The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 20/100

Heart 1440000/1440000

Experience 9486/360000

Workers 27/127

Monsters 9/129

Traps 71/309

Food 2643

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 300

Black Powder 300

Poison, Greater 1200

Sulfur 700

Quest: Kill 33 invaders.

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

Quest: Mine some mithril.

As soon as Ludmiller stepped foot back in the dungeon, Travis cast Attract Lizards on her. It was a single point of mana that got lost in the endless stream in and out, but her laugh of excitement was exactly what he'd hoped to inspire. "You got us so many more resources! This is awesome!"

"Thanks. Aww, these little guys are so adorable. Travis, can you cast this on me whenever I feel unhappy?" Ludmiller asked, now with lizards up to her knees.

"Deal. Just say the word and I'll bury you in lizards. She has four extra floors already?" Evening might have fallen, but some in his dungeon ignored the normal day-night cycle and he had given up trying to regulate people's lives. "I had a big announcement earlier, something I want to show you too."

"Okay. Breath of Spring is right behind me. She wants to negotiate prices for access to her dungeon's bunnies." Ludmiller selected two particularly adorable lizards to ride on her shoulders and then started forward. "Are you coming, Breath?"

"Why are there so many lizards? Why are you wearing two?" Breath of Spring had to step carefully around the swarm that Ludmiller waded through easily. She stopped when one stood directly in her path. Tilting her head to the side, she reached out her hand only to have the lizard flick it with its tongue. "Awww."

"You can take him home with you, if you like," Ludmiller said. "Give her some room, everyone, we need to head down to the tavern. Trav, is Stephan awake?"

"Sleeping, and I'm not going to wake him. Part of my new rules." Travis mentally relaxed. "No alert to wake anyone unless it is an emergency. This isn't an emergency. But it's fine, I can help you with the negotiation. I don't want us to have a big advantage here, anyway. Hopefully we'll be neighbors for a long time."

"Okay, so why don't we set a limit on the negotiations. So we'll start with a month?" Ludmiller asked.

It was a good idea, or so Travis thought. "I like that. You've got this."

"That seems fine. I think my home wants to upgrade me soon, so hopefully I'll be better at these sorts of things after that." Breath of Spring followed the stairs down and into the warm room where a group of other kobolds were sitting around and talking.

"Luddy?" Standing up and turning to Ludmiller, Wild caught her up, hugged her, and gave her a kiss. "This is your new friend?"

Clearing her throat, Ludmiller quickly pulled back from Wild and nodded. "Breath of Spring, this is my partner, Wild. Wild, this is Breath of Spring. She's the boss from the verdant dungeon."

"H-Hello." Looking nervous, Breath of Spring gazed at the big kobold in obvious surprise.

Letting Ludmiller slip from his grip, Wild bowed to Breath of Spring. "Welcome to our dungeon. Your first visit was a little too quick for us to meet."

Smiling, Breath of Spring took a deep breath and nodded. "My home was worrying about me. I didn't want to leave home for too long. I reassured my home this time."

"Excuse us, Wild. We need to negotiate the price of rabbits." Ludmiller brushed past Wild and led Breath of Spring to an empty table. "Now, what does your du—home, need?"

Breath of Spring let out a sigh. "I don't exactly know. Home wants something. Home got excited when your dungeon—oh, your home—gave it things, but I don't know which it needed the most."

"Luddy," Travis said, "I can gift it with resources one at a time. Then we can figure out which of them her home likes most."

When Ludmiller repeated the suggestion, Breath of Spring beamed in delight. "That will work, won't it? I'm sure we'll need other resources, but for now we can let my home decide what home wants."

Travis, still half listening, turned his attention toward the other dungeon itself. "Uh, hello?" What he felt in reply was akin to the cute little sound that a cat makes if you wake them or the sound of a dog's tail thwapping softly. "What do you need the most of?"

But Travis only got confusion in reply. "Do you want this?" He sent some gold. Just a hundred. The other dungeon got excited about that. "And this?" Next was timber, and again there was some excitement. Then he sent food, and the other dungeon got extra excited. He still sent iron, steel and some of the leather he'd gotten from Ludmiller exploring the verdant dungeon, but none of it excited them like food did. "Uh, okay. Hey, Luddy, I think I figured out that they want food."

"Travis has been talking with your home, he thinks food is what it wants," Ludmiller said.

"Oh! Uh, well, how much food per rabbit?" Breath of Spring asked.

"Tell her we'll start with two hundred and fifty," Travis said.

When she heard Ludmiller repeat it, Breath of Spring asked, "How much is that? How many animals will that feed?"

"Well, a while back it would feed one of us for one day. With upgrades now that will feed a kobold or human for four," Ludmiller said, after Travis explained it to her. "Will that be—?"

"We'll take it!"

Travis lost touch with the pair as Ludmiller left the dungeon with Breath of Spring beside her. He was busy planning. With the need for food and stone, he was marking a huge area for digging out. Marking it and posting the job on the notice board, he realized he hadn't given Ludmiller the full talk of what the new work system was.

Your minion has entered another dungeon, but you delved it too recently to gain any rewards!

You must wait 11 days, 22 hours, and 53 minutes before delving again.

Travis would have face-palmed if he could. He could put the numbers together and figure out that the undead dungeon had raided him every three days, and he'd gotten four rewards from "raiding" the verdant dungeon, at three hours each floor, and got twelve days. "I figured it out— Oh. She's gone. Right. Uh…" He realized that all his inhabitants were either asleep or deep in conversation.

Except one.

"Hey there. So, they tell me you can hear people in your heart room. I guess I always felt a dungeon's presence was greatest there, and I was curious about casting this spell now I've had a bit of practice with all this mana you've given me. So, if you're cool with it, uh, give me a boost and I'll see about communing with you again." Felna ran her fingers over the heart, careful not to extend her claws.

