“Come on, let's get these signs out of the way and see what we're working with,” Victor said, nodding towards the entrance before leading the way.

With Waverly’s help, they dismantled the barrier quickly, even though there were way more layers of signage than he would have thought. Finally, they pulled away one particularly big piece of painted wood, and a bright beam of sunlight streamed through the opening it revealed.

“Good thing you're only half-vampire, right?” Waverly asked as Victor shied back, her usual cheeriness returning. Victor stuck his tongue out at her, but he appreciated the banter nonetheless. He’d been worried because she'd seemed stressed ever since they entered the dungeon.

Besides her not saying much, you could always tell by her tail.

While he did feel a little uneasy at the sight of the sunlight, he knew it was just his vampire instincts acting up. They never really went quiet, even though he was very much alive. Nine times so, in fact. Still, he gave Waverly the satisfaction of pantomiming shying away from the beam of light and giving it a threatening hiss, which made her laugh.

They kept on working, stacking the signs into a semi-orderly pile, until they managed to create an opening big enough for both of them to squeeze through. Victor motioned for Waverly to go first, and when she did, he followed right behind her.

They emerged into a decently sized mining pit. Unlike the interior of the mine, at least the entrance had been designed with a bit more thought toward coherent storytelling. A set of tracks led from the mine's entrance towards something that looked like a collapsed storehouse, and several minecarts were scattered around, most of them empty and having been tipped over. Victor looked up and even spotted something that looked like the beginning of a crane house, towering right above the entrance.

However, any good impression was completely ruined by a forest of signs that covered the entire place. They all proclaimed that the mine was closed for maintenance, and their neon yellow contrasted with the medieval flair this section of V.D.O. was going for.

And there were so damn many…

Victor didn’t know if there were more signs down here or trees up in the forest that peeked over the rim of the mine pit. The undergrowth of signs was especially thick on the small path that huddled to the left wall of the digging site, rendering the footpath completely unusable.

“Beelzebub's balls…” Waverly said, her ears twitching as she took it all in. “That’s, like, going to take the entire day. I mean where are we even supposed to put them?”

Victor interlaced his fingers behind his head and stretched his back. “Dunno. Let's just put them all in there.” He motioned for the base of the crane tower, which thankfully already had been finished. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Waverly looked at him with a scowl before she sighed, resigned. “I guess…”

Nevertheless, it was she who started an impromptu contest of who could carry the most signs, which she then went on to win. Because she cheated. She could shift her arms to carry way more signs than he could. Victor definitely needed some sort of levitation or psychokinesis skill.

Luckily there was no prize to the contest besides gloating rights, which was already bad enough, of course. What sort of Vampire would lose to a werewolf in any sort of contest? Victor grinned at the thought, happy to realize that his vampiric side kept waking up still.

The sun had wandered across the sky a considerable distance before they finished. When the final sign clattered into its hiding place, Victor dusted off his hands, stretched again, and nodded up the slope toward the edge of the forest.

“Cool, now that that’s done, let’s head up there and see what there is to explore.”

“Shouldn’t we get working inside, though? I mean, there’s still so much to do, and…”

Victor cut her off with an almost imperceptible shake of his head and a meaningful glance. They couldn’t know if they were being overheard out here. It wasn’t likely, but better safe than sorry.

“Oh…” Waverly said, wide-eyed, but then she nodded back, and they both started walking.

“Actually, now that I’m thinking of it, let’s go to that lake? I could go for a swim!”

“Sure, go for it,” Victor said. He wasn’t really interested, but if she wanted to, why stop her? It wasn’t like they had anywhere else to go.

“You’re not going to join me?” Waverly asked, genuinely curious. “Can’t swim?”

Victor gave her a flat look. “Of course I can swim. All monsters can swim.”

“But have you tried it yet?”

“Nah, didn’t have a chance to.” There’d always been the sunroom, or a cozy fireplace, or his bed, or a few books to read…

Now it was Waverly’s turn to give him a flat look. “Yeah, sure…”

Luckily, they reached the edge of the forest at this point, and Victor could change the subject.

