The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 1/10

Heart 1600/1600

Experience 0/400

Workers 4/12

Monsters 0/12+1

Traps 11/15+4

Rooms 17

Food 29

Timber 33

Iron 581

Steel 0

Charcoal 0

Mana 14

Rock 607

Gold 1303

Leather 102

Leather Sludge 49

Lava 38

Explosive Runes 3

Quest: Reach Level 2

Quest: Kill an adventuring party

After so many stupid and aborted nightmares, Travis' subconscious finally released him from sleep and—he felt weird. There was too much of him, he had some kind of new hallway that gave him vertigo, and then there was a few changed bits within what should have been established dungeon.

It clicked, too, that he was still a dungeon. That was, if nothing else, a relief. He was familiar with being a dungeon now.

So the feeling of too-muchness, Travis could now tell, was the fact he had a new floor. Swapping between them was easy, though the images he got were far more sparse. He pondered this, counting up his lizards and finding about the same number as before—which was the problem.

The new hallway was part of the first problem. A whole new floor to expand into. He worried at the idea, not having played any games that had multi-floor dungeons, but the concept was easy enough to figure out. His old floor had shifted down and there was a new one above linked to it with stairs. Easy!

The last problem he'd immediately seen was a new tunnel near Katelyn's library. That was kinda a no-brainer. She'd needed some room to do something and had melted it herself. There was even a bit more lava in his inventory to make up for it.

That's when he noticed his other resources. "What the hell is up with all this gold?!"

Every kobold in the dungeon turned their heads to face his heart at the same time. Katelyn had been about to start firing her attempt at a modified fireball, but released the spell without casting it. Robert was messing around with some glass. Penelope was carefully bending what looked like copper pipe. Stephan was carving little kobold figurines out of wood.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to yell, but why are all the warehouses now filled with gold?"

"Don't look at me," Penelope said, "I spent some gold."

Another surprise for Travis was the way Penelope slurred her words. That's when he watched her reach for a mug and lift it to her mouth.

"That might have been my fault," Katelyn said. "I wanted to see if melting the gold vein with magic would produce gold for you. It worked?"

One of his kobolds was drunk, another had decided that fire must make things better—Travis was terrified to ask Robert and Stephan what they'd been up to, but he had to know. "Okay, well, we can deal with that. Gold is useful, at least. Robert, what have you been doing? You got your glass and stuff?"

"Yeah. I need a room for it, though. Figured, since you got the library after Katelyn did magic that me making something alchemical might unlock a lab." Sitting still, he was using a small rune that emitted fire to heat something in a glass vial.

Travis knew the moment the reaction completed.

Alchemist Lab unlocked.

"It worked! We have an—Holy crap, I have so many new things to build!" If Travis could control his eyes, they would have widened. "There's a Glassmith too, wait, Watering Hole? Why would we unlock a…"

"I'm not that drunk." Penelope sipped at the ale she'd slipped some honey into. "Anything else? New traps?"

"Okay, more rooms. Kitchen, Wyvern Beastpens, Lesser Wyrm Den, Blacksmith, Trap Factory, Charcoal Burner, Stoneworks, Mushroom Farm, and Tailor are all visible, along with the other three I said. Ooh, traps! Boulder Trap, Rocks Fall, and Snare—but they're all grayed out. Oh, it says I need a Trap Factory, but that needs steel to make. How do we get steel?"

"Charcoal and iron smelted at high temperature. Probably the Blacksmith you mentioned could do it." Robert cleaned up the simple reaction he'd performed and set about cleaning his glassware. "So, where are we putting the Alchemist Lab?"

"It's a bigger building, it seems. Gotta put it in the big room I'd already planned out. Hey, the Glassmith will fit in the smaller one to the side. Perfect." Travis was already planning some things out. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait! I have Research!"

Taking a long swig of her sweet ale, Penelope stood up and started walking toward Travis' heart. "Trav, there's something we need to talk about."

After giving Travis a moment to rave about the research, which all seemed to take a lot of time to do, Penelope sat down and described her encounter with the town, with the adventurers, and with alcohol. "So I think they might know I was an adventurer. I'm sorry."

Penelope didn't often drink to deal with her problems, and she wasn't nearly drunk enough to forget them now, but she welcomed the slight dulling of reality that the drink brought. She sighed and looked into the bottom of her mug. "This doesn't solve problems, though. It doesn't even make them better."

"This doesn't change anything." Travis' voice cut through Penelope's morose thoughts and made her pay attention not from any control he held over her, but from her confusion. "Now we know we're welcome there, we don't have to worry so much about striking our mark on the gold. If they know how we get new kobolds, though, that might be an end to adventurers coming in."

Laughing, Penelope stood up burped. "Trav, you will never have that problem. You might get less if the local town isn't handing out maps to find you, but adventurers have ways to find dungeons. It's easier the bigger they are. I mean, the bigger you are. Having two floors will make you a prime target for dungeon-seeking spells."

"There're dungeon-seeking spells?" Travis asked. "Oh, Katelyn just said that's how she found me."

