The Apprentice curriculum hadn’t changed, but its delivery did.

  For starters, two sets of Apprentices now trained together, and referring to them as “the experienced Apprentices” and “the new Apprentices” quickly wore on Hans. He considered allowing the Apprentices to choose their own group names, but then he thought of the Poop Puddle. If he gave these people that power, he’d end up coaching Team Dick and Team Balls for the next four years.

  Absolutely not.

  He knew, however, that if he assigned the team names the Apprentices would ignore them and use their own.

  Hans shared his new approach at the end of the first combined class. “I’m starting a new tradition right here. Each cohort is going to pick a team name using a monster that appears in our dungeon.”

  He never mentioned that he had forgotten the names of four of the six new Apprentices already.

  When the Apprentices didn’t argue, instead turning to each other to discuss their options, Hans fist pumped aggressively within his own mind. He thought for sure the first cohort of Apprentices would push back, but they didn’t. After a few minutes of vigorous debate, both groups were ready to share their selection.

  The inaugural generation chose to be called “The Dungeon Cores,” or “the DCs” for short. That felt appropriate for the first group of Apprentices to ever delve the dungeon–a small beginning that grows into something great. Did the Apprentices share that interpretation? Hans chose not to ask so he could preserve the fuzzy feeling he had.

  The second cohort chose, “The Minotaurs,” which Hans also thought was clever. He assumed no one would want to choose goblins or gnolls because many were likely to have had some level of firsthand experience with the violence they can reap on innocent people, but he forgot about the minotaur in the shaman room.

  “Shit,” Sven said, “theirs is better than ours.”

  “I still like the DCs better,” Chisel said. Yotuli, Buru, and Honronk agreed with Chisel.

  The first three of the combined classes had the DCs and the Minotaurs learning the same material. The review would be helpful for the more experienced adventurers, and the new students would benefit from being paired with someone who could help them along. The fourth class fell on the day of a dungeon regrowth, so Hans took training into the field.

  Chisel, Buru, and Yotuli were on rotation that day. With Hans and the six Minotaurs following behind, the three DCs ran the dungeon. A few of the encounters were not convenient for spectators, but the majority were. Hans withheld commentary and instead asked the students to pay close attention to the party’s movements. They were also welcome to ask any questions they’d like when the run concluded.

  The Forgeborne Mines and the Poop Puddle went smoothly. At one point, Buru asked one of the Minotaurs if they could carry Petal. She got spooked and was currently curled up, pretending to be dead. Otherwise, the run up until that point was uneventful, and the harvesters came in behind the adventurers with Tandis in the lead.

  At the Bone Goblins, Hans had each Minotaur fight a skeleton by themselves. Predictably, that surprised every Minotaur and terrified a few as well. Hans intentionally withheld this part of the lesson plan so there was as little time as possible between the Apprentices knowing they had to fight something for real and actually doing it. This early in a student’s development, they didn’t need the distraction of looming dread.

  Each of the battles went how beginner encounters typically go. Hesitation. Stiff movements. Weak attacks. Panic-driven defense.

  When the sixth skeleton fell, the DCs continued onward into the dungeon while Hans escorted the Minotaurs back to the training yard.

  As they ventured through the bayou, Hans said, “Proud of everyone for stepping up today. I know you weren’t expecting a fight, but you all did great.”

  A lean tusk Hans judged to be in his early twenties spoke first. He had hunter green skin, and Hans couldn’t recall his name. “Not me. I froze immediately.”

  “I froze in my first real fight,” Hans said. “Today, the point was doing it. How well you think you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter. Everyone has a lot to improve and a lot of training ahead, but you’ve got your first real fight out of the way.”

  The Apprentice to speak next was a forty seven year-old human man. He had graying brown hair and the wiry build of a career laborer. His name was Charlie, but Hans didn’t want anyone to get confused between Mayor Charlie and Adventurer Charlie, so he dubbed his Apprentice “Young Charlie.” A memorable nickname was an added benefit for Hans.

  “Do we fight goblins after the skeletons?” Young Charlie asked.

