The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 5/10

Heart 40000/40000

Experience 5400/10000

Workers 9/27

Monsters 1/29

Traps 27/59

Rooms 51

Food 581

Timber 692

Iron 1304

Steel 5

Charcoal 0

Mana 26

Rock 2497

Gold 1050

Leather 432

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 20

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

All through the warrens of tunnels the undead were now in, Travis could track their movements with his lizards. An army of lizards, it seemed. He put up a few fire walls and cleaned out all the skeletons.

"I can't believe they just walk right into the fire wall. Even the zombies didn't care, not that it seemed to hurt them any. All the skeletons are dead, though. Uh, re-dead." With most of the kobolds gone to deal with any necromancers that were outside, Travis was happy to talk to Blake while he set about adding a new trap to the lower twists.

The tunnel that had long lengths that arced around the twists, just before it reached Squishy's home, was perfect for their newest toy. Blake had to dig a square out first, but when he did Travis was quick to place down everything needed to build the trap.

Building the huge trap, Blake dusted off his hands and stepped back. "They'll probably get brought back by the necromancers. It will, at least, give them something to spend their mana on. Okay, got the basics of this. Any upgrades before I head back?"

"Yeah. We'll want Spikes, Metal Core, Precise, and Hot Stuff." Travis planned the upgrades to the trap and Blake was just as quick to install them. "Thanks. It's good to see how one of these will work before we start putting them down en masse on the first floor."

"Happy to help. Normally I just sort of hide from these kinds of attacks, but it's good to be able to come out and use my skills to fight back." Standing up, he looked off down the tunnel. "I kinda want to see what happens, now."

"Well, you have Squishy behind you. Why not?" Travis asked. "They are taking their time. The zombies just reached the stairs."

"How many skeletons was that?" Katelyn asked. "Looked like a pile."

"Twenty by my count." Looking at Penelope, Fife got a small nod from her. "Trav must be having a ball in there." She had no worries about what Travis was up to, he had a lot of tunnel for dealing with and slowing down skeletons. "Anyway, they're gone. I want to try to pick the head off a few of these necromancers."

"What are there, seven of them? Go for it. I'll have my pistol ready in case they actually figure out where we're shooting from." Drawing her gun, Penelope set down her powder horn, shot, and wadding beside it. A glance to Fife showed her doing the same thing.

Fife hadn't practiced with the rifle yet, but she had been using the pistol as often as time would allow. Checking the flint to ensure it was dry, she lowered to one knee and sighted down the rifle's barrel, the little notches lining up soon with a necromancer's skull. Breathing out slowly, she moved her finger to the trigger and started to slowly squeeze it.

The crack of the rifle unloading echoed through the forest. Smoke rose around Fife, but a slight breeze drew it away as she dropped and started reloading her gun.

"That's one down. Nice shot." Penelope watched the necromancers going a little crazy trying to identify what had happened to the one of them that had just fallen. Beside her, Fife was reloading the gun.

When she was done reloading, Fife lined up the next necromancer and repeated the process of dispatching it. "We need to get more of these. Wait, we can make guns with the new building, right?" She started the process of reloading the gun, only to hear a pistol shot ring out. "Wha—?"

"They've seen where we are. Keep shooting, though. While they stand back and throw magic at us, they aren't bringing anything in the dungeon back." Penelope started reloading her pistol.

Fire lit up the forest as Katelyn got bored of hiding. She gestured at the nearest of the necromancers and conjured a ball of flame inside it that burned a hot blue. It took only a few moments for it to reduce most of the skeleton's body to ash. "This is easier than actually engaging in—Zombie!"

Rising to her knee again, Fife spotted the huge undead stack of meat and put a shot through its chest. Grumbling when it didn't go down, she picked up her sword and shield and stood up. "Right, we gotta do this the old fashioned way. Come on, you bastard, let's dance!"

