Jeremy smelled bacon and took off running. Another bat monster tried to dive bomb him, he smacked it away without thinking.

  “Jeremy!” Flint shouted, appearing in front of the running adventurer. “We've been through this!” He pointed at the whiteboard. “DON'T BE AN IDIOT!”

  Jeremy ignored him, following the smell back to the edge of the labyrinth, using his charmed rope to cross the border wall. He followed the scent down the red path, past the stores he'd encountered when he arrived at this floor of the dungeon, and through the green door of a small, rundown house. He cautiously peeked inside and wondered if he was hallucinating.

  The dungeon safe-room was much larger on the inside than outside and the palace-like walls were covered with murals of unknown battles by lizard-like beings.

  Several lizard-like beings about two thirds Jeremy's height looked back at him. The source of the mouth-watering bacon smell turned out to be two small strips of meat sizzling on a small stove in front of an extremely overweight being that, as best Jeremy could tell, resembled a green scaly beach ball with two arms, two legs, a head, and a tail.

  He checked for traps and ran Identify on the walking, scaly beach ball.

  Name: Lump of Fat From the Belly of a Porcine Being. Lard Lump

  Race: Kobold

  Sex: Female

  Character Class: Child Merchant

  Character Profession: Cook

  Level: 9

  “Uh. Hello?” Jeremy said, having no idea what to expect. If the kobolds immediately tried to kill him, he would not have been surprised. His trap sense tested negative, but the same with the Jack in the Bombs that tried to kill him when he'd first arrived on this floor of the dungeon.

  Lard Lump jumped up when she saw him and pulled her lips back in what might have been a smile on a human, but for her, it exposed an unnerving number of sharp teeth. “Jirmy!” she spoke in a language of peppered with pops clicks and growls “Welcome to my humble business where I sell amazing items at amazing prices! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Would you like some smoked grazer beast meat?” She motioned to the two strips of meat sizzling on her stove.

  Jeremy nodded, mouth watering. “Yes.”

  “Because you are new customer, I give you good deal. I sell you both strips of meat for 100 dungeon coin. Very good deal!”

  The rotund kobold looked far too eager, reminding Jeremy of the arm eating box he'd left behind in the dungeon school.

  “Wait!” Jeremy said. “First of all, where did this meat come from? And second, you are asking for the equivalent of 100 gold coins for two small slices of meat?”

  “This meat comes from grazer beast. Big animal, eats plants, gets very fat, then we eat. Yum yum! If you do not like price, I'm sure other business on this floor of the dungeon will give you better deal.”

  “There is another business on this floor?”

  “No.” Lard Lump folded her arms across her large belly.

  “Uh. Jeremy,” Flint said from next to him. “Be careful.”

  “Shut up, Flint,” he said quietly.

  “How about 50?” Jeremy said.

  The kobold glared up at him. “I worked hard to bring this smoked grazer beast meat to the second floor of the dungeon. I can not let it go for anything less than 90.”

  Jeremy thought it over. 90 was a lot of dungeon coin, but if he wanted to eat something that wasn't a dungeon ration, he didn't have a lot of options. “How about 65?”

  “Sold! For 85 dungeon coin, this tasty smoked grazer meat is yours!”

  “I will pay you 70,” Jeremy glared back growing exasperated with the small merchant.

  “Done! 80 dungeon coin and final offer. Let it never be said I'm not the most generous soul of kindness,” The kobold held out a clawed hand with expensive looking rings on it.

  With a sigh, Jeremy concentrated and pulled off 80 dungeon coin and handed it to her.

  She made the coin vanish and then used tongs to pick up the two strips of meat, place them on a square plate made from some kind of plastic-like material, and handed the plate to Jeremy.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “At least this adventurer is robbing you figuratively instead of literally like the orcs,” Flint said from beside him. “Perhaps she can explain what those items were doing in front of the dungeon school entrance.”

  Jeremy picked up a strip of meat and took a small bite. It was the best thing he'd ever tasted. He chewed slowly, savoring every taste of real food. Jeremy wasn't sure how long he sat on a pillow (the kobolds didn't appear to use chairs), chewing the meat. He'd meant to save half for later, but couldn't make himself stop. By the time he finished, the lights had dimmed, and it had turned into what passed for night in the dungeon.

  Aside from Lard Lump, five kobolds watched him warily. Three of them were rogues, and two were fighters. They were at levels 6 through 8. Lard Lump was the only female.

  Having eaten real food for the first time in several months, Jeremy felt better than he had since before he'd been pushed into the dungeon.

  The male kobolds disassembled the kitchen, somehow folding it into a box shape with handles on one end and a wheel on the other. Lard Lump waddled over to a large pile of pillows, plopped herself down, and beckoned for Jeremy to join her.

  He sat nervously on a pillow near her.

  “I can see you're wondering how a merchant came to be on the second floor of The Children's Dungeon,” she said.

  Jeremy nodded. “Yes.”

