The “puppy looked around nervous doubt flashing in its eyes for the first time as the consorts song continued echoing through the room. The flagging reaper surged in size, its robes billowing golden fog across the street. Additional Skeletal arms grew out from under the robes wielding another scythe each.

  Jeb and Tammy threw their own magical attacks in to help against the reaper; an almost impenetrable haze of tentacles and eldritch magic struck out against the reaper. None of them landed. It dissipated and reappeared behind the octopus sinking all three scythes deep into its monstrous form. It placed a foot squarely on its back and wrenched the scythes through flesh with a hateful hiss.

  Intense hissing laughter echoed throughout the room as Contempt puppeted his spectral reaper from a shadow somewhere within the room. Then the rest of the loot bugs finished evolving with a snap and golden flash. HAHAHAHHA YES! No one usurps my authority in my own dungeon, you fuzzy little! Ehhhmm... Go Contempt, you got this…

  Egbert had upgraded quite a few of the loot bugs to sworn banner bugs. They...were actually pretty close to what he was expecting. What he wasn’t expecting was that they would pop out already in their chosen faction's colors and heraldry. Some of them sported swirls of purple that almost resembled a boar on their now much larger golden shells. They stood almost up to a man's knee, and the foremost of their legs had grabbers uncomfortably close to hands now. The other faction had lightning bolt-like stripes of the starkest yellow imaginable.

  A handful of the new banner-men wielded crude curved blades, tiny sweeping scimitars that fit neatly into their small hands and were just big enough to be a real threat to adventurers or rival loot bugs alike. Their faces were concerningly emotive now as they somehow all scowled down from their rooftop perches, every single one of them staring at the “Puppy.”

  Huh...those murals are more accurate than I intended well at least...wait..there's a third faction? Gold with black marks and skull face paint..you must be joking Is there a cult faction for Contempt? Of course there is… why woudnt there be lootbugs insane enough to want to join a deathcult. Gosh, Egbert, why didn’t you consider that possibility?

  There were only two of the black etched loot bugs with a rough skeletal pattern across the front of their faces, but every other bug nearby shuffled away nervously as they looked at their neighbors predatorially. The puppy down below took a long sweeping look around the room taking stock of its opposition. It promptly flailed its way out of Thrognars arms and stared running straight towards the drug room door. It's locked, dummy! What do you expect to do?

  The "puppy" disappeared from sight briefly as it teleported into the drug room and away from the literal army of angry armed loot bugs. Of course… Thrognar pranced in place in excitement, seeing the dog disappear with a puff of shadow. “IS Magic Puppy!” He said in surprise, wading his way through the last few myconids. He made sure to keep remorse over his head so the mushrooms couldn’t nibble on him. Remorse didn’t share that concern; he had run out of goat to eat, so he snatched the few myconids Thrognar didn’t crush and popped them into his gullet like a vegetarian snack. He didn’t look thrilled about it, but a snack is a snack.

  Egbert followed the puppy past the closed door it looked around in a curious slow swing of its head before huffing angrily. It looked down at the grated floor that led to the underground river, and Egbert was sure he saw it shrug before contorting its form into and through the grating in a horrifying display of its truly boneless nature. It plopped into the water and gave one last angry blooping huff from under the water before dog paddling down stream away from the mimic village in full retreat.

  I mean, contempt won…but I really don’t feel like this is settled at all…

  Egbert washed his hands of the puppy for the moment and went back to the village. The yokels had simply fled with their ill-gotten gains and hoots and hollers, promising to prove themselves to their god. Well, the inbred fish folk now have a religious blood feud with the insectoid blood cult? I have only been here for like a month… At least the place isn’t predictable…Okay, how’s my gold doing after all that?

  [Copper 0] [Silver 5] [Gold 14]

  Ho ho! Wow, a lot of people bought the dungeon monster passes after Boo showed up and the knights...where are the knights? Did they use the haste shrines? Ehh, whatever. Who's even still left here? Egbert started looking around the village. Thrognar was still wandering around, giving remorse some very unwanted pets. Other than that, every one of the adventurers in the village had escaped. The seam stressess has simply abandoned the room once the Gregorian chanting started Honestly fair.

  Egbert stifled a laugh as he found the knights piled against the entryway door, chugging from potions and water bottles. They looked as if they had just gotten back from a year at war.

  Randy looked at his battered friends “Sooo who else leveled up from that?”

  Joe chuckled “Man I don’t even fucking know I have so many kill notifications its actually silly and when I peeked into my sanctuary I had at least two levels of essence but I sure as fuck am not going to start crafting skills while we are still anywhere near this sadistic, Petty, Cheapshotting, Hope stealing, Dream eating cesspit of a dungeon.” Alright Joe, that was utterly uncalled for… you didn’t even have to deal with the key pile.

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  Carter looked slightly haunted “I think I might accidentally stab someones keys out of fucking reflex after all that im going to be hearing the jingle of metal in my nightmares for years…” okay you! You get to complain.

  Ben gently lifted the small blue jar for the others to look at. “Yeah…it sucked, but the dungeon wasn’t lying about the reward…this is pure utterly pure. If I had to guess, this little jar is going to be worth a fuck-you amount of coins.”

