“It’s good to see you out and about,” Bernard greeting them outside the dungeon. “We missed you yesterday. How are your quests progressing?”
“We are plugging away at it,” Colt answered.
They’d been particularly productive in the night but so had Bernard’s people. Now that Lacey knew what to look for around the camp, there was a clearer delineation between the workers that were here to build the fort and the adventurers who were here to dungeon dive. There were so many builders that they must have outnumbered the adventurers in a 2-1 ratio. It interested Lacey because she and Colt would need that kind of workforce to build their own version of a town, and the completion of their quests was coming along.
Inside/Outside Voice: Complete!
Masters of the Hoard: 20/20: 27/100 Blurgs, 71/100 Burrugs, 25/100 Crocorats, 20/100 Droffles, 35/100 Dustapps, 5/100 Ghoffin, 4/100 Krettles, 0/100 Krowls, 0/100 Mimogs, 0/100 Peacomelos, 11/100 Poillows, 5/100 Rejects, 25/100 Slamps, 55/100 Smugs, 55/100 Snucks, 30/100 Sweepers, 0/100 Trugs, 2/100 Twoldras, 100/100 Velcrabs, 25/100 Were-Rays (12/120 hours remaining)
Back Forty Acres: 421,190/1,000,000 (228/336 hours remaining)
They’d finished the Inside/Outside Voice, but they hadn’t been in the mood to celebrate. They’d gotten a chest full of goodies for it, including a full set of the black leather armor, like the stuff that Kat wore, for each of them. Colt hadn’t liked it because it reminded him of Kat, and he hadn’t wanted to think about it any more than he’d wanted to talk about it, much. Lacey had hung hers up in the closet and stared at it, but she had been too tired to preen, so she’d left it there for the present.
Lacey had finished the last monster the night before, but they’d decided that they would summon the rest of the mobs after lunch. Until they had levels to showcase the monsters of the quest, Lacey and Colt figured that it would be just as unwise to summon those early. They’d just be lounging around in the menagerie or twiddling their worker thumbs, if they had them.
It wasn’t a lack of credits that kept them from summoning and creating more mobs. The dungeon dives were filling their coffers to almost embarrassing levels. Lacey was still trying to be stingy with it though. It would likely take a lot of that to build the city out behind the dungeon. Now that Lacey had seen what Bernard could do on this side of the mountain, she was determined to do just as well, if not better, on the other side.
“How are you laying the foundations so fast?” Lacey asked Bernard.
“I have a few mages with stone magic that do the shaping of rocks into perfect chunks to fit the walls,” he waved at the fortifications. “It gets them prime positions on the dungeon runs and helps with their skills, so it’s cheap labor for me.”
“I could use some spells like that,” Lacey suggested.
“How is the progress coming on that goblin you had learning to write spells?” Bernard answered with a question.
“Slow,” Colt admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s smart for a goblin, but reading and writing take time. If it wasn’t for the magic of the scrolls, she probably couldn’t have read them well enough to get the spell.”
“That and she’d rather be cleaning than sitting at her desk and learning,” Lacey put in, catching sight of Kat, who had positioned herself close enough to be approached, but not so close that she was intruding somewhere she wasn’t wanted.
“If you had something interesting to trade, you could probably convince a few mages to hire on long enough to scribe a few spells,” Bernard suggested.
“Could we make a mage-only level?” Lacey wondered.
“Like a mage gauntlet,” Colt snapped his fingers. “We could make writing a few spell scrolls a part of the gauntlet and offer them individual gauntlet passes.”
“If we timed it right, we could squeeze them in on floors that finish quickly,” Lacey bounced off Colt’s idea with ease. “Then we could run the arenas for the full group. They always finish early. And the mages could do their gauntlets afterward.”
“The gauntlet could be timed for added incentive to rush it,” Colt nodded.
“I begin to see how the two of you have created such good dungeons,” Bernard said softly. “I would truly wish that you could consider giving me a tour of the dungeon, but I would only forget it on the way out.”
Lacey and Colt exchanged a look. Bernard really had done a lot for them. They wouldn’t promise anything now, but it was something to keep in mind for the future.
“Ah well,” he sighed, his smile returning to polite. “Have you thought about a name for the dungeon?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Lacey can catch you up on that,” Colt cast a glance toward where Kat was sitting, her shoulders getting lower as they continued to avoid her. “I need to take care of something.”
“We were kicking around ideas like The Cipher Crucible, The Perplexity Forge, The Conundrum Engine, or we could go with something less pretentious like the Riddle Forge or the Cryptic Descent,” she told Bernard as they both watched Colt walk over to talk with Kat.
“And you say you aren’t good with names,” Bernard chided her gently.
“We have our moments, but then again we’ve named our Troll/Bugs Trugs, so maybe this one just meant more to us than mob names,” Lacey mused.
Colt motioned to a nearby set of stumps and Kat followed him closer to the blockade wall. The wall itself had grown a full 2 feet in the time they’d been gone. Some of the cheval de frise was being torn down and the wood was being processed into rough planks that were being used to form scaffolding to help build the wall. Nothing was wasted in the process as even the sawdust was being packaged into old grain sacks.
