There were a few sources of stress for an aspiring "professional monster." Most of them related to learning the ropes once someone hired them, but that was just the tail end of the biggest pain of all: landing the damn job. Valencia shifted nervously in her seat. She'd done her best to spruce up her bestiary entry as best she could, but it's not as if those technicalities would make much of an impact. Not when her monster type was clearly devoted to one thing specifically.
Valencia was an imp. Not any specific type, which would be in her favor in this dungeon in particular, but she was still just an imp. A low-level monster made to tempt adventurers into a very specific type of defeat. She'd managed to catch a glance at the listings detailing what other foes heroes could expect to find in the dungeon, and the assortment made her heart sink. Slime. Kobold. Brownie. Wisp. Basic monsters. Straight hack 'n' slash fodder that barely knew how to tempt a sandwich into their collective stomachs. Part of her hoped that the boss would want a more feminine beast to help offer some variety, but the chances were slim. She sighed inwardly and glanced down at her bust. All she could do was hope right now.
The Gorgon reading over the tattered page, the boss of the dungeon, narrowed her yellow, pupil-less eyes, pursing her lips and leaning back in her seat. A roughly-hewn desk separated the two, similarly stone-fashioned seats on either side. It wasn't a glamorous job at some high-end late-game dungeon, but there weren't many openings for monsters these days.
"So." Valencia straightened up as the Gorgon suddenly spoke, tapping the sheet with a clawed finger. "It says here you know the spells 'Inferno' and 'Cocytus.' That seems a little advanced for a lower level demon."
Valencia coughed and glanced down before meeting the Gorgon's gaze. Even if she wasn't affected by her petrifying gaze, the net effect on the nervous imp was roughly the same. "Ah, while I may technically know the spell, I don't actually have enough MP to use it, so I mainly just use it to waste a turn sometimes. Like, kind of an 'oh, no!' moment before the hero realizes what happened." She smiled, not quite knowing where to look before her eyes trailed back up to the Gorgon's. She looked less than impressed for a moment before nodding and looking back down.
"Good, good. Wouldn't want them to get in over their heads. Ah. What about the item you drop? It says here it's a..." She squinted at the page, clicking her tongue as she tried to pronounce the word.
"Topaz Bromide. It's an accessory." Valencia knew well enough to provide the information before her prospective boss struggled too long with the word. "It raises MP by 10, and—"
"Is it a crafting material?"
"—Yes, but it's also purchasable from mid-game towns and at least one secret shop. By the time the heroes realize they need it, they can obtain it without coming back here. Uh. Well, here, if I'm here, I mean." She was getting ahead of herself, but it was difficult to stop talking once she got caught up in hypotheticals like this.
"Excellent. Yes, I was worried it would be the kind of thing that would be making adventurers come back late-game, but if that's not the case, there's no problem. And I see it has a low drop-rate, too, so that's fine." The Gorgon set Valencia's bestiary entry on the desk and looked at the imp with a nod. "Our primary goal here is to educate outside of the tutorial dungeon without offering a technical tutorial. Let them get some experience with abilities, spells, equipment. That sort of thing."
"Listen. I'm going to be frank." Valencia winced as she listened, looking down for a moment before steeling herself and meeting the boss' eyes again. The serpentess sighed and leaned her elbows on the desk, steepling her fingers before she spoke again. "I like you, Valencia. I think you'd be a perfectly fine fit to this dungeon, and it says here you know...'Succubus Kiss?' That inflicts charm, right?"
Valencia nodded, leaning forward and pointing to an entry on the tattered page. "And under that, I know 'Bedroom Eyes,' which is sleep and charm."
"Yes, exactly. So we have one or two slimes here. They can poison, and I believe our kobold can confuse adventurers. So you'd be helping fill out our variety regarding status effects, but I'm a little concerned that 'charm' would lead to more wiped out parties than I'm comfortable with." The Gorgon leaned back, tapping her chin with her finger as she watched her prospective hire. "How would you respond?"
This was it. The make or break question. Valencia could feel it, and her heart was pounding in her chest. "Well." She spoke slowly, careful not to stutter or stammer or "uh." "I would say...that your concern, certainly, is valid. But." She looked to the side for a moment and swallowed. Finally, though, she nodded and looked back up. "Just as you say, this dungeon is meant to educate without a tutorial. So this would be the perfect time to show heroes that yes, 'charm' exists, and it may lead to party members attacking each other, but they wouldn't be strong enough to do any serious harm. It would inform without overwhelming."
She wondered to herself how she managed to get the words out, but Valencia managed a smile as her answer came to a close. The Gorgon watched her for a moment, stone-faced as ever, before likewise smiling and offering her hand to shake. "Just what I wanted to hear. Welcome aboard, Valencia. You're a breath of fresh air here, I can already tell."
The relief was nearly palpable, Valencia's shoulders sinking as her tension melted away. All she could really do was sigh before reaching out to shake her new boss' hand, nodding eagerly. "Thank you so much! I promise I won't let you down."