  Joe carefully took the jar “ Gods finally a break I might be able to actually buy some enchanted armor, unlike you trust fund kids I couldn’t afford a new fitted set.”

  Carter looked at him with a scowl “How many times I gotta say it, man? I’m happy to buy you some armor. You keep our asses alive.” He finished with a respectful smile and tilt of his head towards Joe.

  "I appreciate it, but I’ll be damned if I let the princling buy me anything I haven’t earned myself.” Joe grumbled stubbornly. The what now!? Ebert looked over Carter again; he had noticed his extra-fine armor before, and honestly his skills were fantastic, but all of them were very competent if inexperienced warriors. Although they are supposed to be at an academy...how have they been coming so often?

  One way could certainly be if Eden’s vales lord was Carter’s dad, who at the academy would dare tell him no... Ehh too political just need to slot it under these guys are utterly loaded well Carter is and hope he hasn’t told his pappy too much about me yet. And...try not to let him die and piss off a king. Or at least make sure there are no witnesses left if he dies.

  Egbert left them to there relaxation they had earned it they worked there asses off for that treasure. He was about to head down to the second floor and start working on the new room he had plans so many plans. But was stopped by idle chatter coming from the bottom of the loot pit. The two gnomes that had trailed behind the rest of the group were at the bottom, battered and bruised. It looked like gravity and oil had been beating the hell out of them during most of the battle.

  They looked like gnomish twins, one male and one female. They both had explosively frizzy mops of bright red hair streaked with a myriad of unidentifiable stains likely from alchemical reagents. Egbert was basing that assumption on the sheer irresponsible amount of potions, vials, and pots dangling from every inch of their armor and the fact that half of them were very broken. Man...that puddle of almost certainly toxic potion soup pooling around them is such a waste, I don’t have any emplacements to sell them yet.

  “Fritz...can we leave yet?” The female gnome said to her brother in a weary tone.

  “I almost have it, last try, Franz, I swear.” Fritz shot back frantically, pouring three separate vials over a rope and then casting it out of the pit to loop around one of the broken man grabbers. There was a pause followed by a brief violent hissing sound. Fritz pumped his arms in excitement “See see it will freeze and we can climb right out! Then back across with the treasure!” Egbert’s brow furrowed as a loot bug Bannerman walked up to the rope and raised its sword high glee evident on its face.

  “Does good buggy want a coin?!” Fritz yelled in panic wielding a handful of coppers like a deliveryman with a dog treat. The loot bug scoffed and went to cut the rope. It never got the chance .The rope atomized itself, the stone, the loot bug, and the remains of the mangrabber in a flash of blue-white sparks.

  A straight line was cut from where Fritz stood in the pit all the way up the loot pit stairs glowing with odd blue molten stone. Fritz blinked his singed eyebrows in surprise. His sister turned to him, a look of horror on her face.

  “Did...you by chance accidentally put ember-bulb extract instead of ice-leaf sap on the rope….” she said slowly and clearly looking at the jar still in his hands and the puddle of mystery ingredients they stood in in fear.

  “I Uhh..No?” Fritz muttered, slowly putting the stopper back in the bottle with exacting slowness. Well neat gnomish alchemists will be a great and probably wealthy addition to my clientell..if they ehhem survive. There were small random wisps of blue fire randomly spurting from the alchemical soup at there feet. Good luck with all that.

  Egbert left them to it he had gold to spend and work to do. Firstly he found where the puppy was lurking it had taken up residence in a dark damp cavern of the bottom floor and seemed creepily happy to reside there for the time being. Alright you can live in exile for now but..hate to tell you this ya little abomination. Well, that's a lie. I love to tell you this. The loot bugs are about to get a more scale-appropriate realm, and I doubt they will want you camping in the corner like an angry hobo.

  Egbert went back to where he had carved a path from his drug room down to the next floor. It was a wide square pathway that came out slightly under the sideways waterfall that angrily shot across the room. He went right up to the ever-swirling lake and started smoothing out the cavern floor for Max to have a good spot for his tavern. You better appreciate this; I'm saving you dozens of gold.

  It was very cheap for Egbert to smooth out a semicircular path of stone that wrapped around the lake into the perfect foundation for a building. But he was still remiss to spend the copper if it wasn’t for how much he wanted to see Max drunk tavern goers trying to get treasure out of the vortex he would have made max pay to have this done on the sheer principle of division of financial responsibility. And that it probably would have had a team of miners down here for a month and he didn’t have time for that.

  The tavern needed to go up, and the unwanted misbehaved children needed homes built for them. Egbert started squaring the ground off slightly adjacent to the tavern to slap together some shack for the children. If he could add drip feeders to the orphanage shacks like you did for baby chicklets he imagined he wouldn’t have to bother refilling them more than once or twice a week. And they can get there own water they have legs unlike me ill leave a cup around or something..He groused as he finished flattening a thirty-stride square of the floor.

  [Milestone Reached, Gold Spent]

  [Dungeon Core Advancement Available]

  EHH?