The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 19/100

Heart 1299600/1299600

Experience 3699/324900

Workers 27/121

Monsters 9/123

Traps 67/294

Food 2459

Timber 7322

Iron 2292

Steel 905

Charcoal 4938

Mana 1101

Rock 2262

Gold 1057

Leather 17

Leather Sludge 300

Lava 500

Glass 635

Explosive Runes 5

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 15

Long Guns 12

Bullets 1700

Black Powder 1700

Poison, Greater 1200

Sulfur 880

Quest: Kill 109 invaders.

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

Quest: Mine some mithril.

Travis wished the toy cannon had triggered something, but the lack of an unlock from it made him focus more on building. Growing, after all, would bring bigger things.

With the verdant dungeon settling in, and a fresh contingent of soldiers heading through to guard the fort around its other entrance, Travis had settled in his new workers into the dungeon by first having them dig out their own quarters.

The other serious thing had been to start mining their own sulfur for black powder. His lizards seemed intent on finding mana shrines as quickly as they could dig out tunnels linking them up.

"I can't believe you gave half your resources to them," Robert said, processing more of the black powder in an ever-continuous process now.

It wasn't the first time Travis had defended himself on the idea. "I have a good reason for it. Besides, if she can provide half the food for the city, why should we work our butts off digging more farm area? If my guess on floor delving is right, they will pay back way more than what I gave them, and it was only the rewards from delving the undead dungeon."

"You could have tested that with less resources." With his latest batch mixing, Robert stretched and rolled his neck. "I think it's time you filled the twists down here with sludge traps, Trav. Put up locked doors if you have to, to keep people out, but it's time you get way more serious with killing things we don't want coming into the dungeon."

"Yeah. Okay, let's do it now. I can afford two upscaled sludge traps with your special sludge. That's eight squares of it." Travis was planning it now, but something caught his attention as he started assembling the costs of the traps. "Wait! I can game this. Okay, so a sludge trap can have the bait upgrade, but I can change the bait upgrade for shiny, which means the trap has a gold cost!"

"Why would that—" Robert broke into laughter.

"I know! With a gold cost I can use Flush to reduce the cost of all the other resources for four gold." Setting down plans for three sets of four square traps. "That way I can afford three traps with four squares each instead of two."

Leaving his black powder to sit, Robert headed out and made his way to the twists. "So you give the other dungeon as many resources as you can stuff into it to make extra floors, then we go and take a walk through it?"

"That's my plan. Remember, the first floor gives nothing, but each floor was a huge stack of resources. More than enough that we'll get our investment back in no time. Plus, they can come here and say hi. Maybe she can even take a swing at me if she has a quest for it." Travis gave directions to where he had put the traps. It was a few sections of the tunnel that were like all the rest—only now they would be extra deadly.

Tannyr shrugged and left the gunsmithy to one of the new recruits. She hadn't been a smith and she'd managed to make guns, so she figured a farrier, the recruit, at least had some experience with working metal. "So, Trav, you wanted me for something specific?"

"Yeah. We've got lots of kobolds in here now, and even with Brayden now in a cohort, I would like a way to get more revival options. Also, more incentive for mages. So I need a room fifteen by five and another fifteen by ten. I think these are what's needed for classes."

"Only two?" Tannyr asked.

"There are another two. We will build the Temple first, and once we explore that we can decide if we need all four. But, if these are what give us classes, we will want all four of them."

"I heard Fife going on and on about how she was unstoppable in that undead dungeon. When she said it took a siege weapon to finally stop her, I expected someone to call her out on it." Marching up to where she felt the new section of the dungeon had been planned for her, Tannyr ran one hand along the worked stone wall. "Do you think there's something in that grab-bag for me?"

"There was a specific class called digger, but I don't think you need that. You already dig fast, and now we have a lot more people who are happy to dig. What I think would be better is the same thing Fife got. Think about it, eventually we will be digging on the fourth floor, which will mean big nasty things jumping out of the walls and trying to eat you. Being able to laugh at them and get away would be best." Travis didn't plan out too much in case the whole thing turned out not to be what he'd thought. "Despite being able to bring you back with Brayden's help, I'd really like it if you never required that."

"What makes you think I wouldn't prefer to have an actual class that helps with shooting?" Finding the face of the area Travis had marked, she ran the claws of her left hand over it while pulling her pickaxe from behind her back.

Upstairs, on the first floor, Travis noted that the newest additions to the dungeon were digging away. Some were more focused on clearing rooms out while others apparently relished in digging tunnels. Among them, helping with the strength of their presence, were Fife, Penelope, and Jack.

Jack was, of course, learning how to work a pickaxe with a similar amount of inexperience as the other recent converts. He swung the tool that he'd somehow pulled out of thin air and relished how easy the work was and how it freed his mind to focus on other things—except for one little interruption. "You're not going to help?" he asked.

"Oh, no! See, a floor boss supervises." Fife smirked at Jack's back, even though she knew he could see behind him with only a slight turn of his head. "Besides, you're learning all this."

