Fletcher stopped at one of the many market stalls that did a bustling trade in materials mundane and exotic. He had taken a walk to clear his head and to work through the many, many questions he had to ask himself.

The foremost of those questions was “Should I tell anyone? Would they believe me?” He was pretty sure that even if there wasn’t any specific law about withholding the existence of a Dungeon - even such a tiny one - the Kingdom would not take kindly to finding out that he’d been keeping a whole Dungeon a secret.

Maybe, if he feigned a bit of ignorance and claimed that he’d come forward as soon as he’d realised what he was dealing with, him and his Da would be rewarded for unearthing such a valuable resource?

Fletcher recalled the thrill that had accompanied the thrusting of his makeshift spear. Of seeing his enemy, his foe, vanquished. And seeing the resulting notification of him gaining Experience! After failing to obtain his Adventurers licence, he had never thought that he would ever get to see an actual system notification with his own two eyes.

Why shouldn't he see where this led?

But he'd heard enough of the gossip of what Dungeons contained, and perfectly mundane rats didn't feature on that list. As evidenced by the stall he found himself facing. The stall sold a variety of Dungeon sourced leather, including the whole hides of the variety of rat that were to be found. Giant rats, with giant hides.

Even the smallest of the hides looked like it would fit a large cat, with some of them closer in size to a decent size dog.

"See anything you like lad?" asked the stall owner, sitting behind a counter picking at his nails. He obviously didn't view Fletcher as a realistic client, otherwise he'd be pushing much harder to make a sale.

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"Do these come any smaller?" Fletcher took the opportunity to ask, pointing at the rat hides for sale. "Nothing normal sized?"

"Well they are giant rat hides. Don't get no normal sized rats in the Dungeon!" came the helpful reply.

"Of course. Thanks." Fletcher replied, taking one last look at the giant rat hides before leaving the stall. Heading towards the edge of the market, Fletcher was soon forgottne by the stall keeper that had already moved on to a new target.

Maybe my baby Dungeon has baby giant rats? Except Dungeon critters spawned full sized. They didn't reproduce or grow.

"My Dungeon." By thinking of it that way, it was clear that he had no intention of telling anyone about this earth shaking secret...

At least not as long as he felt in control.

Walking swiftly, it didn't take him too long to reach the Bakery, grabbing a lantern and heading straight for the cellar. Da would be doing his best preparing supper upstairs. He had a few minutes yet.

He had spent several hours wandering, both physically and mentally. So if what he knew about Dungeons held true, there should have been a newly spawned rodent waiting for him in there...

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As tempting as it was, he refrained from trying to sneak down to the cellar in the middle of the night. Too many late night excursions would arouse his Da's suspicions even if he tended to snore through most nights.

One of his tasks as apprentice was to make sure that there was enough flour on hand during the day to cover the days baking needs. Which naturally meant heading down to the cellar to bring up a bag or three while the ovens were lit. A task that he normally hated, but not today.

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He still couldn't really believe that he was gaining Experience.

Poking a helpless rat with a broken broomstick was hardly the glamourous life of a Dungeon delving Adventurer he'd always dreamed about, but who knew where it would lead?

You'd be forgiven for thinking that places made for wholesale slaughter would soon be filled with the stench of rotting corpses, the debris of battle, the clutter of broken and discarded equipment. But Dungeons were surprisingly clean. Corpses, both human and critter, simply faded away almost as soon as death claied them. Damage done to the Dungeon itself also simply revered after a few hours, as if no battle had taken place.

And inanimate objects that didn't originate in the Dungeon got the same treatment. Wait a while and they would simply be there one moment, gone the next.