“I’m using Resource Burn on Jimmy’s pants the next time he comes in,” Rick threatened. Only his minions could listen to his rage.

The members of Spell & Sword lounged around just outside of Jimmy’s hobbit house, and thankfully, kept their distance from Penny.

“Do any of you know where James’ family is?” Alex asked. “We should probably tell them what happened.”

“Why? If they’re still even alive, they would have seen what happened. Everyone did,” Diane said.

“You can be such a bitch, you know that?” Sarah said, glaring at Diane.

Diane flipped her hair, “Yeah, so what? We have a golden opportunity in front of us and you morons want to dwell on the things we can’t change.”

“She might seem callous, but she’s right,” Grady interjected before their group devolved into shaming Diane for her lack of empathy. “And Diane — Let’s knock off the name-calling, Okay?”

Diane crossed her arms and avoided Grady’s eyes by looking up at the ceiling. It was as good as an agreement, so Grady motioned for their de facto leader, Alex to take over.

Alex gave Grady a grateful nod, “Okay, so we’re down a member. I think it’s safe to say that if we put the word out that we’re looking for either a spellcaster or a sword user, we'll have people lining up.”

“I vote for a healer. If we had one of those, James might still be here,” Sarah chimed in.

The group seemed to agree with that.

“I think the Cartel has some,” Diane said.

“No way. We’re not getting involved with them. We need someone with no strings attached to an outside faction,” Alex said.

“Damn right,” Grady agreed. “Also, this lodging is simple, but it’s much better than anything out there. And it’s safe. If we can come up with 200 Credits a day, I think we should stay here.”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Diane snapped.

“Farm the dungeon. We can hit and run against those wolves. Grab the loot sack and jump out,” Grady explained.

Rick listened as they gave away their tactics to him. “They’re making this too easy,” he mumbled. The minions didn’t need to know anything yet. He knew that if they were warned of the group’s tactics, they could easily take down the Challengers — but that could scare off a lot of people who might test their luck in his dungeon.

The 2nd floor had grown quite a bit, but he was running low on things to burn, including the glacier water.

The door opened again and Rick was ready to lay into Jimmy. Instead, it was Kara. She had walked into the Auxiliary Room where the Spell & Swords were still brainstorming.

“Uh, hi Rick. Thanks again for the nice breakfast,” she said quietly, looking around. “Jimmy asked me to come in here and talk to you about building a hotel here.”

Rick had wanted to do something similar to this already, but not on this floor. This was supposed to be a safe place for Penny, his parents, Jimmy, and now - Kara. Of course, it could be all of those things if he chose to build it big enough. Maybe he could have a gated area with some kind of security for his loved ones.

“He says it would bring us a lot of money and encourage Challengers to come and stay,” she continued.

Rick wasn’t about to make himself sick communicating with her. Even if it annoyed him, he would go along with Jimmy’s plan. To make it clear to Kara, Rick made another hobbit house, then carved a grassy staircase winding around the exterior before building a 2nd house right on top.

Both Kara and the Spell & Swords watched it with their mouths agape.

“Dibs on the top floor,” Diane called out and bounded up the staircase.

“Hold on a minute,” Kara shouted at Diane’s back. “That’s not yours. Jimmy said you could stay in the one you’re currently in.”

Diane slowly turned around, “And who the fuck are you?” Diane took each step back down slowly, with a smirk on her face.

“Someone that you don’t want to fuck with,” Kara said in a casual tone.

Diane raised an eyebrow, “Maybe I do.”

“Oh, don’t cause a scene. I’d kick your ass before your friends over there could blink,” Kara yawned.

Rick watched with interest. He wondered what Kara could do. Technically, this was supposed to be a safe spot and his fears were being realized right before his eyes. But — this could be entertaining, he thought.

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Diane’s jaw clenched, addressing her team, “Don’t lift a finger. Any of you.”

The group nodded and shrugged. Even they thought it might be fun to watch.

“You dumb bitch,” Diane said to Kara, unsheathing her sword. As she got to the bottom step she said, “I’m going to—”

Before Diane could finish her sentence, Kara shot forward with a smile, her body twitching in horror movie fashion. Diane’s eyes narrowed and brought up her sword in a wide arc to intercept Kara. Kara’s body contorted in an unnatural way to avoid the sword and she twirled herself close enough to Diane to kiss her.

She stopped and smiled at Diane, pausing for the briefest moment before headbutting the sword-wielding woman in the nose with a loud crunch. Blood sprayed out, splashing Kara’s face in a red mist.

Diane fell back and was out cold before she hit the ground. Her skull made a loud smack as it bounced off the ground.

The Spell & Sword group looked at Kara for a moment before they all erupted in laughter.

“Serves her right. She needed that. Well done,” Alex said as he sauntered over with a healing potion. “This should fix her right up, but she’ll be pissed at you.”

