The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 21/100

Heart 1587600/1587600

Experience 297834/396900

Workers 27/133

Monsters 9/135

Traps 71/324

Food 3603

Timber 7322

Iron 2292

Steel 905

Mithril 3

Mithril Ore 50

Charcoal 4758

Mana 994

Rock 3263

Gold 1057

Leather 217

Leather Sludge 215

Lava 500

Glass 483

Explosive Runes 5

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Long Guns 5

Bullets 300

Black Powder 250

Poison, Greater 1000

Sulfur 700

Adamantine Scraps 24

Quest: Give classes to 10 of your creatures.

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

Quest: Delve to the bottom of a dungeon with at least 20 floors.

With the immediate threat dealt with, Travis turned his full attention to the mana problem. "So, what has changed?" he asked Katelyn and Jack.

Still buzzing after the fight with the scorpion, Katelyn shrugged. "We haven't done anything with the shrines for a while, nor the manipulators in your heart room. Are you sure this isn't some kind of balance thing?"

"'Balance thing'?" Jack asked.

"Travis' dungeon type maps very closely to a type of game where he is originally from. We're tentatively calling it a game dungeon. Those games often had ways to balance the difficulty by changing some things or even adding entire new systems. They're all intended to make the game more challenging, for those that enjoy that."

To say Travis was shocked was an understatement. He knew Katelyn had been reading his books—his memories of his life—but this seemed like some really intense research. "Yeah. That. I still think this needs a tutorial."

Katelyn breaking into fits of barking laughter would have made Travis blush if only he still had a body. "Oh, come on. Sometimes doing is a good enough tutorial, but not when everyone's lives are on the line. I don't want to risk people dying because I couldn't figure things out fast enough or, worse, didn't know something."

Jabbing her thumb in the direction of Travis' heart, Katelyn gave Jack a grin. "And that's why I work as hard as I can to make his life easier. He worries about everyone."

"Can we focus on this mana problem?" Travis asked.

"Let's examine one of the big shrines first." Being in the library, Jack led the way to the heart room and the detailed maps there.

Following along, Katelyn didn't bother closing the doors behind her. Their effectiveness was lost now that there were no plans of being attacked. It was a different feeling now that the entrance of the dungeon was more or less secure. "If it was some kind of balance mechanic, what would it be based off that keeps changing?"

Thinking on it, Travis voiced the obvious. "Between the previous tick of mana and the latest one? Experience. Possibly how much space the dungeon takes up. We have that huge new area on the top floor."

"And a new cave opening up could have tipped us into the next level of balance. So, what are we trying next, Jack?" Katelyn asked.

Looking at the map, Jack was counting something, but it wasn't the number of shrines. "Just figuring out how we can move between these easiest. I want to test a theory."

Travis was curious, but was beaten to the punch of asking by Katelyn.

"What's that?"

Jack was about to ask when Felna entered the room. She dimmed her alchemical light and held up a big leather bag. "Do either of you know where I can deposit this so Trav gets it?"

Katelyn's nose wrinkled up at the smell from the bag. "What is that?"

"Three plump venom sacks, a pair of scorpion oysters, and an egg sack." When Felna opened the bag, Jack and Katelyn both stepped back from her. "It's not that bad. Besides, it's what will be going into the food for the next day or so. Scorpion is delicious when poached."

The purring coming from Felna let Travis know her full opinion on the scorpion flesh. The looks of horror on Jack and Katelyn's faces made him glad he didn't have a body with olfactory nerves. "You could have asked. Any storage room will do, like all the ones you passed on your way here."

Shrugging, Felna replied, "Well, we're surrounded by those. Are you doing anything more interesting than going back to losing all my gold to Ogmera at dice?"

"Trying to figure out why Trav keeps getting less and less mana." Jack headed out of the heart room with both companions and headed south. "How do you know this way is south?" he asked. "On your map it says 'south', but is it? I didn't think compasses worked well in dungeons."

