> Dungeon Status:
>
> Floors 233
>
> Heart 86,862,400/86,862,400
> Food 17,099,193/21,715,600
> Mana 4,312/38,100
> Workers 935/935
> Monsters 739/940
> Traps 7/2335
>
> Quest: Destroy another dungeon.
> Quest: Reach 300 floors.
> Quest: Build 10 traps.
Breathing was life. Though they didn't sleep, Breeze found themselves drifting sometimes, but even in that low-activity state, they still breathed. Mana in from all the life they sustained; mana out to swell their creatures with life.
> Quest Complete: Destroy another dungeon.
>
> Gained 5 new floors!
The message made Breeze burble with delight. They weren't exactly sure how the quests worked, but they made numbers go up, and Breeze had learned from her friend, Travis, that numbers should always go up.
> New Quest: Open a new entrance.
Breeze knew what that one meant! Taking care of their duties to all their creatures, Breeze giggled in excitement. When done, they reached out to their friend. "I need a new entrance!" They weren't so much words as a mental nudge as to what she wanted to do.
"I— Err— Why do you need one?" Travis sounded nervous. Breeze puzzled their way through his words and then figured out he wanted to know.
"Need!" Breeze managed to actually say the word, mostly because Travis had given them an example of how to. "Need! Need!" Extra emphasis, Breeze decided, was required.
"Okay! Hold on. I'll talk with Polfay."
Listening to Travis was always a treat for Breeze. The concepts and ideas he put into each mental vocalization had been what roused Breeze to wake up fully. Focusing on Travis and Polfay, Breeze did their best to track the concepts.
"Polfay, you said you don't have a Verdant dungeon, right?" Travis asked.
"Travis!" Polfay, to Breeze, always sounded excited to talk with Travis. They'd been listening to the pair, using their long chats to gain a better understanding of cities, dungeons, and language. "I don't. With six delving dungeons, though, we are wealthy enough to import food from other cities. Oh! Seven dungeons now."
"Would you like a new dungeon? Breeze wants to open a new entrance, and I think she needs it for a quest."
Breeze still wondered about how Travis—and even her own creatures—keep referring to them as a she. It was a problem that Breeze understood a little better now that they'd spent so long listening to Travis and, in particular, Polfay.
Polfay seemed to have no preference either, but examining that made Breeze realize that maybe they did. If they were going to open a new entrance in Polfay, that would mean a lot more contact with the other city.
"Breeze is the dungeon that had all the food?" Polfay asked.
"Yeah, uh. Breeze, when you gave me that food, I gave it to Polfay. They really need a lot of food since they don't have a dungeon like you to give them any," Travis said. "So, are you cool with her opening up?"
"I—" Polfay stopped and made a choking sound. "I promised I would check next time. Can you wait a little while?"
Breeze couldn't help themselves. "Okay!" The word was one they'd heard many times, and with such a simple concept it wasn't hard to convey. After Polfay seemed to focus somewhere else, Breeze turned their attention on Travis. "Gave food to Polfay?"
"Polfay needed it, Breeze. I can't get more floors with food. I need to have other creatures enter and hang around, or my minions kill things." Travis' explanation still didn't make much sense to Breeze. Food gave floors and floors gave more food. But he had said that enough before that Breeze figured he knew what he was talking about.
That's when a great idea came to Breeze. "Travis, creatures give more floors?" It was hard to understand how to fit the words together, but Breeze hoped it came out well.
"Yeah. Like I had—"
"Then Breeze send friends to help!"
----------------------------------------
The words were ominous. Travis wasn't sure what Breeze meant by it, but he had a feeling he was about to find out. It took two minutes for the first group of centaurs to arrive at his entrance in the city. When he checked, there was a line of creatures stretching across the open courtyard between their dungeon entrances.
"What is— Oh. OH! Breeze, you're a genius! How many creatures do you have?" Travis watched them advance into his dungeon, turn, and march back out. They made a loop and were going back to their own dungeon—only, there was an endless line of them coming from Breeze's depths.
Not so good with numbers, but doing their best, Breeze replied, "Lots!" It was the best they could do. They had values that came up, and they could deal with those, but conveying those concepts to someone else was beyond them. "Lots and lots."
Travis marveled at all the creatures that Breeze had. There were lots of centaurs, minotaurs—more dryads, naiads, sprites, and satyrs than he could count—but not a lot of actual animals. It made sense, when he thought about it, since they were the core part of Breeze's dungeon.
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"They said you can open an entrance!" Polfay felt giddy with excitement. There were very few cities in the kingdom that had six dungeons, and both the other two had Verdant dungeons among those six. Now, with seven dungeons, Polfay was the most dungeon-rich city in the kingdom—and soon they'd have eight! "S-Sorry. I mean, when you're ready, Miss Breeze."
Breeze laughed, joy pouring through them at the big city asking nicely. Sending one of their dryads deeper into Travis, with a request to open a new entrance when they're outside the other side, Breeze waited.
Travis could watch as a woman wearing heavy armor ran up to his entrance in Polfay and spoke to the guards there after coming to a stop inside.
> A city's champion enters your dungeon! Slay them!
"Ugh. Shut up!" Travis said, careful not to direct it to anyone in particular, before adjusting his target to Polfay's champion. "Welcome to my dungeon. The dryad before you can open a new entrance for Breeze. If you'll just show her safely out and where you want it?"
Freezing in place at the odd voice in her head, the champion looked around in shock, trying to locate the source.
