“This is busy,” I muttered.

  The new kitchen level was actually an alchemy floor, but all the alembics and distilleries that came as stock had been replaced with banks of ovens. I’d relocated a few of the distilleries to the other alchemy floor, where Creville, Beville and Neville were hard at work in their free time trying to create Bob Brand Brandy.

  “Let’s make the magic!” Grenemental yelled. “Harnglejunk, I need the jus for four plates of Lanklimb shanks! Gerry, stop standing there looking like a krumpberry and get on with the fucking garnish. Gringle, if you don’t find me the fucking krill teeth in the next five minutes, I’m going to be cooking you! Let’s move people!”

  A chorus of “yes, Chef,” rang out, and the grab bag of species moved.

  “He’s got a weird way with motivational speeches, but it works,” I said to Kat, who perched on my shoulder.

  Harnglejunk, a delicious Janglebonk, hopped quickly across to a row of hobs flickering with blue fire. Bubbling pans sat above the flames, steam rising into the air. The creature's long prehensile tongue snaked out and grasped a handle. It hissed, snatched the substitute limb away, picked up a dishcloth, and used it to hold the pan. It bounced very carefully back to where four plates were being assembled.

  Gorboon Grenemental stood with his arms crossed, glaring at his assistant chefs as they hurried to and fro, depositing slices of meat, sauteed vegetables, and dollops of some shit I didn’t recognise that I assumed was purely for the aesthetics. They did the thing where they swiped the spoon sideways to make the splodge into a comma shape. Very posh.

  “Gerry,” Grenemental growled, and a six-foot-six, blond-haired adonis of a human hurried over, and sprinkled parsley delicately.

  “The pinky out when he splrinkled was a nice touch,” I said quietly, and I saw Kat nod in agreement in the corner of my eye.

  “Gerry.”

  “Yes, Chef?”

  “That was amazingly well done.”

  “Really, chef?”

  “No, you fucking idiot! You fucked that up! The sprinkle hit the bangberry reduction! Does that look like a pipetted bangberry flavour blast? It used to, but now it’s covered in fucking green specks, you incompetent, useless, huffler fart!” Grenemental swept the dishes onto the floor and grabbed Gerry by his collar, yanking him close and glowering, their eyes barely six inches apart. “Clean. That. Up.”

  Gorboon was not exactly tall. His scraggly blond hair hung low over his eyes, eyes that glinted up at the much larger, much more heavily muscled sous chef. It was like watching a Yorkshire Terrier terrify a Doberman.

  “Yes, Chef. Sorry, Chef!” Gerry barked before rushing off for a mop and bucket.

  “Three Fluffy Batoons ready to go! Narleton? Where the fuck is Narleton? Get the vanilla cream and pipette like your fucking life depends on it, because it bloody does!” Jenny snarled as she laid three plates with delicate-looking pastry constructions on the recently cleared counter.

  “Sweet baby Jesus, there’s two of them,” Kat whispered.

  “Dessert order up!” called a neatly dressed penguin… I checked again, and it was just a human in something approximating a tux. He pinned a scribbled note on a spike by the counter and snatched up the Fluffy Batoons as soon as Narelton did his thing with the pipette. Jenny stood with her arms crossed, glaring at her assistant, a perfect copy of Gorboon’s stance.

  “Gods, I love you,” he said.

  “I love you too, Gorby," Jenny replied. One of the assistants snickered, then blanched as the pair turned to stare hatefully at her.

  “Dishes! Sam, if the next time I see you, you aren’t elbow deep in suds, I’ll make you deep fry and eat your own fingers!” Jenny snapped. Gorboon’s hand snaked out, and they intertwined their fingers between them, leaving their other arms held horizontally across their chests..

  “I think we should leave them to it?” I whispered as I sidled towards the portal I’d left open at the end of the counters, one that led towards the mana crystal floor and a hopefully less hostile work environment, rather than to the now defunct pub kitchens like the rest.

  If I had been hoping for peace and quiet, a reprieve from the steam, sweat and abusive language of the kitchen, I was sadly mistaken. We had done a bit of reorganising. The portals to the pubs were now clustered at one end of the corridor that Kat had made some minions cut through the crystals.

  Blue, angular gems, some nearly seven feet tall, filled the space around the twenty-foot-wide space. At the far end, the links to the three pubs stood in a line, next to a pair of portals leading to Bob’s Bargain Bonanza. The market district was seriously taking off now. People flowed from Ankmapak to Longbottom, Baginton to Fidler’s Mill.

  Close to us, more portals glowed, but rather than merchants and shoppers, these were frequented by adventurers in robes and armour. They lined up before a row of desks staffed by humans and a solitary dwelver. Money exchanged hands, tickets were handed over, and then they headed for the portal to their assigned combat floor in small groups.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Bunnyborgs were out in force; over a hundred of the glowing-eyed nightmares watched over everything, heads tracking robotically from side to side. Chits were waved at the ones guarding specific portals, and then adventurers hurried through, preferring violence and possible death to the hideous cybernetic stares.

  Dungeon Status:

  Unnamed Dungeon.

  Level: 22

  Floors: 25 (Residential) (Industrial x2) (Agricultural) (Mana Crystal Farm) (Alchemy lab x2) (Combat x9) (Market) (Treasure Vault) (TBC x7)

  Rooms: 57

  Sprite level: 30

  Minions: 167/210

  Hoard: 1,047,156,234 gold

  I sighed happily at the hoard status. It had gone down a bit, but the current number didn’t accurately portray how much I’d had to spend. More core levels, more sprite levels, more minions. All the goddamn refurbishments for the pub… Esme was lucky she was sexy.

