Dungeon Status:

  Leader Dungeon

  Tier 3

  Level 100

  Heart 64m/64m

  Experience 2,003,201/16m

  Mithril 43k

  Adamantine 12k

  Mana 39,020

  Poison, Greater 0k

  Deadly Scorpion Venom 51

  Quest: Bestow 57 classes.

  Quest: Grant the King the Supreme Ally class.

  Quest: Vassalize every dungeon in your origin location

  Quest: Submit a bug report to the almighty Goddess of Dungeons! ??(?⊙???⊙?)??????

  Vassals:

  Breeze (Verdant animal)?: Granting daily rewards

  Unnamed (Boss gnoll)?: Granting daily rewards

  Unnamed (Swarm dragon)?: Not granting daily rewards

  Travis examined his stats, now that everyone was not exploding. He wasn't at all surprised to see his mana full, given what Bookkeeper had done. "I like the thousands/millions abbreviations. They help to cut stuff down. How do I do a bug report? I know I have some of that greater poison, but it says '0k'."

  

  Quest Complete: Submit a bug report to the almighty Goddess of Dungeons! ??(?⊙???⊙?)??????

  Reward: Increased innate storage hugely! ??(???????)???

  

  New Quest: Produce 10 wolf people.

  Wincing mentally at the quest, Travis could see a long conversation—or possibly a very short one—with Astrid and her people ahead of him. To ensure he didn't forget, he marked "quests for discussion" on his wall in the to-do area and moved on. The reward information was nice, though it was still missing details. He wanted to know exactly how much his innate storage had grown.

  His health, experience, and worker counts were consistent. The cap to each of the workers and monsters had grown by a considerable amount, which was a relief with how many people he was accepting. "This is going to take forever if I don’t keep moving. Okay, I am now a Leader Dungeon. That's not hard to figure out. Tier 3, that's what I spent half a month being a bastard for."

  It still stung that he'd killed people. What had made it just a little easier to live with was how it mirrored his involvement in the civil war. He could have asked Penelope and Astrid not to go. He could have withheld weapons. And he absolutely could have asked Breeze not to provide for the army. "For someone who doesn't like killing, I seem to have my hands in it so much."

  He just existed for nearly an hour. Not processing information, not talking, just breathing mana in and out. It didn't help him rationalize his killing people any easier. He'd learned his lesson with Stephan, he told himself. Wishing he didn't have to make the decision didn't change the fact that a lot of people relied on him to make one. If Bookkeeper was right, making the choice he did will slow down the coming invasion.

  It might even slow it down so much that Tinpot will have replicated something absolutely devastating.

  And that, Travis knew, was only more death he would cause. At least, he assured himself, they would be coming as invading soldiers. They would expect a fight if they found anyone here, and he would be the chief provider of weapons to the defense.

  "Pen?" Travis needed to talk to someone before he explored his state further. "Can I— Oh. Sorry."

  "Trav?" Pen and Felna said at the same time, each giggling at the intrusion.

  "You're not interrupting," Felna said, unable to stop her purr increasing in light of their predicament and Travis' gentlemanly attempt to disengage. "Want to talk or join in?"

  Resting her chin back atop Felna, Penelope added, "Or just watch?"

  "All three is an option, right?" Travis asked. "Seriously, though, feel free to continue, but I have some things to get off my chest."

  Felna's features pulled into a small moue. "Joining in was probably a bit mean of me, but feel free to watch through either of us—or ask us to do something specific. What did you want to talk about?"

  "Well, one thing will bring down the mood a little, so I'll save that. You know how Bookkeeper had made a deal to keep me out of my own nightmares while the dungeon upgraded?" Hearing a pair of enthusiastic mmhmms, Travis continued. "The work she wanted me to do only took about three weeks.

  "It's kinda complicated, and I only barely understand it, but she made a place we could talk face to face. I kinda lost it a bit. We hugged, she freaked out for a while, but I told her it would only be platonic. Is it wrong that it felt so good?"

  Penelope paused and pulled her head up from her task. "What? You found someone you could actually hug, and were worried a platonic cuddle—"

  "Even one that lasted a week," Felna said, licking her lips.

  "Right. You thought that would be a problem? For that matter, she's a god literally no one knows about. Isn't she kinda lonely too?" Penelope moved her foreleg so that her talons pinned Felna in place.

  "That's why she got confused. I think she needed the hug more than I did." New ideas were already sprouting in Travis' fertile mind, for his next art piece. More gold would be required, he decided, to do Penelope justice. Not that he'd say that. "What I want to ask is if you're both okay with that? The first time was a bit startling with the intensity of good it felt, but—"

  Penelope looked down at Felna, caught a nod from her, and nodded herself. "Trav, hug her if you get the chance. Hell, snuggle her and think of us."

  "If it gets hot," Felna said, "you are welcome to tell me aaaaaall about it."

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  Travis wished he could roll his eyes at that. Felna, he'd learned, liked to project a very forward manner, but inside she was just as vulnerable as anyone else.

  "Maybe you could ask her if she can bring us, too, next time." Penelope shifted her talons a little to keep a better grip on Felna, who she noticed seemed a little frustrated. "Hold still."

  Letting loose a hiss, Felna slumped back into place. "What was the other thing? You said the other would kill the mood, but what kills my mood is knowing you might be suffering."

