The whirlwind tour of town wasn’t nearly as interesting as Lacey had thought it would be. Kat introduced them to everyone, whether she knew them or not while Colt pretended to be interested in the cookie cutter NPCs. The whirlwind part was Kat herself, who was steadfast in her efforts to keep Lacey between herself and Colt.

“Eventually we’re hoping that all the NPCs will become players, at least all the roles that players want to play,” Kat was saying as they browsed the general store. “You’d think it would be easier to find a crafter or two in the players, but most of them default to adventurers.”

“Do the adventurers get paid like the dungeon masters?” Lacey was drawn to ask. As introverted as Lacey was, she couldn’t help but mine into the wealth of what Kat knew about the system.

“No,” Kat shook her head and checked the balance on a dagger. “We only pay the ones with viable storylines and that just doesn’t happen as often as we’d like. If we didn’t have the patent income, we’d be as broke as everyone else. Who knew that the patent on kneaded erasers would net so much, but it does. Lord knows we don’t make money on the copyrights. We have some patrons too, but that one’s hit or miss most months.”

Colt had given up trying to get in on the conversation, a contemplative look on his face as he chose to listen instead of engage for a bit. He bought some supplies, including a dozen backpacks. But there was other simple stuff like caltrops, nails, crafting kits, and water skins that were so much cheaper in town than they’d been on the pedestal. Lacey would have bought them out, but the system restocked almost automatically.

“I hate to bring it up, but I think it’s getting a little late,” Colt nudged Lacey rather than address Kat.

“Look at the time!” Kat said brightly, opening the door to the general store so that they could get back out onto the main street. “We should get you back to your dungeon.” Kat had shown them how to customize their interfaces to display the time and Lacey was both grateful and a little annoyed. The good part was that they knew exactly when their day pass timer would run out. It was tracked in a small buff that displayed in another useful panel. The bad part was that the timer was too short for Lacey’s comfort.

“Time flies,” he gave Kat a patentably disinterested smile, like he did anytime his usual charm didn’t work. This was plan B for Colt and the hard-to-get gals. Lacey enjoyed plan B because Colt would turn his charming manners on Lacey, opening doors and just being ever so helpful to show the girl what she was missing. Lacey knew that her job as his wingman was to be a little extra demanding to show him off. That was sometimes fun when she was annoyed with him.

“We should rent a few horses,” Kat suggested. “I’ll bring them back for you afterward, unless you want to buy some. Do you have like 50 gold left over? Do you think they’d be helpful in the dungeon?”

“How many plat to a gold?” Lacey asked, dumping what was left of her bag of coins into her hand.

“It’s a ten to one ratio on all the money, so 10 gold to a plat,” Kat replied. “Do you know how to ride? A skill could pop up for you if it seems to come naturally to you.”

“Do we have the room?” Colt handed Lacey his pouch of coins so that she could combine the two bags.

“I was thinking in the backyard,” Lacey shrugged, not having enough coins to get a pair. “Maybe we should pick some up next time we’re in town though.”

“Now you know how to plan for it,” Kat beamed, leading them to the livery. The dirt road through town should have been dusty but wasn’t. Lacey didn’t mind. “We can rent them for a couple of silver.”

“Do you happen to know what those Day Pass coupons are going to run us in credits?” Colt hefted the main backpack onto his shoulder, his face shocked that it still only weighed about 10 pounds. Kat had shown them how to pack the adventurer packs so that they expanded an inventory in a completely crazy way.

“I’m not sure since we get a few at a time at the AG,” Kat admitted with a sly grin. “They don’t do us any good, but we figured that it might help incentivize our relationship with you. Our contract will allow for you to gain a 2-pack of them for every 10 AG-associated guild groups allowed through the dungeon.”

“Where does the AG get them?” Lacey asked, handing the whole purse back to Colt so he could go into the barn and hire the horses. It was a chore he was happy to do because, in his mind, it showed how amazing he was as boyfriend material.

“They appeared as loot from local mobs around here as soon as your dungeon popped up,” Kat gave her a wink, ignoring poor Colt. “The adventurers sell them back to the AG because we were smart enough to snap them up as potentially useful in future business propositions. Local businesses didn’t know what they were worth, so we set a buy price and snapped them up.”

“Nice,” Lacey commented, figuring that the coupons were much more expensive on the pedestal than they would be out in the world.

“If the engine is good at anything, it’s building an economical system,” Kat nodded, backing up from the livery doors as Colt came back out with a couple of very pretty horses.

“They have other mounts that can be special ordered from the city,” Colt grinned with excitement, handing the reins to a black mare to Lacey. “I just got us a few pretty ones for now.” He was about to hand off the other mare to Kat when she took the reins of a larger chestnut stallion instead. He didn’t protest; just gave a shrug and took the calico print mare.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Lacey wasn’t a country girl in any sense, but she knew enough to mount from the right and that feet belonged in the stirrups. Colt’s dad had extended family that owned a ranch in California. His parents sent him out there for a few weeks every summer and he always came back just a tiny bit more charming. Colt helped Lacey get up into the saddle and adjusted her stirrups, ignoring Kat only after he noted that Kat knew what she was doing. He had no trouble vaulting up into the saddle of his own horse, sending a practiced clucking noise at his mount which made it twitch its ears and respond by tossing its head before moving forward at a walk.

“Damn it,” Kat gave an exaggerated sigh that ended on a little whimper as she used the reins and her knees to prod her own horse to follow. “Did that boy have to have a nice seat too?”

