Valleria could tell something was wrong even this distant from the castle. The few hours of mornlight in the Hallow were rapidly drawing to close, the rainbow lighting running through the ceiling dimming by the second.

Still, the glow of white mushrooms shone over the hallow from within the little fortress that they had pushed to the surface.

“Bodies?” Simon asked before she could, arriving next to what was left of the pile of corpses outside the wall. “What the hell… they ate them?”

Valleria arrived beside him panting, staring down at the remains of a purple Kobold. “This one was one of ours. No horns.” She grimaced as she lifted the remains of its head from the ground. “What the hell… whats wrong with them?”

“Shit.” Simon leaned down beside her. “We had been hearing reports that some of the clan’s Kobolds had been acting strange but nothing like this. They’re fucking animals. Even our clan hasn’t sunk like this.”

“Boost me inside.” Valleria replied, before turning. “And Axel. I’ll need help pulling the rope.

Simon pressed himself to the wall, extending his hands.

Valleria stepped backwards, taking a running start to jump into Simon’s hand as he pushed upwards, throwing her over the wall.

There was a crash that shook the fortress from the other side, and a huge rolling noise.

Silver ran to the gate, looking through it, but Valleria was standing just fine, brushing herself off. “You okay?” Silver asked.

“Yeah— that wasn’t me.” She said, pulling on the rope that lifted the door. “Help with this!” As she leaned back with her full body weight, it only just began to budge. Several of the other Kobolds helped, grabbing at the bottom and lifting the gate.

“This is why you always have a boulder.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Traps, Mark. Just as many as you can fit.”

The dozens of feral Kobolds gnawed at the stone grating— but not for long. There was a thunderous noise as the gigantic, perfectly circular stone, carved free from the top of the staircase, rolled down the stairs with a thunderous noise.

“You know, simple is better.”

“Okay! I get it! You were right! Boulder traps were a good idea after all. You can shut up now. Its not like it reversed the damage up top.”

“Flamethrower traps.”

“What?”

“Flamethrower traps could’ve defended the Castle. Good to know for next time. Looks like the boulder is working okay, though.”

As Alverost spoke, the rolling stone crushed a Feral Kobold, which momentarily writhed beneath the stone. There were hundreds of cracking noises that were only audible to the omniscient perception of a dungeon over the thump, thump, thumping noise of the stone sphere rolling down the stairs. The screaming, though, was mercifully short, at least once the boulder reached them.

Where they fell, a pink light bloomed, coalescing into weapons, armor, metal and coins behind the boulder.

The screaming until then was loud, the feral Kobolds intensifying their attempts to break into the dungeon proper in response to the noise chasing from up the stairs.

The Kobolds behind the gate, wielding quickly fashioned spears of pure fungiwood, stared with some trepidation at the shaking, rattling gate.

They jumped when the stone reached the bottom with a crash, pinning a dozen Feral Kobolds beneath it. Gore and viscera splattered out of the grate as feral Kobolds exploded from the force, their insides quickly becoming outsides.

Some still lived, covered in Viscera and pinned beneath they stone, they wildly reached out and flailed with hands caught in the doors grating, screaming incessantly.

“No more pushing on its domain, I think.” Mark spoke first.

There was a chorus of screaming noises from the pinned and flailing Kobolds.

“I agree. We will need more weapons too. And if we lose minions at this rate, probably some more Kobolds. You should accelerate your attempts to speed up their growth.”

The screaming of the Kobolds trapped under the boulder intensified as they tried to wriggle free. The sound of the Feral Kobolds screaming was interspersed with a mix of wet, throaty coughs. Blood splattered from the pile of mangled Kobolds.

“Its not like we can have a clone lab or something. But I’ll see what I can do. We can look at whats enabling the mushrooms and millipedes to grow so rapidly. You’ll have to help me with that, thoug; there is something involved with their mana there.”

