The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 21/100

Heart 1587600/1587600

Experience 376370/396900

Workers 27/133

Monsters 9/135

Traps 108/324

Food 5437

Timber 7322

Iron 2292

Steel 905

Mithril 800

Mithril Ore 122

Adamantine 515

Adamantine Ore 402

Charcoal 4008

Mana 2380

Rock 1111

Gold 1057

Leather 216

Leather Sludge 215

Lava 501

Glass 483

Explosive Runes 30

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Long Guns 30

Bullets 200

Black Powder 1500

Poison, Greater 500

Deadly Scorpion Venom 76

Sulfur 1058

Quest: Give classes to 10 of your creatures.

Quest: Half populate your dungeon: Workers 27/66 | Monsters 9/67 | Traps 108/162

Quest: Delve to the bottom of a dungeon with at least 20 floors.

Two priests. Travis wished he could stare at them both, but he had made an honest deal. "Tell her she's welcome to accept the same contract as Brother Rupert. It's not my fault she didn't come to negotiate a contract."

Brother Rupert, or so Travis could tell, looked very pleased with himself. The only reason Priestess Fairheart had come to see him at all was the wagon loads of some fifty thousand gold that he'd sent to Rupert.

It'd been five days since the riders had left through his new exit, each with several horses that hadn't been all that happy to walk into a dungeon.

Like a certain priestess Penelope was talking to. Travis watched and listened to her explain the agreement.

"So, you can have the same deal. Everyone gets to choose which order they want their talismans from. We'll trust you to account accurately." It was less a statement and more a reminder from Penelope that the dungeon held most of the strings, at least the cash supply. "Do you need funds to start with? Maybe a few hundred talismans and enough for fifty resurrections?"

Fairheart looked startled. Travis didn't overly care about the gold—gold wasn't a commodity that he had found a limit for yet. "Tell her she's going to need a few wagons and people to move it."

"Oh. I—I'll go arrange that." Standing up, Fairheart made her way out of the top floor tavern and out of the dungeon.

Rupert had watched Fairheart leave and, when he judged her well away, let out a laugh. "She thought she got locked out of the deal, and then you handle it like that?" Reaching out to the table, he picked up the mug of ale and set two tiny gold coins down.

"You don't need to pay for ale here," Penelope said. "It's all—"

"The scales must balance. This siege has kept me busy, you know. I've been scouring the city looking for someone who might be sensitive to balance, to assist with my duties, but there is no rest for these old bones." He took a long pull on the ale and let out an appreciative burp.

Penelope drank too, nodding her head to the priest. "When we made that deal, you were one of the few people in this town to trust us."

"Imagine it! A dungeon bringing an adventurer to me to pass judgment! And, from what I remember, you were carefully wrapping the council around your claws. Don't deny it, girl, you have bribed your way into the city— Don't give me that look. Bribes are just balance where the prices aren't easily quantifiable." Digging into his robes, Rupert pulled out a handful of gold coins. "I'll give you five gold to hop on one leg." The glare Penelope gave him earned a laugh from Rupert. "Fifty gold?"

"No."

"See! This is my point! The price of you hopping on one leg is a matter of pride, and pride is one of the more expensive things. What if I offered five hundred thousand gold"—Rupert was fast to hold up his hand—"hypothetically?"

"For five hundred thousand? I'd ask you to show me the gold, then I'd round up Luddy and Katelyn so we can do a proper dance."

Rupert laughed uproariously. Barely keeping from spilling his ale, he gestured with one finger. "But— But see, that's the point. You have a price. You know what it would take to balance out that act. We have established costs, and now bribes are possible."

"I'm glad we made friends with him," Travis said to Penelope. "Because if he was our enemy, it would have made a lot of this harder."

When Penelope passed on Travis' words, Rupert laughed again. "I consider it part of my calling. Some might call me a fool for ascribing meaning to random events, but this would have been a lot worse for the city, too, if we hadn't established a fiscal relationship."

"How many has he revived now?" Travis asked.

"A somber question, brother, but how many have you brought back since the start of this?" Penelope asked for Travis.

Settling down a bit more on the seat, Rupert closed his eyes. "Two hundred and thirty-seven." A beatific smile spread across his lips. "I've been able to save the lives of over two hundred people without breaking my vows—entirely because of you and Travis. If you ever wonder why I am firmly on your side, that's a lot of weight in your favor on the scales."

After several days of dropping poison gas bombs over holes hadn't done much but use up black powder and poison gas—and taught the northerners how to sight-in their light ballistas—they'd had to pick a different method to deal with the problem.

Ludmiller was in the tight tunnel that the sappers were digging. Using all the tricks that Wild had taught her, she followed her instincts and senses into what was practically a dance in the barely-lit caves.

Stepping around laborers who were carting out the rock, she picked the exact moments when no one was looking to poke each with one of the tiny, hair-like wires. Travis had called them acupuncture needles, and had explained they were supposed to help people with pain and tension—but with each one stained brown with a few drops of the scorpion venom, they would not be alleviating anything except for lives.

