Dungeons Are Bad Business

Alforde let out a triumphant cry as his hammer connected with the [Knuckle Philosopher]’s side and launched the man off the stage for the final time of their bout. He let out a second one when the fellow hit the ground and confirmed his victory. It’d been a hard fought battle, and he only had a single stock remaining, but a win was a win and Alforde wasn’t going to complain.

He waited patiently for the adventurer to climb back up to the stage and held out a gauntlet to shake the man’s hand.

“Victory was yours this time,” the [Knuckle Philosopher] said with a bow of his head. “But I’ll continue to search my heart for even greater truths, and will return in time. Examine yourself and seek the meaning of your existence before then.”

“Sounds good,” Alforde said, hoping that the man was lying. After the drivel he’d had to listen to for the past several minutes, he didn’t think he could mentally handle another fight with him.

After putting his shirt back on and smoothing his hair down, the adventurer left and Alforde was alone once more. He mentally reviewed the fight, thinking of things he could have done differently. Like keeping his distance to avoid those grapples, which all temporarily Paralyzed him so that the adventurer could complete some ludicrous chain of actions that usually sent him flying. Had he been a human, kitrekin, elkin, or salamander, those would have hurt.

Walking over to the treasure chest near the exit of his arena, Alforde reached down to the small bag he’d hidden and drew out his notebook. He jotted down his notes, adding some things to think about in the future, and then stood up to wait for his next challenger. He hoped it wouldn’t be too long.

“Praise be that guy is done,” Reginald said with an exhausted sigh. “I don’t know how many more of those melodramatic lines I could have taken without losing my mind.”

“Agreed,” said Vee. “I hope we don’t have too many more like that one.”

“We shouldn’t. There aren’t that many challengers left.”

“Really?”

“Take a look for yourself. The stack is almost empty.”

Sure enough it was. Somehow they’d managed to make pretty good time on the day’s runs, and while it was far from a sure thing, Vee didn’t have to stretch his imagination too hard to think that they could actually finish up today.

If that ended up happening, Vee decided that he’d go ahead and close Crestheart for a few days afterwards. There were lots of things he wanted to do.

First, there were some tweaks he wanted to make to a few of the dungeon’s traps and layout, and he wanted to go ahead and order some new minions too. He’d seen enough slimes, little ghosts, and skeletons; there were dozens of other minion options available to him through the union's catalogue and it was past time for Crestheart to have some more variety.

Beyond that, the [Dungeon Master] wanted to take a bit of a break and spend some time relaxing. Take Luna out for a date, go relax at the Grinning Pig, wander around the city.

He’d earned at least that much, he decided.

Plus, he was starting to feel that while the dungeon still had lots of room to continue growing and improving – which he was eager to pursue – there were things in the city that needed his attention as well. His fiends and the [Slime Ranchers] had made decent progress on cleaning up the streets, but there was still so much to do before they looked properly presentable. Frankly he probably needed an army of fiends and slimes to get the streets looking nice, but he’d work with what he had for now and eventually it would start to shape up a bit more. No great city was built in a day, after all.

Also, seeing the night market had given him greater conviction that it was worth his time and energy to lobby the council to allow the Westown gate to remain open on a permanent basis. It didn’t need to lead to the creation of a permanent night market or anything like that – though Vee wouldn’t mind such a thing in the slightest – but it would be good to let more things take root near the dungeon.

A strange tingle raced down Vee’s spine and he rubbed his forehead until it went away. There was the matter of his class upgrade too. Cold certainty filled his heart: for better or worse, he’d decided to go ahead and become a [Ghost Smith], which brought with it some potential side effects. While most people didn’t experience any issues, it was possible for a person to experience a day or two of headaches, nausea, and other cold symptoms when changing their primary class. With his luck, the [G-h-o-s-t- M-a-e-s-t-r-o?] would be one of the poor souls who suffered such ill effects, and he didn’t much fancy the thought of trying to manage the dungeon while ill.

Indeed. A few days of rest and relaxation – a week at most – and then he’d get back to work.

Looking down at his console, Vee took a deep breath and readied himself for the next run.

Alforde was most certainly not sitting on the floor in his arena bored out of his helmet when Vee’s voice finally announced his next challenger, thank you very much. Instead, he was deep in meditation, pondering his existence for reasons completely unrelated to his fight with the [Knuckle Philosopher].

