The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 10/100

Heart 159998/160000

Experience 24150/90000

Workers 9/67

Monsters 1/69

Traps 62/159

Food 2470

Timber 870

Iron 124

Steel 370

Charcoal 458

Mana 255

Rock 2627

Gold 251

Leather 377

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 90

Glass 744

Explosive Runes 20

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Long Guns 9

Quest: Destroy another dungeon.

Quest: Capture an adventurer and put them in your jail.

Quest: Lay siege to the nearby town.

"Nice," Penelope said, turning the rifle over in her hands. "And we can make these easily?"

With Tannyr digging along the marked area Travis had set up for her, Penelope (also digging, though slower than Tannyr) couldn't be heard by her—so Travis replied. "Tannyr spent a bit of time making them, but she seemed to hint that they weren't hard. Right now, though, we need to protect the town from just giving the undead a shortcut to their doorstep. Hey, you know another idea we could use? Now we have the guns to give every kobold one, we need a practice area for shooting them as well as some nice long tunnels to make the best use of them."

"I like your thinking, love."

Travis didn't need to see Penelope's face straight on to know she was grinning. With her snout crinkling up a little at the lower edges of her vision, he got enough of a hint. "Do you have any idea how good it makes me feel to hear that, love?"

"Yeah, Trav. Yeah, I think I do." Penelope's pickaxe swung fast, but where Tannyr seemed able to just keep digging and only shore up her work every ten or fifteen squares mined out, she had to do it every second one. No amount of speed and size could take the work out of that.

Directing Robert up to place a hidden door was another step in preventing the undead from utilizing his new exit. Placing it right where the monstrous squiggly pattern Tannyr and Penelope would connect with the tunnel from the forest was the ideal spot, of course. "Just there. Thanks, Robert."

"No problem, Trav. Almost got this latest batch of sludge ready to use. It's acidic, sticky, and resistant to fire. We can't put caltrops in it anymore, but I don't think that's so much of a problem when Kate can just burn things to death when they get stuck in it." Climbing the stairs into the first floor, Robert turned to where the door needed to be installed and set about building it. "I almost get annoyed at how I don't get to dig anymore. Do you think I could—maybe—do a little after this?"

"Of course you can." Travis tried to hide his droll tone, but a little of it slipped out. "I'm thinking we just go ahead and trap the whole tunnel leading to the stairs out there with sludge. What do you think?"

"Wasn't the point of Wild's boss room being there to protect possible innocents who wander in?" Walking down the tunnel, Robert heard movement behind him and jumped. "Undead?"

"Yeah. Undead." Focusing on all the kobolds, Travis said, "Looks like the undead are back. There are a lot of them, too. I guess that beat down by Northridge pissed them off."

"Do you want me to head out there and delay them?" Penelope asked.

"Let them get into the Bowling Alley and head down. No point in making you respawn when they have a pile of necromancers." He watched as Wild, Katelyn, and Ludmiller made their way to their arena. "Do any of you want a gun?"

"Trav," Katelyn said as started up the stairs from the bottom floor, "the only reason we got guns was because someone brought one in, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Do you really want to potentially give the undead a rifle to take back to their dungeon?"

"Good thinking. Right, no guns then. Thanks for thinking of that. Okay, Brayden, can you let the others know we have a party starting?" Turning his attention to Brayden, Travis could see the priest was doing exactly that. "Oh, of course you are already. Thanks!"

While she moved, Travis reflected on his health regeneration rate. It seemed slow, particularly for how much maximum health he had, and he hoped that there would be upgrades to take up the slack.

It hated what happened. The dungeons had always kept their distance—sending only small forays against Its clever minions. Noisy, violent defense had been arrayed against the latest incursion by the undead, and It had been positively delighted to see them dispatched with ease.

Then one of the dungeons opened a passage directly to Its doorstep. What was worse, it was the dungeon that kept infiltrating minions—even stealing Its own! It raged at that intrusion—that act of aggression—but It had been excited to see that dungeon's greatest minion array itself against Its best force. With glee It had waited for the crack of those noisy, violent weapons.

But those sounds of victory did not come. Instead the dungeon's minion had parlayed with Its greatest defender. They had conversed and parted ways amicably.

It raged. It hated. It was also curious.

Dungeons were meant to kill and maim and destroy Its kind. They were at odds always, and always there would be conflict. This dungeon did things that didn't make sense to It.

The dragon dungeon sent minions, and It could tell they made Its own minions happy. Despite everything that told it to the contrary, It had to live beside this apparently passive dungeon, it seemed, though It wouldn't be happy about it.

Marching down when Travis had assured her that the undead dungeon's minions were in the Bowling Alley, Penelope made for the back corner of the tavern, nodding to the adventurers as she passed them, then she pushed her way through the wall of stone between there and a lizard farm. "Hey, hey, don't panic." She reached down to rub the spines on the back of one of the lizards. "I'm here now."

"Here they come!"

Ludmiller's voice from the next room distracted Penelope from the lizards. She turned the corner out of the farm and used her claws to help keep her balance. Breaking into a run when she saw a zombie step up to Wild, she let out a roar and ran from the side tunnel into the arena—slamming into the zombie that wasn't as imposing as when they had been more solidly built than her.

Watching as the zombie went flying against the wall and landed on the lava there, Wild turned his attention from it and to the undead lord. The thing looked meaner than before, but he didn't fear it at all—not given Travis wouldn't let him die, and especially not with Penelope here to back him up.

