The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Tier 1

Level 1/10

Heart 1600/1600

Experience 300/400

Workers 4/12

Monsters 0/12+1

Traps 11/15+4

Rooms 17

Food 29

Timber 233

Iron 481

Steel 0

Charcoal 0

Mana 16

Rock 640

Gold 1603

Leather 152

Leather Sludge 99

Lava 38

Explosive Runes 3

Quest: Reach Level 2

Quest: Kill an adventuring party

It had been a shock to see the adventurers pour into his upper floor. Travis had watched them advance through very carefully, and when their rogue started to disable the sludge traps, he'd begun to panic. "Penelope, they're using something to make the sludge traps not stick to them."

Standing at the corner, the second of the pit traps just in her sight, Penelope held one of the explosive runes in her throwing arm and two more in her offhand. "Calm down, Trav. We've got this."

It was infuriating to have to sit back and not do anything. Travis watched through both Penelope's eyes and a little lizard in the bottom of the pit trap, when the second pit trap registered two people standing on it. The mechanism slipped its pin free and that also triggered the first pit trap to open too.

He thought four people were going into the pit, but in the end the rogue had managed some kind of inhumanly fast jump to land on the ground while the huge cat-person with the biggest hand-axes ever, a human warrior, and a dwarf fell into the pit a moment before Travis' lizard went to the great terrarium in the sky.

The blast was enough that Penelope ducked around the corner to let it spend some energy on the tunnel without spending it on her. When she peeked back, she and Travis could see the scorch marks on the stone and the one survivor on the inner-side of the pit trap trying desperately to get to her hands and knees—and falling over in the process.

Rushing down the hallway, Penelope grabbed the rogue, rifled through her pockets and shredded her talisman, then dragged her back down the hallway. "Trav, we need to get some monsters in here. There's still two more alive."

"Not for much longer." Katelyn, smirking at Penelope, walked past her and advanced on the pit traps. "Did you see what they are?"

Travis cast his summon lizards spell again, leading to a small stampede of lizards rushing to the compromised sludge traps. "Uh, one is holding a smoldering lute and the other has a long sword and it's glowing."

"Casters. Fun. Well, you said our sludge traps are ruined anyway, might as well spend some mana on these guys." The dull red glow of Katelyn's staff flared bright into sizzling embers. Smoke started to pour from the length of magical wood and she uttered a single phrase.

No matter how much he shouted and screamed, Harry couldn't hear himself. Lifting his free hand to his ear, he pulled it back wet to see blood on his hand. With magic that relied on sounds, being deaf made it impossible for him to work. Hooking his lute over his shoulder, he drew his rapier just as he realized it was getting brighter.

Sojourn wasn't exactly sure what had been in the pit trap, but he had a good idea his party members would all be back at their various temples a few moments from being revived. Convenient as it would be to join them, he'd rather make his way out of the place if he could. "Come on, Harry!" He could barely hear himself and repeated the words louder, grabbing the bard's shoulder.

Katelyn shifted just enough to the edge of the pit trap that she could see the back of one of the adventurers. Breathing deep of mana, loading up one of her new and more mana-efficient kobold fire spells, she sent a gout of flame down the hall.

Watching as the man he was trying to guide along the hall was washed in fire, Sojourn turned to run—only to come face-to-face with a fire wall dungeon spell blocking off his exit. His hesitation lasted until the kobold casting the spell jumped off a wall and over the pit traps, landing right behind him.

Staring in shock at the kobold before him, Sojourn slowly reached his hand toward his sword.

"If you move another inch toward your weapon, I'll—" Katelyn cut herself off by hurling a twinned fireball spell at Sojourn.

Dispelling the first spell that sped toward him, Sojourn spun to the side and evaded the second while drawing his sword. By the time he got it up and pointed for a strike, there were more fire spells coming at him.

The fight settled to a back and forth of spells and, in Sojourn's case, sword swings. Katelyn had some experience sparring with armed opponents, but the flexibility of Sojourn's style was annoying her.

