The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 2/10

Heart 6400/6400

Experience 100/1600

Workers 7/15

Monsters 0/16+1

Traps 26/25+4

Rooms 43

Food 400

Timber 1403

Iron 1014

Steel 0

Charcoal 0

Mana 3

Rock 1667

Gold 2000

Leather 455

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 51

Glass 800

Explosive Runes 10

Triggered Explosive Runes 8

Quest: Have 10 minions in your dungeon

Quest: Get 10,000 gold

Having put aside the problem with Fife, Travis focused on what he could do. He had a new building unlock while everything was going on, and finally felt confident enough about being safe that he called on Penelope and Robert to work together on the next step of his plan.

"I want you to start researching Reaper. It gives double experience for kills, which means we level up faster." Travis went on to explain his plan. "Reaper leads to Timesink, which gives me experience just for having adventurers in the dungeon."

Penelope and Robert both froze, their mouths open as if they were going to argue with him but stopped.

"That's your plan? The tavern, sleeping quarters…" Penelope shook her head but was grinning. "You're a—"

"… genius!" Robert laughed. "Right, so I don't know how to research things, but I figure you can sort that out. Wow, we need more than just the tavern. We need to get traders in here. Merchants. Do you think we could have a larger market than Northridge?"

"Maybe, but I'd rather not compete directly with them. If we did have our own market, we'd encourage the town's merchants to come and buy from us. Okay, so we need a road, too, but first let's get free experience from paying people to live here." Travis would have rubbed his hands together with glee, if he had hands. Selecting the first research, he activated it. A new interface appeared with several check buttons and the list of his current kobolds. The options were: All Free Workers and All Workers. He didn't want either of those. Dragging Robert and Penelope from the roster to the open research slots, he kept a close eye on the pair.

"Okay, that itching I get when I need to dig but aren't? Yeah, I have that now. Library?" Robert asked.

Penelope nodded to him. "Let's go there. I've got the same feeling. Hey, I wonder if I count as more than one worker because I'm the dungeon boss?"

"I hope so, that'd be great." Travis split his attention between the pair heading to the library and Stephan, who was digging the tunnel around the perimeter of the second floor to find the mana shrine. "I'm sure there's probably some trick to finding it that I can't figure out, but this pattern will find it—even if it uses a lot of digging."

"You said that before, Trav. Is something wrong?" Stephan's voice held a bit of concern.

"No! I mean, no. I just didn't expect the one to be digging to be you. You seem to prefer it outside."

"I'm a kobold now, Trav, digging is what we do." Laughing, Stephan took a break and leaned back from the end of the tunnel. "You said you had a spell now to collapse tunnels, right?"

"Yeah. It costs five mana to use normally, or one mana and five rock."

"So, if you think you've got too much rock, couldn't you just burn up some mana and destroy four rock per one mana?"

The concept was an easy one to follow. "Yeah, that'd work. Right now, though, I think I'm going to prioritize mana regeneration. I'm sure, eventually, there'll be some use for it all. It's like Minecraft—never destroy anything since it can become useful eventually."

"Minecraft?" Stephan asked.

"Uh, another game where I'm from. It's not important except it had a huge part of it be around resource management. Like all these warehouses. That brings up another thing we need to check for, how much room we actually have to build." Travis was still trying to banish his memories—or maybe nightmares—of chests and chests full of cobblestone. His warehouses full of rock did not help him shake off the packrat sensation.

"So, mana regeneration. What's that for?" Squaring up on the rockface again, Stephan got back to swinging his pickaxe.

"Well, every few hours I get a regeneration 'tick'. Basically, I get some mana. Right now I'm getting my baseline one, one from having the library, and another one from the mana manipulator in my heart room. When we find this shrine, it will add another five, though I suspect they have a limited lifespan."

"Mana regen to get more mana regen?"

"Oh! Right. The mana regen is because I want to get a LOT of resource nodes. On this level, that's gold, iron, coal, and sulfur. That means we have all the materials we need to make iron, steel, and of course gold." Travis also had suspicions that the sulfur and coal could be used to make gunpowder too.

"If we have all the resources and the gold, why are we trading again?"

"I want to trade because it makes us a resource to the kingdom. Kingdoms protect resources. They discourage others from trying to do bad things to them. We'll still have our own traps and dangers, but I like the idea of encouraging the kingdom to just stop anyone nasty from coming in here."

Stephan seemed deep in thought as he dug through several more sections of rock. "Before this, I was just a simple guy. I'd do my trapping, maybe bring down a tree that looked like it needed felling, and I'd visit town maybe a few times a year to sell things and buy the few items I couldn't make or fix myself." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Now you have me calculating timber requirements, providing food for everyone—you gave me more meaning and more excitement than I could have hoped for.