  I’d spent a little over half a million in the last couple of days, but the tax income, the dungeon goods we’d sold, and the revenue from the pubs were driving the best number in the multiverse back up at a pleasingly fast pace. It would still take a while, but I could see that all-important first digit becoming a two. It was inevitable.

  Kat sat down at her miniature desk and propped her feet up on a stack of paperwork, wiggling her toes as she leaned back in her chair and put her arms behind her head. I heard a gulp behind me and turned to find Inedible-Reg staring down, one hand outstretched across his own desk as an adventurer reached for the chit he was holding. My off-menu minion’s eyes rose and fell slightly as Kat took a deep breath.

  “I want to expand the combat floors, Bob,” Kat said, glaring at the pervert who hastily returned to his duties.

  “You want to spend more of my shinies?”

  “We will make it back quickly enough. How many times do we have to have this conversation?”

  “How many times are you going to spend my gold?”

  “Lots, Bob. Lots and lots! It’s part of running a dungeon, expanding a business. You have to spend money sometimes!”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, piss off.”

  I took a hold of myself, closing my eyes and breathing deeply. I reached down inside and opened the door to my mental menagerie. The greed-demon was juggling with Wrath, Lust and Vanity. He had the three much smaller monsters flicking through an intricate weave as he tossed them from hand to hand.

  My will coalesced. A giant hand formed and slapped greed’s victims away. It had three fingers, a thumb and little black buttons at the base of a white glove. I snatched up Greed and shook it, the floating hand snapping the bastard's head back and forth.

  Greed fought back. Clawed fingers slashing across the back of my self-control as he pulled his feet up and raked the heel of the hand with his spiky toes. He thrashed. He squirmed. I did not let go. I slammed the spiky nightmare against the walls of my sanity, again and again.

  As the anthropomorphisation grew weaker, his struggles more feeble, cracks spread behind him, the fragile glass of my sanity beginning to break under my assault. A long crack stretched from the floor to the infinity above before greed finally stopped fighting and started crying. The giant hand dropped him and slapped the floor next to him. Greed skittered sideways, his spikes and spines retracting as his body deflated to something closer to his original appearance.

  I exhaled slowly and opened my eyes to find Kat glaring at me.

  “Well?”

  “Two more combat floors. Make them tough ones, really dangerous.”

  “You want to kill adventurers?” she asked quietly, leaning forward and glancing around nervously.

  “Nah. We need to get some higher-level fighters. The Umbrati are going to be coming for my potions. Where the hell is Cyrus?” The thought struck me with a sudden panic. That scrawny alchemist was the single most shiniest human alive.

  “He’s with Simeon and Tim, getting fitted for a body shield, which he isn’t happy about. I’ve got a squad of roborabbits watching him every second of the day, which he is also not happy about. Apparently, he finds it hard to poop in front of an audience, for some reason.”

  “It’s not like the bunnyborgs care if he’s taking a dump. Hang on, is that not an issue for you?”

  “I think it’s more to do with how he feels about the situation, Bob. But I’ve had him under close protection since we got back from the auction.”

  “And you?”

  “None of your damn business!”

  “Alright, fine! As long as he’s safe. What else does he need, other than a shitload of my blood, to make more injections?”

  “You’ve got two left.”

  “No, I’ve got one left. Another billion would be nice, another three or four billion would be even nicer.”

  “What did you do with the other one?” Kat glared up at me, her feet knocking paperwork off her desk as she sat round.

  “I gave myself a poke.”

  “Phrasing. You took one of the injections?”

  “Yeah. If I’ve got the Umbrati coming for me, the bloody Shadow Flight flapping around, the Armaments Guild looking for trouble with their damn golems… I figured a second life would be a handy thing to have.”

  She blinked at me. “You used a billion golds worth of goods?”

  “Yes?”

  “You spent a billion gold.”

  “No.”

  “But you did.”

  “Nah uh.”

  “Bob, if you had sold that injection, how much gold would you have?”

  “Another billion.”

  “And now you can’t sell it.”

  “I get that, Kat.”

  “So you used a billion golds worth of goods.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  She sighed. “He needs unicorn horns. He’s got the rest.”

  “And where do we find unicorns?” I had a feeling this was going to be annoying.

  “The Sylvanian Silverbark.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s a forest, way over in the east. If you want unicorn horn, you’re going to have to tangle with the Elvish Court.”

  “It worked out pretty well with the dwarves.”

  “You mean your highly illegal, international arms deal? The one where you trade cybernetically enslaved bunny monsters for gold?”

  “That stopped the human slave trade,” I objected.

  “It’s at best karmically neutral, Bob.” She put her head in her hands, sweeping her hair back over her shoulders before looking up to meet my eyes.

  “Meh.”

  “Killing unicorns is not karmically neutral. It’s not even close.”

  “They’re that bad?”

  “What? No. They’re the spirits of the forest, avatars of Hahaoya. They are the sweetest, noblest creatures who dedicate their lives to making the natural world bloom. Killing one of them is like stuffing a dozen puppies into a blender in front of a group of five-year-old kids and flicking the switch. It’s utterly evil.”

  “Damn. How much is the stuff to buy?”

  “Fifty million a horn.”

  “I wonder what unicorn tastes like?”