Lacey chuckled and struggled to mimic Kat and Colt. Luckily, Lacey’s horse was content to follow Kat and Colt, so Lacey didn’t have to do much. It was more fun than she wanted to admit. They needed a little herd of these in the backyard. Was that even possible?

Shadow probably ensured that they weren’t molested by anything on the way back to the dungeon. When they hit the clearing at the entrance, the sun was dipping down behind the mountain. They had a few minutes before the timer ran out and while normally Lacey would have left Colt and Kat to have a private romantic moment, she wasn’t ready to go back inside until the very last second. Instead of being a third wheel, Lacey handed her horse’s reins to Colt and tapped a lumberjack goblin to head back in and send for Ginger.

“If we toss a few bags of coins out here, do you think we could keep these horses?” Colt was asking Kat, his attention on the horse more than Kat.

“They’d just disappear at the end of the rental term,” Kat shook her head and blushed as she took the reins from Colt. It was dark enough that Colt probably didn’t notice. Then again, he did step closer to Kat. Kat scooted back and pretended to not see him lean in to help her get back up on her horse.

Lacey stayed away from the hind quarters of the horses and the two lovebirds in denial. Kat rode away faster than necessary, and Colt watched her go.

“Oh, shit,” Colt suddenly grabbed Lacey’s hand and tugged her toward the cave entrance. “We gotta go. You are going to kill me if I let us spend a single credit on day pass violations.”

“That was fun,” Lacey resisted him gently, but her mind knew he was right, so she let him pull her into the hole in the mountain.

“It was fun,” Colt chuckled at her wistful expression. “Shouldn’t I be the one mooning over the girl? Not you mooning over the sky?”

“Masters back!” Ginger just always seemed so happy to see them.

“Yep,” Lacey sighed. “And back means back to work for us.”

“Actually, we could take one little break,” Colt stuffed Lacey into one of the velvet-covered chairs Kat had left with them. Two of the nice chairs now sat around their little dining table and Colt scooted her chair in so she was stuck there with her sketchbook and pencils. Ginger had picked good spots for the chairs.

“We just took a whole day as a break, Colt,” Lacey moved to get up, but he pushed her sketchbook and a cup full of colored pencils at her.

“If you want to sketch, fine,” Colt said, returning to the pedestal, “but I have one more break thing to do before you get back to the grind of everyday life down here in the dungeon.”

“What are you doing?” Lacey wanted to protest but she didn’t have it in her. There wasn’t a girl to watch his generosity, so Lacey wasn’t expecting a grand gesture. Colt was rustling through a stack of her old sketches, ones that they hadn’t gotten around to dropping into the pedestal during the incursions and had pretty much forgotten about since then.

“There it is,” he snatched out a single page and waggled his eyebrows at her. “And we say the magic words and low and behold.” He dropped the page into the main pedestal and quickly tapped past screens too fast for her to see what he was manifesting until it meowed.

“We can’t afford to,” Lacey started to say, but it was hard with the lump in her throat.

“It’s a couple hundred credits, just like any other mob,” Colt rolled his eyes at her and scooped up the tiny black ball of fur. “If we can spend 40,000 credits on 100 new goblins, we can splurge 200 credits for a pet. Kat’s pet reminded me of the drawing you made before.”

Lacey took the kitten in her hands, and it barely took up more than her palm, its little yellow eyes blinking owlishly up at Lacey. Lacey blinked back tears. He’d remembered. Lacey didn’t have to do a lot of pretending when she was Colt’s wingman because he really was a great guy.

“Hello there, Spark,” Lacey cooed at the little beast. She didn’t notice Colt setting up the litterbox or when he showed Ginger how to clean it. Lacey had named the cat when she’d drawn it.

What Colt might not have known about the drawings was that sometimes her intentions, as she drew certain aspects of a creature, played as big a part in what the creature could do as the actual drawing. That little glint in Spark’s eyes was a little more than artistic license. Lacey’s pet had a secret.

“Here you go,” Colt handed over a small bag of treats and a stick with a stuffed toy on the end of it. “I set up the food dishes in your room and the extra bag of treats in your bedside table. Why don’t you head off to bed for the night? I’ll check to make sure the dungeon is set to advance a few years while we sleep and leave a checklist for Ginger on what they should focus on, okay?”

The dungeon would fast forward for the goblins and the menagerie while Lacey and Colt slept, but only when they set it to do so. The outside of the dungeon wouldn’t notice, but inside, the goblins would dig new caves and advance in their skills as long as they could practice their trades. The monsters would advance a bit too, but not as much as the goblins. It gave most of the new baby mobs a little time to grow up in a slightly more natural way than power-leveling in the arenas like they did with the beetles.

“Are you sure?” Lacey let her chair be pulled back out from the table.

“Positive,” Colt bent to kiss Lacey’s cheek even as he shooed her to her room. “Be sure to shut your door so little, Spark did you call it?” He asked poking a playful finger at it over her shoulder.

“Yes, her name is Spark,” Lacey let herself be steered toward her door because she really did feel like just calling it a night and getting some sleep.

“Shut your door so she doesn’t wander out while we sleep, okay?” Colt stood in her doorway as she giggled over Spark.

“Thanks Colt,” Lacey turned to tell him as he was shutting her door for her.

“You did me a solid with Kat today,” Colt smiled at her, his eyes full of mischief. “This is my thanks to you.”

“It’s nothing, but this is… thanks, just thanks.”

“Get some sleep,” he pointed a stern finger at her, eyes teasing her. “Tomorrow, we need some stables designed and some tiers to organize. Busy busy day! We’ve got adventurers to torture so we can open up that backyard you’re so fond of.”