Instead, the inspiration for this bout of self-reflection was the strange sensation he’d felt just a moment ago coming through his bond with Vee.

He’s decided to take the upgrade, Alforde thought, pleased with his friend’s resolve. He had to make sure that he didn’t get left behind, which meant working even harder to become a good [Dungeon Champion]. He wasn’t entirely sure how to do that, though. He loved his hammer skills and his fighting ability, but it felt like he was starting to plateau in both areas. There were only so many ways that he could hit things with his hammer.

The best path for making progress from here, he knew, was to level further as a [Glaciernaut]. There were sure to be lots of new skills and stats waiting for him by doing that, especially since the armorsoul had done so little to dabble with the class since getting it other than bolster the consistency of his domain.

He wondered what sort of skills they would be, trying to remember details from all the books he’d read on the subject in the Vales family library. [Juggernauts] excelled at buffing themselves to avoid pain and other status effects, and excelled at breaking through defensive skills – especially all the ones in the [Wall] family – but Alforde had never heard of any other [Glaciernauts]. Now, while that didn’t mean they didn’t exist, it did mean that there was a good chance he’d have a decently flexible path forward that he could somewhat shape to his own liking as he leveled up.

That was both a blessing and a curse. Far too often, a person with the freedom to do anything they wanted ended up choosing to do nothing. While his ability to shape his progression was limited and difficult to predict, he risked watching his levels tick by without any meaningful increases in his power if he failed to come up with a plan for the types of things he wanted.

Since that wasn’t an acceptable outcome, Alforde did his best to start coming up with a solid direction to keep in mind once he started focusing on leveling up [Glaciernaut]. The fact that it also helped pass the time was simply a nice bonus.

What sort of skills would benefit him the most in the dungeon? Alforde thought about the types of adventurers he really struggled with. By far the most common type were quick and nimble challengers, who could keep away from him and avoid exchanging heavy blows. So, something that would prevent them from moving around too would be extremely useful. Like…like an [Ice Maze] or something, or an [Ice Tomb] or even just an [Ice Wall]!

He glanced up at the ceiling and waited, but there was no answer or affirmation that his thought had done anything more than give him some mental images of what he might like to have. That was fine: not all thoughts and personal revelations earned System intervention.

With no sign of any approaching challengers, Alforde returned to his pondering.

Beyond using ice to make things to impede adventurers, Alforde thought it might also be nifty to have a skill that would allow him to synergize better with Shadowforde or improve his own mobility. Thankfully, ice-based classes had lots of options for both of those things: [Ice Clones], [Chill Cart], and [Ice Trail] were the most common and straightforward, but [Living Ice Sculpture] and [Frosteleport] could also be useful too, especially paired with his other existing skills.

For example, he could activate [Frosteleport] to cover the distance across the stage in the blink of an eye, and then launch a close range [Combo Attack], [Pauldron Smash], or even a [Cyclone Smash]. Without having the skill telegraphed like his movements normally were, his opponents would be hard pressed to respond properly and Alforde would probably be able to pick up a bunch of easy stocks.

There were other synergies too, like using [Unstoppable Charge] and something like [Ice Ramp] to redirect himself and get a second – or maybe a third, with two [Ice Ramps] – attempt at hitting his opponent, or increasing the potency of the barrage during and simply enduring it with a new defensive skill.

Or! Or he could find a way to turn his cape into a grasping arm or claw or something and use that to keep adventurers away from the stage once he knocked them off. There were probably a lot of opportunities to swing matches in his favor by being more aggressive in that situation.

Vee’s voice came down from the ceiling.

“Got a real monster headed your way, buddy. He’s way overleveled for us, so don’t feel bad if you lose, okay? Heck, don’t feel bad if you don’t manage to take any stocks, alright? Promise me.”

Alforde looked up and blinked. “Okay, I promise. But what gives? You don’t usually make such a big point of telling me that I’m going to lose.”

“You’re not usually up against such a strong opponent. Seriously, just do your best and that’s more than good enough.”

Vee’s voice disappeared as the doors swung open once again and a tall, muscular man wielding a short hammer walked inside.

The air crackled around him with his every step, and Alforde watched bolts of lightning dance down his arms. He smiled at the armorsoul, and waved politely, but Alforde still felt a fear almost unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

Vee hadn’t been kidding: this guy was seriously strong.

Main Character Sheets (Unchanged From Last Chapter):

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

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:

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