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 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

Cutting down more trees, checking traps, and melting gold. Travis realized he had no actual way to stop any of them from actually working, especially when Katelyn learned that poking her tongue out at his heart was a way for her to win almost any argument.

It was almost a relief for him when Penelope approached the dungeon entrance (the new one) with the donkey loaded up with supplies and what seemed to be an extremely drunk Fife laughing and stumbling along beside her.

"Uh, Pen?" Travis asked when she reached the entrance. "Why did you bring back an adventurer?"

Penelope barked a laugh. "I tried to tell her to go back, but she found me on the outskirts of the forest. I couldn't just leave her there."

"You couldn't if you wanted to! I'd follow you and get into your booze!" Fife punched Penelope in the shoulder. "Hey, who're you talkin' to?"

"The dungeon, you drunk maniac." Punching Fife back, Penelope led the way into the dungeon. "You got a light? I don't mind leading you, but you're going to be in pitch black soon."

"Oh, yeah. Hold up." Fife reached into a pocket and pulled out an alchemical light stick, managed to activate it on her fourth try, and then held it out like a sword. "Lead on to the grog!"

"I told you, we don't have any—" Penelope was fast. She grabbed Fife when the woman wobbled and started falling backward. "Ah shit. Now we have a problem. She passed out, Trav."

"How much do you trust her? She's not going to go crazy and try to break my heart, will she?" Defensiveness was baked-in now. Just the thought of having someone not part of the dungeon behind the traps made Travis' whole mind itch with worry, but what worried him more was Fife getting hurt by something in the outer tunnels. "Bring her in. She's just one adventurer and we have a lot of explosive runes now."

"Got it. And for what it's worth, I trust her not to go crazy. She's probably going to wake up with a hell of a headache, though."

Travis watched Penelope lift Fife onto the cart and lead the donkey down the stairs carefully and along to the appropriate wall. Just a few good hits had the wall down and the donkey was soon parked in its stall.

With Fife over her shoulder, Penelope sealed up the tunnel and walked down the dark hallways and into the room well illuminated by Travis' heart. "Don't worry, I'll sleep in the common room here and she can have my bed."

Sighing at the feel of Penelope's claws trailing on his heart, Travis watched her carry Fife into one of the sleeping rooms. "Do you think it would be a good idea to offer her kobold conversion?"

"I already—ugh, she weighs so damn much for such a slim woman. I already did, Trav. She wants to see the world a bit more, though I think she's just a little scared of commitment right now. Maybe if she found out someone actually is in charge down here and it's not just every kobold for themselves, that would help." Setting Fife on her bed, Penelope tucked some furs around her and then extinguished her light stick.

"We could always advertise in town. Surely there would be some people interested in settling down to a life of toil."

Leaving the sleeping area, Penelope sighed. "Trav, I know you're joking, but if you told people they only had to work five days out of seven you'll be lucky to have enough room for them all."

"Wait until they find out about holidays and annual leave." When Penelope froze and stared at his heart, Travis outright laughed. "Come on, don't you ever just want to take a week off and relax?"

About to answer right away, Penelope stopped and sighed. "I won't lie. I became an adventurer to make it big so I wouldn't have to do the boring work. Now I find the boring work is a lot more interesting than I thought. Besides, you let me help plan out and build a dungeon—this is the most fun I've had in my life."

"What about the spiders?" Travis asked, a little confused at Penelope's answer.

"Are you kidding? That was awesome. Do you know how expensive good, reliable magic explosives are? Here we have Katelyn just giving them out!"

"So you like it here because you get to build a dungeon and throw explosives?"

"Well, and you have so much gold. I was going to save it as a surprise, but I got a merchant to get a gun or two. I bribed Fife with one because she was being helpful and escorting me around town. I wonder if we'll get anything special for bringing a gun in here like we did alchemy and magic?"

Given what had happened in just one day of letting a bunch of kobolds do their own thing, Travis had to wonder if getting them guns would be the best thing ever or lead to his destruction.

Waking up with her throat on fire and her head aching was not a new thing for Fife. Doing so in a comfortable bed was something new, as was being alone. Silence was new, too, and she found it agreed with her.

The idea of closing her eyes again and going back to sleep was appealing, but two bodily urges pushed her on. Climbing from the bed, she was appreciative again of the dark, but she needed to be able to see. Her favorite light stick was missing, but after some checking of the bed she found it and gave it a twist.

With the dark pushed back, Fife shrouded her eyes and looked around at the squared-off rock walls around her. "That explains why it's so quiet. Where am I?"

Pushing aside the thick, sack-like curtain, she saw a long hallway with similar sleeping rooms and a pink light at the end of it. Walking down the hall with a little urgency, she rounded the corner and froze. "Oh shit. That's—"

With an almost reverence she walked forward and touched the giant heart before her. It wasn't the biggest she'd seen, but she hadn't seen many—and none had been friendly. "Huh. I guess you run all this then? Shame you can't talk, I think a dungeon would be pretty interesting to talk to—Uh, do you have a pit or something where I can… take care of business?"

