The Heart Grows

Dungeon Status:

Level 1

Heart 400/400

Experience 100/100

Workers 4/10

Monsters 0/10-2

Traps 12/10+2

Rooms 8

Food 2

Timber 261

Iron 214

Mana 3

Rock 293

Gold 199

Leather 68

Leather Sludge 18

Lava 7

Quest: Make one of your monsters into a boss

Travis' heart would have still been pounding—if he had a heart that wasn't made of crystal. The huge spider was dead, not that he got any experience for it. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"Butcher it. I've done this kind of work before. The important things to get out are any poison glands, the spinnerets, and then carving the joints up so we can pull it out of the sludge. Remember that party I was with? As if those two bastards would have done any of the work." Penelope climbed up onto the spider's body and set to work. "You might as well rest up if you need it, Robert. Check on your sister."

The process reminded Travis of a video he'd seen once, of someone "breaking down" a lobster. Her motions were quick and efficient, and when she wasn't using her knife to cut into joints, she was using her claws and arm strength to jimmy something loose.

"Pen?" Travis was thinking carefully of how to suggest what he planned.

"Yeah, Trav?"

"If I do take the boss monster upgrade, it will target one of you, won't it?"

"You're thinking of using it on me?" As she worked, Penelope glanced back in the direction of Travis' heart. "I've never seen a kobold upgraded. It's normally one of the lizardfolk or their pets. The biggest danger of dragon-themed dungeons is that almost everything is not only intelligent, but devious."

Travis filed that little bit of information away. "Can you think of someone who would be better to use it on? You've been around the longest, Pen, and I still owe you for helping me so much. Let me do this."

"Okay, but if it gets freaky, can we undo this?" Penelope asked as she got the last leg free.

"No clue. On the plus side, you'd be way stronger."

"Alright. Once I get this thing off our traps, and get all its bits sorted, we'll get back into digging."

Penelope didn't sound so much resigned as excited. Travis wanted to see what the reward was for the quest, and wanted to reach that next tier. "I hope I get more traps at tier one."

"And more kobolds. It'd be neat if you could work out how to just make more workers, though by this point it might be part of your dungeon style that you can't." Sliding down the front of the spider's body, Penelope landed just before its head.

Travis wished he could look away from the grisly scene of Penelope cutting into the monster's face and slicing out its venom sacks—which it apparently did have. "Oh, Stephan's back with more wood."

The smell of burning was all around the dungeon. Looking left and right, Ogmera kept her mask on as she pushed more magic into her aura. "There's a lot of rot here. I can feel it fighting my protective shell."

"More fire?" Stratus asked.

Ogmera snorted a laugh. "More fire is a good solution. Tom, if you wouldn't mind?"

Crouched, Felna looked around while trying to keep her low-light vision from getting too ruined by all the pyrokinetic spells raging around her. "How long did the sheet say this dungeon has been here?"

"Only a few months at most. It built fast." Nathaniel, like Felna, was crouched low and moving slowly so the wizards and shaman could have a clear line of sight to their work. Like Ogmera, they both wore the enchanted masks that would keep dangerous spores and particulate from their lungs. "How's the mana flow?"

Few were the wizards who had a cleric focused on feeding them mana. Tom enjoyed his job and he enjoyed his companions. "I'm holding at around half a tank. Stratus?"

"Same. Even with an extra push, I can sustain this without issue." Unlike many of his fellow elves, Stratus didn't feel the slightest disdain for shorter-lived races. Their candles were shorter but burned no less as bright as his own. "Anything bigger than a rat yet?"

"Nah. Keep burning and I'll save my mana," Ogmera said, preparing a rooting-thorns spell just in case.

Fast as the dungeon had grown, it was still on one level and there was only so much it could throw at them before all the creepy crawlies were spent. They burned all the way through the winding tunnels, letting Ogmera harvest what she needed, until they reached the heart.

"They're so beautiful." Standing now, Felna walked a little closer to the heart and reached her hand out to cast a status spell at it. Knowledge filled her. The amount of monsters it could support, its traps and where they were located, even its age flooded into her. "Okay, got it. Let's get out of here. You have everything, Og?"

"If you're asking me if I have a small fortune in poisons and toxins to sell, you are correct, Felna dear. Let's make our way out, boys. By the numbers now." Ogmera turned. "Lead the way, Felna."

"No boss in here?" Nathaniel asked, renewing the mana regeneration buffs on the two wizards.

"Nope. It hasn't found the resources needed to make a monster into a boss. You get to relax." Felna, standing straight now, started walking back down the tunnels, her eyes now attuned to the dungeon's light and presence. "Trap here. Trigger is to the left of my left foot."

"How long until it will be back up to strength?" Falling in behind Felna, Ogmera made room for Stratus to walk beside her.

