“Vortex activity imminent.” Daisy's voice woke me up from the deep comfortable blackness that was sleep. I groaned and opened my eyes. I looked down at my arm which had a nasty white scar from where the hellhound had bit into me. I still was sore all over and tired.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“2 months since you fell asleep. Vortex activity imminent.”

“What is it?”

“Connecting to a world.” I let out a huge sigh of relief and leaned back on the throne closing my eyes.

“Perfect. Wake me up if there is any activity at the gate or when there is a dungeon break. Also, have the tanks be on patrol. Where is the gate located?” I asked as the dungeon began to shake.

“The vortex will open in the desert room.” With that I let myself fall back asleep.

“There is gate activity.” I opened my eyes feeling much better. I sat up as the screen popped up in my head. The picture was hard to see since the vortex was in the middle of the desert room and the surveillance spider was on the cave wall above the entrance. As I watched the vortex flex preparing for a new arrival I stretched my body. Some parts of me were still sore, but I definitely felt much more rested than the first time I woke up.

“Everyone in place?” The map popped up at my words. Currently, there was one tank, alec, and a poison spider inside the first cave. Ella was out of the forest room and inside moving deeper into the caves now. “Great. How long has it been?”

“Two weeks.” I watched a figure emerge from the vortex. I strained my brain trying to see clearly what it was.

“I'm sorry, is that a cow?” I looked harder and sure enough, there was a real black and white dairy cow standing in the desert. “I'm not going to lie. This one has thrown me off a little.” The cow was clearly struggling to move around in the sand, and it seemed awfully confused. I sat in bewilderment for a few minutes watching the cow slowly wander around lost. I let out a small chuckle when Elton emerged from the sand causing severe panic for the cow.

“What's going on?” Ella asked waking into the throne room. “I was gardening when one of the spiders came and pulled me in. Are we being attacked?”

“No, it's all good. Hey Ella, did you ever have cows back in your village?”

“Cow?” She asked confused.

“Yeah, big creature, eats grass, goes moooo. Has utters you can get milk from.” As I spoke I realized that if she had nothing like this in her world I was about to sound completely insane.

“I mean we have some creatures we get milk from but none of them say moo. They kinda just screech.”

“Well, that's terrifying. Anyway, there is a cow in the desert room. Do you think you can go get it and bring it to the forest area? If you don't want it we can always just kill it and eat it.” She nodded.

“How are you doing?” She had a little bit of concern in her voice.

“Me? I'm well.” I looked down at my arm which had the bite mark scar on it. “Pushed myself a little hard there but it was necessary.”

“Good.” She stood there for a minute before turning away. “I'll go take care of the cow.”

“Ella.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. You did well in the dungeon. You helped me take care of the demon, and for that, I am truly grateful. If there is anything you need or want, let me know and I will do my best.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Thank you. I will.” She had a wide smile on her face as she left the throne room. I watched her leave and mentally told the poison spider to keep watch over here, but stay far enough away to not scare the cow.

“Is there anything else going on?” I asked Daisy.

“The dungeon grew after incorporating the hellhound dungeon.” I looked at the map again noticing the size for the first time. It wasn't a lot of growth but growth nonetheless.

“Did we not get any new environments?” I asked noticing that there was nothing on the map.

“Correct. The environment in the hellhound dungeon was not compatible with ours.”

“And a desert is?” I muttered under my breath. “Did we get more funds?”

“Yes. We received enough funds for 4 more soldiers, as well as the large mana crystal you brought back.”

“I forgot about that. Where is it?”

“In the spawning room.”

“Nice, and the ranks of everything.”

‘The dungeon did not advance in a rank. However, after eating the hellhounds Alec is level 3, each tank is level 2 along with the trap spider, and both poison spiders are level 3.”

“How is trappy doing?” I asked as I scrolled the list of dungeon inhabitants. The trap spider's name switched to trappy as I spoke.

“Trappy is well. He has one lame leg that might never heal, however, he can still do a sufficient job.”

“Wait, hold up, I can change the names late. Also, that's good to hear.”

“Yes.”

“Cool.” I sat for a minute trying to think of names and then gave up. “I'll do it later.” Man, I suck at naming. I leaned back with my eyes closed. My body wasn't in top shape so I wanted to sleep again.

“Ella has successfully captured the cow.” I looked at the screen briefly and nodded.

“Good, Wake me up if anything else happens.”

“Understood.” I crashed again, hopefully enough to feel fully rested.

“Dungeon break imminent.” Daisy woke me up for the third time. Although this time I felt at almost 100%.

“Nice. How long was I out for this time?”

“12 days.”

“Nice. Nothing exciting happened?”

“No.” The dungeon started to shake as I made my way out of the throne room and to the tree room.

“Get everyone ready. I'll send the surveillance spider out first and if all looks good we can go stretch our legs.”

“Alright.” I exited the cave with the tank and poison spider on watch coming behind me. As soon as I walked into the tree room the cow lost his mind. She started to scream and thrash before turning around, running deeper into the forest. “Morning to you to”

“Hey. What's happening?”

“Dungeon break. Want to come see what's outside?” She nodded and we headed into the overly hot desert room. Ella brought an armful of weeds. “What's that for?”

“Keep Elton from accidentally leaving again.”

“Good plan.” The surveillance spider dropped down onto my shoulder as we exited the cave. I shielded my eyes from the sun and kept on walking. It was slow with the sand but not terrible. We reached the gate in less than 10 minutes. Without instruction, the spider jumped off my shoulder and through the gate. I closed my eyes and waited for the picture to pop up. The little spider emerged from the gate into a large open grassy field. There were no people, houses, or even animals in sight.

“What is it?”

“A big open field,” I said and stepped through the gate.