“Okay, now that we are out of earshot, can I just say that if you hadn’t been here, I would be home by now, lying on my mattress for the longest nap ever?”

“Yeah, I was, like, worried about that!” Waverly said, and her tail started to wag. “Because you were like super quiet in there, and you kept looking at all these napping places, and at one point I was kinda scared that you wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of coziness and just nap your entire career away in one of those nooks.”

“I was tempted, not gonna lie. I mean, did you see that net? Perfect spot to watch people, while looking extremely comfy,” Victor said, flicking her a smile. Mostly, however, he kept his attention on the road and the forest around them. The orcs were right. While they could pass as humans from a distance, it would probably be a lot of hassle if they ran into some adventurers, and they would have a lot of explaining to do.

Besides, he liked looking at the forest. It was beautiful. He’d never been on earth, something had always come up, but he’d seen forests in Elysium, of course, and in documentaries. This place was different, though. Not as manicured as the forest in Elysium. Wilder, somehow. Untamed.

He liked it.

“But,” Victor said, picking up the conversation where he'd left off. “Where would that leave you? Dungeon Master and Dungeon Boss need to be a good team, right? If I wasn’t pulling my weight, there wouldn't be much that you could do, and vice versa.”

He paused, looking at Waverly. He knew his expression was an open window to his emotions, but he didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred it. This way, he could express all the earnest intent that he felt thrumming in his heart as he said:

“I don’t really give a shit about my own career. But I would never tank yours.”

Just when he realized he was being a bit too serious, he cracked a smile and added, “Besides, it's going to be fun to see how far we can go.”

“Are you sure?” Waverly asked, her face and ears showing the same earnest curiosity Victor felt. “It’s going to be, like, super hard, and I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“Maybe…” Victor said.

His smile brightened just a tinge, like the touch of a warm breeze on a late summer night.

“But I can do hard things.”

Waverly smiled back, looking at him with something that might have been pure joy, or pride. But for once, she didn’t say anything.

Which had to mean there wasn’t anything anyone could ever say to make this situation better.

They walked in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Victor was briefly distracted by high-pitched chirping noises and the sight of several kinds of birds he’d never seen down in Hell. that made high-pitched chirping noises. They had owls, of course, and phoenixes, and bats. But these birds looked different. Tasty.

When his mind snapped back to reality, Waverly was standing next to him, snickering.

She mockingly dabbed her thumb at the corner of her mouth as if to clean it up. “You were drooling.”

Victor knew he wasn’t, so he kept his hands firmly in his pockets. Instead, he said, “Oh, that’s a good one. Remind me of that the first time you see a cat, OK?”

“Oh, please, we all know werewolves are masters of self-control.”

“You sure? Because I distinctly remember that one time they had sausage in the cafeteria and—”

“Hey, I was hungry, OK? Unlike you, I actually do something for my PE credits!”

So, they bantered on as they walked, their feet kicking up small dust clouds on the trail. It wasn’t long until they came to a crossroads. Someone had built a helpful way marker with four arrows. Each direction had one. The first one said “Riverton”, the second “Crystal Lake”, the third “Castle Duskwatch”, and finally, the last one, leading back the way they’d come, read “Broken Mines”.

Someone had nailed one of their bright yellow warning signs to the way marker and written “Seriously, do not go there, it’s majorly bugged.” in very neat handwriting across the free space. Victor took the sign and tossed it into the underbrush, and then they both covered it with random foliage as well as they could.

Dusting off her hands, Waverly looked at the covered sign with a distant expression. “Okay, this kinda signals to people we’re open to business, right? But like, shouldn’t we wait a little? We don’t even know where to start fixing the place.”

“You’re right, we should talk about that. I was more thinking about generating a bit of Mana, you know?”

Waverly nodded, still a little more absent-minded than usual. “Yeah, I guess. I mean I don’t really know how screwed up the settings are, but I mean if the Dungeon’s only set to level five, changing them shouldn’t be too expensive, right?”

“Yo, how many adventurers do you think we need to lure in before we have enough to fix the problem?”

