Lee did not return to the dungeon. Becky and Bel did.

  Neither Bel or Becky brought up the orc attacks. Not talking about something was especially unusual for the dwarf--she loved to talk--but Hans didn't press.

  Even without Lee, Bel and Becky wanted to get back to training. They had ogres to slay.

  Hans was uncomfortable with a two-person party running ogre valley, however, so he decided to bring four of the DC Apprentices along: Terry, Chisel, Buru, and Yotuli.

  Honronk was occupied, sitting in on a magery class with the Minotaurs to learn the fundamentals he likely missed in teaching himself for so long. Kane and Quentin needed a bit more practice before they took on ogres, so they would sit this one out as well.

  As for Sven, no one had seen him or knew where he was. Hans began to suspect the Apprentice Rogue had fled Gomi for good, and he was in no position to fault someone for a Hoseki Goodbye. In his talks with adventurers over the years, he often found himself explaining that quitting the life was not a shameful thing to do.

  Active Quest: Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

  You're such a hypocrite.

  At any rate, if Sven wanted out, that was his choice to make. Would have been nice to get his Guild gear back, but oh well.

  Winding down his pre-run prep session, Hans spotted Robert and Gootlab climbing off a wagon in front of the almost-complete horse stables. The Iron and Bronze adventurers had rucksacks and wore typical civilian clothes, leading Hans to believe they weren't here to run the dungeon or to train.

  They glanced at the Guild Master nervously, as if unsure if they should approach. Hans spared them the agony and approached them instead.

  “We've heard there is a village at the bottom of the dungeon,” Robert began, softly, “And that someone lives there already.”

  Hans said that was true.

  “We would like to live down there too.”

  “I've got to join a run in twenty minutes. Follow me and let's see how much we can cover before then.”

  In the privacy of his cabin, Hans sat them down and talked about life in the dungeon.

  “It's always dark and you're totally cut off from the surface when the dungeon regrows. You would have a lot of time to fill, and the village is only so big. Lastly–and this is the only part that could force me to say no–we have to get food and supplies through quite a bit of dungeon to sustain people at the bottom. Adding two more people's worth of supplies is a lot for me to ask of our adventurers.”

  “We don't have a problem earning our keep,” Robert said. “We aren't looking for anyone to coddle us.”

  If two more people lived in New Gomi, what jobs could they do? A better version of that question: What jobs could two retired adventurers do if they lived in New Gomi?

  “We have teams of harvesters who extract resources from the dungeon when the adventurers finish a run,” Hans explained. “We have only taken them so deep, though. The more intelligent monsters worry me. Easy for them to catch someone unawares.”

  Though it would mean calling on their adventuring experience, Hans proposed Robert and Gootlab become a sort of dungeon delivery team. They could handle themselves if the adventurers missed an enemy somewhere, and they could move through the deeper levels far more safely than an untrained harvester.

  Furthermore, Luther had been butchering camahueto, tanning leather, and growing reagents. If Luther had the right help, bringing those materials out of the dungeon regularly would be much easier. They still couldn’t preserve all of the meat, but Hans felt better wasting less at least.

  The two adventurers talked amongst themselves for a moment before agreeing. They would happily do those jobs for a home in the dungeon village.

  “Okay then, about four hours from now, our alchemist and our harvesters will gather outside the dungeon for their next run. We are meeting them partway through the dungeon to escort the alchemist the rest of the way. Find Tandis, ask her if she needs anything humped to the bottom of the dungeon, then go down with the harvesters. I’ll take you to New Gomi from there.”

  Bringing the Apprentices into ogre valley went… okay.

  Buru and Petal debuted a new attack. The opossum curled into a ball and Buru threw her into a cluster of monsters, ogres in this case. When she landed, Petal used a Druid spell to summon bees, sowing chaos among her targets. Hans loved the idea but thought that, perhaps, this was the kind of danger the dryad wanted him to prevent.

  Then again, Petal did drop into a group of orcs and return unharmed. She seemed to be in no danger with the ogres either. While her bravery briefly held, her small body and nimble climbing ability helped her to make a quick escape. She had yet to fully complete an exit, however. She invariably curled up to play dead somewhere along the way.

