The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 18/100

Heart 1166400/1166400

Experience 12925/291600

Workers 11/115

Monsters 9/117

Traps 64/279

Food 2459

Timber 7322

Iron 2292

Steel 905

Charcoal 5058

Mana 488

Rock 2739

Gold 1057

Leather 17

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 0

Glass 635

Explosive Runes 5

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 15

Long Guns 40

Bullets 1000

Black Powder 1000

Quest: Destroy another dungeon.

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

Quest: Mine some mithril.

Your raiding party has destroyed another dungeon's heart!

You gain:

200,000 Experience.

Quest Complete: Destroy another dungeon.

New Quest: Kill 200 invaders.

"What the hell?" Travis, already panicking over having his "raiding party" defeated combined with Brayden and Kelvin's plight, was stunned into silence after his first exclamation.

"Did that say the dungeon is defeated?" Penelope asked.

"Yeah. What gives? Who killed it?" Fife asked.

"Me." Ludmiller's mental voice silenced everyone. "I helped ensure everyone got back to Northridge, then hung around to see what they were going to do.

"They were beating on the dungeon's heart with hammers and—I just knew that the next hit would kill it. It screamed in fear. I never expected to hear a dungeon do that.

"Then there was this chain they got out. The dungeon was more scared of that than dying. I got— That chain would have enslaved the dungeon. I don't know how I knew, but it felt wrong and when the dungeon begged me to kill it, I did."

The silence, given how many were in the aether with him, was deafening to Travis. Finally, he had to break it to get people talking again. "Then you did the right thing. We tried to stop them and failed, which means we need to become stronger. The first step of that is already happening. While you were in the dungeon, Tannyr was busy digging out another lizard village on the third floor, and I have it upgraded to find resources." From where they could see—the passive view of where stuff was in the dungeon, but not the active eyes he got to see through—Travis pointed out where the new lizard village was and the various nodes they'd uncovered. "Also, we now have wyverns. They'd be rideable already, but I ran out of leather and told Steph he couldn't go out trapping."

"What about Brayden and Kelvin?" Ludmiller asked.

Keeping their heads low in the undergrowth, Brayden and Kelvin were running as fast and quiet as possible. Behind them they could hear the clatter of horse hooves and the baying of war dogs. "They're trying to flank and reach the forest entrance first," Kelvin said.

"Then we divert to the city. They won't expect monsters to make a run for Northridge." Without another word they turned together, claws digging into the ground under them and aiming them toward Northridge.

When they broke from the tree line, it was like a nightmare scene. There was an army marching in from the northwest. People were working in the distance, cutting down trees, while wagons and troops slowly spread out to surround Northridge. Both of them froze for a moment to take in the horror.

"This is insane," Brayden said. "We have to get there."

"We'll make it. They're taking their time moving in since they control the road. We can't reach the dungeon entrance, but we can make it to the far end of the city." Gesturing, Kelvin focused their attention on the end of the city where the wall had a portcullis that led to the verdant dungeon.

With a nod shared between them, they took off running again.

A group of horsemen broke away from the main besieging force and charged ahead—aimed at Brayden and Kelvin. The two ran as fast as they could, but with the distance they had to keep between them and the encircling force, they knew the six riders would reach them before they made it to the wall.

Running themselves to exhaustion, they were only a few hundred feet from the wall—with the horses barely a hundred behind them—when the first rifle report sounded. When they looked briefly at each other, worried what they'd see, the pair realized neither of them had been shot.

On the wall, Tannyr was reloading her rifle while five riders chased after the pair outside the wall. "Don't rush, you stupid old dwarf. Powder, wadding, ball, tap it down." When she got to the end of her grumbling, she raised the rifle to her shoulder again and sighted down the long barrel. "Who has the shiniest buttons? Ah, I see a ribbon."

The second shot was music to the pair. They got a big morale boost from knowing someone was looking over them. By the time the third shot sounded, Kelvin had had enough. Stopping, he turned and lifted his spear from his back. With his blood humming to the staccato beat of his heart, he stepped to the side to meet the lead rider's horse in a flank and used his weapon to score a line open along the animal's neck—between its light armor—and freeing one of the big arteries in its neck from the duty of pumping blood to its brain.

"Brogdar! Give my allies your protection that they may live to see your light!" Power rushed through Brayden, his god not holding back in an effort to support his priest. That wasn't to say he was safe from attacks—he had to bring his shield up to deflect a spear strike one of the riders attempted to impale him with.

Leaving the fallen rider to get up (or hopefully get shot), Kelvin felt his skin toughen and a supernatural awareness of the weapons around him as Brayden's spell settled over him like a cowling. As he brought his spear around in a spinning arc to unhorse the next rider, he noticed another six mounted soldiers riding hard for them. "Brayden! To the wall!"