  Hans said that was correct, but not anytime soon, and he wouldn’t make that fight a surprise. Skeletons were capable of being deadly in groups, but one-on-one they were slow, weak, fragile opponents. If an Apprentice made a serious error with a goblin, they could get stabbed in the stomach with a wooden stake. Making the same error against a skeleton would, at most, leave a few scratches, especially with Hans present to intervene.

  “Wherever possible, I try to give you room to make mistakes,” Hans said. “I’m not sure how comforting this is, but if I put you into a situation, it’s because I’m pretty sure you won’t die.”

  The Apprentices laughed.

  For the rest of the journey, they briefly discussed what classes the Minotaurs were considering. No one was committing to anything yet, but Hans probed the topic early to help the Apprentices choose later.

  Young Charlie, for example, was considering going Archer, which was essentially a Fighter who specialized in ranged attacks. Knowing that, Hans could share the pros and cons while the Apprentice still had plenty of time to mull his options.

  In this case, Hans liked the idea of an older Apprentice avoiding the abuse of being a frontliner, but he cautioned him about dungeon utility. Several encounters, especially in the Bone Goblin section, were too tight for a drawstring bow, and crossbows were a sonofabitch to reload. Clearing a room as an Archer was difficult as well. Any monster within twenty yards would likely get to your throat before you could draw and fire.

  Every class had weaknesses, and adapting to those weaknesses was one of the more challenging parts of training. So while Hans’ explanation might sound discouraging, the intent was to help the student understand what would inevitably piss them off in the future. Figuring it out would always be frustrating, but knowing what you’re getting into numbed a good bit of the sting later.

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  At the dungeon exit, Hans dismissed the students for the day, but he would be in the training yard for the next hour or so to answer questions.

  “I get demolished. Every time.”

  Hans sat on an overturned minecart while Pogochio pulled up a box to sit. Pogochio–a greenish brown tusk who preferred to go by Pogo–was the smallest tusk Hans had ever seen. At seventeen, Pogo was smaller than Quentin. He wasn’t as gangly, but he was far from being built. For him to not be the smallest adventurer in the room, Mazo would need to visit.

  Even then, it’d be close.

  “I’m going to speak frankly about your size,” Hans answered, “but before I do, I need you to know I have worked with dozens of adventurers like you or smaller. They were accomplished professionals, and I see no reason why you couldn’t do what they did. Can I continue?”

  Pogo nodded.

  “Being smaller sucks, and it will always suck.”

  The tusk’s eyes widened.

  “Here’s the thing: adventurers are smaller than their opponents almost every time. Buru is a beast, but he’s smaller than goliath toads and definitely smaller than ogres. That sucks for Buru. For someone my size, I’m smaller than most gnolls, and they’re one of the most common pests in the kingdom. That sucks for me and eighty percent of adventurers. Even then, Buru doesn’t beat them by that much.”

  Pogo listened.

  “The early days are harder for adventurers like you, and there’s no way around it. When neither student knows shit, the one with bigger muscles is probably going to win. Size will always matter, really. But when you get smarter about how you fight, you’ll have the tools to make your size an advantage.”

  “Advantage?”

  “Yes, advantage.” Hans said. “Six months from now, everyone is going to complain about how hard it is to hit you. You’re a smaller target, and you’re faster than anyone in the room. Only you can fight like that. Yotuli is quick, but you’re quicker. Terry is too old to move like that. And someone like Buru? Buru could never fight like that. His tools are different.”

  “I see.”

  “Knowing that won’t make your training any easier, but I promise you, it’s well within your potential for you to get through it.”

  Other than Pogo, none of the Minotaurs asked Hans for advice or input, but they did spend an extra hour drilling. Students practicing on their own time was always a good sign.

  That night, Tandis and Hans sat in his cabin. She had her notebook open.

  Though the sun was down, the night was wet and hot, and cooling breezes had not passed through in days. Hans placed lit candles by the door and by his windows in an effort to deter mosquitos. It wasn’t working very well.

  “Sorry to bother you so late,” Tandis said.

  “Not a bother at all. How can I help?”

