Egbert scowled at the store in front of him. It couldn’t have just made this easy on him; it had to make it weird. Is it really too much to ask for to just get the ability to speak to people that doesn’t cost over one hundred times my net worth without it having to be a whole song and dance? He flicked through the options he could actually afford, trying to figure out which would be the least disruptive.

  [Possessable Objects]

  [Hateful Dresser] (2 Silver)

  You wanna live out your fantasies of whapping the shit out of the most annoying adventurers, then this is for you. You can throw drawers to your heart's content from this and make it waddle around ominously.

  [Out Of Place Scarecrow] (6 Silver)

  It's a straw scarecrow shaped like a farmer, creepy wide-brimmed hat and all; it even has a rusty scythe in its hands. You can make it move at will, but only when no one is looking at it, so you know, put up a bunch of curtains or something.

  [Ominous Pet Rock] (1 silver)

  It's a rock with a really unsettling face painted on it in what is probably blood; use it to scare the shit out of adventurers by whispering creepy things through it.

  Yes, Egbert, your first communication with the outside world other than a failed bribe in your new life is going to come from a pet rock. Egbert bought the rock, hoping the description was overstating how awful it looked. Unfortunately, it was not.

  [Copper 1]

  The pet rock was impressively unsettling; dripping red trails actively streamed like tears of blood from two black pits that were supposed to be eyes. The mouth was a twisted, jagged smile that reached past the eyes painted to look like half-rotted teeth with blood spatter on them. The stone also wafted off the slightest bit of a foglike mist from itself. Why! Why would any dungeon want this? This makes ME feel like I've just adopted a cursed item!

  Ebgert went ahead and tried to talk through his only lifeline to the outside world. His voice came out in a malevolent hiss that practically scraped its nails down an invisible chalkboard. “Testing, testing, can anyone hear me? Oh gods above, this sounds like someone is turning a demon inside out.” Egbert mentally disconnected from the rock. Well, it works. I almost wish it didn’t, but it does. Now let’s stick this in a nice dark corner until our one-legged knight in shining armor comes back.

  His next day went pretty much the same as the last few; only Tammy and Jeb came. Based on some conversations he overheard, someone was near to having a baby, so they would probably be back with more of the family once they had successfully lowered the average intelligence of the vale a bit more.

  They ran through the loot bug room as per normal. Egbert was starting to feel bad for Jeb; the man was hobbling after the loot loobug at this point. The amount of punishment he had taken being the fearless, slightly challenged dungeon trailblazer was really starting to pile up. He stopped in the center of the agility trial room, huffing painfully after just his third use of the haste shrine.

  Jeb turned to Tammy. “Sis… I think I should take a day off. I’m pretty sure my heart just did that skip-a-beat thing that Grandpa says his does.”

  Tammy looked at him in mild concern. “Wait, like he gets all gaspy and pale, and Mammy thwaps him real hard?”

  “Yeah, just like that, but mine made more of like a grindy sound, like when we forget to oil the cart wheels and they stick real bad for a second.” Jeb said thoughtfully.

  Tammy patted him fondly on the shoulder. “Yeah, no problem. Let’s take a day off. We should come back when you aren’t going to croak, though. I finally sold that first bug and got nearly three silvers for it.”

  “Hot damn! That’s nearly two days of decent fishing!” Jeb said excitedly while heading for the exit.

  Egbert watched them leave in slight concern. I'm trying to translate a bit from hillbilly here, but did he just say his heart stopped? Jeb, my valued repeat customer. Go to a doctor! Preferably a cheap one, but still, you can’t pay me if you keel over mid-cast!

  Late that evening Max returned to the dungeon; he looked a bit haggard but showed up in full combat attire once again. Man probably just worked a full shift at the tavern, shut it down, and then dragged himself over here. Egbert made sure the pet rock was placed in plain view right next to the Haste obelisk.

  Egbert watched as Max fed coin after coin into the door slot, eyebrows continuously raising slightly at the fact that each door now took a silver coin total, and made his way inside. Could I have just opened the doors? Sure, but a man of Max’s means certainly won’t mind a little toll...the price was even customized just for his visit.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  [2 Copper] [4 Silver]

  “Over here by the shrine.” Egbert's voice malevolently whispered out towards Max.

  Max had his sword halfway from its sheath before his eyes finally locked onto the rock. “By all the gods above, I expected a chalkboard or maybe a talking statue, not whatever the fuck that is,” Max said slowly, sheathing his sword and taking a seat awkwardly on one of the loot bug’s pillars as it hummed at him from the far corner.

  Egbert started the conversation with an apology that was somewhat undermined by its delivery method. “So sorry about the bribe; that sort of got taken back. The system itself told me I wasn’t allowed to exploit my respawning loot for infinite riches like that. On the plus side...I can bribe you with coins I get the old-fashioned way!” Egbert meant it to come across as cheerful, but the damned rock made everything he said sound like a threat.

  Max rubbed the back of his neck. “Uhh, yeah, no big deal. I’m Max, by the way. So like, where do we go from here? I assume you are pretty new at this. From the little bit I’ve seen, I’ve delved dungeons before, and normally they are a lot bigger and more deadly.” He glanced meaningfully towards Buyer's Remorse, who was watching the conversation hungrily.

  Egbert grumbled to himself a bit before answering, “Well, ideally I need to get a bit more established before the wide world learns about me; it shouldn’t take terribly much. I’d imagine a hundred or so gold would be a good starting point. But unfortunately I have to earn it; I can’t just get a donation.”