“What will you do with the sawdust?” Lacey asked, trying to give Colt and Kat some privacy, but not too much privacy. She wanted to see how it went to know how to deal with Colt when they were done.
“The growers use it for crop food,” Bernard waved to the bags. “The growers will give us a discount on our next food order.”
“What is your kingdom like, Bernard?” Lacey realized that, as a noble, Bernard would likely give her the idealized version of his country, but it was something. “It sounds as if you work together a lot, but what kind of governmental structure is there?”
“I think we have a lot of hard workers, even in the nobility,” he answered with a bit of humorous self-depreciation. “The King and Queen are young, but they have a Council that I think is fair. The Queen is currently expecting her second child, the first still in diapers. Each village has a noble to oversee judicial matters and keep the overall working parts all cooperating. The larger the town, the higher the noble’s rank. As with anywhere, we have the bad with the good, but I believe most of our citizens are at least trying to work for the betterment of the kingdom as a whole.”
Colt’s chin lifted in a stubborn way that didn’t bode well, but Kat’s crossed arms weren’t much better.
“What does the King or Council think about our little dungeon out here?” Lacey asked Bernard.
“The King is a bit preoccupied with his firstborn not sleeping through the night, but the Council keeps him informed,” Bernard answered as they pretended to not watch Colt and Kat. “They are excited with the newness of it, but some are more cautious.”
“Is that why they sent a Count all the way out here to manage it?” Lacey made small talk.
“It was determined that anything above a Count might scare you off of negotiations,” his lips quirked to the side. “I volunteered, once I heard about it.”
“Why?”
Kat’s shoulders drooped, but Colt’s chin lowered too.
“My son is at that crucial age where he can either develop into a hard-working young man or get in with the wrong crowd and become more of a dilettante instead,” Bernard’s eyes slid over to where his son rubbed oil onto his chainmail. “I, and a few peers in the same situation, thought it might be best to send them out on an adventure for seasoning in the rough of things to avoid the wrong influences.”
“You talk like a politician,” Lacey chuckled at his explanation.
“That would be because I spent several years at Court during my formative years,” the Count explained. “The King and I had our own adventures like these, but there were those at Court that did not believe such a thing was good for a King. His brother was not allowed to adventure and ended up a bit rough of nature.”
“I wonder if Kat’s dad thinks she’s falling into the wrong crowd with us,” Lacey pondered.
Kat uncrossed her arms to gesture them about as she talked. Colt’s brow got stern. Colt was only a few inches taller than Kat, so it wasn’t like he was looming over her, but he wasn’t going to put up with the redirections Kat had gone to before.
“I fear that I sympathize more with her father than the young woman,” Bernard glanced back at the arguing couple. “While the untitled women of our society are encouraged to find professions if they wish, nobility has other standards. It is clear that she comes from wealth, if not nobility. I’m sure her father merely wishes to keep her safe, and this life is not that.”
“With respawns, how is it really dangerous?” Lacey protested.
“Death is not the worst that one can find in unscrupulous company, but there is little chance of that under my watch,” Bernard reasoned. “I suppose her father likely doesn’t know that though and if I were in his shoes, I’d be worried enough to at least send someone to keep track of her. I think it says something about him that he comes himself.”
“True,” Lacey admitted, mulling over the idea of her own father and what he might think of what Lacey was doing. Would he be happy that she was gainfully employed or worried for the safety of her job choice? “I don’t think she sees it that way.”
Colt touched Kat’s arm, and she flinched but then seemed to melt. It looked like she might be apologizing. If she wasn’t, she was an idiot and didn’t deserve him anyway.
“Friends can be protective as well,” Bernard nudged Lacey. “Is her father any more protective of her than you are of him?”
“What a concept,” Lacey let her eyes meet Bernard’s. “I didn’t want to like you, but you make that really really hard.”
“I see that I am growing on you,” Bernard’s smile was so charming.
“Are you flirting with me?” Lacey teased him, thinking only to make him blush or something.
“Perhaps a bit, but only harmlessly so,” Bernard gave her only a slight pinkening of his ears with his laugh. “My wife is not the jealous type, thank all that makes the world work, but I would not hurt her with a true dalliance.”
“I can respect that,” Lacey crossed her arms and chanced another look at the lovebirds.
Neither of them had moved their feet, but Kat was leaning into Colt’s arms for a hug that Colt was only too willing to give her. That was enough for Lacey. With a bit of conviction, Lacey turned her back to the couple and offered her arm to Bernard.
“I think there’s just enough time for a tour of that barracks building that looks almost ready for a roof before I have to go back into the mountain,” Lacey suggested with a smile.
“I’d be happy to introduce you to our mages, who are working very hard to give themselves a roof over their heads,” Bernard linked elbows with her, and they walked toward the barracks. “I believe some of these boys are quite tired of having to sleep in tents, though I haven’t the heart to tell them that the structure is meant to be twice that tall. I have resolved to tell them tomorrow.”