The Heart Grows

Ludmiller watched as the guards opened the huge vault door of the dungeon, and the moment she stepped into it she felt a similar wrongness as when she'd entered the undead dungeon. "How dangerous is this place?"

"No more dangerous than your average farm animals—unless you piss them off. Please don't piss them off." Timothy had left his guards on the walls. Their fort was small enough that it was going to be hell for the enemy to assault, but given their best weapons were spears, it was going to cost lives to defend it. "I can't go any further with you."

"Yeah. I understand that. How do I let you know when I want the door open again?" Checking her gear, Ludmiller kept one eye aimed into the dungeon as they talked.

"The rope there, to the side, pull that twice—fast—then three times slow. If we hear it, we'll unlock and open the dungeon. If you hear the door move before getting five slow return rings—it's not us." It was a grim thought, but Timothy had to face the fact that unless Ludmiller managed whatever she was doing, he probably wouldn't survive the week. "Good luck."

"Thanks." Ludmiller waited while the huge door was closed and the thunking of bolts indicated it had been locked. "Okay. This will be easy. I find the boss of the dungeon, ask it nicely to be friends and spend a lot of resources to open up an entrance at the city, and we can all be happy."

It took Ludmiller almost twenty seconds to laugh at the fantasy. "Nope. I am sure there will be blood involved. Okay, so, no hiding the fact I'm here." She started walking down the tunnel that seemed far more natural than Travis' ever were.

The tunnel opened out into a huge chamber. It was lit from above by some kind of light, and there were rabbits grazing at what looked like real grass. Crouching, Ludmiller ran her claws through the grass in wonder. The rabbits ignored her when she stood up and walked to the center of the room. A small pond there was filled with the cleanest water she'd ever seen. "This is—"

"Why are you here?"

The voice in what should have been an animal filled dungeon shocked Ludmiller. She spun around to see who spoke, only to be face to face with an elfin-featured woman. "A dryad?"

"Leave, please?"

"I can, but I need your help first." The look of surprise on the dryad's face almost made Ludmiller laugh. "The city that's protecting you is under attack. The men out there will be dying to make sure those horrible people don't come in and kill you."

"I will be reborn."

The tone was haughty, banishing Ludmiller's mirth. "No you won't. They already tried to do something weird to the undead dungeon." The memories of the core's panic gripped Ludmiller. She hated that it had been up to her, but was also relieved she could do what the dungeon needed. "It begged me to kill it before they could wrap it in chains. All you need to do is trust the city and trust me—and open a new entrance within the city's walls."

Glaring at the tall kobold, the dryad rolled her eyes. "We can't do that. The city would—"

"We've already done it."

It seemed incredulous to the dryad. "Your dungeon is attacking the city?"

"No, it's a partnership. The city protects us with its walls and we provide it with weapons and gold."

Tilting her head to the side for a moment, trying to understand what Ludmiller was saying, the dryad finally felt her dungeon shift in the back of her head. "Oh! I get it now. Dragon dungeons are really sneaky and you're going to try to kill us all." While Ludmiller stared at her, the dryad laughed. "You didn't think we'd figure it out because—Hey!"

Grabbing onto the dryad's wrist, Ludmiller stalked across the grass to the entrance. With her free hand she rang the bell in the exact way she'd been told. "I'm not listening to your inane fantasy. This is real and the only way I can prove it is to show you." When five slow rings of the inside bell happened, Ludmiller relaxed.

It was clear to the dryad that not only was Ludmiller stronger than her, but she also figured it would come to a fight if she tried to go against this. When the door opened, she was startled to see a grim-looking man with blood leaking down one side of his face.

Her dungeon wasn't about fighting and didn't like the idea of doing so, which was why it had made her how it had. Walking forward, breaking the dragon's grip with a little twitch of her magic, she reached out a hand to the warrior. "You are fighting for us?"

