The Heart Grows

Spoiler

"Okay, Trav, I've worked out how to make this better sludge with leather sludge," Robert said. "Did it trigger anything?"

Keeping a vigil on the forest entrance was annoying, mostly because he knew they would come again. A single mana tick so far, after Tannyr dug out a path to the two new mana shrines, had reassured Travis that he would definitely be able to keep the attackers back with spells.

Looking through the trap upgrades, Travis let out a whoop of excitement. "Yes! Superior Slime! Flame retardant and resistant against countermeasures, highly acidic. Fifty leather sludge."

"How much do we have?"

"Three hundred. Oh, but I bet I can use Upscale on them. That will double their cost, but increase their size by four." It didn't take a lot of math to figure out what he could do. "So that's twelve squares of the stuff."

"Okay, queue them up and I'll go and make them." Robert turned from his workbench.

"Robert, I'm not going to do that. If you die up there, and they get a hold of your body, there's no bringing you back. Brayden can't resurrect you without your body and you're not a boss or cohort. Your sister would kick my crystal, and I am fairly sure Blake would take his turn too." Travis did his very best to ignore the surprised expression on Robert's face. "I have over eight hundred mana. That's enough to burn down a lot of soldiers. Especially if they come into the second floor and try to pass the bowling alley."

Looking chastened, Robert sighed and slumped. "Alright, but I feel like I'm going stir crazy down here."

"Yeah, well, I—Ugh. Spoke too soon. They're sending more people in. Two of them without any support." Changing his targeting, Travis spoke to all the kobolds in the dungeon. "Okay, listen up, we have more invaders. They seem to be spacing themselves out to stop me from burning up everyone. I'm inclined to let them walk into the maze.

"First, though, I'm asking you to seal up the entrance to the tavern. We don't need them spotting that door and cutting it down. Also, Stephan, can you make some changes to the top floor to seal off the passage down to the third? And Robert, can you open up the bottom of that tunnel to the inner section of the dungeon? If things go bad, I want you all to be able to escape."

"We're not going to seal you up like that, Trav. No way." Robert was vehement, and though he couldn't hear them, so were all the other kobolds.

"It's not just for that. I need to give the city entrance a way to reach my heart if they aren't going through all the traps. So that tunnel will go—"

"Well, link it up to before the sludge traps at least. I don't want you having no defenses. If we need to evacuate," Robert said, "we can push through walls or dig them out."

"Right. Of course I thought of that. Can you do that, please?" Travis asked.

"Sure can. Set it up and tell me when I need to swap over." Reaching behind his back, Robert left his lab with a relieved smile on his face.

Travis was about to welcome Christine into the dungeon when he saw invaders step in the forest entrance. "Tannyr, can you get Christine to wait outside? We have guests coming in from the forest and they look angry."

There were scorch marks, deformed armor and shields, and the worst thing—bones. Bjorn clenched his teeth as he walked past them, shield raised as they moved deeper. "Stairs ahead," he said as they rounded another corner. Given the way the jet of flame that'd left the dungeon had traveled—dead straight and seemingly forever—Bjorn was happy to see corners.

"Careful, there could be traps." At Bjorn's side, Erik was as wary for the slightest sign the dungeon was going to spring a trap. Clearing his throat, he called back to the entrance, "Clear up to the stairs. No traps. We're going deeper into this damn pit."

Down the stairs the pair went. As soon as they got to the bottom, Bjorn stopped. His eyes strayed from looking past his shield to looking at the twin pendulums on it—one of which had swung toward his right. "Hidden doors here. On the right. Hold and we'll mark them."

"Nothing on my side," Erik said, checking his own pendulums and seeing them not deviating. "Weird pit this, all straight lines."

"You saw what it did to the first squad. Straight lines and that fire abomination are bad news." With a piece of chalk, Bjorn marked the first section of the door, then they moved forward. "This whole wall is a huge door."

"Mark it and let's move. We only have to reach the next stairs and we can leave this damned pit." Pausing every few steps was annoying enough, but Erik found himself despising the long tunnels. Their chemical lamps were making plenty of light—but it wasn't darkness that terrified him. "Where are the beasts?"

"Yeah. I don't like it one bit. There were a bunch of wyrm beasts in the bone pit. Heard they were teamed up with the southerners." Bjorn spat on the ground and marked the last section of wall. "One of the wyrms turned on the southerners, killed every last one. Cap'n was furious. The wyrm even killed the pit." Reaching to his throat, he rubbed the small carved stone on a leather thong around his neck. "That's the last of these. Move to the corner."

The march to the first big corner of the second floor filled both warriors with trepidation but, reaching it, they breathed a sigh of relief.

"Bjorn! You clear?!"

The shout from the stairs behind them needed an answer. "Yeah! We passed some doors on the right! We're around a corner." And with that the two marched deeper. A small chicane to the right and then a left corner into a huge long tunnel. "Can you see the end of that, Erik?"

