The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 10/100

Heart 160000/160000

Experience 3450/90000

Workers 9/67

Monsters 1/69

Traps 62/159

Food 2438

Timber 1780

Iron 124

Steel 420

Charcoal 458

Mana 53

Rock 3450

Gold 255

Leather 377

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 90

Glass 800

Explosive Runes 20

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 5

Quest: Reach Tier 2

Quest: Destroy another dungeon

Dreaming again, Travis was completely aware it was a dream, only he felt like it was more a standoff with his subconscious. "Well?"

". . ."

"Look, I know you—well, I—don't get much time to interact these days. Not sleeping each night makes it hard to dream. Why don't we go for a happy one?"

". . ."

"Don't be like that. This is getting a bit meta, I think. Come on, just a happy dream? Maybe something where I can actually hug Pen?" Travis felt a measure of acceptance. "Cool, now we're decided on that, why don't we start?"

Travis felt the world shift and he was once more in the dungeon and in the dark, though there was a soft silver glow behind him. A glance down, first, revealed he was a kobold. "Oh you—" Turning, he saw the big silver dungeon heart behind him and heard Penelope's voice in his head.

"Trav? What's going on? Why can't I move?"

Starting with all the swear words he knew, Travis began cursing out his subconscious. When the crystal Penelope started crying, he got more creative and loud.

Penelope sat in the heart room with her back against Travis' crystal. He was silent, the whole dungeon felt silent, but at the same time she felt more in focus. It was unsurprising given her status, that when the dungeon itself was unconscious, she was in charge. "I thought you were going to do some research?"

Walking deeper into the room, Katelyn started to examine the lists and notes on the wall. "See, that was what I thought, too, but I forgot to ask Trav to get us working on one of the longer research goals. On the plus side, we unlocked Flush easy enough. How long does this take, anyway?"

"No idea. We've only done it once before. If it's like then, he should be finished tomorrow." Noticing Katelyn's interest, Penelope nodded toward the wall. "I'd like to get some chalkboards here. Trav needs to be able to keep notes, and this is the only room he can see without having to worry about a lizard or kobold being here."

"I'll contact my friend in town and get her to order some. All the walls, right?" Katelyn reflected on how blind she'd been to not see the way Penelope doted on Travis. Even now, with him unconscious, she wouldn't remove her touch completely from his heart.

"Thanks, Kate, that'd be perfect. You know where the gold is, just take as much as you need—but let's wait for Trav to be back. I don't want us being any amount of short-handed—not with the boulder traps not working because Trav isn't here." Penelope sighed and leaned back, putting as much of her wings as she could in contact with his heart.

Katelyn groaned and reached out a hand to Penelope. "Come on. You can't wallow in here. He won't be back for some hours at the earliest." Taking Penelope's larger hand in her own, Katelyn pulled her into motion and away from the heart. "We're going to the library, not the tavern."

"Oh?" The news intrigued Penelope. She stopped resisting and followed after Katelyn—who was much, much smaller than her.

"There's a few books I think you'd like to read. They aren't invasive—not like some of his later ones are—but they might help you get a bit closer to Trav." Opening the door to the library, Katelyn nodded inward. "Now, get cozy on the pillows over there."

Finding herself a spot on the pile, Penelope lay down on her stomach and found the position rather comfortable. It took her a few seconds to realize that going through with all the changes of the dungeon boss would mean she'd be stuck like that. When Katelyn brought her a book, she accepted it without a word and started reading. "This is from when he was just a small child. Fourteen?"

"Read it. I think you will have a lot confirmed about Trav." Katelyn crouched before the writing desk Stephan had built for her, dipped a quill into an inkwell, and started writing about her latest theory of combined magic.

Penelope had waited through the hour when Travis should have awoken. "More than a day, then." She looked to Robert, who had a water clock he'd built from glassware. The intervals on it were standard, so she was well aware that the moment had passed. "It's my watch upstairs. Everyone take a break and find something to do."

"Pen, can you put these in the maze on your way up?" Katelyn held out five new repeating explosives. "I figured we could use some more of these there. I have good places marked for them on this slate."

Taking the slate and the explosives, Penelope walked down tunnels and pushed her way through walls to reach the stairs. For a moment she considered going and saying hello to Squishy, but she didn't want him to eat explosive runes. Up the stairs and, rather than head through the secret door, she wandered into the maze.

It should have been hard for anyone to find their way around the maze, but for Penelope it was simplicity itself. She had an affinity with the layout of the dungeon that went beyond her own senses. She knew from testing that the explosives could set each other off if they were within around four dungeon squares of each other. She lifted up the map and examined it in the pitch black. "I like the idea of spacing them out, but that assumes an attacker doesn't have someone to soak the damage and a healer to keep them upright."

Smirking in triumph, Penelope walked all the way through the maze until she was only a handful of dungeon squares before the door into Wild's arena. She then crouched down and used her claws to carefully embed all five runes into the rock wall after a sharp corner. "Because screw the first thing out of any fight where Wild dies."

