Dungeon Master (Karma System)

Dear Mother and Father,

I am sorry this letter took so long. The caravan reached the town safely, and I started work the next morning. The place is larger than I expected, so there has been a great deal to learn.

Evan paused with the pen above the page.

The small table in his Undercity room tilted to one side. He folded a scrap of paper twice and pushed it beneath the shortest leg to stop the wobble even though it didn’t level out the table. The candle beside him had been burned down to a finger’s width.

Outside his door, someone ran along the corridor shouting that a party needed a healer. Varka shouted back that healers slept at night and foolish people should learn to bleed during business hours.

Evan smiled and continued writing.

I found a position helping at a large stable. The work is familiar, and my supervisor says I am useful. We have horses from half the kingdom coming through, along with a few animals I had never seen before. Yesterday, I learned that a ridgeback lizard should never be tied beside a goat.

The ridgeback had eaten the goat’s rope, the goat’s feed bucket, and half of Evan’s sleeve. Thank goodness it didn’t eat the goat. Otherwise, there might be some confused people in the hospital wondering why a goat was resurrected.

The gray-haired stable manager laughed until she needed to sit down. Then she deducted nothing from his wages, gave him an old work shirt, and taught him the ridgeback command for release.

Evan had not included her name because he still was not certain what it was.

Everyone called her Boss.

His stable shifts began before dawn. He cleaned stalls, moved feed, brushed animals, and learned which adventurers would tip for good care.

The work left his hands sore and his clothing permanently scented with hay.

It also paid him four copper and one meal every day.

That part of the letter was entirely true.

I rented a small room in a quiet part of town. It is nothing fancy, but the roof does not leak, and the woman who manages the building keeps an eye on everyone.

Varka kept both eyes on everyone.

She knew when Evan left, when he returned, how much he paid for dinner, and whether he had washed his socks recently enough. She also operated a dice game in the common room despite the stable manager’s warning about gambling with goblins.

Evan had lost six copper before realizing Varka controlled which numbers appeared.

She returned four after he discovered it.

"Learning fee." She explained.

The room was not in a quiet part of town. The Undercity never became entirely quiet. Merchants opened before adventurers entered the defense dungeon, workers changed shifts throughout the night, and resurrected guests returned at unpredictable hours.

Evan had grown used to it.

The stone ceiling could not leak. That statement was true too.

The wages are enough for food and rent, and I have enclosed two silver. Please use one to replace the hinge on the barn door. Father, a piece of rope is not a hinge. It was not a hinge when I left, and I doubt it has improved since then.

Evan placed the coins beside the letter.

Most of the money had not come from the stables.

He earned it inside Fey Nights.

His first party consisted of a baker’s apprentice named Nella, a former caravan guard named Bram, and two brothers who claimed they had hunted monsters before. The brothers later admitted the monsters they hunted were actually rats beneath a grain store.

All five attended beginner training before entering. They rented weapons, purchased bandages, and promised to retreat if anyone became badly injured.

The promise lasted eleven minutes.

A quickling stole Bram’s bandage pouch. Bram chased it. Evan chased Bram. The brothers chased Evan because they thought he knew what he was doing. Nella remained on the trail and shouted after all of them.

The redcaps found the separated group first.

Evan remembered a rusty blade entering beneath his ribs. He remembered falling against wet leaves. He remembered thinking, with sudden painful clarity, that his mother would never know where he died.

Then he woke up in the Sanctuary hospital. He had known he was going to revive but keeping that straight in his mind while fighting monsters for the first time wasn’t easy.

He vomited onto a nurse’s shoes.

The nurse moved fast enough to avoid most of it.

"First resurrection?" she asked.

Evan could not answer. She sat beside him until his hands stopped shaking.

Please do not worry because the town is busy. The guards are good, and there is a fine hospital nearby. I have seen it myself, and the healers seem very capable.

Evan read the sentence twice.

It was true in every way that mattered and false in the way his parents would understand it.

He almost crossed it out. Instead, he set the pen down and walked to the washbasin.

The young man in the small mirror looked older than the one who climbed onto the caravan wagon. The difference was not visible in his face. He had not grown a beard or gained a scar. Resurrection usually insure wounds didn’t need to be healed so they never got a chance to turn into scars

The difference lived behind his eyes.

He splashed water on them and returned to the table.

I have made several friends. Nella works in a bakery and complains that I do not eat enough. Bram used to guard caravans, so he knows a great deal about traveling safely. Jory and Kelan are brothers from a village farther north. They argue constantly, which should remind you of Aunt May and Uncle Tomas.

Nella had struck Evan when he suggested the party return to Fey Nights the following day.

They waited three days instead.

During those days, Evan worked at the stables. Bram took temporary guard work with a merchant. Jory and Kelan unloaded wagons. Nella sold bread in the morning and practiced healing magic in the afternoon.

They met after sunset to review their failure.

Nella made them describe every bad decision in order. The list filled two pages. Once it was spelled out on paper, it was fairly embarrassing.

On their second attempt, they stayed together.

