The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 21/100

Heart 1587600/1587600

Experience 376370/396900

Workers 27/133

Monsters 9/135

Traps 114/324

Food 5437

Timber 7322

Iron 2292

Steel 905

Mithril 800

Mithril Ore 122

Adamantine 515

Adamantine Ore 402

Charcoal 4008

Mana 2380

Rock 1243

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 114/162

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

Earlier…

The rush to add more tunnels leading to the huge mushroom farm on his first floor had been a prelude to a veritable stampede of people. Well, not really a stampede. Everyone had been surprisingly calm about it. The tunnels were hastily lit and, by Travis' count, over six thousand people poured through into his mushroom farm in under half an hour.

He could see out into the city, watching as people poured toward the dungeon's entrances and inside his own. He watched Brolly organizing the city's defenses within his offices, but it irked him that he couldn't hear any of it.

The people had grabbed only important things they could bring with them. Stephan and Blake had done most of the work getting everyone into the dungeon and, when it was all done, adjusting the layout to force any would-be attackers to first navigate the entire dungeon before they could reach the refugees. Travis let out a sigh of relief. "Great work. They can burn the city down and destroy the walls—but Northridge will survive here."

Northridge itself picked that moment to push its presence upon Travis. "I yet stand, even if my walls are broken. My captain sends out assassins to stop their leaders, you guard my people, and your minions have brought enough time to keep everyone safe."

The procession of the two commanders through Northridge had Travis worried, mostly because they were coming straight for him. They had a cart with another barrel of the poison on it, as well as mining equipment.

That was when Travis watched, through an adventurous lizard's eyes, as two women set up their shooting location, overwatching the dungeon's entrances. There was a weird disconnect, when he couldn't hear people talking. Travis had to guess at motives for every action people took and, in this case, when the woman fired her rifle and deliberately missed.

It took him a moment to figure out why: she was judging distance and wind by it. What really puzzled him was the commanders and soldiers didn't react to the shot. He held his non-existent breath as the woman fired for the second time—and hit one of the officers.

Penelope had sheltered in a small building that seemed to be a bakery. Hunched over her arm, she'd run out of all the curse words she knew and was making new ones up when Brayden walked over to her. "Brayden! Can you fix this fu—"

"You know I can, Pen. Hold still and accept Brogdar's light." Working his god's name into the preparation for his spells wasn't strictly required, but Brayden liked the reminder that each of his calls on Brogdar involved his god finding his actions to be true.

Penelope hadn't had this specific spell cast on her before, but she certainly wished she didn't have to watch her hand reforming from bones, tendons, flesh, and scales. Nonetheless, when it was done with her, the spell had restored her hand. "Thanks, Brayden—and thanks Brogdar."

"Anything else?" Brayden asked. At Penelope's confused look, he laughed. "Does anything else need healing?"

"Oh!" Penelope had been worried she'd offended Brayden with her lack of knowledge of his god. "No. Everything's fine. Why are you here? Shouldn't you be defending the next—?"

"The wall repaired itself. I guess Northridge used some of its own magic. There was a handful of Balavian fighters still in when the stones started to pull back together and became a wall again. Pen, do you get the feeling like this—all of this—is some kind of mutually beneficial thing? Cities this young shouldn't be doing this sort of stuff."

"Trav will probably have a word for this. It'll be something we've never heard before, but makes so much sense to exist once you've heard it. Come on, let's head back to the dungeon and find out what's going on from him." Reaching for her missing sword, Penelope was surprised to find it there in her scabbard. "And, after all this, I want all those boss upgrades. If I'm going to be a mean monster and defend this place, I'm going to do it with all the crazy powers dragons have."

"I have no idea how you'll get in the dungeon if you're that big." Brayden dusted off his hands with another dedication to his god. "How's Wild?"

"You should have seen him, Brayden. I couldn't get enough weight behind my swords to deflect their blows, but with those axes of his he managed it fine. I'd say I need my own adamantine swords, but how much longer will I be able to use them for?" Nodding to Jack, Penelope stood back up to her full height and together the four of them left the building they'd been sheltering in.

Brayden picked the conversation back up after they'd left. "Get the damned swords you want. If these ones aren't doing it for you, try something heavier."

Penelope stopped at the end of the block. Something in the air caught her attention and, when she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, she recognized it. "Burning. They're razing the city."

When Jack saw all three of his companions turn to look at him, he laughed. "Oh, sure, everyone look at the ice sorcerer when there's a fire."

"But you can do something about it?" Penelope asked.

"Of course I can, that doesn't mean it's not funny. I'll need to see what's happening—let's run back and get me one of Fife's damned wyverns." Breaking into a mad dash for the dungeons, Jack didn't let Fife distract him from getting inside Travis. "Trav, I need a wyvern. They've set—"

"They set fire to the city. I can see that. You can stop it?" Already passing on directions to kobolds on the second floor, Travis watched them bring the wyvern up to the entrance. "They're coming."