"They still don't, but it's easier to just draw this way is south on the map and make it so." When they reached the first warehouse, after turning west, Katelyn looked much relieved when Felna emptied the contents of her bag into the storage room. "What does your system say about that, Trav?"

You have found the spawn of a powerful dungeon monster: Cave Scorpion!

New room added!

"I got a new room! Something to do with the scorpion eggs I think. Uh, here it is. Cave Scorpion Pit. I guess Fife will want one of those so she can put a saddle on it and ride it into a fight." Looking it up, Travis saw that it was the same size as a boss room. "It's the same size and cost as a boss room. I have no idea what that means. Will it give me another boss?"

"Well, you have a room right there for something that size. Pen doesn't need it anymore, since she wanted her boss room to be an arena." When they reached the last north-south tunnel in the central area of the dungeon, Katelyn followed Jack north until they were one section away from the outer ring.

"If that's true, I could make that room the junction for the stairs going up to the top, the end of the maze, and the tunnel leading to Fife's room." Travis mused on it. "Hey, Fife, I might have a new pet for you to make friends with."

Splitting his focus between Fife as she lifted her armored face from the top of a tankard and looked around—and the investigating team in the basement—he filled Fife in and watched as Katelyn melted down the bit of rock to get Felna through the gap, then brought the ceiling back down to fill it in.

"New friend? What you got for me, Trav, and don't tell me you want me to dig it out." Giving a wave to everyone in the lower tavern, Fife started heading down the back tunnel toward the bottom floor. "Also, where am I going?"

"New friend is a cave scorpion, where you're going is the room that was going to be Pen's boss room, before we changed plans and set her up to support you." Travis was relaxed right up until he noticed his mana drop by a hundred. "Crap! Something—"

"What in the name of shifting dunes is that thing on your mana shrine crystal?" Felna asked.

Looking through the eyes of Jack, Katelyn, and Felna, Travis had a disconcerting sense of wrongness. Two sets of eyes saw nothing. One set of eyes saw what looked like some kind of nest attached to one side of the huge crystal. Crawling out of the nest, a winged slug-thing took off and flew over the heads of Jack and Katelyn.

"Smite!" Searing fire poured from Felna's clenched fist and hit the slug-thing out of the air, burning it to crisp. "Torch the room!"

"Do it! I just lost one hundred mana for no reason! There's something in there only Felna can see." Travis, watching through Felna's eyes, watched Katelyn fill the room with a swirling inferno that burnt the nest to a crisp. "Fife! Get Tom and Stratus down here. Take them to—to the mana storage we have in the library! Hurry!"

She reached the library as another hundred mana evaporated from his storage. "Wait, Kate, my heart is a mana crystal, right?"

Fife and Katelyn both took off at a run, one heading back to the tavern she'd left a moment ago, the other to protect her friend. "Felna! Keep up with me!" Katelyn shouted. "If I can't see these things, I need you to aim for me."

By the time Katelyn, Jack, and Felna reached Travis' heart, Fife was herding the two wizards down to the third floor. "Don't worry about anything physically attacking you. Travis said there are flying things attached to some of his mana crystals and so far Felna was the only one who could see them."

"Fife, have Tom wait at the intersection coming up, then you go with Stratus down further to clear out the tunnels and rooms." Travis was beside himself. Not only was his dungeon infected with these things sucking his mana, but he couldn't see them and they could be coming directly for him. When Felna finally made her way to his heart room, and spotted several of the slugs flying down the east tunnel toward him, he shuddered inside the crystalline prison of his heart.

Katelyn sighted down Felna's arm and launched blast after blast of fire down the tunnel before her. "Any more?"

Smiting one last one that had evaded Katelyn's magic, Felna shook her head. "That's all of them, but I bet there is a hive forming on your storage crystal."