As Mark finished speaking, Valleria finally bound down the stairs, reaching the boulder.

The Kobolds under the boulder were wheezing and squealing.

“Will someone PLEASE shut them up?” Alverost asked. One of the Kobolds complied, walking up to them and stabbing with the fungi wood spear. Where they fell, pink mana exploded into the air, suffusing the air so heavily it tinted it, before it collapsed into loot.

“Hello!? Mark? Alverost!? Are you okay?” Valleria yelled down the stairs. The other Kobolds outside, Silver and Axel included, were quickly catching up.

“Yeah. The entire troupe of Kobolds we left to defend was wiped out though.” As Mark replied, Valleria searched for a way around the giant boulder.

“Here, let me just…” Mark began melting the boulder away. It was hollow on the inside to save space, and quickly crumbled in half as he burned a thin line through it.

A broken, Feral Kobold did its best impression of standing from under the rock, snarling. Before it could move, Axel reached the bottom of the stairs, goring it. There was a flash of pink, then more as Axel stabbed and carved every Kobold on the bottom of the stairs, even the ones that weren’t moving.

“Alverost!” He snarled, looking through the gate, then paused. “None make it through?” Axel asked, his speech only half broken instead of fully.

“They’re developing quickly…” Mark spoke first. “We’re both fine, Axel, they didn’t make it through the gate. How did the negotiation go?”

“Good.” Silver spoke, striding slowly and confidently to the grate as Kobolds worked to raise it. “New friends. Following close.”

“What?” Alverost asked, pivoting his view. He saw a medley group of Kobolds walking slowly down the stairs. The six of them were huddled close together, staring up at the ceiling and jumping at their shadows cast by the soft white fungaloid lights. “Get inside the gate and shut it!”

Valleria looked bewildered. “Its okay! They’re allies.”

“We shouldn’t let them anywhere that close to the core. Who knows if they’re just pretending?”

“Hmmm. Alverost makes a good point. We should make a more formal area to welcome guests… but for now we should keep them on the other side of our defenses.” Mark said.

Valleria face-palmed. “Alright, fine.”

The group of Kobolds took that moment to arrive.

“Valleria? Is the fight over?” Simon asked.

“Fight over.” Axel replied, stepping away from the grate.

“I’m glad.” Simon said, stepping down the stairs. “Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to our new allies. But what could have instigated clan Bighorn to attack?”

“That… would be us.” Mark said. “We pressed on a dungeons domain adjacent to ours and pushed it back. I suspect that these Kobolds had already been changed by the dungeon, and the dungeon ordered them to attack us when we forced it into a corner, so to speak.”

“You immediately attacked it while we were out!?” Valleria turned, shouting.

“Did I? No! Of course not, Alverost—”

“Valleria? Who are you talking to?” Simon asked.

“Right… you can’t hear them. Mark and Alverost are the ruler of this floor.”

“Mark and Alverost…” Simon walked down the stairs, nonchalantly stepping atop the pile of bodies at its bottom, before staring out the grate. “Where are they?”

“Well… you can’t see them either.”

Simon clutched the blade at his waist. “Is this a joke? A trap?” He tensed.

“No, they’re just—”

“Gods.” Axel interrupted her thought.

“Gods?” Simon asked.

“All powerful. All seeing. Creators. They make food. Make Kobolds stronger. Build fortress.” Axel said.

“They healed Valleria. Sent her to make alliance.” Silver added.

“Well, whatever. Mark. Alverost. If you’re listening. Our clan will agree to alliance with you as long as you can provide five more baskets of food for us.”

“Only five? Tell him we agree, Valleria.”

“Only!? Thats enough food to feed a few families…” Valleria swore under her breath.

“Whats that?” Simon asked.

“Mark agrees to your terms, Simon.”

“Everyone! Remove the corpses! Bring the loot drops inside so that we can sort them. Mark, start making them food. I’ll work on categorizing what dropped and seeing what we can use.