  “Many years ago, my great-great-grandmother and her family were very poor. It was all they could do to feed themselves, and most nights they went to bed hungry. Then they journeyed to the rift scars to work in mana crystal mines. You see, spellcasters will pay a lot of money for large, high quality mana crystals and a few miners became rich. But my great-great-grandmother realized most of the money from the mines went to the merchants who sold stuff to the miners. So she became one of those merchants, and our family has prospered ever since.”

  “You come from a family of merchants?”

  “Yes. And when a portal to The Children's Dungeon appeared in my mother's sister's meat cellar. I thought of all those adventurers, risking their lives in the dungeon for dungeon coin, who are missing life's comforts. Things like smoked grazer meat.”

  “I see,” Jeremy said.

  She poured Jeremy a small cup of a dark-colored liquid from a larger metal container resembling a tea kettle and handed it to him. “I have many things humans like. Try this tea.”

  Jeremy took a sip of the hot tea, then another. It had a sweet bitterness he couldn't identify. Not bad, but not something he'd drink from choice either.

  “But enough about me,” she said. “You are quite the clever human, the orcs are very upset with you.”

  “Those orcs nearly killed me,” Jeremy responded. “In my world, orcs are nothing but myths and legends. Do you know why they returned the mana charm they stole?” he held out his mana gathering pendant.

  “The dungeon gave the orcs thief marks. The orcs tried to convince the dungeon that it wasn't stealing because they stole it from a human thief, but the dungeon didn't see it that way. It turns out dungeon thief marks are serious when you're orc nobility. Orcs do not like orc nobles who are thieves.” Lard Lump let out a hissing chuckling noise. “Perhaps it hits too close to home.”

  “Wait, those orcs are nobles?” Jeremy continued sipping his tea, it was starting to grow on him. “I'd hate to meet orc peasants.”

  “The orc spellcasters are children of an orc king,” she responded. “At least that's what they claimed. The other two orcs are fighters the king selected to protect his children. Rampage suggested the orc nobles get black marks to cover up their thief marks, but the only black mark this dungeon offers is Mean Kid. Being an orc noble with a Mean Kid black mark would be way worse than Thief. All the other orcs would laugh at them.”

  “So they returned my pendant to get rid of the thief mark?” Jeremy asked.

  “Yes. The dungeon rations were a required apology,” she refilled his cup. “The orcs were so mad. They kept trying to figure out how you got away from them, but couldn't. You must be very clever.”

  Jeremy felt more relaxed than he'd been since he entered the dungeon. Heck, before he'd entered the dungeon. “It wasn't that hard, and I got lucky.”

  Jeremy saw something on his stat sheet that gave him cold chills.

  You have been poisoned.

  “I have to go,” Jeremy said, jumping to his feet, looking around. The other kobolds were watching, but didn't look like they intended to attack. He grabbed his pack and walked calmly to the exit. Once he was outside the safe room, he ran. Not stopping until he was over the wall and back inside the labyrinth.

  “I can't tell you for sure that they intend to kill you, but kobolds are known for their treachery,” Flint said from beside him.

  The relaxed, pleasant feeling from whatever was in the tea wore off as he ran. “From the size of the poison notification, it's unlikely she was trying to kill me,” Jeremy said. “Do you think it was a mistake?”

  Flint chuckled. “It's against dungeon law to kill another adventurer inside a safe room. But, if they were to put you to sleep, drag you out of the safe room, and then kill you, that would be acceptable. Would your dungeon coin and supplies be worth getting a dungeon mark to a greedy kobold merchant?”

  “I don't know,” Jeremy responded.

  “Or, for that matter, our merchant might have kicked one of her people out of her party and suggested he might want to kill an adventurer, and then perhaps agree on how to share the loot once they leave the dungeon. That's what I would do in her place.”

  “I'm glad you've spent so much time thinking about how to kill me.”

  “It wasn't much time. Killing you would be ridiculously easy for me, but obviously not an option. As always, 'Don't Be An Idiot.'”

  ***

  Later that night, two kobold rogues, short swords drawn, approached Jeremy's cloak where it lay on the floor of the labyrinth, appearing to cover Jeremy's sleeping form.

  Jeremy watched from his perch on a nearby wall. He was wrapped in his spider silk cloak, and with his mana gathering pendant, he could hold Sneak indefinitely.

  Flint chuckled from his perch next to Jeremy, knowing the kobolds could neither see nor hear him.

  Jeremy felt an icicle in his chest burn as he pulled back his bow, wondering if he could kill the kobold adventurers in cold blood, and angry with them for not giving him a choice in the matter. From this range, killing the two kobolds would be easy.

  “Killing this group of kobolds would be an excellent way to gain levels,” Flint said. “And since they're trying to kill you, you don't have to worry about dungeon marks. You have every right to kill them in self defense, and you might even get valuable items in the process.”

  Just as Jeremy was about to put an arrow into the head of the nearest kobold. One of the kobolds spoke.