Grabbing the rifle and reloading it, Penelope watched as Fife slammed against the zombie with Wild only a step behind her. Now that Wild had regained quite a bit of height, he was far more capable at swinging his axes.

"In Brogdar's name, I bless this field of battle!" Brayden wielded his conviction like a weapon, his prayer and plea pulling down his god's favor and lit the forest floor with a bright white light. The zombie was first affected, the white burning into its four legs and slowing it, while the necromancers beyond seemed to struggle with their spells.

Penelope tried to shoot another of the necromancers in the head, but shot low and shattered the undead's spine instead. Katelyn burned another of the necromancers down, and then Fife and Wild—with their zombie dead—dealt with the remaining ones now that they couldn't effectively cast their spells anymore.

Brolly Windchime sighed. "Sometimes it's like talking to a brick wall."

"You did just tell them they can't attack a dungeon. Adventurers usually don't like that." Tannyr Stoneshave shrugged her shoulders at that. "Let them go after the goblins or the undead. Plenty of cities only have two dungeons—some only have one."

"Thanks for coming on such short notice. It helps to reinforce that we are allied." His eyes shifted to the group sitting in one corner of the tavern, and Brolly asked, "You had any trouble from anyone?"

"Only the city." At Brolly's raised eyebrow, Tannyr nodded. "You're used to the positive feeling, right? The sense that everything you're doing is going well?"

That caught Brolly off-guard. He had been feeling pretty good about Northridge, and why not—it was prospering. "Y-Yeah. That's the city, isn't it?"

"Right. I don't get that anymore. It's not angry at me, but it's not happy and joyful that I'm here." Looking down at her talons, Tannyr felt a little bereft at that thought, but at the same time she couldn't hold her change against Travis at all.

"I'll have to talk to Penelope to see if she noticed this." It was something that had caught Brolly off-guard. He couldn't very well ask the kobolds to come into town if it actively fought against them mentally, but at least being neutral was a start. "Are you going to go back to the dungeon, then?"

"Not yet. I want this town to have strong walls, first. Walls that can hold back an undead rush from one direction and a goblin horde from the other. Trav wants that too."

"Walls? He can build—"

Rolling her eyes, Tannyr let out a short bark of laughter. "No, Brolly. He wants the town safe. You've helped protect him and he's grateful—plus he isn't stupid. The town is an ally and a shield. The rot dungeon is almost exactly opposite from him. Goblins are always going to come here before they get around to him. Plus you shield him from adventurers. If there's no profit in dungeon delving, and the risk of being declared unlawful, no adventurer is going to want to step foot in his dungeon. At least, not to actually attack it. The ale they have is pretty good."

Appreciating the joke at her own expense, Brolly laughed. "Alas. Northridge abandoned—all its citizens retreating to the local dungeon to seek refuge and better quality ale."

Tapping her mug twice on the table (a dwarven salute and acknowledgment to a well-told story), Tannyr nodded. "You know he'll be making firearms soon. I don't think I've ever seen a dungeon develop firearms."

"And I'll make sure Christine's merchants sell him every damn bit of steel they can buy, while shipping finished rifles out to double the profits." It had been an offer, initially, to have Travis buy him all the guns he wanted, but he could work with the dungeon just giving them guns too. "I'll fill the city with rifles to keep the damn undead and goblins out and line the road I'll build with my own damn hands if I have to with riflemen."

Lifting her mug and finishing it, Tannyr let out a loud burp. "He'll only be using steel for a little while longer. There are far more spectacular metals a dungeon can utilize."

"Wait, you can't—?"

"Mithril guns, Brolly. How long before he starts making adamantine cannons, too?"

Brolly didn't know if he should sweat in panic or shiver with excitement. He wound up doing a little of both, then downing his own drink. "We have to defend that dungeon. It's more valuable than the verdant one."

