Soulforged Dungeoneer

Look, I don't know exactly what I was expecting to walk into the tavern. Or, well, I guess I kind of do, and I was half right. I expected the next people through the doors to be the last group I saw, and they were there. They'd apparently met another group, though, and decided to come in for drinks.

They were real chummy, too, in a manner of speaking at least. The redheaded mage-type was hanging out with a female mage from this new group, who was showing off her boobs with a stylistically cut tube dress that almost certainly had more defense than it covered skin, because it didn't do a lot of that. The sneak thief was trying to convince an almost paladin-esque man--tall, shining armor, stiff posture, you know the type--of who knows what, probably something about drinking or gambling. The big bear-like tank now had a damned midget woman on his shoulders, and he didn't look all that impressed to have her there. She, of course, was having a lot of fun sitting on the guy, since he was so large and strong that I'm sure he barely noticed the weight or balance issues.

And there was one more, equally short person in the group, who walked into the bar with his hand on the gun-woman's ass, despite how she tried intermittently to get him to stop.

"I don't believe it," I said, studying the guy as I stood with Louise by the fire. In the time since I'd last seen him, he'd out-levelled me--not hard when I stayed in jail and he booked it out of there, I guess. His level was now in the 60s, far beyond what he'd been back then. "Max fucking Bean."

"What--" Max heard his name and zeroed in on me in a moment or two, though from the look on his face, I don't think he recognized me immediately. But I did see the look steal over his face when he did, and he even deigned to stop harassing ...her ass, I guess. "Are you--hey, doll, look," he suddenly turned and called to the short woman who was literally poking the bear-man. "I know this guy from prison. Whazzat, Jerry, right?" He walked up and offered me a hand for a low-five, grinning from ear to ear. "Man, how you been? What've you been up to?"

"Oh, you know," I offered in reply, a little tensely, though I at least offered my hand to him in return. "Serving my sentence like I was supposed to, being a good law-abiding citizen, all of that shit."

From the look on his face, Max didn't take what I said as any kind of insult. He just slapped my hand and grinned at me. "Yeah I kinda figured after all of that you'd stay in there. You got the whole stoic thing goin' on, man." He turned, and the other shorty from the group had come up behind him. She was pretty acrobatic, having leaped off the big guy into a table, rolled, and decided to backflip onto the floor just to be a showoff, or maybe because it was fun, before ambling up like it was no big deal. Max put his arm around her shoulders and leaned on her heavily before turning back to me. "Man whatchu fucking doing in this dungeon, when you're not even level 50 yet? Ain't that some shit."

I had a good long moment when I could have, and previously would have, just let him ramble on without replying, but on the heels of a discussion about how I was shitty about asking for help? I had to at least try, even if Max was... well, he was definitely kind of a scumbag, and probably the wrong person to be hanging around, not that I expected to make a habit of it. "Yeah, I just gotta run to the God's tower for a quest. After that... I got some other things to do elsewhere."

Max whistled through his teeth. "You gotta go a whole twenty five floors under-leveled? Man, that's some shit." He looked up at Louise, and I was pleased to note that he had apparently been ignoring her before, because you could see the moment he registered the size of her boobs. "Damn, man, you movin' up in the world. This your girl then?"

"'Course she is," growled the woman beside him. "Lookit her, trying to hide from you behind him like he's a big fluffy guard dog. Hah, she barely seen you and she knows better than to let you get close, Max."

Max took the rebuke with a shrug and an indifferent expression on his face.

"So is this the woman you were talking about back then?" I appraised the short woman who was either Max's girlfriend or his sister, from how she was letting him hang on to her.

"Yeah, she's my baby, Amanda." Max, somehow endearingly, puckered up and planted a big kiss on her cheek. "Amanda, Jerry's the one that kept the yard from tearing itself up."