Waverly shrugged, but by the twitch of her tail and the stillness of her ears, Victor could tell she was doing the math in her head. “So, there’s a ton of different factors, right? How much fun are they having? Are they scared? Will they be happy with the loot? Do they get enough of a challenge? All that kinda stuff.”

Victor nodded. “Yeah. Do you think Debbie-Corinne is specialized?”

“I fucking hope not,” Waverly said, disgruntled for the first time since they’d seen how many signs there had been for them to clean up. “The poor woman is stuck in a Mana battery, dealing with too much stuff at once, and has no Boss or DM to help her. That’s, like, super cruel, for reals. If the last DM specialized her emotion-siphon in a dungeon that bland, I’m going to bite their face off.”

Victor nodded. All Dungeon Cores had been imprisoned for a reason, so he wasn’t as sympathetic to Debbie Corinne as Waverly, but he could see her point. It must be pretty crappy to be told you were on probation for good behavior, and that could earn your freedom by refining raw emotions into mana, only to then get stuck in a Dungeon without anyone to calibrate your crystalline matrix.

“Let’s assume she’s still set to neutral. How many adventurers do you think it will take? Changing the settings, I mean.”

Waverly shrugged again, idly adding another pile of sticks over the already well-hidden sign. “I mean, I don’t know what the settings are, right? Kinda have to assume worst-case, like, a real plate of spaghetti with like dumb talents that even in half-decay make stuff harder. Even then, it’s hard to say. Maybe like… ten? Five, if we put on a good show, and they feel lots of stuff…” she trailed off, looking at Victor with ears twitching. It was obvious she wasn’t comfortable with what she was suggesting, and Victor knew exactly why.

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Victor nodded. “Yeah. Killing them would net us a lot of frustration. But then what? They go back and say the dungeon is still bugged, or perhaps even trapped, and then we got no one coming in at all.”

After a bit of thinking, Waverly said “Isn’t there something we can do about that? I mean, I dunno, run a marketing campaign or something?”

“Probably? I mean, I’m in my first semester just like you, Waverly. I don’t think they cover marketing until the third. I read a few books, but… yeah.”

Waverly nodded, admitting the point. “Yeah, sorry.”

Victor scratched his head, especially at the base of his ears, to calm himself down. Everything Waverly and he were talking about were the absolute basics of Dungeonomics. You lure people into the dungeon, they hopefully have fun or feel other stuff, you harvest the emotions and refine them into mana. Part of that gets shared with the Raid-storyline your dungeon is a part of, and the rest you spend on advancing the dungeon, paying your employees by converting it into coins, and trying to further the business in other ways.

What other ways there were wasn’t exactly clear to Victor yet, however. He’d have to hit the books again when he got home, which fortunately would help with his grades, too.

He shook his head to clear it. It was a nice, warm summer afternoon, and he was in the forest with his best friend. He could worry later. “Enough standing around, I guess. Let’s head for the lake?” he asked.

Waverly nodded eagerly. “Ohhh, yeah, but we should at least make a sort of list of what we still gotta do, because if I don’t do that it will drive me insane tonight.”

That was fair enough.

“Alright, first of all, let’s see what we’re working with. What have you noticed?” Victor asked as they turned in the direction of the lake and resumed their hike. A gentle breeze brushed through the leaves. It sounded a bit like curtains being drawn open.

“So, like, many of the employees are absolutely not motivated. Have you seen how they all rushed about, but weren’t doing anything?” Waverly asked, her hands moving as animatedly as her tail as she spoke.

“Yeah,” Victor agreed, “They seem to be more concerned with making it through the day than making it to the top.”

“So, what are we going to do with them? I mean I don’t wanna be rude, but I kinda doubt we can fix the dungeon up to make it mana-positive with the crew being as it is, and we absolutely won’t turn it back into a real dungeon, ever. But what can we do? We can’t just fire them, right?” Waverly looked at him with not a small amount of concern. For a second, that confused Victor, but then he put himself in her shoes and it became much clearer. For people like him, losing a job wasn’t a big deal. He’d find something else, and could just live off of his savings for years.

