The Heart Grows

Spoiler

The rate at which Travis could get things done now was a wonderful new shock. Katelyn had been melting gold and iron while Blake had been tunneling out to the new iron node on the first floor—and in the process had uncovered another of the yet-to-be-discovered iron nodes. Katelyn's gold-melting had resulted in Travis quickly asking Robert to build the last three mana manipulators in his core room.

Sixteen mana per tick, and more if he could find the new mana shrine he'd just spawned. What was the counterpoint to all this was having skeletons hanging around the entrance of his dungeon. That he didn't like one bit.

Robert, when he wasn't building upgrades for Travis, was sitting in the library working on unlocking Reaper. "Fife and the others are back." The words were said softly to every kobold in the dungeon except Wild and Ludmiller—Travis was still focused on ignoring them until they were done. It wasn't easy, either, since just thinking in their direction led him to catch looks through their eyes if he wasn't careful.

The three (Fife, Brayden, and Jack) were seated in the bar and talking with Penelope while Travis listened in. It was useful because it was a complete distraction from what was happening a few rooms down. "Well, if there are going to be skeletons hanging around, I want to start having daily patrols to ensure they aren't there, as well as traps in the forest to maybe catch them for killing later or even to just warn us they're near," he told Penelope and Brayden.

At the same time, Penelope and Brayden started explaining what Travis had said, then stared at each other and broke into laughter. Penelope took over and repeated Travis' words.

Fife nodded to that but asked, "Aren't you going to ask?"

Clacking her talons on the table, Penelope asked, "Ask what?"

"You need me as a human. I saw how Wild was, he still has strength, but he can't move enough and he ain't big enough. Until you can make me a floor boss, there's no point in me becoming a kobold." Fife gestured to Brayden. "For magic users it seems to boost them if anything—yes, Jack, I think you should if you want—but you need me to be your shield."

"I don't care who we have to pay, we're getting Fife upgraded equipment. Brayden, you need some too." Travis could totally see where Fife was coming from and, given her desire to join them, he understood why her situation was a tough decision for her. "And thank her, for me."

"Trav wants to thank you for making that choice. He's going on about getting you whatever gear you want to replace your old stuff. Also, we need to talk about spending in town." Gesturing to Jack, who pulled a scroll out and set it on the bar, Brayden continued. "Brolly told us the town's council is worried about the influence you have, but also they need gold. He provided us with a manifest of all the goods merchants are currently holding for sale in Northridge."

"The steel," Travis said right off the bat. "I'll blow mana on more gold veins and we can buy everything on that list if they want. Hell, I'll send the town gold as a tithe if it will help them pay for more defenses so I don't have to send you over there to help them."

Brayden took care of repeating Travis' words this time, which put a big, goofy grin on Fife's face. "Jack, can you tally up how much gold we'll need?"

Nodding, Jack took the scroll back and then looked at Fife. "So long as you have to repeat everything for Fife, I figure I might stay as I am, that way I can have a think about things."

"You don't have to become a kobold, Jack, but the option's open," Penelope said. "Now, Trav said there are going to be some opportunities opening soon for some new positions. We hope to get my boss room to unlock soon, which we're going to make a lair as fast as we can. Then I can add someone in the dungeon as a healer there. It should give whoever that is a boost."

"You're both against me." As he said it, Brayden laughed with more than a little barking-squeaks in his mirth. "From what Fife says, I owe a little of my improved magic to you, Trav, but even Brogdar has seen fit to bless me. What we didn't say was I killed those skeletons. Fife didn't even get within range to lay her sword on them when I felt called. I rushed past her and let loose with divine magic."

"Hells yeah he did!" Fife said, downing her drink.

"Point is, I thought settling here would be settling. It's not. You're pushing me to get more powerful. Brogdar's pushing me to get more powerful. I'm seeing more combat here than I think we have in over a year." Shrugging, Brayden pointed to Jack. "How much gold?"

"At their exchange rate? Seventeen thousand should be about right if you round up to the hundred."

Penelope closed her hand into a fist, her talons scratching the wood. "That's more than we can store by a long shot. Okay, so we'll start taking it bit by bit. We want steel first, right Trav?"

Travis remembered what was on the sheet and already had a priority in mind. "Steel, food, timber. Why do they have so much timber?"

"Because they're replacing palisades with stone walls." Brayden paused a moment then cleared his throat. "Trav asked why they have so much timber for sale."

"I don't care if it's used, I'll still buy it. Do you think they'll do delivery for us?" It was half a joke, but Travis considered it carefully. It would be a significant amount of work to haul all this stuff back to the dungeon. "If they won't, make sure we ask for a discount."

"I can tell when you two are listening to him. It bugs me a little. Isn't there any way you could figure out something that lets you communicate with me?" Fife asked.

