Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 30/100

Heart 3,240,000/3,240,000

Experience 454,845/810,000

Mithril 3,722

Adamantine 2,209

Mana 6,420

Poison, Greater 500

Deadly Scorpion Venom 51

Quest: Kill 87 city dwellers.

Quest: Half populate your dungeon: Workers 43/66 | Monsters 14/67 | Traps 80/162

Quest: Reach level 50.

Life had become a study in ignorance, for Travis. He did his best to ignore a lot of things that didn't matter anymore. Sure, he copied down a list of all the dungeon's resources each day so his friends knew what was running low, what needed to be used, and what was just fine—but he didn't need to keep checking on it.

Too, the insane new plan for harvesting the bottom floor of his dungeon safely required him to ignore what was literally a king's ransom in resources that had built up around the east, north, and west sides of his dungeon tunnels—because they were dense enough now to block any possible resource node spawns except for in the south, which is where they'd mined out and back-filled. He refused to even mark the nodes on his maps.

Even the workers and soldiers marching through his entrance every day required ignoring. They were passing through to the under-construction fort that was being built around his previously hidden entrance.

What he was happy to pay attention to was the steady flow of cannons out into the city once Liz had brought him an artillery piece.

The first week since sending the gold had been consumed with planning and preparations. Fife, Huntress, Ludmiller, and Ogmera's party had returned from the goblin dungeon, which had been the source of a flood of resources and experience.

Breeze, too, was someone worth paying a lot of attention to. She was building out floors faster and faster, until Travis finally had Penelope ask Breath of Spring how she grew so many—only to find out it was food. The more food she got, the bigger she got. So, Travis started shunting any excess food he could to her, and given how much he'd gotten from the goblin dungeon, that meant she had shot down into mid 50s territory quickly—which had resulted in him finishing his quest. It had taken him a while to figure out what the reward had been, but the discovery that all his metal ores now smelted for fifty percent more end result was a happy one.

Quests were something he had to pay attention to, but not too close. The killing city dwellers one had come easier when he found out that converting locals into kobolds triggered it. So, when new folks arrived, spent a few days in town to get up the nerve to ask, and joined—they counted.

Northridge itself was growing, too. Travis had felt it working magics in a lot of subtle ways. When he'd directly asked the city about it, he'd gotten a straight answer: enchantments to make it easier to sleep, to ease bad memories, and enhancing the endurance of those who had to work. It made Travis jealous to hear about such effects.

Travis watched Katelyn as she worked. Without anything else to steal his focus, he sighed as he felt like he could relax once more.

"What's up?" Katelyn asked. She was in Travis' heart room, inspecting the Mana Manipulators there. "I think I could adjust these so they can store mana too."

"That's part of it. You know my mana regenerates nearly ninety percent, three times a day?" When Katelyn nodded, Travis continued. "It feels like a waste. I mean, we already have a surplus of iron and steel. Gold on tap, and every time Axel or Tinpot want to do something, they're asking me to get them more mithril and adamantine to process. I want our railway to happen faster."

Snorting with laughter, Katelyn shook her head. "Trav, we all do. Something's holding up the approval in Far Reach, though. Christine said it shouldn't take this long, but one of the landowners has the baron in their pocket and isn't budging."

"Why don't we go around them, then?"

Katelyn froze at that. She turned and looked directly at Travis' heart and took a slow breath. "That wouldn't be easy. We'd have to detour around them. They're not a central hub, though, so it could be done. Want me to get Steph to have another meeting with Christine?"

"If you see him before I do, yeah. How are things going between you two?"

Letting out the sigh to end all sighs, Katelyn sat down on the floor and let her back press against Travis' crystal. "He's great, but I feel like every step needs to be slow. He's had something happen in his past, and I think it hit him hard— Trav, it has nothing to do with you, that's one thing I do know."

How she'd figured out he was going to interrupt and that he was thinking it was him and Penelope that were the problem, Travis had no clue. "Okay. On the plus side, you have all the time you need."

Snorting a laugh, Katelyn reached a clawed hand up into the swirling mana around her, weaving it until shapes were formed. A train, a group of kobolds, a huge crystal. "I don't know if that is scary or a relief. Things seemed so much easier when there were only a few of us in here. We all had things to do all the time, and if we didn't do them it would turn out bad for everyone. Remember how long I spent in the library, struggling to regain my mana to make more explosive runes?"

"I—" Travis froze and laughed. "Steph just came in. He's on his way down. I worry that I'm asking too much of him. I know he has some history in this kind of thing, but—"

"No. He's loving this, Trav. Ask him." Standing back up, Katelyn stretched and rolled her spine from one side to the other. "He knows you wouldn't pressure him to do all this stuff. He could dig tunnels, do some hunting, and you'd never ask another thing of him ever again. That's why he's happy to help."

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Travis let that sink in as they waited, and eventually Stephan stepped into the room and was ambushed by a wizard. It gave Travis a weird feeling of pride when he saw his friends getting together. Watching them hug—and in his heart room he couldn't avoid paying attention to it—was a little awkward though. "I've got a crazy idea and I want your opinion," he said, when the two broke apart.

Stephan looked at Katelyn, who shrugged, and turned back to Travis. "On a scale of one to Fife, how crazy is this?"