The quarters he'd been digging out only needed a little more before Jack was done. He kept quiet as he swung, bringing down the rock before taking a moment to shore up the wall. "Why, though? I thought—"

"Spiders!" Penelope shouted. She was a few rooms down from Jack and Fife, but the big cavern that opened up seemed wall-to-wall with the big pests. In the past she'd been terrified of engaging with such monsters, but now she was far more sure of herself. "Head out the door and wait for Fife and Jack to come in," she told the worker who'd been with her while digging.

She didn't wait for her friends to come before giving the first few spiders the kind of greeting only an acid dragon could. Bringing up the now-familiar power inside her, she opened her mouth and sent a cloud of spider-melting acid out of herself and into the cavern.

"Oooh, more experience? Spiders?" Travis asked as Penelope drew her swords. "You want me to burn them or are you good here?"

"Don't you dare"—lashing out at the first spider to make it around the acid cloud she'd breathed, Penelope cut it down with her second slash—"waste mana on this. Huh, these always seemed more solid."

"You were about half your size back then and didn't have all this magic." Travis had wanted to show off a little, but admitted to himself that she had been right. He watched through Penelope's eyes, the eyes of a few curious lizards watching from the door, and soon Fife and Jack's as well, as Penelope cut her way into the nest and, when she was ready enough to unleash it again, breathed more of her acid on the remaining arachnids.

"What, that was it?" Jack asked.

"I think I'm in looooove." Stepping into the room, Fife looked around. "You didn't leave anything for me?"

"If you did some digging, you'd be first to reach a few yourself." Penelope stuck her tongue out at Fife. "Anyway, this lot is done. I'll get the venom sacks from these and we can keep going."

The whole fight had been short-lived. Penelope had melted and cut her way through the spiders as any dungeon boss should first floor monsters. Meanwhile, on the second floor, Tannyr had already started work and was digging out what would become the Temple room.

It didn't take long for her to finish it, not at the furious pace she could dig at. When the room was all shored up, Travis paid the price to make it into a Temple—and of course he spent extra gold to reduce the cost of the rock and steel. It took a while to build, too. He watched in a detached way as Tannyr built the altar, stone pews, and great golden statue of—"Is that a dungeon heart made out of gold?" Travis asked.

"It'll be so much better with a coat of paint." Tannyr was doing her best not to laugh. The Temple wasn't finished, and already she'd pulled out a blunt chisel and hammer and was beating a big smiling face into the gold heart. "Perfect!" she said, when she finished the smiling face.

"I can't believe you drew a smiling face on it." Doing his best not to laugh, Travis finally gave up and snorted with laughter as Tannyr finished the building.

The moment she did a loud gong sound went off in Travis' headspace and he felt new presences start circling around. Deities, he realized, all watching closely to see what he would do. "Brayden?"

Hearing Travis call his name, Brayden stood up from his seat where he'd been chatting with Jacob in the second floor tavern when he felt the call. "S-Sorry, I have—" Travis called him again, but this time there was a second voice over Travis'.

Jacob stood up when Brayden did. They'd been discussing making armor when the priest had started to act strange. He followed after, feeling an odd sensation growing—as if they were being watched by something powerful.

The walk wasn't far. The new tunnel was nearby and the new room was the first turn to the right. As soon as his foot crossed the threshold, Brayden felt his god's presence swell to an intensity he hadn't felt outside of the huge cathedral where he'd taken his vows. "Brogdar?"

Stopping at the door, Jacob could only stare as the huge gold statue at the front of the room reformed and shaped itself into the image of an armed and armored figure—the only odd part was that the figure was a kobold.

Watching her work melt away into the new form, Tannyr could feel the divinity weighing on the room and stood up. "I think you'll want to make this place a little more comfortable," she said, patting Brayden on the shoulder as she walked out. Once outside, she asked, "Did that work, Travis?"

"Yeah. It unlocked the research for all the divine classes and I now see a cost on the four classes. Damn but they're expensive. Priest is a thousand gold, cleric is ten thousand, paladin is five thousand gold and five thousand adamantine, and inquisitor is the same but with mithril. And that's after spending three hundred days of research time."

Whistling, Tannyr looked up at where Jacob was standing. "If you want to talk to Brayden, you might want to find something else to do. His god is in there with him, and I think they both have a lot to talk about."

"Ah. He was discussing getting me to make some armor. I've worked steel before, and made a few breastplates and such, but I don't think I'll be able to work on any of the more exotic metals." Still unwilling to take the deal the dungeon had given his whole family, Jacob sighed. "I wish I could accept your deal, but Grace and I still want a big family."

"He's okay with that. You did see that we have over a dozen new faces, plus around thirty townsfolk living here now? Travis doesn't mind sharing and, honestly, neither do the rest of us—even if Robert gets a little odd about it sometimes. Live your life here, have a dozen little terrors that want to learn how to run a forge or shoot a rifle or swing a sword or—anything. You're welcome to join more fully when you are too old to make more." Pulling out her pickaxe, Tannyr started measuring where the next room would be.

Nodding, and filled with more determination than ever to learn how to help the dungeon, Jacob said, "Thank you. I might go and see about finding a forge to practice with."

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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.