Thrognar brought the cradled “puppy” right up to his face and nuzzled into it with his tusky chin. “Oh Gods, So Cute!” The “puppy” wagged happily and let out the cutest little “aroof” noise that Egbert had ever heard. Egbert felt so tense that he thought he might snap while waiting for something awful to happen. Oh gods, Thrognar, please put the high-level monster down; if you die, I lose my easiest source of coins.

  Thrognar started playing hide and seek again, this time with a fuzzy passenger in his arms. Boo came around the corner at exactly the wrong time, and Thrognar jumped in victory, “Ha! Found you!” Boo jumped a bit and kicked a rock grumpily. Then Boo’s eyes locked onto the “puppy” in Thrognar’s arms.

  Boo looked at its innocent visage real hard for a moment and began backing away in a panic. Letting out the equivalent of a psychic gasp of terror before skittering up the wall to get away from Thrognar’s cargo. “Aww, Spidey no like dog.” Thrognar said sadly. Well, that's the most concerning thing I've seen so far in this life; the head-popping, eight-legged horror fled from the not-a-puppy. At least I have a countermeasure for Boo now?

  Max chose this exact moment to come busting on in to the front of the dungeon, a piece of parchment flapping in his hand dramatically. Egbert sighed and zoomed back to the loot bug room. “Does no one sleep around here? It has to be close to midnight by now. I mean, I don’t, so I don’t know why I’m complaining ...never mind. Max, by your triumphant face and wildly waved proof of bureaucratic victory, I assume you bought the land.” Egbert hissed from the pet rock.

  “I did!” Max said enthusiastically. “Do you have a place for me to build yet? I’ll start bringing in supplies right now!”

  “Calm down, my entrepreneurial poisoner.” Egbert said with a chuckle.

  “Poisoner? What are you talking about?” Max asked, slightly concerned.

  “Max, have you seen the people you bartend for? I’m convinced you are trying to introduce some of them to the sweet, sweet embrace of liver failure.” Egbert chided.

  “Oh pish posh, everyone is just having fun. Now when can I start!” Max said, just blazing past the issue of his pour sizes.

  “Dammit, man, I just got the creepy-ass mimic village kind of running; I need the last dregs of my coin to make this place look less like a cheapskate runs it!” There was an awkward pause while Max just stared at the rock judgmentally.

  “Oh, don’t even. Give me a few more days or some rich visitors, and I’ll expand more even though it’s probably premature.”

  “Great, I’ll start getting building supplies set up. Should I leave them in this new village?”

  Egbert paused; this was all happening so fast he wasn’t sure why Max was in such a damned hurry. “I…uhh suppose so?” Max didn’t even answer; he just ran back out the front door as fast as his leg could take him. Huh...I'm definitely missing some key detail here. Did the mages mark him for death or something equally stupid? Wait! The “Puppy!” Egbert's view zoomed back.

  Thrognar was happily walking through the loot pit room, the puppy still in his arms. There was no sign of struggle or violence. Thrognar stopped far enough back to set the “puppy” down. The crazed berserker simply took a few steps back and flung himself into the pit. The new claw never even got to turn before it had an unreasonable amount of orc slapped straight onto the front of it. GODDAMMIT, NO THROGNAR, THAT'S EXPENSIVE! Thrognar reached out and plopped a couple silver into the claw to turn it off. Oh...okay, proceed…

  Thrognar deflected the other claws with heavy swings of his axe before turning them off with a coin as well. Then he went and grabbed the puppy, bringing it into the loot bug room. Egbert needed to stop Thrognar from doing whatever well-meaning but stupid thing he was planning with the puppy. “Thrognar, put my...dog down, please…” Egbert hissed out. The puppy barked happily like it had heard its owner’s voice.

  Thrognar held the puppy away from the rock protectively. “What do you need a puppy for? You can’t pet” What? Egbert wanted to shout at Thrognar that he was being ridiculous but decided that wasn’t constructive.

  “It’s for the kids, Thrognar...the orphans need their puppy. You wouldn’t want to steal a child’s puppy, would you, Thrognar?” Thrognar looked appalled, like he had committed the most heinous of murders, quickly but gently setting the “puppy” down.

  “No, no, no, Thrognar, sorry, give puppy back; bye, dungeon, must go have quest.” Thrognar left quickly after that, leaving Egbert face-to-rock with the “puppy.” It stared at him as innocently as possible.

  Egbert stared right back. “What are you really…” Egbert hissed at the wagging ball of fluff. Its only response was to plop down into a tired little ball and begin snoozing peacefully. Egbert noted how the loot bugs didn’t come anywhere near the sleeping “puppy.” You know, I would think this was all some dramatic scam to get me to spend a gold on a dog if it weren’t for the fact that every other monster in here is scared shitless of you.

  The next few days passed in a flurry of activity. A few more of the townsfolk started visiting him, including a woodcutter named Tomond, whose magnificent beard left Egbert gold with envy. And a small passel of housewives of all things. Their classes didn’t lend well to exploring the dungeon, but they were having a ball in the loot bug room. So far none of the housewives had been eaten, so Egbert just shrugged and left them to it.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  Between his new guests, the fish folk, and a few brief visits from the knights,they very much so avoided pissing off contempt or falling into the pit again. Egbert was gathering a steady stream of coins. It's time to make this place look less shabby!

  Egbert started at the porch, taking the top couple of stone steps and smoothing them out into beautiful marble rectangles with tiny coins etched into them for traction. Instead of the rounded deathtraps that had been trying to off every drunkard to stumble up here.

