Dungeon Mercantile

Read Time: 2 Minutes

Having a credit going spare and needing to spend it to earn a $10 credit from Audible, I took a chance on one I’d been a little hesitant on – Dungeon Mercantile, written by Wolfe Locke and Mike Caliban. As is often the case, I found myself wishing I’d picked it up earlier. The story is part slice-of-life, part tragedy, part revenge, part… well a few things. The story revolves around “Shady” Greg, a merchant buying and selling to the dungeon divers of this strange world he finds himself in.

Not much time is spent explaining the “why” or the “how” of how he came to be in the world. That happened twenty-odd years back. In that time, Greg established a shop buying and selling dungeon loot and supplies. As a non-native to the world, the “system” bars him from entering dungeons, so he must make do in other ways.

So he holds a type of NPC job yet is autonomous (for the most part) in what he can and can’t do. He’s a likely kind of guy, trying hard to be honest even though the system wants to punish him for it. He’s got an arch-nemesis in the form of another dude and his brothers, also from Earth.

Greg is generally an easy character to like, though he can, at times, come across as a little spineless. Some of the decisions he makes sometimes didn’t seem to make sense at the time but having time to reflect on the story, and how certain actions had his hands metaphorically tied, I think they make more sense.

The narration by Christopher Harbour wasn’t anything outstanding. Decent, but I just found him a little lacking. I made notes on some occasional background noises showing up, which, while not as bad as some, were a little distracting at times. I think the overall performance just lacked some enthusiasm. Not that he sounded bored… but I think maybe a different narrator could have made this a homerun.

Certainly going to continue with this series. Looking at what is already published, it’s already up to book three so I know where I’ll soon be dropping some credits!