“Come on already! I want to see it!” I knew I sounded like a whiny kid, but I didn’t care. Money changes you.

  “Tribulations Wrath, Bob, just hang on a second,” Kat muttered. “Left a bit. OK, straight on. Now duck, you need to get through the doors. Right, stop here.” She fluttered off my shoulders and yanked the blindfold away. “Tada!”

  “Is this it?” I asked, unable to hide my disappointment.

  “It’s just the basics at the moment. Once you deposit the gold and the other stuff, we can buy the rest,” she replied.

  “It feels so… anti-climactic,” I grumbled.

  The treasure room floor was a vast expanse of white marble, fluted columns rising every ten metres or so in every direction, making it feel like a stone forest. A boring stone forest of white trunks. Sure, it looked neat, but it really lacked the oomph I’d been hoping for.

  I slithered forward, careful that my claws didn’t scratch the admittedly shiny floor. I approved of the floor.

  “Hmm. About here?”

  “Maybe move a bit deeper into the room, scale-brain. We’ll need space for guards and traps and whatnot,” Kat said in a long-suffering tone.

  “Here?” I craned my neck round, saw her expression and kept moving. I must have stomped half a mile before I tried again. “This place is pretty big. How about now?” The roof was too low for me to fly, so I was earthbound in here. Probably a good thing, it would keep any of the other dragons from getting ideas, not that the greedy bastards would be allowed anywhere near this floor.

  “Keep going.”

  I walked for over an hour, twitchy and restless. It was as though I was a moment away from doing something amazing and constantly being blocked by the annoying pixie sitting between my horns.

  “Screw it. This will do. I don’t want to have to walk too far every time I need a nap.”

  I emptied my belly pouch of gold. Three million plus coins spilt out beneath me like the shiniest turd in history, raising me up as they flowed back into reality. I grinned as I rose towards the ceiling. “Shit!” I scrambled to the side, slithering down the hillock, as the rest of my original hoard appeared, surfing along on a sea of gold.

  “More headroom would have been nice,” I grumbled, but my heart wasn’t in it. That was a nice pile of gold.

  “It’s a security feature. Also, that ceiling is about six feet of lead, steel and enchantments. Absolutely solid, and it means that handsome, but short, cult enthusiasts can’t abseil down to steal anything.”

  “Thinking of anyone in particular?”

  “Let’s just get this cruise underway, Bob.”

  I pulled out the pouch of pouches. The pouchiest pouch to ever pouch into my life and caressed it with a loving claw. So pretty. I stuck the tip of a claw into the bag's mouth and willed for the best thing in the world to happen.

  Torrents of gold. I skittered happily around my existing hoard, leaving behind an unending trail of shinies. The occasional wingbeat helped me hop from place to place as I transformed my hillock of gold into a solid wall of the stuff.

  My tails flicked back and forth, wagging like a dog with a bone, occasionally reaching out subconsciously to catch a stray coin and launch it back to its many, many, siblings. The pouch seemed endless. I spent half an hour dancing around, bouncing from foot to foot like I was a shaman performing a rain dance.

  When the torrent slowed to a trickle, I turned the pouch upside down and shook it violently to get every last coin out.

  Dungeon Status:

  Unnamed Dungeon.

  Level: 15

  Floors: 21 (Residential) (Industrial x2) (Agricultural) (Mana Crystal Farm) (Alchemy lab) (Combat x9) (Market) (Treasure Vault) (TBC x4)

  Rooms: 43

  Sprite level: 23

  Minions: 98/110

  Hoard: 1,047,676,257 gold

  I sagged to the ground, my belly scales clattering against the marble and squirmed in joy. Greed-demon, goblin no longer did him justice, mimicked me, writhing on his back in my mind, kicking all the other aspects of my psyche out of his way in the process.

  Ten. Digits. Nice.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Something pestered at me, a tinny voice that kept intruding on my rapture. Then something punched me in the snout, causing me to drag my eyes away from the wall of coins and focus on an angry Pikachu. I snorted and sent her tumbling away from me, then took a run up and dove into the pile, burrowing in until I was completely surrounded by gold.

  “Bob? Dammit, Bob!”

  I opened one eye and wormed my head to the edge of the hoard. “What?”

  “We need to finalise the defences,” Kat said.

  “Get all the defences.”

  “OK.” She stared into space for a moment, no doubt accessing her own status screens, a faint smile on her face.

  Walls sprang up between the rows of pillars, and the vast space went from open and easily accessible from the stairway to the other floors, to close and confined. The area around where I had laid my nest egg was surrounded by thick metal bars, and beyond that, a series of corridors opened out, each one quickly reaching a dead end from my perspective.

  I raised my head and ever so reluctantly slithered out of my new bed. “Traps?” I demanded.

  “I got all of them. Rolling balls, spike pits, rising spikes, spikes that come out of the walls. Trapdoors that lead to rooms that gradually fill up with sand, or spiders, or snakes, or treacle.”

  “That’s a lot of spikes. Treacle?”

  “Hell of a way to die. Then there's the dart guns, the puzzle rooms with the paving squares that collapse if you pick the wrong one and drop you into marmalade, lava or squids. The shark tank, that’s a good one. Then there’s the steam, fire and acid traps. Do you want to hear about the magical ones?”