Establishing what Sojourn's attack patterns were, Katelyn knew she only had to overwhelm him with her magic—so long as her mana was up to it. She eased into a repetitive style of alternating fireballs and small bursts of flame, guiding Sojourn into a cadence of her own choosing. A small hail of average fireballs should have been followed up by a larger blast that he'd parry after dispelling the swarm. Just when he was done with that dispelling and would be expecting to parry or evade, she sent out a river of flame at him.

Sojourn's eyes widened for a moment and he managed a small string of curses before the flames washed over him.

It seemed like seconds passed between when he experienced the agony of burning to death and when he jerked upright on an altar. Oddly, there was a gag in his mouth.

"Not a screamer? Sorry, we take precautions now." The old priest reached over and untied the gag. "Welcome back to the living, blah blah blah. You know the drill, that will be a hundred and twenty gold."

Struggling against the big kobold dragging her along, Ludmiller reached for her daggers—only to find them missing. There'd been a few moments after the explosion where she'd blacked out, and now she knew the kobold had taken advantage of that to disarm her.

She shouted, screamed, and cursed the kobold—not that she could hear her own voice. The blast had done damage to her inner ears that she knew would require healing magic to repair.

Dragging Ludmiller to the kink in the tunnel just before Travis' heart, Penelope let go and turned on her. "Alright, since you seem to be the only one who survived, you have two choices."

After a moment of Ludmiller not responding, Penelope reached down and grabbed the woman's head, forcefully turning it from side to side and seeing the blood that had trickled out her ears. "Well, crap. Robert! Can you find me something to write with?"

Grabbing up a piece of wood he'd been using to scrawl on with a piece of charcoal, Robert jogged down the tunnel in the stride he'd learned watching Penelope walk. He was glad kobolds couldn't blush since that last thought would have made him do so. "Here."

Taking the wooden slate and using her forearm scales to abrade away enough of it to leave it clean, she wrote carefully with a piece of charcoal. "Thanks, Robert. We should probably try to get some tallow-wax slates."

Watching what the kobolds were doing, Ludmiller read the slate as Penelope wrote on it.

2 choices

stay here, become worker

go town, throw in jail

"Jail?! This is a dungeon! There's nothing wrong with—" The slap on her cheek could have come with serious damage, given Penelope's claws. Instead it just shocked Ludmiller.

Turning the wood over, Penelope wrote more.

You come to attack

We defend

Make choice

"So, uh, working? What would I be doing?" It was a struggle to keep her voice from shouting with her ear damage.

Using the palm of one hand to shave down the wood under the word worker, Penelope changed it to kobold.

Rocking back and pressing herself against the wall, Ludmiller couldn't believe what she'd read. She looked at Penelope and Robert and the first thing she asked was, "You were both adventurers?" When each nodded, she had her answer.

Jail was a big thing, though it might not be. She had to wonder what law she'd broken that they'd think the town guard would go along with. Of course, if the kobolds were all adventurers turned into kobolds, that meant that what they were doing—attacking their dungeon—was literally attempted robbery and assault. That was worrying.

"How long does it last? Here, I mean?" The reply of a shrug wasn't reassuring. Ludmiller had trained her whole life to sense and disable dungeon traps. Could she give that all away? No. No she couldn't. "Take me to town, then."

Turning to Robert, Penelope shrugged. "Looks like we take her to town. I have no idea what Brolly Windchime will do about it, but he seemed serious about protecting us."

"I still can't believe they saw through our disguise." Robert took his tablet back and shrugged. "Want a hand taking her in?"

"Yeah. We'll truss her up on a branch and carry her in like that. Give her one last choice just before we reach town."

Watching the kobolds get rope, tie her up, and tie her to a branch was nerve wracking. Ludmiller had her person checked over and they took everything she owned. It was the most embarrassing treatment by dungeon monsters ever—doubly so because they weren't even proper monsters, they were just kobolds.

