The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 10/10

Heart 160000/160000

Experience 40000/40000

Workers 9/47

Monsters 1/49

Traps 58/109

Rooms 110

Food 1980

Timber 600

Iron 634

Steel 605

Charcoal 0

Mana 51

Rock 2447

Gold 10094

Leather 377

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 90

Glass 800

Explosive Runes 20

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Quest: Reach Tier 2

Quest: Destroy another dungeon

Travis was getting nervous. The delivery from Northridge was late. Not just late, but really late. In fact, it hadn't turned up at all during the day it should have, nor the night thereafter (not that he had expected them to come at night), and now the following day was dawning and he was starting to expect undead to arrive once more.

With nothing more to dig, for now, he had given the kobolds their first day of the weekend without reservation—but with the constant nibbling worry in the back of his head. "You want to know the worst thing about not sleeping, Pen?"

"I could think of a few, but go ahead and give me what you got." Sitting in the heart room, Penelope was sitting with her back resting against Travis and her wings hanging at her sides.

"That when everyone else is asleep, and I'm left keeping watch through lizard eyes, I can't stop thinking of all the problems that could be brewing." The closeness of Penelope was about the best thing Travis could hope for right then. With so much of her pressed against him, he felt her own strength as his. "But now I'm wondering what other existential dread you think I can get up to at night."

"If I don't tell you, you'll obsess over it, right?"

Travis wished he could nod. "Yeah, so that comes in at number two."

Penelope laughed and stretched her wings out one at a time. "I bet it's not easy keeping watch, too. The worry that something will come in and won't stop until it's reached you."

"Not anymore, and I think that was something about being a dungeon more than just me. It itched to not have enough traps and defenses, but now I can see things getting cut down before they even reach my second floor. That's a big ol' cozy feeling." Travis actually felt smug about that. Knowing that he was safe from whatever the undead dungeon could throw at him was a huge relief. "What else you got?"

"Confident now, are you?"

"Mmhmm!"

"Stephan is out there."

That one hit Travis. "Oof. Yeah, that's one thing that I spent all night worrying about. I'm protective, but I still feel really responsible for him. He never asked to be here and he didn't exactly threaten us."

"That was my fault." Pulling her legs up against her body, Penelope let out a soft whine. After some time of being silent, with just Travis' presence around her, she finally opened up further. "I misread what you intended. I figured we'd just grab people. I—I didn't think of how you'd feel about it."

"You were okay with it?" Travis realized how accusatory his words were the moment they were out. "Not that—"

"It's fine, Trav. Yes, I was at the time. The old me was dead and gone. By the abyss, the old me would have probably been just as fine to go along with it. Will and Peter were a bad influence on me." As she spoke, Penelope curled her wings around herself and seemed to try to disappear.

"But you know it's wrong. You're different from them—better." Travis wanted to scream at the injustice of not being able to hug Penelope. "When he gets back, talk to him."

"Now you know what I worry about when I can't sleep. How do I even start this? 'Sorry for kidnapping you'?" Talking did cause Penelope to unfold a little. She stretched her legs, arms, and then her wings.

"It's a hell of an opening line."

"Yeah. I'll figure something out. Thanks, Trav." Turning her head, Penelope pressed her lips to Travis' heart and then turned back away—blushing.

Stephan felt the weight of the sky pushing in at him from every direction at once. He huddled up against Jack's side a little closer. Behind them was more gold than most adventurers would see in a lifetime and it worried him that they were just rolling along without any protection apart from said adventurers.

But neither Fife nor Jack had proved to be that kind of greedy, and the new group they'd started paying seemed in high spirits too. But irrational fears were just that, irrational. He could no more easily reason himself out of worrying than he could be human again. "How long until we reach Northridge?"

"Not long now. The new walls around it should be visible soon," Fife said. She shared the slight worry that Stephan did, but less so for the other adventuring group and more about what might happen if the people of Northridge saw how much gold they were carrying.

When the high walls of Northridge were visible, everyone let out a little sigh of relief. They drove their wagon under the heavy gate's portcullis and Fife called a greeting to the guards there. "Ho! We come from the dungeon! Are the wagons ready to roll?"

"You'll have to talk to Sellswell," Brolly said, walking up to the side of the wagon. "We've had a few probing attacks from the goblins, any chance of getting the payment for our guns?"

Patting the side of the wagon behind her, Fife said, "Got just shy of seven thousand, but that's all our wagon can haul. When you drop off the resources tomorrow, you can load up with as much as you can haul back."

Freezing mid-step, Brolly had to double down and think harder on how much gold that would be. "I'll order more rifles."

"Don't bother, Trav just got a place to make steel and a gunsmith. If you can find someone to make guns, get them out to us and we'll make sure everyone in town has two guns." Fife's smirk was, of course, because she already had two guns. "Just show us where this merchant is, and we can get this rolling."

They got directions to where a huge array of sturdy wagons were being prepared in the merchant district. It was choked with people working, and not least of those was Christine Sellswell. She had the master ledger for the deal, the goods already paid for taking the highest priority, but she assumed there was going to be a special request. When she spotted the wagon rolling low on its axles approach, she didn't need to see the kobold on the bench to know where it was from. "Hello! We've been waiting!"