Jack walked down to the door and secured it. "Can we get more eyes down here? Felna can guide one of us, but it would be best if we could seal off areas and search for these things."

While Katelyn and Jack sealed off the heart room from the south, and Felna searched the few attached rooms for the parasites, Stratus marched along the tunnel to the end, checking the mithril node, the cave that Fife had opened, and the back to the first mana shrine. He shivered as he studied it, then stepped back out of the room. "The nest on that shrine is huge; as big as the crystal itself. Fortunately, you have a pair of wizards who have made careers out of burning bugs."

Fife's eyes widened for a moment as the fire engulfed the room. It wasn't a blanket or a typical blast spell. One moment the room was normal, and the next, its entire volume of air was replaced with fire. What shocked her, though, was that she could see a black outline within the flames. "That's the hive?"

Remembering what Katelyn and Felna had seen, Travis could confirm Fife's vision still couldn't detect the hive—but she could see the space it displaced in the firestorm. "Yeah."

Clearing the fire only when he saw the hive was completely burned away, Stratus stepped into the warm room. The crystal was fine, as were the walls. The smoldering remains of several parasites were not having a good day. "You can see them now?"

"Now I can. They became visible when they died, I think." Fife walked in and stomped her armored talons down on one. "Now we move back toward Tom, right?"

"Yes," Travis and Stratus both said at the same time, though the latter couldn't hear the former.

"Okay. I get this. So we come along here, clear out the big one, clear out the side one from the coal, and meet back up with Tom. What if they have gone into the twists or upstairs?" Fife asked.

"You'll need to build a door at the intersection. We will isolate safe places. Also, if they'd gotten into the twists, the runes would be popping off, I'd think." Travis set the wheels in motion there, placing where he wanted the doors to be so Fife could build them.

Katelyn had, meanwhile, secured the area immediately around the heart room. The mana manipulators were still doing their thing, but Travis had lost another two hundred mana in that time. When that was done, she gave the door that led out into the rest of the dungeon a nod. "That's the only way in, now. Trav, make sure no one opens that door. Actually, Jack?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll guard the door. I can't see these things, and I don't know if my ice can hurt them, so I might as well wait back here." Gesturing at the door, Jack used his ice to seal it closed.

Fife finished building the two doors, despite having never done so before, it was as easy as picking up the few pieces that were scattered on the tunnel floor and pushing them together. By the time she was done, two very simple doors with steel bands stood in the T intersection. "We do the northern tunnel first. For a start, I have no idea how we're going to do the twists down here without you two triggering all the runes."

"Yes, but if we trigger the runes, wouldn't these mana parasites do the same?" Tom asked. He'd already started walking north along the tunnel, a mage light of his own creation hovering above his head.

When he reached the corner that led to the first mana shrine, he looked down the tunnel and spotted a group of the flying slugs coming right for him. While his area flames might not have the natural intensity that Stratus' had, he was in the same profession as his fellow wizard—burning bugs.

Red-blue flames rolled down the tunnel like a wave charging for a beach. As they hit the flying slugs, each was burned to a crisp in a moment. Tom let it roll on, reaching the mana shrine beyond, then there was a soft whomp sound and the fire was coming back at him fast.

"Here," Stratus said, using his own magic to shape and form a chimney that channeled the fireburst around the corner and down the tunnel further. "I noticed that the hives tended to have a surplus of mana. My own spells were space-limited, so instead of growing bigger they burned hotter."

It was a standard enough magic diagnosis. Tom nodded and walked down the tunnel and inspected his work. Seeing no more living parasites, he returned to the tunnel where Fife and Stratus waited. "Next?"

"I'm down to four hundred and ninety-nine mana." Travis watched as Katelyn and Felna walked through the library.

"Anything in here?" Katelyn was terrified. The library had become her home. She spent more nights slumped in the corner with a book still open before her, reading of the impossible things Travis knew, than she did in the quarters that were her own bedroom. To have to use fire in the library seemed sacrilegious.

