Dungeon Status:

Tier 2

Level 33/100

Heart 3,920,400/3,920,400

Experience 92,949/980,100

Mithril 4,991

Adamantine 2,655

Mana 6,420

Poison, Greater 500

Deadly Scorpion Venom 51

Quest: Kill 1 city dweller.

Quest: Half populate your dungeon: Workers 49/66 | Monsters 52/67 | Traps 151/162

Quest: Reach level 50.

Elanor's party was doing well. Travis was surprised that simply placing his minions under her command made them count as her party, which seemed to confuse his system and give him experience for them killing his other creatures and vice versa.

It was exciting as well that creatures would fight better alongside her than similar ones did on their own. In an odd twist of fate, it was Elanor herself that counted as completing his quest.

Quest Complete: Kill City Dwellers.

Gain 1 level

New Quest: Locate The New Dungeon

"Uh, Pen?" Travis could only stare in disbelief at the notification. "Pen!"

"Ugh. I'm awake! I'm awake." Yawning, Penelope looked around the tower she'd fallen asleep on. "What's the matter?"

Travis noticed a second point of reference wink into being at the same spot. Penelope looked over and locked eyes with Felna for a moment, then the pair settled back down. It was a surprise to Travis that they got along so well—a relieved surprise. "I just got a new quest to locate the new dungeon."

Jerking her head up, Penelope cackled. "A new dungeon?! So the undead one was resurrected or did we get something entirely new?"

"Hrmm?" Lifting her head again, Felna grumbled when Penelope moved from her. "My warmth… Wait, a new dungeon? What quest finished?"

"Uh." Travis wondered how to say it that wouldn't result in angry hissing. "I only had one more kill to go until the kill city dwellers quest finished, and Elanor wanted to try a harder dungeon, so I let her take on Fife's with three bloodied wolves as the boss—it was too much for her and they beat her."

"You killed my kitten?" Felna stopped moving; even her tail tip froze.

Travis was unsure if she was furious, amused, or just curious. "She's training for combat. She is setting her own pace now, and that pace is hard and fast. I don't think I need to defend what I'm doing—because she's the one doing it. She's already waking up in one of the two temples in town."

Letting out a little chuff, Felna stretched and flicked her tail. "Good. She's growing, learning, and has someone to catch her when she plays too rough."

"So, back to the topic, that's what I got a quest for. It seems adamant there is a new dungeon, though." Travis spoke to both of them now, enjoying the moment of them each stretching. He tried to tell himself not to use the word show, but between Felna's constant teasing and Penelope picking up some feline tendencies herself, Travis wasn't sure that they wouldn't be thinking of it that way.

"Then we'll have to go find it," Felna said.

Picking up on Penelope's chuckle, Travis asked, "Both of you? But Felna, why do you need to—?"

"Fife is putting together her group to go back to the goblin dungeon. She's getting Brayden, but she wanted to drag me back too. If she needs another, she should ask Nathaniel." Slipping her shirt and pants on, Felna stretched her back and shook. "Can we fly out to scout now?"

"Jump on," Penelope said.

Felna, showing off her acrobatics, vaulted off Penelope's raised leg and did a flip into the air, coming down in a crouch on Penelope's back before sliding a leg each side her neck and settling in place.

"Showoff." Ruffling her wings, Penelope dropped from the ledge and let the rushing air lift her into the sky.

The moment Penelope and Felna were outside the walls of the city, the pair breathed a sigh of relief. For Felna that was accompanied by a purring laugh; Penelope's was instead a gravelly roar. "I'm keeping low. If you see anything, shout."

"Of course. You're starting your search near the rot dungeon?" Below them, workers were clearing trees from around the tree line while groups of guards kept a close eye out for the goblins. Already, huge trenches were being dug to build the footings of the new wall that would be a large bite taken out of the nearby countryside. Soon, they swept out and over that sea of green and she had to keep her focus on the gaps in the tree cover below.

Scanning around with her own predatory vision, Penelope banked to the right to start circling around the nearest section of forest. "Has he noticed yet?"

