A week of dungeon incursions later, and a few things were clear to Lacey and Colt. First, for some unknown reason, the adventurers always arrived in the morning, about an hour after dawn, like clockwork. Second, this would get old. There were only so many ways to jump scare an adventurer with a bat or two, arrange beetles for battles that suited their levels, and rearrange puzzles so that they gave just the right amount of satisfaction versus frustration. They, as dungeon masters, were getting better at it and Hughe’s party, as adventurers, were leveling up quickly. The dungeon was level 5 and the adventurers ranged from 4-7 with even the mage becoming more useful at level 4. The rogue gained the most at level 7.

The dungeon had expanded again, with more than 71 rooms on 13 levels to offer challenges not only for Hughe and his party, but also for a party that ranged up to at least level 10, though they had to keep refreshing that one because the party normally left before then and the high-leveled beetle would die of old age after three days of battling other beetles. Lacey and Colt had continued to get new treasure, including glass that would have made the maze idea better if Hughe hadn’t just broken the glass rather than play the game. They also got duct tape, bubble gum, and bailing wire.

Having gotten tired of feeding Hughe’s self-absorbed ego, Lacey had just deleted the puzzle in favor of another pin the tail on the donkey puzzle with Hughe’s face sketched on the paper where the donkey tail should have been pinned. She and Colt found it hilarious, but Hughe had totally missed the point, obliviously amused with Lacey’s rendition of him. He’d peeled the paper off to keep and still managed to miss the key that was hidden behind it.

The top 12 levels were ready for adventurers with each level designed for that level of adventurer. That way it was easy enough for even Hughe to know when he was better off going home. Lacey and Colt had decided to get ahead of the curve and were outpacing Hughe’s progress capabilities every day, but it was clear that it was getting stale. There were just so many monsters that they had to work with and nothing had really opened up in the store for more types of monsters as they’d leveled, which frustrated Lacey.

There were 18 total levels of the dungeon, each with 5-6 rooms on it and stairways that led from one level to another. The goblins lived mostly on the bottom five levels that Lacey and Colt hadn’t had to expand since the goblins were happy to do it for them. The bottom 5 levels had more rooms than the ones up top. Every time Lacey and Colt made a new level for the adventurers, they moved the goblin city down another level. The goblins were the workers for the most part, with only an elite guard of ten or so goblins, including Adam and Eve, who were the same levels as Hughe’s group.

Lacey and Colt didn’t want to pit the adventurers against the goblins because they didn’t want to lose them, but the elite squad was the last defense against an incursion that went too deep. Lacey had set up a failsafe on the 13th floor, but it was a last resort that the goblins could set off if the elite squad got overwhelmed. Not that Hughe’s group was even close to being capable of it.

“Colt,” Lacey called out to Colt from the table where she was drawing in the leather sketchbook again. “Wakey, wakey.”

True to her word, Lacey had drawn a donkey for Ginger, who had taken some duct tape and taped it up on the wall of their cave. Secretly pleased by the goblin’s pride in Lacey’s work, Lacey had drawn more things to hang up on the wall. After a long day of creating levels for the dungeon, Lacey found it calming to draw things from their old world. She’d drawn bears, which Ginger had said roamed in the forest outside the dungeon, making Lacey think that they might have to lure one into the cave just to get more mobs to change things up for the dungeon. She’d also drawn tigers, cats, eagles, a small dragon, and some mythological creatures that were creative mixes of the predators that Lacey could imagine.

“Colt,” Lacey called out again, filling in some shading on her newest endeavor, which was to draw Ginger. “Bacon.”

Colt snorted awake and pried an eye open to stare blearily at Lacey sitting at the table. “You are not blonde.”

“No, but I ordered breakfast, and you have about ten minutes before Hughe shows up,” Lacey replied, unconcerned about his dream-induced comment.

“Did you say bacon?” Colt propped himself up on an elbow and rubbed his eyes.

“Yep,” Lacey nodded toward the plate of bacon and eggs on the table. The goblins had learned how to cook them, but they still had to order eggs off the pedestal since Lacey didn’t have the option of buying chickens and a coop. Ginger had fried it all up moments before Lacey had woken Colt.

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“Good morning, Colt,” Ginger said, blushing as she turned away as he pulled on his clean jeans. Ginger’s speech had improved a lot more than some of the other goblins that spent all their time with other goblins.

“If you want the eggs hot, you need to get up,” Lacey smiled with half her mouth. “I’m not going to serve you in bed like Ginger might.”

“I can serve in bed,” Ginger offered, and Lacey chuckled.