Moving around the room, Felna kept one eye on the doorway while she gazed into every place she could see. "Nothing in the— There are two here. They're not building a nest, though, they're trying to eat this mana light."

"Mana lights! You can use those to get their attention. Fife said Tom saw one doing the same thing to his light, only Tom didn't let them anywhere near him," Travis said.

"Light? I can make light." Katelyn spoke a soft prayer to her books that they wouldn't take her actions amiss when she said, "Oh, shield your eyes, Felna," and when the cleric had—she created a flash of light so bright that she saw her bones through the arm she'd put before her own face.

"Looking!" Felna said, a little dazzled even though she'd taken precautions. Sure enough, the two parasites had left the tiny mana light and were racing toward Katelyn. "They're buying it. Go out the door and do another."

Leaving the room, Katelyn drew in a deep breath, covered her eyes, and flashed a beacon again. When she felt something slap itself against her staff, she hissed angrily and made her staff burst into a conflagration. The outline of the two slugs, as they burned up, made her unreasonably happy. "I hate to think what it will be like there."

"What are you worried about?" Felna asked. "You don't have to see the ugly things."

When Katelyn walked within view of the mana storage crystal, she shivered. The things themselves might be invisible to her own vision, but she could see how dim the normally vibrant crystal was. "Stand back and burn anything that tries to escape."

It took them hours to check every room and every tunnel. They put up doors on every mana shrine once they'd checked over them, to make sure that if any of the creatures remained, they would starve to death.

When at last Travis got a mana tick, he let out a cheer. "That's it! That's how much I should have been getting! Three hundred and sixty-six." One thing brought him back to reality, though. "Someone needs to talk to our prisoner."

"Huh? Why?" Fife asked.

"If you were killed by dungeon monsters, brought back to life by them, then dragged into their dungeon and locked up in a room with a giant slime—would you be feeling happy and cozy and not like you're going to be lunch?" Travis waited for Fife to look surprised. "So, yeah. If we have someone who can speak their language, great. If not, Felna, could you cast your spell on them?"

Everyone looked blankly at each other, and Felna realized that she was the only one among them that had any knowledge of the northerner language. "Okay. Okay. I can probably explain enough to her to get her not to attack me. You seem to understand her best, Travis, so I'll cast my spell. How long do you want it for, and can Fife come down to keep Squishy from getting too personal with me?"

"Squishy is a good boy. He'd never—" Fife stopped at Felna's glare. "Okay, okay."

Astrid lifted her head when she heard footsteps approaching. They weren't talons, nor the particularly light sound of the mithril sabatons she'd seen the dungeon's armored combatants wearing. Just boots.

Stepping into the boss room was weird for Felna. It was occupied, but not by the boss. Still, Squishy was enough to keep the main exit locked and safe. Her eyes turned to the second occupant of the room. "Hey."

The word, spoken in the low-tongue of her homelands, made Astrid look up at the catkin woman and studied her features. "You speak?"

"Yeah. Little." Looking at the woman, Felna was aware of the scale she was built on being a bit more than the average person. If Astrid wasn't crouched, she'd be well above six feet. Her shoulders were huge and broad, and without more than an arming shirt and light breeches, her muscled limbs looked like tree trunks. "Name? Felna." She gestured to herself.

There were magics that the priests said could be done with names. Foul magics, they said, but they called all magic foul. "Astrid."

The name was in a thick accent, though Felna had heard it before during her short stay in the Balavian Empire. "We're not killing you. We want answers. You give them, we let you go."

It took a moment for Astrid to put the broken words together, but when she divined the meaning behind them, she laughed. "You won't. This is a hole. Things come down here armored or they die."

"Can I cast a spell on you, that will help you understand?"

The words didn't make sense to Astrid. It came through to her as "let me——do something——help knowledge." She shook her head. "Why ask? I'm your prisoner. If you want to do something to me, you have every right to."

