The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2
Level 93/100

Heart 8,294,400/8,294,400
Experience 1,339,715/2,073,600
Mithril 43,051
Adamantine 1,933
Mana 542
Poison, Greater 500
Deadly Scorpion Venom 51

Quest: Bestow 163 classes.
Quest: Kill 3 Noble-born.
Quest: Reach Tier 3.

Situational Quest: Your minions invade a hostile city! Destroy its walls!
Situational Quest: Your minions invade a hostile city! Raze its buildings!
Situational Quest: Your minions invade a hostile city! Kill its leader!

Situational Quest Complete: Invaded a city! Killed its leader!

New Situational Quest: Your minions invade a hostile city! Kill the genius loci!

An eerie silence spread through him as Travis froze. There hadn't been any experience gain, which led to Travis having to sort through his information to figure out what had changed. It took him a while, but he found a new class fully unlocked and ready to give, only there was significant cost. "Uh, Katelyn, are you there?"

"Just a second," Katelyn replied, in the process of channeling magic to form a fresh gold filigree pattern that would absorb mana and channel it into a low-powered device. It didn't take a lot of actual effort to make, it was just fiddly work and once it was done she leaned back from the desk. "Okay. What's up?"

Travis tried to roll all his thoughts up into one big statement, but it all felt overly complicated. So he chopped it down to the first and biggest question. "I'm pretty sure someone in West Reaches just killed the marquess. I got a quest completed for it, and it gave me a new class. What I need to ask, though, is do you know if someone or something runs the whole dungeon thing? Like, this new class seems like something just for me."

"What does it do?"

"The name of it is Ally, and the description, 'An Ally is treated as a dungeon monster for all purposes, even outside the dungeon's area of effect, granting XP to the dungeon for actions and allowing the Ally to gain advanced dungeon traits.' It costs a hundred thousand gold, I have to have equipped them, and they have to have another class at level ten already."

"Sounds like a good deal for you. What would it give to the people involved?" As she spoke, Katelyn carefully packed the gold mana accumulator into a cloth pouch and stacked it with the others she'd made.

"'Advanced dungeon traits' are things like how Fife and the wolves are like fire dragons now. Wait, we're getting sidetracked. How many dungeons have worked with people before?" Travis asked.

When Katelyn didn't reply and stared into space in surprise, Travis finally felt relief that he wasn't going crazy. "So, that's why I want to know who or what makes this system? Most of this stuff I could just pretend was random from games I'd played. Sure, a lot of it is, but then I get something like this and it is proof that whatever's doing all this is a whoever."

Time froze. Katelyn was still staring into space, and every other being inside his dungeon were frozen and unmoving. More, he couldn't see out into the cities anymore. "What the—?"

Uh, hi! Sorry I can't say hi in person, there's a big thing about gods doing that now. I'm… I guess I am the goddess of dungeons. And cities! Dungeons and Cities! I made the system!

"So you're—?"

I give out the quests and stuff. You're the first of a new type of dungeon I wanted to make, but then I got super distracted with the Awakened Verdant type, and then you started making priests who follow me!

"I guess you're welcome. I— You're responsible for me being a dungeon at all? For bringing me here?"

Yes! But also no. Something cut you free of your previous life. I found you floating and made the decision to give you a dungeon to run until I can figure out something else. Then you surprised me by doing so well. Now the others don't need to get involved at all!

"Haven't Brogdar and Sandwalker already kinda—? Wait, that's not what I wanted to know. I'm getting sidetracked, and now I'm talking for no reason. So, are you doing this to help me?"

To reward you! You're testing a completely new dungeon type for me! I've gotten a lot of feedback, too. Warehouses?! What was I thinking? Soooo, yes, I am doing this for you. Not only because I can test it, but because I need to start using up some of this faith. Sandwalker keeps looking over my shoulder.

"So all this time I've been trying to get around requirements for quests and find ways to level up faster…?"

You have been finding bugs, exploits, and totally legitimate play styles! I am going to have to do this for all the other dungeon types. Hey, would you like to take control of a Rot dungeon for a while? I think there are some bugs being exploited in those.

Panic and alarm gripped Travis. This was a being that could probably do exactly that and rip him free from his home and friends. Straining to keep calm, he managed a, "No, thank you."

Awww. Okay.

Relief. Calm. Travis wasn't a fan of emotional rollercoasters. The way this god wrote things out, it felt to Travis like they had more than a little knowledge of internet culture from his home. "Did you get any of this from my memories?"

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Time in the dungeon shuddered and Katelyn tapped her chin. "I don't know if you'll ever find that one out. Some of the gods, the ones who take an interest in this continent, you already know. There are some less-savory types that people try to ignore, but a god of dungeons? I doubt it."

"Uh, Katelyn?" Travis asked. "I think I have an answer. There is a god of dungeons who is also the god of cities, or so they say. They wanted to make a new dungeon type and used me to beta-test it. Oh, beta-testing is—"

"I know what beta-testing is, Trav, and this is more like alpha-testing. Now I'm curious about when you got this answer?"

