Thanks to the efforts of Vee’s medium section, the buildings in Crestheart’s immediate vicinity were entirely devoid of their fellows. In those places, not a single fiend could be found lurking behind the doors or climbing on the walls and waiting to strike. However, Vee couldn’t help but feel a little wary as he walked into a large, empty warehouse to break down some of the materials inside. Alforde and Reginald were both back at Crestheart, as were the members of his orchestra. The [Ghost Maestro] wasn’t particularly worried about his safety, but he knew for certain that there’d be other ghosts and spirits lingering around that he might have to deal with. Their presence in the ethereal was like a chill in the air.

After a particularly potent nudge, Vee activated [Third Sight] and saw his temporary companions clearly. They were, it looked like, men and women who’d once worked in the building. He tasted their triumphs and joys, experienced their fears and frustrations as if they were his own, and watched dread take hold of them as their business slowly withered and died. Their futile attempts to improve and their frustration and their inability to stave off their fate was palpable, and by the time Vee deactivated the skill, the corners of his eyes were wet.

“I’m sorry,” Vee whispered. “Be at peace.”

The ghosts looked at him, and their expressions begged him for relief he could not give. Instead, all he could do was gently urge them to fade into the ethereal. Some did, but others did not, and Vee didn’t have the time or energy to force the issue.

Shaking his head, Vee looked around for the section of wall that his fiends had identified as having the materials they needed for their upcoming project. He managed to find it without much trouble, as it was right there in the center of the room. Lifting his arms, Vee focused on the area in question and activated [Salvage Materials]. The world went blue and white, and Vee got to work.

Pulling buildings apart – or sections of them, really – was still something that Vee wasn’t particularly used to. Manipulating the materials was an odd, jittery experience. Thankfully, Do had assured him that the wall in question wasn’t load-bearing, so at least he didn’t have to worry about it the place coming down on his head. Still, it took a good bit of mental wrangling to pry the pieces apart one by one, and Vee was panting and drenched in sweat by the time he managed to get everything separated.

He looked down at his handiwork. On the ground at his feet were several perfect planks of wood, and a few other piles of miscellaneous materials. There were some scraps and splinters too, broken bits of the wall that hadn’t been salvageable and weren’t good for anything but disposal. Like anything else that turned one thing into another, [Salvage Materials] wasn’t perfect in its conversion and some loss was inescapable. That said, Vee suspected he could improve the skill’s effectiveness with more practice.

Checking off the first building on his list that he’d made earlier, Vee went outside and crossed the street. He stepped into another abandoned shop next to Juniper’s flower shop, where he was slated to find a trio of old benches to salvage. He located them in the back of the building’s smallest room, but couldn’t bring himself to salvage such pretty things. His fiends, it turned out, were fantastic at finding objects constructed of a given material, but weren’t nearly as good at figuring out what was junk and what was worth keeping. The benches in question were truly lovely; they were made of sturdy dark wood, and had elaborately carved legs and backs that spoke well of the skill possessed by the [Carpenters] who wrought them. Their appearance reminded Vee of the past, with a commitment to quality rarely seen in modern pieces, so Vee decided that his orchestra could find their materials elsewhere. He wanted to preserve these. Closing his eyes, the [Dungeon Master] ordered his medium section to come and collect the benches after they finished their daily tasks. When the fiends asked what they should do with them, Vee told them to bring them to the Lobby so that Juniper could decide if she wanted to use them. If not, they’d look mighty fine right outside Crestheart too.

Satisfied with himself, Vee continued following his list, salvaging various materials from old and abandoned buildings and taking increasingly frequent breaks when the strain of his skill exhausted him. His eyes ached and the jump between the world’s real colors and those he saw when his skill was active become increasingly jarring, but his efforts were well rewarded as he finished. When he sat down on an old countertop to catch his breath, a popup appeared before his eyes.

[Congratulations, you are now a Dungeon Master Level 21!]

[Wit +1]

[Your Salvage Materials skill is now more powerful!]

[You can now use the Minion Surge skill!]

“Always how it goes,” Vee muttered as he closed his eyes to check his soul’s mirror. “Would have been great to have had a stronger [Salvage Materials] skill a little while ago.”

What exactly did his new skill do?

[Minion Surge] was like [Boost Drops] in that its usage was limited – with only one charge per day – and empowered the dungeon. However, that’s where the similarities ended. Instead of increasing the shards of chaos dropped by defeated minions, [Minion Surge] temporarily increased the strength, speed, and durability of the dungeon’s denizens in a single room, making them less likely to be defeated in the first place. It didn’t affect [Dungeon Champions], [Mini Bosses], or other “special” minions, either. Vee wasn’t entirely sure what that latter group consisted of, but he figured it wasn’t important enough to worry about just then. He was sure he’d figure it out later.

Sadly, as was often the case with new skills, the description of [Minion Surge] wasn’t terribly specific. It didn’t tell Vee how much it enhanced his minions, so he’d have to experiment with it and see. Unfortunately, with only one charge per day, it’d take him some time to get a decent handle on its potential. That was less than ideal.

Still, Vee was excited as could be when he left the last building, and hurried to go tell Alforde and Reginald about this new development.

***

“Seems kind of crappy to me,” Reginald said as Vee explained his new skill. “[Boost Drops] incentivizes you to throw away the dungeon’s monsters, but [Minion Surge] makes them harder to destroy. Not much synergy there.”

“I doubt you’ll be using them in the same run,” Alforde said thoughtfully as he folded his arms across his breastplate. “Especially since [Minion Surge] only has the one charge per day.”

Vee drummed his fingers on the desk. “Yeah. Honestly, I’m not even sure where I’d want to use it in the first place,” he said. “Since it’s a room-based buff, it’d make sense to try and affect as many minions as possible with it. I don’t think any of the current rooms have enough minion density for it to be terribly useful."