"First time hearing Travis?" one of the guards asked her.
"Travis?" she asked back.
The guard froze, realization dawning on who he was speaking to. "The dungeon. He's, uh, friendly. Ma'am."
Pleased his hours spent telling crude jokes to the guards had paid off, Travis had gotten a reputation as being chill, and he even had a betting pool going with the guards as to how various adventuring groups did in his training dungeons. He'd learned from Stewart, though, and made sure to lose more than he gained. "I try to be. Polfay sounded pretty excited to have a Verdant dungeon at last."
The articulation and confidence in the dungeon's speech surprised the champion. She was far too used to Polfay's withdrawn and uncertain way with words—at least, how Polfay had been in the past. Realization dawned as to the source of her city's newfound confidence. "Yes. On one hand, though, there are several cities that have seen to it to supply Polfay with food. This will be a disruption of the status-quo."
Travis felt like recoiling from the last comment. If Polfay's champion was like this, he realized why Polfay was probably a bit withdrawn. "Well, they'll have to find other things to trade, or focus on population growth, so they can sell all that food locally."
Escorting the tiny dryad out into Polfay, the champion sighed and shook her head. "You wouldn't understand. Those families have been selling food to Polfay for generations."
"Is here okay?" the dryad asked, pointing at the wall beside Travis' own entrance.
"Y—"
Travis could already see the problem, and cut the champion off. "Sorry, but no. You'll want to make a bit more room between us, since there will be a lot of traffic into and out of Breeze. She lets anyone who wants to hunt or gather food in, so there will be a lot of people wanting access."
"What? But it would be dangerous! You can't have people entering dungeons without guards and—"
Polfay pushed down with their presence, shoving at their champion angrily to stop them. "Breeze is a nice dungeon! People can ask her creatures if they can harvest food just fine."
"How would you know? A dungeon's a dungeon!" The silence and lack of immediate response made the champion think she'd cowed the city straight into how it should behave. Standing straighter, she opened her mouth to tell the dryad to open the entrance—when she felt the absence of strength and support. It was as if her muscles that she'd trained all her life to support her became, somehow, lesser. She realized, after a moment of experiencing the weakness that she couldn't hear Polfay at all nor feel the city's support. "P-Polfay?"
The fury Polfay felt threatened to overwhelm them. Not only had the woman insulted Polfay's new friends, but she had also tried to give an order to Polfay themselves. "Travis, could you tell the woman here that they are no longer my champion?"
Having listened to the woman, Travis felt he was playing devil's advocate when he asked, "Are you sure you want this?"
"Yes. She has been like this ever since I've known her. I thought— Back when my old champion died, I wanted someone young and brave and noble. Who is your champion, Travis?"
Despite the heartache he'd been feeling about Penelope being away, Travis felt his emotions lift as he thought of how selflessly she acted. "My champion is the bravest and most noble person I know, but she was born neither of those things."
"Please tell her I will find a new champion myself."
Travis took in a big metaphorical breath and turned his attention to the stunned woman who was staring at her hand. "Polfay says they'll find their own replacement champion."
"What did you do to him?"
The accusation in the champion's demands surprised Travis almost as much as calling Polfay him. "I talked to them, told them about my life and listened to theirs." He didn't hold back in sharing his words with Polfay, either.
Breeze, meanwhile, was more focused on Polfay than their former champion. "Okay?"
Polfay had a little experience with Breeze's clipped and mostly emotional language skills, so figured out that they were asking and not telling. "Yes. It feels— It feels good to finally do that. She's right. It is talking to Travis that led to this. Hearing how other cities—and the kingdom—work with their champions, I saw how she was controlling me."
"Want someone interesting for boss?" Breeze asked.
"Boss? Oh, champion. I want someone I can talk to. Someone who won't try to control me, but will grow to be a partner in protecting and helping the people who live here. I want— I want someone who doesn't look down on dungeons."
"Have dryad. Dryad bosses are good."
Polfay froze all their mental processes as they felt the offer not just verbally, but also magically. "F-First, can she open your new entrance?" Swirling with a confusing mix of emotions and thoughts, Polfay found the idea interesting, if nothing else.
"Oh," Travis said. "Right, I need to tell her that. Hang on. Uh, miss dryad, could you maybe move a little further away from my entrance?"
Jumping at Travis' voice, the dryad nodded and walked further from his dungeon entrance—doing her best to avoid the city's former champion. When Travis told her, she focused like her home had told her.
The wall split apart, a gaping wound in reality stabilizing even as it grew. The few folks familiar with Travis' dungeon watched with more curiosity than fear, though the less dungeon-favorable screamed in panic as a new entrance tore its way into the city.
What came next shocked the dryad. An invitation, or so it felt, backed by the warmth of her home and a new home. It was an offer to grow and be more than she'd ever been before. "Is, is this okay?" she asked, reaching for the invitation without realizing.
A rush of energy flooded the dryad and she felt herself swelling outward and upward as it filled and changed her. Growing in height to match and then slightly surpass the former city champion, she realized the new home had a far stronger link. "Uh… Hello? Are you my home now?"
It was definitely unique to have a dryad as their champion, but Polfay felt that, being the most dungeon-rich city in the kingdom, it was appropriate. "My name's Polfay and, yeah, I'm your new home."
"Maybe," Travis said, interrupting the moment a little, "we should get your new champion some clothes?"
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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.
If you think for one dang second I was going to do maps of 233 floors, you're out of your mind!