When a kobold poked their head around a corner on the other side of the heart, Fife was about to ask them, but they were already gesturing her to follow.

"Down here. We don't—kobolds don't need to do that, but we have a donkey we take care of and shovel out his stall every day. I'm Steph."

Rushing after Stephan, Fife was glad that they seemed to understand her urgency. Down a hall a bit, then a hard left, then more hall, then another left and she finally saw some light and could smell the donkey.

When she'd relieved herself, Fife realized that Steph had retreated down the hall a little. "Uh, can I get a drink somewhere?"

Stephan tilted his head to the side for a moment, then nodded. "Pen is on her way. She'll help you—Your friends are at the entrance! They aren't happy!"

"I bet they aren't. From what I remember, I got pretty drunk and followed Pen out here. They probably think I'm a kobold by now. I'm not turning into a kobold, am I?" The idea of it had some appeal to Fife, but she was sure there were still things she wanted to do before being stuck in even the most accommodating dungeon.

"Down here, Fife. Let's go and tell your friends to relax before they get stuck in the sludge traps—or worse, make it past them." Penelope hefted the biggest pickaxe Fife had ever seen and started wailing on a wall just down the hall.

A tumble of rocks that seemed to disappear as soon as they were freed from the wall revealed to Fife that there was a tunnel on the other side of the wall. "So your front door is actually just a bunch of traps even you can't get past?"

"We can dig and fill the tunnel in just fine—we don't need a door to reveal where our weakness is." Penelope led the way down the hall while Fife followed her, keeping her light stick aimed at her feet.

When they rounded a corner and came up behind Brayden and Jack, Penelope stopped. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Where have you taken F—?" Brayden froze mid-demand. Walking beside Penelope was Fife, her features a little green but otherwise not just alive but still human. "What's going on?"

Fife groaned. Her head was starting to pound again and she wanted nothing more than to crawl back into the dungeon and sleep in the silence. "They're not trying to kill me or turn me into a kobold or anything. I was talking to Pen on her way back to the dungeon and—"

"And you were drunk, as I can smell," Brayden said.

"I wasn't going to leave her to walk back to town on her own, besides, she passed out before she even got this far." Penelope reached up and rubbed at her eyes. "Speaking of sleeping, I think I might go and get some done myself. If you don't have anything else to accuse me of?"

For a moment Fife thought Brayden might snap back, but then he lowered his head. "I apologize for my words and intentions. You have proven yourself honorable today and the priests of Brogdar recognize that."

"Brayden, you shouldn't go making promises to dungeon bosses," Penelope said, walking back down the hall. "We're going to try to open up some sort of dungeon tavern up top. I'll let you know when it's done—and I owe the first drink to Fife anyway."

"Damn straight you do!" Fife felt a little energy reenter her system at the reminder of the deal. Turning, she glared at Brayden and Jack. "Can't take you guys anywhere. Look, I saw the heart. It's a big one, bright pink, and I felt—I dunno. I think it knew I was there and I think it called one of the kobolds when I needed to use the jacks."

"You think it's as smart as a person?" Jack asked.

Fife shrugged. "No idea, but wouldn't that be amazing? What if it was someone before too?"

"Any other time in any other place I'd call you insane, Fife. Here and now, though, I'm not discounting anything." Brayden stepped out into the pre-dawn light and stretched. "And it goes without saying that none of this goes to Brolly."

Jack and Fife both nodded.

"Tomorrow we'll be going in. If you can get a talisman from the local church, well and good, but unless we all can we'll stick with what we already got. I don't care about a week's travel, but dying because the local priestess decided we weren't worth her effort is not a way I want to go." Sojourn pointed to the map he had spread out. "The dungeon's only an hour's fast march.

"The plan's simple. It's a young dungeon, first floor still. Luddy"—he nodded to the half-elf rogue who was cleaning her fingernails with a dagger—"you find and disarm traps." Next he nodded to the seven and a half foot tall half-cat that looked like the other half of his parentage had some giant in him. "Wild, you back her up. Anything looks like messing with her, I want to see it in chunks."

Grunting, Wild looked over to Ludmiller. "Got your back."

"Harry, try to keep our noise down. I don't want them hearing us before we've secured as many traps as we can. Brace, me and the new guy will have your flanks. If you start running low on resources, call it and we retreat." Turning his gaze upon a dwarf woman who had a perpetually pissed-off scowl on her face, Sojourn was happy to see her features relax just a little.

"And when the fighting starts?" Harry, a bard, was strumming his lute while tuning it.

"Then you either pitch some spells if we need it or you get that bloody rapier out and give your arm a proper workout." Sojourn looked around the party one more time before settling his gaze on Porter. "Follow my lead. If I move forward, you move forward. If I pull back, you pull back. If I see you run before Brace calls it, I'll make sure you don't get ten feet."

Porter rolled his eyes. "I'm not a chicken. I've been in the shit in a dungeon before."

"Good. Tomorrow at first light."