Her answer was immediate. A rush of blue light enveloped Felna and she felt like her reserves of magic had swollen out to a dozen times normal. The complex spell normally took finesse and careful casting, instead she threw a pile of mana at it and let it bond her consciousness to the dungeon's. "I guess this is a lot more intimate hello."

Travis heard the voice clearer and had found himself able to see through her eyes. "Hi, Felna. Anything else I can help you with, or did you just want to spend tomorrow with a headache?"

"Any different from last time?" Felna asked.

"Yeah. It's as if you were a minion. I— Huh."

"What's 'huh'?" The sound surprised her to the point where she was now a little worried.

"Well, my Monsters count went up by one. Can you try ending the spell?"

When Felna fumbled for it, and couldn't sense the spell as active, she knew she might have gone too far. To double check, she sat down in the middle of the floor, closed her eyes, and started meditating. What surprised her almost as much as the fact that she couldn't purge any effect on herself was that Travis didn't talk to her during the focus period.

Opening her eyes and stretching, Felna shrugged her shoulders. "There is no spell anymore. This is odd."

"There's a research skill I have that lets non-dungeon creatures talk to me like this. I wonder if this spell is based on that? Why did you want to do all this, anyway?"

"I've always found it interesting to commune with a dungeon. I have bonded with verdant dungeons, too, and they always felt so calm and relaxed. You're nothing like that. Normal dungeons are angry with me, and try to give me commands sometimes, but they never talked." Standing and reaching out to the heart, Felna ran her fingers over it. "So curiosity is part of it, but I—I guess I'm just done with roaming. They say when a Sandwalker priest stops walking, they are ready to die. I guess I found something worth hanging around for."

The information was intriguing to Travis, mostly because it explained his newest friend so well. "So none have ever actually spoken?"

"Nope. The biggest I've communed with was thirty-five floors, and that was strong. It was hard to not do what it wanted. Sandwalker protect me, if I'd ever contacted something bigger—I might not have had the strength to leave." She blew out a breath and leaned her back against Travis' heart. "Ogmera's gonna kill me if she finds out."

"Good thing Brayden can bring you back from that. I'm curious if your talisman will work—but not curious enough to ask you to test it." Travis realized that now Felna might be in the same situation the others are in—and started schooling his words around her. "There are hundreds of days of research between now and being able to do this on a more repeatable basis—without your help."

"I heard Kate talking about research. What's that? Another dungeon system?"

"It's weird, but yeah." Travis watched Felna use her claw to draw a pattern on the floor. "There's piles of things to give me advantages or access to stuff. Everything now takes ages to research, but I'm trying to unlock the dungeon class things—like what Fife has. It turns out the buildings weren't enough to do it on their own. Each class requires more research."

Felna let out a laugh. "Sounds like you have more to keep track of than a city's accountant."

"Yeah. The dungeon system helps me keep track of things, but I have to make all the decisions. Right now we're trying to scale up food production and sleeping quarters. I want the city to survive no matter what, and if that means me having to become home to its citizens, then I'll handle that."

"Don't you gain something from having non monsters in here?" Knowing the answer, Felna got distracted by the large, flat piece of stone that had writing on it in chalk. Lists of tasks, some ticked off, others showing numbers.

"I get experience, which lets me grow bigger and do more stuff, yeah. Oh, that's my new system of handling work. I post that and let everyone figure out what they want to do. Some get exemptions, like Robert, Kate, and Wild."

"Why Wild?"

"He's my first boss that anyone would encounter if they want to delve into me. He's basically a gatekeeper." Travis focused on his mana and used it to levitate the tiny piece of chalk again, and added first floor digging to the list.

"You're a weird dungeon, Trav. I don't think I would have ever considered this"—Felna gestured around herself—"as a potential home, but you've made it comfortable. I'd like to try taking my group to scout the goblins soon, see if we can't encourage them to attack these idiots outside our walls."

"The trick will be getting you out there, though if we start a tunnel soon, it could be something to work toward." Travis added another note to the wall to have someone discuss adding a tunnel under the wall.

"Maybe I should try the spell in the verdant dungeon too?" Felna asked.

"Nah, she's already pretty awesome. She helped me figure out what resources she needs too." When Felna turned and looked at his heart in surprise, Travis laughed. "What?"

"'She'?"

"She feels like a she. I think she's happy to not be alone anymore. I hope she's not too angry when we start taking her rabbits." Travis tried to articulate the general feel of the verdant dungeon, but was failing at it. "I don't want to say it, because she might grow beyond it, but she feels like a pet."

Reaching out to Travis' heart, Felna stroked him. "Good boy." When he started to sputter in her head, she laughed. "Oh, relax. But, if that's how she feels to you, maybe reward her for giving them up?"

"We arranged to pay. You're right, though. Associating a reward with giving them up should make it easier." Vague memories of having a pet before waking up as a dungeon told Travis that it would work. "Did you have a pet when you were growing up?"

"No, but I had three little brothers. It worked the same way with them," Felna said, walking out of the heart room. "Can you still hear me?"

"Loud and clear. Also, I can see through your eyes now."

Grinning all the wider, Felna focused a moment and made herself go cross-eyed.

"Hey, stop that!"

"On one condition. You build me a temple too, and one for Nathaniel if he wants it."

Travis, who was quietly buying all the upgrades he could for the wyverns, was fine with that. "Sure. It'll take some resources, but I'll get it built sooner rather than later."

Purring to herself, Felna barely felt the weight of the figurative collar she'd put on. "That's fine." Her paws didn't even itch.

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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.