Egbert was twiddling his metaphorical thumbs watching the loot bug drama play out. The constant familial struggle for power and supremacy that was the war for the pillars! Dear gods, why did no one mention the mind-numbing boredom that comes with being a dungeon? If I have no gold and no one is here, I have literally nothing to do. Oh wait! Jeb got robbed! Egbert remembered happily and zoomed down into the pitfall trap.

  The bully had dragged Jeb's bag into a corner and was using it like a floppy little hut. Egbert looked at the stark, featureless rectangle that was his newest monster's home. Oh yeah, yikes, little guy, I'll add some stuff down here for you for…enrichment or something. I feel kinda bad about this. He activated [Gimme The Gold!] on Jeb's pack and hoped he had something worthwhile inside of it.

  Egbert's total started slowly ticking up, and the Bully exploded from his bag angrily like a dog that had just realized its favorite toy was missing. It gestured angrily towards the sky before letting out a sad “Gruuuu…” as it watched its home deflate slightly. Oh gods, I'm sorry, buddy; just give me a second. He had something metal in there…

  Egbert angled so he could see what he was slowly absorbing. It looked like Jeb had a pair of very nice collapsible fishing poles stuffed into the bag. Why he would bring them for a “magic trial” was anyone’s guess. Although Egbert was pretty sure the jig was about up on him being a dungeon, the number of people that knew or probably knew now was problematic.

  [Copper 3] [Silver 6]

  Damnnn, Jeb, you had some expensive taste there! What, were they inlaid with silver? He immediately set about making a tiny castle for the bully. It was about the size of a good dining room table and came up to waist height against the back wall. He made sure to dot it with skull motifs and a fully functional drawbridge. Oh, I can't wait for someone to fall in, and the tiniest drawbridge just drops, signaling their doom.

  Egbert got a bit caught up in the noble family drama theme he had going in his imagination and went back up top, transforming a few of the pillars into small castles as well for the couple of named loot bugs, family crests and all. Bubba got a hog for his sigil, and Twitch, of course, was a lightning bolt.

  [Silver 5]

  Egghh, why is the detail work so expensive, system? What do you want me to just give them boxes and call it good? Think of their mental stimulation if they are this angry and they live in a playground. What would happen if they were bored all the time? Hmmmm? You want me breeding world-conquering bugs in here?

  Egbert sighed at the lack of answer and floated to the loot pit room. He went right up to that back wall with the imposing-looking door. I need more room and somewhere better to hide my damn core. Egbert braced his perspective against the back wall and pushed forward as hard as he could while tossing money at the wall. He might have pushed too hard because his perspective exploded past the wall and kept on going and going, his money draining so fast he could barely track it. The last expansions had been surprisingly cheap, but it was obvious it was getting more expensive as his floor space increased.

  The room ahead of him that he had only advanced about three-quarters of the way into before his coin total ran out took his breath away. Oh...hells yes! Starting right after the last room, a bridge arced over the top of a small rushing stream that cut sideways across the entrance. Past that was a small tollhouse-type building made from wood God knows how long ago; now it wasn’t much more than a pile of rot and nails kept standing by hope and prayer.

  Immediately past that were four sturdy ruins, identical buildings made from rounded stone and mortar. Their dark wooden roofs were a bit saggy, and the porches could use some dusting. But the walls were mostly intact. A maddening array of luminescent purple flowers dotted the rough cobblestone street that ran through the middle of the room between the buildings. Egbert zoomed over to inspect the houses closer.

  There were two of these rather decent-sized homes on either side of the street. In the center of the street, acting almost like a divider, a small, very scummy fountain let out slight gurgles. HEH, whatever enchantment that has is on its last legs. It suddenly let out a gout of vile black-green water that was closer to sludge than anything drinkable that splattered against the low-hanging cavern ceiling. Okay, that can’t be healthy.

  Egbert looked up into hundreds of eyes. "Ohhh, hells no, how do I evict you?" Egbert did not like spiders in his previous life; to him they were proof that gods did in fact make mistakes. He didn’t even like people that liked spiders; you couldn’t trust them. There was no clearer sign that someone had a rotten heart.

  Clutched to the ceiling above the quaint little cave village like one of the harbingers of the apocalypse were spiders. Hundreds of godawful spiders. They were fat things with near-transparent bodies that had some kind of fluid sloshing around inside of them uncomfortably with their every twitch. Alright, something that exterminates spiders with prejudice just went up on the shopping list.

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  Egbert shuddered and went to inspect the cozy houses; they looked long, long abandoned, but once they must have been very homey. Each had a generous living room with thick wooden beam floors that were still surviving time's ravages. The neighboring kitchens were small but functional with little brick ovens and a family dining table. Set off from the kitchen was a small bedroom.

  The houses were all identical in construction, with a few fragments of their previous owners. Most of the furniture had rotted away, leaving only some pictures lost to time and a few personal decorations made from clay or metal that couldn’t rot away. Even from inside the houses he could hear the stream; it wrapped around the left side of the cavern after it went under the bridge. This place would have an almost otherworldy perfect atmosphere if it wasn’t for the rot...and spiders.