"I think you understand things now. Northridge needs Trav, and Trav needs Northridge." Standing up, Tannyr said, "I'll finish the walls, but then I'm going back to the dungeon to make sure nothing can get into it without the kobolds' letting it."

"Horde undead and now rot goblins?" Stomping her way along the now-worn path, Ogmera cursed how sore her feet were. "If you ask me, this place is cursed."

"But that's what makes things so interesting, don't you see?" Stratus gestured around them with his staff. "Normally you'd expect to see undead hiding behind every tree—the town should have been attacked a dozen times over! No, the old priest back there was right, there's work for adventurers this way."

"I'm with Og." Felna's paws itched with every pine needle and branch she stepped on. Forests weren't her thing. Dungeons, either, but a queen had to find work where she could. "But I like gold, and you heard the merchants—this dungeon pays gold for work."

"Merchants lie as often as they take your coin. What I want to know is this priest's motives. That was definitely divine magic, and I don't know of a single god for dragonspawn." Nathaniel kept running over the memory again and again.

"Brogdar," Felna said. "I know the feeling of that power anywhere. A lot of them came to assist in that demon incursion on the sands near my home. Been healed by them before and seen them use that same power as a hammer."

Ogmera grunted her disdain. "No sane god would lend their power to such evil creatures."

"Which means either Brogdar the Evil Slayer has gone a bit sideways, or the kobolds weren't evil." Tom finally joined the conversation and immediately berated himself mentally. "So, we're here for gold?"

"No. I wouldn't traipse through a damn forest for just gold." Ogmera squinted and swirled her magic in the air—tasting the dungeon ahead. "We're here for a lot of gold."

"You know, that makes working for them a much easier prospect." Felna grinned so much her whiskers curled a little and her fangs showed. "I could even deal with being in a forest for a lot of gold."

Stratus froze at the sound of a gunshot. The weapons were rare enough that few could afford one let alone practice enough to use it effectively. Another report was encouragement enough to start constructing a shield. "Stay close, I can't shield us all if we spread out."

Advancing still, they came on the field of battle just as the kobolds were cleaning up and piling the necromancers together while Katelyn used her magic to burn them away to ash. A little wary of the big kobold with the rifle, Stratus kept the kinetic shield up as they neared them.

There was a sense of worry for Brayden when he spotted the adventuring group approaching. They had a magic shield up and had what he could see were at least three casters. He also recognized the holy symbols of two clerics—one of them the Golden One the other the Sandwalker. The former was firmly a good-aligned god, the latter was more neutral, though never evil. "Is there something a priest of Brogdar can do for you today?"

Realizing things were far too tense, Ogmera stepped closer—to the edge of Stratus' shield spell. "We've come to see if you have any work for us before we depart."

"Two fire wizards, clerics, shaman?" Fife asked, recognizing a common setup for dealing with vermin dungeons.

Ogmera nodded. "I won't lie, we don't have anything that would be able to stand toe-to-toe with the kinds of brutes that an undead dungeon will send, but we can offer healing and firepower."

"A lot of firepower," Tom said.

Walking forward, putting herself between the two groups, Penelope nodded. "Sure. We'll need to negotiate price, but you can relax in the tavern until we have ensured the undead are redead." She smirked and turned, walking past Fife and passing her friend back the rifle. "Nice weapon, Fife. We'll have to make more." Pausing, she looked back. "Well?"

Travis spent his one mana to trigger the boulder trap. The sound of it was glorious. Grinding and crunching, the huge boulder gained speed as it rolled down the tunnel toward the approaching zombies.

Blake poked his head around the corner to watch the huge boulder on its seemingly unstoppable trip down the tunnel until, with a loud crack, it shattered—and a zombie pushed its ways past the broken remains. "I guess that wasn't enough. Uh, resetting the trap…"

Laughing, Travis happily paid the five rock cost to rearm the trap, then another mana to trigger it right away. "It's like bowling. I got experience from two zombies in that last hit, you know?"