For the townsfolk of Northridge, seeing a kobold or two in town was still news, but not as much as it would have been months earlier. Seeing them hauling a human on a pole between them was very interesting. Rumors were rushing around town faster than a fireball could fly, and that led to Brother Rupert catching wind of it.

Stepping out before the beasts, Rupert summoned every ounce of presence he could from his conviction. "What is the meaning of this?"

The shock that he saw in the two monsters' eyes salved Rupert's recently dented pride and made him feel far better about his hard line against evil.

"This adventurer and her party assaulted our dungeon, destroyed our property, and didn't wish to work off her debt." Penelope's voice was as steady as she could keep it, but there was an undertone of fear of this one, small man. "We brought her here because we don't have a jail to hold criminals."

Struggling not to let his surprise show, Rupert was more than a little dumbfounded that monsters would have knowledge of law and order. "You surprise me, beast. Of all in town to tell this story to, you brought it to the one here who could verify every single word." Flexing his power, Rupert turned it on the woman they were carrying first.

What the priest found shocked him. Sure enough, they'd attacked the dungeon. The dungeon creatures hadn't attacked until the adventurers caused damage and walked into a trap. "Were all your party carrying talismans?"

"She can't hear you. She was too close to an explosive trap when it went off and her hearing is—"

Rupert interrupted Penelope in the most expedient manner. Reaching out with his hand, he pressed it to Ludmiller's cheek. The rush of magic into her sought out her ears and restored her hearing at great cost in power. Normally such a healing, Rupert mused, would net him quite a bounty—but such things were required to seek truth and start the process of reparation. "Now. You can hear me?"

Ludmiller was shocked to be able to hear. She recognized the holy symbol of the priest, though, and realized this could be going bad for her. "Y-Yes."

"Your party all held talismans?" When all he got was a nod, Rupert felt a sense of relief. Without loss of life, there was far less complication. "Then you will pay these beasts for their damaged equipment. So is the law metered." He looked up at Penelope meaningfully.

"Oh, right. The damage was—the first set of traps will just need leather sludge and sap to repair, that is little cost. The proximity explosive runes are not cheap. Such magic weapons cost hundreds of gold each." Penelope tapped her chin, wondering how far she dared push things.

"You have means to make them yourselves?" Rupert asked. The nod he got showed honesty—something he valued. "Then a value of one hundred gold each seems fair. How many did they destroy?"

"Eight of them."

Ludmiller's heart sank. Eight hundred gold was more than she had spent on the trap-destroying vials she'd used on the sludge traps. It was greater, in fact, than the cost of all her equipment. "H-How long would I have to pay this off? I don't have my adventuring equipment and—"

Rupert turned his attention from Ludmiller to Penelope. "She has no way to pay you what's owed." The words were harsh not because he was talking to what he considered a beast, but because he was disgusted that the beasts were acting more civilized than the half-elf. "You can place her in the custody of the town, to work as a laborer. You will get your pay, maybe, before she dies of old age. The town will have to spend gold feeding, clothing, and guarding her. You would be better off dragging her back to your dungeon to work, and I will allow that if you swear to me she will be treated fairly."

Ludmiller's future was rushing back and forth between the priest and the kobold, narrowing down to the two options. She panicked, mostly because she didn't seem to have the final say in which it was.

"I'd rather not make the decision myself." Penelope held up her end of the pole easily with one hand, turning to look at Ludmiller. "What's your name?"

"L-Ludmiller."

"Well, Ludmiller, what would you prefer. This town is growing, but so is the dungeon. We're hoping they can grow stronger together. I can promise you as many meals as you wish, back-breaking work for five days out of every seven, and two days where you can relax and wonder how lucky you are that you aren't working in a chain gang for the town."

"But I'd become a kobold?"

The news that the dungeon could turn people into kobolds was new to Rupert, though the two specimens present didn't seem unhappy with their lot. He filed the information away to examine when he wasn't meting out justice. "The town will work you every day until your debt is paid."

Closing her eyes, Ludmiller shivered and said, "Take me back to the dungeon."