Parker follows Xenia down into the 'basement' section of Floor Ten, and has to step carefully because the man can barely see in the dim light. The glowing crystals the dungeon master's put up within the seating section seem to be the lowest-intensity options she has, and beyond the metal bars of the 'viewing window' the floor seems to be shrouded in complete darkness. That fades away somewhat as Xenia begins coating the ceiling of the circus in bioluminescent fungus, but it seems like a rather unusual choice considering the bright colors the man usually thinks of when remembering past festivals.

"I know you called this a basement, but isn't this overdoing it a little?"

Xenia shakes her head as she stands next to the window. "It'll look better once we've got shit in there, plus the fabrics and stuff to cover up the bare stone. This is just a quick-and-dirty blocking session. But the point is, that this will be the nightmare zone." She wiggles her fingers in quotation marks before rubbing her hands together. "I'm thinking some color-swap palettes on the costumes and decorations, and more glowing shit instead of actual lights...I wonder if I can make glowing makeup out of the mushrooms? I'll have Lollyp look into that. But this will be where the guardian will be, so we gotta set the mood. A Ringmaster once we've got a proper recruit, maybe some sort of...shit, I don't know, a Strong Man until we get one of those? I don't think I have a 'dude but bigger' option..."

"You said you wanted this section to be non-combat, right?"

"Right!" Xenia snaps her fingers. "Let's start with that and see if the theme leads us to a boss. Alright, in your circuses, are there shows of skill? Like knife throwing? Or magic tricks?" She pauses and taps her forehead. "Right, actual magic here. Back home we had, like...stage magic. Sleight-of-hand type stuff. Anyways, stuff focused around showing off for the audience?"

Parker rubs his chin and nods. "You're talking about the Three Feats. The performers would ask for volunteers from the audience to compete against their own in three challenges. The first of those is the Feat of Agility, or as some people call it, the 'Feat of Feet'. The actual challenges vary from group to group, but in the one that came to my town it came in the form of the Slime Run."

"Oh ho, that sounds promising. How does that work?"

"Well, first they hand you a bag with a slime in it." Parker mimics trying to hold on to a squirming sack. "Just a typical cloth bag with a low-tier monster slime inside, and no fastener. Then they'd have you put on these tall platform shoes - like, oh, six inches to a foot, depending on the person? And then make them try to run through a set of rows of penned-in squares, some of which would have other slimes inside. You'd have to run your way through the grid without tripping on the edges, smushing a slime and slipping because of that, or the slime getting out of the bag and trying to eat your face. While beating the performer doing it next to you."

Xenia narrows her eyes. "They had you running through a field of live monsters for this shit? Damn, no wonder people here think dungeon delving is a normal lifestyle."

The man shrugs. "Well, the weakest possible slimes. Children couldn't compete and with people on hand they'd hardly even be a threat to a toddler. Just stepping on one with those shoes would usually kill them."

"Well the good news is we can definitely amp that up a fair bit. Slimes are one of our specialties, after all! But how to get people to put on the shoes..." Xenia thinks to herself for a moment before laughing out loud. "Ha, I got it! I make 'locks' in the floor where the shoes are the keys, and they gotta be hit within a certain timeframe! If they get it in time, the door opens to the next test, if a dungeon monster does it faster, a door opens to, iunno, something with teeth. Maybe bonuses if they take a special route? We can definitely be meaner about it than a straight line, after all."

"If this is to challenge Masters and Supremes, I imagine we would have to be. Would you like to hear about the Feat of Alertness next?"

She nods. "Lay it on me, man."

"This one might actually be more in line with the sort of performers you have in mind, if Deylia's harlequin performance made you think of circuses. This would be the one act where people actually wear masks, you see. What they would do is give a volunteer about half a dozen or so small coinpurses, with actual coins in them, and then fix them to a number of places on a person's clothing. They'd then have between, oh, six to ten performers surround them while dressed identically, including masks, and have them interact with the volunteer in different ways, speaking with them, bumping into them, even doing short dances. But it'd be like a pickpocket's game, you see?"

"The performers were stealing the coinpurses back?"

"Right! The volunteer had two chances to win. If they could catch a performer in the act, they'd get to keep the purse and the performer would be eliminated. Otherwise, once all their purses were gone, they could line up the performers and try to accuse the thieves. If they got any wrong, they lost the game, if they got everyone right, they'd get the purses back."

Xenia considers that for a moment. "Knowing the carnies I know, it feels like the sort of game no one's ever supposed to win..."

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The rabbitman laughs. "Well they wouldn't make it easy! But it wouldn't be a show if no one ever won!"

"Well, this definitely sounds like a job for Rabbit Rogue clowns, alright. But the specifics...I mean, we need to get the Challengers to not just kill the performers and move on, that's the hard part." The reincarnator begins to pace back and forth in front of the window, muttering slightly to herself as she goes. Eventually she stops and turns back and faces Parker. "What if they were giving the Challengers shit instead of stealing it away?"

"...It's usually not very hard to get someone to take something, I would think."