This time Blake wasn't sticking around. "I think I'll go see what Squishy is up to. Those zombies looked a little too close for comfort."

Travis counted, "One, two, three, four! Ha! That was a good one." He watched as Blake reached out to Squishy with one hand and patted the slime, then he flattened himself to a wall and wiggled sideways past the dungeon's only monster. When the first zombie, one of only five remaining, came around the corner, Squishy surged toward them.

Blake felt Squishy rush past, moving with a frictionless rush that had him pop out the other side unhurt. Turning, he watched through the slime as the first zombie just stepped right into it and stopped. It was weird to see the slow pink shimmering around the zombie suspended inside the slime, but the thing seemed determined to keep moving, and it did try to walk through Squishy to reach Blake. "Is it going to—?"

The zombie stopped at the edge of the slime nearest Blake. It clawed and hammered on the inside wall of the slime, but couldn't break through. One by one its extremities fell away from the body as its powerful digestive system went to work. Then a second zombie stepped into the slime, then a third, and fourth. "Squishy, you're my favorite slime ever," Travis told his monster, then he cast Focus Mana on Squishy.

To Blake, the effect of the spell was frightening. Arms, legs, heads, and organs just started boiling away inside Squishy as the zombies were quickly reduced to nothing more than bones and their magic was undone. "That seems effective."

The undead lord rushed forward, shield up, and slammed into Squishy. Being a rather clever slime, as far as slimes go at least, Squishy knew about two topics instead of just one: hunger and friendship. Hunger was a slime's constant driving force. Squishy wouldn't be as big as it was if not for its hunger for mana. When the dungeon and Blake had taught it about friendship, it had rejoiced to find itself twice as smart as other slimes. Now it had a nasty big food-thing that was stabbing and cutting at it!

"Blake, you really want to leave here now. I don't think Squishy can stop this one." The undead lord was carving up Squishy, and the only thing slowing it down was the constant flow of mana into the slime—it was also the only thing keeping the slime alive.

Turning tail, Blake ran down the tunnels and took a sharp right, digging his way through the wall and rushing through. Collapsing it behind him, he breathed hard. "Is Squishy going to be okay?"

"If I can keep him alive with just mana, he'll be fine." Travis couldn't see the undead lord ripping its way through Squishy, but he had a perception as if the thing had ripped all the way through the slime and out the other side. "The undead thing is still coming, but Squishy seems okay. I'll keep feeding him mana for a while. Are you going to go see what happens at the sludge traps?" It was at this moment Travis noticed Fife and Penelope march over the threshold of the dungeon. "Boulder traps are good! We have the undead lord down here about to hit the sludge traps!"

"Trav, we have another group of adventurers here who are looking for work. All of them have some amount of ranged skill, with two fire wizards." Penelope opened the doors through to the tavern. "Do you think this big guy is likely to get through the sludge traps?"

"If he does, he has how many explosive runes to face? I'll let you know how it handles the sludge. Robert's been working on it lately." Travis didn't have long to wait as the huge undead approached and stepped into the sludge without apparent care—and became stuck immediately. "I think this might be—Holy crap! Robert, your sludge is dissolving this skeleton!"

"It is?" Robert, waking up from his sleep, looked around his dark room for a bit. "Wait, there's a skeleton in the sludge traps?"

"Undead lord, I think it's called. Anyway, it now doesn't have legs below its knees—And it just fell face-first into the sludge. What did you put in that stuff?" Travis was learning a new appreciation for Robert's work.

"The sludge? Oh, right, I used a modified version of the enzymes from one of the dead slimes and added an acid to it that doesn't denature the enzymes. It should work like a turbo-acid." Robert yawned and started walking down the tunnels toward the trap section. "So it works?"

"Works? Works?! I just leveled up from that thing. This is great!" Travis felt like dancing. "Oh, there's a few skeletons wandering around in the tunnels. They'll find Squishy soon enough."

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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.