  The area he hadn’t had enough coin to expand into was a good-sized strip of cleared cave floor that must have been used for gardening; there was a handful of bright blue glowing trees that twisted in on themselves like curled fingers. They had fat, almost too perfect looking red fruit draping heavily from their branches. All around their bases was a mushroom garden that had been left to run amok.

  I already have some very fun ideas for this room. I bet I could make a great scavenger hunt in here...a few cheap decorations to fill up the houses, plop a few mimics inside… Egbert mused for a while on what he could do with the village.

  Wait, I think I leveled up one of my store categories! Egbert had forgotten to check what new goodies were available for him; the loot bug bully purchase had brought the monsters category to level two. He began browsing; the monsters he could add to his dungeon were already a vast amount, and bringing it to level two made it what he would quantify as stupid. He scrolled past nightmare fuel after horror, most of which he could very much so not afford. Before he could get particular with his sorting, there was a blessed interruption.

  [Contempt Respawned]

  Oh good! It would be a shame if those dwarves didn’t get the chance to battle you whenever Max gets the hell around to bring them here... It had been over two days now, and Egbert was getting a bit worried that something had not gone to plan.

  Max- Last Hope Tavern

  Max sighed deeply as the argument that had been occurring for two days in a row continued in front of him. It was escalating dramatically tonight; the dwarven artificers could handle their liquor—they were just bitter by nature. The mages, however, were utterly tanked, and Max had only sold them a couple bottles of wine.

  The small delegation from the Ulfric magic academy was drunk enough to think picking a fight with dwarves in a bar was a remotely good idea. Max could only watch in frustration; his attempts at diffusing the conflict had gotten him silenced by the leader, a real asshole named Cromwell. And not like shushed, the bastard had plopped a silence bubble around him. Ehh, at this point if the dwarves start beating the fuck out of these pricks and not breaking furniture, I'm just going to give them a free round.

  Cromwell was a pompous bastard in a fluffy wizard's robe with orange and purple coloring accented by an impeccably matching tall wizard's hat perched above his imperiously angled features. Right now he had a finger shoved right into the forge master's face. A bold move considering the dwarf had him by about a hundred pounds and probably a century of age. “Don’t you dare compare your dead magic to the beautiful tapestries of living, changing art that are our spells.” He was practically spitting on the dwarf in indignation.

  Brom The forgemaster’s face was red with drink and starting to go from bemused to thouroughly annoyed “I Dunne what ya think tis so special about having a bit oh magic whirling about before it does the thing. ours whorl all about to and then we put it in a piece of metal the way the gods intended.” He said matter-of-factly, punctuating his point with a massive glug of ale and a belch that spattered onto cromwells too-close finger.

  Cromwell shook the spatter off his hand in sheer disgust. “You vile savage! Have you no manners!?”

  Brom chuckled. “I do wit dem I have an inkling of kindness fer, yu is getting in the way of my libations!” He raised his stein towards a very drunk Jeb a table over, who slurred out, “Libations!” Excitedly.

  Max ran his hands down his face. The last two nights had been bad. He had almost gotten the dwarves off to see Greed, but instead they had gotten into a pissing match with the mages over whose magic was better. The ever-changing magic the mages crafted on the fly or the immutable perfection of the effects the dwarves crafted into equipment. Max didn’t give a fuck; he just wanted the mages as far away from Greed as fast as possible.

  At this rate, though, he was going to have a week of the dwarves being stubborn bastards trying to bully the mages into admitting they are wrong. Of course the mages, being just as petty as the dwarves are stubborn, will just keep this insufferable circular conversation going. Max was really close to just giving the mages a bottle of Hyberian Everclear wine and seeing if they survived.

  Brom waved a hand dismissively. “Bah, being a mage ain’t ard we was on our way to go and spank one of yee mages trials, wasn’t we, Max!” Brom looked over at Max expectantly.

  Max froze, pantomiming that he couldn’t talk. Oh dear gods, Brom, shut the fuck up! It hasn’t even been a week. Do not ruin my chance for gold and glory...well, mostly gold. The silence bubble around him dropped suddenly. Oh crap…

  Cromwell looked at him in actual confusion. “Wait, there is a mages admission trial around here? “Barkeep, where would I find this? I can proctor for these imbeciles if they really want to get humbled by our rigorous entrance standards.” Max He looked hard at a bottle of orc-only liquor; he was really tempted to pound it. If he was vomiting, no one could question him, right?

  Max looked at Cromwell weakly. “It’s, uh, automated…no proctor needed for the test…”

  Jeb shouted from a table over, “I dun Passed! Imma be a wizard!” Oh, for fuck's sake, Jeb. Max cringed even further.

  Brom came up excitedly to the bar. “Automated EHH? The mages test be using that dead magic?” He looked smugly towards Cromwell before turning back to Max and handing him an entire gold coin. “Close up fer the night and bring meh and these feather dusters to the test, eh, Max?”

  Max accepted the coin slowly, doing his best to keep the overwhelming panic off his face. “HAHA…Yah sure…this will be…great…” Greed is going to actually kill me.

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