Walking to the wall just before his arena, she slipped first through that then twice more before she worked her way between the rock to the entry tunnel to Wild's arena. Wild was sitting in the middle of it, surrounded by lizards, giving each of them petting where he could. The heat of the lava scattered around the edges of the room only seemed to give the little reptiles more energy. "Heya, Wild."

Looking up from where he was being inundated by lizards, Wild let out a soft chirrup under his breath before saying, "Welcome to my little vigil, Penelope. You can relax here, if you wish. I will wake you if anything comes."

"Nope. I gotta head up the tunnels to the entrance in case we get any more wraiths coming in. Thanks, though." She crouched down and gave one of the lizards a rub around its shoulders. "You know, I never really saw lizards as being this—this affectionate and emotional."

"They're still not allowed in our bedroom, but Luddy wants more of them. I tried to tell her we have hundreds now, because of the village, but I think she wants another village." Wild, for all his trying to put on a stiff demeanor, would gladly crumble in a moment for the love of his life.

"She might get that wish soon. Trav has big plans for the second and first floors—that is, this is now the second. You know what I mean." With one enterprising lizard climbing up her tail and back, Penelope sat still to let them get all the way to her shoulder.

"You can't get through walls while carrying a lizard," Wild said. "I think it's because they are living creatures."

"Oh. Well, I guess I'll walk the long way around. Stay strong, Wild." Standing up, Penelope walked closer to him and held out her fist—and got a bump from his smaller one.

Watching as the, to his kobold senses, curvy dungeon boss left his arena, Wild had to close his eyes and remind himself he was very much a spoken-for kobold and that the woman he loved deserved to be the sole target of his affections. Standing up, he drew his axes and started working through his combat forms—performing a mock dance that had proved plenty deadly during his life.

The walk through the bowling alley revealed even more lizards to Penelope. She leaned down as she passed each to give them a pet and a little reassuring attention. She even told one, "He'll be back soon, don't worry." Though, she knew it was herself she was trying to reassure.

Looping around, she came to the final approach alongside the new, secret array of doors she'd built herself. At the end of the tunnel, Ludmiller was standing and looking up the stairs. "I've come to relieve you," Penelope said.

Smiling at her friend, Ludmiller nodded. "He's still asleep, then?"

"Yeah. Guess things get more intense the higher tier he gets. Wild's still in his arena standing guard, too." Walking up to Ludmiller, Penelope reached up and lifted the lizard from her shoulder and offered it.

"Nah, you'd better look after him. I'm going to go to sleep, then take over Wild's watch after that. He's very serious about his promise to protect Trav, and I'll stand by him in it." Instead of heading down the tunnel directly to the arena, though, Ludmiller entered the tavern.

It only took a few minutes for Penelope to see Ludmiller return with a huge bowl of stew. "What's this?"

"When did you last eat?" Ludmiller asked.

"Uh, I think…" As she trailed off, Penelope had to take ownership of the bowl Ludmiller was shoving at her. "Thanks."

"No. Thank you. When you're done with it, just give a shout. There are a bunch of people sitting in there that are just talking. One of them can come and grab the bowl. I'll see you at the end of your watch." Turning down the tunnel Penelope had come from, Ludmiller managed to only yawn three times before finding the right place to slip through the wall.

The stew, as always, was delicious. Penelope mused a little over the size of the bowl, and had to wonder if Stephan had made it just for her. What still troubled her was how they hadn't actually gotten any meat added to the dungeon's storage for a while, but the stew still had big hunks of meat in it.

Fife walked out of the tavern and approached Penelope. It still amazed her that she was literally living in a dungeon and the boss was right beside her. "Hey, you're really wolfing that down. Kate said Steph made your new bowl."

"Thought so." With her mind turned to Stephan, Penelope felt the old self-loathing return for what she'd done to him.

"Hey, when this is done with, then I guess I can finally find out what it's all like, huh?" Hating the slight worry in her voice, Fife tried to reinforce her words with bravado. "I bet it's going to be awesome. Like, I've seen how much stronger Wild is now when he fights in his arena. I've even got the perfect place picked out for mine."

Glad of the distraction, Penelope asked, "Where's that?"

"Well, you gotta understand that I have already picked out one of my cohort, and I think you'll find he'll make fighting me absolutely terrifying." Fife took a swig from her ale. "What I have to wonder is if I can have the dungeon boss in my cohort?"

Penelope stared at Fife for several seconds before she burst into a roar of laughter. It felt good to be surprised and have a little of the pressure reduced. "I doubt that'll work, Fife."

"Then I'll go back to trying to convince that hot elf guy to join up too, because me, Squishy, and a cleric would dominate anything that stepped foot in the bottom floor." Her eyes burning with challenge, Fife saw the shock register on Penelope's face and accepted that as was her due for such a crazy idea. "Anyway, I'll take the bowl back if you're done? Luddy made me promise."

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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.