Timothy had never seen a dryad before. Standing shorter than Ludmiller, who was already shorter than him by some margin, the perfectly proportioned—naked, green—woman looked surprised. "Is it talking?" he asked Ludmiller, having not understood the creature's words.

"Yeah. You can't understand her?" When it was obvious he hadn't, Ludmiller translated for him.

"For you and for ourselves. We're surrounded, and they aren't taking piss off as our final answer." Pointing up to the walls, Timothy was resolute in the fact they would hold the wall until the last of them fell. "We'll be okay, though." His hand went to the spot on his armor that the talisman was under.

"What does he mean by that?" the dryad asked.

"So you can understand him? Okay, so our dungeon pays for everyone in the town to have talismans. I could send him and his people home right now." Ludmiller's hand strayed to her hip.

"What's a talisman?"

The question was a surprise, but Ludmiller had to remind herself the dryad hadn't had many visitors. "It's an anchor that pulls them and their body back to its creator if they die."

Without the reassurance of her dungeon around her, the dryad shivered. "So they are here just for us?" Ludmillers nod was the final nail in the coffin for the dryad. Reaching her palms toward Timothy, she sent a burst of healing magic at him.

Eyes widening in surprise, Timothy didn't need a translator for what she'd just "said". He crouched down and looked the dryad in the face and dipped his head. "Thank you."

"Can you get your dungeon to open a new entrance? Then these people don't need to guard this one anymore. You could open a new one, and then we'll seal this up." Gesturing at the door, Timothy smiled at the tiny woman.

"They want to take our animals." Looking up at Ludmiller, the dryad pouted. "They always want to take our animals."

Ludmiller nodded. "Yeah. They'll want something from you for that protection. Some animals or even gold would probably do. I think Travis has some stuff planned for food for the town."

"I'll try to get my home to do it." Walking back into her dungeon, the dryad shivered happily at the feel of being safe again.

"Not that I don't appreciate the healing, but is that a good sign?" Timothy managed to drag his eyes away from the dryad to Ludmiller.

"She's onboard with the plan. She's going to convince her dungeon. Definitely not as stupid as you'd think for a dungeon monster—she figured things out from my description and your wounds."

"What if she can't do it? What will you do?" He couldn't take his eyes from Ludmiller's weapons. He knew the answer—he just wanted to hear it.

"I won't let them keep you alive and take your talismans. I never enjoy that side of my work, but it's one I take as an important duty. It will be clean and you will wake up a moment later in Northridge." Ludmiller looked into Timothy's eyes, hoping he could see the dedication she held toward him.

It was weird, and Timothy knew it should feel weird, so he wasn't really worried about that feeling. "I've never died before." City guards didn't usually have the gold to afford talismans. He certainly never thought he would be protected by one while being a guard. "Thanks. For what you might have to do and for giving us all talismans."

"Hopefully we can open a way for reinforcements through the dungeon and you can walk home." It was the best she could come up with, and Ludmiller was greatly relieved that the awkward conversation was interrupted by the dryad. "How'd it go?"

"I need to travel to the location for the new entrance." Feeling the buzzing power inside her, the dryad felt strange. It was a big step for the dungeon, and for herself. "Please don't make me regret this."

"First we need to test something. I was hoping you'd be a little smaller, but it might still work. Climb on my back." Crouching and offering the boss of a dungeon her back was not easy for Ludmiller, but trust was a two-way street. Small hands came first, then feet bracing on her tail and then around her waist as the dryad climbed up. She stood, testing the weight and finding it not a terrible burden. "Now, Timothy, can you still see us when I—"

The pair faded from view. Timothy's eyes widened again at the reverse demonstration of Ludmiller's entrance. When he shook his head, they appeared again. "You were gone. Both of you."

"Perfect. I can get you out of here, we can run back to Northridge, and then get back in the same way." Not bothering to let the dryad down, Ludmiller walked with her to the ramp leading up to the wall and then ascended to the battlements.

