Chapter 82: Masquerade Castle
King Giston(King of Gnomes) wore a black tailcoat over his purple robes.
The gnome’s crown made the outfit less formal rather than more, but nobody had convinced him to remove it. He stood inside Masquerade Castle’s entrance hall while two dozen other gnomes hurried between tables, doors, and piles of folded clothing.
"The cuffs are too long." Giston complained.
A gnome tailor climbed onto a chair and folded one cuff beneath itself. "Your Majesty ordered human-style formalwear."
"I ordered appropriate formalwear." The Goblin King had always thought his Dungeon Master looked so cool in a suit and wanted one for himself. Who would have thought his tailors would craft it to Max’s size and then try and shrink it for him.
"It is meant for humans."
"I am not a human. It was supposed to be meant for me."
"That is why the cuffs are too long."
Max walked past them before he became responsible for resolving the argument.
Anna followed beside him, using her clipboard to compare the completed rooms with Max’s plans. Quin came last. Even inside the Sanctuary, the swordsman examined every hallway as if expecting an ambush.
The entrance hall opened into the ballroom. Three chandeliers hung above a floor large enough for several hundred guests. Staircases curved toward the upper galleries, while doors led into dining rooms, sitting rooms, and the western conservatory.
Everything beyond those public rooms had been arranged for the weekly game.
The eastern wing held guest suites, a collection of private artifacts, and a council chamber. The western wing contained the library, portrait gallery, and musicians’ balcony. Servants’ passages connected the kitchens with nearly every important room. Some doors could be opened from both sides. Others looked like walls until the correct latch was found.
The lower floor contained storage rooms, wine cellars, holding cells, and three tunnels that reached separate sections of the gardens.
Max spoke as they walked. "Every registered team attends the same event, at the same time."
Masquerade Castle was a shared heist event. At the beginning of each preparation period, every five-person team would receive a contract identifying an object inside the castle. When the Grand Masquerade opened at the end of the week, they would have until midnight to locate their target, steal it, and carry it through an extraction arch. Every team would operate inside the same castle, allowing their plans to interfere with each other.
Quin opened a narrow door concealed behind a tapestry and peered down the secret passage he had just found. "So, the first person through can leave this open for everyone."
"Or lock it behind them." Anna suggested.
"Can they attack one another?"
"The Sanctuary protections remain active. They cannot draw weapons, cast offensive spells, restrain someone, or take an object directly from another person’s hands."
Anna glanced at her clipboard and shuffled a few pages. "But they can lie, alert the guards, steal an unattended key, or lock a door."
"Exactly."
Quin studied the narrow passage. "People are going to hate each other before the first night ends."
"Only until the next registration period."
They entered the kitchen. Gnomes in white coats practiced moving trays without colliding. Another group wore dark formal suits and carried red ribbons enchanted with arrest seals. A gnome guard only needed to touch a participant with one of the ribbons to send that person to a holding cell.
The captured adventurer could wait out the penalty, convince a castle official to release them, or rely on teammates to find another solution.
Max had designed the punishment to complicate a heist rather than end it.
He had also added protections against the least interesting forms of interference. The fake treasures assigned as targets could not be broken, burned, swallowed, or thrown into the lake. If a participant carried an item assigned to another party, its silver tracking mark became visible after ten minutes. An abandoned target returned to its proper place once nobody was actively pursuing it.
Those rules did not prevent someone from stealing another team’s object first. They prevented one party from hiding other participants targets beneath a bed for six hours and calling that strategy. This way it was possible to slightly inconvenience another party but you couldn’t make it impossible for them.
"What happens if the wrong team extracts a target?" Quin asked.
"The object returns, and they receive no success."
"Can they still do it?"
"Yes."
Quin nodded. "Good. People deserve the freedom to make useless decisions."
"The gnomes can run the building." Anna said. "But they cannot populate the court by themselves."
Giston looked offended from three rooms away.
"They could." Max said before the gnome king came to defend his people. "But a castle filled entirely with gnome nobles would change the game."
"It would improve the game." Giston called from where he stood, still having his suit fitted.
Max opened the Dungeon Core catalogue.
The category he needed had always existed. He had passed over it while buying fey, dwarves, elves, orcs, undead, and the other eternal inhabitants required for his levels.
{ETERNAL SOULS — HUMANOID — HUMAN}
The Prime universe did not regard humans highly. The prices reflected that opinion.
The catalogue listed occupations, levels, appearance ranges, and role compatibility with the same indifference it used for every other creature. Each purchased soul would belong to Crag Dungeon. Its loyalty would be absolute. Its service could not be refused.
Max had known how eternal souls worked from the beginning. Seeing human faces beside the prices made the knowledge less distant. Then he selected the court ensemble he had prepared.
Anna placed one hand over his before he confirmed it. She did not ask whether the purchase was moral. Both of them already knew the answer, and the system offered no version in which an eternal soul entered a dungeon unbound.
"Give them good lives." She said.
"I will."
Max confirmed the purchase.