For someone who lived in the Dregs? Getting fired was absolutely life-shattering. If Victor’s respect for her could rise any higher, Waverly’s concern for the people she was supposed to manage, but hadn’t even met would have given her a huge boost.

Victor shook his head, happy to be able to lay Waverly’s fears to rest, however. “No, not gonna fire them. I was more curious about why.”

“Why what?” Waverly said, tilting her head a little.

“Why they act like they do. They all seemed nice enough, and to like each other. So why are they not working together? Do they not feel as if their work matters? If so, why? What happened that made these people into who they are? And worse, what keeps happening to keep them this way?”

Waverly’s eyes went wide, and her tail into overdrive. “Oh! That is, like, so smart! I mean, like, I bet they all care about something in private, right? So why don’t they care at work?”

“Exactly,” Victor said, excitedly. He’d loved this theory ever since he’d come across it in a worn paperback in his mom’s study. White cover, red text, and the edges almost brown because they’d been thumbed through so often. He’d picked it up because he figured if it had been read a lot, it was probably useful, and it had been a great read. Surprisingly so.

He liked how it felt to now put the theory into practice… at least theoretically. “There could be lots of stuff that makes them behave as they do. Could be as simple as watching their dungeon fall into decline around them. Can you imagine that? Being helpless while the place you work at falls into disrepair, and you slide down the leaderboards? Oof. Rough.”

“Yeah, I would, like, quit and go somewhere else!” Waverly said, tail wagging animatedly. She was definitely getting into the groove, too.

“Right? Or alternatively, you’d just give up. Then you’d tell people around you to give up, too. Soon, everyone who was once motivated is resigned or has resigned. Either way, everyone who stays in a dungeon that broken is fine with things being how they are.”

“But that means that we totally shouldn’t change anything. Not fast, at least.”

Now it was Victor's turn to tilt his head. “How do you mean?”

“You just said it yourself. They are fine with things being as they are. If things change too fast maybe they’ll be afraid that they’re left behind, or that their cozy job turns into some sort of bone mill. I would have to take a look at the books, but I doubt that this place has a lot of churn, you know, turnover of people who come and leave in a month, besides the two or three that always just seem to cycle through until they too become filled with people who just don’t give a shit.”

Waverly was on a roll now, nodding to herself as she launched into a monologue. Victor didn’t mind because everything she said made sense and most of it he wouldn’t have considered himself.

“So let's say turnover is under 10%, possibly under 5%, which is super good, and we want to keep it that way. Because every time someone leaves, we have to pay a lot of mana to get them

up to speed, and also all the other stuff like training them, not to mention the fact that everyone who leaves takes a lot of knowledge about how the dungeon runs with them. Every percentage point of churn is worth a lot of mana, which is kinda the same as money, so we definitely want to keep it low.”

Victor nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. But we can’t forget the other stuff…”

He smirked and donned his best Professor Solereap impression, which was pretty good, according to some other students!

“To run a successful dungeon, you need adventurers to spend time inside of it. “To attract adventurers, you need…” He raised his hand, extending three fingers after one another, “A good theme and story, good loot, and interesting fights. For the fights, we already discussed that motivated staff is crucial. If you like your place of work, you're going to give it your best. Also, I think as the Dungeon Boss, You, Ms. Bloodhowl, will certainly provide a fucking dope final encounter for the players to enjoy…

He trailed off as Waverly laughed, and went back to his usual tone. “We’re going to have to try and give you some cool special abilities. Need to ask Debbie Corrine about that. Next up, for loot, we need to fix the Loot Assembler. You’ve seen it, right?”

Waverly nodded. “Yeah, it was, like, totally messed up.”

“Yeah,” Victor agreed. “And last but not least, the Theme.” He paused. Not for dramatic effect, but because he was coming up empty. “We need to pull something out of our hats, I guess? I have no idea about storytelling, or how to do interior design. You?”

Waverly shook her head. For a second, it looked like she was going to say something, but at that moment they came around a bend in the forest path and beheld Lake Crystal.

