Dungeons Are Bad Business

“Just a second,” Brice said. “I’m almost done with this one and then we can chat, Mister Vales. In the meantime, feel free to take a look around and see if anything catches your fancy.”

“That’s fine with me,” Vee said. “Take your time.”

Putting his hands in his pockets, Vee looked around the shop while Alforde and Reginald went over to amuse themselves with a large wooden castle that folded up into a large carriage.

Nothing really caught his eye. While the works were undeniably high quality they weren’t to his taste. He didn’t need dolls, or stuffed animals, or little toy boats, and so Vee turned his attention back to Brice.

The man’s workbench was a mess, with half finished figures strewn across it and snipped scraps of covering it like multi-color snow. Here and there were pieces of paper covered in measurements, with some crossed out and others circled. Vee, who was hardly a stickler for clean and tidy workspaces, felt himself mentally grimacing at the mess.

Brice was hunched over a small figure about four inches tall, carefully carving with a knife that was barely bigger than Vee’s finger. Closer inspection revealed that it was a skeleton, and the [Toy Maker] was hard at work carving its ribs into existence. As he worked tiny shavings of ectoplasm fell onto the table, and Brice occasionally paused to sweep or blow them away. A line of similar figures – each with their own tiny idiosyncrasies – waited on a shelf near his left thigh.

Now here was a process that could stand to see some efficiency improvements, Vee thought. As beautiful as the figure would doubtlessly be, it simply took too long to make. There had to be a way to speed it up somehow…like by making molds for the basic shapes!

This was perfect! If making molds for the dunpla figures wasn’t the best use case of his exploratory skill, he didn’t know what was. Besides, he’d wanted to talk to the [Toy Maker] about it anyways, so he might as well go ahead and kill two birds with one stone here.

When the [Toy Maker] finished his carving and set the little skeleton aside, Vee explained the dunpla shortage situation and asked if Brice had any spare dunpla figures in his shop.

“A couple boxes here and there,” Brice said, pointing. “But I’m afraid there’s nowhere near enough to keep up. I’ve gotten faster at making them too, but I didn’t expect there to be this much demand, you know?”

Vee smiled. “Well, I suppose it’s a good problem to have, right?”

“Right, but I wish I knew a way to fix it.”

“I might be able to help with that, actually,” Vee said. “Do you have any empty frames or boxes laying around? There’s something I want to show you.”

Brice grunted and pointed to the corner, where sure enough, there were several little boxes stacked in a neat column. Vee grabbed one and brought it over, setting it on the cleanest spot of workbench he could find.

Gathering some ectoplasm from around the shop, Vee filled the box. He stuffed it as best he could to the corners then hovered his palm over the top.

“Watch this. [Mold Ectoplasm],” he said, feeling the skill activate.

Just like it’d done during his tests, the ectoplasm inside the mold turned to liquid, held in place only by the walls of the box around it, but this time Vee knew what to do with it. Grabbing one of the other figures from the line next to Brice, Vee dropped it into the ectoplasm and watched it sink straight to the bottom.

Right. He’d have to figure out a way to hold it up too.

Thankfully that was an easy fix. Dunking his hand into the melted ectoplasm – which was nice and cool – Vee retrieved the figure and wrapped some wire around its limbs to form a set of supports that would keep the dunpla figure from sinking down all the way.

The figure didn’t rest evenly; some of the wires were bent so the little skeleton’s head and arms were both deeper than its legs were. That was fine. This was simply a proof of concept and not a finished piece.

Soon enough the ectoplasm hardened back up and Vee removed the skeleton figure. It left a slightly uneven space where it’d rested, and even did a decent job of preserving the skeleton’s details.

Brice rubbed his chin and stared at the mold for several seconds. “I see. It’s like wax casting for jewelry. We’d have to make a separate one for the backs too, and then find a way to keep some ectoplasm liquified so we could pour batches. How long can you make that skill of yours last?”

That was a good question. Normally Vee had been content to let it harden right away – but there had to be a way to extend the working time further. He couldn’t think of anything off the top of his head, but strongly suspected that there’d be another skill that would let him do so if he upgraded his class to [Ghost Smith] and leveled it up a bit. That was usually the way things went, since the System had a way of understanding a classholder’s needs and

Vee rubbed his forehead. All signs were pointing toward taking the upgrade sooner than later, weren’t they?

He shook his head. “Not long enough to be useful to us right now, but there might be a way around that. I’ll let you know. For now we’ll take the stock you have to the lobby so it can be sold, and then once the circuit is over we can find ways to boost production. I have a new assistant of sorts who can help, though if Crestheart starts playing a bigger role in production we’ll have to renegotiate our agreement on payment.”

“I have no issues with that,” Brice said with an exhausted sigh. “In the meantime, I’ll keep working on making as many figures as I can.”

He looked at his bench and the sheets of trimmed ectoplasm. “I can probably make another dozen or so tonight and a handful more tomorrow morning after I wake up. I’ll run them over to the lobby right as you guys open, okay? Fair warning they probably won’t have any fancy boxes since I used all the ones I had, but there will at least be figures for people to buy. I’ve always wanted something I made to get popular like this.”

His professed enthusiasm didn’t match the tone of his voice, and Vee studied the man’s face carefully. To say that the [Toy Maker] was worn down would be an understatement. His eyes were rimmed with red, he trembled on his stool, and judging by the patchy stubble on his chin it’d been a few days since he’d last shaved.

The [Dungeon Master] frowned, wrestling with his thoughts. Part of him wanted to encourage the [Toy Maker] to go ahead and get to work. After all, the success of the dunpla was exciting and good news for the dungeon; he wanted to press forward with it at top speed.

