Eleven people stayed behind. Hans had hoped for more, wanting a roster large enough to rotate teams in and out of the dungeon with room for sick days, but he decided to stay hopeful. Seven days was a long time in the winter. Others might change their minds and volunteer.

Of those who stayed, three were human and eight were tusks, a mixture of male and female for both races. Almost all of them were newcomers to Gomi, which didn’t surprise Hans. Adventuring often appealed to people who didn’t feel settled or who wanted a way to contribute without being locked into a traditional career. Many of the best adventurers Hans had met came from difficult circumstances. Abusive parents. Broken families. Poverty. War. Plenty of adventurers came from stable backgrounds, of course, but Hans was certain he was right about the trend.

Two faces did surprise Hans, however. One was Terry the guard. The first time he met Hans was when he tried to publicly embarrass the Guild Master during a kids’ class. The two were cordial now, but still, Terry? Really?

The other face belonged to Tandis, the mother tusk who brought Hans cookies to express her gratitude. As soon as she left, Kane and Quentin wouldn’t stop talking about how she liked Hans.

The Guild Master took his place in front.

“This part will work the same way as what we just did,” Hans began. “Ask me anything. I’ll stay long enough to answer every question. If you think of a question later or don’t want to ask in front of everyone, pull me aside after or visit me at the guild hall. Please don’t come too early, though.”

The group chuckled. Hands went up immediately, and Hans answered questions.

“What classes are we allowed to pick?”

Hans would not impose class restrictions. Find what you like to do, get good at it, and go adventuring. If they ended up with eleven healers, well, someone would have to suck it up and learn to swing a sword. They’d still be a healer. Just with a sword. Stabbing things.

“Will there be ranks?”

Probably of some kind, but that was not decided. Gomi’s situation didn’t match the way the Adventurers’ Guild traditionally assessed ranks, so Hans wasn’t sure how to address that yet. Mostly, ranks would be used to keep people safe. Restricting areas of a dungeon by estimated difficulty was a standard adventurer practice, and they would use that here as well in some form. That approach saved the less experienced from stumbling into a fight they could never win while keeping the higher ranks from wasting their time on weaker monsters–and thus taking work away from lower ranks.

“What will being stationed at the dungeon be like?”

If they could get the numbers, Hans wanted to have at least three separate parties. At any time, one party would be in the dungeon, one party would guard the entrance, and one party would get time off. When the party of crawlers returned from an expedition, the party guarding the entrance would begin theirs. The party recovering from a recent dive would soon be relieved by the third team for time off. The rotation sounded complicated, but it was designed to not only guard the dungeon twenty-four seven but also to give everyone plenty of rest.

A party waiting to go down would always have a few days in the cabin to rest from the trek to the entrance. By the time the crawling party came up, the party waiting would be fresh. And so on.

Guarding the gate was serious but also not expected to be strenuous. The crawlers clearing the dungeon would keep most anything from reaching the surface, but if something did, the guards would be there. For the most part, though, the guards could rest and relax.

As for the crawls themselves, Hans admitted little was known about the dungeon. The size and composition of the dungeon would have a big effect on the length and difficulty of crawls, but those were all unknowns at present. He suggested they assume the worst so they could be pleasantly surprised if it was easier.

“What if someone gets hurt?”

First aid and basic field medicine would be part of their training. Everyone would know how to clean wounds and how to stitch them. Hans would also teach setting broken bones, treating dislocations, caring for burns, and addressing poisons or venoms. If it could happen in the dungeon, they would know how to treat it. That approach had a limit if circumstances were dire, obviously, but no one would be helpless if they needed to treat themselves or a party member. The staging point at the dungeon entrance would also be stocked with medicinal supplies and the guards on duty there could assist as well.

That said, adventuring was a rough profession. Anyone considering that lifepath should be aware that injuries were inevitable. Training could do a lot to prevent them, and they would receive that training, but when you swing swords for a living, you’re going to cut.

“How will enchanted weapons and armor be distributed?”

Hans laughed. First of all, no one should get their hopes up, repeating his earlier sentiment. Dungeons can produce magic items, yes, but the other known dungeons never produced more than three magic item finds in a year, and they often went several years with no magic item finds at all. They would find a magic item in the Gomi dungeon, eventually, but they would never have enough to gear every adventurer in rare items.

When they did have magic items to loan, Hans would decide how and when they were used based on where they would do the most good. Those items also would never leave the dungeon or cabin. If an adventurer had a magic item for a crawl, they would return it to the armory as soon as they exited the dungeon so that the next party down could use it, provided the item had the durability and energy to do so.