  “I get the idea.”

  “So, guards. What are you thinking in terms of guards?” Kat asked like she was running down a checklist, which she probably was, in all fairness.

  “Not dwelvers. Or Dwarves. Or humans. Shit, is there any species that can’t potentially be thieves?”

  “Only one. But it’s not so much a species as a… state of being.”

  “Like… avatars of fire or something? Golems? We can trust the bunnyborgs, right? I think we can trust them.” Having gotten to experience the absolute glory of my hoard, I no longer trusted anyone. I eyed Kat suspiciously.

  “I’m not going to steal your shit, you idiot.”

  I set off around the room and began laying out the items I’d stolen from Bulb’s warehouse. They were shiny enough. “Any chance of some cupboards or something? Maybe a few plinths? I’ve got two more Immortality Injections and I don’t fancy carrying them around with me.” Shiny spears propped up against the bars here, bits of jewellery piled up off to one side, a glowing shield with the shape of the holy lightbulb embossed on the front laid carefully there… very nice.

  “They cost extra.”

  “Never mind then. So what guards are you thinking about?”

  “It’s only possible because you got access to a certain type of magic. Most dungeon lords can’t use them, so they’re plentiful and cheap. They don’t need food or sleep, and they’re immune to poison and disease. And ageing.”

  “Dragons? No, we need to eat, and there’s no way you’d think to suggest my species as guards. Let me guess, something with a ridiculous name like nimbleplonks?”

  “Nimbleplonks are terrible guards. They’d just try and hump a thief’s leg rather than stop them, randy little monsters. No, it’s–”

  “Pixies? Not Pixies!” I objected.

  “Shut the hell up, Bob! It’s the undead. You can get them on the Black Core Market dirt cheap.”

  “I like cheap.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “But they have their problems.”

  “What problems? They do as they’re told, require no logistical support, hell, we won’t even need to expand the living quarters for them. They smell bad, but hey, I’m not going to be entertaining in here.”

  “Have you ever met a zombie that was happy in their work?”

  “No, they all want to go back to whatever heaven or hell I rip their soul from so it can be torturously forced back into the rotting carcass that it used to inhabit. They complain more than people who work in HR… Oh. I see.”

  “Not good for your soul.”

  “But… cheap.”

  “I can get them for you, Bob. There are four squadrons of Death Kunigits, a couple of shambling hordes that don’t look too rotten for the price, and a flock of corrupted crows who would make excellent scouts. I can pick them all up for… six thousand.”

  “Can’t we just use the bunnyborgs?”

  “We can, but they aren’t bound to you.”

  “If I hold the control crystal, they bloody well–”

  “Aren’t. That’s not being bound, that’s… a different kind of black mark on your character, to be honest. They’re also vulnerable to airborne toxins and poisoned carrot puree. Unless you want to use one of the regular species, which I’d like to stress is still an option, the undead are your best bet.”

  I laid a couple of tails protectively over my hoard and flicked my tongue in and out. The place tasted of wealth, and I liked it. “They don’t need to get too close to here? They can just patrol the corridors or whatever?”

  “There are sections intended for guards to ambush interlopers, if they are lucky enough to survive the various traps. They’d be out there.” She waved a hand towards the corridors that led away from the central chamber. “It might be an idea to keep a few Death Kunigits close by, in case a very high-level stealth build manages to sneak past everything else.”

  “Do they smell?”

  “They’re just animated bones.”

  “Fine then. That all sounds good.”

  “You’re going to need to do some good deeds to balance this out.”

  “I’m always doing good deeds, Kat. I’m bringing the world closer together with the portal network, providing delicious and affordable food in a family-friendly environment within the franchise pubs. I’m the champion of the god of Light for Bulb’s sake!” I clapped my forepaws together to create a shower of sparks, then became entranced at the myriad reflections they cast on my hoard.

  “Bob! Let’s try and stay focused. Winning the war might help. Beating the forces of darkness is usually a good thing, depending on how you go about it.”

  “How could it be a bad thing?”

  “If you killed them all in gruesome, nightmarish ways.” Kat shrugged.

  “Does eating them count as hideous and nightmarish?”

  “Possibly, Bob. The WOO don’t hand out rulebooks; it would make it too easy to cheat.”

  “I can win the war, as long as I know this place is secure. Buy the zombies and whatnot, and let’s get out of here. I need to meet that damn chef this evening, and I’ve got a lead on the hinge oil factory that the auction house used. It’s based in Ribbleton, which just so happens to belong to an old friend.”

  “The new Baron Hateskale is not your friend, Bob.”

  “It’s a figure of speech. How the hell do we get out of here?”

  “Well, I’ve got a map of the labyrinth. I’ll give you a tour.”

  A pair of skeletons in heavy black iron armour appeared as Kat confirmed the purchase of the guards. Their bony hands rested on the hilts of their swords, shields hooked to their left arms. They had horns on their helmets, curly goat horns sprouting from either side. The pair took up station by the arched entrance to my inner sanctum, and I padded over to taste the air around them, my tongue flicking within inches of their faces.

  “That’s creepy,” the left one said stoically.

  “The guy's a fucking weirdo,” replied the other, and my head swung round to stare at it.

  “Edible Reg?”

  “Yes, you bastard. I’m back.”