But at the same time he couldn’t deny the obvious physical exhaustion of the man in front of him. Surely the risk of pushing Brice to illness or Burnout was greater than a few figures worth of profits.

Yeah, definitely.

Vee thought about his father. What would Tyrion Vales do in such a situation? He shook his head, dismissing the thought before arriving at an answer.

It didn’t matter. For better or for worse, Vee wasn’t his father and he never would be.

That was fine. He knew what he was going to do.

“Thanks for all your hard work, but you should get some rest,” Vee said kindly but firmly. “You’ve done enough, don’t bother trying to make any more tonight. Honestly, seeing that you have any spare inventory already surpassed my hopes.”

[Charisma +1]

Brice laughed, a flicker of relief in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have except a few adventurers came to the shop today and asked if I had any in stock. I thought they were just weirdos at first, but I guess not.”

He held out his hand. “Maybe you’re right. Thanks, Mister Vales. I guess I am pretty tired. Still, we’ve got a bit of a monster with these figures on our hands, eh?”

Vee smiled and shook it. “Definitely looks that way, but we’ll see how it goes from here. Plenty of things start well and then fade into obscurity. We’ll have to do what we can to prevent that from happening to us too.”

He looked up at where his friends were involved in an intense mock battle between a giant stuffed lion and a slightly less giant stuffed bear. Vee couldn’t tell which one was winning.

Rolling his eyes, he said, “Knock it off you two. Alforde! Come get these boxes and we’ll take them back with us so we can deliver them to the dungeon in the morning.”

“Sure thing,” the armorsoul said, carefully returning his fluffy combatant to its proper shelf.

Reginald scowled, then returned his to its shelf too.

“I was winning,” the hat hissed.

“In your dreams.”

With the boxes picked up, Vee and his friends returned to the boarding house for the night.

They left the dunpla figures behind the lobby counter early the next morning with a note saying that there wouldn’t be anymore ready before the end of the circuit, and headed over to the dungeon, where Vee made a few more ghosts with Cog before the day’s runs started. The fiend was already much better at helping than it’d been the first time Vee had gotten its assistance..

As he worked, he looked around the workshop. Was there enough room to add a forge if – or more realistically, when – he upgraded his class to [Ghost Smith]. Maybe? Probably not. There was a bit of space between all his machines and the walls of the room, but not enough to really add any new ones.

He suspected that he’d have to go up or down a floor and start fresh there, which was probably fine. Separating the dungeon’s primary activities, like making ghosts, from its ancillary activities like making the dunpla figures was probably for the best.

Unless he ended up needing the forge for his dungeon work or something like that. Then he’d have to figure out how to plan his production more efficiently or find a way to move materials from one place to another quickly so that he didn’t bottleneck himself as he worked.

Ugh. That, like so much of layout planning, sounded like a pain. There were so many little details, and all of them could cascade into huge gains or losses in speed.

Micromanaging things like that wasn’t exactly his strong suit. Maybe if he kept leveling up as a [Dungeon Master] he’d start to find it more enjoyable, but for now it sounded like a chore.

Oh well. Bridges and crossing them he supposed. Shaking his head, Vee finished the ghost he was working on and gave it to Cog to fold up and store.

He considered the time. He didn’t think he had enough to start another batch of ghosts, and he thought that they had enough to get through the day’s runs, so he bid farewell to Cog and trudged up the stairs to his control room.

The agents were already there, their deck of cards already being shuffled.

Reginald was waiting by the dungeon control console, looking over the stack of applications with an eager grin on his face.

“What’s got you so smiley?”

“Most of these adventurers are pretty low level. Lots of tens and elevens.”

“So you think we can get through most of them today?”

The hat nodded.

“In fact, if we get lucky, we might even get through the rest!”

Main Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: G-h-o-s-t M-a-e-s-t-r-o? (Locksmagister University), Level 33

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 24

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 7

Might: 15

Wit: 41

Faith: 25

Adventurousness: 7

Ambition: 16

Plotting: 19

Charisma: 18 (+1)

Devious Mind: 29

Leadership: 22

Guts: 14

Intimidating Presence: 11

Citizenship: 24

Public Relations: 8

Determination: 7

Persuasiveness: 6

Bargaining: 4

Patience: 3

Competitive Spirit: 1

Pragmatism: 1

<3<3 Infatuation <3<3

Alforde Armorsoul (Unchanged):

Primary Class: Hammer Specialist (Self), Level 6

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 18

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 18

Additional Class: Glaciernaut (Sacha Silverblade), Level 11

Might: 58

Wit: 15

Faith: 28

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Endurance: 33

Intimidating Presence: 15

Heart of a Champion: 14

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 9

Vigilance: 11

Vanity: 2

Single-Mindedness: 1

Reginald (Unchanged):

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

#$&Q#$)(@#$#@#$%!@#$##%#%()@#$**@@##

Secondary Class: Loudmouth (Self), Level 43

Tertiary Class: Majordomo (Vee Vales), Level 21

Additional Class: Announcer (Vee Vales), Level 14

Additional Class: Hyperthymesiac (Self), Level 5

Might: 1

Wit: 37

Faith: 17

Ambition: 28

Greed: 24

Deceptiveness: 27

Manipulativeness: 42

$#&*!@!!: !!!

Loyalty: 47 (+1)

Patience: 11

Irritability: 25

Remorsefulness: 17

Expository Prowess: 23

#%$Pragmatism*#$: @#61$5

Hop@#!! @#$@!@#

@#$@%%^

#4^5#*&_!+++#(@$#

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 9