Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 25/100

Heart 2,250,000/2,250,000

Experience 179,987/562,500

Workers 30/157

Monsters 11/159

Traps 118/384

Food 7,945

Timber 7,322

Iron 2,292

Steel 905

Mithril 870

Mithril Ore 0

Adamantine 916

Adamantine Ore 0

Charcoal 3,658

Mana 2,458

Rock 1,330

Gold 22,031

Leather 216

Leather Sludge 215

Lava 501

Ice 10

Glass 483

Explosive Runes 30

Triggered Explosive Runes 0

Triggered Explosive Runes (repeating) 0

Long Guns 30

Bullets 400

Black Powder 400

Poison, Greater 500

Deadly Scorpion Venom 76

Sulfur 708

Quest: Kill 100 city dwellers.

Quest: Half populate your dungeon: Workers 30/66 | Monsters 11/67 | Traps 118/162

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

Travis left Stephan to negotiate. It had become apparent that Stephan was so much better at it than anyone else that Travis didn't even bother to listen closely. Instead, he turned his attention to his dungeon.

First thing, of course, was the fact his warehouses were packed full of gold. Each of them had a moderately priced (now that he had plenty of gold and mithril) third upgrade that would boost his storage significantly. He was ready to start upgrading all of them when he peeked at a few more—and found them lacking the second upgrade. "Pen is going to kill me."

"Thirty-seven. Ugh, that's a lot of storage space!" He set a job in the heart room's message board for the first batch of warehouses, then he went over the total cost to upgrade everything. "So, ninety-eight warehouses need the third upgrade. A thousand gold, a hundred steel, and ten mithril."

Travis sighed. "I don't have enough mithril, but I can see a mithril node down south there. Okay. Mark that to get a little tunnel to it, select what I can already and set the upgrades on those." He paused, noting he was out of gold. "Add note to mine more gold. Finally, I make a note to mine the mithril node out completely and fill the room in when done."

Long gone were the days of Travis having to micromanage everything. He'd been true to his word in not dictating how or when people worked. He nudged the gold mining to the top of the list after buying a third of the warehouse upgrades and looked around for other things that needed upgrading.

The big surprise had been Penelope's boss room. Now there were two upgrades there. The first was allowing the second type of boss room to be applied in addition to Arena: Lair. Not having the gold to upgrade that, he made a note in the heart room to start the upgrade when someone started mining.

The second upgrade in Penelope's lair made Travis laugh at how on-the-nose she'd find it. "This is perfect, but it's not cheap. A hundred thousand gold and XP, but it solves my gold storage problem for a while." The upgrade, for once, told him how much of a difference it would make. Storage for five hundred thousand gold.

"With so much space, and the upgrades to existing storage rooms, we'll have plenty of space for more resources." Metals, after all, were why Travis was such a big part of the city. As various people found the changes on the notice board, Travis watched some of them wander off to various places to start taking care of things.

"Travis, I want to talk to you about a project."

The words drew Travis' attention down to a corner in the second floor tavern where Blake and Ludmiller were sitting with three tables around them. Two tables held maps, one held some mugs. It had been Blake that had spoken, but by the way both of them studied the maps, it was a team effort. "Sure, I've got time. What's up?"

"You said you wanted to open a dungeon path and pay adventurers to delve it." Ludmiller seemed to be buzzing with energy. "We've been working on plans. The important parts are multiple paths for different difficulties. That way people can practice their work in a dungeon without all the danger normally inherent in dungeon delving. Then we want to have it so that the sections also help teach the adventurers skills they'll need for avoiding problems in other dungeons."

"We could even hire some of them to give us advice on building, and I'd like to commission someone to travel around and buy us maps of dungeons to study." Blake was reading from his tablet that looked well-marked and ready to be cleared and used again. "Also, bring us more monsters from dungeons to kill, in case we can get access to them for use as authentic encounters."

Travis got the sense that they were both excited about the project, but he wanted to lay down some ground rules. "Okay, I'm all for this, but there are some things I don't want. No buying thinking creatures. If we need monsters that can think and plan, I will ask for volunteers. Already, I don't like the idea of killing anything just so I can have it as a possible monster to use. If we get any monsters, they'll be allowed to live here regardless, but I won't have anyone killing them."

Both Ludmiller and Blake seemed to deflate a little and slump down in their chairs.

"That's our fault." Ludmiller fiddled with a knife she was holding. "It's easy to get lost in a combination of old thinking—as an adventurer—and kobold thinking."

"Well, we can still swarm them with wyverns, scorpions, and a few kobolds, right?" Blake asked.

"Yeah," Travis said, relieved the pair weren't throwing all their plans on the fire. "We can try swapping monsters with Breeze to start with. If we gain some new types from that, we'll expand further. In all, she might be better at providing a dungeon experience."

Nodding, Blake scratched out some of his notes on his tablet and started making new ones.