  Then he moved on into the first hallway with his Toll doors. The first thing he did was spruce up the walls; he had already smoothed them some and wanted it to have a real wow factor. Gold inlay was his first thought. Egbert did approximately one hand span of thin gold engraving before deciding it was absolutely too expensive.

  Fool's gold is basically gold...except, you know, it won’t bankrupt me. Egbert started again on the hallway walls after taking his golden inlay back with fool's gold this time. It was basically the same thing visually, sort of. The inlay was fantastically easy for Egbert with his fancy dungeon powers. Small hexagonal lines branched out up and down the hallway walls with small gaps randomly spaced throughout.

  Eat that, overpriced artisans! That would have taken you at least a few days and a rather unreasonable amount of my coin! Egbert put the thinnest layer of white stone he could over the top of the plain gray stone to really set off the gaudy wall decorations and then moved into the loot bug playground.

  This room had already had a pretty significant style pass when he turned it all Loot Bug kingdom themed. So Egbert simply added that very thin white stone to the floor top. And just to really be a dick, he made sure it was polished to a near frictionless shine. No reason to not make the room suck even more to run in.

  Egbert tried painting a mural and was pleasantly surprised that it was cheap and his utter lack of artistic abilities in both lives apparently wasn’t an impediment. His imagination was literally the limit. Egbert may have gone a bit overboard by the end of it.

  The entire left wall depicted the struggle of the loot bug lords for terrain. Castles were sieged , armies were raised, and epic duels were fought between clashing hordes of golden-shelled warriors. Magic cracked castle battlements and raised towers to the ground. Okay, that might be a biiiitt too much embellishment, but bah, it's my dungeon.

  Twitch was depicted as a loot bug wielding a rapier in a neat, tight-fitting yellow cloak sneaking through enemy forces. Meanwhile, Bubba was a bug in a thick fur-lined suit of armor wading his way through the opposing forces with a mace nearly as tall as himself. Crushing his foes into chitinous paste. Their epic duel reached a crescendo in the center of the mural where their weapons clashed.

  The mural on the far wall where Contempt resided was a dark thing swirling black and gold shrouded his alcove. Broken only by the vague outline of a golden reaper with its malicious insectoid god looming behind it like a puppet master of nightmares.

  Okay, that's enough epic battle scenes; time to do something more reasonable and for myself! Egbert drew his attention to the barren right wall and went with something truly dignified and tasteful. First he began by painting himself as he used to be: devilishly handsome, with high cheekbones and fastidiously combed-over hair. A tan jerkin with the coin badge of the kingdom's official tax operatives. He may have added a couple pounds of muscle here and there and tightened his slight paunch. But Egbert was going from memory, so he was sure people who once knew him would cut him some slack.

  Before Egbert stood his adoring debtors, bowing respectfully, coin purses held high as Egbert gazed down upon them. A startlingly vibrant sunset lit his silhouette with such vivid colors it was as if the gods themselves ordained his arrival. Then he set to work on the final focus of the self-mural.

  An orphan graciously accepting coins from Egbert's outstretched hand, tears of joy welling in his eyes at the truly selfless gift. On Egbert’s face sat the gentlest of smiles, that of a proud teacher or father looking at the fruit of years of labor. Ahh, it's truly beautiful. Egbert “sat back” and stared at the painting of himself; he was even more beautiful than he remembered. I've always had excellent taste in the fine arts.

  Max stuttered to a stop next to the pet rock, his face twisted into an expression Ebgert interpreted as awe and reverence. Egbert hadn’t even noticed him come in; he was so focused on his masterpiece. Max slowly pulled his eyes from the mural and locked them onto the rock. “The fuck is wrong with you?” Max stuttered in sheer disbelief. “You...uhh, you should probably erase this before the orphanage inspector gets here.”

  Egbert felt like Max’s first comment had punched him right in his ego, but the second caught him horribly off guard. “What the what?” Egbert asked in concern; he didn’t think there would be inspections.

  Bubba—Warlord of the Central Towers

  Bubba sat nestled within the beard of his thrall, continuing the long, arduous journey home. It was a well-fought battle to cajole and threaten this stumpy being into escorting him home, but it was necessary. After he had broken free from its foul magics, all hell had broken loose, and he and his brief captor had been ripped elsewhere. And honestly, he had no idea where in all the hallowed halls elsewhere was.

  The damnable light above was offensive to his eyes, so he had taken to riding nested within the pelt of his transport during the daytime hours. And then walking upon his own mighty legs during the blessed dark of night. He needed to get home, and soon; that vile brother of his was certainly supping upon his throne by now. The contemptuous god that called himself king would do nothing to preserve Bubba’s holdings; he was far above the petty concerns of the mortals.

  But Bubba would return a conqueror; when he broke free from the invaders, everything changed. Bubba glanced at the message he had received once again. He still did not comprehend how he understood what it said, but he knew what it meant for him: power.

  [Achievement Granted]

  [Violently Incorrect Incarnation]

  You have, through sheer aggression and lack of self-preservation, defeated in open combat two foes over fifty levels higher than you with no aid. You also forced a foe a full tier above you to flee lest they risk almost certain death. All of this was done while being considered a noncombatant by the system and being in possession of no combat skills or talents. The system has deemed that your categorization as a harmless entity was an error, and proper adjustments will be made.

  [Rewards]

  Minor increase in self-awareness

  Class Granted

  [Bubba Tier-1] (lvl13) [Gravity Master Brawler]