  Tandis explained that she wanted to get a headstart on preparing to ship dungeon-grown resources from future expansions. Rough numbers around volume would help her to work out the value and do some digging on what merchants typically paid. Since she couldn’t speak to the visiting merchants herself, she had been posing questions via Olza. Tusks still needed to keep a low profile, and an alchemist asking about strange ingredients every visit wouldn’t be unusual to anyone within earshot.

  Hans listed what resources were in the works for the near future, saying, “Valorite, armillaria meat and spores, cave crawler hearts and claws, and lamia scales.”

  “We’re not selling valorite, correct?”

  Hans said that was correct. It would attract too much attention, and Gomi had its own uses for valorite. Tandis didn’t know about the Takarabune, however, but Hans having another odd side project was no surprise.

  “I’ve done the diligence on cave crawlers already, so no questions there… Lamias shouldn’t be too hard. The bestiary suggests they aren’t incredibly rare… What’s an armillaria? I don’t think I’ve heard of those.”

  Armillarias were giant mushroom monsters that put prey to sleep with a burst of toxic spores. They consumed their prey while it slept. Admittedly, armillarias were not lucrative to hunt. Hans’ primary goal with their addition was for training, but armillaria meat was edible, and their spores were worth harvesting. Alchemists sometimes sold them for medicinal and recreational use.

  Tandis raised an eyebrow at the mention of recreational use.

  “Supposedly some people lucid dream with the right dose of armillaria spores. All I got was a headache.”

  When Tandis finished writing, she looked up and asked, “Anything else worth harvesting in these expansions? Non-monster, I mean.”

  After some thought, Hans gave Tandis a quick summary of each expansion. Bunri’s Tower had bottles, books no one would read, and a golem. The armillaria job took place in a village similar to Luther Land, and Hans couldn’t think of anything of use beyond the furniture. The coven job was a proper dungeon crawl with an underground temple and everything. The lamiae controlled the patrolling cave crawlers, and he recalled a small garden of spell components near an alchemist bench. He’d keep thinking, though.

  “There were a couple of books in Luther Land, right?” Tandis asked.

  Hans said that was true.

  “And they were all blank. If the Bunri books are all blank, is there any value in an endless supply of empty books? Some of the bottles might be usable too, even if just locally.”

  The first thought to enter Hans’ mind was printing copies of books, like his guide to training adventurers. Then he remembered two important things: books were typically printed before they were bound, and he didn’t have a printing press. Like with the bottles, if the books weren’t worth selling, everyone in Gomi could have as much paper as they wanted. The kids he taught would absolutely love to have their own sketchbooks. Or five.

  Tandis asked if he remembered what spell components the lamia coven grew. Hans could remember nightshade and mandrake root but not the others. He promised to think more about it. That knowledge was hidden in his memory somewhere.

  …Hopefully.

  The quartermaster thanked Hans and stood to leave. She stopped in the doorway and asked, “How do you think Kane and Quentin are doing?”

  “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

  “Me too. I’m sure they’re fine, but I worry anyhow.”

  Hans admitted he was the same. “The boys are ready for a tournament, and I suspect at least a few of the attendees will recognize Izz and Thuz. They’re kind of hard to miss, and you don’t see a lot of lizardmen this far north. I’ve never met anyone that didn’t adore them.”

  “Really?” Tandis asked.

  “Really. In all the time I’ve known them, I have never heard someone say something bad about them. It’s ridiculous, but it’s true.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “Right?”

  With that, Tandis departed for the evening. While Hans debated the merits of closing the door and windows of his cabin to escape mosquitos despite the heat, he thought about his two Apprentices in Osare.

  As long as they’re safe.

  Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

  Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

  Mend the rift with Devon.

  Complete the next volume (Iron to Bronze) for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

  Find a way for Gomi adventurers to benefit from their rightful ranks in the Adventurers’ Guild.

  Secure a way to use surplus dungeon inventory for good.

  Finish transcribing the manual and decide on the next course of action.

  Help Izz and Thuz bring new opportunities to their home village.

  Investigate the locations of old Diamond Quests.

  Await the delivery of lockpick training tools.