Deep within the bowels of the Dungeon Administration building there was a gathering of eight people. These eight had held their positions as Directors for over a thousand years by navigating the politics, back stabbing and general pain that is bureaucracy with well honed skills and not so subtle use of assassination. They oversaw the Dungeon System spread throughout the various worlds. Managing the impact that dungeons made on the worlds that had them as well as the distribution between the various multiworld empires that existed.
Most of the time the job was simple. They just made sure their subordinates were doing what they were supposed to and approved the various forms that required higher authorization. However, now they were apparently living in interesting times. The Grand Council of Dimensional Peace had decided that there was a way to seed the non magical worlds with mana. This could be accomplished by summoning a Dungeon into a mundane world which would then start saturating it with mana as the residents started to bring things out of the dungeon.
In a 5-3 vote the Directors decided that this was a terrible idea and would be a huge waste of resources and time. However, one does not bite the hand that feeds you of course. The Grand Council certainly did not word this as a request and it appeared that Prime Minister's nephew was set to be the presiding Dungeon Master. Ah yes, nepotism. So with the intent of following the letter of the order, they set out to grow the Dungeon Seed and fill the roster. They voted to pull from the lower worlds and sent orders to begin harvesting. They normally would have spent at least a decade to build a new dungeon, but the Grand Council decided it could be done in just a year. Well if they wanted it rushed, so be it. Their subordinates could just work overtime.
With only a week remaining on the deadline the Directors were doing last checks. Director One pulled up the next item on the docket. Looking over some notes, his regal baritone filled the air, “Director Three, were all of the new experimental adaptations added to the Project? Most of them won’t be implemented for a while, but we must make sure the Grand Council has no reason to stick their noses where they don’t belong.”
The feminine figure of Director Three waved a hand through the air, her blue eyes shining as she looked at something only she could see. “Yes, Director One, From my reports there were a few items added last minute but they are integrated and will go active once the dungeon opens up. We have two teams on standby to work out any errors in the formulae should they occur.”
Director One nodded along as Three gave her report. She had been letting some things slide recently and he had considered taking a vote on replacing her, but it looked like she was back on track. “Excellent work. Was one of the last minute items that idiotic Dungeon Shop that Councilman Eckards wanted? While he is not very powerful he is rather loud. I’d prefer to not have to hear about his “contribution” being forgotten.”
Director Three looked through her notes and nodded affirmatively. “Yes, it looks like we got it in just before the request to restructure the temporal dilation mechanics. I believe we were setting it up with a golem or mana construct to operate it. The Prime Minister’s nephew can modify it if he wants. Considering Garthixian’s ego I’d expect him to make it look like himself and charge exorbitant prices. Then again he may just forget it exists. We sent him the Orientation notes, but I can not guarantee he will read them. Speaking of which he should be four hours into the orientation so we should see some activity in about six hours based on the schedule.”
The group shared a disdainful chuckle as Director One moved to the next topic. “Now let's see. Ah yes, the removal of bathing and rest areas from the dungeon. Director Four?”
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Inside the Shop
Well I guess this was it. Maybe this would allow me to escape my fate and move on to something better. I mean, I never would have done this to myself intentionally, but considering I have died once before I was actually looking forward to getting out of here. I lay there waiting for the darkness to come and take me. Waiting, and waiting, and still waiting. Hey, why wasn’t I getting pulled out?! I started to panic. Was it possible since I already died, that this hadn’t killed me? Was I stuck on the floor for the rest of eternity? This…this was not good.
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Before I could set into a true panic, I heard a small chime in the back of my mind and my body collapsed in upon itself. I was again afflicted with the feeling of being turned into ground beef before I popped back into existence in the middle of the room. Looking at the sprawl of overturned boxes I hesitantly checked myself over a couple of times. Looks like I was fine with no indication that anything happened. That answers one question I didn’t intend on asking.
I decided the best way to deal with the trauma was to just bottle it and push it to the back of my memories. Yeah, that’s the healthy thing to do. Why panic when you have manual labor to focus on. With a quick order for a proper ladder I finished getting my display set up. It looked rather plain if I was honest, but considering the only things with color were the potions, I felt like it was the best I could do.
