Colt and Lacey had opted to stay in the control room for this round so they could watch the fights between Hughe and the beetles together. Lacey figured that they had the next night to find and cart a few of the female beetles up to the first floor. The problem with the female beetles was that they were rare, and they nested deep in their loamy walls and by the time Colt could get to one, it had dug itself into someplace else. Knowing that Hughe was returning, they’d given up for this round. Hughe would need higher leveled beetles than the babies could create in a single day, so they’d decided to set them up on the second level.

“Guess what I just found?” Colt had dragged the table over to the pedestal, so they had someplace to sit as they watched for Hughe.

“What?” Lacey responded as expected, tugging off her leather boots to get comfortable.

“We can sell the traps,” Colt tapped the edge of the pedestal.

“Really?” Lacey handed her boots to a patiently waiting Ginger and joined Colt at the pedestal. Ginger took a rag to the leather boots to get off the recently applied worm slime. It made Lacey’s boots glow, but it was still kind of gross.

“I touched one of the traps on the map and got a sales screen like we did with the coal,” Colt showed Lacey the screen for it.

“Too bad we didn’t know that before I had the goblins fill in the ones on level 1,” Lacey complained.

“Maybe it gave us credit for it,” Colt shrugged.

“Like we’d know with this thing on the fritz!” Lacey thought of kicking the pedestal before she remembered that she didn’t have any shoes on.

“We should sell all the ones on the second floor so we can get it ready as a beetle hatchery,” Colt suggested, his hand hovering over the button. The trap sold for just a little more than a mining pick. Four traps would buy a meat pie. That was reason enough for Lacey to consider it.

“Not the first room,” Lacey scrolled over to another room. “I don’t trust Hughe not to go past the first floor.”

“We’ve got goblins keeping an eye out,” Colt protested, encouraged by our first really profitable endeavor so far.

“Yeah, but it’s Hughe and he’s greedy,” Lacey shook her head.

“Speak of the devil,” Colt said just as the lights changed from blue to red.

“That’s not Hughe,” Lacey let her voice drop and she was glad they hadn’t sold the traps on the second level yet.

“What the heck?” Colt asked, tapping on the first of four adventurers to enter the dungeon’s first room.

“Rogue, level 2,” the system voice told them, going on to name the rest as Colt tapped each one. “Druid, level 3. Mage, level 2. Fighter, level 3.”

“Hughe sold us out,” Colt acted far more surprised than Lacey was. “Standard set with a fighter, healer, and two dps. The druid has got to be their healer.”

“Do you think he told them not to go past level one?” Lacey pursed her lips and watched their rogue poke at the floor in front of them as they slowly made their way across the room. “He obviously told them about the traps.”

“I told him we’d clear the traps off the first level so he could fight the beetles,” Colt protested.

“It surprises you that he didn’t trust us?” Lacey countered, glaring at the small group. They’d keyed that first level for a single 5th level fighter.

“It surprises me that he sent others in,” Colt replied, trying to zoom in on a few of them. “The druid is kind of cute.”

“What?” Lacey leaned in, but she didn’t see it. “Colt!”

“She looks older than Hughe,” Colt shrugged, and leaned back as Lacey faked a swat at his shoulder.

“Not by much,” Lacey chided him, watching the screen as the group hit the first challenge. The rogue stopped the party and had them gingerly step over the trap that Lacey had already disabled.

“Besides, you don’t know what age they might have been before they got here,” Colt reasoned in a way that made Lacey roll her eyes. “Most player characters get spawned young in this type of thing.”

The second room was the first one to have beetles in it and, after the rogue examined the door, they opened it and fumbled for their weapons. The 6 little beetles were a lot less than they’d brought up for the room, but they were all a higher level. The beetle battles didn’t last long when they happened, this room had been the last one Lacey and Colt had populated and therefore had the lowest level of beetles in it.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Colt tapped on one of the beetles and the system announced it to be level 2. There were 2 level 2s, 3 level 1s, and 1 level 3. The druid struggled with a bow that was too big for the tunnel for a round before the fighter plunged his shield into the room and pushed the bugs back a bit. The rogue and mage were also useless until they could get around the fighter, who was too busy propping open the door to swing his sword.

“This is clumsier than we imagine it to be in DnD,” Colt complained and gave a look like he’d give a lot for a bucket of popcorn and milk duds.

“I’m wondering how they got to levels 2 and 3,” Lacey scootched Colt over at his place at the table and leaned on the pedestal, imagining that she had a huge diet coke to suck on.

