Starter Dungeon
Level Up Harem — Book 1
By Machine George
Starter town. Starter dungeon. Starter harem. Level up everything.
Jace needs one clean run to eat today. Instead, he walks out with a room deed, two teammates, and a target on his back.
In a world where dungeon delving pays the bills, Jace enters a starter dungeon expecting a simple E-rank payout. What he finds is more than treasure—he finds people. A sunshine-bright healer and a cat-eyed rogue who see something in him worth following. A room deed that changes his status overnight. Enemies who notice his sudden rise and want to tear it all down.
Expect: mimic doors that bite, slime kings that melt steel, rival delvers who want your loot — and your claim. Light system pings. Squad chemistry. A harem that grows through teamwork.
You’ll enjoy this if you love:
- Found-party vibes (Healer + Rogue + Tactician)
- Low-noise LitRPG notifications
- Rivals, claims, and dungeon politics
- Harem that builds through trust and shared victories
Read on Amazon (Kindle Unlimited)
Chapter 1
The SYSTEM notification that would change everything arrived three seconds before Jace pushed through the guild hall doors.
[SYSTEM] Warning: Anomaly Detected. Dimensional Stability at 97%.He dismissed it with a blink—probably another glitch. The SYSTEM had been throwing weird errors all week, and he had more immediate problems. Like not starving.
Jace timed the push through the doors so the battered hinges didn’t announce him. It was still early. The air clung to last night’s stale pipe smoke and the bitter tang of overcooked coffee, but the front chamber already hummed with the loose, anxious noise of F- and E-ranks scraping for daywork. He slid past a pair of tiefling siblings arguing in whispers, then skirted the stunted queue at the commission window. The notice board loomed at the far wall, freckled with thumbtack scars and a few faded red droplets—old blood or pen ink, hard to say.
Nobody met his eye. That was protocol. More than one set of adventurer leathers in the room were held together by kitchen string and hope, and it was a courtesy not to catalogue each other’s poverty too closely.
He took a slow tour of the board: the high-value slips, written on thick, cream-colored vellum, had vanished. E-rank and up, gone by dawn, siphoned off by guild lifers and the occasional hotshot with a connection in the clerical staff. The middle row, yellowed and curled, was mostly labor: graveyard weeding, roof repair, some poultry wrangling for a local noblewoman. Not technically “adventuring,” but enough to keep the guild coffers solvent and the entry ranks from outright starvation.
He needed coin, but not that badly yet. Three months of scraping by on F-rank jobs had left him with just enough to cover guild fees and a shared room at the Bent Nail. One bad run—one injury that required healing he couldn’t afford—and he’d be out on the street. Or worse, back home to face his father’s disappointment.
What remained at the bottom were the jobs nobody wanted—dungeon clearances at the edge of city jurisdiction, old family crypts rumored to be “mildly” haunted, beast culling for creatures considered more a nuisance than a threat. Most slips had been manhandled, creased, or annotated in agitated ballpoint by the desperate: “Previously Cleared” or “Perma-Trap @ Rm. 3” or, underlined three times, “Possible NEST.”
He squinted at the last F-rank hanging at a crooked angle:
Site: Mossy Gate Ruins (F)
Req: Standard.
Reward: 12c, per head.
Notes: Party Size Rec. 3. Guild res. status: POOR.
It was undersigned by a scribe whose handwriting had given up at the word “Ruins.” A gunk-stained thumbprint marked the bottom edge.
He heard the scrape of heavy boots behind him and tensed, but the big guy—a half-orc with one tusk and a four-day stubble—didn’t bother with the low-rank slips. Jace angled his shoulder to block the board, just in case. Technically, jobs were first come, first serve, but scraps like these had a way of getting…disputed.
He plucked the Mossy Gate Ruins slip and slipped it into his jacket. It felt like stealing a dare.
At the front desk, the morning clerk yawned into her sleeve. Her badge read “Vina,” and her hair was held up with the same office pens she lent out for paperwork. She only looked up when Jace slid the slip forward. “For Mossy Gate? That one’s still open?” She didn’t hide the surprise, or the doubt.
“Is now,” Jace said. His voice came out too dry. He tamped it down and tried again: “I’ll take it.”
She pursed her lips, ran her finger down a ledger—her nails were stained a deep, unlucky shade of burgundy—and rapped the relevant line. “You’re the first this week, but heads up, site’s considered a health hazard. Multiple previous teams failed to clear.” She ticked a box with her pen, then fixed him with a look. “F-rankers aren’t covered by guild healers. You know that, right?”
