Being a dungeon wasn't easy. Having been created from nothingness, with just one gnoll, it was hard to figure out what to do and how to do it. So the dungeon fumbled and poked and discovered that it could make a second gnoll! Woo-hoo! Progress!

There were things it could build. Dens, Food Pits, a Dance Hall, and traps. It told its gnolls to construct all of them, but there weren't enough resources. It sent its gnolls outside to get them.

They brought in all sorts of things. There was dirt at first, grass came next, then some rocks, and finally a gnoll brought in a piece of timber! The gnoll gestured at the stick it'd carried in its mouth to the other, and with excited laughs, they ran out to get more.

The thing that required the least timber was a Den, so it assigned one of the gnolls to build that. When it was done, a third gnoll appeared from inside the Den! This was exactly what the dungeon needed. More gnolls meant more resources and more resources meant more gnolls.

It paused, though. More gnolls was good, but what it felt in its core was it should make bigger gnolls; much bigger gnolls.

After some time spent harvesting timber and making more Dens, it finally decided to send its gnolls out for the resources to build something new. It needed rock and food for the Food Pit, so it had its gnolls fashion sticks to use as spears and told them to find food things, since it had already acquired a large array of rocks. A strange sense of foreboding hit the dungeon—why should it be scared of rocks?

What came back wasn't exactly what it hoped. When the dragon stuck its head into the dungeon, it panicked. All the gnolls threw their spears at the dragon, and even if some actually hit—they bounced off. The huge beast took up the entire tunnel and stalked ever closer to its core.

It was all over. Barely six gnolls and the dungeon had already faced a foe that could as easily wipe it out as blink. The beast stalked closer, but before it reached the dungeon's heart a gnoll charged at it. It was a hopeless gesture, the dungeon knew, but in that brief moment it was so proud of its gnoll that it would have cried if it had tear ducts. Or eyes.

Instead of crushing the gnoll, though, the dragon snatched it up in one huge talon and then backed out. The process wasn't fast, but the dungeon could understand what was happening. It would be a tithe to a larger dungeon. It would take a part of everything it made and use it for itself.

The feeling of loss persisted well after the dragon had left. Wallowing in it, though, wouldn't help. As the dungeon worked through its next plan, one of the gnolls it had sent out returned with a prize. The weapon was made of a metal the dungeon couldn't fathom. It sliced through timber and rock without effort and the core praised the gnoll who'd found it.

After some time, and its gnolls bringing back far more timber than before thanks to the new tool, the dungeon got its first surprise: a reward for breaching a floor of another dungeon.

An unfathomable amount of resources appeared ready for use by the dungeon. Masses of food, timber, and two other resources it didn't know about: iron and gold. The dungeon had no idea what was happening, but it was not going to sit idly by.

The gnolls got to work building, and by the time the first Dance Hall was built, a second rush of income happened. Of all its gnolls, only one was missing—the one the dragon had taken. It had no idea where the resources were coming from, but they were there, and a dungeon was nothing if not good at chewing through resources.

Ordering a group of gnolls to make more Dens, it began ramping up its work to desperately try to use the excess income it was getting. Again and again, the resources rolled in, and always the same quantity.

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Felna was relieved the gnoll had calmed down. With Huntress guiding them, they had taken the fastest route to go down floors. "Everything about this city requires thinking in different ways to normal. Managing dungeon growth can be an art. You have to corral them, feed them only the resources you want them to have to maintain them but not let them become uncontrolled. Speeding up a dungeon is not a problem towns ever face."

Huntress nodded. The only dungeons she'd ever known were her own home, Travis, and the goblins. She liked two of those and was willing to give them both all the resources she could get. "So why feed this one?" She nodded at the gnoll.

"Do you think he can understand us?" Felna asked.

"I could. Understand you, I mean." Huntress sped up a moment, taking the stairs a bit faster to be equal with the gnoll. "You understand us, don't you?"

Not able to fully parse words and sentences, the gnoll did get some idea of what the centaur at its side said. It nodded.

Raising one eyebrow, Felna reexamined her situation and exhaled a long, slow breath. "I'm sorry for earlier. We wanted to help your dungeon and there didn't seem to be an easy way to tell you."

The strange feline offering an apology was the last thing the gnoll expected. Narrowing its eyes, it huffed out a grunt and dipped its head once. What most confused it was why they had taken it and were walking into a dungeon with it. The dungeon, it had to admit to itself, was so much larger than its home as to be impossible to contemplate. Floor after floor passed by as they took stairs downward, and each was massive.

So far the gnoll had seen vast forests, cleared areas full of game to hunt, and even strange vines that were all tangled up and had bunches of tiny round fruit on them. Stranger still, there were non-dungeon creatures hunting and gathering food. It wanted to ask about everything, but didn't have the words to do so.

"Are you okay?" Wild asked. He had to look up at the gnoll's face, but had caught it staring out into the field of wheat around them. "They're harvesting the grain for Breeze. Breeze is the dungeon we're in. Breeze pays them to work here because she has plenty of gold and tips them with a portion of the food."

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The words slowly made more sense the more they talked. The gnoll intuitively understood the concepts, and started pairing them with the sounds the three creatures made. Eventually, after they had walked an endless amount of stairs down, it asked, "Why?"

Everyone stopped and looked at the gnoll as it said its first word. Felna recovered first. "Why are there dungeons inside the city, why are we walking down these stairs with you, or why did we kidnap you from your dungeon?" she asked.

It didn't take much thinking for the gnoll to nod and say, "Yes."

"A thirst for knowledge, unlike water, should never be denied. We have plenty more walking to do." Felna was about to start when she noticed Huntress looking at her strangely. "Yes?"

"You'd deny someone water if they were thirsty?"

