107 Backs and Fronts

The four of you; Sapphire, Feathers, Amanda and yourself, watch Mercy go with a strange sense of loss.

“She'll be back.”

Her inventory is stuffed with most of the treasure items you've accrued over the last several hero attacks. Rings, gloves, boots and amulets, cloaks and charms. The only one you kept was the Necrotic Skull, for Amanda once she levels up some, and the Commoner's cloak, for Mercy to wear.

It's the albino redhead who responds. “We know, Red. She's strong. She'll be fine out there. She's survived out there a lot longer than any of us have, after all.”

You nod, absently noting the hard lump in your throat as she vanishes around the corner of the doorway. The others are stood just slightly outside to see her off, but you dare not risk it. Judging by their expressions, nothing untoward happens to Mercy until she passes beyond their sight as well. A soft wind blows into your lair, carrying the faint scents of wood smoke and pine resin, winding through much stronger smells of rock dust and clear mountain air.

You shudder, and withdraw from the breeze. There is still useful things to be done, the adventurers having left you with far more than a handful of magic items. Almost guiltily, you first use the wood to blueprint the doorway you were meant to build as part of not-phase-one of your floor two expansion, spending some scrap and extra wood to make it into a proper castle door, ten foot tall and reinforced with iron bands and studs.

Then you spend fifty animus on Amanda's masterpiece, giving the variable pit trap in the hedge maze a Smart Controller.

You stare blankly at the pop up.

“Well that's less helpful than expected,” you say, somewhat affronted. There's no menu, no drop downs. After a moment of fiddling, you figure out that by sort of thinking them 'loud' enough, you can input words into the box.

Shortly after you figure out that 'smart' may have been an overestimation of this control's abilities.

You weren't entirely sure what to expect, as so often is the case with new purchases for your dungeon, but you must admit that some form of spirit or elemental was well within the bounds of your expectations. You'd expected to be able to show Amanda it, have her explain her plan, and have the thing work.

Another minute or so later, your feet firmly on the second floor, you find the trick to remove previous inputs, clear the box, and think very hard but very quietly.

And with a faint popping noise, the box vanishes.

You nod in satisfaction. Job well done.

Another fifteen stone for a Medium Room, and you burn the one gold ore you picked up somewhere to give it the 'gilded' appearance. A throne room must be richly decorated after all. You place the blueprint against the rear wall of the castle, so the tunnel to the treasure room links to the side of it. You'll put a locked door there in the future and give Amanda the key. Another handful of stone and you add six pillars to the room, then you dig into your untouched copper reserves to order some low braziers to fill the room with dim light and deep shadows.

You leave the throne itself undesigned for now, but you do add a slightly raised dais for it to sit on, and order a door for the throne room as well, so the workers can place the braziers if nothing else.

The use of your placement menus is oddly relaxing, and you can feel the uncomfortable anxiety flow away as you work, expanding your dungeon. It feels right in a way little else does, and soothes your mind. Time passes as you experiment with brazier placements, trying to find the ideal set up to set the atmosphere for Amanda's fight. You're not sure what she wants yet, except it will probably involve minions, so it's an interesting experiment that lets you loose yourself in the task.

You're just about to continue with laying out blueprints when a noise echoes up the stairwell, oddly muted as all inter-floor noises are. You turn with some apprehension, to see Jack scrambling up the stairs, panting.

You close your eyes, your earlier poor mood washing in again like the tide.

When it's not one things its a-fucking-nother.

You open your eyes again.

“What?”

Jack pants for a few seconds longer.

“Demons. Imps. Here to see you.”

You feel your eyes widen involuntarily, before you clamp down on it.

“Who? Why?”

“Dunno boss. Three of them. Two more hunger imps and an imp of lust I think. Or, well, Sith says.”

You gnaw at the inside of your cheek for a moment. It seems odd to you that they chose the same day that Mercy left to show up. The hunger imps you could maybe excuse, seeing as you have two of them already but the lust imp is... suspicious.

“Where are they now?”

“Sapphire took them to Charlemagne's, hunger imps won't say no to food boss. Don't think she trusts the lust imp boss.”

“She's a smart woman. Thank you, Jack. I'll be down momentarily. Please return anything you stole recently to wherever you found it.”

“Yes boss. Sorry boss.”

You sigh again, although not without a certain amount of humour, as he vanishes down the stairs at speed, then sit and think for a minute more.

The demon tree quest did say it would give you a week of increased demonic attraction. It does strike you a little odd that only two demons showed up. You'll have to go into this with an open mind. No point turning potential allies into enemies before you've ever met, after all.

A huge thank you to my patreons Spockk Kirkk, Abysslsniper, Tyrant615, Dakkanor, Jakelandiar, Curious Krissy, CBK, Roman, TheDrTelos, RD, Bakerdea, Hemlock and KN. A special thank you to Spokk Kirkk who is paying more than they need to, which is one of the most incredible feelings. A very special thank you to Roman for being insane and updating their pledge to a truly silly amount.