When a quickling stole Bram’s pouch, nobody chased it. When the redcaps appeared, Evan held his rented shield in front of Nella and moved only when she moved. Jory and Kelan watched opposite sides instead of attacking the same creature.

They did not clear Fey Nights.

They survived long enough to defeat a few monsters, collect a bundle of luminous bark, as well as a small charm dropped by a fey hound. His share of the sale earned Evan more than a week at the stables.

On the third attempt, a dryad killed all five of them.

On the fourth, they managed to reach the third encounter after clearing the first two.

They were becoming adventurers in the least impressive way possible: one corrected mistake at a time.

There are people here from many places. Some are wealthy, and some arrived with almost nothing. Nobody asks much about your family as long as you work hard and pay what you owe. I think I can build something for myself here.

That was the sentence Evan wanted to write when he left home.

His family’s farm could feed them during a good year. It could not provide futures for all four children. Evan was the oldest. If he stayed, the land would divide again, and every piece would become too small to support anyone.

His father knew it. That was why they argued before Evan left.

His mother knew it. That was why she packed twice as much food as he needed and cried only after she thought he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear her..

Evan had not come to the dungeon because he wanted to frighten them.

He came because resurrection changed the price of failure.

It did not make failure painless. It did not replace broken equipment or erase fear. It did not keep him from waking at night with the memory of redcap laughter in his ears. But it did mean failure wasn’t permanent.

At home, one bad harvest could take the farm. One accident could leave his family without anyone strong enough to work the fields. Here, Evan could clean stalls in the morning, risk Fey Nights in the afternoon, and return from death instead of leaving his parents a grave.

He did not know how to explain that in a letter.

I am still learning what work suits me. The stable position is steady for now, and there are opportunities to earn extra money when the caravans arrive. I am being careful with it. I promise I will not waste what I earn.

Evan opened the drawer beneath the table.

Inside rested a short sword purchased from a goblin equipment seller. It was not magical. The blade had been repaired twice, the grip was mismatched, and someone had scratched the word TURNIP into the pommel.

But it belonged to him. A few months ago he was only a farm kid, now he was on his way to becoming an adventurer.

Buying it had consumed most of his adventuring profit. Owning a weapon meant he no longer paid rental fees on every attempt. If he continued surviving—or continued returning after he failed—it would earn its cost back.

He glanced at his system menus again.

[Evan Marsh]

[Level: 7]

[Class: Unselected]

[Available class guidance appointments: 1]

He planned to meet a class trainer after his next stable shift. Nella believed he should become a guardian. Bram thought he had the temperament of a ranger. Jory and Kelan wanted him to become anything that could carry more supplies.

Evan did not know what he wanted yet.

For the first time, not knowing felt like an opportunity.

I hope Mara’s cough is gone. Tell Tobin that I have not forgotten the six copper he owes me, even if he claims brothers do not charge interest. Please give little Elly a hug for me. I found a wooden horse at the market that I think she will like. I will send it after my next wages.

He had already bought the horse.

A goblin carver sold it from a stall near the Undercity entrance. One wheel was slightly smaller than the others, so the toy moved as if it were limping. Evan could imagine Elly pulling it around the kitchen and giving it a tragic name.

The toy sat wrapped beside his bed.

He did not send it with the first letter because postage for a package cost more. One more Fey Nights attempt would cover it.

That thought should have embarrassed him. Instead, it made the dungeon feel like work. Dangerous work. Strange work. Work his parents would never have chosen for him. But still work.

I know you were worried when I left. I am sorry for the things I said to Father. I understand why you wanted me to stay close to home. I did not leave because I was ashamed of the farm or because I wanted a different family.

Evan stopped again.

Voices moved through the corridor. Nella knocked once and opened his door without waiting.

"Bram found a deal on some leather armor" She said. "We are meeting in the common room."

Evan covered the letter.

Nella noticed the coins. "Writing home?"

"Yes."

"Are you telling them?"

He looked down.

She did not ask what he meant. Everyone in the party knew his parents believed he worked in the big city.

"Not yet."

Nella leaned against the doorframe. "You cannot hide it forever."

"I know."

She left the door open behind her.

Evan read the unfinished line again.

Then he added the part he had been afraid to write.

I left because I wanted the chance to become someone who could help all of you. I have not done that yet. I may fail many times before I do. But I am safe enough, I am working, and I am not alone.

He hesitated over safe enough, it was the closest he had come to the truth. Evan finished the letter.

I love you. I will write again soon.

Your son,

Evan

He folded the pages around the two silver coins and sealed them. The address on the outside looked too small to contain his entire former life.

Before joining his party, Evan carried the letter to the surface. The Sanctuary evening sky stretched above him, open and ordinary despite the dungeon boundary surrounding it. Airships moved in the distance. A snow mountain stood on the eastern horizon where nothing had stood the day before.

The post clerk weighed the envelope.

"Going far?" she asked.

"Home."

Evan paid the fee and watched her place it in the outgoing box. He could not tell his parents everything yet. He could make certain the parts he did tell them became true.

Then he returned to the Undercity, strapped the sword named TURNIP to his waist, and went to meet his friends.