Juniper sighed as she stared at the snow falling outside. She breathed on the window and doodled circles in the condensation before wiping it clean with her sleeve. Ugh. Winter was by far her least favorite season; it was cold, gray, and boring as could be.

Normally, she had no choice around this time of year but to drag out her crochet hooks and knitting needles and get to work on yet another too-stiff scarf or square-shaped tea coaster – even though she had enough of both to last for at least three lifetimes – but not this year. No, this winter she had something much better to do, thanks to Vee: run the Lobby. Making drinks and serving them to weary adventurers hadn’t sounded like the most fun thing in the world when the [Dungeon Master] had first brought it up, but Juniper had readily agreed. Even if it wasn’t great, it certainly beat the heck out of the alternative. Thankfully, as the days passed, Juniper found herself appreciating the rhythm of the work more and more, and she genuinely enjoyed each day in the spacious café. The routine carved a place for itself in her thoughts, and though she knew she’d be too busy with the flower shop to keep helping out once spring came back ‘round, she increasingly found the thought of staying away until next winter more unpalatable than it had any right to be.

Maybe she could squeeze out a shift or two each week? With some schedule juggling it should be possible, especially if Kai and Dandelion followed through on their offer to help with her flower tending. As the old saying went, many hands – or branches – make light work. She’d have to talk to Vee about setting up a limited schedule, but she was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind in the slightest and would be happy to accommodate her needs. After all, the [Dungeon Master] was flexible and pretty easy to work with as a result. Even if he was a bit of an airhead about details sometimes.

The small ceramic bell she’d carefully tied above the door tinkled, and a battle-beaten elkin with a big sword strapped across his back limped inside. She smiled at him – Rawlin had become something of a regular – and waited for him to carefully peruse the menu as he always did before asking him what he wanted to drink. That day, like so many others, he ordered a mug of cranberry-crème tea, and the two chatted a bit more before he went and found a table.

“How’d your run go?” Juniper asked. “You look a little battered, but not too bad.”

The elkin pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I have a skill that helps with injury,” he said quietly. “The run went okay, I guess. I managed to make it down to Alforde, but the [Dungeon Champion] mopped the floor with me. I didn’t even take a single stock.”

Juniper gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm. “Well, it’s pretty impressive that you made it down there in the first place,” she said. “That’s gotta feel pretty good, right?”

“I guess. My parents keep telling me that I’ll get used to the sword with time and practice, but it still feels as strange to me as it did the first time I picked it up.”

“Can’t you change weapons? Maybe you’d do better with something else instead? A polearm, maybe? Your height and build reminds me of some of the other [Spear Afficionados] I’ve seen around. Why don’t you ask them to teach you a few things and see how you like them?”

The elkin shrugged. “My parents would never forgive me if I gave up my class and tried to do something else. Every first son in my family has been a [Swordsman] for the past five generations, and I don’t want to be the one who breaks that tradition.”

Juniper smiled sympathetically. “I see. That definitely makes it tougher.”

She felt bad for the elkin, but didn’t know what else to say. Rawlin also seemed to sense that the conversation was over, because he put down a couple bronze fleurs, thanked her, and headed off to the side of the lobby to brood while he waited for his drink.

Turning to the shelf of jars – all of which she’d brought from her house – Juniper went from left to right until she found the one marked cranberry-crème. It was pretty light when she picked it up; she’d have to add it to the list of flavors that needed blending. At this point though, there were more flavors that needed blending than flavors that didn’t. She hoped she had enough tea leaves to go around.

As Juniper heated the water for Rawlin’s drink, another pair of adventurers walked in. These two didn’t look like they’d run the dungeon yet – their armor was too neat and their faces too clean – and they ordered some biscuits and tea of their own. They tossed their money onto the counter and walked off, and the [Herbalist] got to work on their drinks too.

Before long, the place was filled with more adventurers and Juniper flitted between tables delivering biscuits, tea, and potions to each table. She traded jokes and stories with the customers, hearing tales of bravery and cowardice in equal measures as the adventurers talked about their runs. A few groups had their heads bent over guides, which they used to great effect for planning their next attempts or discussing some element of the dungeon in greater detail. There were plenty of complaints about Mr. Chills, and a couple about something to do with skeleton lancers.

Like always, Juniper jotted down a few of the most…passionate complaints once she returned to the serving bar; Vee liked hearing how adventurers felt about the dungeon and she was sure he’d be interested in what people thought of his newest additions.

The gossip wasn’t entirely about the dungeon though. Here and there, Juniper picked up little things about the town and the continent. A kitrekin insisted that the bandits were on the verge of being taken care of, though his salamander companion pointed out that most of the southern and eastern parts of the continent were still totally ensnared with criminal activity and the adventurer’s guild had made virtually no progress in clearing them out.

A human, elkin, and salamander sat in the corner of the lobby, sipping on glasses of mead and whispering conspiratorially. Typically, Juniper wouldn’t have even paid them any extra attention, as there were a lot of adventurers who seemed to fancy themselves on some sort of secret quest at any given time, but as she cleared a table nearby, she overheard a bit of their conversation thanks to her recently learned skill, [Eavesdrop].

“—sign on his door said, ‘Closed until further notice due to a material shortage’, but he wasn’t at home either, and Sharon hasn’t seen him in days. You guys, I’m starting to get worried; this isn’t like him.”

Well that sounded ominous, but it wasn’t really her business, so Juniper shook her head and the skill deactivated. Straightening up, Juniper took the garbage back to the counter and deposited it into the bulging bag of trash. A member of Vee’s light section would come by later and pick it up.