"I remember the stories." Amanda looked up at me and scrunched up her face like she either didn't like my looks, or didn't like my height. "From what you said I thought he'd be more like Mr. Mountain back there," and she jerked a thumb at where she'd left the big guy, although he'd gone to sit down elsewhere.

"Nah, he's a scary fucker, but he's compact, you know? Like us, except tall." He used his hands to indicate thin by squishing them together, as though the concept needed to be explained.

Amanda observed his hand gesture, thoughtfully, for a moment.

"So who's actually escorting you through the Dungeon?" asked Amanda, thoughtfully, as Max took the time to look around, finally spotting Susie, who was watching with an odd look on her face.

"My friend there," I said, nodding at her. I... I saw what was coming, and decided it was my duty to try to head him off at the pass. "And Max, I wouldn't recommend..."

He was already moving up to Susie, a complete sleaze-bag grin on his face. Susie, with a look of disgust on her face, one-handedly picked up the closest wooden chair, across the table from Max, and chucked it at him.

It shattered on him, of course, and all he did was laugh--not laugh, like, ha-I'm-invincible, or ha-I'll-get-you, but more of a ha-that's-a-good-one, like he knew it was coming and was eager, maybe even happy to be smashed in the face, with a chair, in a bar, by a pretty woman. I'm sure it was far from the first time.

He was back on his feet in no time, but instead of moving right for Susie, again, he hopped up on a seat that I'd vacated and sat his butt down on the table across the way from her, instead. "Hey pretty thing," he said through a big wide smile. "How about you show me what you can do with those hands, and I'll show you how good I am with my rifle?" He batted his eyelids, as though it made him look pretty.

Susie just flipped the table over on him.

Amanda, for her part, thought it was hilarious. I took a moment to look at the other party--and found that they were huddled up grumpily in a corner along with the paladin, who the sneak had apparently convinced to drink if nothing else. The rest of that party was drinking heavily, from what I could tell, except for the redhead mage, who was definitely making out with the scantily clad mage from Max's party, and in fact... yeah, I wasn't mistaken, her top was definitely off. I wasn't going to keep watching that.

On the other end of the tavern, Susie continued to assault Max with barroom furniture so he would keep his distance. He seemed to enjoy the game--she definitely didn't.

"Let her be, Max," I said loudly after a minute of that. "She's not your type."

"Man, every girl's my type," he said, still grinning, but he did back off and circle back around to his girlfriend, who he immediately went back to hugging, and she returned it, apparently entirely unconcerned with his promiscuity. He gave her another kiss, then looked at me, and then at Louise. "You still didn't introduce me to your cutie there."

I rolled my eyes and turned to Louise. She was... guarded, I'd say. She looked like she didn't want anything to do with Max, and I understood that well enough. "This is Louise." And then, because I figured I had to simplify this for Max, I very deliberately added, "She is mine, and if you touch her, I'll kill you."

Max just nodded, not upset in the least. "And your friend in the corner--?"

"If you touch Susie, she'll kill you," I said, flatly.

Max nodded again, not seeming ruffled at all. Instead, he seemed to have gotten distracted "'At's cool," he replied. "Hey, I got a question, Jay. I could swear I heard your name recently, but I honestly don't know what the hell it was about. Did you do something?"

"I picked up a couple tanks," I said, adding some wry humor in my voice. I really didn't think he would have paid attention to shit going on in D.C.--it was the very definition of 'over his head', at least, when you weren't making short jokes.

"Was that it?" He looked over at Amanda, who shrugged. "I could have sworn there was some kind of a bitch involved."

"Yeah. High priestess wanted me arrested for no reason. I was released, though." I took the time to look more closely at Max. Physically, he hadn't really changed much, except for his equipment; of course, his Dungeoneer body would heal, even if it aged. It... it felt like it had been a long time since then, even though it really wasn't. Prison time had been slow, and the Dungeons were intense, and all the complicated stuff lately... but Max just seemed to still be Max.