"In some situations, yes. If someone is badly dehydrated and hasn't been eating for too long, you have to temper their stomach or you risk killing them. I don't think giving our friend here any information will hurt him or us." Turning her attention back to the gnoll, Felna launched into her description. "There was a great army that attacked the dungeons and the city. When certain death threatens, you would be surprised at the allies you would be willing to make. Travis, the dragon dungeon, and Breeze, the dungeon we're in now, opened entrances into the city to become part of it and protect each other."

Grunting, the gnoll tried getting its head around numbers by counting. First it counted how many other gnolls it knew, then tried for how many people it had seen in the city so far—and quickly ran out of fingers and thumbs at ten. "How strong army?"

Remembering the full description Astrid gave, Wild spoke up. "Fifteen thousand regular soldiers, a thousand trained in dungeon fighting, another thousand experienced siege engine specialists, and around a hundred veterans in the various captains' retinues."

The numbers themselves didn't make sense, but the gnoll could appreciate the meaning behind them as more warriors than would fit in the city. "Other thing?" When they looked confused, it tried again. "Why kidnap?"

"There's another dungeon. Goblins took it over and now it's goblins and rot—diseases and fungus. It grew fast by attacking the army, and it would kill your dungeon if it got the chance." Part of Felna pondered having Wild kill her when they reached the bottom, so she wouldn't have to climb all the stairs back out again. "Each floor a dungeon's minions—that's all of us, I work for Travis—descend into another dungeon, the minions' dungeon gets resources and rewards."

The gnoll mused on that as it took the next three floors in silence. Finally, it asked, "Why?"

With the silence broken, Huntress shrugged her shoulders. "I have no idea. Honestly, none. I woke up to find out there were invaders and other dungeons and a whole city around my home. It was confusing, and a struggle, but my home reassured me. No one knows why Travis and Northridge get on so well, or why they are both fine with my home. If not for them, though, I would have never been created." She shrugged again. "So I might be biased when I say that I welcome the strange relationship we have."

"How much?"

The question confused Huntress a little. "How much what?"

Struggling with the concept of language, the gnoll realized it needed to add more context. "How much resources. How much rewards?" Its words were halting, now it was trying to convey more complex questions, but still understandable.

"It depends," Wild said. "There is a difference between how much Travis gets and how much Breeze gets. Breeze gets lots of extra food, but Travis gets lots of gold and another resource, experience. He hasn't figured out how to explain that to Breeze in a way she understands it."

It was clear they were doing this to give its home these resources. The gnoll wanted to know when the other shoe would drop—not that it had much concept of a shoe. "Why me?"

Felna looked up at the gnoll, who seemed far more relaxed now, and raised an eyebrow. "You tried to take on a dragon with a stone knife. Either you're the bravest gnoll in your dungeon, or you're the stupidest." She shook her head. "And from this conversation, the latter is an impossibility."

"Why help?"

"Because you deserve a chance to grow. The goblins won't allow that, and would kill your dungeon for what rewards that would give them."

The words seemed important to the creature, so the gnoll mused on them itself for some time. Finally, tilting its head a little, the gnoll let out a snort. "How much more?" When it got a confused look—what it recognized as a confused look now—it added, "To bottom."

"We're a third of the way down. I have asked my home about making the stairs into a slide, but the hunters from the city didn't like the idea of that." Huntress had groused a bit about it at the time, but at least all the stairs were in one place. She'd seen how two other dungeons worked now, and putting the stairs down and up in different places on a floor was annoying.

"Fifteen thousand. Thousand. Hundred." The words seemed even more complicated than the ones the gnoll already knew, and some of those were very slippery with meaning. "What they mean?"

Felna and Wild looked at each other a moment before Wild finally nodded to her. Clearing her throat, Felna dove into the topic of numbers. Being the subject it was, it required several language lessons as well.

Wild watched the floors go by. Being dungeon creatures, none of them had any real fatigue from walking constantly, so he admired the beautiful fields of flowers, the strange creatures, and even the forests that Breeze had built. At each floor, there was a moment where the stairs left the ceiling, where he could see out over the canopy of forests, the patterns of wind blowing over fields of grass, and even rippling water covered fields; small stalks broaching the surface in regular rows, reaching up to a sun that was entirely simulated.

When they reached the bottom, Felna was relieved. She'd been approaching her limit for how much she could focus on one topic between naps. "Is Breeze still in here?" she asked Huntress.

"Yes." Looking across at the gnoll, Huntress tried to gauge its hostility. "You can look too, if you promise not to harm my home."

Of all the words the gnoll had heard, it had never heard any spoken with such reverence or determination combined. It knew the feeling, having faced down a dragon for its own home's core. "I not harm home."

Huntress led them all down a tunnel and to a huge room that held a crystal many times larger than its own home's, leaving the gnoll staring in rapt attention.

Every facet shone with light and energy that trembled in the air. There wasn't a lot of light in the chamber, but somehow the massive crystal took what existed and multiplied it into a kaleidoscope of beauty. It was so much larger than the gnoll's own home's heart, of course, but in the depths of that seemingly limitless stone of power, it saw hope. Finally, the gnoll dipped its head and turned away.

Huntress was relieved to have witnessed the honor of the gnoll for her home. She said, "Now we can use the new trick Katelyn taught my home."

Staring at the seemingly blank bit of ground in an alcove they'd stopped at, Felna asked, "What?"

"Step onto the teleporter trap, and you don't need to walk back up—all those stairs…" It had been a scramble as soon as she'd said what the trap did, but Huntress could hardly begrudge them all wanting to avoid a repeat of the climb down—but upwards. With a soft chuckle, she stepped onto the trap last, letting her friends go first.

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