The Heart Grows

Walking back into Polfay with her group, Fife could feel the tension of their current ward. Kobolds had changed from terrified extras in a dungeon to friends and family to her, but now she had one that was a throwback to the kobolds she remembered. "You don't have to hide," she said. "I promise I'll protect you."

The kobold didn't believe the huge creature. Why should it, when even in its own dungeon the big bullied the small—and the only thing smaller than a kobold was a lizard. Despite that, though, at least it wasn't one of the city people.

What was weird for the kobold was seeing another kobold in the big dragon's party. Standing tall and not showing the normal fear that pervaded the lives of all the kobolds they knew, the strange kobold had talked openly with the others.

Having never seen minions of other dungeons before, the confused kobold was nonetheless able to tell that the two gnolls were not from a dragon dungeon that would have created the huge warrior or the icy kobold. And, for that matter, the dryad and the centaur weren't from either of the other two dungeons.

"Not talkative?" Fife asked. She sighed at the panicked look on the kobold's face. "Okay, a ground rule. You don't have to talk if you don't want to, but I won't let anyone hurt you if you do."

Looking up at the giant, the kobold nodded slowly.

"Great. You didn't see me fight, did you?" The kobold shook its head. "Ah. Well, even your dungeon boss couldn't beat me. It was a good fight, though. I've been talking to some people who've been training up to beat the boss of my dungeon. They have some good ideas, but I don't know if they can get enough strength to stall a dragon's charge."

Fife kept leading the party and the conversation, keeping her questions to ones with yes or no answers so her new friend didn't have to speak. "Here's someone new for you to meet. She's another dryad, like Breath, but the city asked her to be its champion. Hello, Heart!"

"Fife! Breath of Spring! Huntress! Oh, it's good to see all of you!" Heart eyed the big gnoll with the party, but quickly moved back to Fife. "Polfay said you brought a new visitor."

"We have. This is…" Fife almost facepalmed as she realized they didn't have a name for the kobold. "—our friend. They're from Polfay's dragon Swarm dungeon, and we're going to take them for a walk to the bottom of Breeze."

"Oh, because of the rewards for delving another dungeon! I wondered how you were going to boost our dungeons. Polfay is excited too. The dragon dungeon has been a little behind the curve lately. Our adventurers report that it doesn't seem to be trying. Giving it a flood of new resources"—Heart looked around at Fife's group—"and a challenge, should spark it back to life."

"I offered to train its fighters, too. The dragon they have should be able to push me around more than it does. Their swarms of dragon warriors should be more of a threat, but between my new gun and Jack there's not much I can't take on. Oh, and the sweetest healer in the entire kingdom." Crouching all the way down, lowering to one knee, Fife kissed Breath of Spring on the cheek. "Love you, babe."

Twisting to catch the kiss, partially at least, on her lips, Breath of Spring reached up to firmly hold Fife's jaw so she could do the contact justice. She didn't let go until Fife looked on the verge of being out of breath. "Love you too."

Feeling a little giddy, Fife pecked Breath of Spring once more, blushing as she stood back up. "Ah, sorry about that. Got distracted."

Heart let out a giggle of pure joy. "You have nothing to apologize for. Back to the subject, Polfay is curious to see how the dungeon will react to the resource glut. It accepted your offer?"

"I made sure it knew how serious I was." Fife glanced at the dungeon's kobold. "It placed its kobold in my care. I don't know how expectant it is that anything will be gained, but I intend to follow through on my promise regardless."

"Plus we get to test something," Breath of Spring said. "We just got the new two-way teleport trap installed, and we want to know if teleporting to the bottom counts as walking through every floor on the way."

"Breeze is getting…" Heart searched for a gentle word that would explain her home dungeon's expansion rate, and failed. "… unimaginably large. I have heard that she adjusted our entrance to a hundred floors down, and the capital's to another hundred below that. She won't tell us how many floors there are now."