He nodded, waiting for the [SYSTEM] flag to slide into the corner of his vision. The SYSTEM—that omnipresent force that governed adventurers’ progression, tracked their achievements, and quantified their bonds—was sometimes slow to update in the morning. When it didn’t appear immediately, he risked a glance up at the old clock above the board: 08:12. The system usually took a minute to catch up, especially for F-ranks like him.
The clerk’s attention wandered to the argument at the commission window, then to her coffee. “You want the form for a partner match, or is this solo?” she asked, not even bothering to fake optimism.
Jace started to say “solo” but hesitated. Technically, it was safer to queue for a party slot. In reality, the pool was so thin that most applicants were ghosts or green kids even more desperate than him.
“Solo,” he said, because the alternative would take another hour, and there was a storm forecast for the afternoon.
She shrugged, stamped the slip, and slid it back. “You get a postmortem bonus if you bring back teeth. And don’t forget to sign out before you leave. If you don’t, admin fees eat your reward.”
Jace signed the form. “Does anyone ever actually get the postmortem bonus?”
She smiled, sharp and tired. “Only if they come back with the teeth.”
He pocketed the stamped slip, making sure it didn’t crease against the battered notebook in his inner coat. One job a week, that was his ration. There were side hustles, of course—odd jobs, scavenging, the occasional guard work for the brewery or the back alley pawn—but the guild kept a close watch on F-ranks, and more than one infraction would land you in the conscript list. He had no interest in city-issue mail and double shifts on the Watch.
The guild hall’s “canteen” (a euphemism for the four mismatched tables under the stairs) was starting to fill. A half-dozen young hopefuls with secondhand gear eyed each other over weak oatmeal. Jace’s stomach reminded him that it was already nearly half a day since he’d eaten. He crossed to the canteen and scanned for any faces he recognized, then found a corner with a clean enough chair.
The Mossy Gate Ruins were at least two tram stops out, maybe a half-day round trip if he walked. He sipped water from the jug at the center of the table, which tasted faintly like pickles and soap. The system ping finally arrived as he wiped the rim:
[SYSTEM] Quest accepted: Mossy Gate Ruins (F). Party size recommended: 3. Current party: 1.He studied the message until it faded, as if longer contemplation might make the warning less stark.
The second ping was a “Guild Protip” — “If party incomplete, expect elevated risk of loss of life and/or limb. Consult with local clerics for last rites discounts.”
Jace snorted. The guild loved its disclaimers, as if warning you about death somehow absolved them when you didn’t come back. He closed his eyes and let the discomfort settle in his gut like an old friend. Hunger was a form of information, he’d learned—it told you exactly which rules you could afford to break.
He waited until the canteen noise grew, then stood. He could tell, just from the looks of the other rookies, that the only currency anyone respected at this hour was rumor. He picked up the slip again, already thinking about supplies—rope, a half-charged lantern, maybe a short blade if he could pawn his boots for extra coin.
On his way out, the tiefling siblings from before had reached the board, but he caught the side-eye of one of them—a glint of envy, or maybe just recognition that he’d “won” the last round. He tipped a little nod, which was neither challenge nor apology.
The city’s low fog had barely started to lift, and he drew his jacket tight, re-reading the site slip as he walked. The job wasn’t supposed to be dangerous—just cleanup, residual. But if the last three teams hadn’t bothered to finish, odds were good there was something ugly left inside. Or nothing, and it was all wasted effort.
He’d take either, if it paid.
As he passed the alley behind the guild, he slipped the slip from his pocket and looked at the address again. Someone had written, in a hurried, desperate hand, “Ask for payment up front, if you can.” He smirked. Not possible, not for F-rankers, but he liked the sentiment.
He let the slip ride in his coat, and walked toward the tram.
If he hurried, he could make the first run, and maybe—if he was lucky—be back before nightfall.
He didn’t plan on luck. He’d take hunger, or fear, or whatever else got him moving.
He’d even take company, if it meant a better shot at getting out alive. But as he stepped into the drifting city air, his only company was the faint taste of cold metal and the promise that if he made it through, there’d be enough coin for breakfast tomorrow.
That was enough.
Continue the Adventure
Book 1: Starter Dungeon — Available now on Amazon (Kindle Unlimited)
Book 2: Desert Raid
Book 3: Sky Tower
Book 4: Ice Labyrinth