"At the rate it's seething? Probably two weeks." It was always easier for their group to get out once Felna had formed a bond with the dungeon. Entirely one-way, the link allowed her to feel what the dungeon felt, know what it could do, and she could also read its intention. Right now the latter sense told her that the dungeon absolutely hated her. It loathed her. It wanted her corrupted, dead, raised from death, and then killed again. "This one is feisty."

"It wants to kill you, use you to breed monsters, or use you as an ingredient in its poisons?" Og asked.

"From what I can tell, all three. Possibly at the same time." Felna shrugged her shoulders and led the group down a side tunnel that was a shortcut to the entrance. "Like I said, feisty."

"You used all the timber I just got?!" Stephan slumped a little, though he did walk along the new area and admire all the new warehouses. "I know, I know. I get it. We need timber to store stuff to buy things we need. Maybe we need to all go out and bring wood in?"

"Probably not the worst idea ever. Trav wants to get the boss monster upgrade first and—I'm still not a hundred percent on being the one who gets that. I mean, I know we need it, and I'm probably the best with combat, but I just—" Penelope drew out her one remaining dagger and flicked it between her hands. "I just don't know how much of me is me anymore."

Walking up and into Penelope's personal space, Stephan raised one clawed digit up and tapped the side of her head. "There have been some changes, but for the most part we're still us up here—where it counts."

Smiling, showing off her fair share of teeth in doing so, Penelope moved fast and kissed Stephan's cheek. "Thanks. I needed to hear that."

Feeling more than a little proud of himself, Stephan felt his stance shift to a more upright one and he felt an urge to do something—prove himself more useful. "It's mostly urges. I want to make Trav happy and help him, and after that kiss I want to prove myself to you." What little social faculties Stephan had were screaming in panic. "Not that—"

"Sorry, Steph, I don't—" Huffing, Penelope berated herself mentally for the kiss. "I was just trying to say thanks. I prefer—"

"Oh." Stephan's eyes widened and he nodded. "S-Sorry."

"You remember when Katelyn first came into the dungeon?" Penelope started walking down the hall, making her way toward the gold vein they'd found.

"Yeah. I remember seeing her and—Oh."

"Right. Oh, but more, oh my." Pulling her pickaxe out, Penelope led the way deeper. "So we're looking for… How much gold do we need, Trav?"

"Two-hundred and one. Literally. But we should probably try to keep a hundred spare to cover shopping in town."

Penelope and Stephan both broke into laughter.

After some time walking through the dark tunnel, Penelope managed to squeeze out, "Shopping!"

Just hearing the word again made Stephan lose his carefully won calm and break into giggles a second time.

"This is because most dungeons don't send their minions into town, isn't it?" Travis asked.

"No, they do send minions into towns. That's common, actually. Dungeons almost exist to overwhelm a nearby town and destroy the human presence therein." Penelope approached the gold seam and prepared her pickaxe. "It's just that none apart from you actually send minions to shop in town."

"What? It's a valid tactic!" Travis' voice had some laughter in it too now. "Plus, it worked. We get what we want, they get gold. Everyone's happy we did our… shopping!"

Penelope had to lean on her pickaxe. Stephan, however, fell over onto the floor and was rolling on his back with laughter.

When the two had recovered, and after some hard work mining away at the gold vein, Travis told them to stop. "We have six-hundred gold now. I let you keep going because it really doesn't hurt to have extra. I just need you to unload the last of the iron from the cart and we can get that upgrade."

"Are you ready, Pen?" Stephan asked.

"I was in the dungeon delving business for ten years with the same people. I thought I'd gotten to know them pretty well. When I walked in this place, and one shot me, I realized how little I actually trusted them. Trav, you, even the siblings are more friends than those bastards ever were." Taking a deep breath and rounding the corner to walk into the dungeon proper, Penelope shook her head. "And now I feel this need to protect you all. I want to make sure you don't get hurt like I got hurt. If I lose more of what humanity I have left doing that—It just might be worth it."

Slipping past the sludge traps, the pair made their way to where the cart was still parked in one of the warehouses. Unloading the iron was quick, and they got it done with little chatter—even if one occasionally said Shopping.

"Are you ready, Pen?" Travis asked.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Penelope said, "You know, I think I am. Thanks, Steph, I—"

"Hold up. Not here. Go to your room and get comfortable," Stephan said, shooing her out of the warehouse with his hands. "You don't know if this will be instant or take some time. And, if it's the latter, I don't want to have to carry you somewhere safer."

Slipping past the few traps before Travis' heart, Penelope felt her bravery resting on a knife's edge. The last time she'd let Travis change her, it had been a split-second decision. She'd been about to die and figured he could do with her corpse what he wanted anyway. She ran her claws carefully over his heart as she passed—like she always did—and walked through the former sleeping room and down the tunnel to the room she'd claimed as her own.

In the pitch black, still seeing just fine, Penelope crawled onto the pile of hides and blankets she called a bed. "Trav? Do it."