It was Felna's turn to not understand the full meaning of the discussion. "Travis," she said aloud, "promise you won't do anything against her will? If she wants to be left alone, don't speak to her until the spell expires."

Taken aback by the promise Felna asked, Travis agreed wholeheartedly with her. "Yeah. I had hoped you could ask her permission first, but the language barrier is too strong?"

"Did you expect her to believe that I could make the dungeon speak to her? Well, here goes." Felna put a very small amount of her dense mana behind the spell. From her experience, it would be between an hour and a day. She aimed the magic squarely at Astrid, with her own link to Travis as the dungeon side of things.

The connection was far more tenuous than what Travis had established with Felna, but it was there. "Hello."

Astrid jerked and looked around, trying to find out who was talking. She couldn't put her back to the wall of the boss room because of the horrid sludge that lined the room. Her eyes kept on the move.

"Okay, I can see you're not dealing with this well. I'll be honest. I am the dungeo—"

"What did you do to me?!" Astrid glared at Felna and, when the woman didn't reply, she rushed over to her—but had to stop short when the huge slime moved between them. Touching the slime would be her death as surely as if she stepped into the sludge in the room. "Holes can't speak. Holes are monsters; demons!"

"She cast a short spell on you so you can hear me. You didn't tell me to stop, so I'll keep talking. My name is Travis. Everything around you is me. I promise you I will not see you harmed or killed in here."

Astrid found the most personally comfortable space to crouch again, the corner, and glared at the slime. "You killed others in here. You lie. Holes aren't people."

"I am."

"No!" It was quiet again. Astrid now realized that the voice she'd heard hadn't been sound at all. She played over the words again and again in her head. That voice had said that it only continued talking because she hadn't told it to stop. "What do you want?"

The wait had been over ten minutes. Travis noted that some of his newer kobolds were now up on the wall of the city with rifles. His lizards were giving him a much needed view of the world outside his entrance. "Why are you attacking Northridge? Why did you try to enslave the undead dungeon?"

"We're attacking the city because the growing season was short this year and our army was big enough that if we didn't return, that would count the same as returning with food to survive the winter." It was a hard truth, but Astrid accepted it as all soldiers did. They were born to fight and die. "Donna has an artifact of the holy church that allows her to make holes into her puppets. She was supposed to have the dungeon send wave after wave of fighters to aid in breaking down the wall early."

"You're telling me all this freely. Why?"

"You captured me. I must serve you for a year. It is tradition." Astrid didn't have to reach far to see that even if it wasn't the hole she spoke to, it was at least the one controlling it. "What will you have me do?"

"Then I can release you from that service? I can impose restrictions on you if I release you?"

Astrid expected to be fitted with a steel collar and chains. She hadn't, however, thought that her captors would discuss her release. "My honor would demand I follow your command for a year—though I won't lie to my fellow soldiers. If they ask me what your order was, I'll tell them."

Answers for questions were fine, but Astrid wanted to know one thing. "Did my pack die well?"

"They all died fighting, like you very nearly did." And, like Astrid, their bodies were still held. "I could have them brought back too if you want. You're not causing trouble and answering—"

"No!" For Astrid, being resurrected had been a blessing and a curse, but she believed her packmates wouldn't see it that way. "They fought well and died well."

"And you? Would you rather we left you dead?"

"Y—" Astrid couldn't do it. Asked directly, her honor demanded she be truthful. "No."

"You didn't want to die." The lack of a denial was all Travis needed. "You don't have to go back. Your allies won't know you died and were brought back to life."

Choking back the feeling that she wanted that, Astrid brought her anger to the fore. "You'd hold me here forever?"

"What do you want?"

Astrid snapped her mouth closed to stop herself saying what she did want. She then managed to whisper, "Stop talking to me." And, when no replies came, she settled into her own head to think on what she wanted and what it might mean to her.

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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.