The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 5/10

Heart 40000/40000

Experience 1400/10000

Workers 9/27

Monsters 1/29

Traps 27/59

Rooms 51

Food 81

Timber 692

Iron 1304

Steel 5

Charcoal 0

Mana 30

Rock 2497

Gold 1050

Leather 432

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 50

Glass 800

Explosive Runes 5

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Quest: Have 10 minions in your dungeon

Quest: Get 10,000 gold

Travis was starting to get worried. One of his armored lizards had wandered close enough to the entrance to see that the sun was reasonably high in the sky, but his kobolds hadn't returned yet. The one comfort he had was that his worker count was still at nine.

Still, his mana ticked ever upward, and so Travis spent it on another mana shrine (somewhere on his second floor) and three more resource nodes (on the first floor). There was no plan to hunt for them immediately, but he knew they would show up.

He was getting curious at how much kobolds could dig in a day. At least the last few days he'd witnessed had shown that they could manage around forty squares of rock in a day if they didn't do much else, though Penelope always seemed to outperform everyone by nearly double.

Blake had been happy to dig some more work on the second floor for him, and Travis was getting ready to expand out the warehouse building to reach enough capacity to get some major upgrades—and to finish his quest to have ten thousand gold.

"Travis?"

The voice surprised Travis because he thought everyone was asleep. "What's up, Wild?"

"I was thinking. Since my room is now part of the dungeon's entrance, and it will have a lock soon to stop enemies getting past me until I'm dead, we need to remove the back door to the rear tunnel. That's a weak spot." Wild, Travis had noticed, was a lot more talkative since he'd become a kobold. The extra eloquence also spoke volumes about Wild's sharp mind.

"Yeah. I know that's going to be an issue. Hopefully the new planned traps will stop a lot of enemies before they reach you. Plus, we can have Brayden come in after they leave and resurrect you. We might even be able to make talismans so you can be brought to Brayden, instead." Travis made quick plans to remove the door that was there and fill-in the connection to the back tunnel. "Would you like sleeping quarters up there, too?"

"I'd like that," Wild said.

"We'd like that." Ludmiller, Travis could tell, was cuddled against Wild. It was hard to listen to them and talk to them without looking through them, but he was getting better at selectively making himself blind.

"Then I'll start preparing something. There's a bit of room there, would you like any other rooms close-by?" Travis asked.

Wild laughed and Travis could hear him rolling over. "Another lizard farm would be a good idea. You were complaining about vision problems up there. Having more lizards fixes that."

"Why just one?" Ludmiller asked. "There's room there for several. As many as you can fit, Trav."

"A door," Wild said, "on our bedroom. I like the lizards, but I like my lovely lizard more."

Ludmiller's laughter caught Travis off guard. He felt, he realized, a little jealous. Despite all the weirdness going on in their lives, Wild and Ludmiller had found love and ways to express it. Travis, though, couldn't ever leave his location. "I have it planned out. When you get up, head on up there and we can build it."

"We'll be out soon, Trav." Wild's tone held a joy and purpose that Travis was at the same time both happy to hear and wishing he could hear it in his own voice.

Backing off from the couple, he returned his focus to the second floor and where he wanted to lay out more warehouses. It would be another big excavation project, though he was happy to have ways to spend rock at last.

It became elaborate, and Travis found enjoyment in the way he could make five-by-five rooms come together with long paths past them. There were a few places where there was a janky bit of room, but he even had plans for that. Three-by-three rooms for more mana storage, were, Travis decided, a good way to take up additional space.

The only seriously complicating part of it was to design everything in such a way as to not accidentally link up to the built dungeon and yet be able to connect easily between the inner and outer sections. He also planned Penelope's boss room to cozily fit inside this area.

Travis was just putting an outer loop around the whole plan to allow for future expansion when his viewpoint at the entrance of the dungeon changed rapidly enough to pull his attention away from his plans.

"Pen! Welcome back!" Travis felt real excitement at seeing the group return.

"It's good to be back, Trav. Why are my hands itching to get out my pickaxe?" Not that Penelope minded the sensation, it meant the dungeon was about to expand after all, but she hadn't expected it after all the time away.

"Oh, I've been planning some more things out. Wild and Luddy are going to get their own quarters up here. Then, downstairs, I have a massive new storage area planned, as well as your boss room and tons of mana storage." Travis realized then that the three-by-three room that was adjacent to his heart room would fit another mana storage too. "How did everything go in town?"

"Good. Stephan showed he was holding out on us with a knack he has. We got everything we wanted, they'll be leaving one of the wagons they bring the stuff in, and we got Fife another toy. I'll leave the rest of the details to Brayden." It didn't take much for Penelope to open the hidden doors. She led the donkey one handed, giving it a pat on the nose for being so forgiving.

Wondering about the donkey, Travis looked at his research and wondered if it would be sane to get the Persuasion upgrade and then make the donkey a dungeon monster. "Well, you probably all want a little rest. Maybe dump the wagon in storage, take care of the donkey, and relax a bit while we discuss everything?"

Travis went back to laying out his extra rooms, giving a glance to people as they got settled and situated in the tavern. Stephan, he noticed, seemed to migrate himself to the kitchen while Jack made his way to the bar to start pouring drinks.