"I guess what I'm trying to say, Trav, is that despite how things went initially, how angry I was about it, this is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Travis had to take a moment to parse that. "You know being a kobold affects how you see me and your work here. Are you sure that's not it?"

"That is a bit of it, but I've had a lot of time to think, Trav. Outside, working in the forest, your effect on me is weaker. Don't try to counter that, I've tested it." Stephan broke down another section of rock and advanced along with it to the next rockface. "You've taught me a lot about investigating myself and my surroundings, too. Looking back just a year ago I find myself wondering how much smarter I am about analyzing problems now."

Wild liked to present a simple side of himself. In combat that meant being methodical and careful to make every strike serve a purpose, no matter how reckless his efforts might look. In conversation, he tried to stick to short sentences, single words, or just grunts when possible.

Ludmiller, though, was different. He didn't want to wear a mask when talking to her. He didn't want to pretend to be a big, dumb berserker. Which was the reason he was happy to accept a change in—just about everything. He didn't stand taller than everyone around him. He didn't have muscles bulging upon muscles. For the first time in his life his vocabulary wasn't limited by his image. "Lud—miller."

Sitting at the foot of the bed, Ludmiller perked up at hearing Wild speak her name. "Wild?"

Focusing on being a new self, Wild nodded and said, "Yearr. Harr to talk." He sat up on the bed, finding his new musculature and skeleton moving oddly compared to his old form. "My things?"

"They're here, Wild. Just relax." Ludmiller shimmied up the bed and reached out to Wild to help steady him. "You didn't have to—" She froze, unable to say another word as Wild kissed her. Her mouth curved into a smile and she found herself relaxing.

A little time later, when they emerged into the heart room, Ludmiller looked at Travis' heart with a big smile. "He's up and about now, Trav. Is there anything we could do to help now?" The instinct to find work to do was too great, and Ludmiller absolutely wouldn't shy away from asking.

"You know, I think I do have a plan for you. It's something to do on the top floor, too." Travis was a little embarrassed at what had felt like a public display of affection to him. He knew they'd kept it in a pitch black room, but it was hard to look away when they were kissing basically right next door to his heart. "I have a kitchen room, and thought it would go well beside the watering hole. The only problem is I might have compacted things a little much down there. So we need to work out a better design."

"Isn't Blake meant to be helping with design too?" Ludmiller asked.

"Yeah. He's been in the library working through my books in there to find one where I keep a map of this place. He has a plan to make coming into the dungeon a nightmare unless you come down the back hall."

"That's a good thing. Still, we need to make the open section as warm and inviting as possible." Taking Wild's hand, Ludmiller led the way down the tunnels toward the library, unlocking the door using the hidden latch and slipping inside.

"It's absurd, and I don't think it will be infinite. How could it be?" Katelyn gestured to the notepad with a growl. "Nothing in the world is infinite. Even magic has limits."

Blinking her surprise, Ludmiller watched as Blake stabbed his clawed finger at something written on the page.

"Hey, uh, calm down," Travis said to all four present, though it was meant mostly for Katelyn. "You can test it easy enough, and it's not like we don't have room for rock or lava."

"Blake?" Ludmiller asked as she stepped further into the library, "Trav wants us to work on adding a kitchen to the public side of the top floor. He said you could help with planning."

"What shape?" It took a lot of focus for Blake to get his mouth to make the right sounds. Katelyn had told him it will take a day or so to wrap his head around it, but that speaking will come naturally again.

Travis said, "It's a ten by five. Uh, see these big squares? Ten of those on one side and five on the other."

His eyes flicking over the map, Blake smiled and started sketching. "Plan this."

Travis, only too happy to oblige, did exactly that. He liked the plan and the idea of changing how things would work from a more this is the open side and this is the hidden side perspective. When he watched what Blake had planned, he started laughing at how cruel it was.

The night was cold. Brolly Windchime was in his office writing up the last of the paperwork for the dungeon inspectors with his fireplace roaring behind him to ward off the chill that seemed desperate to invade the stone-clad room from every possible direction.

A loud thudding on his office door, just before he planned to turn-in for the night, caused Brolly to sigh in resignation. "Come in."

"Sir!" Scott Gaoler, one of the town's more enthusiastic guards didn't step into the room, merely opening the door to report, "Reports from the watchtowers that there are undead gathering to the southwest!"

It was the last thing that Brolly had ever wanted to hear. They suspected there was a fourth dungeon, but to find out it held undead was a blow. Undead, he well knew, meant they had what would soon be intelligent monsters planning to rip the town apart. Standing up, he reached out for his sword belt and shield from the arming dummy in the corner of the room. "Any ideas on numbers?"

"They just said a lot, sir."

"It's going to be a rough night. Go to the center of town, to the new church, and ask the priestess to ring the bell. We might need every arm in the town and then some." One last thing ran through Brolly's mind as he strapped the belt on—he'd need to warn the kobolds.