"If he hadn't before, he was when we were waking up. We'll need to do more if we are going to get a good reading on him, though." Felna leaned out far to the right, one paw gripping a spine of Penelope's back, and focused on something below. "Bah. A deer."

"It could be another animal dungeon." Nibbling on her armored lip a little, Penelope said, "He didn't seem upset by it."

"He is nothing if not a man, Pen. Watching his girlfriend wake up, snuggled against another woman, is naturally going to leave him more curious than confused. If only he were a normal man, this would be far easier to solve."

"You mean—?"

"Exactly. But he's not flesh and blood. He has no such shortcut to his joy and bliss." Discounting another deer that was oblivious of Penelope's presence, Felna spotted something different on the dappled ground. "What's that?"

Penelope's vision nailed down through the canopy, peeling back the simple patterns that the creature was using as camouflage, and saw it by the heat it was giving to the mulch and dirt around it. "Something alive and warm. Want to say hello?"

"Pen, what are you— Oh shiiiiit!" There was nothing else Felna could do but hold on for all she was worth as Penelope crashed through the trees and landed on the floor of the forest with a resounding thud that threw all the surrounding leaves into the air.

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Jumping from Penelope's back, Felna caught sight of movement as whatever they'd found was running. When she realized it ran on two legs, it made her mind catch up to her feline instincts that already had her running after them. "Two legs!"

Leaving Felna to take care of the early part of the chase, Penelope noticed the way their quarry was running in an arc and she dashed through the underbrush to cut them off. It wasn't so much that she had any less to deal with than the other two, small trees, bushes, and even briers—but Penelope's tough scales meant she just didn't care.

The sound of a dragon barreling through the forest held no fear for Felna, but she knew it would be different for their quarry. Flicking a little kinetic spell out to the gnoll's flank, she tried to distract with some sound before— Penelope crashed through the wall of thorns to the side and tackled the creature.

Slowing her pace, Felna could see that there was a slight advantage to being a dragon. Right now, it was being able to pin a dungeon monster under one big talon. "Ah, gnoll. That's interesting to have as a new dungeon. Can you figure out what type?"

Sniffing, Penelope shrugged her wings and tucked them back at her side. "No rot. That's a big step up from what we have already."

With the gnoll pinned to the ground and unable to do much more than twitch, Felna crouched down beside its head. "I can never tell with them if they're a worker or one of their fighters. Hello there. Would you like to talk?"

The sounds had meanings. Understanding of language wasn't yet fully cemented in the gnoll's head, but it figured out enough of the two that had attacked it that it had no chance of beating them. It slumped, awaiting the killing blow it knew would come.

It didn't come, though. The two mismatched beings communicated and, finally, the huge one lifted its foot away. There was only one thing to do with a creature so large and powerful it can so easily limit your movement.

"Did you kill it?" Felna asked. Reaching out her paw, she poked the shoulder of the big hyena creature, then she carefully stroked its fur there. "It's alive and awake still. You scared the poor thing."

"What's scary about me?" Penelope managed not to laugh for a few seconds before rumbling her mirth. She backed away from the gnoll, letting Felna—who was mostly the same size as it—continue the interaction.

Looking down at the gnoll, and ignoring Penelope's shenanigans, Felna said, "The big nasty monster is gone. Do you want to sit up? Do you need healing?" On instinct, she charged her paw with healing magic and pressed it to the gnoll's chest.

The touch of magic shocked the gnoll so much it jerked upright and looked around, realized it had messed up its attempt to play possum, and did the first thing it could think of.

Felna was surprised at the gnoll's speed as it jumped upward and toward her, grabbed her around the neck with one arm, and turned to face Penelope. "Using me as a shield isn't a good idea. Pen can breathe all over both of us and the worst that happens is I need to cough sand out of my throat."

Hesitating, Penelope tilted her head to the side at the sight before her and asked, "Felna, do you need rescuing?"

"If he doesn't relax his grip on my windpipe, you'll have to—urk—rescue him!" For Felna, becoming a cohort to a dungeon boss had led her to many new levels of power both physical and magical. Maximizing her priestly dungeon class and starting on fighter had also given her a good boost. Planning a way out of the grip, and crouching just a little, she let her weight settle on the gnoll like she were a sack of grain—only to have the gnoll drop her and ruin the setup. "Hey!"