  Max looked back to the rock. “Well, I actually have an idea for that. You are already trying to pretend this is some fuckery from the Ulfric Mages academy—not a terrible idea until one of them actually wanders over here. Tomorrow I have a whole passel of apprentice knights staying at my tavern, who as a rule hate the hell out of the magic academy, standard sword vs magic rivalry with a lot of noble family politics fanning the flames.” Max paused to see if Egbert had any comments.

  Ahh, good. I actually know the name of the academy now; that might be slightly more convincing than just “Magic School” scrawled on a wall. “And you hope to use that to make us both coins how?”

  Max smiled, obviously pleased that the dungeon knew he wanted something out of this. “I’m going to convince them that this actually is a test set up for the recruitment of new mages. A few dozen pints of ale and the right ego prodding, and I’m sure I can get them to come prove that the mages test is no big deal. I want a cut though…”

  Egbert thought for a moment; Knight Academy students would be very wealthy compared to your average peasant. He could jack prices way up for them. “Fine, I think I can work with that… I'll give you a five percent finder's fee...very generous, really, considering...." Max interrupted him.

  “Hey, I want fifty percent; your only customers right now use fish as a valid form of currency half the time.” Max smiled with a greedy glimmer in his eyes.

  Egbert’s voice sputtered out from the rock, “Fif...Fifty percent!?” Have you lost all of your senses? That is highway robbery for what amounts to pointing the drunkards the right way! Ten and not a copper more!”

  Max didn’t look phased at all. “Twenty-five percent, and I’ll make sure to stress how vast the rewards are if they can get that chest out of the pit...last offer.”

  Egbert grumbled and hemmed and hawed mightily for a moment. “Fine...deal.”

  Max reflexively put his hand out to shake on their agreement, letting it awkwardly float in the air in front of the rock for a few heartbeats too long. “Really, Max...does it look like I’m capable of shaking on the deal...?”

  Max rubbed the back of his neck again. “Ahh...yeah, my bad. Hey, did you raise the door prices when you saw me coming in this time? Also, what should I call you?”

  Egbert totally skipped over the question about his door prices. “Well, I had a name back when I was human; folks called me Egbert, but I don’t know if that really fits now.”

  Max looked at the doors for a moment. “I can just call you greed for now; it seems to fit your whole existence pretty well.”

  “While slightly hurtful, it’s not entirely undeserved or inaccurate.” Egbert answered. Mmm, yeah, I might kind of deserve that, but it got me three whole silver—still worth it!.

  Max slapped his hand down on his thigh definitively and then stood up. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow, probably sometime in the ass end of the night again.” Max unexpectedly gathered mana suddenly and dashed to the lootbug in a thunderclap of motion, snatching it up in a firm grasp. He slowly put it into a vial next to the other loot bug that was still angrily zooming around in its glass prison. Max winked toward the rock and patted the mimic door on his way out.

  Alright...I mean, that's a fair reaction. I did sort of make the toll ten times higher for him. Damn, I don’t think I’ll have a lootbug tomorrow until later in the night. What have I got to work with assuming Jeb and Tammy decide to take another day off so his heart doesn’t actually explode mid-dungeon delve?

  [2 Copper] [4 Silver]

  Alright, I need to move my core to somewhere less laughably accessible and try and make the knights' lives harder for four silver and a pinch of copper. I have a single day to do it; let's get to dungeon building.

  The first thing Egbert did was to try and get the mimic to pick up the core after he moved the haste shrine. It took a lot of cajoling, and he had to cut the side out of the altar, but eventually the door mimic got the coin-shaped core in its hand and waddled it into the loot pit room. What followed was an hour of a mimic not built for mobility falling into a pit over and over again while clutching Egbert's very soul.

  Even with all the traps turned off, it took the blasted thing ages to successfully waddle up to the far side of the pit and set the coin near the back wall. Egbert lost no time carving another coin-shaped slit into the stone, dropping his core down nearly a stride into the cavern floor. He quickly shaped a few fake stones to put over the top of it; in the end, it was a rather natural-looking cluster.

  [0 Copper] [4 Silver]

  It's going to be an absolute bastard getting my core out of that hiding spot again whenever I move farther in, but that is a tomorrow Egbert problem! For now… Egbert went back to the loot pit; this was how he would probably be able to make the most coinage from a group of cocky, insecure knights. He doubted they would leave until they either ran out of coins or successfully passed the “Trial.” He would vastly prefer they spent all their parents' hard-earned coins proving why they deserved to be a knight than actually succeed, so he went ahead and made the pit meaner.

  He started by adding another Man Grabber turret into the pit; he placed it in a bit of an odd spot, slightly up the steps on the far side, so there wasn’t a safe zone in the pit you could use to hide from the pronged claws of justice. Then he shaped a few of the stone steps at random, making it so every path down had at least one step that was aggressively smoothed and angled downwards. That ought to get at least one bugger, especially if they are fleeing from the claw of justice.

  [3 Copper] [3 Silver]

  Tammy had shown that the top was essentially a safe zone that you could cower on with impunity; that just wouldn’t do. The pit was an absolute bastard to get out of once you were in it. Egbert needed more ways to get people down there. I guess I could put an actual monster up here, but what would people run from rather than fight at my budget? Or what could I use that would bonk them right on in…

  Egbert opened up the store to actual monsters for the first time; the number of categories available to him was glorious. Egbert had three silver coins and a world of possibility floating before his eyes; he was sure he could find something that would make the knights wish they had just stayed trust fund kids at home.