"Yeah," Penelope said. "What you do is follow me down to his heart, I cut myself and press my palm to his heart, and you—"

Fife punched Penelope in the arm. What seemed to surprise her was having her punch just checked by raw muscle. "Damn, if only he'd made me the dungeon boss. How strong were you before all this?" She wrapped her hand around Penelope's upper arm, tried to squeeze to test the muscle, and found no give at all.

The moment one of Travis' lizards spotted the monsters, he called out, "There are undead at the entrance!"

Penelope and Brayden both jumped to their feet and checked, finding the door between the entrance and them to be closed.

"What's going on?" Fife asked. She stepped out from behind the bar to follow.

"Undead again. We have one rune still active in the maze, a bunch in the lower twists, and the ones after the sludge are all ready to go." Penelope rubbed her talons together. "Trav, we're going to wait up here for their forces to get into the upper winding tunnels, then we'll go out and deal with any necromancers up here. Tell Wild and—"

"He already told us," Wild said after opening the hidden door that led to the back entrance to the second floor. "Shame we don't have a second exit."

Jack froze. Looking at Wild, he asked, "Dungeons can have more than one entrance?"

"Trav has an upgrade to get a second one, or stairs. It's too expensive right now." Wild drew his axes and felt their weight. Mentally, he noted he needed to add more weight to them now—he was stronger than he'd been.

Ludmiller was trying to hide her blush. Looking at the door, waiting for the order to go outside and deal with whatever they could find as quickly as possible, she tried to put the personal side of her new life in some perspective.

After some moments of no one saying anything, Travis finally announced, "They've entered the twists up here. Okay, head out and kill any necromancers."

"You're forgetting something, Trav," Brayden said. "How many are there and what have they got?"

Travis mentally winced. "That's the less fun bit. Ten zombies, thirty skeletons, and what looked like six big dog zombie things."

Brayden swore, then swore again, finally getting out the description on his third try—then he swore another time for good measure. "Well, we'll leave them to the tunnels for now. Hopefully our new pet slime likes eating zombies."

"They'll have something up there protecting the necromancers. Jack, you hold off to deal with any extra trash they bring in. I'll deal with whatever big thing that's guarding them. Wild, Pen, Luddy—you three on my target. I want it deader than dead. Brayden, try to have some fun with them." Fife checked her gun belt, grabbed up her shield and sword, and rolled her shoulders.

Emerging through the reinforced door and out into early evening light, Fife's senses were sharp and tuned for anything out of the ordinary. She scanned around as she carefully examined the forest. "I can't see an—"

"Over there." Brayden raised a hand and pointed in a direction that felt wrong. He focused on it and felt several distinct bad sensations. "Five necromancers. How fast did that undead dungeon spit these out?"

"Horde dungeon, definitely. Probably one of the most powerful matchups with undead." Jack clenched his hands into fists to warm up his fingers. "Are we doing this, Fife?"

In the dungeon, a blast rocked the first floor as a small group of skeletons found the explosive rune. The violence of the blast shattered their bones and sent their undead energy back to the dark mages who'd bound them.

The ritual the necromancer unleashed gathered up the free essence and pulled the minions to it. Reaching deep into the ground, it found myriad bones there with which to invest the energy into. The bones writhed and twisted, animal parts becoming human parts as the dark power that burned within the necromancer assembled its minions again. Even before they clawed their way from the ground it had imbued them with its power again—making them able to be recalled.

An explosion rocked the forest. The necromancer—the first kind of undead that had its own functioning mind—snapped its attention around and looked upon the group that had sallied from the dungeon. It was smiling; its face always smiled thanks to being no more than a skull.

Dark beams of energy raked at the trees. Fife, blessed by Brayden as she started advancing, watched as the rays fizzled out moments before contacting her. She drew her pistol and, when nothing moved immediately to stop her, sighted at the nearest necromancer.

Spotting a skeleton approaching from Fife's blindside, Wild stepped in to intercept it and brought one axe down on its outreaching arm, kicked its knee with his foot, and brought the other axe around at its neck. The power of his dungeon-given body sang to him and he began building his own rhythm as more skeletons advanced.

The loud crack of Fife's gun echoed in the forest, but something big had pulled itself free of the ground at the last moment. A zombie, nearly ten feet tall, seemed rather disdainful of the force a gun could produce. It advanced on Fife and reached her moments after she'd holstered her pistol and prepared her shield and sword.

Penelope left the roaming skeletons to Jack as she lobbed explosive runes at three further-back necromancers. They seemed so focused on Fife and Wild that they hadn't put up any magical shields at all. Two good blasts seemed to finish two of them off completely, and with the pack clustered together, she expired another with a third rune.

Wild edged around the zombie and worked to cut off any limbs that reached for him. Once he had it mostly being focused on Fife, he started to expose its spine with heavy slices of his axes. He'd just done so and put one axe head through the thick bone when something hit him from behind.

