Silas sighed as the new set of adventurers wandered into his office. Well, to be fair they weren’t lost, Arthur led them up but they still seemed to be wandering around like lost puppies. Annoying puppies that would pee on your carpet and chew on your furniture. Unfortunately, they were here because of him, but he did have a reason for hiring adventurers. “Hello, and thank you for coming. I'm guild master Silas who hired you.”

“Aren’t all the guild masters old men? Who are you and where’s the person actually in charge.” One adventurer rudely interrupted. The man glared over at Arthur for some reason while keeping a hand on the pommel of his rapier.

“I assure you I’m the guild master and the one who hired you. Also if you would like to be paid anything you’ll stop trying to intimidate my apprentice.” The glare rapidly switched to him, as the mage calmly stared down the suspicious adventurer. “Now as I’m sure you read in the request, I want you to map out the town’s dungeon. There is no need for you to examine the first fifteen floors as they have been thoroughly explored, but you will be paid for any maps after that point.”

“How many floors are there in the dungeon?” The group’s archer cut off the rapier wielder before he had a chance to speak up again.

“We don’t know at this point as the local adventurers are mid-tier two at best. I could go in and check myself, but I am quite busy. That’s why you were hired, to figure out if the dungeon has developed a tier three section yet.” There was no way he was going to go dungeon diving here. He had too much paperwork to do and any free time would be spent going to Olympus to get some actual leveling done.

“That sounds suspicious. How do we know you’re not sending us into a trap?” The rapier wielder opened his mouth again and immediately lowered the collective intelligence in the room.

Silas just looked at the adventurer like the idiot he was as one of his teammates slapped him on the back. “Come on Roger, no one’s stupid enough to try and put an ambush in a dungeon. If he wanted to ambush and kill us it’d make much more sense to send us off into the woods on an easy mission before attacking. Dungeon exploration is dangerous and we’ll have our guard up, much harder to get attacked like that.” The rapier guy nodded and fell silent seemingly appeased.

There were several flaws in that sort of thinking, including that Silas might be sending them into an extremely dangerous dungeon to get them killed. He wasn’t, he just wanted his map, but still. Why did adventurers have to be so paranoid? “Anyway, you’ll be paid based on the number of floors you map as well as the detail of the map. You’ll get a bonus if you make it to the core, and any loot you pick up along the way is of course yours.

“We want our bonus now, not after we find the core.” The one that had spoken was the third member of the party, with a pair of long daggers at his waist.

“Why in the world would I give you a bonus, when I don’t know if you’ll actually make it to the core or not?” These adventurers were getting on his nerves, not enough for him to chuck them into the dungeon himself, but it was getting there.

“We're the only tier three party around for miles, and unless you don’t want your precious map, you’ll give us our bonus.” The dagger guy looked incredibly smug, come to think of it why weren’t they introducing themselves? It was kind of rude. His threats were almost laughable though, but it did make Silas wonder how many people these adventurers had extorted over the years.

“Yeah no, I don’t think so. If you don’t take the job, I’ll just send it to Olympus and get a group from there to map the dungeon. I could also wait for local groups to go deeper and pay them for maps. So either go do the job, or get out of my town. I don’t have time for your foolishness.” He could also blitz through the floors himself to make a map, but he didn’t want to. It wasn’t that urgent or even necessary to map out the dungeon.

The dagger guy spluttered and reached for his weapons before another party member with a classic shield and sword stepped forward. “I’m sorry about that Mr. Guildmaster, that was out of line. We do want to do the job, but it might be best for party cohesion if you provided some advance incentive before we set out.”

Silas stared at the man incredulously, was this a comedy skit? Why were they so insistent on getting paid before exploring the dungeon? Were they planning on just taking his money and running? In any case, he had no plan to pay them a copper before they brought him his map. “Nope, not going to happen.” With a wave of his hand, the door popped open, and adventurers went sailing out. They crashed into the far wall in a confused heap as Silas shouted after them. “You’re not getting paid in advance and if you want to get paid at all you won’t come back until you have that map. If you don’t enter the dungeon in the next day I’m sending a messenger to Olympus to post my request there.” With that, he slammed the door in their face.

An amused Arthur quietly opened the door again to leave, waving as the door closed again. The older mage leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. Now he had to deal with the real enemy, taxes. He needed them to keep the city growing, but how to do this without annoying anyone? Quickly he dismissed that idea, no matter what he did someone would be mad about it. He went back to staring at his paperwork, maybe he’d get an idea while working on other equally boring topics.