Robert had promised her that two drops of the stuff was enough, but not so much as to kill someone instantly. She had five minutes from when she'd poked the first of them with a needle to when she needed to be outside the tunnel.

In her head, Ludmiller counted off seconds. She'd been busy, and now only had a quarter of her needles left. When she entered the last section of tunnel, though, and saw the rock of the wall being supported by hefty wooden beams, she winced and almost cursed. The sappers were undermining the wall.

They seemed excited, and Ludmiller managed to get half of the engineers pricked before she saw them setting out a keg of black powder. She stepped close to the engineers handling the explosives, noting the long fuse and the hourglass that sat beside them.

When the sand finished running through the glass, one of the engineers lit the fuse. As they all turned and began marching out, she managed to prick half of the remaining enemies before turning her attention to the keg.

"What do I do? The timer indicates they're not blowing this one up alone, so they will be breaching the walls today. I can kill this fuse, which will only mean someone will run back in here and light it again, but all that will do is cause a delay on this section." Looking at the keg and the wheelbarrow that it was sitting on, Ludmiller groaned. "This is a bad idea, Luddy, but it will stop this one sap from going off and I can warn Trav faster."

Hefting the handles in her grip, Ludmiller started rolling the big keg out from under the support beams and down the tunnel. A glance at the burning fuse gave her an idea how long she had until they expected the blast.

Her five minutes were long-since up, and she knew there would be people dying outside who'd left the tunnel. The fuse still had a good bit of time to it, several minutes or so she reckoned, so she paused, shoved it almost all the way into the keg, and ran like crazy with the wheelbarrow trundling along.

The wheel hit a rock and gave out a moment before the fuse wire burnt down into the keg. Ludmiller saw several surprised sappers ahead and gave them a grin as she faded back into view—then she was with Travis again.

"Travis! The—"

"What killed you?!" Travis had gone from relaxation to maximum panic.

"They're sapping the walls. I took out one tunnel and all the workers, but you have about two minutes before others will bring down sections of wall. Tell the guards!"

The panic had gone beyond anything Travis could have come up with. He hadn't the words to say how stressed he suddenly felt, but managed to get the ball rolling. "Everyone, the city's walls will be sapped in around two minutes. Warn the guards, Pen, and then everyone who is a boss or cohort get ready to defend the city!"

He turned his attention back to Ludmiller. "Where did you die? Can we get to your body?" A barked laugh was the last thing Travis expected.

"No, Trav. I took the powder keg out from under the supports for the wall and set it off further up the tunnel. If there are two pieces of me left, I would be surprised."

"Wild, Luddy died. She's waiting to respawn. She made sure it was fast and—and she's telling me she took out a lot of their sappers and destroyed one of the sapping tunnels." Travis tried not to laugh at the additions Ludmiller was telling him to pass on. "Oh, and she says she loves you."

"Tell her I love her. I was fixing up our apartment after we had to shift the lizard homes away from my boss room. Do you want me to stay in here to protect you, or do you want me to go out there and deal death?" Picking up his new axes, Wild weighed them in his hands. Heavier than his last ones, he knew the adamantine would not let him down. He kept his old ones, of course, in case he wanted to throw something.

"Squishy is in Fife's boss room, he'll keep that door closed. Go out and rally with Pen. Everyone who can be resurrected for free will defend the town." Travis turned his attention back to the priest, who'd stood up and was on his way out of the dungeon. "Can someone tell Brother Rupert what's happening? He's leaving the dungeon."

Penelope waited by the entrance until everyone reached her. Nodding to Fife, who was the last to arrive, she got started. "The guards have been warned. We have about thirty seconds before the walls will be sapped. We don't know where the others are, but get ready to move to fill any gaps the moment they open. Fife, I want you here. Guard the entrance to Breath of Spring's dungeon."

Heading out of the dungeon entrance, a series of deep bass thuds sounded around the city and stopped the group dead in their tracks. Four blasts that were now accompanied by more rumbling.

"That was at least four. Kelvin, Katelyn, I want you to head to Rupert's temple and guard it. Brayden, keep Jack with you. Wild, with me." Penelope was running through their resources and didn't like how short they were compared to what was coming.

"Don't forget us. Where do you need us to be?" Felna asked, having heard Travis' panic call.

"Head left along the wall. Find the nearest break and incinerate anything that steps foot through it. If Brolly finds you, tell him we're doing what we can and follow his lead." Drawing her swords, Penelope started along the right wall, heading for the ramp up to the ramparts. She spared one glance back at Fife, an armored juggernaut that had backed herself into the entrance of the verdant dungeon and planted her shield there.

"Fife? What's going on?" Huntress asked.

"They got a wall down, maybe in more places than one." Fife spared a glance back at the centaur. "If you keep behind me, use your bow instead of the rifle. I don't want to be deaf for whatever is coming."

Breath of Spring arrived too and caught the words Fife'd told Huntress. "With my healing, you will never fall."

Pausing in her mental preparations, Fife turned around, crouched down, and kissed Breath of Spring on the cheek. "For luck. Also, because we're about to become best friends. You heal me, I keep the bad people away."

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.