The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 4/10

Heart 25600/ 25600

Experience 2500/6400

Workers 9/23

Monsters 0/25

Traps 27/49

Rooms 49

Food 493

Timber 1342

Iron 404

Steel 30

Charcoal 0

Mana 51

Rock 2539

Gold 0

Leather 492

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 41

Glass 800

Explosive Runes 10

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Quest: Have 10 minions in your dungeon

Quest: Get 10,000 gold

Wild finished his growth just as Penelope dug into the new mana shrine, then a moment later Travis had a new tick of mana at the new rate. It was a rush, but also they'd secured the new pattern layout that led into the twists of the second floor. "How do you feel? Ludmiller is on her way."

Standing up, Wild revealed his dramatically increased height and muscles. Rolling his shoulders, he flashed a sharp set of teeth. "Thank you, Travis. This boss room is strange, though. It's empty."

"I just had a bunch of new upgrades appear that will help with that. Uh, we want this to be an arena, I think. That means people can't get past here unless you allow them." Travis was examining the new upgrades he'd just found for boss rooms. "That will let you have a cohort too, eventually. We need gold."

Ludmiller crashed (not quite literally) through the door right then and Travis decided it was best to leave them be. "We really need to work on the second floor some." Blake and Penelope were the targets of his words, they were both leaning on their pickaxes and discussing where things could go from the current situation. "Also, we need gold, steel, wood, and food, but I want those lizards."

"Lots of upgrades planned?" Penelope asked.

"Yeah. Wild's new boss room has upgrades that let me make it into an arena where attackers are forced to fight or negotiate to get through. Any thoughts for your own? I figure we'll get it eventually."

Penelope straightened up and started walking back toward the heart room, Blake following just behind her. "What are the choices?"

"Right now we have arena and lair. Arena seems to be intended to make the room a challenge that attackers have to get through. Lair is a place to regain health and mana faster. Second upgrades for both allow me to assign others to assist." Travis stretched his focus to Katelyn, who was doing research for the Reaper upgrade. "Katelyn, could you go up to the first floor and melt some gold for me?"

Standing up and stretching, Katelyn marched out of her library, still with a book under her arm, and passed Penelope and Blake. "Travis needs more gold and, apparently, I'm the best at getting it." She shrugged as she walked through the crossroads.

"Wait, you're going the wrong way." Blake pointed toward the heart room's door. "There's a quicker path down here."

Following along, Travis was itching to get more gold. He had a plan on how to spend it as fast as Katelyn could melt it—at least for a few things. Katelyn melted the rock where she needed to to get upstairs, while Penelope filled the hole in. "Okay. So I want to start expanding, uh, I think it counts as south of here. On the other side of the library and alchemy lab. We could bring the new mana shrine there into the design, but I am wary of expanding until I make a few more mana shrines."

"But you want your lizards first, right?" Penelope asked.

"Right! I hate being blind to half my dungeon. The thing I wanted to talk about was steel. I see a lot of upgrades that need it, and now we have iron as a resource we can mine, it'd be great if we could also make it into steel. So, where do you think is best for the blacksmith, and do you know of anyone we could, uh, hire to work it?"

Penelope sighed. "I could do it. I don't know much about making stuff, but I have the strength to work steel—and the spare time to practice and learn. At least, until we have an actual blacksmith wander in here."

"Okay," Blake said, pulling a map out from behind his back. "This is as up to date a map as we have. I think we would want to put the charcoal burner you mentioned on the first floor—in case it makes a lot of smoke we need to clear—and then the blacksmith down here, beside the heart room. We also want to make a more formal way to get down here than the mess we have now. You can't make extra stairs or entrances, I suppose?"

Perking up, Travis replied, "Yes! I can make more stairs. It says I can make one per tier, so that means I can make one, and it costs twenty-thousand gold, a thousand rock, and a thousand timber. We don't even have the room to store that much gold."

Penelope looked over the map and tapped the area below the heart room. "The ultimate decision there is, Trav, do we push to the limit of our current tier and then build exactly what we need for tier three, or do we spread out and build ourselves within tier one?"

"While I'd like to power up to tier three," Travis said, "I think we need to be more solid with our position first. Those undead aren't going to sit idle forever, and I'd like to fight them on our terms again, with friendly stone around us."

Sitting in the tavern, Tannyr Stoneshave nodded to the kobold sitting across from her. "Yeah, but not yet. The town needs more work done to have these walls hold against another undead attack, but I appreciate the offer."

Fife, sitting beside Brayden, shrugged her shoulders. "Trav asked because he has a quest to get ten minions in his dungeon at once. He's at nine, and that's counting you."

"The talismans are really reassuring folks. Just thought I'd say it. Even just working on the walls, there's less worry about our crane breaking or a stone slipping. Old Brother Rupert has changed his tone a bit too. Turns out a bit of gold in the coffers mellowed him out." Lifting a mug of ale, Tannyr gulped down nearly half of it before remembering her body-mass was significantly lower—and with it her tolerance for alcohol. "So why'd you make the jump?"

"I went and let half of myself and my damn talisman get eaten by a slime. One moment I was coughing up slime as it ate away my insides, next I was alive again and feeling renewed." Brayden Smith held up his hands, now more talon-like, and snapped one of his fingers. A wreath of red power surrounded his fingers. "In more ways than one."

Tannyr didn't follow Brogdar, but she could feel the strength the god carried in that show of power. "I'll come if he needs me, but I'm not going to go alone. Send someone out who can fight worth a damn and I'll follow them back."