Spotting the dark magic lashing out from one of the two remaining necromancers, Jack and Brayden moved to counter it.

Ludmiller rushed toward the other remaining necromancer that was free-casting, reaching it just as it launched a second dark energy beam at Wild. Rage and fury welled up inside her and she started ripping at the skeletal mage with her talons, tearing it apart bit by bit just as Jack encased the final one in ice, only to shatter the frigid bones.

Feeling terrible as dark, burning magic ate away at him, Wild tried to turn and run toward their support but his legs didn't work right. Falling sideways, he hit the leaf-litter just as the zombie fell too. Holding up his axes to try to block it, the weight of the thing hit him like a tunnel collapsing.

Brayden rushed forward. Reaching the fight as Fife heaved the zombie's body off Wild, he checked the downed kobold but found no signs of life. "Brogdar, I beseech you to return him from the afterworld!"

Wild was dead. He knew that to the core of his being. His body was stripped of its life and he was a bare soul. There was a strange noise that was getting closer, though. It took only moments, but he finally heard it ask:

"What—? Who are you?" Travis asked.

"Wild," Wild said. "What happened? I was fighting. Their necromancers got me and a zombie fell on top of me. I died!"

"You did? Uh, so…" Travis was confused. If Wild had died, why was his soul here? Checking his menus, he found the one with all his minions on it. There was a number beside Wild's name and it was getting lower and lower at a rate of one a second, or so it seemed.

86343

The number seemed odd. Travis tried to do some math on it, but without anything to write on he couldn't factor it easily. "I wish I was better at math. Uh, Robert?"

"What's up, Trav?" Robert asked, looking up from the book he'd been reading (Dungeon 201: How Not To Lose Your Workers, by Travis) as part of his research.

"What's, uh, eighty-six thousand, four hundred significant to? It seems to be seconds."

Pulling out one of the tablets he'd gotten from Northridge, Robert started factoring from the bottom up by multiplying things out until he got a number close to what Travis had told him. "Sixty seconds in a minute. One-thousand four-hundred and forty. Sixty minutes in an hour. Twenty four. That's how many seconds in a day, Trav."

"You are amazing, Robert. Thanks. Oh, there are undead in the tunnels. The others dealt with the necromancers outside." Travis turned his attention from Robert back to Wild. "As far as I can see, you'll respawn in a day."

"'Respawn'?" Wild asked, confused.

"Come back to life. I—" Travis stopped speaking when Wild's presence vanished. "Huh. And his time has disappeared."

Opening his eyes, Wild stared at the underside of the canopy in confusion. He wasn't sore, just confused. "I was dead."

Brayden was staring at Wild in shock. He'd never performed a resurrection before—that magic should be far and away beyond him. He'd called for Brogdar's aid and it had been given. "Were. Not now." He reached a shaking hand down to Wild, glad when he could use it to haul him upright again—because it stopped him from shaking.

Penelope picked up Wild's axes and passed them to him. "I didn't know you could resurrect, Brayden."

"Neither did I," Brayden said with a laugh. "Took a bit out of me, too. So, if resurrection works, should we test talismans?"

"That's something we can work on later. Let's get back to the dungeon and clean up whatever is making it through the defenses down there." Penelope pointed, unerringly, to the dungeon entrance.

The group wasn't missing much in the way of resources. Fife reloaded her pistol on the walk back and, the moment they were in the entrance, Penelope grabbed three more runes to replace the ones she was down—bringing her back to eight.

Travis sighed in relief when everyone walked back into the dungeon. "You're back! What happened to Wild? He died and I had just figured out he has a one-day respawn when he was gone—Oh, hi Wild!"

"Brayden resurrected him. No, he didn't know he could. Where are the undead, Trav?" Penelope asked.

Watching as the group took a hard left and started their way down the back entrance, Travis began his report. "I spotted them going into the maze. There was an explosion in there shortly after you left. When they were coming down the stairs, there were a few skeletons missing. They're working through the winding tunnels now."

After Penelope repeated Travis' words for her, Fife replied, "You know, I love those bomb things." Fife reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around. "I smell zombhounds." Walking to the T-intersection, she turned slightly, and realized the smell came from straight ahead and not the right. "Trav, did anything go down the back?"

"I only saw them start down the stairs. I didn't see which way they went and assumed it was like last time." Travis was kicking himself for that assumption.

Passing that on to Fife, Penelope walked to the intersection and shook her head. "Nope. We're not going down there with undead potentially in front and behind. Come on, let's head to the center and then figure stuff out from there."

Heading down the dark tunnel a little ways, she opened a hole where Travis indicated and led everyone in. Just as Penelope was about to fill-in the gap, she saw the zombhounds coming. "Screw you," she said, and sealed it up.

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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.