"She'd tell Trav, but I don't think it's as important as floors cleared for teleporting would be." Fife tapped her chin for a moment, then laughed. "Well, it is important for other dungeons. If it works, Trav, the gnolls' dungeon, and this guy's home will all get a lot of stuff."

"I'll leave you to your work, then. Polfay is very excited to see their dungeons grow more." Heart dipped her head toward Breath of Spring and turned. She was always glad to help her new home get a better understanding of things taking place just outside their perception. "If that does work, I bet your adventurers are going to get more of a work-out."

"If Fife trains that Swarm dungeon's minions, they will have to step up to a whole new challenge." Polfay liked their position as the most prominent adventure-focused city in the kingdom, and wanted to see that reputation solidify further. "I can't do more than share Northridge's reputation as host for Travis, but I want to be the best city in the kingdom!"

"You already are, Polfay. The biggest complaints I heard about how things were before Breeze moved in was the price and quality of food. Now? Now you are overflowing with high quality foodstuffs, can feed everyone in the city three meals a day, and the few folks who want something more fancy than our growing food center can make can travel quickly to the capital. Bringing our under-performing dungeons up in quality cements your place as the best." Heart didn't hold back, lashing Polfay with the facts.

"But the nobles are complaining ab—"

"The nobles should complain. They lost control of you when you gained me as your champion. Now you're not dancing to their tune and in lock-step with their plans. It's the people, these people"—Heart turned in a circle and gestured out to the busy city street—"that matter."

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"They say not nice things about you."

Laughing, surprising several people nearby, Heart shook her head. "Polfay, I don't care what the nobles think of me. It's their job to not like what I do."

"Right." Fife stood near the entrance of her own dungeon, Travis, and not Breeze. "To do this right, we need to enter Breeze at her topmost floor, and that means you get to walk through the entrance of my home. You're a brave kobold, I know, but this is going to be more scary. Can you be strong if I promise to not let anything hurt you?"

The big warrior had kept its word so far, but a kobold didn't survive by trusting others. It nodded, though, because it knew it had no other choice.

Able to taste the fear pouring off the kobold, Fife nonetheless did her best to explain things so the little creature was at least not surprised. "There's going to be armed guards inside, and a lot more kobolds and people. Then you'll be coming out in a different city and we'll be at the main entrance for Breeze, which is Breath of Spring's dungeon. Are you ready?"

The kobold wasn't ready, but nodded anyway. It figured out that it had no choice. Following the big warrior into another dungeon, it felt terror close in around it. This was worse than being outside and, without another step, fell to the ground in a heap shivering and trying to cover its head to ward off the nightmare.

When strong arms grabbed it, the kobold screamed even louder. The panic subsided, though, and it was only sheer momentum that kept it terrified as it huddled in the grip of the huge warrior.

"Shhh. Shhh. Hey, we're going to figure this out, okay? You're not in the dungeon anymore." Cuddling the panicked kobold to her, shielding it from the sight of those curious, she leaned against the wall in Polfay and continued to speak soothingly to it.

The big fear was gone, but the kobold was still stuck outside its home and surrounded by creatures it knew wanted to kill it. But something big and scaled was holding it, telling it that safety was right there. It stuck its nose against the warrior and inhaled. The smell was wrong for its own dungeon, but the underlying scent was dragon.

After some time clinging to the warrior, the kobold lifted its head up to see the huge head not looking down at her, but glaring around—looking for danger, it realized.

"We're not going back in there. Breeze isn't as hostile as Trav is. Do you feel up to trying another dungeon? I promise I'll take you back out if you don't like it."

The kobold nodded, not sure why it did, but somehow trusting the dragon it clung to.

"You know that little dryad I was kissing earlier? She's the boss of this Verdant dungeon. They specialize in animals, but Breeze also grows just about every plant I know of." Slowly walking to not jostle the kobold, Fife kept up a slow, even tone of casual conversation. When she reached Breeze's entrance, she asked, "Are you ready? If you panic again, I'll leave right away."