"High priestess, right. I saw a photo of her." He snapped his fingers suddenly, with a look on his face like he'd come to a decision, and then pointed at Louise. "That's what it was. Hey, chica--uh, Louise. You priestesses don't have the option of wearing anything else, right?"

Louise looked a little nervous. "Not in public, or in combat, no."

Amanda snapped her fingers, too, and pointed at Max. "Aha, you see? Not in public." She nodded, knowingly, and Max nodded agreement. She turned and grinned up at Louise. "But you can wear whatever you want in the bedroom."

I turned to look at Louise, who looked at me only briefly before looking away, a little shyly. "Yeah," she said, maybe a touch defensively. "If I want to."

"You see, I told you you were being stupid," said Max, a little aggressively. "There's no way a god would get in the way of sexy times. I bet she could dress up as a devil with little red plastic horns and everything and everything would be fine."

I just watched Louise's reaction. It's not like I was going to push her into anything, but I was curious what she thought of the idea. She... actually, I have no reason to tell you, do I? Mind your own business.

Anyway.

Things kinda went on like that for a bit. Max, for all that he was a sleaze, seemed at the very least to respond when I told him to keep away from Louise and Susie, enough that we could sit and talk for a little bit. I ...wasn't exactly fond of Max, you know? But I'd spent enough time seeing him every day that it's not like I was scared of him. He liked to posture and yell, and harass and sleaze, and before I got to know him I'd had no idea whether or not he had any limits, but mostly he came back to the same general mood after everything was done: he mostly just wanted to posture and yell and harass and sleaze, rather than wanting to do worse.

Within a half hour or so, reminiscing on the old days, Max started telling the story (again, I'm sure) to Amanda about one of his pranks, before the big one that got someone killed, where he'd smuggled in a bunch of fireworks and set them all off from his cell in the middle of the night, such that they flew around mostly harmlessly but scaring the night guards and any inmates not in on the joke half to death.

I don't know how he played it off as a joke instead of an egregious security problem, honestly. Maybe after dealing with me, they were a little more scared of antagonizing Dungeoneers, but that's not something I ever found out. But for whatever reason, once they searched his cell and dumped his inventory, and ensured that he didn't have any more, and punished him for their troubles, they had just kind of let him off, but it was all that kind of mischief that finally got the Warden thinking about working us until we were exhausted, which is when Max escaped.

Anyway, the point was, Max--given the fact that he had an inventory--could have done a lot worse. Those fireworks could have started a fire somewhere, or maybe damaged a lock if he dumped out the gunpowder. But he wanted the posturing. He would prove he was an ass, and he would get swatted down. He enjoyed that, for some reason.

Eventually, since I knew Max wasn't actually come to a stopping point, I forced myself to start a conversation when he hit a bit of a break. "So what are your plans for the Dungeon?" I asked. "You been in here before?"

"Aww, yeah, I go in here plenty. There's a grinding ground level forty-ish where I get some good shit--that's the survival area, you know," and he kind of gestured with his hands like he was digging or something, "and there's a lot of forage there, including some mushrooms that put you on a mad trip. Low-level freaks and norms who try to eat it damn near lose their mind, cos it's strong, but it's also strong enough to get to some high level junkies who are tired of livin' sober, you know? Like with alcohol, as you go up you gotta keep finding stronger shit or it stops being good for you, you know?" Max, all at once, chugged a big mug of something strong, threw away the cup, and signaled the NPC waitress for another.

I couldn't help being disappointed. "All the shit you could be doing in the dungeons, and you're hauling drugs?"

"Hey, man," said Max, for once a little defensive. "I'm not really selling it, not much of it, anyway. I got some friends who I owe a favor to, and livin' sober's a pain. 'Specially when you gotta live like we do, y'know?" He bared his teeth and ground them for a moment. "You been in, uh, Bayou-whatever? The harpy place?"

"Yeah." I glanced at Louise, thinking I knew what was coming.

