The goblins dug out the whole of the 12th and 13th floors before Lacey had thought they could. Ginger had been close on her 3-hour estimate, making Lacey think maybe Ginger was smarter than she let on. Were all the goblins always this smart or were they getting smarter as they and the dungeon leveled up? Lacey itched to be able to see their stats, if only she knew how.

Now that Lacey wasn’t using their credits to reset rooms, Lacey found out that the goblins could and did reset rooms by fixing things the adventurers broke on their way through. They still had a bank of beetles that they’d been breeding and training in the nursery area, so the beetles were easier to refresh than Lacey had thought possible. The goblins were good at resetting the rooms and then went about building more traps to both sell and use in the higher levels.

If they were given another day, the dungeon would probably get back to levels that Hughe’s party could defeat again, but they were nowhere near being able to repel a new set of the newer challenge. Lacey bit her lip as she scribbled a version of a centaur that had octopus arms dangling out of its mouth. She’d always had an imagination for fanciful creatures, but it did end up taking a good hour to sketch something sophisticated enough for the system to accept it. If the drawing wasn’t carefully shaded, they got a base 10 credits for a “child’s drawing.”

By the time the goblins broke for dinner, Lacey’s hand was cramping around her pencil. The goblins brought her a plate of food that wasn’t goblin stew. It wasn’t pizza, but it was palatable, and they hadn’t had to use the pedestal to order food. Once again, Lacey realized that she hadn’t given the goblins enough credit for adaptability.

“Must be near dark,” Colt scanned through the rooms as he ate some kind of meat on a stick. Lacey didn’t want to think what kind of meat it was. Then again, they had a cow now. The goblins had taken it away, so Lacey wondered if they still had a cow or if it was what they were eating. It had been a cow’s body with a deer’s head with antlers Lacey was hoping could prove to be a good material for pit traps and throwing daggers.

“Yeah,” Lacey ate with her left hand instead of her right, just because her right hand still hurt from all her drawing. “The goblins are quitting for the night then?”

“It looks like it,” Colt nodded to where Ginger was curling up on a pile of furs she’d installed in the corner earlier that day. Lacey didn’t mind since it meant that she and Colt always had access to some sense of time.

“They did a lot,” Colt finally left the pedestal for the first time that day, letting himself sit to eat.

“It won’t be enough if the big boys come back,” Lacey picked at the mashed vegetable that was not potatoes but was pretty good as long as she didn’t ask what it was. It didn’t grow and it didn’t cost precious credits, so it was good.

“No, it won’t,” Colt admitted. “The new still you drew is working. Putting the lion’s mane on the fittings was a nice touch.”

“It was the only way I could think of that would make it different from a still that the system already knew,” Lacey put her plate down and tried to blink the tired out of her eyes. “You’d better hit the hay soon. I’m going to need sleep sooner than usual so I can have a nap before someone shows up.”

“A nap’s worth will be enough for me,” Colt shoved more meat in his mouth, but made no move to bed yet. They didn’t even consider sleeping at the same time with the new threat upon them.

“We figured out a lot today,” Colt tried to put his optimism back on, staring at his meat kabob like even he was having trouble eating.

“You think they’ll be back in the morning?” Lacey asked what neither of them had wanted to talk about.

“Eve is using up her mana as fast as she gains it to get all the firewater charged up,” Colt dodged the question. Firewater was what they were calling the moonshine that needed magic to be charged up. Eve didn’t mind charging firewater, but she was a bit of a prude about drinking alcoholic beverages. “She might have enough for half the charge we had for today, if she works all night.”

“Goblins don’t work all night,” Lacey murmured softly, not wanting to offend Ginger, who looked to just be falling asleep, an emptied meat stick limp in her green hand.

“They don’t,” Colt admitted.

“Now would be a really great time for that password reset to happen,” Lacey hinted to the world gods, whatever they were.

“I checked our dmail and it’s still locked out,” Colt sighed. “I’d try calling tech support if we were back home.” That was saying a lot since most of the time Colt would give up on a program before he’d call to talk to anyone on the phone. Give him Discord or TikTok and he was there in a second, but phone calls were too personal for him.

“How can we sleep knowing they could show up at any second?” Lacey complained, laying her head on the table, torn between the grit in her eyes and the pending emergency.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“It’s like studying for finals,” Colt reasoned, and while he hadn’t gone to college himself, he’d been there when she’d sweated her way through it. “Weigh the need for a clear head against what you’ll gain from cramming.”

“We’ve done what we can before morning,” Lacey admitted.

“You take the first nap,” Colt offered, picking at the smoky meat on the stick. “I’ll keep watch until I get too tired.”

“I’m just as wired as you are,” Lacey stuffed another mouthful of stew at her face like it could help. The lump was settling in her stomach in an almost comfortable way. “How much did we make on the traps and drawings? Enough to buy some of the moonshine?”

“I don’t think it would buy enough to make a difference,” Colt offered her a piece off of his stick. “Do you think Ginger would wake us up if we both went to sleep?”

“They didn’t last time,” Lacey shook her head.

“Last time we didn’t ask,” Colt reasoned. “Hey Ginger,” he called to her.