When they were on the wall, and all the soldiers were visible there, the dryad scrambled down from Ludmiller's back. "Wait. I need to help them. Gather them around me. These are your injured?"

After Ludmiller repeated the question, it didn't take Timothy long to fetch the soldiers and have them form a circle around the diminutive form. A burst of green light later and the lines of pain on people's faces were gone and the guards each stood up after an appreciative nod. "You know, if you keep providing healing to the guards, you won't need to pay a single silver to have the city's favor. Hop on and let's get back and open the way to safety."

After she walked a lap of the wall, invisible, Ludmiller found her preferred spot. "Do you have a name? Mine's Ludmiller. You can call me Luddy, though."

"Breath of Spring." Holding tight as Ludmiller climbed out onto the exterior of the wall, Breath of Spring focused her thoughts on not imagining the drop below them or the fires of the camps surrounding the fort and her home. "Can you only do this at night, Luddy?"

"No, but it's easier at night. People will be tired and not looking for a sneaky kobold with a wise dryad on her back. From here on, we need to be quiet, though. No matter what, don't say a word." Dropping the last body length to the ground, Ludmiller landed in a crouch with her body low. She wasn't above crawling out, but if she could she would happily run.

It was the same side she'd come in on, but a little further along the wall. The ruined siege engine was off to one side, and the digging work here hadn't quite finished linking the palisade up. As she moved in silence, Ludmiller saw far too many open backs and bared throats. Her fingers practically itched to draw her weapons and send a few of the soldiers to a more eternal sleep. But she fought that instinct. A patrol passed by, not twenty feet from where she huddled. They had bright lanterns in one hand and naked blades in their other—and there were five of them. Waiting for the soldiers to leave the area was agony, but at last they moved on and left Ludmiller's path open.

She didn't walk and she didn't run. Crouched low to the ground, she used her tail to balance her weight and only touched down with her hands every now and again in her almost-crawl to get across the dangerous, patrolled ground.

Clinging to the back of another dungeon's monster should have been what Breath of Spring was most terrified of, but it was walking, clanging, death-dealing humans around them that were the source of her concern. She pressed herself against Ludmiller's back and screwed her eyes closed to ignore everything but the soft thudding of both their hearts.

When Ludmiller stood upright again, she whispered, "We're past their picket lines. They might have a few patrols out, but I doubt they'll see us." She began building speed, sacrificing silence for a long loping run that ate up the distance.

"Should I get down?"

"No. I can carry you like this and I don't want a stray archer spotting you. We need to get this entrance done in time to save that fort." She was partly lying, of course. Ludmiller's build—after becoming a cohort—was all about speed and agility. If it was Wild, he could have carried them both and not raised a sweat.

The world outside her dungeon was beautiful, Breath of Spring decided. There were living things everywhere. She wanted to climb down from Ludmiller's back to feel the ground that was the source of so many living things. "What happens if they get to my home?"

"I've heard stories about the empire. They're against magic of all kinds, and destroy any dungeon they come across. There was an odd thing in the undead dungeon, though. They tried to bind it with a chain that felt—it felt wrong. I don't know how, but I'm sure that the chain lets them control a dungeon." It still horrified Ludmiller. She shivered a little at the thought of the dungeon that had begged to die rather than live like that. "It tried to invade our dungeon, but Travis' floors are a maze of tunnels and traps, and then we have guns, too."

"And you'll protect my dungeon too?"

"Yes. Travis is— He's the strangest dungeon I've ever met."

That's when something started to dawn on Breath of Spring the more she listened to Ludmiller. "How many dungeons have you seen?"

"Dozens. Travis couldn't figure out how to make his own kobolds, but figured a way to make them with people. I made the big mistake of trying to attack him with my party." When Breath of Spring said nothing, Ludmiller tilted her head to the side and angled it so she could look back at her passenger.

"So you were a human?"

"Nope. Half-elf. The funny thing is, life's gotten better since becoming a kobold." She thought back to her life before stumbling into Travis' trap. "More exciting, at least."

