Three goblins in a trenchcoat might make a man. Three orcs make three corpses, seventeen carcasses green tile and red tar her dungeon floor. Not the largest room in her dungeon, but adequate. Comfortable. Nina had dropped them in, equipped them, gave them the means to survive in this place. Organize fight rings and trade anal for shiny rocks or whatever it is orcs do.

There's a baby crying. Everything in this world is about sex, except for sex: sex is about territory. The mentality you can expect from half-sentient beasts like orcs.

Woosh. The room lights up, the baby stops crying, the floor is all ash and rock. Gone is her authentic goblin-green moss. Goblins are weaker than orcs, but they're more cooperative, right? Nina recalls hearing someone saying once that Goblins even make traps. Her own little retarded trapmaking colleagues. Wonderful creatures. Honestly, I should have invested in gobcoin from the start.

Malice sticks. Sideways and proxied, diagonal, almost accidental, malice suffuses the chain of intentions and gets caught the simplest of spells: Malice Detection. A button that triggers an elaborate trap, an innocent child bringing over a poisoned treat. Malice Detection remains the prime technique for the identification of tricks, raps, ambushes.

Shluck, shluck. Apparently, malice erodes. Disguised as a chest, this dungeon mimic lunged forward the second she touched it and took her entire torso into its maws. The innocent, dog-like creature seems content keeping her close to its meaty interior and slobbering all over her. Disgusting.

Ahh, this is awful. Nina doesn't want to die starving in the dark like this. But the worst part is that, even if she makes it through this, she can't even put this mimic in her dungeon without tainting it and ruining the whole shtick. Damn it.

Mommy told Jimmy to bring home bananas, the best ones for breakfast. He reaches for the longest ones but a hairy hand stops him. Those are still green, boyo. Stall owner is a man in his forties, all smiles, head still full of black hair. Guides the child through his task, rounds down the price, rounds it down some more just to be nice, wishes him a good weekend.

Nina turns to you. Main street merchants are all rip-offs. Wanna see the good stuff? She awaits your res— your arm's already been borrowed half the way into a black alley. I know a guy. He knows some people. Pretty bad people, but they can source some interesting stuff. She's not even using any spells. Traverses the rotten smells through raw animal instinct. A hobo that smells of rotten eggs here, a corner that reeks of spoiled milk in that direction.

You're not even here to get anything illegal. You just need to get some vitamin C into the goblins. Fuckers are developing scurvy from living off the dungeon moss.

Enamoured with enamel, Nina had sourced the best rats for her dungeon. Thick yellow tusk-like toothed. The dire rat slobbers acidic saliva on metal and gnaws until it gives, easily makes its way out of most household mousetraps, cages and, as she offhandedly heard once, jail bars.

Those motherfuckers keep tussling with the kobolds, two rooms further down from this spot. The ability to squeak through iron shouldn't exactly give the creature a preference for it, but it does. Maybe it's a quick replacement for blood. Anyhow, the rats have a taste for crossbows, and the kobolds need those to stand anything resembling a chance against any adventurers coming in. Hence, the issue.

The dungeon isn't ready yet. You'll have to leave. Bright red paper slips her sleeve into her palm. This is a coupon for a 50% discount on Taste of Steel, in the capital. Redeemable for six more months.