"About a minute ago, time froze, and the dungeon message system started talking to me. They claimed they were the god, but didn't say their name. They also said that Sandwalker kept 'watching over their shoulder'." Travis wished he could hyperventilate so he could take a moment to get distracted by something not god-related. "So, looking at the facts. There is a god overseeing dungeons and cities. They seem friendly. They are not upset with us. Aaaand I sent Astrid out as a newly ordained priest of theirs."

Travis had to admire how well he'd been played. This god might sound like a nerd raving over their amazing creation, but he could acknowledge he hadn't had a chance to resist. "Sorry, Katelyn, it looks like this is one I need to take care of myself."

The defeated way Travis said it earned a spike of worry in Katelyn's heart. She stretched her arms back behind her as far as she could and said, "If you ever need to talk, I'm here. Besides, it's not like Astrid is the only Priest you've made. Oh! And you should talk to Brayden and Felna about it. They might not know, but they seem to have their respective gods' ears."

"That's a great idea. Thanks, Katelyn."

With Travis' tone showing marked improvement in his mood, Katelyn focused back on her work. She was making a device to automatically build runed bullets, complete with casings. So far it took nearly two hundred thousand gold, refined with her magic down to a shockingly small amount of mana-sensitive gold, to make the rune-circuits that she had found amusingly similar to what Travis' memories had described as electronics.

Most of the gold was used in the collector, though she was forced to refine quite a bit for the timing circuit to delay the application of mana to the newly-created explosive runes. The final part, of course, was safety. Checking over the rune applicators, ensuring the circuit could detect when nothing had been inserted into the socket, and finally a dissipation circuit so that, when the top of the device was opened, all the remaining mana in the circuits was properly discharged.

The final device, once she'd finished assembling it, looked like a simple wooden box that was a foot wide and long, and about half that deep. She had folded the mana collector pattern so that it would fit in the base of the box and, with the mana density in the dungeon and the cities connected with it, she knew it would produce a dozen rounds in about two minutes.

Inside, when the top was lifted, was room for the assembled rounds to be installed, with four neat rows of three columns. "Travis? Could you have Tinpot come down? Ask him to bring a bag of rounds he wants to be energized."

"You got it!" Travis replied, relaying the message on while he listened to Brayden talk about everything the man knew about dungeons and cities.

While she waited for Tinpot to arrive, Katelyn settled in for a little meditation. After seeing Fife and the wolves gain the fire dragon traits, she wanted something similar for herself. She had learned to love fire magic, but in truth, Katelyn wanted more flexibility. There was a rush to incinerating everything, but there was more to life than just burning. She had learned that, despite its often inefficient methods, fire really did solve a lot of physical problems in the world.

So she meditated on all the fields of magic: arcane (the purest forms of mana), elemental (of which fire was a part), life and death (two sides of the same almost-divine coin), enchanting (by far the biggest field, forming the basis of modern magical technology), and summoning. The last had always been her weakest form, and so now she devoted extra focus to it.

A knock on her door pulled Katelyn from her meditation. She stretched and called out, "Come in!"

Tinpot didn't often venture to the lower depths of the dungeon. When he'd initially joined, of course, and whenever Robert had something important for him to see, but otherwise he stuck to the upper two floors. Katelyn, too, wasn't someone he saw often. She delivered him the gold enchanted bullets and casings, but as often as not he would find she'd left the bag for him to find. "Travis said you had the new device ready? I have some test bullets."

"Perfect. Bring them over here and I'll show you how this works." Gesturing to the table where the finished enchanting box was, Katelyn patted the top of it. "Open it up and look inside."

Doing as instructed, Tinpot whistled. "Twelve at a time? How fast does it work?"

"It depends on where it is used. In the dungeon, maybe a minute and a half. In Northridge, Home, or Polfay, maybe two minutes. Anywhere else and it will vary."

Pulling a dozen rounds from the bag, it was easy for Tinpot to see how they needed to be slotted in. The bottom board in the box was shaped to cradle the bullet end while the upper part would come down around the casing. "Like this?"

"Yeah. You can close the lid now." The moment he did, Katelyn could feel the draw of mana from her creation. Like all magitech, it relied on ambient mana drawn into its circuits through the array of refined gold. "It will make a little hiss when it's done, and you'll feel the box get cold."

Sure enough, after less than two minutes Tinpot heard the hiss and noticed a little frost form around the bottom of the box. "What's making it cold? If you don't mind me asking, that is."

"When the circuit stops, there is residual magic still in it. If it were left that way, the gold circuits would degrade far faster as they would lose the protective enchantments. As it is, if used constantly, it will be the collector that degrades first. At that point, the unit will need rebuilding." Lifting one of the rounds out with her claws, Katelyn examined it with her eyes, her magic, and mana-sensitive dungeon-given senses. "Both runes look to be perfectly created. Now, with this, you won't need to use the more expensive repeating runes in the casings."

Tinpot didn't like one aspect of it. "Not the most efficient. I have to wonder if I can't install a repeating explosive rune directly into the gun?" With a new idea blossoming, Tinpot felt restless energy start to suffuse him. A small voice in the back of his head cackled at the thought that he'd almost given up on life.

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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.