The kobolds would have let him stay for the rest of the night in their dungeon safe room, but there was such a thing as pushing one's luck. Jeremy reentered the labyrinth, feeling an ache of loneliness. He didn't trust Lard Lump or the other kobolds, but had enjoyed their brief companionship.

  He was careful to take a roundabout route to the dungeon school to prevent pursuit—no point in taking chances.

  “I've been trapped in this dungeon for at least nine months,” Jeremy said once he was back in the secret hallway. “I'm eleven now. What is happening at home? Is my mom even alive?”

  “I'm afraid I don't know, Jeremy,” Flint responded. “But let me suggest that this is all the more reason for you to get less weak as quickly as possible, so you can navigate the upper floors of this dungeon and get us out of here.”

  “In that we agree,” Jeremy said.

  “I believe you're approaching Enhanced Physical 3. Perhaps you should work out more.”

  “Really?” Jeremy was surprised.

  “Yes.”

  After a brutal workout session where Flint put him through every imaginable exercise, often while holding his breath and wearing a blindfold, he collapsed from exhaustion.

  ***

  “A strong adventurer would kill the giant dungeon rats with his bare hands,” Flint said the next morning, as Jeremy finished his burger and fries from the previous night.

  “I hate you,” Jeremy responded with a sigh.

  A rat the size of a small car charged. Jeremy backed up and punched and kicked its head with all his strength. The rat grabbed his leg with its teeth and threw him twenty feet; he slammed into a labyrinth wall.

  Jeremy pulled himself to his feet and charged, limping. Before he reached the rat, he jumped and pushed against a labyrinth wall with his feet to get behind the rat. The rat was fast and flexible. As he landed on its neck, it spun around, teeth lodging in his leg. He tried to strangle the rat or at least get hold of one of its legs to slow it down. The rat bit down deeper. Jeremy pulled out his knife and stabbed its throat, covering himself with green blood. Panicking, he kept stabbing until it stopped moving.

  With a groan, Jeremy drank a healing potion. His leg was badly bruised and bleeding, but fortunately, not broken. That monster encounter could have gone better.

  For the next rat, he climbed the approximately fifteen-foot-high labyrinth wall and waited for it to come by. He jumped from the wall, dropping down on the rat's back, stunning it, then slamming away at the rat with his fists until it died. He did this again and again.

  The next time he checked his stats, he had Enhanced Physical: 3.

  After each day of hunting rats, he would spend the evenings in the dungeon school, working on different things and arguing with Flint. He got out the magic smithy and tried to make it work.

  With great difficulty, he was able to lift the hammer and tongs, but couldn't make them do anything. Even the grinding wheel was completely useless to him.

  “Do you think I have to light the forge before I can get the smithy to do anything?” Jeremy asked.

  “Quite possibly,” Flint responded. “Since you don't have any magical crafting supplies to light the forge, there's little use arguing the point.”

  “Well, help me solve these dungeon puzzles,” Jeremy said, pulling out the five puzzles he'd found in the dungeon school. “What's inside them might help us get out of the dungeon.”

  “While I could solve them for you, dungeon puzzles were created to teach adventurers problem-solving skills, and I'd be doing you a grave disservice.”

  “Yeah. Right.” Jeremy fiddled with one of the puzzles. It was a hand-sized rhombohedron with twenty concentric circles on one of its eight sides. He moved the circles around so the lines between them matched. He turned the puzzle and started on a different side. This side had many small tiles that he could move around. The puzzle let out an angry beep.

  “RUN!” Flint shouted.

  Jeremy threw the puzzle across the room and flung himself out of the classroom doorway.

  BOOM! An explosion shook the dungeon school.

  Jeremy slowly pulled himself to his feet. It took a while for his hearing to return. The puzzle sat there innocently as if nothing had happened.

  “I would guess whatever you did was not correct,” Flint said.

  ***

  With Jeremy's other projects resulting in failure, he went back to Box. The more he studied the designs on Box, the more convinced he was that he'd found the unique one. It was the least unique looking design in the set of five, which is what convinced him it was the right one. “You'd tell me if I was going to lose an arm, right?” Jeremy reached inside.

  “Stop!” Flint responded. “I refuse to tell you what the correct choice is. But I will say you're being an idiot. As usual.”

  Box chirped encouragingly.

  “Well, there's one way to find out.” Jeremy grabbed what was inside Box, and quickly withdrew his arm. The other four holes closed, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd guessed right.

  With a final chirp goodbye, Box vanished.

  “One day your luck will run out, and the universe will be destroyed, all because you were an idiot.” Flint glared at him.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Jeremy studied what he'd pulled out. “Well, this is interesting.”

  ***

  Dungeon Stars are a very rare, magical, and most valuable form of currency. As a young adventurer, you are unlikely to find one, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. There are fewer than 100,000 in the entire dungeon universe!

  Dungeon Stars can purchase things that nothing else can. Attribute bonuses, special skills, extended lifespans, and many other wondrous things.

  If you find one, no doubt with the help of your many friends, you should be careful how you spend it. Just owning one provides imperceptible health and strength bonuses.

  Curiosity satisfied, Jeremy closed Book.

  ***

  There were four safe rooms on the second floor of the dungeon. Each morning, the dungeon would kick the kobolds out of their safe room, but seemed content to let the kobolds move up or down the red path to the next one over, making it easy for Jeremy to keep track of their location.

  Every few days, the dungeon store would respawn, repairing any damage and replenishing the missing toys. Each time this happened, the kobolds would enter the store and carefully pick up any puzzles.