  But she had not yet been injured. The adventurers had a good run too, everyone coming through healthy.

  Terry had a close call, though. He lost track of the second ogre and almost took a club to the head. Bel saved him with a Wall of Force. Had she not been exceptionally quick with her support, Terry would have been seriously injured.

  If we had instructors observing battles, and they could cast spells like Wall of Force to prevent serious injuries, we could accelerate exposing Apprentices to new monsters.

  New Quest: Explore the idea of training “dungeon lifeguards” to accompany adventurers in training.

  Otherwise, the run went smoothly. Leaving everyone else in New Gomi to rest, Hans and Terry hiked back through the Bone Goblins to meet the harvester party escorting Olza and the new residents of the dungeon.

  “What's the over-under on us fighting more orcs sometimes soon?”

  “I'm optimistic we won’t, but there's no way to be certain,” Hans said.

  “What makes you optimistic?”

  “They were planning to attack Gomi. If other bands were in the area, they would have come with greater numbers.”

  Terry said that made sense. After a brief lull, he changed the subject. “I don't appreciate everyone picking party names while I'm out of town. The Dungeon Cores? Come on. It's a broken hunk of glass that never moves.”

  Laughing, Hans asked what name he would have chosen.

  “The Minotaurs is pretty damn good,” Terry said. “I would have thought of it before the noobs.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You're stalling.”

  “First of all I am not stalling. Second of all, the obvious best team name is The Terrys. I'm a beast, and I'm in the dungeon.” Terry raised a finger to silence Hans’ attempt to talk. “And since I knew you'd have sour grapes over how clever I was, I have a backup.”

  Hans waited. “Well?”

  “The Warthogs.”

  “Those aren't in the dungeon.”

  Terry smiled. “But if I told Becky we wanted to honor Becki by dedicating the name to her, you'd never hear the end of it if you said no, if you even had the potatoes to say no from the start.”

  “That's downright sinister. You're dangerous.”

  “I've got all kinds of ideas.”

  “Do share.”

  “I was also thinking we could have asked to hold our names until the next section. What were they called… cave crawlers? Wait for the next upgrade, get a better team name.”

  “Giant poison mushrooms are next, actually.”

  Terry laughed. Not every clever idea could land.

  “If you have any ideas about adventuring, you know I'll listen, right? Might not always mean they go your way, but you see things different. New Gomi–”

  “Luther Land.”

  Hans rolled his eyes. “Luther Land was your idea. You said we should have dorms down here.”

  “I'm a bloody genius.”

  Hans sighed. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “I wasn’t here for all the hooplah, but it seems like a few more failsafes would be good to think about. At least, that’s what I was thinking about.”

  “Please, go on.”

  “It ain’t exactly ready to come off the grill as far as ideas go, but ogres getting through the Bone Goblins isn’t very likely. I’m sure they’d try, but I can think of three or four places where they just won’t fit. Doesn’t matter how angry they are. Some of those hallways are tight for us normal folk. Should expand the dungeon with more chokepoints like that.”

  His points were valid, Hans agreed. Asking carpenters to pile up beds in a hallway was not the most elegant emergency measure. The original dungeon plan made the assumption that competent adventurers would always be posted at the dungeon. The orc attack proved that to be naive.

  “I think the premise of the idea is solid,” Hans said. “Higher-ranked encounters can be a bit odd, though. An adult cyclops is a big Diamond-ranked monster. Can’t fly, won’t fit through narrow doorways. Lots of upper-ranked encounters are about as big as you or me, though, and a bunch of them can fly.”

  “What’s the equivalent of a drawbridge for flying nasties?” Terry asked.

  “That’s the question we need to answer, but it's worth figuring out, I think.”

  New Quest: Ideate on physical chokepoints to prevent monsters from escaping the dungeon.

  When Hans met the harvesters at the start of the Bone Goblins, the party was much larger than he anticipated. In addition to the harvesters, there was Olza, Robert, and Gootlab. All of those he knew would be in the party. But he had not expected to see Izz and Thuz.