Nodding slowly, the kobold clung tighter still as the "dragon" stepped into the other dungeon. The rush of fear didn't come. It lifted its head up and looked around, saw creatures and humans everywhere—and though it was scared, it wasn't driven beyond thought. "O-kay…"

"Since we can't exactly walk up a hundred floors, is there a teleporter up?" Fife asked, looking over in Breath of Spring's direction.

"No. The only teleporters go down to the floor just above Home's heart. We had to implement some security, because Polfay, Northridge, and the capital didn't want people to be able to move too easily between them. Sir Travis is the perfect link between them." Walking to a patch of ground circled by mushrooms, Breath of Spring gestured at the sign written in the common kingdom language. It said "Down."

"Well, here we go. Have you ever been to the bottom of your dungeon?" Fife asked the kobold. When they shook their head, Fife nodded. "Figured. Your dungeon is pretty cool, but it's been lacking in resources lately. Dungeons need… something other than what they can make themselves."

"Most dungeons!" Breath of Spring said.

"Right, because Breeze is something very new. I've never heard of a Verdant dungeon that was so active, and apparently neither has anyone else." Stepping onto the trap, Fife felt the magic grab her and pull her somewhere else. Deeper in the dungeon, Fife was face to face with a group of six centaurs, all with rifles aimed at her. They relaxed as soon as they saw her and lowered their weapons. "Hi!"

The kobold poked its head up to look at whom the warrior was talking to. The centaurs didn't seem scary—certainly not as scary as the big dragon that carried them.

With Breath of Spring appearing beside her, Fife gave the centaurs a big grin and then schooled her features to look down at the kobold. "You're doing alright there? They're big meanies if you're not supposed to be here, but we are."

"They have guns?"

The most words Fife had heard from the kobold yet. "They do, but theirs aren't as big as mine, so don't worry." Shooting the centaurs another smile, Fife carried her charge in the indicated direction. From where she stood, the ramp down was impossible to see, but as she neared the location, she saw a brilliant green glow start to emerge.

"Their guns are very good," Breath of Spring says. "Oh! Hi! Follow us!"

The two gnolls who'd just appeared at the teleport trap exit looked around to get their bearings. Raze nodded to Breath of Spring in acknowledgment while Skald said, "Thank you. The reception of your own home is always appreciated. Our leader, Forerunner, has spoken of the time she saw your mighty dungeon for the first time. It is an inspiring place."

The green glow, when the kobold saw it, and the source of it was overwhelming almost beyond what its earlier panic had induced. A profound calm and relaxation pooled and poured around it, urging it to poke its head out and look closer as they neared the dungeon heart.

"Hi, Breeze. It's been a while, huh?" Fife walked right up to the heart and reached a hand out to reverently rest on the humongous green mana crystal. "I brought a new visitor to say hi. This is a very brave kobold from the dragon Swarm dungeon near Polfay."

"Hello." Breeze's voice was all-encompassing like the wind on a blustery day, but nonetheless a calm tone. "Welcome."

Travis cursed out loud, in the relative privacy that his heart room offered right then. The notifications that flooded him seemed to go on without end. "Delete all? Mark read? Ugh! At least they don't make a sound when they pop up…"

In the earliest days of its life, the dragon Swarm dungeon had grown swiftly by raiding its fellow dungeons and establishing dominance among them. It had grown used to the repeated pings of floor-conquer notifications advising it of another victory.

Those days were long past, though, as the city's soldiers had locked down its entrance and secured it from being able to raid. Which is why the flood of conquer notifications surprised it. The only minion it had successfully sent out in years was a tiny kobold it had considered lost as a tithe to another dungeon's lying warrior. When the messages didn't cease, and seemed to stack up into the hundreds, it could do nothing but acknowledge that the big warrior hadn't been lying about at least one thing.

It had new unlocks for its warriors and new floors to fill with more effective fighters. For the first time in decades, the dragon Swarm dungeon expanded without sparing a thought for what the limit of this bounty might be.

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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.