Human figures appeared in the castle’s audience chamber. Men and women dressed in simple gray clothing filled the room in ordered rows. Some were young adults. Others were old enough to carry gray hair and lined faces. They possessed the skills needed to portray courtiers, nobles, ambassadors, witnesses, collectors, and suspicious guests.
Every one of them knelt.
"Welcome to Crag Dungeon." Max said. "Stand up."
They rose together.
Max did not pretend his order had been a request. Instead, he explained the castle, the roles, the private residential wing, and the Sanctuary beyond its gates. He told them the gnomes would manage the attraction, but their purpose was to make its court feel alive.
They would have private rooms. They would receive Dungeon Dollars for their work. They could use the Sanctuary when they were not performing. Within the duties assigned to them, they could choose which roles suited them and rotate between events.
It did not make them free. But it was what Max could give them.
He did not hand them scripts for every conversation. Each role came with a name, history, current loyalties, and information that character was permitted to reveal. The human inhabitants could decide whether Lady Varene was impatient, amused, suspicious, or bored when adventurers approached her. They could reward a clever story and remember a clumsy one for the rest of the event.
That independence would make the castle less predictable.
It would also make the lives inside it more than repeated lines spoken on command. It would also keep things from getting stale.
Giston climbed onto the audience chamber’s lowest step. "Those portraying nobles will report to the west hall. Ambassadors and visiting officials will report east. Anyone with musical training will speak with my people in the ballroom. If you were assigned a hidden criminal role, do not tell anyone. That includes me."
Several of the humans smiled. The people were quickly separated into groups. From the chatter it was obvious that they were looking forward to the opening night.
Quin watched them leave. "You bought actors."
"I bought inhabitants who can act." Max corrected.
Max, Anna, and Quin remained the only humans classified as Dungeon Staff. The new human eternal souls were bound inhabitants, just as the fey, orcs, dwarves, elves, and undead were. They served Crag Dungeon, but they did not share Max’s authority over it.
Quin accepted that and followed Max toward the registration hall.
The first adventurers were already waiting outside.
Gnome clerks sat behind five counters. Each wore a dark vest and a small silver mask pinned above the heart. Signs explained the three contract tiers.
Copper contracts offered simpler targets and lighter security. Silver contracts added misleading information, guarded rooms, or moving targets. Gold contracts involved the most important objects in the castle and the strongest precautions.
All three used the same castle.
A team accepting a Copper contract might need a jeweled letter opener from a guest room. A Gold team might be assigned the seal worn by the chancellor who controlled half the castle guards.
Success did not require defeating the other teams. Every party could complete its own contract before midnight.
The shared environment made that increasingly unlikely though.
No dungeon level or combat class was required. A registered team could include five veteran adventurers, five Sanctuary shopkeepers, or any combination between them. The contract measured whether they could gather information, persuade people, recognize opportunities, and keep a plan functioning after another group interfered.
A warrior could carry an awkward target through a crowded ballroom. A healer could win the confidence of a sick noble. An archer’s patience might make them the best observer in the castle. A craftsperson could duplicate a key or identify a false wall without possessing a single stealth skill.
Max expected rogues to perform well but he did not intend to let them own the attraction. He stepped behind a counter while a gnome demonstrated the process of accepting a contract.
Five adventurers placed their hands on a silver registration plate.
[Party registered.]
[Contract tier: Silver.]
[Assignment will be delivered at the beginning of the preparation period.]
[Objective: Remove the assigned item from Masquerade Castle before midnight on the night of the event.]
[Basic success: Item extracted.]
[Perfect success: Item extracted with all five party members free and present.]
[Direct violence is prohibited.]
[Interference with other parties is permitted within castle rules.]
The five adventurers read the last line twice.
"How much interference?" One asked.
The gnome who registered them smiled. "Enough to make you regret sharing your target."
The line outside was growing.
Some parties registered together. Others searched the gathering crowd for a fifth member. Craftsmen, Academy students, healers, warriors, and Sanctuary residents who had never entered Fey Nights all found places.
That was what Max wanted. The Orc Arena allowed anyone to fight. The Skyyard allowed anyone to join a crew. Masquerade Castle would not belong only to stealth classes. There were many was to succeed in a heist.
Anna’s clipboard changed while Max watched another party choose a Copper contract.
She looked down and read the private dungeon notice.
"Rod’s party cleared Dwarven Airship."
No voice announced the achievement. No crowd suddenly began cheering. The Level Four entrance had already opened, so nothing changed in the Sanctuary.
Max brought up their completion report through his Dungeon Master menu.
Rod’s group had preserved the Stonewing long enough to reach the valley with a strong dwarven force. They had not matched Five Knots’ exceptional result, but they had learned from both of their failed attempts.
"Third times the charm." Max said.
"They stopped chasing the boarding vessel." Anna observed.
"Failure is educational when it doesn’t permanently kill you." Quin said.
Across the hall, a gnome clerk handed the first sealed contract to a waiting team.
One of the adventurers opened it, read the assigned item, and immediately folded the paper against his chest so nobody else could see. His companions leaned closer.
A party waiting behind them tried to read over their shoulders.
The Grand Masquerade had not begun, and the first act of spying was already underway.