It was absolutely stunning. The water was so clear that even from a distance, Victor could see straight to the bottom. The thick forests surrounded it like pikes in a crown. It’s light azure surface was as calm as an empty slate, and a gentle, cool breeze brushed over their faces from its direction, as if to welcome them.

“I think we can just keep the mine theme for now, right?” Waverly said and increased her pace, probably eager to drop the topic and go for her bath.

“Sure,” Victor said, but the werewolf was already beelining toward a stone outcropping that reached out over the lake. It wasn’t a far drop, Victor saw as he followed. Maybe a coffin or two from the ledge to the water, which glittered invitingly in the sunlight.

Victor was not enticed in the slightest.

“Oh my devs, that looks amazing!” Waverly said, undoing the buckles on her armor and letting it drop to the rocky floor. She kicked off her feet and was already sprinting toward the edge of the small outcropping, but stopped herself just as she was picking up speed.

She looked over her shoulder, frozen in mid-dash. “Wait, what about college?”

“What do you mean?” Victor said, yawning. “We got 8 weeks until we need to hand in our papers and do the exams.” The afternoon sun was quite pleasant. It must have heated up the stone under his feet as well, which would be just perfect to lie on.

“Yeah, but how are we going to fit this all under one hat? I mean, the dungeon's going to be a lot of work and stuff, and then I still have to do chores at home, and you have to catch up on material, and then also study for the exams and write papers? That’s quite a lot.”

Victor shrugged, kicking off his shoes. He had been correct; the heat tingled his soles in just the right way. “Let's worry about that later. Right now, I’m going to go for a well-earned nap.”

He was about to sit down, but stopped when Waverly approached him with slow, measured steps. She had lowered her head and looked at him under heavy eyelids. “Victor, there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

“No,” Victor said, trying to fight down his amusement. He’d seen Waverly flirt. Her seduction skills were abysmal, and her acting skills even worse. Her trying to act seductive was so bad, she might as well have stenciled her real intentions on her forehead. So he definitely knew what was coming.

Victor took a step back, struggling not to break out into a giggling fit as Waverly pranced closer with an exaggerated swaying of her hips.

“No!” he said again. It came out as a half-laugh.

“But Victor…” Waverly said in a voice that she probably believed was husky but sounded more like a smoke demon after a life of working as a bourbon taste-tester. “I need you…”

“Nononononono…”

She stepped closer, and when he tried to run, she was just that fraction of a second faster and grabbed him by the collar. Damn those long werewolf arms. She pulled him into a close embrace, and he knew he was doomed.

He broke out into a full laugh as he struggled in vain to get free. “No, no, no! Come on, Waverly, don’t…”

But she was already undoing the buckles on his armor, and when she slid it over his head, she continued doing that nicotine-addicted grandmother voice: “No, it is true, Victor. I need you…”

And then she grabbed his hip with one hand and his shoulders with the other and twisted, lifting him off the ground. She spun, gaining momentum, and just before she let him go, she said, “I need you to stop being so damn lazy!”

---

Waverly laughed as Victor sailed through the air with a drawn-out hiss that crescendoed in a satisfying splash. She didn’t waste any time and jumped after him, intentionally leaving herself wide open for splash attacks from a wet catboy.

“One!” Victor yelled, splashing her with an entire armful of water. “One fucking joke about wet pussy, and I will end you, Werewolf!” Then he splashed her again.

She just laughed, sputtered as she got a mouthful of water, and then the fight was on in earnest. She would have wished to say that she won, but Victor was a surprisingly good swimmer. So good, in fact, that when she made back for the shore some 20 minutes later, he stayed inside and told her he’d catch up later.

Well, well, well… An aquaphile catboy… Who would have thunk?

It was super adorable. She giggled to herself as she climbed back up on the warm stone and shook herself, to at least try and get a little bit dry. Her clothes were super wet, and kinda uncomfortable, tho, so she was about to strip out of the brown tunic that she had worn under her armor when she heard a twig snap about 560 meters to her right.