His [Majordomo] hummed for a moment. “Well, you’ll probably be able to use it more often with some practice, though it’s anyone’s guess how long that’ll take. In the meantime, maybe we should order some new minions to take advantage of it? Get some bigger threats? It’ll cost us some coin, but if we have a handful of higher tier minions, we can set up a last stand type of room on the third floor somewhere and strengthen them further with [Minion Surge]. Most runs won’t need it, since the adventurers are usually softened up pretty good before they get to Alforde, but it’ll be good to have on hand if we need an emergency boost if we ever start offering higher stakes runs.”

That wasn’t an awful idea, though Vee suspected that any adventurer who was subjected to such a room might have a less-than-favorable opinion on the matter once they learned that other adventurers hadn’t had to face the same thing. Could such a room run afoul of the union’s fairness regulations? He’d have to look into it, which meant that he’d probably have to reach out to the union directly for clarification. After all, the union’s rules had a tendency to make the Bardis tax code look like a child’s picture book.

Alforde shifted awkwardly, and he gingerly raised one of his gauntlets. “Um, Vee? I have a question about something other than your new skill.”

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s, uh…” Alforde tilted his helmet back and forth. “While you were out salvaging materials, Reginald mentioned that the weapon soul down in the lab asked about joining up with the dungeon. Are you going to let it?”

Vee heard the unspoken question in his friend’s words, and hurried to nip any sort of bad feelings in the bud before they managed to take root. “I haven’t decided yet, but if I do, it’ll definitely be in a limited role. I don’t know what Nock wants in exchange for working for us, and I need to talk to Rortenferry before I decide anything. I’m not going to risk letting a powerful fighter go free. That’s a headache we don’t need. Beyond that though, I’m not interested in any sort of understudy [Dungeon Champion] or anything like that. Okay?”

Alforde visibly relaxed and nodded. Vee felt the surge of relief through their bond and gently shook his head. The armorsoul was strange sometimes.

Vee raised an eyebrow at Reginald, who was sitting on the office desk. The hat flashed a sheepish grin, and Vee promised himself that he’d have to have another talk with his hat about the costs of stirring the pot unnecessarily.

“I agree that we don’t need an understudy [Dungeon Champion], but I think the bow could be a decent [Mini Boss] or something,” Reginald suggested. “Heck, we could maybe even use it in the [Minion Surge] room we were just discussing. Or even just as a bonus room fight for some sort of additional prize.”

Vee shrugged as he considered the idea. On the one hand, having an optional challenge was fun and interesting. Adventurers would definitely appreciate getting some extra experience, but on the other hand, that was what they’d tried with the portal room and it hadn’t been particularly popular. Adding more rewards for those who completed the room would get more interest, but the [Dungeon Master] wasn’t keen on the idea of increasing his costs without corresponding growth in revenue. He’d come to believe that extra consumer value bonuses were most effective at taking market share, not generating profit, so he wasn’t sure that sweetening the deal was such a good thing just then. If – and that was a big if – he decided to let Nock help out, he’d have to find something else for the weapon spirit to do.

He had something of an idea. Maybe he could have Nock serve as a sort of “recruitable” ally for adventurers. For a nominal fee, adventurers could battle the weapon spirit, and if they were victorious, Nock would help them in their fight against Alforde.

Of course, the armorsoul would have to test himself against the bow, but it was an interesting thought all the same.

After putting away the last of the day’s earnings, the trio started heading back toward the gate. It’d been a long day, and Vee was tired. He’d probably used [Salvage Materials] too much, and was sure that he’d pay for it in the morning, but truth be told Vee was pleased with how well it’d worked. He’d have to make a point of going out into the abandoned section of Westown more often and breaking down some of the old junk. Doing so would certainly boost his endurance for the skill, and also free up more space so that new businesses could come in. Vee’s dream of a revitalized Westown couldn’t just rest on the shoulders of Crestheart, the Lobby, and Juniper’s shop.

However, in order for that dream to manifest, he’d have to come up with some way to convince the council to let the gate to Westown stay open. Which, let’s be real, was going to be a pain in the butt. At a minimum, Vee figured that he’d have to clear out more and more sections of the abandoned area, and then build additional walls between it and the area around Crestheart. He couldn’t risk any fiends causing trouble by attacking non-adventurers or getting out in the city.

The [Dungeon Master] groaned as his mind went through task after task. Talk about a big job. Vee wasn’t sure he was ready to tackle it quite yet. One thing at a time, he told himself. Even though there were always more things that needed to be done.

Man, I really need an [Assistant].

Tucking his hands into his pockets, Vee tromped through the snow toward the gate, so caught up in his own thoughts and his conversation with his friends that he didn’t notice the tiny brown creature hopping along in the shadows behind him. It grabbed ahold of Crestheart’s wall and slowly started climbing.

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 29

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 21 (+1)

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

Might: 13

Wit: 33 (+1)

Faith: 21

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 14

Plotting: 19

Charisma: 14

Devious Mind: 23

Leadership: 17

Guts: 14

Intimidating Presence: 10

Citizenship: 20

Public Relations: 5

Determination: 2

Persuasiveness: 1

Alforde Armorsoul (Unchanged):

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 22

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 14

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

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 5

Might: 41

Wit: 12

Faith: 28

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Endurance: 20

Intimidating Presence: 12

Heart of a Champion: 9

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 8

Vigilance: 6

Vanity: 2

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: 33

Faith: 14

Ambition: 27

Greed: 22

Deceptiveness: 27

Manipulativeness: 38 (+1)

$#&*[email protected]!!

Loyalty: 46

Patience: 8

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

[email protected]#!! @#[email protected][email protected]#

@#[email protected]%%^

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 7