The glass faun perched in the treetops, watching as its prey shuffled closer and closer to the corpse of the dead flower-slug. It was an enormous blue-bellied crab, its back disguised with grass until it could settle down, pull its legs in, and appear to be nothing more than a shallow hill. Dark beady eyes swiveled suspiciously on the end of long stalks.

As the crab reached out its pincers to steal the prize, the golem jumped.

The beast reacted a second too late, shuffling to the side as the faun landed atop its back. Instantly, a half-dozen smaller crabs popped up among the grass, the crab’s progeny swarming towards the golem as it drove its spear down into their mother’s shell.

The beast let out a clicking, gooey cry of pain as the spear pierced through her carapace, the faun throwing its weight against the shaft to dig the point in circles and widen the hole in her armor. The smaller crabs leapt onto its back, their pincers bouncing ineffectually off the golem’s glass hide.

Screaming, the mother crashed sideways into a tree, trying to throw the attacker from her back. The faun simply clung on, unbothered by the tiny crabs swarming over its face.

But Izzis couldn’t say the same. As the swarm came crawling up onto his perch atop the faun’s head he was forced to climb higher and higher into the golem’s long horns. “Kill it kill it kill it!” The homunculus wailed as tiny claws snapped at his feet.

Lifting his spear, the faun drove it down again. And again. With each strike, huge quantities of blue blood welled up from the wound, until finally the tip of the spear drove down into the creature’s brain. It let out a burbling whimper and collapsed.

The faun shook off the little crabs, reaching up to peel one away from the howling Izzis.

From above, there was clapping.

A small creature like a cross between a man and a cricket hovered above them. Deep blue chitin covered backwards-bending limbs, and it had the dark segmented eyes of a fly, but its overall shape was human, its face quite handsome in a lean and predatory way. Wings sprouted from its back, buzzing in the air with a manic shiver of motion.

And as Izzis looked up, he saw there were dozens of them, perched on the trees or circling through the air.

The little homunculus gulped. “Who you?”

“I am the Marquis of the Pellucid. And this is my forest.” The proud little creature had a sword the size of a needle strapped to his side, and a quiver full of thorn-sized arrows slung around his shoulders. Many of his knights rode hopping toads or lizards with clever sucker grips that let them clamber up the bark of the trees.

“Izzis was lost.” The homunculus knew a veiled threat when he heard one, and the bows being pointed at him from a dozen directions were not very veiled. Small bows, yes, but very pointy ones.

“Well allow me to escort you to my court, where you’ll be guests of honor.” The Marquis said, his tone mocking, giving them a sweeping bow.

“Uhhh. Yes! Yes, but I have friends. I should find them first.” Izzis had a plan. A very clever plan. He would lead them back towards the portal, yes, and then he would make his greatest escape of all...

I had come up with the cleverest of ideas. I was practically giddy with my own mad genius as I worked.

Previously, the exploding Somnolents I had perfected were useful only in rare situations, because I couldn’t just plant a tempermental, exploding growth in my gardens without causing havoc. They were too volatile to survive and reproduce.

But that was because they burst as soon as they were touched. What if I changed the trigger?

What if it was a specific chemical that caused them to detonate?

I had bred a new species of ant, using the ones I had found on the far side of the lake as a base. In nature they had used sprays of pheromones to communicate. I was simply adding one more to their arsenal, a clinging chemical spray they would use to defend their nests, marking an aggressor so that any exploding blooms nearby would detonate at a touch.

And of course, they would plant and tend the blooms in return, something like the relationship between clownfish and anemones. They were the first true symbiotes I had designed and I was proud of how intricately connected my biosphere was becoming.

I had worked on just three ants, a gravid queen and two bodyguards with thickened armor and enormous pincers. At the size of a finger they were large enough to put up a fight against the juvenile nacre-spiders and the frogs that would prey on them. I dug for her a burrow near the doorway, and let her get down to the business of spawning a new colony.

Personally I found the way organic creatures reproduced slightly laughable. All that messy work, when I could just will life to be. They didn’t know what they were missing.

[ Cultivator Ant ]

This species has a curious relationship with the local flora, cultivating a volatile and dangerous species of mushroom to guard its nests.

I was just feeling especially proud of what I’d accomplished today when Izzis came charging out of the portal, a hail of tiny arrows sticking out of his back.

A swarm of tiny soldiers flooded through, half-men and half-insect, dive bombing him and slashing his back with tiny silver swords. The homunculus howled in pain and swatted at them- by their standards he was a raging bull, his fists the size of their heads, no taller than the little people but built thick where they were as skinny as stickbugs.

The glass faun handled itself with grace and precision. When I had made it, the golem had seemed rather dull, but here it came alive in the heat of battle. Its glass spear scythed through the flying battlefield, chopping a bowman in half. It speared the little creatures out of the air one after the other.