There, in the distance, were four people trying to sneak toward her. They all wore expensive armor, and most of their weapons had the telltale glow of enchantments. She didn’t know much about loot besides its cost, because she hadn’t gotten that far ahead yet, but even she recognized high-level adventurer equipment when she saw it.

Okay, that was kind of bad.

---

“No, we are going to the dungeon, and you're going to stop your fucking bitching and get a fucking move on, Bright Singer!” Terrence snapped, and Whirlwhisper and Slash threw the object of his abuse an annoyed glance over their shoulders.

Behind them, Detlef, or Bright Singer as he was called in-game, walked with his shoulders slumped forward and his head bowed. That wasn’t too unusual. But today, he had more reason to slump than most other days. If only he had listened to Terrence. Maybe they wouldn’t have wiped... probably they wouldn’t have wiped. He always made the wrong call in these sorts of situations, as Terrence had been quick to remind him. He was absolutely right to be angry, of course. Detlef only wished that maybe his Guild leader would listen to him on this particular piece of advice.

“No, I’m telling you, it really is bugged. This is a mistake…” but he trailed off when he saw Terrence’s steely glare.

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t fucked up and healed me like I told you to, then we would have killed that vampire Countess and would be rolling in loot right now, instead of needing to find a new dungeon to train up our recruits!” Terrence snarled through gritted teeth.

Detlef didn’t even try to protest. Could Terrence have moved out of the well-telegraphed Bloodfire Strike? Maybe. But he was the main tank, and so he could probably expect all the healers to focus their attention on him. Detlef should have listened to him and let the six DPS suffering from DOT effects die. They were exchangeable, but as a Guild leader, Terrence The Terror was not.

That several of the Guild officers and raid members had called Terrence selfish and explicitly thanked Detlef for being “the one single healer in the raid with a brain and a spine” hadn’t really helped either. They’d asked him if he wanted to come with them, but The Order of Order was the first Guild that had taken him in, and Detlef had to be thankful for that. He owed Terrence his loyalty, but he could understand how some people might not think that way.

So he said, “Sorry, Terrence…” and just trudged along behind him, hoping that he would be able to keep them all alive in the dungeon. The place had been bugged for years now, as far as he knew, but someone seemed to have taken down all the warning signs. Terrence was right, and the issue was fixed now.

“Wait!” Slash said, holding up his fist in the universal gesture for “stop”.

“What?” Terrence whispered.

“[Sharp Ears] picked something up, over in that direction,” slash said, pointing. “By the lake, I think.”

“Go check it out,” Terrence said. “If it’s just some random monsters, we ignore them, but if it’s players, we approach.”

“Why?” Whirlwhisper asked. She was the Mage of the group and seemed to be constantly bored with everything. Detlef didn’t even know why she still played. “It’s a complete detour from the dungeon.”

“If they’re high-level players, maybe we can snatch some nice loot off of them. God fucking knows we need it after that wipe,” he punctuated that sentence with another look at Detlef. “And if it’s newbies, maybe they don’t have a Guild, and we can convince them to join. Maybe we’re lucky, and they’re good, unlike some other people in this Guild.”

Slash smirked at Detlef and said, “Got it. If everything else fails, we always need more crafters.”

With that, he was gone, and they waited. Terrence paced, Detlef stood, and Whirlwhisper flicked small pebbles of water at individual leaves until Terrence told her to stop. No one spoke in the silence that blanketed the party afterward. It was uncomfortable, the feeling wafting between anger, boredom, and self-recrimination.

When Slash returned about fifteen minutes later, he gave Terrence a curt nod, and they all followed him through the underbrush. Slash could sneak, Terrence had high enough dexterity as a dodge tank to avoid making loud noises, and Whirlwhisper hovered a few centimeters above the ground on a small squall of ocean water. The only person in the party who couldn’t sneak was Detlef, but no one asked for his opinion, so he just did his best.

Turned out, his best wasn’t good enough, as always. Just as they hit the edge of the forest, he stumbled despite his best efforts and stepped on a dry twig, breaking it in half.

The blonde girl standing on a small stone outcropping that seemed a perfect jump-off point turned in their direction.