  The kobolds looked nervously at Jeremy when he approached, moving away, giving him plenty of space. Though maybe it was the green ichor covering him from his latest rat kill. “Do you like dungeon puzzles?” he asked

  “No.” Shark's head bobbed up and down nervously as he looked up at Jeremy. “But we have no choice. Each of these puzzles contains a dungeon coin, or sometimes a healing potion, or even more rare, a poison antidote potion. Lard Lump loves poison antidote potions.”

  “Interesting.” Jeremy had been meaning to take his supplies to the large kobold to see if she was interested, but the thought of more bargaining with the cutthroat merchant made him nervous.

  “When doing dungeon puzzles from the toy store, you must be very careful, make a mistake and razors shoot out, and Lard Lump has to use healing potion to put fingers back on. She gets very mad.”

  “I have to ask,” Jeremy said. “Are all kobold females like Lard Lump?”

  “No, no, no,” Shark answered. “Lard Lump is merchant princess. Very beautiful, most females ugly compared to her.”

  “I see,” Jeremy said, trying not to laugh. “Is Lard Lump a normal name?”

  “Lard Lump is a very nice female name,” Shark responded. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small picture of a kobold, fat by male kobold standards, though skinny compared to Lard Lump. “Here is a picture of my sister, Aged Meat. Very nice girl, but compared to our princess...”

  Jeremy supposed it made sense. He'd met human girls with names like Candy or Olive. Only kobolds chose names of foods that appealed to their kind.

  When they arrived at the kobold's safe room, Jeremy took out his five puzzles. “If you could help me solve these, I'd share the prizes.”

  “Oohh,” Lard Lump waddled over. She picked up the five hand-sized puzzles and examined their intricate designs carefully. “Very nice. I give you 250 dungeon coin for them. Very good deal.”

  “I was hoping someone could help me solve them. What's inside should be worth quite a bit.”

  “Yes. If you can solve them. Very hard puzzles. Better to sell to me for 500 dungeon coin. Very good deal and final offer. A rich magic school loves these puzzles, teach children problem solving and persistence, and whatever is inside is always very valuable.”

  “Yes,” Jeremy said. “That is why if you help me solve these, I'll split the prizes with you. They should be worth a lot more than 500 dungeon coins.”

  Lard Lump summoned one of her people. “This is our best puzzle solver.”

  The rogue kobold, named Creature That Lurks Under The Water, who Jeremy mentally renamed Lurker, studied the puzzles.

  “Can you solve these?” Jeremy asked.

  Lurker picked up one of the puzzles.

  “I should tell you, one of the puzzles exploded when I worked on it.”

  Lurker put the puzzle down quickly. “In a year, maybe.”

  “Unless you can solve the puzzles, they're worthless to you,” Lard Lump said. “Consider my offer.”

  Jeremy put away the puzzles and took out ten of his poison antidote potions. “What would you give me for these?”

  Lard Lump looked bored as she examined each potion. “I would give you 100 dungeon coin for these. Very good deal.” To Jeremy's amusement, her lie detector ring was nowhere to be seen.

  “Don't think so,” Jeremy tried to take his potions back, only to be blocked by Lard Lump.

  “Let's not be hasty, Jirmy,” she said, pushing him back. “What would you want in exchange for these?”

  “How much would the dungeon charge for these potions?” Jeremy asked curious.

  “The dungeon does not sell healing or poison antidote potions. Believe me, I checked. What do you want for these?”

  “Why do you want poison potions?”

  “Magic poison potions are one of the few cures for magic poisons. Very valuable to the right people,”

  “I see. What else do you offer?” Jeremy asked, curious. “Do you sell armor, weapons?”

  “I have no armor or weapons for sale, as the dungeon offers better quality items at better prices than I possibly could. I sell food and drink. I also sell substances for beings to relax. I have good human tea, and what you call tobacco. I also have this,” she pulled out a bottle of glowing yellow liquid. “Brewed from magical herbs, it is a drink humans call paradise ale. Drink a little of this and you will be floating on sunshine, your troubles forgotten. I will give you a small taste, so you may decide if you like it.”

  Jeremy shuddered, backing away, thoughts of his worthless brother's drug use running through his mind. “That stuff must be for adults. You do realize this is the Children's Dungeon?”

  “Adventurers of all ages have needs. Medicinal and recreational substances to help them relax and ease their burdens. I sell things to satisfy.”

  “You're a drug dealer. Is it legal to sell this stuff to children?”

  “No law in dungeon,” she said. “Would you like to try or not?”

  “No,” Jeremy said. “You wouldn't know anything about magic smithies?”

  “I come from a humble, small-town merchant family,” she said. “The only magic smithy I know of is a five-day journey by horse. So no.”

  Jeremy shrugged. It had been worth a try. “Where I come from, when we age a year, we have this thing called a birthday party, with cake and ice cream and Pepsi, and I've become a year older since I was pushed into the dungeon.” He ignored a loud (to him) groan from Flint.

  “What is birthday party cake and ice cream?” She asked.

  Jeremy told her how his people celebrated birthdays with cake, candles, and ice cream.

  “I will give you birthday party cake and ice cream and Pepsi, in exchange for these and two more poison potions, but the eleven ceremonial candles will be returned to me when you blow them out, and all ceremonial party materials returned to me after your birthday. You will keep the cake and ice cream. Very good deal.” Lard Lump quickly made Jeremy's poison potions vanish.

  “Let's hope you don't have cause to regret selling those,” Flint said as Jeremy pulled out two more poison potions and gave them to her.

  “I still have a few left,” Jeremy said. “And speaking of birthdays, I have just the thing in mind for a present.”