"Hold up." Reaching to his belt, Erik pulled free a ball that looked crushed. He gave the two halves a twist, wound up, and tossed it down the tunnel. Both of them backed up and waited for the loud pop that followed, then looked around once more.

The tunnel was lit up from one end to the other in green, glowing gunk that clung to the walls, the ceiling, and even the wall at the far end.

"I hate this pit," Erik said.

"I hate all pits. Cap'n should have just tossed a barrel of poison in and we could leave." Starting the march down the tunnel, Bjorn kept his eyes half closed to shield them from the slowly dimming light around them. "Light balls last a lot longer now."

"Small favors." The crunch of gravel and stones under their boots as they headed down the tunnel echoed from one end to the other.

"Bjorn! Is it clear?!"

"That halfblood bastard always calls out your name, I notice." Erik elbowed Bjorn. "Too much time spent watching your arse, I'd say."

"If I catch him, I'll kick his arse back to the north. No! Long tunnel!" As the light faded, Bjorn figured they reached two-thirds of the way down the long tunnel. When they reached the end and looked around the reversing corner, he groaned. "I have a feeling a fiend made this."

"Yeah. Hold on." Clearing his throat, Erik shouted, "Clear!" then he added a quieter, "Another light ball?"

"Nah. Skiis would have been a good idea, though." Bjorn chuckled at the joke with Erik as they advanced down the long tunnel. As they reached the end, he mused, "Do you think it ran out of its blasted witchery?"

"Who knows. Would you stake your life on it?"

"Never. Pits are too damn clever by half." As they reached the end of the tunnel, Bjorn called behind them, "Clear!"

What followed was a series of switchbacks that chilled the two men to their bones. Each time they rounded a corner they saw a repeat of the pattern. It was as if the dungeon would go on forever. But, finally, they came to the dungeon's first T intersection.

"Let them bunch up on us. We need to figure things out. Which way do you like?" Bjorn asked.

Setting his shield alongside Bjorn's, Erik said, "Left. Always left. Hasn't killed me yet."

"Good enough for me. You caught up yet?!" Bjorn shouted. Waiting felt like forever. The sound of his voice echoing off the sharply carved stone.

"Yeah, Bjorn! Clear to move?!"

"Bunch up! We have a fork!" Waiting further for the crunch of the next group's boots to be heard, Bjorn said, "We're taking left. Head right and see what you find." In his mind he added, and maybe we'll see you in the afterlife, but he wouldn't say it out loud. That was the best way to court bad luck.

Erik scanned ahead at the edge of their vision. It seemed like these tunnels went on forever until they would abruptly stop and turn. He still hadn't seen the end when thunder sounded behind them. Sudden, staccato report and echoes of a rifle. Turning his head, he saw Bjorn doing the same when another rifle sounded—this time in front of them.

It felt like no more than a sore throat. Bjorn reached his free hand up to his neck and, in the light of his chem lamp, he saw a lot of red. He tried to shout to Erik, but the soreness in his throat turned to a bubbling sound. A chill certainty settled over the big man. Setting down his shield, he reached to his back and leaned forward.

Momentum started to build and Bjorn's vision turned as red as his blood. His big axe felt comfortable in both hands, but his muscles were now burning up. Ahead, he saw the creature he knew as a wyrmling, holding one of the feared weapons.

Despite the blood and pain, he managed to force a shout from his throat as he rushed at the tiny creature. It slung its weapon to its back and drew a smaller one. The last thing he saw as it started pushing itself into the wall was a bright flash that illuminated the inside of the tube.

Erik stared at the body of his friend. It wavered there, having stumbled to a stop before the wall. Finally, it tilted forward and then simply leaned on the squared-off stone. "The wyrms have blasting rods!" The words chilled him to the bone. Backing up, shield held high and before his face, Erik got ten steps before the report of another gun sounded. Then another.

Unlike Bjorn, he never had a chance to enter his swansong. The rage of a life ended in such a cowardly way weighed heavy on his fear and he dropped to the ground.

"Blasting rods. There's no mistaking that sound. Thirty good warriors went in there. Four came out and one of those will not walk when his rage finally wears off. Field Captain, what are your orders?" It was about the worst news First Sergeant Gunhild could have given. The dungeon was too much work to secure. They could pour their entire detachment down into it and the dungeon would consume them all.

"We still have two other options. There's a tame pit closer in as well as the greenskin poison hole. Loathe as I am to leave these damn wyrms, put a barrel of poison in to show our respect for our fallen brothers and sisters, and let's bury the entrance. Starve a pit, Gunhild, and you defeat the pit." Turning away from her most reliable subordinate, Donna raised her voice. "We move to the west! Prepare a gift of poison for this damned hole!"

Spoiler

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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.