"Right. So, you're still going to have idiots turn up and want to explore a dungeon. You know what I say? We set that Watering Hole up by the entrance and get them nice and drunk before kicking them out or offering them a new home." Penelope liked the idea of offering adventurers ways to spend their money instead of attacking the dungeon itself.

"That could work. Don't most adventurers go into dungeons to get money, though?"

It was a good point and one Penelope didn't have a great argument for. "Honestly? Yeah. Maybe you will get a reputation enough that we'll attract adventurers with full pockets. We also need to work on something upstairs so that we don't have to haul trees and stuff all the way down here. Maybe a warehouse?"

"Yeah, warehouses would—I have building upgrades now! This is awesome, we have so much stuff to do."

The enthusiasm made Penelope smile. "One other thing. Those adventurers? Their leader is trustworthy."

"Why do you say that?" Travis' tone was inquisitive and curious.

"Their leader, Brayden, is a priest of Brogdar." When that didn't make Travis gasp, she figured she'd have to explain it. "Brogdar Evil Slayer is a bit of a wild card. If you have a hint of evilness about you, you're pretty screwed if you run into one of his followers. He said outright I don't register as evil. That's good, though. Really good. Their priests are known for being fair."

"Wait, there are gods here? Actual do stuff gods?"

"Yours don't?" Penelope asked, somewhat confused.

Travis made a sound akin to what Penelope would if she was asked something crazy. "Yeah, I'm not going to get into that. We don't have magic where I'm from. I'm not sure what that says about the gods of my world."

Blowing out a breath, Penelope wished she hadn't stopped drinking. "I don't have much use for them myself, except for the talismans."

"You talked about those when Katelyn and Robert—uh, joined us. What do they do again?"

Penelope hadn't realized he hadn't figured them out. "You can trigger them yourself or they trigger automatically when you die. You land at the shrine you got them from. Of course, if you're dead, you had better hope you paid the priest or priestess enough to resurrect you.

"Most of the good religions are fine for it, but if you don't pay or swing the wrong way, you have to find someone a little less reputable. There are some that will take anyone, but they charge more."

"That sounds rough."

"You have no idea. Will and Peter were in the latter category. They'd always complain about having to go to neutral shrines and pay extra." Walking right up to Travis' heart, Penelope put her hand on it. "You're getting bigger."

"I guess I doubled in size, dungeon wise, so this reflects that? What's the biggest heart you've seen?" There was an almost-shiver in Travis' voice.

"I've seen the heart of a three-floor verdant dungeon." Penelope took several steps backward, holding her hand up before her. "If you get that old, you'll be out to about here."

"Just queue it up. I want to get this thing built, Trav." Robert pressed his palm to the rock, feeling the dig orders just past the first layer. He didn't want to just dig, though, in case he opened up something bad.

"Alright, alright. It's meant to be your day off." Travis added the two dig orders that would let Robert dig out his alchemy and glassblowing area.

Hefting his pickaxe, Robert lunged into the task. "You don't get it. Alchemy is what I do for fun. It's—It's everything. I am in complete control when working on something. I can make us just about anything!"

After Robert found a junction and moved past it, leaving a planned spot for someone to dig, Penelope arrived with her larger pickaxe. "I thought you could use some help. I want to test this out."

Together they cleared the 133 sections of rock and opened up one smaller room and one that was four times the size.

"Thanks for that, Pen. Okay, now I want my alchemy stuff in here and my glass stuff in the other one." Robert gave a firm nod, and for some reason he couldn't stop his rear from swaying side to side (he refused to think of it as tail-wagging).

There was a moment of silence before Travis started laughing.

"What?" Robert and Penelope asked at the same time.

"Okay, okay. I'll put this down, but first you need to go and thank your sister. These buildings need a thousand gold each." With that said, Travis placed the plan down for an Alchemy Lab. "Wow, a lot of iron and—rock! Hey, I didn't notice, but most of these Tier 1 buildings need rock!"

"A thousand gold. You'd better be able to make some hot stuff." Penelope walked forward and knelt down to start building.

Robert helped, his rear keeping up its swaying as he built stone benchtops that had runic heating and cooling plates built in, as well as cupboards and cupboards of generic glassware. It was a surprise that there were things that didn't represent the resources Travis had told him the room cost, but it was still a sweet bonus.

"What about the Glassmith?" Robert asked.

"We need more gold for that. Uh, Katelyn? Can you go and melt down another thousand gold?" Travis asked. "She just said she would after her current rune is done. It's exciting to have all this new stuff. I feel so—I'm getting carried away, I know, but I think there is something about dungeons that we just want to grow."

"I can believe that. Every dungeon I've ever seen—including you—seems hell-bent on growing." Penelope shouldered her pickaxe. "So, what are we low on—apart from gold?"

"The usual, timber. Also, more food would be good, though our best bet with that is going to town to buy more. Do you think they'll have more?"

"I'll do another run into town—after my day off." Penelope stuck her tongue out in the general direction of Travis' heart.

"And, I'll connect this room with the central dungeon rather than the side path," Robert said, looking back at his alchemy lab and promising himself he'll be spending the rest of his day in there.