  “We are culling the golem. We'll deliver the scrap to you after.”

  That reminded Hans.

  New Quest: Determine if the golem is a threat when the tower is undisturbed.

  If the golem didn’t activate until someone opened the door to its lair, they could, in theory, leave it unculled if the right caliber of adventurers were unavailable. That would be incredibly convenient for Hans as it would simplify planning runs by a substantial margin, but if they didn’t cull the golem, would another grow in the room? And another after that? He needed all of the facts before he left Bunri’s tower untouched for a long period of time.

  The lizardmen brothers joined everyone else on the walk down, peeling off at the appropriate turn for Bunri's tower.

  When Maurice saw the large group coming down the town stairs to join the already large group present, he bolted and hid. He had never seen so many people. In fairness, Luther was overwhelmed as well. The tusk had been living a very odd and very much hermetic lifestyle. While the new arrivals dropped their bags and marvelled at the oddity of Luther Land, Hans pulled Luther aside and explained Robert and Gootlab’s intent to move there permanently.

  “What are your concerns?” Luther asked.

  Hans said he had a few. The first was suddenly forcing roommates on Luther. Then Hans reiterated the same points he shared with Robert and Gootlab topside: life underground might not be what they expect and sustaining more residents in Luther Land presented a logistical challenge.

  “I do not own New Gomi,” Luther replied. “It is not my place to say who can and cannot live down here.”

  “I think of it as a sort of permanent adventurer party. You’ll be living and working together. A lot. Personality fit matters in a team, for everyone’s sake.”

  Luther could see the logic in that. “I believe their presence here would be a positive benefit for all of us, including our people on the surface.”

  They agreed to welcome Robert and Gootlab to New Gomi with the assumption they would be permanent residents. Luther would update Hans periodically on their status. If a problem arose, they’d address it.

  Olza brought Robert and Gootlab over, introducing them to Luther. When Luther pointed them to two houses they could claim, Olza dragged the tusk across town to his garden of experiments. She was dying to see and discuss the project in person.

  Hans left them to it. As he debated finding a bed for himself to sleep right then, he thought of his open quests. One in particular came to mind:

  Active Quest: Investigate the locations of old Diamond Quests.

  He found Becky with two giant camahueto steaks on a plate. They steamed. She stacked them on top of one another to carve two pieces with every pass of her knife.

  Hans sat down across from her and opened his journal to a page where he had drawn an approximation of the Gomi map, logging the location of the Diamond Quests he found referenced in the manual. He asked her if she was familiar with either location.

  “‘Course I’m familiar,” Becky said, steak juice running down her beard. “Don’t come asking for my help and insultin’ me at the same time.”

  “I’m sorry. What I meant to ask was, ‘Is there anything notable about these locations?’”

  The Druid looked at the map again, her jaw crushing steak with the force of a warhammer. “There’s some really beautiful birch trees around this one, but I’m guessin’ that’s not the kind of notable you mean.”

  Hans said she was correct.

  “Used to be some houses at that one. Before my time, but the foundations are still there. You know how those seem to stick around long after everything else is gone.”

  “Ruins?”

  Becky chuckled. A piece of gristle flew across the table, narrowly missing Hans. “Not the kind of ruins you’re hoping for, Guild Master. Used to be a few buildings. Now there ain’t. That’s about it.”

  “When we have time… If we ever have time, would you mind taking me out to show me these sites?”

  “Sure, boss. Whenever we ain’t busy, which kind of sounds like never at this point.”

  Quest Update: Visit the locations of old Diamond quests with Becky.

  Hans woke to a knock at his Luther Land door. Groggy, he answered. Olza stood outside, wrapped in a blanket. She seemed upset, as if sleeping alone at the bottom of a dungeon could be scary.

  “Can I stay with you?”

  Hans invited her inside.

  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.

  Visit the locations of old Diamond quests with Becky.

  Await the delivery of lockpick training tools.

  Locate Sven.

  Explore the idea of training “dungeon lifeguards” to accompany adventurers in training.

  Ideate on physical chokepoints to prevent monsters from escaping the dungeon.

  Determine if the golem is a threat when the tower is undisturbed.