Ludmiller, however, smirked and looked up at the ceiling. "Trav, you called Breeze 'she'? Are there male and female dungeons?"

"Look, I know I'm male. Northridge definitely feels male. Breeze feels— I don't want to force her or anything, but she feels female. I'm trying to not make a big deal out of it. I asked her about it, she didn't seem to mind either way." Looking over the plans they'd been working on, Travis liked their idea of keeping it all on the first floor. "This is good, but remember that if I get another floor, this will all shift down."

"What will that do to the two entrances?" Blake asked.

"Last time we only had the one, and when the dungeon moved down, that one was re-linked to the top floor. Now that entrance is gone, and we only have two purchased entrances." Travis knew his mental shrug wouldn't show to them, but it made him feel better.

"One question, Trav," Ludmiller asked, "what about all the traps and stuff we already have? Do we want to get rid of that?"

"I trust the townsfolk. I trust the town council. I even trust Breeze's minions. That incident with the soldiers from Far Reach's army shaking down merchants, though, reminds me that we're about to have a lot of people in Northridge who weren't standing on the walls defending us, working in their businesses to keep everyone fed and clothed, and weren't doing their part to keep this city from utter destruction. For now, the traps stay." The city, and all its inhabitants, felt like family to Travis. They'd fought and died, and he'd made sure it was never too big a price for them. They were a rock of a community. "So, let's get designing. It will give everyone with the base kobold class some XP too."

When another mana tick happened, Travis resigned himself to spending it all on his search for metal nodes, hoping for gold.

Sitting down, Stephan couldn't help but feel pride in his plan. "You know why I know all about this?" he asked, sliding a slate tablet across to each of the three council members.

"Do we want to know which family will be missing you?" Howard asked.

Shaking his head, Stephan smiled. "That life is gone. That Stephan died in a pit in a dungeon he walked his stupid ass into. A kobold killed him and then the dungeon got a new kobold." He glanced down at his tablet, but didn't require the notes on it to continue. "We need all three of you to take on titles. The city, the dungeons, and the people will all agree to it. There'll be a big ceremony. It will cost a reasonable fortune to establish new noble lines, but it will be the best way to keep any of the families out."

Brolly was set to ask how much, but from the corner of his eye he saw Christine's face blanch. "Travis can pay for it?"

"We are a tenth of the way toward paying for the first. There's going to be a lot of unneeded materials coming out of the dungeon. When Travis tries to create gold, it's a random chance between gold, iron, coal, sulfur, mithril, and adamantine. We might just have to dump the sulfur on a wagon train and sell it somewhere—or give it away. Maybe we could bury it in the quarry?"

"Peerage costs range around a million gold per title," Christine managed to say. "You really plan to pay one for each of us?"

"Would you rather we only pay for one of you?" Stephan laughed at the worried looks each of the councilors gave the others. "Only one of you being a noble wouldn't work. It would unbalance the council and provide leverage to destabilize. It will take some time, but I promise we'll have the gold for this."

"Railways, forts, cannons… How much gold do you have down there?" Howard asked.

Stephan didn't need to check his notes. "We have nine large seams of gold we're getting ready to process. That's over two million gold worth." He enjoyed a moment of shock on their faces. "So, I'd suggest hiring someone to begin constructing your heraldry, a scribe to draw up your family trees, and prepare a letter to send along with the payment."

"You're serious." Brolly closed his eyes. "What will we have to expect after this? How will these invading nobles treat the situation?" The siege was only over for a week and change, and yet he already wished to have the simple threat of the northerner army at their door once more.

"They won't be able to pull rank, which is a major part of their game. What they will likely try to do is ingratiate themselves with one of you in particular, compromise your power structure to the point where it looks like you're engaging in crimes to overthrow the others, and then slip out from under you so it all crashes down." Tapping at his tablet, Stephan nodded to each of them. "You have the notes before you. I can present more when I know what noble families are trying to infiltrate the city. My best advice is find people you absolutely trust and fill your control structures with them. I know, right now, we all trust each other. That's a good start."

Christine read the tightly spaced writing on the tablet before her and sighed. "You make it sound like this will be another siege. Will it really be that bad?"

"Of course it will. The stakes are a city producing millions of gold, weapons and equipment in quality and quantity, that is entirely self-sufficient within its walls. Northridge will be a shining jewel for any family to grab and add to its collection. This is the biggest game and the people playing it play for keeps. Make sure you're all carrying several talismans at all times." It almost pained Stephan to have to remind them of that. The look of real shock that they'd be targeted directly hurt him as well. "Now, I believe you each have business with others to take care of."

When Stephan left the room, Brolly was the first to speak. "That was enlightening. You do both have talismans on you?"

"After the months we've had, of course I do, but I thought I only needed one?" Howard asked.

"Three is best. One is kept easily accessible, another sewn into your shirt and pressed against your skin, and a third to hide in your underthings."

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