“I’m sure you could, Ginger,” Lacey then pressed her lips together and gave Colt a dewy-eyed look and teasing bat of her lashes.

“I like eating at the table,” Colt just responded with a stern scowl. “It’s too early for my brain to process shenanigans.”

“It’s not too early for a blonde,” Lacey teased him, and he flipped her off. Yeah, they’d been gone too long from his mom’s place.

“The breakfast is good, Ginger,” Colt said, almost automatically after a few bites. “Thank you.”

Ginger blushed and swept an already clean floor just a bit faster. Lacey rolled her eyes with a smirk.

“Not bad,” Colt told Lacey, glancing over her shoulder as she drew. “Has she seen it yet.”

“Not yet,” Lacey admitted, her tone soft.

“You should give her a catlike body,” Colt suggested, popping the last bite of bacon in his mouth.

“Really?” Lacey asked, but something was prickling at the back of her awareness. “I’m not drawing it for your fantasies.”

“Ugh, it’s not like that,” Colt hissed, trying to say it quiet enough for Ginger not to hear.

“It’s not?”

“No,” he told Lacey, his tone low and serious. He changed his tone to light and louder to address Ginger, “Hey, Ginger, could you take this down to the water cavern to wash it up?” He held out the plate and waited with a big smile for Ginger to take it.

Lacey knew that Colt wasn’t really interested in Ginger, but he was a complete flirt all the time. Her teasing was just that. It was teasing banter that they did all the time. But Ginger seemed to be getting a pretty serious crush on her partner and Lacey was also trying to make Colt aware of the potential problem. And still, it wasn’t that problem that niggled at Lacey.

“Lay off of the stuff with Ginger,” Colt admonished Lacey once Ginger had padded down the stairs and out of the room.

“She has the Colt crush,” Lacey shook her head and added a highlight to Ginger’s eyes in her drawing that captured the crush on the paper.

“I know, but what can I do about it?” Colt was saying, but Lacey put down the leather notebook, tucking her favorite pencil between the pages to save her place.

Lacey had gotten a feel for the timing of the world. The goblins woke and started their chores at the same time every day, just around the time the sun came up outside. Ginger would come in with clean laundry and an offer of breakfast a bit after that. That’s when Lacey started to wake up Colt. Colt would finish his breakfast around the time the adventurers were finishing the baby beetle rooms. She was just getting into the swing of this routine. It was too soon to change it up.

“Where’s Hughe?” Lacey asked, getting up from the table to walk to the pedestal.

“He’s a little late, but,” Colt started, but he was already into his part of the routine, putting on his boots to start the day. Only that normally happened around the time that the adventurers hit the second baby beetle room.

“The dungeon’s still blue,” Lacey scrolled through rooms of the dungeon that were primed for the impending incursion.

“Not everyone loves routine like you do, Lace,” Colt laughed at her concern, lacing up leather armor. “Maybe they just took a day off. They’ve been going at it every day for what?”

“Eight days,” Lacey answered in what Colt probably considered a far too accurate report. Lacey counted things. That’s what Lacey did.

“Maybe they went to church this week,” Colt sauntered to the pedestal. “Even the Lord rested once a week. It’s not a bad idea. It wouldn’t kill us to take a day off.”

Lacey frowned, but let Colt wrapped his arm around her shoulder and led her to the bed.

“All work and no sleep makes Lacey a very grumpy person,” Colt was saying. “You get to go to sleep early, and I’ll wake you if they show up, not that there will be any surprises to watch. You can only watch a rerun so many times before it just isn’t fun to watch anymore.”

“But,” Lacey protested weakly.

“Hop up,” Colt was assuring her as he always did when she got this way, so Lacey felt like maybe he was right. He was often right about stuff like this. It made perfect sense that Hughe was just taking a day off.

“But,” Lacey gave another squeak of protest, but she accepted Colt’s boost up to her bunk.

“I promise to wake you if anything weird happens,” Colt soothed as Ginger returned from washing dishes. Colt took off Lacey’s boots and handed them off to Ginger. “Not that anything is going to happen that our good little dungeon can’t handle.”

“Sure,” Lacey let herself be convinced, handing off her jeans and t-shirt for cleaning as she snuggled down into her covers in just her tank top and underwear. She was thinking that she should at least wear enough clothes to sleep so she could jump out of bed, but she let Colt talk her into getting comfortable.

The man should have been a bard or a psychologist who specialized in hypnotic reprogramming. He could and did pitch his voice at just the right level to make Lacey nod off even with the small feeling in the back of her head that this was a bad idea. Colt might dream of busty blondes in chainmail bikinis, but Lacey was smarter than that, right? Right?