Sitting at a table on her own, Fife was looking over her new equipment. The armor she'd ordered would take a few days to make, as would a shield of the weight she wanted, but her favorite new thing was on the table in front of her. She now had a rifle, and liked the idea of using it in some of the longer tunnels to deal damage before the bad things reached her.

Eventually Ludmiller and Wild made their way up, and after Travis prodded them, Blake and Robert too.

"Okay, there's a bit to get through. Some news, good and bad, and some business opportunities." Brayden pulled out his slate and started reading from it. "First, Steph is going to be doing our trade negotiations from now on. You're still okay with that?"

Poking his head around the corner of the kitchen, Stephan nodded. "I should have mentioned it before, but I—I came here to get away from my family. Traders, all of them. Not what I enjoy doing, but if it's only a little every now and again, I don't mind too much."

The news surprised Travis. In hindsight, though, there were a lot of little things about Stephan that hadn't added up at the time he'd done them. To Stephan, and only Stephan, Travis said, "You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

The offer made Stephan smile. "There's no way my family could find me and drag me back now. I know I complained at first, but I realized that I was completely free now. I'll work hard for the dungeon, Trav. We got a good few supplies coming."

"Thanks." Turning his attention back to the group in the bar, Travis nonetheless saw Stephan bring out bowls of stew with bread.

Brayden dunked some of his bread in his stew, after thanking Stephan, and chewed it thankfully. "This is great stuff, thanks." He turned his eyes back to the tablet. "Brolly, the commander of the garrison in Northridge, wants our help outfitting the guards there. In particular, he would like us to buy long guns for a twenty-man squad that would greatly alleviate their defense problems. That's a big investment, though, at around twenty thousand gold."

"I'll create a lot more resource nodes here, then. I added three today already. Hold off expanding the maze until I have the rest." Travis, to get himself started on that, put out two more right away.

Nodding to that, Brayden moved on. "We have all the steel and timber we could ever need on the way here. There was five hundred units of grain, at least by your conversion, that we brought back with us, and there's another three thousand five hundred coming."

Travis felt a little giddy. "I'll have to make sure to use some resources now and hopefully make some room. Oh, and we have plans for a ton more storage warehouses down on the second floor. I've staged the digging so it doesn't all need to go at once, but we're going to need all of it eventually.

"First priority, though, with all these resources is to get Wild his arena and get Pen her second upgrade. We could even set things up to use half of that steel right away, the moment they dump it in, to start that upgrade and spend a pile of resources."

"Fife," Brayden said, "you have the most experience in bigger dungeons. Can you remember all the stages of a draconic dungeon boss?"

"Huh? Oh. From what I remember: bigger and meaner, wings, breath attack, huge claws, sharp bits everywhere, and massive. Then you end up with a full-on dragon." Lifting her head up, Fife saw Penelope looking right at her and realized how she must sound. "Ah, shit. Pen, it—you started off smaller, so even at huge—where a boss would need way more room than these tunnels—you should still fit."

Katelyn tapped the butt of her staff on the floor a few times to get everyone's attention. "There are spells that can reduce the size of someone. I'm sure we can figure something out, Pen. In fact, I promise I can."

"You're going to use this to justify buying more books, aren't you?" Penelope asked, smirking.

"Of course."

"So, priorities," Travis said, steering the conversation back to the immediate. "Some minor digging tasks to make things ready for Wild's boss room upgrade, more traps, upgrades to storage and Pen, more research, and then digging out the new storage area."

Pulling herself up from chatting with Fife, Penelope said, "That sounds good, Trav. I'd like to talk with you about what you want me focused on next, but that can wait until after this meeting. Is there anything else?"

Feeling a little excited at that, Travis agreed. "Yeah. I mean, no, nothing else now. We can discuss it later." A second after that, excitement turned to something a bit darker. "Uh, we just had a zombie step in the front door."

Trying to look as relaxed as possible, Penelope leaned back in her chair. "How many?"

"There were ten of them. Lots of skeletons coming after them and—Oh wow. Huge skeleton. Has a big sword and shield, and it seems to be glowing with green energy." Travis wondered if anyone was going to tell the humans. "You might want to tell Fife and Jack."

"Hey, Fife?" Brayden asked.

Fife could tell something had happened but not what. Curiosity in her new toy was currently eating her focus, though. "Yeah?"

"An undead lord just came in the front. We need to give him and his buddies time to head down a bit and then do you want to test out your gun on some necromancers?" Brayden could see Fife's eyes light up at the prospect. "Yeah, I thought so. Sorry, Jack, but cold ain't so useful on skeletons."

"I get paid either way. Besides, I assume there are zombies?" Jack noticed Katelyn was looking excited and couldn't deny he felt the same way. Though they came at magic from different disciplines, and their elements were fundamentally opposed, there was always great anticipation when a fight was inevitable.

"Maybe Squishy will kill them before they even reach the sludge?" Blake asked.

"'Squishy'?" Penelope asked.

"The—uh—slime. Squishy's really nice."

Available at: https://www.royalroad.com/profile/220350/fictions

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.