"Not too crazy, I don't think. So the issue here is, we want to shift goods into the kingdom via rail, and there is someone blocking us in Far Reach." Travis saw a human figure attempting getting his attention in the mining area. Axel wanted more mithril, it seemed, so Travis made another node and, since the lizards had literally nothing else to find on the floor, it appeared almost instantly; adding a plan to dig to the newly revealed ore. He then dragged his focus back to the conversation in his heart room with barely an instant lost. "So, why don't we go around them? How much land does Far Reach claim? Can we build a line around them to…"

"Hearthhome," Stephan said.

"Right. It's the central hub for trade, right?" Travis was pleased to see dawning recognition on Stephan's face.

"That will be perfect. We can start petitioning Hearthhome's ruler, I think Earl Sanderson is still in power there, and do it very publicly. That way, Far Reach will get the picture very fast that we will cut them out of our trade completely if they keep up their idiocy. And, if they don't, we go ahead with Hearthhome and give Far Reach what they deserve," Stephan said. "I'll organize a meeting with Christine. She'll like this."

The ride had left Anichka with a few more reasons to dislike being away from Northridge. "I'm going to find the place with the biggest bath in all of Northridge, and I won't be leaving there for a week."

"Better make sure it's huge, because I'll be there with you. Someone needs to invent a better horse—one with more padding." Tammy would have tilted to the side and rubbed her glutes, but from experience that only made the ache worse. "Next time, we will bring a wagon."

"And a bigger gun," Anichka said. "How big could you make a gun if it used a wagon to hold it steady?"

"Tinpot would know, and if he didn't, Travis would. What's that sign ahead?" Tammy clucked her tongue and urged her horse forward. The two slow moving wagons, smaller than their huge tithe ones, held the guards in one and the goods in the second. The wolves milled forward around Tammy and Anichka's horses. "Northridge, that way?"

It took Anichka a moment to realize what was the direction indicated, apart from a newly paved road. "Travis' second entrance. They must have fortified it while we were away. Do you think that shifty merchant got Travis his cannon?"

"Don't call her 'shifty'. For all we know she's on the up-and-up." Tammy looked back as the wagons approached. She pointed down the stone-paved road leading toward the forest. "It looks like Travis' new entrance is being used now."

"We'll be able to get the wagons in?" Thomas Brave asked. He was sitting beside the driver of the first wagon, doing his best to pay attention and not surrender to excitement at being almost home.

Shrugging, Anichka turned her horse to the side trail. "If they're directing all traffic that way, I hope so." Anichka kept one eye on the wolves with them. If anything was amiss, she knew they'd turn from the playful oversize puppies they pretended to be to get pets in an instant. Instead of getting angry, though, they started wagging their tails the moment they were near the forest.

Stepping out, wearing only a light suit of mithril chain armor, Astrid recognized the wolves (of course) and the guards. She bared a huge grin full of teeth at Anichka and Tammy. "You saw the sign?"

The wolves were first to reply. They rushed over to Astrid and all seemed intent on being the closest to her at the same time. For her part, Astrid reached out to the lesser members of her pack and roughed up their fur while their tails seemed intent on creating a hurricane.

Not having the full story of Astrid's changing sides, Anichka was always a little wary around the big woman. With her in her wolf form, and almost as tall as Anichka was while on her horse, validated it in her own mind. "Yes. You're the welcome party?"

"More like the unwelcome party. The goblins have sent out a few scouting parties. My pack has been hunting them." The smells on the bloodied wolves of far-off lands, cities and forests, tickled at Astrid's senses. "Any trouble getting the delivery through?"

Seeing Tammy was happy to let her talk, Anichka gave the report. "The tracks between Far Reach and Hearthhome were out, so we had to drive the wagons all the way through to Hearthhome. Ran into some fools with more bravado than sense. We shot them up, then they opened a wagon."

Astrid let out a laugh while crouching to give her returned friends a few nips. "Any survive?" At Anichka's nod, Astrid felt a little disdain. "I guess they will think twice before attacking any wagon trains from now on. Were they the reason the train didn't run?"

It was a link that made Anichka lift her hand up and press it to her forehead. "I didn't think of that at the time. It makes sense for brigands to disrupt the train and force folks in a hurry to take the road instead."

"Next time," Tammy said, speaking up so Astrid could hear her, "we're bringing you with us."

"As if I would be allowed within eyeshot of your capital." Astrid started walking alongside the road, keeping pace with the two riders. "Even with these classes Travis can give, I doubt I could survive whatever the standing army there would put forward to end me."

"We let those wolves out to play while the King's Guard watched over us. I think, if you wore some kind of fake collar, we could convince them you're well-behaved." Anichka could see, ahead, the wall of a stone fort among the trees.

Remembering all too well the suspicion of the guards, and Anichka's efforts to show the bloodied wolves as being tame, Tammy groaned. "You are not going to get Astrid to roll on her back while you rub her stomach."

Putting Tammy's words together with the description of events, Astrid let out a bark of laughter. "You were petting bloodied wolves in the middle of the capital? Didn't anyone recognize them?"

"Yeah," Anichka said. "And she came with us."

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