Stomping one foot down on the zombie's head, Penelope drove it against the burning rock as hard as she could. When it stopped moving, she turned to see Wild had engaged the lord. In the corner behind Wild, with her back to the wall and standing on the lava, Katelyn flared bright blue with flames and sent her wicked fire out to the monsters still gathering in the room.

Leaving Ludmiller, wherever she was, to her own devices, Penelope lunged over and imposed herself between the mage and a rushing pair of zombies. Using her long sword to decapitate one, she dug her short sword into the neck of another and then shoved it backwards with her shoulder.

Skirmishing with the zombies, Penelope had no sooner dispatched the first two, than three rushed in and engaged with her. She used her long blade to fend two off while she bisected the third's head down the middle. When Ludmiller appeared beside Wild—attacking the lord with him—she realized she had a perfect arc of fire and shoved the two zombies back.

Then Penelope exhaled, bringing her acid up and out again.

The green wave poured out around the next few zombies charging into the room. It hung on the air and bathed one cleric—drawing a scream from him as his flesh melted from his body. By the time the zombies reached Penelope, Katelyn had given the back row of the undead forces another refreshing bath of intense fire. Not that she could pause to admire the flames. The three half-melted zombies had rushed up to her and were clawing at her from in front and each side, but even when their claws connected they barely marked her scales. Their closed-fist strikes, however, did hurt her.

"Pen!"

Ludmiller's shout came just after Penelope had cut another zombie down. Turning sharply, she bashed one of the remaining zombies with her tail and thumped the other in the face with a wing as she rushed over to shove the undead lord away from a wounded Wild.

Slamming her blades against the lord's again and again, Penelope snarled and growled at him as she worked her anger out on them. Clawing, slashing with her swords, even buffeting the undead leader with her wings—she rained blows down on it while Katelyn and Ludmiller cleaned up the rest of the room.

Just as Penelope was about to dig her blade through the undead lord's skull and end it, a pair of daggers came through from the other direction and cleaved the skull in half. Shimming around the edges of her form, Ludmiller looked furious. "What—?"

"Wild's down. Too much necromancy on that bastard's blade." Taking a moment to smash the two halves of the skull, Ludmiller spat on the body. "Trav, can you get Brayden in here? I need to hug Wild and then teach him how to use a shield."

"He's on his way. I told him the moment Wild's timer started." Travis turned his attention to the spirit of Wild that was with him. "It won't be long."

"I need to get stronger. That thing will eventually gain another tier itself, and be comparable to Pen." No sooner was he done telling Travis than Wild felt the pull of Brayden's magic dragging him back to his body. "I promise I'll get stronger!"

"You don't—" Travis cut himself short when Wild vanished from the ether and started lifting himself off the floor under Brayden's hands. "You don't have to protect the whole dungeon on your own, Wild. You, Ludmiller, and Katelyn are the first line of defense here. All I expect from you is your best."

Wild huffed out a breath. He hated losing a fight, but it wasn't even as much a defeat as using a talisman was anymore. What he did like about this, though, was the crash-tackle from Ludmiller. "Sorry, I must have tripped."

"Next time, Wild, leave their boss to me and you clean up the trash, okay?" Having sheathed her weapons, Penelope reached down a hand for Wild and Ludmiller to take. "Maybe give some magic a try?"

Wild hauled himself and Ludmiller to their feet with Penelope's rock-steady arm. "Magic? How would that help me?"

Katelyn cleared her throat. She liked the idea of her friends learning some magic tricks, but in Wild's case she knew she wasn't the right magic user to help with it. "Talk to Jack. He's a sorcerer, so no book smarts needed, and he has some genuinely good ideas for enchantment-type spells. Imagine if your axes could slow down an enemy and freeze their limbs in place?"

Wild's smile was more than enough to give a very good idea of his thoughts on that.

"Lots of new faces, Commander." Christine wasn't one for slacking off, but she needed a break from her accounts. Walking around the town center, snacking on wares from various street merchants, she'd been overwhelmed by how busy it was.

"You've been filling the town with a lot of gold." Walking around with Christine Sellswell was a great pastime for Brolly Windchime—it meant he got a lot of great, free food. "Plenty of strong backs and sharp blades means we get the dungeon's outpost built fast and secured."

"I'm not talking about your new hires, Brolly. There were some that came in on my last caravan that looked"—Christine searched for the right word—"out of place."

"We're succeeding. Years ahead of schedule, and with an influx of new blood settling in—" He bit off a hunk of the marinated meat on a stick they'd gotten from the last vendor. Chewing it thoughtfully, Brolly focused on his next words. "We're a city. We have a dungeon that's somehow more cooperative than even the average verdant dungeon. I don't know if you felt it, too, but something shifted in the city itself when Travis opened up his new exit. There was anger—but I felt it ease as we continued our patrol. I think the city's accepted the dungeon."

Whistling, Christine nibbled on her lunch too, but not so much that she couldn't gulp it down and continue talking. "That's good. I was more than a little worried about all this. Hopefully Travis getting rid of that undead dungeon will help the city relax more. The paperwork is proceeding there—we have a magistrate in the capital who was willing to take us seriously."

Brolly passed Christine his stick and strode away from Christine a moment, and approached an old man who was looking lost. "Can I help you, old timer?"

Turning and glaring at the young man that'd called him old, the man realized he was talking to someone with rank at the very least. "Yeah. I heard there was an interestin' dungeon out here that can"—he paused, trying not to blush as he knew his words could be interpreted as lunacy—"can heal the one thing the blasted clerics can't."

Christine, hearing that, nodded. "You'll want to talk to our guard commander here. He'll get you out to talk to the dungeon."

"Talk to the dungeon?"

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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.