The fighter gave another shove of his shield, edging forward just enough to let the rogue squeeze past him and try to blend into the shadows at the edge of the room. All the rogue really managed to do was get the attention of the biggest of the beetles. The fighter swung and the druid got a shot off, but the mage was fumbling with the door that Lacey had equipped with an upgrade that made it automatically shut when left alone.

“You were right about that automatic door,” Colt smiled.

“It was worth it just for the entertainment value,” Lacey grinned back.

With another great shove, the fighter got them room for all of them to enter the room, but the mage was a worry-wort. There was always one in every group. He refused to let the door close, and it kept him from doing anything productive until one of the smaller beetles got past the fighter to bite through the mage’s soft robe. The fighter and druid had managed to kill one of the level 2 beetles, but the rogue had decided to try to run in a circle to get the big beetle off of him and it looked like the guy was screaming while doing it. The problem with that was that the room was only about 10 feet by 12 feet in size so no matter which corner the thief tried to turn to, he was only cornering himself.

“I think they got their levels fighting out in the open,” Colt analyzed their fighting style. “They’re not used to closed in spaces.”

“You think they’re friends of Hughe?” Lacey wondered aloud.

The rogue accidently kicked the last health off of a little beetle that the fighter and druid were working on, allowing the fighter to get a hit in on the big beetle. The big beetle obediently turned to fight the guy with the big shield, proving that beetles were dumb. The mage shot a spell off at the level 2 beetle on him even as the beetle took another chunk out of the mage.

“I think it’s more likely he charged them for the privilege of working in the dungeon,” Colt answered Lacey, wincing at the backstab that the rogue got off on the big beetle, cutting off a whole leg in the process.

“He must have flashed around the beetle shell and gotten caught bragging about where he got it,” Lacey sneered as the last level 2 beetle backstabbed the rogue, not that it counted as a backstab for the poor beetle. It did however get a chunk of the stupid rogue’s ass.

“The druid and fighter know how to work together,” Colt pointed out as the druid put away her bow to cast heals first at the rogue and then at the mage.

“She healed the wrong guy first,” Lacey muttered, not liking the girl on principle.

“He was the one squealing the loudest,” Colt chuckled. “If they don’t have a display that lets them see health bars, it would make sense to heal the squealer first.”

The fighter got a good swipe at the level 3 beetle, killing it off, and turned to smack the level 2 that was on the rogue.

“Either that, or nobody likes the mage,” Lacey pointed.

“Maybe,” Colt agreed as they watched the druid kick the final level 1 beetle that was inching around the shield. “It’s not like he’s doing his job.”

Now that the rogue could backstab the level 2 beetle that had turned to the fighter, it went down in seconds. The mage looked to be yelling at the druid who rolled her eyes and Lacey liked her a little better for it. The druid kicked the level 1 beetle again as the fighter and rogue turned to the final beetle on the mage. The final beetle died, and the room turned red.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Lacey reasoned. “It gave them a fair challenge for their levels.”

“Good job for us,” Colt held up a hand for a high five, but Lacey gave it half-heartedly.

“Is it?” Lacey asked as the adventurers healed up and the druid sat down, probably to get some mana back. The fighter and rogue were arguing, not that Lacey and Colt could hear what they were saying, over a beetle shell that they were peeling off the largest beetle. “They got experience and loot and we’re going to have to spend credits resetting the room and more time lugging around beetles.”

“Yeah,” Colt frowned, studying the screen.

“What do we get out of it?” Lacey shrugged at the screen. “I get it that we could make it harder and kill them all for experience, but how is it worth it for us to keep spending time and effort to lure them in only to have to spend resources rebuilding every day?”

“Maybe there’s some balancing mechanism that we’re not seeing yet,” Colt suggested, but their frowns got deeper as the adventurers delved into the next room and the next.

To Lacey, it felt like it took forever for the adventurers to clear the first floor. They almost wiped on the final room except that they stumbled in just as the big guy was chewing on the door and got surprised. By the last room, they were fighting more like a team. It was obvious how the adventurers were benefiting from their work, but it was completely unclear how the dungeon benefited.

“I guess this is where we find out if Hughe told them to stay out of the second level,” Colt pointed back at the screen that Lacey had left to put her boots back on.

“Even if he told them to, that doesn’t mean they’ll follow orders,” Lacey hopped to the pedestal to watch what was an argument forming. The rogue had found the furs and the trap door under them, but the mage was lifting them up. The druid had hold of one arm of the mage like she was holding him back, but it was a half-hearted attempt at best. The fighter just shrugged.

The mage yelled at the druid and shook her off. She turned to the fighter, but he held up his hands and waved toward the hole like he couldn’t stop the other guy. Before the druid could turn back around, the mage’s eyes got wide, his face got very pale and then he slumped over, half in and half out of the hole in the floor of the level.