The admission surprised Breath of Spring. She figured she should share something herself, but there was only one major detail she knew that would prove interesting. "I'm only two days old."

Peeking back again as she loped ever onward through the dark, Ludmiller nodded. "You're wise beyond your days, then. Did you know how to speak when you first woke up?"

"I didn't know that I could speak then. Not until I heard you speaking and replied. My home wanted me to get rid of you but you seem—I wouldn't have done very well." Breath of Spring giggled at the idea of fighting Ludmiller. She was sure that she'd barely have seen the kobold coming for her.

"You'd have beaten me," Ludmiller said. "Because hurting you was one surefire way I could fail in this mission."

"What do you mean?"

"If I'd hit you or, worse, killed you, your dungeon would never have agreed to this, let alone you." Ludmiller waited for a reply, but Breath of Spring was quiet. Focusing on her running, she kept them moving through the dark night.

In the far distance, before the light of the sun could touch them directly, the sky itself started to glow. Ludmiller could see the fires of the besieging army in the distance, and the closer they got she could start to hear the percussive echoes of rifles.

"What's that noise?" Breath of Spring asked.

"That's what my dungeon is known for now. Guns. You need steel and wood to make them, but once they're made you only need a little powder, some fabric, and a metal ball and you can do great harm to whoever you point it at." It made Ludmiller smile to hear the gun reports—it was like music to her.

"And your dungeon uses them to defend the city?"

"Yeah, but we give them to the people of the city to be used to defend themselves. You'll see. We work together to keep all of us safe." As the walls came into sharper focus, so too did the siege camp around Northridge become more discernible. The gap that Ludmiller had slipped out of was gone. The earthworks around the city were complete, though the army wasn't exactly a perfect circle. Like the outpost, there were patrolled sections between encamped soldiers. "Okay, quiet now. I need to focus on this and get us inside or this whole trip was for nothing."

To Breath of Spring it seemed like a terrible idea to be sneaking along while it was so bright. She wanted to say that to Ludmiller, but the kobold had been right about one thing—they needed to stay quiet. Thankfully, there were a group of defenders on the wall and they were pointing what she'd learned were called guns.

Each sound of a rifle discharging got and held the attention of the army. Like a huge swarm of ants, they boiled around the city and its occupants. Dropping to that low crouch-walk, Ludmiller got within only a handful of paces of a guard patrol before reaching the palisade.

Unlike the one they'd built at the undead dungeon, this was logs that were pointed inward and upward rather than an actual wall. Being careful to avoid getting too close to any of the soldiers, she climbed out along one of the logs and then dropped between two of them.

Each step across no-man's-land was punctuated with rifle fire. Ludmiller had to wonder at how much black powder they were making that this punishing rate of fire could be maintained.

On the wall came a shout and then a laugh. "You greasy, wet-behind-the-ears bastards think you can hurt me? Bring me your best and I'll punch 'em in the face!" Fife's bravado caused even more cheers from the wall.

In her heart, Ludmiller was overjoyed to hear such a taunt—her head wished Fife would do it on a section of wall far away from where they were stalking. Eventually, even moving as slow as she was, Ludmiller reached the wall and, walking along it so she wouldn't have to climb to the tower overlooking the portcullis, she started up.

By the halfway point her muscles were aching and she strained to keep her claws from shifting. The huge rocks used to build the wall required extra navigation, side to side, to find the cracks for her claws.

Only a few feet from the top, Ludmiller's muscles screamed at her and she felt one of her claws slip. Then another. Panic flooded her as one arm came away completely and then she—felt a strong grip close around her arm. Looking up in surprise, she saw Brolly Windchime reaching over the edge, his hand closed around her wrist. "How'd you see me?"

