The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 19/100

Heart 1299600/1299600

Experience 112386/324900

Workers 27/121

Monsters 9/123

Traps 71/294

Food 2459

Timber 7322

Iron 2292

Steel 905

Charcoal 4758

Mana 1143

Rock 1966

Gold 1057

Leather 17

Leather Sludge 15

Lava 500

Glass 483

Explosive Runes 5

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Long Guns 12

Bullets 1700

Black Powder 300

Poison, Greater 1200

Sulfur 700

Quest: Kill 73 invaders.

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

Quest: Mine some mithril.

"No."

Travis agreed with Fife and voiced that, "Yeah, sorry, not going to do that. If Breath of Spring's dungeon will supply animals to skin, fine, but we aren't going to use the wyverns."

Puffing her chest out, Fife nodded her head to that. "Good, because anyone who wants to hurt Claws, Fangs, Fluffles, Mister Cutie Pie, Death, Talons, Eggbert, or Fife Junior will have to fight me first."

"It's probably time to see how she's settling in," Ludmiller said. "Breath of Spring and her dungeon, I mean. You gave them a lot of resources."

His new denizens were all relaxing today; having earned a little time off now they had their sleeping quarters all built. He had plans, of course, to build the remaining rooms—he simply needed more rock for it. "I wanted to try something else, too."

"Oh? What new plan is this?" Penelope asked.

"Forget work days, forget days off. I'll post a list of things I need done in my heart room and people can pick them off and do them whenever they want. This other system wasn't working, anyway." When everyone looked shocked, Travis groaned. "Come on, it can't be that weird?"

"No one will work!" Robert said, and when everyone nodded to him he continued. "Well, I mean, I will. I'd go crazy if I couldn't get any work done. Besides, you promised me I could work in my lab."

The silence worked in Travis' favor. Every single one of them started to slump and lower their heads as realization dawned. "Okay, so we'll set that up," Travis said.

The first to react, Ludmiller stood up. "I'll go talk to Breath of Spring and ask if I can take a tour of her dungeon. You'll know if they have a second floor."

"I'm going to make more black powder. The city is going through that at a crazy rate. I don't mind, though. It's good." Robert walked past his sister and put his hand on her shoulder for a moment.

"Brolly said he wants some help dealing with more siege engines that are being built. It turns out they burn pretty good." Katelyn stood and snapped her fingers—summoning her staff from nowhere and setting it aflame. "I'll get some research done when I'm back."

Penelope waited for the rest to leave, her hand casually pinning Fife's leg to the chair beside her. When the bar was empty, she asked, "Fife Junior?"

Laughing, Fife leaned back so her chair was balanced on two legs. "She's the small one. I was trying to train her to bite things and let her chew on my arm for a bit. Fangs too, though he eventually started to mess up my arm enough that my healing kicked in. Hey, Trav, when are we going to get saddles on them and fly around dropping bombs on the guys upstairs?"

"Find me two hundred leather and we can get right on that," Travis said. "More leather means more sludge, more sludge means more of those amazing sludge traps."

"Wait, you actually built more of those? Where are they?" Penelope asked.

Travis was busy planning more areas for digging on the first floor, but replied, "They're in the second floor's maze. Robert placed them so they were in the sections where the tunnels converged. Also, that meant they had a lot of explosive traps nearby."

"I might go topside and practice shooting some more. Maybe I can get a level out of it." Standing up, Fife paused. "Huh."

"Something wrong?" Penelope asked.

"All my life I've only killed dungeon monsters, and I thought people would feel different."

Pondering it for a moment, Penelope nodded. "I'll come up too. We can chat about it on the wall while we shoot."

They left Travis to think about it alone, and though he worried about the topic, he had to settle for letting them figure things out for themselves. "It's not like I'm ordering them to do it."

As she stepped into the verdant dungeon, Ludmiller felt a sense of peace. She knew it probably wouldn't be as hostile as it had been the first time, but to find the dungeon welcoming was new. "Uh, hello? Is Breath of Spring here?"

The feeling didn't change, but Ludmiller spotted a rabbit bouncing over to her. Crouching, she held out her hand to it. "Well, aren't you cute?"

"He told the others he is coming to kill the intruder," Breath of Spring said. Walking up to Ludmiller, she didn't stop until she hugged the kobold. "Welcome to my home."

If she hadn't been crouching, Ludmiller would have had an awkward hug around her leg. As it was, Breath of Spring was at a convenient height to put her arm around and return the embrace. "Thanks. I came to ask if you were okay and to talk about trading."

"First, there is something my dungeon wants to show you. Come, please?" Letting go of the hug, Breath of Spring took Ludmiller's hand and started to step away with it.

Following, Ludmiller let herself be taken on another tour of the dungeon. Now, though, there were a lot more animals. Sheep that had huge, spider-like abdomens and eight legs each—that purred when she petted them; rabbits that had bat wings and would soar around a huge cave; and some kind of goat that had bright blue sparks arcing between their horns were a small selection. She had, of course, heard of such animals. The nightmare-sheep grew in verdant animal dungeons, though they were far less aggressive than if they'd been in any other kind.

A shiver ran through Ludmiller as they walked down one tunnel to a new spot. "Is this a different floor?"