"Perfect," Fife said, leaning back a little more and relaxing. "Because Trav doesn't want the town to fail either, that's why he's paying for the best resurrection service in the kingdom, I guess." She'd already gotten a replacement talisman, and paid out of her own pocket for a second one—one was in her shirt pocket, under her armor, the other was in a new pocket she'd paid to get sewn into the thigh of her pants.

"We're heading back now." Jack reached for his staff and used it to help him stand. "We'll probably be coming back to town every week or so. Just make sure to let us know if you want an escort."

"Thanks." Tannyr looked at Brayden specifically and nodded. "And tell Travis thanks. I don't think I said it enough."

Standing up too, his ill-fitting armor hanging off him in places and strapped tight with belts in others, Brayden nodded. "I will, but I'm sure he knows. Come on, Fife."

They walked to the bar and paid their tab, then got so far as the door before Brolly Windchime blocked the way on his way in. "Fife, Jack. Have you seen Brayden?"

"Down here, Brolly, you idiot." Brayden was about to kick Brolly in the shin, but at the last moment remembered that his toes had inch-long talons on them now. He knew his friend was wearing greaves, but he didn't know how they'd take such a shredding.

"No… Really? I mean, I get why Tannyr did it, it was that or death, but you?" Brolly stared at his friend, brain trying to reconcile the short draconic creature with his big friend.

"Well, I was thinking that life was too easy. When Fife and Pen were trying to find a slime, well, I spotted it and got so excited I just had to hug it." Brayden gestured to himself. "Now we're about to head back to the dungeon. Is there anything you need?"

"The council of the town met last night. We were, honestly, surprised about the whole talisman thing. It's something so maddeningly simple that I don't know why we didn't think of it first." Brolly gestured to a table.

Brayden shook his head. "We're just leaving. Cut to the chase, Brolly."

"Howard and Christine are worried the dungeon might be trying to pull a coup and take over the town. I told them they were being idiots and not to look a gift dungeon in the mouth, but they have been hurting because there hasn't been as much gold flowing lately." Hating having to put his friend on the spot, Brolly slumped his shoulders. He held out the scroll he'd been given. "So I got this."

"What is it?" Fife asked, grabbing the scroll and opening it. "Prices?"

"And stock levels. A big flow of gold would help calm them down."

Brayden laughed as Fife rolled the scroll back up. "I'll let Trav know. He's a good sort, and I think he has plans. Like that steel, for example. I am positive he'll take every bar of it he can lay a kobold's hands on."

"That'll keep Christine happy, that's for sure. Food is another thing that would be appreciative, but we can also start selling lumber. Now our palisade is up, and Tannyr's working to replace it with stone walls, we have an excess of timber." Gesturing to the scroll, Brolly sighed. "Look, after the assistance you gave at the attack, they're being complete idiots to pull all this. Just make some token gestures at the very least. We need gold now more than ever."

"I'll see what we can do. There's a lot of work going on right now. Trav was expanding his mana production when he tunneled into a chamber full of slimes. That's what got me." Edging past Brolly, Brayden was thankful for his smaller stature. "We'll be back in a few days."

Outside, Brayden felt the weight of the sky on him again, but when he called on Brogdar's blessing even that faded. There was a certain pride he could feel that his god still had a use for him and still protected him. "Come on, Fife, Jack, let's head back before nightfall."

The few-hour march back to the dungeon went smoothly right up until the entrance was almost in sight. They were well within the area where Stephan had been felling trees when the woodsman himself stepped out from behind one. "Crouch down."

Adventurers through and through, the three dropped low at the sound of authority in Steph's voice. "What's wrong?" Fife asked.

"Five skeletal archers are wandering near the entrance. I can't get back in to warn Trav." Lifting a claw, Stephan aimed it at the ridge where even now the archers were just barely visible through the bushes.

"We take them," Fife said. "I'll move up along the slope over there. Bray, you come up behind me. Jack, when I have their attention, you know what to do." She looked at Brayden and waited for his nod or a revision to her plan. When she got the nod, she started moving.

The move up the slope—using a large tree between them and the skeletons as cover—was surprisingly easy for Brayden. His talons moved silently on the leaf mulch on the forest floor, and the light layer of chain armor was quiet thanks to being pinned down by the belts. Moments before he expected Fife to do her thing, however, he felt a calling.

Stepping out of cover, Fife had her shield up and ready to take the first round of arrows. The shield, which she'd purchased in the market the previous evening, was not her old shield, though. Four arrows hit the body and broke off at their heads while one punched through. "Come here you old bags of—"

Jack watched as Brayden rushed past Fife. Evading the swatting bows the surprised skeletons threw his way and dodging one fast skeleton that managed to draw its sword and swing, Brayden raised his fist in the air and a single, clear word echoed through the forest.

"Begone!" Power roared from Brayden—holy power that had no time whatsoever for evil undead. As the red wave of force shot out of his hand in a circle, it sliced the skeletons in half but left everything else standing.

Fife had heard of clerics who could dispatch undead with the force of their conviction alone, but her friend Brayden had always been a more beat-them-on-the-head type of holy man. Now he stood there, half his normal stature but carrying more than his fair share of his god's power. "Nice!"

The oddest thing for Brayden was how good it had felt, and how much raw conviction he still had burning within him. An act of divine magic that strong should have cost him more than he felt missing, but it almost seemed like a drop in the ocean. "Quick, before more turn up."

As soon as Brayden stepped into the dungeon, he felt a new warmth. It wasn't Brogdar, though his god was still supporting him. No, Brayden felt Travis. "We're ba—"

"Why did we just get five-hundred experience?!" Travis asked.

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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.