The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 3/10

Heart 14400/ 14400

Experience 3100/3600

Workers 7/19

Monsters 0/20+1

Traps 25/35+4

Rooms 45

Food 400

Timber 1403

Iron 1014

Steel 0

Charcoal 0

Mana 19

Rock 1784

Gold 2000

Leather 455

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 51

Glass 800

Explosive Runes 2

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Quest: Have 10 minions in your dungeon

Quest: Get 10,000 gold

Ludmiller and Wild had gone back to the area just after the pit trap and started laying more triggered explosives. Travis watched them work, Wild keeping an eye at the corner while Ludmiller set the runes down carefully.

While they worked, Robert and Penelope roamed around making minor adjustments here and there. The two warehouses that opened onto that tunnel were being adjusted to open to the rooms opposite.

"We should have prepared this better. With more traps now, we can make this better." Travis couldn't help himself. With the skeletons coming up to the sludge traps, he also started thinking of the entrance and how dealing with undead was going to impact the idea of his trading.

"They're coming to the first—they just walked into it." Wild could see as the skeletons got mired in the sludge, but it didn't seem to be doing much damage to them. "Isn't this supposed to kill them?"

"These traps are only low quality. They will kill them after a while." Placing another of the explosives, Ludmiller looked up to see Penelope opening up a tunnel between the two rooms that used to be used for the donkey. "What are you doing?"

"Making a new tunnel so there's less chance of all these going off at once." Circling back around to the tunnel, Penelope brought the ceiling down on a square so creatures would be forced to go through the joined rooms. "Wish we could do more, but they could be coming through any second, and I don't plan to be here when these start going off."

Travis let out a mental cry of anguish as everyone backed away from the traps. He was now blind to the undead's progress. "I need more lizards."

"If you got more lizards, Trav, you wouldn't let anyone send them into a deathtrap like that. Besides, we'll know when they make it through the sludge when they hit the pit trap." Hefting her pickaxe on her shoulder, Penelope looked back at the tunnel from the point where Katelyn's secret door was.

Travis hated waiting. He targeted the corner and summoned lizards to it. His vision clarified and he saw the huge zombies waiting while skeletons marched over their brethren, deep into the sludge traps—before becoming mired and falling down to become the bridge for the next skeletons.

Part of him hoped the undead were mindless and weren't intelligent enough to know they were literally less than cannon fodder for their dungeon—wherever that dungeon might be. They got two traps from the end of the hallway when he started getting experience for the ones at the start dying.

The zombies started picking up and throwing skeletons onto the sludge traps, marching forward over them as they went. More experience rolled in as Travis felt a sickening sensation at the realization that the zombies would make it at their present pace.

You have reached level 4!

New building options unlocked!

Not just new building options, Travis saw, a whole new menu. But, despite his excitement, he was practically staring at the zombies as they reached the end of the line of skeletons—one sludge trap short of the pit.

The second zombie just pushed the first down and walked over it. The delicate mechanism Penelope had built into the trap accounted for various adventurer mass and tried to only spring when three or more were on the trigger surface. It had no chance of resisting the mass of one huge pile of flesh and bone.

"I'm replacing those with repeating ones," Katelyn said, rolling her eyes as the whole dungeon trembled. "Did that trap get them all?"

"It got one," Travis told her. "They're good xp, too. Another one climbed down into the pit and—crap, it pulled the third one out of the sludge trap it was in."

"How many is that?" Penelope asked.

"One dead—fully dead. One has minor injuries and is coming out of the pit. The other climbing out behind it is at full health." Travis realized how bad that sounded. "So we know that eight explosives will kill one, but if it's four or less, we're fine."

Wild rested his talons on the handles of his axes. "I don't know if I can do this and come out the other side. I am not as strong as I was, but I am faster." Stepping to the edge of the tunnel, he looked down it.

Walking up and standing beside Wild, Katelyn shoved him in the shoulder with one hand. "You're forgetting something—I'm here. Trav, when the zombie is in sight of me, cast your mana boost on me."

Travis waited. He pondered spending mana to call the lizards to the zombies, but it would be a waste. Even one mana was a waste.

One explosion went off. Then another. A third and fourth sounded. A fifth. A sixth.

"There! I got xp!" Travis couldn't help but feel happy that at least they had one of the behemoths down and the next taking damage. "Two—"

Another explosion interrupted Travis. An eighth and final triggered rune went off. Travis focused down Katelyn's senses. His vision pierced the darkness and, finally, a charred zombie pulled itself around the corner.

The thing had previously had five legs and far too many arms. Now it had three legs and only four arms. Its own vision pierced the dark tunnel, or so Travis realized, because it started to run. He cast the dungeon spell and placed a square of concentrated mana around Katelyn.

The mana field boiled around Katelyn. She'd had a little experience with it now, which meant she no longer fell over randomly. "Small victories." Her spells were efficient. She'd started working on them while making the runes, though she was hardly up to her old level with them yet. Still, she prepared a swarm-fireball spell that just took mana and produced more and more explosions—and fed it all her mana.

The pitch-black tunnel was, for a brief moment, brighter than the driest desert at a summer midday. Hotter, too, far hotter.