Not needing an invitation, Brayden backed away from the last mounted man, hearing the report of another rifle shot before his combatant was down too—slumped sideways in his seat. "Get a rope down!"

Setting her rifle aside, Tannyr did exactly as Brayden asked—dropping a rope she'd already looped around a merlon. "Got it?"

"Tannyr? Yeah! Keep shooting!" Grabbing the rope, Brayden started up the wall as fast as his legs could take him. Below, he could hear Kelvin shouting something up at him.

"Faster! They have archers!" Kelvin wasted no time in securing his spear, then tying the end of the rope around himself, and finally starting up the wall behind Brayden. He was halfway up when the first arrow struck the wall beside him.

The moment Brayden was up, and she'd fired her next shot, Tannyr grabbed the rope with him and started pulling Kelvin up faster—which is how she saw an arrow slam into Kelvin's back. Lunging, she reached out to grab his arm or anything but couldn't make contact.

Hauling on the rope as fast and hard as he could, Brayden begged his god wordlessly for the strength and timing to save his friend. A moment before the rope would go tight, he braced his legs on the stonework and coiled the rope around his armored forearm.

The scream of muscles that were forced to take up the dead weight of Kelvin at the other end tried to tell Brayden to release the rope, but he wasn't ready to count his friend as lost yet. Hand over hand, working as hard as he could while Tannyr drew her pistols and fired two rounds at the attacking mounted archers, he started pulling Kelvin up the wall.

Dropping the pistols and reloading her rifle took the longest fifteen seconds of her life. Tannyr didn't argue, didn't complain, and didn't falter in her determination to drive the soldiers off. After she took to the wall again, lined up a shot, and threaded a bullet through the head of a rider and the chest of the archer mounted behind him, she heard a second, third, and fourth report.

Along the wall, a group of city guards were reloading. Tannyr gave them a nod while working with her own rifle to have it ready—as Brayden hauled Kelvin up and over the side of the wall.

Two arrows in his back and one through his throat. Brayden winced at the sight and felt for any sign of vitals. Finding none, he took a moment to break the arrows off and remove the shafts. There was no spray of blood from burst arteries, just the slow leak of a corpse. "Brogdar! Your servant beseeches you, do not allow this ally to fall this day!"

The city of Northridge felt the powerful divine magic pouring down for the seventeenth time that day. A god reached through their minion and touched the body and soul of a fallen warrior and connected the two once more. It could have fought against the magic, and given it was a kobold working it on another kobold, it would have before it had awoken—but it was too aware of the army gathering around it like a noose.

Along with the draconic missive sent to the god, the city sent its own to the same power. Please help me protect my people. I can offer naught but the welcoming arms of my city to your followers, but I add my prayer to your priest's in the hope of surviving to make good on my promise.

As well as the power he channeled into Kelvin, Brayden felt a new river of energy begin to flood through his soul. The hand of his god—a mailed fist—rested on his shoulder and offered him a greater part in the coming war than he would have otherwise held. Standing, he spread the blessing out and over the walls, gates, and hearts of the city. For a moment everyone felt the power of good wrapping them like a warm coat on a cold winter's night.

The folk of the city, unsure what to do with the slice of divine magic each had been blessed with, took it as an ephemeral protection against the darkness, but the city itself did more. Stonework shifted, writhed, and moved of its own accord. Sections of wall grew taller, towers sprouted, and a pair of thick stonework arms reached out to hug the dungeon entrance close and welcome it as a new section of the city.

When the magic stopped flowing, Brayden fell to his knees and then to all fours. He'd heard Katelyn describe what it had been like to have Travis' mana pumped through her, but this felt an order of magnitude more.

"Can you hear me, dungeon?"

The words surprised Travis. He'd been freaking out at seeing his worker count tick down by one, only to have it rise back up again. Now, with all his bosses aligned in his mental space, he heard a new voice. It was strong and reverberated with power. "I—Yes. I can hear you. Uh, who are you?"

"I am Northridge. Your entrance is welcome within my walls." Northridge was surprised at the humanity within the dungeon's countenance. It couldn't see the spirit it was now conversing with, but it had a sense of it. "I know dungeons and cities aren't meant to work together—quite the opposite—but I believe we have a common enemy."

For a moment Travis could see through Tannyr, Stephan, Brayden, and Kelvin's eyes. All four were in the city, though, and three of them were looking out over the army currently besieging Northridge. The view was gone as soon as he got it. "That's definitely a problem. They're sending people into my other entrance right now. I will not allow them to reach you through my tunnels."

It was a relief for Northridge that it didn't need to spell that out. "Then let us turn our energies to holding off these attackers until the siege is lifted."

"If you need something, anything, ask. The raid we did on the undead dungeon provided a lot of resources. One thing we can give right away is more guns." As soon as he said it, Travis felt a twinge of excitement from the city.

"I have a lot of walls to keep safe. More guns will be appreciated."

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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.