood and thin sliver of metal, it’d been the first tool that Do had made upon earning its class. The knife was worn and well used, but though it felt rickety sometimes while cutting, Do refused to swap it out for another creation so long as it didn’t hinder the fiend’s work.

Its reason for keeping the tool was…strange, but also fitting. The knife had been made in a flourishing sense of honor, purpose, and gratitude, and Do was reminded of all of those things every time it used the tool to cut something. Though the [Dungeon Maintainer]’s mind continued to expand with every month it spent in the master’s service, fed by the delicious and nurturing ectoplasm, the fiend didn’t want to risk ever losing the memory of that moment of perfect clarity.

Not until it had to, anyways. After all, the fiend was certain that there would eventually come a day where the tool broke beyond its capacity for repair and it would be forced to discard the precious thing.

Today was not that day, though, thankfully.

Using [Measure Twice], Do sketched the outline of the new tile into blank material. Once that was done, Do carefully checked all of the corner angles to ensure that they were truly perpendicular to each other before lowering the knife and started to cut.

The fiends finished their task after a few hours, and through their bond, Do asked Vee to come and take a look. Grabbing Reginald, Vee made his way down to the dungeon’s third floor. In anticipation of the new fight, he’d gone ahead and rearranged the entire floor’s layout, shrinking the obstacle course down by about nearly half to build the new branching path and room where the fight would take place.

This was done for two reasons. First, Vee had quite liked the branching paths present in one of Crestheart’s earlier incarnations, and he wanted to bring back that element of choice. Splitting the burden of runs onto different elements would help his limited minion stocks last longer, and eventually he could tailor different paths better handle different types of adventurers.

The second reason for the mini redesign, though, was that Juniper had told him several of the adventurers coming to the Lobby after their runs had complained about the length of the obstacle course. Though he was wary of changing something that worked for most people to accommodate the noisy few, Vee himself had thought that the third floor had been somewhat lacking in many regards and was willing to test a different approach. Dungeon design was an iterative process, so if this change ended up not working out, he wouldn’t hesitate to make further tweaks as necessary.

Do was waiting for Vee by itself when the [Dungeon Master] walked into the new room and looked around. Four conspicuous tiles had been attached to the walls, and now it was up to Vee to decorate them.

Using [Shape Ectoplasm], Vee made a series of big, simple shapes that looked vaguely like flowers and attached them to the tiles. From a distance, they sort of looked like oil on canvas, and that would suffice for now. Eventually though, he’d look around for old portraits to use, or hire an [Artist] to make some.

With the tiles decorated, it was time to test the encounter itself. The [Dungeon Maintainers] had already brought up a handful of the skeleton lancers and gotten them ready, though the trigger had yet to be connected the dungeon’s console.

Do flipped the switch it carried for such purposes, and the room was filled with the sound of the portals opening. Vee frowned. It was a little too loud for the ambience he was looking for, but they could fix that with more insulation.

The tile depicting a five-petaled flower rippled, and the first of the skeleton lancers rode into the room. It hit the ground and charged with its weapon raised. Realizing that Alforde wasn’t around to keep the minion from finding its mark, Vee dove to the ground and rolled, looking at it go by as the skeleton vanished into one of the other “paintings”. During a normal run, Vee would then move the walls and paintings to send the paired lancer out from a different direction. However, for now, he simply had Do test the other set of portals and called it good.

Thanking the fiend for its hard work and promising a bonus of refined ectoplasm later, Vee returned to his lab. There was a bit of time before the day’s runs started, and he wanted to distract himself before trying to get through another day.

Rortenferry was waiting for him inside, a frown on his face and his wrinkled hands folded in his lap.

“Lad, we’ve got to chat,” he said. “Your inner turmoil is causing havoc on my experiments, and I won’t have it any longer. What in Gawain’s name is wrong with you?”

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 28

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 18

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

Might: 12

Wit: 31

Faith: 21

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 14

Plotting: 18

Charisma: 12

Devious Mind: 22

Leadership: 15

Guts: 13

Intimidating Presence: 9

Citizenship: 20

Public Relations: 6

Determination: 1

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 21

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 11

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 14

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 4

Might: 39

Wit: 12

Faith: 26

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Endurance: 19

Intimidating Presence: 13

Heart of a Champion: 5

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Vigilance: 6

Vanity: 4

Reginald:

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

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

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 38

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 15

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 8

Might: 1

Wit: 32

Faith: 11

Ambition: 27

Greed: 22

Deceptiveness: 28

Manipulativeness: 36

$#&*[email protected]!!

Loyalty: 46

Patience: 9

[#&%%%@%!#@__--#%]

%^(@#!! @#[email protected][email protected]#

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 7

Bonus: Do and other [Dungeon Maintainers] Stat Sheets

Do

Primary Class: Dungeon Maintainer (Vee Vales), Level 12

Secondary Class: Laborer (Vee Vales), Level 6

Might: 18

Wit: 5

Faith: 5

Endurance: 10

Duty: 8

Leadership: 7

Citizenship (Bound - Vee Vales): 1

Clear Communication: 8 (+1)

Other Dungeon Maintainers (Average. Different members may be a point or two different on Might/Endurance, but they're generally uniform outside of that)

Primary Class: Dungeon Maintainer (Vee Vales), Level 6

Secondary Class: Laborer (Vee Vales), Level 3

Might: 12

Wit: 3

Faith: 2

Endurance: 6

Citizenship (Bound - Vee Vales): 1