“Yes?” Ginger poked bleary eyes up out of her fur covers.

“If we went to sleep, would you wake us up when you get up in the morning?” Colt asked.

“Or if the dungeon turned red?” Lacey added.

“Already do that,” Ginger frowned.

Ginger did help wake up Colt, but it was just so hard to trust someone that wasn’t one of them. Lacey pushed her wooden spoon around the mashed vegetable.

“Eve didn’t though, and it was a pretty big disaster,” Lacey tried to reason with the drowsy goblin.

“Eve not asked to wake up,” Ginger blinked her little red eyes at Lacey. “Goblins learn too.”

“They do?” Colt asked.

“Eve learn firewater spell,” Ginger nodded, “and Ginger learn wake up Colt but not Lacey.”

“It’s too important to test it this time, Colt,” Lacey protested.

“Ginger wake for breakfast or if dungeon turn red,” Ginger repeated her instructions.

“Thanks Ginger,” Colt told the goblin, and with a nod, she burrowed under her covers to get some sleep.

Lacey and Colt ate in silence for a few moments before Lacey broke it with a whisper, “How would she know if the dungeon turns red if she’s buried under the covers like that?”

“I know you’re right, but,” Colt shrugged, “I mean I do agree, it’s just that we should test it soon.”

“Okay, but not until the danger has passed,” Lacey insisted, but she wasn’t as sure anymore either. Colt normally had really good instincts and just because he couldn’t articulate the reasons for those instincts didn’t mean she could just roll over the top of them. She trusted those instincts and it had served them well. “Tomorrow,” she amended.

“Yeah,” Colt nodded. “I just have this feeling we’re missing something in how we use the goblins.”

“We’re missing a lot thanks to that stupid locked pedestal,” Lacey patted him on the arm as surely as she could without wincing. “Like being able to draw stuff and input it as monsters! How many days have we had the power to do that and not the knowledge that we could? And how much time did we waste carting beetles up those stairs before you figured out that we could move rooms around? My biggest frustration is that we could have done so much more if we’d known what we could do from the beginning!”

“We’ve sure underestimated what the goblins could do,” Colt agreed, his tone still low enough to let Ginger sleep through it. “Every time we give them something new, they figure out a whole new set of skills.”

“You think we should give them more to do,” Lacey murmured. “I agree with you. I really do. I know I’ve done too much and let them do so little. And it’s going to change. I promise. And as soon as this crisis is over, we’ll be testing them for all sorts of things.”

“If the crisis ends,” Colt mused, unamused.

“The penalty for being wrong on this one is a little too high,” Lacey stood her ground. “If we’re wrong about her being able to wake us up, then we will wake to a wipe and this time, there’s no way that this group is going to give us a warning and let us work back up like Hughe did.”

“I know you’re right, but,” Colt rocked his head from side to side.

“And if you’re right, we get a few more hours of sleep apiece,” Lacey reasoned logically. “It just isn’t enough benefit to risk it.”

“I agree,” Colt’s brows raised, and he blew out a breath. “I do! But I think we’re missing something, like we did with the book and the voice commands and even the click and drag.”

“Like what?” Lacey pushed her plate away, wanting to give in and get some sleep now that her stomach was full.

“I don’t know,” Colt gave a frustrated huff. “It’s just a gut feeling.”

“I’m too tired for this,” Lacey ran her fingers through her hair and promised herself that she would design a comb and brush as soon as the crisis was over. “I trust your gut, but even you can’t justify the risk on this one.”

“I know you’re right,” Colt admitted. “You get some sleep first. I have to think. There has to be a safe way to test this.”

“Okay,” Lacey let it go, knowing he wouldn’t sleep until it let go of him. The worst part was the not knowing. Lacey just couldn’t justify the mistakes she’d been making. They had so little to work with that it was insane to have lost so much on the mistakes. Other people got to make mistakes all the time, like Hughe and his copious blunders, but for Lacey, it always felt like every mistake cost her more than other people.

She fell asleep thinking of the many mistakes and what they’d cost her. She’d fallen for the wrong guy, and gone to his room alone because she’d wanted to take chances like others did. That mistake had nearly gotten her expelled. She’d reported it a day too late, another mistake. They’d brought her up on a Code of Conduct violation because slimeball had reported Colt punching him in the face. Campus police had insisted that she was making it up to protect her friend. Colt hadn’t helped the situation by getting mad on her behalf, but it had helped her state of mind. School after that had been one mistake after another that had culminated in a withdrawal that her parents hadn’t understood at all. All financial support was withdrawn.

She’d been lucky that Colt had already had an apartment and a job at a fast-food place. He’d let her hole up there for nothing for almost six months. Six months in the dark when Colt had been completely patient. Six months that had passed in a blur before Lacey had realized it was gone. In the end, it hadn’t been so much that only Colt had believed her side of it, but more that her mistake could have cost Colt. If slimeball had pressed charges outside the university…

Lacey fought off the bad dreams just as fiercely as she fought to wake up. It wasn’t that she didn’t know they were bad dreams. She knew she was dreaming and that no one was taking Colt away to jail, but it didn’t stop her heart from pounding, her body from sweating, or her brain from expressing the things she wanted to avoid.