No one would ever take a magic item home.

“What if I change my mind?”

No one would ever be forced to enter the dungeon. Treating adventurers like soldiers got people hurt or killed. If an adventurer decided they needed to leave the life behind, doing so was not shameful or dishonorable. Party members should never have to doubt the resolve of their allies, so handling the situation any other way helped no one.

That said, adventuring would get hard, and everyone would want to quit at one point. Whoever decided to become an adventurer should do so with the best of intentions as well as the understanding that this path would challenge them. Adventurers needed the grit to endure bad jobs.

“How will we train mages?”

Hans agreed that was a weakness in the plan. Gomi didn’t have any mages, and the Guild Master was only capable of teaching the most basic of fundamentals. Any volunteer wanting to pursue magery should be willing to teach themselves after Hans reached the end of his knowledge. He had a few ideas for fixing the mage problem, but they were works in progress.

“Can we use our own gear?”

With approval, yes. Hans wouldn’t let anyone go into the dungeon with equipment that did not meet his standards or was inappropriate for their dungeon.

“Can we do jobs outside of Gomi?”

That was an unknown. Assuming they had the numbers to have parties travel for jobs outside of Gomi, Hans was unsure how they would do that without blowing their cover. Submitting a dozen new adventurer records to the Hoseki chapter would garner attention. If not right away, then when he started submitting rank promotions. He was open to ideas for solving that problem because he had no desire to tie down adventurers.

After a few lighter questions about training times and clarifications of answers from previous questions, Hans’ night finally came to a close.

“Mr. Hans?”

Not completely closed, apparently.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Hans turned to find Tandis standing behind him, rocking on her heels nervously. As much as he liked her cookies, dating the parent of a student was still not an option. That could never change.

“Hey Tandis. Listen. I’m flattered, and you’re great, but I can’t. I can’t date a parent of one of my students.”

Her mouth dropped, and her back straightened with surprise. She seemed sweet, and she was beautiful, but a man had to have his code. No matter what, he needed to stick to his.

Tandis blinked rapidly for a moment and said, “No, Mr. Hans.” She shook her head and coughed. “I’m not asking you out.”

I am going to kill Kane and Quentin.

New Quest: REVENGE!

Hans stammered, searching desperately for a way to recover and finding none.

“I came to submit my application for quartermaster.”

That confused Hans more.

“You’re going to need a quartermaster,” she began. “I managed a tavern with a stable for a few years. Had to keep the kitchen stocked but not overstocked because then food spoils. Stocking too little meant the tavern ran out of food to sell. Also not good. Our food never spoiled, and every customer got fed. I did all of that for the stables too, and managed staff for both.”

“I’m not sure–”

“You need someone to make sure the cabin is stocked. Food, weapons, medicine, all of that. You’ll also have equipment to keep track of and adventurers to schedule. You need a quartermaster, and it should be me.”

She was right. The more she spoke, the more Hans recognized he had underestimated the true scope of the dungeon plan. That many adventurers would need a lot of management, and a supply shortage could put them in danger. But he had no idea how to estimate how much food to stock in the cabin. Tracking that and the equipment with everything else he was responsible for…

“You’re hired,” Hans said.

Tandis suppressed a squeal and hugged the Guild Master.

***

“You’re sure it’s not too late?” Olza asked.

Hans passed a mug of beer to the alchemist. “I’m going to be up for a while yet, anyhow.”

She thanked him for the drink. “Are you really okay with this plan? It will be hard to go anywhere else in the kingdom after this.”

“Because my reputation will be ruined?”

She nodded.

“I ruined that before I came to Gomi, and that part of the plan was my idea. Nobody forced me into it.”

“Still.”

Taking a moment to sip from his mug, Hans replied, “Want to hear my backup plans? For if Gomi didn’t pan out for me. I had a couple.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“My top two choices were trying to cross the Dead End Mountains or heading into the frontier. Just keep going as long as I could.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’m that melodramatic.” Hans laughed. “If this works though, I get to do everything I’ve wanted to do as a teacher. And our own dungeon? That’s something even Platinums don’t get to experience.”

“Not going to be great for book sales,” Olza teased.

Hans nearly spit out his beer. “You’re right. I’ll sell one copy instead of two.” His face changed suddenly, recalling a moment from earlier in the evening. “You won’t believe what those little shits Kane and Quentin did to me.”