Seeing all the merchant activity, Stephan felt his self-assurance shove his concerns aside. "We need some additional things," he said as they got closer. Jumping down from the wagon (and with Fife and Jack following him), Stephan approached Christine with his tablet. "You have the timber?" He waited for Christine to nod. "We would like to double that. Also, the grain? Can we triple that?"

"The steel—?" Christine asked.

"Steel is less important. We can make that ourselves now with iron and timber. We would still like what you are sending here."

Looking at her notes, Christine's heart raced as she realized she had enough wood to cover the expanded order and, if the town went a little short itself, enough grain. A short-notice order, though, meant she could adjust the prices a little. "We can haul it, but we can't leave today. Tomorrow morning at the earliest. There will be a surcharge."

"We'll pay for it on arrival. We would also like to start an account with the town." The idea came to Stephan as he spoke, and he was sure Travis would be onboard with it. Just giving them gold to hold in town, and even spend if they needed to, meant they could order whatever they needed as they needed it and not worry about payment. "Would this be okay?"

"I see where you're coming from, given how much that wagon is sagging. How much gold will you load us up with to bring back?" Christine asked, ready to write down a sum she could start to work with—and trying to hide how eager this deal made her.

"We have almost seven thousand coin worth in this wagon. Yours seem more sturdy, so you might get ten to twelve. We'll fill as many as you bring." He didn't relish being the one to tell Katelyn she'd be busy for a day or so melting gold veins, but Stephan knew she wouldn't complain too much. This was for the dungeon after all. "This way you can use the funds to pay the priest for resurrections, buy more weapons and armor, or anything else you think will help the town. We will expect an invoice regularly, of course, but you can claim the wages of a scribe to do the work there too."

"That sounds reasonable." It was more than reasonable, Christine knew, and she was sure that Stephan knew too. "We'll have the extra order loaded tomorrow, just as soon as I can find more wagons to haul it in. Can we use that one of yours?"

Grinning, showing off his teeth, Stephan said, "Of course, and I won't even charge you for it. Oh, we also need to cover the price of the guns the town watch were purchasing."

Christine waved a hand at that. "We'll work out the details at the first ledger review. I'll admit I was skeptical about the relationship with your dungeon, even wary, but I believe I understand what you plan. You wish to invest in Northridge."

"Literally what Trav said." Stephan looked down at his notes and nodded to them. "I think I'll need to take some of this to Brother Rupert, and then I'll leave you to oversee things and get a room in the tavern."

When Brolly Windchime saw the kobold and his group of mage-heavy support heading to the tavern, he made his way over too. There was still the question of payment for the rifles, and he didn't want to have an outstanding debt with the sellers.

Slipping into the tavern shortly after the group from the dungeon, Brolly felt a weight of comfort settle around him in the familiar room. He nodded to the barmaid and walked over to where Stephan and the dungeon's hires sat. "Greetings again. I trust you've settled things with Christine?"

"Yes. She will be acting as the dungeon's agent when it comes to handling funds in Northridge. She will be able to dispense the full pay for the guns to you after she returns from the dungeon." Stephan kept up his I'm just a broker ploy, which had been working to keep back his fears so far. It helped that he was in an enclosed building again. "We expanded our order, so we will be here for an extra day while she tries to find, repair, or buy as many extra wagons as she can find."

"More steel?" Brolly asked.

"No. We need to get wood and food to expand to our next level. I still don't understand why it takes specific values, but it does and that's all there is to it. At our next level we are planning to start trying to produce mithril and adamantine. You may want to have your crafting guild entice some high quality smiths to work with it." Stephan could see Fife grinning from ear to ear. "And make sure some are weapon and armor smiths."

"Yes!" Fife pumped her fist. "This is going to be the best. Have you ever seen how hard an adamantine shield hits things? I'll be a walking dreadnought!"

"With guns," Jack added, earning a quick nod from Fife. "I believe we would like to start offering invitations for people to move in. Preferably as kobolds, though the dungeon is amenable to humans working there. In fact, that has its own advantages."

It was the oddest request yet, but one Brolly could certainly help put into action. "Any trades in particular?"

"Gunsmith, armor smith, and weaponsmith—are the main ones we're after. Apart from that, good, honest laborers who want to work somewhere different are welcome. Families, too. Though, for laboring we would prefer them to become kobolds. Trav was specific that he won't convert children unless their lives are in danger." Jack spared a glance at Stephan, who he thought looked relieved. He'd gotten the distinct idea that Stephan was far more comfortable talking money than anything else apart from the work he did in the dungeon.

"The goblins," Ogmera said, cutting into the conversation without a hint of a care. "I hear they are starting to swarm. These guns you're buying are a good start, but I might suggest using some of the extra gold to hire more fire wizards. You want those corpses burned—preferably from afar."

"I think it would be a good idea if we had a little chat about that." Brolly was relieved to have experts in rot dungeon problems on hand, though he wished it was still vermin they had to deal with.

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.