Valens watched in amusement as the tier three party grumbled their way through the tier one floors. He had his monster steer clear of them for now, it wasn’t like anything tier one had much of a chance against them. I think I like these ones Magnus, they’re funny.

I’m sure you’d be of a different opinion if you had to deal with them in person, but yes they are. Magnus tossed a snack into his mouth and crunched down on the unfortunate rabbit as he watched the show.

I am dealing with them in person, I am the dungeon after all. The core commented a little cheekily.

The drake gave the wall a flat look. Do you know what I mean, they seem more than a little prickly.

Prickly might have been an understatement, the entire five-man party seemed like they could have been hedgehogs in a previous life. The entire way through the tier-one floors they had not stopped whining. Normally it would have annoyed Valens to have them complain about his dungeon, but there was something very amusing about a tier three running into trees because he was too busy yammering on. If they don’t start paying attention though they’re going to get torn to shreds on the desert floors.

You’re right but they’ll probably get focused once they make their way to the boss's room. You don’t mess around with bosses even if they’re lower tier than you. Magnus tapped his claws on the ground and formed a ball of water that he sipped almost delicately from.

Okay, I don’t think the chimera will be much of a threat though. The boss was only tier two after all and not even high-level tier two yet.

Still, bosses have a way of being more dangerous than anticipated. This will be a good way to test if they’re experienced dungeon delvers or not. The drake took another sip of water and settled back down on his bed.

Why have I never seen you eat before by the way? Don’t you feed off my mana like all the other creatures? He had never seen Magnus eat before, and it was a little surprising.

No, I don't have to eat, but I missed it a little. Besides, it's not like I devastated a population or anything, I just hunted a few rabbits. The response was a little defensive, which made the core chuckle quietly. Also, the hunting he had referred to was more a one-sided slaughter than anything else.

I’m not criticizing Magnus, you can’t eat as much as you want. I trust you to know when to stop, it's just that I’d never seen you eat before.

Ah. The drake seemed appeased at that and they both lapsed into silence.

Valens watched as the intrepid group of adventurers made their way to the chimera’s boss room. Who they proceeded to kill without much effort at all. So much for bosses being more dangerous for their tier.

That’s a little unfair, she gave one of them a few scratches. There are also five of them and they seem to have pretty decent party cohesion. The drake tapped his chin thoughtfully as he watched the show.

So what do you think, experts or not? I had a hard time telling, to be honest, they were rather lazy when entering but annihilated the chimera. The core chuckled to himself as he watched the humans argue over the copper coins that had dropped. Maybe their party cohesion wouldn’t last after all.

I’m thinking competent but not dungeon experts. They didn’t put up their guard in the boss's room, but they handled the chimera nicely. They probably leveled using wild monsters, which must have taken them forever. Also, this wouldn’t have been over as quickly if they hadn’t gotten the drop of the boss. Magnus looked over towards the core a little reproachfully.

Yes, I know. I thought the chimera would notice on her own, and besides, it's not like I need to stack the deck in my favor with these guys. From all their whining they were obviously hired to come here, it's not like they want to destroy me.

That sort of attitude is dangerous, you should assume too much about people’s intentions. However in this case you’re right, it doesn’t matter too much, the chimera was unlikely to kill any of them. You should probably put Aspen on alert though, and have Sora return to her boss's room and wait just in case.

Valens conceded the point and woke his fae boss, who grumbled slightly. Then he recalled Sora from her hunting, she was almost more upset than Aspen. When he informed her of the invaders though, she calmed down. He was rather proud of the progress of his once humble lizard, she was now tier three level eleven. He did not doubt that she’d claw her way to the top of tier three in record time. Alright, they’re ready, now we just have to wait for them to arrive. I hope I didn’t get Sora all worked up for nothing.

The drake stared intently at the adventuring party scratching his head. It’ll depend on how far into tier three they are. Since there’s a larger spread of levels that means a larger range of power within the tier. If they’re low tier three like Sora then they’ll get ripped to shreds if they try and pass through the tier three floors. However, if they’re high or even mid-tier three they will probably reach her.

Can you tell me what their level is?

Unfortunately not, if they hadn’t announced to the whole dungeon that they were tier three, I would be guessing about that as well. It's not easy to know how strong someone else is without seeing them fight.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see then. The drake nodded, and the two of them settled down to watch as the adventurers arrived on the first swamp floor.