Olza needed several minutes to recover after Hans told her about his awkward moment with Tandis.

When she could breathe again, their conversation shifted to the events of the night. The town’s cover story was ludicrous on its face, which no one could deny. The town’s response was as good as it could have been. With at least two months of winter left, the relatively calm people they saw tonight had plenty of time to stew. Someone was bound to panic, eventually. Anything less would be miraculous.

As their discussion waned, they settled into companionable quiet. Olza read a book, and Hans sat at his desk, working up plans and task lists for properly preparing adventurers and running the dungeon operation. The average Apprentice needed anywhere from a year to two years to reach Iron-ranked, the minimum for taking jobs unsupervised. Meanwhile, Gomi’s adventurers needed to be dungeon-ready in months.

What will we do if the dungeon creates a Diamond-ranked monster or higher?

Hans would be the first into the meat-grinder if that happened. If fortune smiled on Gomi, the dungeon would continue to develop at its current, glacial pace. A few gnolls and squonks every couple days was manageable, even with a team of Apprentice-ranked adventurers.

“Have you thought about the gnolls we found?” the Guild Master asked.

“I haven’t stopped,” the alchemist admitted.

“Theories?”

Olza looked up from her book. “Yes. A security response or a coincidence. I thought maybe it used your lifeforce to grow the gnolls so quickly, but that’s not it. You didn’t experience any kind of life or mana drain when you touched the core, so there wasn’t an energy transfer.”

“The core protecting itself makes sense. I’ve heard academics argue that’s all a dungeon is: a highly complex organism trying to protect and feed itself, just like any other monster.”

“I want to do more experiments, as soon as we can,” Olza said, the prospect of more tests giving her a surge of enthusiasm. She popped up and leaned over the back of a couch to face Hans. “I almost don’t care if I might get blown up. I know that’s bad, but there’s so much to learn.”

“Like what?”

“Is the response the same no matter who touches the core? What if two people touch the core at once? Does it matter what touches the core? For example, what if a creature touched it instead? Does that reaction happen every time? Will it vary for any reason? Does the temperature or mana output change during the reaction? Is it possible to observe the dungeon growing monsters? If so, imagine the experiments we could do there too!”

Hans waved for Olza to calm down. “Okay, okay. How do you have so much energy this late?”

“Science inspires me.”

“Does it bother you that you won’t get to share your research?”

Her eyes dimmed and her smile weakened. “A little. I came to Gomi to disappear, which I forget sometimes. Anytime I start thinking of becoming a famous alchemist, I remember that I’d rather be safe, and I’d rather Gomi be safe. That’s how it was even before the dungeon.”

“I’m struggling with it,” Hans admitted. “What if we learn something that could help people? Do we keep it a secret even then?”

“What answers have you found so far?”

He shrugged. “The guild talks about the chapters sharing openly to lift each other up, but that’s not what happens. Everyone keeps their best intel within the chapter. A lot of Guild Masters consider it a betrayal if their students train with anyone outside their home chapter, for example.”

“Really?”

“Too much money up for grabs, I guess. Adventurers need information. Hiding it gets people killed, and I still believe that, but how do I square putting the people here in danger with sharing what we learn?”

“I don’t know,” Olza said softly.

“Me neither.”

And what adventurer wouldn’t want to be celebrated?

The Hoseki Guild Master used to say that working for the Adventurers’ Guild was the best way to get out of adventuring. Running a chapter was more time behind a desk rather than a shield, but that was the job: Work in the background to protect and support your adventurers. If a Guild Master had the largest impact working in the background of a chapter, would working in the background of a town, of a kingdom, of a dungeon make that impact even greater?

New Quest: Find a way to share new knowledge without putting Gomi at risk.

As much as Hans wanted to return to the dungeon right away to learn more, he was needed in Gomi. Olza, Becky, and Roland would have to continue studying the core without him. The town needed to monitor the dungeon anyhow, even if that meant less fun for him.

But still.

“If you could try to save the cool stuff for when I’m there, that’d be great.”

Olza laughed. “I’ll try.”

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.

Design a system for training dungeon awareness.

Research the history and legends of the Dead End Mountains, more.

Protect Gomi.

Train Gomi adventurers to keep the dungeon at bay.

Design the ultimate strategy for hunting squonks.

Pick a secret passage design for the cabin. Bonus Objective: Make it cooler than a bookshelf door.

Figure out how to launder dungeon loot.

REVENGE!

Find a way to share new knowledge without putting Gomi at risk.