Chapter 12 - The people from below

My insectoid spies reported sightings of a humanoid race. They were less than half the size of the first-ever humanoids I saw, at about 1 to 1,25 meters ( 3-4 feet).

They had large heads and were very bulky. Muscles covered their whole bodies together with sheets of different materials. My spies reported their arrival shortly before I felt them in my own domain.

So it took a closer look at them. Their muscular, but small, frame was covered in fat and a lot of hair. Especially their heads were a jungle of hair, obstructing even the females‘ and kids‘ heads.

Most of the body, especially the mens’, were protected by sheets of metal. The women wore less of this hard cloth and especially the children nearly wore nothing. Though every one of the race had a strong protective covering. Metal sheets, leather sheets, or thick fur.

The bipedal race stopped close to entering my dungeon entrance, the hole from the gigantic worm. I had changed the first zone so it would fit the new entrance.

The humanoids settled down outside of me. They set up fires to cook various foods, placed down furs to sit and relax and build a small camp. Once the caravan of travelers ended I counted them, there were around 200 people.

Ranging from tier 1 to tier 4, everything was present. Leading the small tribe were a group of elders, everyone responsible for something else. Though the most powerful was the tier 4, elder of the military. He took care of defense, and set up guard posts, managed the distribution of weapons, and trained his soldiers.

Most of them were fitted with a full metal sheet covering, head to toe. Together with a large shield and a war hammer, they would be formidable foes.

It took one whole day before the elders send someone into my dungeon. In the meanwhile they had constructed a defensive wall, blocking part of the tunnel they came from. Furthermore, they expanded their small area, excavating stone from the side of the tunnel. They were quite fast at that, already having created an elongated cavern larger than my first zone’s largest cavern.

Back to the scouting squat within my dungeon. They were outfitted with the village's best gear. All of them were in tier 3, weak to peak, and had a large variety of gear and weapons. Ranging from, shields, war hammers, swords, spears, and slings. Furthermore, they had torches, normal hammers, and pickaxes, normal axes, and rope.

They looked like a professional team, specially fitted to explore new terrain. When they had finally arrived at my first cavern they made quick work of its inhabitants.

I knew not to be too aggressive, the delvers weren’t a danger for me. Similar to the novice delvers of the aggrand tribe they only explored my dungeon, searching for materials they needed and furthering their cultivation.

They completed the first zone without any challenges. Occasionally they were attacked by swarms of mouses, getting larger and larger. Towards the end, they fought against one of the mouse kingdoms‘ rulers and challenged the red mouse guardian.

On the way, they observed their surroundings. Harvested the rare herb, cut down some trees, and took samples of the various rocks.

They oohed and aahed at the right places. Talking with each other and trying to memorize my layout.

In the second zone, their small size allowed them to explore the smaller tunnels. Getting access to every large corner of my dungeon. They looked interested in my different kinds of snakes and skinned the majority of them, on spot.

The guardian, the entanglomination, surprised them and they tried to study how it worked while kiting it around.

During their whole dive, I learned more and more about the small race. They were very curious about and interested especially in the rock and metals found within my walls. The first challenge they found was within the third zone.

The long time they took through the previous rooms made them quite tired. This, together with the multiple powerful guardians in the triangle challenges cost their first injuries.

All three of the challenges weren’t really fit for them. Their small size didn’t allow them to hit the fast bats and the slings proved difficult to hit with. The water of the anguillian ocean didn’t prove optimal for the divers. They had to lay down their heavy plating to not drown in the deep lake. And the acid from the slimy rivers proved fatal to their metal sheets and intricate tools.

In mind of their recent difficulties and long journey through my dungeon, they returned to their tribe. There they reported the journey to the assembled council. All the elders listened carefully and discussed the report later on. Though sadly I wasn’t able to understand anything because no one had yet died within my domain.

I wasn’t able to accurately tell the time, without anything to judge it by. But around a day later another team went into my dungeon. It wasn’t the same one as before and they were a lot weaker.

5 delvers, ranging from Tier 1 weak to peak. I was quite surprised they wanted to send a team this weak into my dungeon. But after thinking about it I summarised that the tribe believed that I was just another underground cave.

They expected that most of its dangerous inhabitants were defeated yesterday when the exploration group cleared my dungeon. Though what they didn’t know was then my environment automatically respawned and repopulated the lost mobs as soon as possible.

And now a group of weaklings made their way into my domain, without knowing the danger awaiting them. I wasn’t able to stop them and also wouldn’t, wanting to know their language and what they were.

The Team made its way into my domain, without a care in the world. The occasional mouse was quickly defeated until they were at the first zone’s center. The guardian, together with the mouse royalty overwhelmed the fighters. They tried to desperately defend themselves against my defenders.

Forming a shield wall, so they were protected from all sides. They swung their hammers around and shot an acidic bottle into masses of mice. But they were overrun by my swarm, not strong and trained enough to resist the kingdom.

In the end, all 5 of them fell and I finally had my long-awaited kills and information. I now knew the race to be wild dwarfs. They ranged from wild dwarfs tier 1 to rough dwarfs tier 2. At tier 3 they were dwarfs and their leader was a tier 4 shield dwarf.