  Travis was quiet for a moment. He watched as Penelope teased Felna. The latter seemed frustrated, but was nonetheless purring up a storm. "Bookkeeper asked me to get a new dungeon a good start. She wanted it to wipe out the nearby city. I made a deal with her that I'd do it if she personally warned people to leave the city.

  "She made an undead Rot dungeon." Travis didn't miss the pair of adventurers he loved wincing at the combo. "It was interesting to explore their options. I settled on something easy, a bacterial infection that kills fast and makes more undead. Oh, bacteria are tiny creatures that—"

  "I know what bacteria are. They are mostly a few tiny creatures, fairly benign." Felna sighed and slumped back under Penelope's talons. "But, if given the right situation, they spread and grow until they choke out all other life."

  Travis clarified, "I sent waves of skeletons to the city carrying plague rats infected with the bacteria. The rats delivered it to the water and food stores."

  "Why, though?" Penelope asked, easing up a little on Felna to give her partner a fighting chance. "Why that dungeon and that city? Why did Bookkeeper want the city dead?"

  "That's why I'm not angry at her specifically. The people of the Trade Kingdom fled from another continent to this one because they were oppressed there. She didn't say exactly, but I think it was something to do with slavery. When they came here, they prayed for help and Bookkeeper answered. She made the cities to protect all the new people to this land and the dungeons to challenge and harden them. Err, you."

  "So," Felna said, "this city was on that old continent? Is Bookkeeper seeking revenge on our behalf?"

  "No. She said they were trying to expand, and were building ships. The settlement I killed is on the border of a huge forest and would be providing timber for those ships." He let it sink in.

  Felna nuzzled Penelope's talons, marking them with her scent as the foot pulled away and let her free. "They're coming here?"

  "If they sail the direction they look to be, there's a good chance of it. I've let Stewart and Honor know." Inspired by Felna's view of Penelope, Travis began working on mana-sketches of the dragoness. "I'm still trying to figure out what's changed, too. I'll make a big announcement when I have it all sorted."

  "Remind me to give your heart a big hug," Felna said, arching her back and stretching such that neither Travis nor Penelope would say a word to interrupt their viewing. Looking behind herself, spotting Penelope watching and knowing Travis would be too, Felna's smile widened. "Enjoying the view?"

  "Yup," Travis said.

  "Of course," Penelope added.

  "For what it's worth, Trav? I certainly wouldn't judge you for being the first line of defense for our kingdom. If—"

  "When. It's probably when," he said.

  "When they reach our shores, we'll have a little more time to be ready for them. I think our gunsmith will have something to say about their transgressing here." Turning her body toward Penelope, Felna approached and leaned against the offered wing, purring and rubbing against it like the indulgent cat she was. "What happened to the undead Rot dungeon?"

  "The dungeon's heart was watching what I was doing. It learned from me and Bookkeeper is testing a new system that lets dungeons band together to defeat cities." Travis' voice actually skipped a few beats in his effort to answer and watch Felna.

  Penelope could practically feel Travis' focus through her. "Trav, are there a lot of pretty feline women where you're from?"

  "None at all. It's a modern tragedy that we could only enjoy art of cat girls."

  "'Cat girls'?" Felna asked. "Not cat women?" She struck a pose, hand on one hip, her eyes fixed on Penelope's face.

  Confidence riding high, Travis asked, "From the picture I drew of you, would you claim I have no appreciation for your form?"

  "He's got you there," Penelope said, scooping Felna up with one wing and pressing her muzzle into the soft, fuzzy belly and rubbing it in circles.

  "St-Stop that! I'm—" Felna broke into gales of laughter at the dragoness' savagery.

  With apologies and regret, Travis left his loves to their antics. He threw himself back at the strange changes made to his dungeon in his absence.

  From the veritable hordes of lizards he had roaming around him, he realized a very odd thing—his storage warehouses were empty. Brief panic and checking his stats revealed him to have all the resources he should, they just weren't taking up room in warehouses anymore.

  He added that to his list of new things. It dawned on him that if he didn't need all the warehouses, he could fill in a lot of his bottom floor where the warehouses were, he could instead fill it with resource nodes and increase his adamantine and gold output further.

  Going through his upgrades, he even saw one that cost divinium to buy, that would expand the storage nearly a hundred times.

  There was a pile of new weapons that he assumed Tinpot had been building quantities of to force the dungeon system to accept them as standard models.

  Two new classes surprised him. Ally cost a million gold and would require him to hand out equipment to someone not already a dungeon creature, and they would effectively be treated as one after that. It was nice to have descriptions now, something he'd have to remember to thank Bookkeeper for, so mused over it.

  

  Ally

  Cost:

  1,000,000 gold

  Defensive equipment

  Offensive equipment

  One other dungeon class

  Not a dungeon creature

  An Ally is treated as a dungeon monster for all purposes, even outside the dungeon's area of effect, granting XP to the dungeon for actions and allowing the Ally to gain advanced dungeon creature traits.

  The traits, Travis knew, would be akin to the fire-based dragon warriors that Fife, Astrid, and her pack had become. There was, as is always the case, another tier above that.

  

  Supreme Ally

  Cost: 10,000,000 Gold

  Ally

  Supreme Allies count as a dungeon boss and can be upgraded similarly: including cohorts, boss rooms, and evolutions.

  That was what he had a quest for—to give Stewart that class. Honestly, Travis would be happy to give it to anyone he trusted. There was one thing, though, that he wasn't sure about.

  "Evolutions," he whispered into his own mindscape.

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