Alright, all I needed to do was set up the item plaques and everything would be good to go, more or less. I had no idea what to do with the crates of back stock or the empty ones. I chose to shove them under the counter top over in the corner.
I headed back to my personal room and pulled up the Appearance editor. After a few minutes of setting up the positions and displayed font I confirmed my selections. I began to hear the sound of stone scraping, before I then heard the clang of metal and the crashing of glass. I bolted over to the door to see the last few plaques growing into place. I was so proud of myself for memorizing the order of the items that it felt all the worse that I hadn’t realized I didn’t measure where they actually sat on the shelves. Much of my hard work now lay haphazardly on the floor.
As I was already dead inside, I just sighed and went to order a broom and dustpan along with the replacement stock. Considering I was the only one here to blame, there was no reason to cry over spilled potion. Except the mana potions. The fumes coming from that puddle brought tears to my eyes. I cleaned it all up, moving things to fit around the plaques. The broken glass and potion soaked blanket I had to use went into one of the empty crates, the broom and dustpan went in my room. Since I had used the blanket from the camping gear I decided to knock a few copper off the price. I stopped, took a breath and let the tension roll off my shoulder. I was finally done.
It occurred to me at that moment that I had missed a rather critical piece of information. After years of training myself to not look out windows, so being trapped inside wouldn’t seem so bad, I hadn’t actually checked to see what was outside the shop. I turned to stare out through the glass that spanned my storefront. Beyond it was more of that gray stone with golden flecks. It appeared that I was nestled in a deep alcove that was connected to what I could only assume was a hallway or corridor. Even when I stood at either end of the shop I couldn’t see much other than the gray stone extending out in both directions. There was some ambient light coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Huh, I just realized I hadn’t even thought about why I could see in here without any wall torches or light crystals embedded in the ceiling.
I sat down in my rotating chair and waited for a customer to show up. I waited and waited, and waited some more. I decided to try out meditation. I fell asleep. I paced the length of my shop one hundred times. After what felt like six or seven hours I tried breaking the glass with my pry bar. I discovered that the glass was very resistant to my punches and a broken hand only took five minutes to heal. I was not prepared for this.
I decided I needed a distraction and went back to check up on the Interface option I had ignored previously, Upgrades. Silly me, forgetting about something that literally means improving stuff. I sat down, flexed my fingers and began poking through and exploring the options. It seemed like the upgrades were going to cost money to implement them. The options ranged from increasing the size of my personal room, adding amenities, various quality of life things to the business side where I could improve the quality of items I can order or add features to the shop itself. There were a few things that surprised me like the Confrontation De-escalator mana formulae. From the description it would activate just in front of my service window and cause a net made of low level lightning to wrap around the target. It was listed a not lethal* with a smaller note beside the asterisk that suggested it would not kill the target but was quite painful and caused a short paralysis effect.
Well, well, well valued customer. It looks like please and thank you were now enforceable. Heh hehehehehe. There was one hitch in my little plan however. The CD, as I was going to call it, was one of the lower priced upgrades but it still came in at a steep price of fifty gold. Considering that each coin was equal to one hundred coins of the next denomination down, even a single gold was quite a bit. I needed to reevaluate my pricing if I wanted to afford any of this.
I had originally priced everything based on what I recalled from my village. I had mainly dealt with food and household goods, so I wasn’t exactly an expert, but like most shopkeepers I had talked with the clerks from the other stores every once in a while over drinks. Based on my upgrade costs I would need to likely double or even triple the cost for some of the more essential items. Hopefully wherever the dungeon wound up was wealthy and well established so they wouldn’t notice the prices. Considering I didn’t have any overhead to account for, I figured there was a chance that even with the increase I’d still be lower than the locals. I adjusted things and went to lay down on my stone bed. The paper I had secured against the glass by my station was readily displaying the word OPEN in what I considered a friendly font. As I tried to find a comfortable position my little open sign fluttered slightly as a current of air pushed in from the small cutout.