"And mana. I need as much as you can dump on me." Jack hadn't worked the spell for some time. It was a large-scale magic that was meant to be subtle, but with Travis putting a mana field around him, subtle wasn't what he planned. He meditated within that field, letting his mana grow more and more dense while he focused himself on the spell he was about to cast.

Wishing he could stack the mana fields, Travis nonetheless worried about what Jack was doing. When Jack climbed on top of what seemed to be an exceptionally bitey wyvern, Travis sent one last message, "Good luck!"

"Thanks!" Jack yelled a moment before exiting the dungeon on the back of the wyvern. "Okay, you're going to go easy on me, riiiiiiiiii—" No sooner was the wyvern out of the dungeon than it leaned back, spread its wings, and took off.

At first Jack had no idea how to control the apparently wild beast, but after a few moments of it ducking and weaving he realized it was responding to his feet. Knees, ankles, and even his toes all seemed to mean something to the beast, and as he figured each out, he gave it a reassuring pat on the neck.

When the wyvern was flying straight and level again, Jack finally relaxed a fraction. "Tap for turns, claws for roll, knees forward and back—keep mouth closed because bugs." He spat the large insect that had gone on an oral excursion behind him and looked for the nearest fire.

It wasn't hard, Jack realized, the Balavians were setting everything on fire as they pulled back. The biggest section they hadn't burned out was near the gates of the city, reaching around to where the two temples were. It made sense to Jack, given that's where all the defenders would be located, so he decided to help cement them in place a little better.

Wheeling his wyvern around, Jack strafed the buildings on the opposite side of the street from the defenders. Flames licked his mount's belly, but the line of frost he let loose turned a chilly day to the depths of winter. Wood froze, metal became dangerous to touch, and the flames were choked by the effort to combat the sudden chill.

His wyvern seemed to get the hint, because it turned around and aimed them at the next line of burning buildings.

"Twenty thousand?" The commander of Far Reach's city guard registered real shock. "That's more than their usual warband. How long do you think the city can hold out? Wait, that's in this next section." He paused only briefly as he rifled through the pages. "The city has allied with a dungeon?"

The tone of incredulousness didn't fail to register. "Sir, it's not a joke. We've been dealing with siege engines, attacks on our dungeons that wiped one out, and they sent huge wolf beasts at us."

The last got the commander's full attention. Pulling a tablet closer, he began scrawling a letter on it. "I see. I'll bring what I can, but I doubt we'll lift the siege with the standing garrison. I'm sending a request on to the baron for an army."

With the draft of the paperwork done, the commander nodded to his door. "I'll have a reply for you to take back within the hour—with fresh horses, of course. You can get back in?"

"The dungeon opened an entrance far outside the siege lines. We used that to get the horses out in the first place."

Nodding, the commander dismissed the rider. Once they were outside, he shook his head. "It's amazing what these peaceful dungeons can be persuaded to do."

Her sister's body sat atop the pile of timber. Hilda stood before the pyre. The city had burned a little, but one of the cursed mages had figured out a way to extinguish the flames. Worse, the city itself was working profane magic to repair its walls. She cared for none of it anymore.

When dusk fell, and the city wasn't broken, she reached out for the burning torch beside her, picked it up, and cast it into the ritual grave. It didn't light immediately, but as the flames started licking over the kindling it caught and started to send her sister's spirit on.

"I will not make it three officers," Hilda said at last, standing up while the body atop the pyre burned away. "Sergeants! Give the order: we will draw up pickets and fall back from this temple of heretics." They weren't happy—there were no cheers—but Hilda could tell there was relief in each and every one of them.

They were scared, she knew, and she understood why. This city disgusted her and stood as a defilement of everything her people held dear. She realized she'd need a far greater army for dealing with this den of evil.

Walking closer to the burning fire, she reached a gauntleted fist to her chest. "Sister," she said, not speaking Donna's name lest it pull her spirit back to the world, "I will do everything I can to bring a proper army back here to avenge you—or I will die trying."

Northridge, with its people leaving the dungeon, threw its full might into bringing its walls back up. It called down what higher powers it could—Brogdar, Balance, and even the Graceful Lady—and begged them to aid it as protector of their followers.

What Northridge didn't expect was the two dungeons pushing their own power into the pledge, beggaring themselves of mana to fuel the rapid repairs.

With both dungeons having aided the city at the very moments it needed help most, it vowed to itself that it would not spare the riches of a prosperous city from them either. Building its walls back up as night fell, Northridge felt like it had survived a pivotal moment in its development. Now, however, it wanted the invaders gone from its doorstep so it could resume trade with its southern allies.

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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.