I sent mental surges of rage and fury towards the invaders resonating throughout my Dungeon. A low-flying swordsman was snapped out of the air as the water beneath surged up and a reelfish lunged from the depths. The mantis I had created leapt through the air, her claws flashing once, twice, severed body parts raining down alongside their bleeding owners.

As their cavalry came through the portal riding frog and lizard steeds, they were faced with serpents that rose from the grass, looming giants by comparison, by gardens of the poisonous nematocelia that stung them as they fled, by nacre-spiders with their bright armors and bladed limbs.

It was a slaughter.

And wonder of wonders, every one of the little creatures that fell had a bright, delicious soul. On par with the humans I had devoured in the past, worth fifty lesser beings.

I didn’t just level. I leveled and rushed towards the next stage. As I crossed the boundary of the fifth level, I saw something shift, the soul fragments suddenly doing less to fill me, as if the gap to the next milestone was a magnitude higher.

Even so, the war in miniature unfolding across my gardens was a bounty to reap.

It just wasn’t so one-sided as I’d believed.

Poison. As the battle raged on, my creatures began to drop dead from seemingly insignificant wounds, or slow until they were overwhelmed. Even the tiniest scratch seemed to be enough for the virulent poisons to set to work.

Only the golems were immune, wading through the battlefield like leviathans. Adamant with his clumsy swings did more to intimidate than to harm, and the leonine fungi golem refused to move from his perch atop what I supposed must be a very comfortable rock, simply swiping anything that got too close out of the air.

But the glass golem was devastating.

Corpses rained where its spear moved, and it was like a dancer, refusing to stay still for long enough to be swarmed.

That was until their mages came into play. A little creature hovered above the rest, weaving his hands through the air. Golden letters as small as sparks danced around his slender, chitin-covered hands. I ordered my mantis to slay him before he could complete the spell, but her way was barred by a swarm of the little bastards, slashing at her green armor as she bulldozed through.

In the end it was too late.

As the mage finished his incantation the light around his hands flared, forming a flaming golden chain that lashed around the glass golem’s body. The golem was bound hand and foot, its smooth mirrored flesh beginning to boil into bubbles and charred craters under the immense heat of the chains.

And in the moment it took for the golem to tear free a half-dozen little soldiers charged for Izzis. They tossed lassos over his head and arms, over his wings. Their wings strained as they pulled him free from the golem’s head. The homunculus howled and clawed uselessly, being dragged into the air.

They hauled him back through the portal, and like that, the retreat was sounded. The mage lifted a horn from his side and blew a single trilling note. The soldiers broke away, flying back through the doorway and leaving my garden littered with corpses. Their side and mine had suffered greatly.

But only I could harvest Mana from the dead. And the little things were rich with Mana, their bodies flickering and breaking into motes of glimmering magic as I eroded them down to nothing.

A few were left alive but wingless and unable to retreat, or pinned down by juvenile nacre-spiders eagerly weaving them into glittering coffins. I paid them no attention. One was staggering slowly towards the portal, his left side covered with vicious burns from the sting of the nematocelia, his left leg twitching uselessly.

“I- I am the Marquis’ son! I am worth silver, magic, the return of your imp, whatever you desire!” He howled, as the undergrowth around him shifted, a viper’s arrow-shaped head pushing the grass aside as it came slithering towards him.

But truthfully, I didn’t have much control over my creations, especially once I’d worked them into a blood frenzy like this. If I had really wanted to, maybe I could have saved him.

But even if his offer intrigued me slightly, I couldn’t go denying one of my pretty snakes such a tasty meal. Or go robbing myself of a soul fragment.

There was a flash of green scales, and he was gone.

I surveilled my domain, taking in the damage. My mantis had survived, and the damage wasn’t too terrible. The sheer amount of Mana in each of the little creatures made the skirmish a net win for me even before I had levelled.

I suppose I had lost Izzis. I also supposed I could mount a rescue mission for him.

But again, I wasn’t all that interested. The homunculus was not the most loved nor most useful of my minions, and as a foreigner to the Dungeon, lacked even the possibility of evolution.

No, my time and attention was too precious.

It’s possible I could have been slightly more generous if I wasn’t distracted by the possibility of levelling up, but I was. Oh, I was.

Because finally, I was being offered the chance I’d wanted from the first.

You have reached Fifth Level.

You may now choose your final Attunement. At this time, you may select an Attunement of up to one rank higher than usual.

You may choose to receive a Bonus Schema OR increased Mana per Hour OR The Great Wheel’s Whim (II).

You may increase Anima OR Logos OR Arcana by one.

The chance to choose from the highest tier of Attunements.