"Didn't until I got a buff from Northridge. I got you both." Heaving the two up, Brolly had trouble still seeing them—but he could feel Ludmiller's arm solidly enough. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Breath of Spring, she's the boss of the verdant dungeon. Where are we going to put this next dungeon entrance?" The feel of Breath of Spring climbing off her back was a sweet relief (even if her normally indefatigable body felt heavy and sluggish), but even though she stood a little taller, she saw her new friend hiding at her side. "It's okay. He's one of Northridge's people."

"What should I say to him?" Breath of Spring asked.

Ludmiller could practically feel the confusion and panic radiating from Breath of Spring. "He can't understand you. You should probab—"

"I can understand her." Lowering himself to a knee, Brolly held out his hand to the tiny dryad. He could feel Northridge paying close attention to events through him. "Welcome to our city. If you can open an entrance to your dungeon here, we will be in your debt."

The posture and words Brolly used broke through Breath of Spring's nerves. She was here to do a job. "Your soldiers are holding on as best they can. I healed them, but— Just show me where I can put our new entrance."

"Northridge seems to be pulling me toward Travis' entrance. Can you place it there?" Brolly asked.

"Show me." Despite having been carried so far already, Breath of Spring had no trouble with actually keeping up with the pair. Brolly seemed to move at a slower pace to accommodate her, while Ludmiller seemed to move at what she thought was the kobold's normal pace. It was, therefore, up to Breath of Spring to try to not look like she was running.

She could see the way the walls stretched out to wrap around something, but it wasn't until they got to the corner that she could see into the interior of the alcove. It felt mildly terrifying. There was a dungeon entrance there and it was huge.

"They've dug out the entrance?" Ludmiller asked.

"With people moving in and trying to maintain a flow of food out, it was deemed required. It will make that entrance harder to defend, but if it comes down to that, we're all in a lot of trouble." Brolly made his way to the nearest ramp down the wall.

When Ludmiller felt Breath of Spring's hand reach into her own, she gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Travis isn't a scary dungeon, I promise."

Her promise didn't relieve all the worry in the dryad, though. "Will we be opening my home near here?" Breath of Spring asked, trying to avoid looking at the other dungeon entrance. There were people walking in and out of it constantly—so much so that she eventually got curious and watched them enough that she missed Brolly's answer. "S-Sorry?"

"You can put your dungeon entrance beside this one. I'll have my guards go through and come out in the outpost to relieve the guards there." Brolly knelt down again. It cost him nothing to turn on the charm for the dungeon and he could see it even got the dryad to smile.

Closing her eyes, Breath of Spring walked to a spot that felt right—beside the other dungeon entrance—and triggered her end of the spell.

The emergence of a second dungeon within its city walls would have taken a light swat to deny, but Northridge instead welcomed the new party and attempted to project goodwill at it. What's more, it could feel Travis doing the same.

Nature had no part of the place where it had breached. There was no forest nearby, no trees, just stone and two towering pillars of power that stood opposite it. In all, the little dungeon had expected this. Unlike other dungeons, it couldn't send its minions out to attack and had been able to grow as large as it was only because the people had built a big wall around it and fitted a huge door.

Troops marched into it, fifty in all, and it was worried they would march down to its heart and crush it. Instead, as promised, they walked up the tunnel to its original entrance and rang the bell there.

With its attention split, the verdant dungeon noticed one of the towering pillars, the other dungeon, was attempting to reach out to it.

"Can you understand me? You can't understand me, can you?" Travis was almost banging his head against the problem, but at the same time trying to project an outward appearance of calm. The verdant dungeon was every bit as meek and scared as a wild animal, so he did the only thing he could think of to tempt it to trust him.

When the other dungeon made contact with it, the verdant dungeon reluctantly accepted the contact—what other choice did it have? The moment came and went and the dungeon flew into a rush of excitement.

The buffers drained by half. Travis considered it resources well spent, and the way the verdant dungeon seemed to radiate love now—like a small nuclear furnace—he was sure they appreciated it. He was still flush with resources and, soon enough, that steel would all be obsolete anyway. With a new ally assured, he went back to planning out how to get connected to the mithril lode.

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.