“You… may wish to give the goblins their own place to sleep, my lord,” the dragonkin put in as he weighed out his options.
“Good call.”
Close one, too. He wasn’t sure he wanted to sleep in the middle of a clan of goblins who’d been ready to bash his brains in earlier that night. He had the drones dig out another room for it, then ordered enough beds to cover his new minions, creating his first Barracks.
After that came the issue of food production.
“Goblins eat mushrooms and rotten meat,” the dragonkin explained when he solicited help. “We’ll have trouble getting meat here — unless you sacrifice some of them for butchery — but the mushrooms will be easy to grow.”
And they could live off of mushrooms for now, too. Keaton had lived off of much worse in his life. Mushrooms at least tasted like something, unlike the slop he’d been force fed at the orphanage.
With his companion’s help, he interfaced with the crystal and had the drones carve out space in a particularly damp chamber. They build a large wooden box that took up most of that chamber, then he sent them just outside — as far as they could go without disappearing, the dragonkin told him — to fetch some soil, as well as dead leaves and twigs.
With a suitable home for them built, the mushrooms were started, and Keaton kept behind enough of what the drones had found to split between the denizens of The Labyrinth. It wasn’t much. Once everything was distributed, he had one large cap to eat, along with a clump of cave moss his goblin scout assured him was good to eat.
It was enough to curb the hunger pains, but Keaton was exhausted. He’d built a bedroom, a barracks, and a mushroom farm, and he’d gained a bunch of new minions without having to brainwash most of them. It felt like a productive first day.
“I’m beat,” he told the dragonkin, pulling back from the crystal. He’d just given the order for the drones to clear a few more rooms. “I’m going to call it a night.”
“Oh. Of course.” She wouldn’t look at him, her lip drawn between her teeth again, one of her fangs snagging it. “Lord Keaton?”
“Yes?”
“Where… should I sleep? I can stay neat the crystal if you prefer. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor, and I—”
Keaton just blinked at her. “There are plenty of beds. Just sleep in the room I’m staying in.” Something clicked in his mind and he felt like an idiot. Not for the first time. “Oh. Shit, you probably want privacy, huh? I can—”
“No!” A firm assertion from her, once more. She might not have been intimidating most of the time, but that made Keaton snap to attention. “No, I…” Her cheeks were scarlet again and he canted his head. “I feel safer with you. If you would not mind my presence, I would like to stay in the same room.”
Keaton flashed her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Of course.”
She smiled back at him in that pretty way, and Keaton felt his heart give a strange little thump. She really did have a lovely smile. It did something to her that seemed to bring more light into her features; more confidence, even.
Or maybe he was just over-tired and seeing things.
Either way, Keaton headed down the hall to his room — their room, he supposed — and picked out a bed first on her insistence. He collapsed into it, barely even hearing the furs shift and rustle as she climbed into the bed near him.
He did hear one last thing, though. A whisper that was only meant for him.
“Lord Keaton?”
“Mm?” he turned over. Or rather, flopped over.
“I think… I think I’ve settled on a name.”
He gave her his full attention, fighting back exhaustion.
“Adriana. You may call me Adriana,” she said, reaching up to tuck a strand of raven hair behind her slim, pointed ear. “It’s… the first name I remember being called. By my mother, I think.”
Keaton gave her a soft, sleepy smile. “Adriana. I like it. It suits you.”
Even in the darkness, he saw the flush that came to her cheeks. She looked away from him, settling onto the pallet. “Goodnight, Lord Keaton.”
“Goodnight, Adriana.”
Over the next several days, Keaton’s dungeon grew.
The goblins were good workers. They even managed to catch some kind of reptile, bringing back the eggs intact — thanks to the dragonkin’s intervention — to try and raise in a hatchery. Keaton had it built straight away, as another source of food could only be a good thing. It turned out those little things had a pretty quick hatch time, too. Soon there were lots of little lizards running around the hatchery. Most of them even managed to survive the rumbling stomachs of his goblin forces. For now.
Anima also informed him that he’d made good progress.
The Labyrinth has reached level 2.
“That seems fast,” he said, looking to Adriana. “I guess we must be doing the right thing.”
“It will slow down,” she said with a small smile, “but we are doing the right thing. The three pillars — food production, defense for the crystal, and a place to rest — have gotten us to this point, now that they’ve advanced.”
That was right. This morning he’d been notified that the barracks had been upgraded to a Minor Goblin Hovel. Adriana had just explained that meant it was specifically suited for goblins. One glance in the room showed why: They’d decorated it with all manner of bones, had a cauldron in the center cooking up some kind of noxious stew, and had the cave floor covered with swamp peat that tracked muddy footprints through the rest of the dungeon.
But Anima revealed their specialized hovel made them more well rested, which undoubtedly made them better workers, so he wasn’t going to complain.
The upgrade to the food production must have helped, as well. Likely him adding a choke point to get to the crystal and a very shoddy catapult that launched stones toward intruders helped, too. But where did they go from here?
“Any recommendations for what we should build next?”
“You’ll need workshops for more advanced builds,” she told him. “Starting with a forge seems most prudent, but you may also want a carpenter’s shop and a tannery.”
“Hmm. I think I can pull something together. Let’s start with the forge.”
That one was easy for him. They’d made a dedicated space on the wall to draw out blueprints — much better than the floor which was now covered in muddy footprints — and Keaton had honed down proper chalk, with a stick of charcoal to add accents.
He sketched the forge he’d worked at from memory, making adjustments to account for the fact that it was underground. The smoke needed someplace to go, after all, and there was a little more room for things to spread out. For the most part it contained the same key components as the shop where he’d done his apprenticeship, though. Forge, anvil, bellows, water trough, and lots of tables and storage.
Adriana made her own adjustments, specifically to the system for delivering smoke outside. There was apparently a way to do it that was less conspicuous from the exterior, pumping smoke into the already hazy swamp. Once she signed off on it, he had the drones build what they could, then called upon his goblin forces who were far more content with their meal of lizard meat, eggs, and mushrooms than just the mushrooms alone.
A Forge has been created in The Labyrinth. New builds are now available.