“Then, I’ll just do it again,” Kara winked and wiped the blood off of her face with the hem of her robe.

“I think I’m in love,” Grady whispered.

“Me too,” said Sarah.

“Careful, I’m taken,” Kara said with a laugh.

Rick wondered if Jimmy knew that Kara considered herself “taken”.

Diane sputtered awake and sat up, glaring daggers at Kara.

“I think I’ll be taking the top floor,” Kara said, looking down at Diane before she moved past her and skipped up the stairs.

“Damn, she’s fast,” Diane said, watching Kara’s lithe form from the back.

Rick was only slightly disappointed. He wanted to see a longer fight, but he was glad that Diane didn’t seem to hold a grudge as everyone suspected. To her credit, she looked at Kara with respect.

“Stick with her, Penny, and I think you’ll be just fine,” Rick said. Penny’s tail wagged in response.

A steady supply of trash bags was being thrown in again and Rick checked on his minions. Yosk and Elza, being true to their nature, were being - prolific. The Ceaseless Wolves had grown since killing James and were now making their own den, closer to the door than Finn or Stella.

The two older wolves were hunting bargle. Every time a bargle died, they respawned nearly immediately back within the safety of their herd.

Billy’s progress had been quite impressive. He had built a foundation, along with the base of four pillars on each corner of the foundation, in what appeared to be excellent craftsmanship. Rick saw that he would need a ladder or some kind of scaffolding to continue upward.

“Hey Billy,” Rick said to the floor boss. “Will this help?” On two sides of the foundation, Rick built more of the grass steps and left the other two sides empty. This way, Billy could build upwards.

The gunslinger smiled and nodded, “Thanks, boss.”

Rick produced a beer for Billy, “Here, you look like you could use a break. What’s your plan for this place, anyway?”

Billy took the beer and popped the tab open, giving Rick a grateful nod, “I have something like a castle in mind. But, I want a lot of trick doors and narrow areas to create a killing zone for anyone that gets past the minions.”

“Nice. What else do you think this place needs? The floor as a whole, I mean,” Rick asked.

“Sections,” he said flatly. “The minions all charging the door at the same time is suboptimal. With sections, it will give the Challengers a way to tackle it one piece at a time, as well as leave when they want to,” Billy said. “It would also allow the minions to form their own strategies without too much chaos. Similar to how Finn and I started to do in the beginning.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Rick said as he realized the flaw in his design. The lush green landscape, sprinkled with red clovers, had relaxed him. But, Billy was right. He couldn’t be having Yosk just run headfirst into battle from across the Floor every time a Challenger entered. The Ceaseless Wolves and their parents had seemed to work together fine, but more by accident than a strategy.

“As you can see, we have already sectioned ourselves off from each other in some fashion. I believe it’s natural for different types of minions to do that. Although Finn and Stella prefer to stay near me, I believe,” Billy explained.

“Alright, let me try something,” Rick said.

He had been absentmindedly growing his 2nd floor this entire time but really began to strain when he started to erect a wall twenty feet high and three feet across. The floor grew rapidly, zigzagging through the hills from one end of the wall to the other, cutting off Finn, Stella, the Ceaseless Wolves, and Billy from the stream.

Then, he carved out a couple of archways so that the wolves and Billy could move freely to the other side if they wanted.

Next, he built another wall, fitted with an archway, to cut off Billy, Stella, and Finn from the Ceaseless Wolves. The tunnels all remained in place for the wolves to move around in, but the walls made the floor feel a bit more organized.

Rick thought of how he could effectively keep growing the first floor and pairing compatible minions within each section.

Looking at his giant, empty 2nd floor, Rick felt a pang of guilt for poor Luca. He could have made it a small section for itself until he was done growing the floor long ago. Embarrassed, he hastily made dirt and grass pillars throughout the floor. This way, the mosquito could spit its mucus between them and create its own little deathtrap without worrying about them being ripped apart from the expanding ceiling.

Luca didn’t thank Rick, but instead buzzed excitedly, seeing the potential. Almost instantly, it began making mucus webs between two pillars.

The trash that had been flooding in had already been burned up completely, so he figured it was time to take a break until it piled up a bit more.

A few minutes later, Jimmy poked his head into the Auxiliary Room. His face scrunched with disappointment. “Should be bigger by now,” he said.

“We haven’t even talked about this, Jim,” Rick said telepathically.

“Yeah, yeah. That can wait anyway. It’ll be good for us to make some extra cash. I can buy things to help you too, you know,” Jimmy said. “Oh, and Lazaro is going to send in some of his guys for a training session. Could you let your minions know?”

“I forgot about that shit deal. Fine, but tell him the Ceaseless Wolves might not be able to hold back enough. They’re young.”