Wild shielded his eyes against the stream of fire pouring from Katelyn's hand. Even that wasn't enough as the stream of what he realized were fireballs started connecting.

As suddenly as she'd started the barrage, Katelyn felt light-headed and cut her magic off. When Penelope caught her, she smiled up at her savior before she lost consciousness.

It wasn't Wild's first dance with a zombie. Even the one earlier wasn't his first. Normally, though, they were disabled by a tank or mage first. Drawing his axes, he rushed forward to meet the charred monster.

"Robert, get your sister back to the heart. Ludmiller, with me. We need to get around that brute and get to work." Passing Katelyn to Robert, Penelope spared one more look at Wild before running down a side tunnel and into the nearest warehouse.

Wild wasn't scoring many hits, and the few he landed did minimal damage. Instead, he wove a wall of flashing steel with his axes and shifted around to take full advantage of his speed. He was just ducking a wild slash at him from the zombie's claws when a dragon roared—or so it sounded like to him.

The pistol's recoil barely moved Penelope's arm. She backed up as the zombie started to topple, and eventually made room for the thing as it collapsed now that its head was missing. "Get its limbs off. I don't want there to be anything left of its arms in case it's playing possum."

"Fife just came in the front! She's carrying someone." Travis only saw what was happening because there was one very fat lizard that'd found the kitchen and had been too slow to race down to his summons downstairs. The reptile watched as Jack, Brayden, and another male in guard livery followed her down the secret tunnels and deeper into the dungeon. "They're coming down fast. They have another guard with them."

No sooner did Penelope have the back entrance open than Fife was barreling past her with a dwarf in her arms. "What's going on?" She raised a hand up to shield her eyes from the bright light sticks they were carrying.

"Trav! Can you save her?" Fife was thankful all the doors were open. She'd seen before how fast necromantic curses could kill and turn someone into an abomination. "Ugh. This would be easier if I was a kobold already."

"What?" Brolly Windchime hadn't seen inside the dungeon, and never in his life had he expected to see the core of an active dungeon. "I thought you said the dungeon can cure her?"

Fife rolled her eyes and set the dwarf down at the base of the heart. "It can. Well, it should be able to. Trav, get Pen down here and do your thing. Pen!"

"I'm here, Fife. What—?" Choking off her question, Penelope could see the green mist that was even now eating away at the dwarf's flesh. Pulling out her knife, she pressed it to her palm and smashed it against Travis' heart. "Do it fast, Trav."

"What do you mean? What's going on? I—" Now it was Travis' turn to be surprised. He felt the life of the short woman ebbing and fading. She was dying just as sure as Penelope had died in this same room. He didn't waste time. As soon as the prompt came up, Travis accepted it—and joined a fight.

Another dungeon's taint was all over the woman. Travis could feel it sinking its claws into her body and mind. The two things he had going for him was his size and his mana.

The icy grip of the undead dungeon tried to speed the process of acquiring a new form for its ranks. Sturdy, it knew the being shouldn't have lasted as long as it did under the assault of such necromantic poisons—but that only made the prize more delicious. When another dungeon intruded, striking with speed and ferocity, it tried to finish the job quickly.

Instincts and fury filled Travis that he'd never encountered before. Weapons came to him to deploy and use on the intrusion on the sacrifice that was his to claim. Ripping and tearing away the curse, he shredded the hold the other dungeon had and invested his own power in building the almost-lost dwarf to life.

Gasping her first breath in nearly five minutes, Tannyr Stoneshave flailed and bared her teeth at the kobolds gathered around her. Pressing her back to the warmth of what she thought was a powerful hearthstone, she noticed the others in the room for the first time. "Grargg?"

"Hey, relax. Take it easy. You're alive." Travis wasn't sure if talking to her was a good idea or not, given how surprised she was at Penelope and Robert, but he hoped if nothing else the mental effects might help her relax. "You can't talk yet, your mouth is too different."

Frozen in shock at hearing a voice speaking clearly inside her head, Tannyr turned to what she felt was the source of the voice. A crystal bigger than she was glowed bright pink behind her. Reaching out a hand toward it, she felt warmth and life within. The voice, she knew through some faculty she didn't understand, had come from the crystal.

And that's when Tannyr Stoneshave saw her hand—green, scaled, and bearing talons—and started inspecting the rest of herself.

Seeing Tannyr alive, Fife turned to face her party and Brolly. "Alright. All non-kobold, non-females out. She needs to chill and not have guys staring at her right now. Head up to the bar and try not to annoy the kobold with the big axes taking apart the zombie in the hall."

"The undead infected you," Penelope said, touching Tannyr on the shoulder. "I don't know the specifics of what happened, but you'd have been dead in minutes. Hell, you should have been dead already. Trav saved you."

"That's me. I'm Trav—err, Travis. I've never had to fight another dungeon like that to protect someone, but I think everyone is worth fighting for."

Tannyr thought the voice sounded fierce and, at the same time, vulnerable. She rubbed her hand over the heart and it dawned on her what it was and what that meant the voice was. "Darng?"

"Yeah. I'm the dungeon," Travis said. "Uh, welcome aboard, I guess."

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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.