They were an industrious race, very productive, and loved war. They produced the best metalworkers and most coordinated armies. Though when at home they devolved into drunkards, worshiping ale like it was their one and only god.

While the wild and rough dwarfs were more primal the normal dwarfs were the best example of their race. Coordinated, passionate, curious, and drunk.

The shield dwarf was a further evolution, resulting in a larger and more robust dwarf. Impossible to hurt or knockdown with the large shield, they were most likely related to walls.

With me finally knowing which intelligent race dives my dungeon I wanted to engage in diplomacy with them. It had worked quite well the last time with the aggrands so it should be the same with the dwarfs.

Meanwhile, the camp outside my domain noticed the novice group’s absence. To check after them they send in the same team as yesterday, they should provide information and retrieve the dwarfs, dead or alive.

Once they entered my domain and were just about to reach the cleaned-up battlefield I crafted a mind bridge.

Instead of, like the aggrands, being slightly cautious towards my connection, the dwarfs went crazy. The second their leader sensed me trying to connect to his mind he strengthened his mind and formed a defensive position with the others.

The leader meditated in the center of the party protecting him. He tried to desperately defend his mind against my mind bridge. Though with my higher cultivation and slightly specialized evolution for exactly this I came through to his mind.

I greeted the dwarf with a “Hello, how are you”, a phrase I had borrowed from the aggrands. Instead of responding like I expected the dwarf began to scream out loud.

Dwarf leader: “Get out of my mind, leave me alone, evil spirit”.

The dwarf was no close to foaming, screaming with a frenzied look in his eyes. I just tried to calm him down by talking to him and sending him calm emotions.

The dwarf leader responded in a fearful shriek out loud: “Get away, you have killed our brethren and now try to control me”.

Together with his last sentence, he made a last push against my connection. It was enough to allow him totally free movement. His hand rushed to a flask on his belt. He downed it in seconds and the protection around his mind grew strong enough to block me off.

I could have broken through if I wanted, using some force and mana. Though the remaining dwarfs immediately picked up their leader and ran outside my Dungeon, like their life was in danger.

Once they arrived at the camp a group of elders and a crowd of dwarfs was assembled. They stood there, wide-eyed and fist clenched together showing white knuckles.

The delving group arrived at the high elder, the shield dwarf. They reported on the ongoings inside my dungeon, though they didn’t know I was a dungeon. The group reported an evil spirit controlling the caves that tried to corrupt their leader. The novice delver group, that went in before, was either dead or already altered.

Following their report, the council met for a meeting in their tent. They discussed what to do and how to banish the evil spirit, aka me. The longer I listened the more concerned I got. The discussion was clearly going in a direction I wouldn't like.

In the end, the elders came to a conclusion, which they shared with their tribe. They told them about the evil spirit living in the caves. About how I corrupted and control the beings within me. And convinced the dwarfs that I tried to taint the delving group's leader.

Their plan was to banish the evil spirit living within the caves in one week's time. Until then they would build up their forces and assemble all needed equipment.

While the dwarfs prepared their forces I didn’t idle around. I would have liked to build another zone, but the amount of mana I had was insufficient. Instead, I constructed more traps and designed some more.

The knowledge I got from the dead dwarfs allowed me some significant improvement on this side. My first zone got some normals pitfalls and rockfalls. The Pitfalls were a simple improvement from before, with spikes at the bottom and the rockfalls let boulders rain from the ceiling.

In the second zone rolling boulders, pitfalls, rockfalls, and slide traps were added to spiced up the challenge. The proudest thing I build in this zone was a three-trap combo. From a rockfall trap, a boulder would fall down, this would then be the boulder used in the rolling boulder trap. At the end of the boulders' journey in would fall down into a pitfall trap. On the way the slide trap, slipping and sliming up the tunnel would prove a challenge to overcome.

Further in, the triangle challenges got even more challenging. I designed various traps, fitted for the different caverns. The slimy rivers had slime traps and sticky traps. The anguillian ocean had ice spikes and a slowly rising water level. At last, the bat cave had rock falls, pitfalls, and rolling boulders.

The new trap, the ice spikes, were lances of ice that would fall down from the top. And the stick traps would stick the intruder to the surface they were applied to.

From there on the 4th zone got even scarier. Ice spikes, rolling boulders, slime traps, rising water levels, and avalanches. The avalanches let parts of the cliff fall down into the depths.

The fifth zone had to be as it was, the alpha guardian's presence was too strong to let me place any additional defenders.

Though the 6th zone was a paradise of traps. Pitfalls with lava, rock falls, Lavafalls, avalanches, Stalectits, rolling boulders, rising lava level, hot stone, pressurized lava, and my dwarfish-inspired arrow trap.

With my trap-wise improvements to my zones, I felt ready for what the dwarfish exorcists could throw at me. The add ons took me nearly a whole week and the dwarfs were already assembling their troops.

Let’s see what these drunken bastards got!!!