Nodding, Breath of Spring giggled. "Our home was so excited to have all those resources from your home—Travis—that there are five floors now. We're trying to come up with what we'll put on each one, but for now the path deeper is short."

The floors, Ludmiller discovered, were arranged oddly. It was literally a switchback from the first floor down, with the tunnel that went deeper starting right beside where the previous one let out. At the bottom of the last one, though, she saw it.

The heart of the dungeon was green shot through with brown. It glowed warmly and without a hint of malice that she'd felt from the undead one. Reaching out a clawed hand, she pressed her palm to it. "I'm pleased to meet you, and glad you took us up on the offer of opening a new entrance. It must have been expensive."

Walking around the heart of her home, Breath of Spring ran her delicate fingers over the crystal. "Thank you so much for helping us. We'll all work to provide the town with everything we can."

"That's something I wanted to talk about. Remember when we showed you to the bottom of our dungeon?" Ludmiller waited for Breath of Spring to nod. "Well, did your home get extra excited after that?"

"Y-Yeah. I'm getting a feeling like I should go again. What did it do?"

"A dungeon gets resources for visiting the floors of a dungeon. I was going to ask if I could see your lowest floor because it really helps Travis too." Ludmiller waited before asking, "I'd also like to ask if you'd be willing to trade for, uh, rabbits?"

"Just like the city folk. They want rabbits too. We know how homes like ours are normally treated, but it still hurts to let our family go like that." Breath of Spring frowned and leaned against the heart. "But we agreed. I agreed. Our protection will be most of the cost, of course, but we'd like some more gold."

"Oh, we can pay gold. You're also welcome to come and walk to the bottom of Travis whenever you want. I know we don't have many floors, but what we have is open to you." The question of deals settled, Ludmiller could relax. "How are they doing at your other entrance?"

"It's hard fighting. I planted a tree for them, but it will take many years to grow and give the kind of protection that would help. Sometimes I meet them coming back and make sure they're all healed up. Do you want to see?" Straightening, Breath of Spring led the way to the top of her dungeon.

The door to the fort was open, and Ludmiller could see the tree that'd been planted—it was shorter than she was. Early afternoon light spread across the wall and the one big tower rang with repeated rifle shots. "Can I go up and see—"

"Ludmiller!" Rushing toward the kobold, Timothy Devin dropped to one knee. "I can barely believe you managed to get this done. I didn't expect to make it back to the city without a talisman, but then all those reinforcements piled through."

Still in a hugging mood after Breath of Spring's greeting, Ludmiller stepped over and hugged the guardsman. "Hey, I told you I'd get you out. Speaking of getting out, why are you here?"

"Commander Windchime has put me in charge of the fort. It's not so bad taking care of things here now, but I wonder if I could ask you another huge favor?"

Surrendering her grip on Timothy, Ludmiller watched him stand up to twice her height. "Sure, what's up?"

"They built another siege engine, but we shot several of the men putting it together. Now they've dragged it back out of range of our guns. Would you mind delivering a present?" Walking over to a stone, reinforced building, Timothy drew out a small barrel with a fuse in the end of it. "This is half filled with black powder and the rest is chains. Could you drop it off at the base of their weapon?"

Laughing at the joke, Ludmiller nodded. "I can do that. And, since you're such a good customer, delivery will be free this time." She took the keg and patted her weapon belt where her alchemical equipment was. A striker sat there, exactly where it should be. "Give me a little bit of time, and try to avoid shooting in that area."

When Ludmiller walked up the ramp and onto the wall, Timothy crouched down to Breath of Spring. "Are you able to come up to the wall? There are no injuries, but the guards always feel better when you're around."

Blushing, Breath of Spring nodded and followed Timothy up the ramp to find the soldiers on the wall. She could feel the mood lighten and even heard a few cheer. They definitely started talking more excitedly. "Did Ludmiller already go over?"

"The ghost of the fort? Yeah, she looked grim," one of the soldiers said, then turned to Timothy. "She taking out the siege engine again, captain?"

"She sure is. Getting to the point where I might have to pay a visit to her dungeon and ask if she can be stationed out here." Timothy was careful not to look at the siege engine that was, even now, having the finishing touches being put on it. "Try and keep your fire away from that spot."

"She already said that, sir."

They didn't have long to wait. A yell from the picket line was all the warning they had before an explosion rang out. Breath of Spring hid behind Timothy while the rest of the guards cheered from the wall. When she poked her head up, it was to see that the machine in the distance was no more. There was burning grass and a huge hole where it used to be. "Wow."

The walk back to the fort while still unable to be seen made Ludmiller feel a little worried at how easy that had been for her. One moment she was setting the keg down at the base of the trebuchet, then lighting the fuse, and finally the hustle away from it as fast as she could without drawing attention.

By the time Ludmiller climbed back onto the wall and became visible again, she was regretting that she was the only kobold who could move unseen. "Was that the only package you wanted delivered? I should get back to Travis and find out what he got from all this."

"I'll come too. We can figure out how much you'll pay for rabbits and what else we might want to trade." Leaning closer to Timothy, Breath of Spring waited for him to crouch before she jumped and pecked him on the cheek. "Keep my home safe."

Standing up straight, Timothy saluted Breath of Spring. "Yes, ma'am!"

Available at: https://www.royalroad.com/profile/220350/fictions

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.