As she wiped the counter, Juniper thought about what she’d just heard. Something about the message on the door sounded oddly familiar, but she couldn’t quite place what it was. Still, she was pretty sure that she’d heard it somewhere before, and resolved to mention it to Vee the next time she saw the [Dungeon Master]. Hopefully he’d recognize it.

Vee watched as the [Inked Priestess] clapped her hands together and caused one of her tattoos to come to life. The black, swirling creature looked like a snake, and it stretched across the floating platforms in the center of the room to serve as a makeshift bridge. She sauntered across it, summoning another inky construct to defend her as a skeleton mage lobbed hexes at her from behind its protective wall and skeleton archers filled the air with arrows. Her second construct, a small, spidery thing, scurried back and forth on the platform, splattering and reforming as it was struck with projectiles. It returned fire with bolts of dark energy, and they trapped Vee’s skeletons in shimmering webs that made them easy prey for the woman’s snake.

With the skeletons dealt with, the adventurer prepared herself for the next obstacle, which was the long, hanging rope that led up to the course’s second tier. She climbed slowly, her thin arms apparently not suited to carrying her own weight, but she made steady progress all the way up to the top. There, she set her summons against a collection of slimes and ghosts while Vee peppered her with [Frost Shots] and other traps. The tattoos on her neck and shoulders writhed and wriggled as the creatures they depicted leapt forth to defend their master and defeat Crestheart’s minions, and Vee’s attention was fully focused on his knobs and dials. Push, twist, pull, twist, flip, flip, flip, push.

She ended up making it down to Alforde, where she managed to take a single stock from the armorsoul before the [Dungeon Champion] knocked her off the stage for the fourth time. Smiling, she climbed back up and shook the armorsoul’s gauntlet before leaving the dungeon, and Vee made small talk with Reginald as the [Dungeon Maintainers] reset the rooms.

The next adventurer in Crestheart was a level 12 [Alchemist] who never made it past the first floor, so Vee didn’t bother trying to get another use of [Boost Drops]. He’d been slacking on his efforts for the past few days, and he was definitely feeling the strain from his previous attempts. Instead, he contented himself by watching the poor kid try and fail to escape from the pair of cages that fell from the ceiling in one of the dungeon’s first rooms. He shook his head. Even though the [Alchemist] had been thwarted by this very hazard twice before, he was still unprepared for the loud clang that announced their drop. The gangly boy failed to dodge in time, and was stuck inside the cage. Soon after, he was surrounded by frost elementals and Vee’s first crop of frost slimes. The blue-gray minions wrapped around his arms and legs, trying to drag him to the ground.

However, instead of giving up his run, as Vee expected him to do, the adventurer reached down to his belt and drew out a glowing, yellow vial. With a loud, pained cry, he smashed it against the bars. The liquid that came out looked rather syrupy, and it created gouts of steam wherever it touched the slimes and elementals. For a moment, nothing more seemed to happen, and then all of the minions melted into small blue puddles. The [Alchemist] stood back up, and seemed to relish stomping on their cores. Grinning, he reached down to his belt and pulled out another yellow vial, which he used to melt through the bars and continue his run.

From there, he used a cacophony of skills that Vee hadn’t ever seen before. To be completely honest…they were basically just a series of different colored explosions. However, as any mustache-twirling madman will tell you, there aren’t many problems that can’t be solved with copious amounts of explosions, and the first floor of Crestheart was no exception.

Wincing at the amount of collateral damage to the dungeon – wall and ground tiles exploded into pieces as the [Alchemist] [Mix, Swirl, Mix]’d his way down to the second floor– Vee pulled back on the traps and tried to let the [Alchemist] through without much resistance. The day’s repair costs were already going to be astronomical, and he didn’t want to make them any worse.

“You know, Boss, we should really add a dungeon damage fee agreement to the run application,” Reginald said as the two of them watched the carnage unfold below.

“Yeah, that seems like a good idea right about now,” Vee said.

“Shame we won’t be able to get any of the money back from this guy, huh?”

The [Dungeon Master] nodded. His handbook from the union had been very clear that attempting to claw back money from adventurers after their runs for things that weren’t in the original application was – to put it lightly –frowned upon.

Thankfully, the adventurer’s probably-unintended-reign-of-terror was stopped cold by Mr. Chills. As it turned out, the [Alchemist] had used up all of his biggest explosions during his trek to the giant ghost, and the mini boss was able to out-projectile the skinny kid with ease. Three big ice balls struck the adventurer in the chest, and the boy fell to the ground crying. Mr. Chills slid over and readied a large, jagged ice ball, and the [Alchemist] abandoned his run.

Vee let out a long sigh of relief. He assigned Do and the rest of the [Dungeon Maintainers] to assess and repair the damage, and had Reginald make an announcement that the next runs would be delayed for a bit while things were repaired.

He really hoped there wouldn’t be any more adventurers like that for the rest of the day.

Main Character Sheets (Still unchanged from last chapter):

Main Character Sheets (Still unchanged from last chapter)

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: 16

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: 12

Heart of a Champion: 5

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Vigilance: 6

Vanity: 3

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: 12

Ambition: 27

Greed: 22

Deceptiveness: 27

Manipulativeness: 36

$#&*[email protected]!!

Loyalty: 46

Patience: 9

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

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

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 7

Bonus: Juniper's Character Sheet:

Juniper Digby

Primary Class: Flower Child (Self), Level 34

Secondary Class: Herbalist (Esmerelda Ogg), Level 30

Tertiary Class: Tailor (Willow Digby), Level 12

Additional Class: Hostess (Self), Level 6

Might: 11

Wit: 31

Faith: 14

Ambition: 9

Citizenship: 5

Charisma: 12

Endurance: 9

Green Thumb: 15

Patience: 2

Personability: 5