"A mix of both, I mean. The Challengers gotta put on purses where if you open it up, it blows up in your face. But then they gotta go through a crowded room full of rogues who will swap out those purses with ones that have dungeon keys in them."

"Which, again, sounds like something they would just stand there and let them do."

"But then other rogues would try to snatch back the ones with keys and replace them with, I dunno, even bigger bombs than they started with. So you need to get robbed a few times to get enough keys to get through, but if you lose track of how many times you've been robbed, you don't know if you have keys or bombs. Or cursed items, or whatever I might stick in there."

Parker nods along. "Maybe compound it, even. Every odd time it's been stolen it's a key, every even time, it's a trap. Perhaps...double your money? Third time it's a key and a prize, fourth time it's something even more devastating?"

Xenia gives him a grin. "I like where your head is at! So, what's that third Feat gonna be?"

"The third one's the annoying one, it's the Feat of Wisdom." He narrows his eyes at his boss's expression. "Don't look at me like that."

"I didn't say anything!"

"Well, it's usually a little bullshit. What they do is have nine tables, or boxes, or something like that, and put one item in each box. Then there'll be a huge pile of crap - just completely random stuff. Plants, toys, costume jewelry, props, stuff like that. And three volunteers from the audience have to go through the pile, pick out three things that fit the 'theme' of one of the starting boxes, and fill three of the boxes before the other volunteers."

"So, pattern recognition type stuff?"

"Yeah, but it always seemed like you'd be left guessing at what the right pattern is supposed to be! Like if it's a fake crown to start with, are you looking for jewelry, or for hats? Laeniel always said there were subtle clues I was missing, but I'm pretty sure she was just winding me up."

"Hey, I get the feeling. Not a bad test, but how to properly dungeonfy it..." Xenia again spends some time in idle thought, and Parker carefully takes a seat on one of the bare stone benches while he waits. Eventually, Xenia perks up once again. "Right! So what we need is to lean in to that sort of red herring thinking."

"...Thinking like a fish?"

"...Forget it. I mean, we have a right answer, a wrong answer, and then the boring wrong answers where nothing happens. We intentionally try to trick them into categorizing things wrong, and when they do, they get a monster surprise. If they get it right, they get a key or a prize! ...And if they keep doing it randomly, we'll monster them for that, too."

"I suppose the good thing is, it's a puzzle that's not too difficult to change out between parties. Just need to spend time coming up with a few dozen different ways to categorize things, I suppose. But...does it just end with that, then? If they solve all of the puzzles, is there no guardian battle?"

Xenia shakes her head. "Nah, we still need the guardian, I think. And it will be a battle if they've been failing the tests, or cheating, or brute forcing them or something. But if they've been doing it right, maybe one last test against the guardian themselves?"

Parker shrugs. "Well, you're past the bounds of the traditional local circus then, I'd think. You never really have a volunteer challenging the circus master for anything."

"Until we get a recruit, I suppose it might have to be a fight. I mean, I could ensoul something with a random soul we've got, but it feels kind of like a waste, y'know? But after we get someone...maybe the test is to have them show the guardian something they've never seen before? A trick, skill, performance, that kind of thing? Keep with the showbiz vibe?"

The Patriarch chuckles. "And in the process, make it increasingly harder for every new party that comes along? I like that - even better is that it makes it harder for a party to keep re-running the floor. Learning the puzzles is one thing, but if they have to keep coming up with new tricks to show off? Even a Supreme's only going to have so many of those."

"Sounds like a plan!" Xenia slams a fist into one palm, but her excitement fades quickly. "...Now all we gotta do is wait til someone decides they wanna die in a dungeon, and then hope they don't mind being a circus performer for eternity. Maybe I could nudge that along a little..."

DAY 620

"Hey Elly, we've got mail!" Sable shouts out as she steps inside, and the sound echoes through the massive, mostly-empty stone building. The new church had been completed for a while now, but it's still a little larger than the current town really needs, and at this time of year the migrant Challenger population is rather low as well. That doesn't stop Mother Hammerdown from cursing slightly as she steps out of a back office.

"Dammit, Greenie, y'don't need to shout, my ears are just fine! Besides, you ain't the courier service, why are you delivering the mail today?"

The paladin waves around a single letter. "It's not normal mail, a Challenger passed this to me on the street. Says it's from Worthy."

"The dungeon!? Well, don't dawdle now, it could be urgent! Let me see what that says!" Sable hands the letter over, and Elance quickly opens it up and begins reading it. Out loud, which is a decision she soon regrets.

"'Dear Big Momma Hammerdown'..."

"Bwahaha! Yup, sounds urgent alright!"

"Shush it, you! Ugh, where was I...right. 'We've got some new requirements for the dungeon applicant process. For the next set of applicants, please prioritize people with'..." Elance trails off for a moment and shakes her head. "'People with experience in public speaking and stage performances'!? What in the hells is this about? And it's not like we've been flooded in applicants lately as it is!"

Sable continues laughing, but then pauses as a thought occurs to her. "The Highbranches are helping with the applicant process too, right? I think the Challenger had a copy he was taking to them as well."

"Aye, why do you ask?"

"Just thinking. Maybe there is a person or two out there that would be up for the job..."

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