Penelope laughed as the gnoll ran off. Felna's indignity was too glorious, though she at least took note of which way the hyena creature had gone.

"Ha ha. Very funny. Now we lost him." Getting back up to her feet, Felna froze and looked down to the sheath at her side where the shortsword she'd been training with since she'd gotten her class from Travis had been. ". . . And he got a very nice weapon."

Now noticing where Felna looked, Penelope asked, "Adamantine?" At Felna's nod, she shrugged her shoulders. "Brave gnolls get the best loot. He faced a dragon and lived. He deserves something for that. Come on, get on my back so we can figure out where his home is."

Grumbling dire curses about gnolls so ungrateful for being healed that they would steal your sword, Felna vaulted onto Penelope's shoulder and swung up and over her back. Then she had to duck because while she'd thought that Penelope would take to the air, instead she loped after the gnoll like a ferret trying to chase down its quarry.

It might not have been the smartest gnoll in the world, but it knew for an absolute fact that if a monster as big as a dragon reached its home, there would be nothing stopping it from destroying everything. It was huge and deadly in a way that defied belief, and so the gnoll ran as fast as it could.

After some time of chasing the gnoll through the forest, and being sure she was going in circles, Penelope stopped and ruffled her wings. "This isn't working. He's probably leading us away from his dungeon."

"You don't say? This is because you had to go and cause him to panic." Sliding off Penelope's back, Felna dropped to her feet and walked around.

After several minutes of following the gnoll, and nearly ten more of having lost sight of it, Penelope stopped and used a claw to shred the bark off a nearby tree in impotent fury.

"I read that you hid Travis' entrance when you were starting out. That can't be coincidence. So, why don't we look for any deadfalls and destroy them?"

"We'll end up destroying half the forest if we do that. We—" Penelope had shifted around as she spoke, and just as she was saying it was time to head home and try again later, she heard a crash behind her as her rear left leg smashed through something.

Felna couldn't help herself. She looked at the smashed log that had been overhanging and hiding a dungeon entrance, and broke into laughter. "Pen! Before you were a dragon, did your ass get you into this much trouble?"

Looking back, spotting a dungeon entrance, Penelope laughed. "You know, it probably did. This isn't trouble, though, this is success."

"So, we found the dungeon's entrance. What now?" Felna jumped down the ridge they'd been on, slid down the wall a little, then landed on her feet at the entrance to the gnoll dungeon. "It'd be nice to figure out what kind it is, I guess. I wonder what the odds are that we'd have another nice friend like Travis?"

Penelope opted to use a little flap of her wings to bring her gracefully down to the entrance she'd uncovered. "What if they knew Trav?"

Walking into the dungeon like she owned it, Felna turned her head to look back at Penelope. "What if it was his mother? Could you imagine trying to explain ourselves?"

"Fel, why are we going inside?" Penelope asked.

"Two reasons. One, we're going to figure out what this dungeon probably is. Two, we're going to fight its monsters and lose." Felna flashed a big grin up at Penelope. "Look, right now, if the goblins find this, we'll end up with two goblin dungeons. These guys need a kick-start, and killing an adventurer and a dragon would be an excellent way to do that."

"Ugh. No. There's a better option." Penelope had to squeeze a little to fit into the dungeon's tunnel, but she managed it with enough room to spare that she could probably fight if she needed to. "Look, we'd be worth like a hundred thousand or so together. If we kidnap one of the gnolls, catch up with Fife, and have her drag the gnoll to the bottom of the goblin dungeon? That would be a boost for it. Hell, we could take them on a tour of Breeze instead."

Felna froze. "You are the sneakiest dragon I have ever met. Certainly the sneakiest I have ever dated." Stretching up on her toes, Felna kissed the underside of Penelope's jaw. "I like your plan much better."

Nodding in satisfaction, Penelope paused. "Wait, when did we start dating?"

Simply raising her eyebrow, Felna gestured to the dungeon depths ahead. "It's not exactly traditional, but this counts."

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