"Must've been looking for a while if you came all the way out to this hole in the wall, eh?" The Gorgon laughed, giving Valencia's hand a firm shake before she let go and slithered out of her seat. "C'mon, let me show you around. It's nothing special, which is kind of the point, but there are a few things you need to see before I introduce you to the others."
Valencia likewise hopped off of her chair, following the serpentess out of the room and into the cobwebbed hallways of the dungeon proper. A massive statue of some elder god slid in front of the office's entrance sealing it away in case any heroes came searching for errant loot, but for the moment, the halls were quiet.
"So this is pretty much your standard cave-slash-dungeon. No real tricks or secrets to speak of, with the exception of a single arrow trap off on the side in front of a chest. There's a prop skeleton in front of it to show something's up, and once a month we repaint the trigger tile to make sure it stands out. No floor warps, no poison gas, no mimics." The Gorgon glanced over her shoulder at Valencia. "You ever work with a mimic?" She shook her head. "Me neither. I did a stint as a random encounter in a late-game dungeon once, but I guess it was too out-of-the-way to have many traps."
A slime lurched across the ground, momentarily surging a pseudopod into the air in some semblance of a greeting. Gorgon grinned and slithered up. "Ved! Perfect timing. This..." She turned back to motion at Valencia. "...is Valencia." Valencia offered a timid wave back, seemingly returned by another burbling pseudopod from "Ved." "She's going to be working with you and Wolstead as an encounter group. Two slimes and a demon. Perfect! Oh, wait a second." Gorgon suddenly turned back to Ved and tapped her chin again. "OK, no, Wolstead is the one that knows how to poison them. You don't right?"
The slime gurgled.
"Alright, so it'll be you, her, and..." Her gaze trailed up to the ceiling for a moment before flicking back down to the slime. "You, her, and Wolfgang. Slime, demon, wisp." Gorgon clapped her hands together and gave a dual thumbs-up to the mostly-sessile ooze. "Think you can handle that?"
The slime gurgled.
"Awesome! Look at you, you're a member of the dream team now! Alright, I'm showing Valencia around right now, but hopefully she'll be ready to take on a few parties before the end of the day. Hang in there until then. The dream team is gonna debut soon, and the dream girl over here is gonna be the star of the show!" Ved began to trail its way down the hall again with a pop from a particularly large bubble. "That's what I like to hear! Oh. Also, tell Wolfgang he needs to refill the chest when you see him."
"Which reminds me." Gorgon slithered down the hall, Valencia close behind. "We have I think two or three chests in here, so you'll probably be refilling them once or twice daily. We split the job, because that's really the only fair way to do it, but it's not really too major. If you're nearby and see it's empty, just refill it." She glanced at the imp, shrugging one shoulder. "One holds a hi-potion, and the other one's around one hundred gold. And if you fill it with your own gold, just tell me and I'll reimburse you. OK?"
Valencia nodded, and the pair of them stopped as cobwebs and stone walls gave way to bricks and torches. Gorgon looked around and gave a satisfied huff, hands on her hips. "And I think that about wraps up our tour! Like I said, this is a really basic dungeon, and I don't even know if there are any quests associated with it. I think we have a guy outside telling rumors about it, but you shouldn't worry about having to fight too much. You're a bit of a special encounter for this dungeon, so if you want to try and play hard to get, go for it."
"But yeah, welcome aboard, have fun, and, uh..." Gorgon paused for a moment to think before shrugging and rolling her eyes. "Right, so you probably do game overs a special way, and that's fine, but if the other monsters are still there, maybe try to just do a standard one? I'm not saying you can't, uh. You know." She waved her hands around. "'Have your fun,' or whatever, but only when you're the last one. OK?"
Valencia nodded a bit too hard before speaking a bit too quickly. "Yes, yes, absolutely! Yeah, I would never. I'm the odd one out, and I totally understand that. Yes."
Gorgon nodded. "Perfect. So I'm gonna go back and finish the registration paperwork, and you can meet up with Ved and Wolfgang to hopefully work out a strategy or two for your guys' fights. I like the whole 'spellcasting without enough MP' thing you mentioned. Try to work that in."
And with that, Gorgon slithered her way back into the depths of the cave, leaving Valencia to excitedly ponder her good luck and celebrate her acceptance in private. Yes. Yes, yes, yes! She stamp her tiny feet in glee. Finally, a job! An honest-to-goodness job in an honest-to-goodness dungeon!
She didn't have long to celebrate, though, especially when a chime rang out behind her. One she'd never really heard before, or at least hadn't for what seemed like years. Her eyes were wide, eyebrows arched as she turned to face the source. It was coming from the entrance to the dungeon, valiant, if not perfunctory.
>AN IMP APPEARS! COMMAND?
Her eyes opened wider as a mage with a glowing staff, complete with a smooth, red orb on top, stood before her. A human mage. Oh. Oh, no. She looked around. She was the only monster there. Raising her hands up, she laughed nervously, shaking her head. "Oh, no, no, no, I'm not ready to fight. I mean, like. I need to get my encounter group, and. I don't think I even have any gold to drop when you beat me!"