"Man, it tore me up seein' all those boobies just hanging out, an' I wasn't supposed to play with 'em or nothing, just had to kill 'em. Like some of those were quality, you know?" And he looked at his girlfriend, who just looked back at him without comment. "It ain't right that quality shit like that goes to waste, and some days, you just gotta forget what you just went through, y'know? Some days you gotta forget or it'll never leave you."

I... I actually wasn't sure how he made that sound actually approachable and halfway sympathetic. "I mean, putting boobs on a monster is just another weapon, right? If they slow you down, distract you, whatever, it's just another thing that'll kill you."

"Oh he got distracted," said Amanda with a huge eye-roll, one that took her whole head and neck to express. "Stood at the edge of the fuckin' invisible platform staring at boobs just out of his reach and kept tryin' to wolf whistle 'em in closer. He made us all work hard to keep his dumb ass alive through that shit. And when it was over he still wouldn't shut up about em for days."

Max, again, looked a little chagrined. He looked down at his beer, or I guess it was some kind of strong ale, and didn't engage for a minute, which was a little unlike him. "Still," he said finally, "it's a fuckin' shame. If I had the power to make boobs like that appear outta nowhere, you can bet I'd drown myself in 'em." And he made a kind of obscene charade that I won't bother to describe.

And that thought got me thinking, briefly, about what Lord Ethanic had said--or, not said, about corruption, and how some people were really the wrong people to become Administrators. Max as an Administrator would be... well, it was pretty clear, right? Even if he tried to do the job--whatever the job actually was--he'd get distracted immediately every time something came along. And since the job almost certainly would give him the ability to surround himself with Dungeon boob creatures...

I shook off the thought and let it leave my system. Most people probably wouldn't do half as bad as Max would, but the real question was finding the people who would actually do a good job of it, the best job of it, and I was glad that wasn't up to me. I wasn't all that sure that... even though I'd been offered a Full Clear Quest, that I was actually right for that job. It was hard to know, especially since I couldn't really talk to anyone involved. Though, if I was supposed to get the approval of a Dungeon God, and the Administrator had sent me to Kalamitus, presumably he thought I would also receive approval here... so...

Amanda ended up poking me, since she was sitting on my other side, along with Louise, with Max on the other side of Amanda, of course. "You thinkin' 'bout something?"

I put it all out of mind. "Just thinking about what's coming up when I get to the God's tower. Still a ways away, though, I guess."

"Oh yeah, you're only going in far enough to get to that, right?" Max held up his empty mug and peered into it with one eye, as though it was a telescope or something. "Why don't you come with us? We're only doin' a fast dive of this place, so we can probably get there in a few hours."

"Yeah, if you don't stop to chat up everyone you meet," snorted Amanda. "Plus I think our resident floozy," she gestured to the wizards who were clearly having sex in public, "is gonna be busy for the next few hours at least. At least, assuming boy ginger there can keep up with her."

Max looked back at said wizards and grinned, but his eyes didn't linger.

I looked at Louise and Susie, since they were more likely to object than me. Louise looked uncomfortable, but I thought I knew her well enough to know that she was mostly afraid something untoward would happen, and I figured that Max would respect her boundaries, at least for a few hours. Given the way she'd always been, as long as I kept her safe, she'd be okay with it. Susie, though, was a wildcard to me.

Susie just looked at me and shrugged. "I've run with people like them before," she said. "And most of them lived to tell the tale." She offered a fierce, toothy grin, more of a challenge than an expression of joy.

So I looked at Max and shrugged. "Okay. We'll run with you for a bit, once everybody's ready to go."

Max raised his empty mug like he was toasting us. I was, honestly, a little surprised that he didn't get a fresh one for it, but he seemed content with his current state. "To the brotherhood of divers," he said, as though seriously. "Whether you're looking for treasure, monsters, or booty, there's no better place than the dungeon."

I... rolled my eyes, but raised my drink anyway.