After several days of non-stop mining, the new section is finally finished. Whilst I was working, my wildlife had already begun to secure a foothold. I’ll admit this didn’t happen independently, there was a bit of micromanagement on my part. For instance, rather than waiting for the soil horizons to build up on their own, a process that can often take decades, I scooped substrate in from the surface. I won’t bore you with the details.

Actually, if I’m going to be talking to myself, I may as well go ahead! Welcome back to middle school biology! Usually, the first colonists of a rocky surface are lichens, specialized fungi that have formed a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic algae. The fungus provides shelter, water, and nutrients to the algae which in turn photosynthesizes and produces sugars that it shares with its host. Lichens help break apart the surface of stone which allows for new species to move in, namely mosses. The mosses and lichens grow and decay, slowly building up the soil thickness until hardy weeds can take root. The soil continues to build up as larger plants move in over time. You get the picture.

That’s fun, these guys are lightning-fast active-chase carnivores who prey on other insects such as ants. I take this opportunity to will them to leave my leafcutters alone. Other ants are fair game, though.

What’s even more interesting is their larvae. A juvenile tiger beetle resembles a worm with a shielded head. On that head is a hefty pair of menacing mandibles. These spawns of Satan will dig a tunnel and block off the entrance with their armored heads. When an insect walks by, they will lunge out of their burrow and clamp down with their jaws, pulling them inside their lair. Imagine a miniature bobbit worm except on land. ‘Nuff said.

If I can find a way to ease the Square-Cube Law’s death grip on arthropods, I’ll be golden. I can think of several obvious defensive applications for these fellas.

In other news, my workforce has expanded to 4000 and the normal leafcutters have already begun to build a satellite nest in the new room. Furthermore, the adaptable buggers have even begun to properly utilize the dungeon helpers in their chores.

Be that as it may, frankly, I haven’t given the helpers many opportunities to assist their siblings lately. I’ve been working them to the… exoskeleton? In fact, they’ve transported so much rhyolite that I had to order them to spread the tails of our operation over a wide area in the field above us. The reason? The pile of stone had been growing so large that I was beginning to worry it would attract too much attention. Though I haven’t seen any people on the surface, I have no doubt in my core they exist.

Onwards!

The purple bulbs haven’t shown any signs of growth, much to my dismay, but they still seem to be perfectly healthy. Still no notification… The cavern moss, or “” as Mr. Normal refers to it, was added a couple days ago. It spread in a few places while not completely overtaking the existing moss. One characteristic that sets it apart from the other mosses is its sticky bioluminescent sporophytes. I suspect this serves to attract insect carriers for its spores. The only reason I hadn’t noticed this before in the natural cave is because they weren’t “in bloom.” Apparently, all of the cave moss blooms in synchrony, which is truly fascinating. Do they release an airborne chemical signal or detect some other environmental cue? A question for another time…

Now for a throwback to the early days, it’s time for a fire flower update! Sorry to get your hopes up, but there’s been no discernable change in their condition. They haven’t shown any signs of growth and Mr. Normal still hasn’t mentioned anything. I’m going to keep them though, they’re too cool to not be useful.

Keeping to my word, I begin to work on collecting some new animals for my dungeon. While I work on some trap designs, I will the regular sized leafcutters to begin collecting bugs and seeds to be deposited at a designated location.

In an attempt to avoid needing to widen my surface pinhole, I gather up a bunch of rhyolite chunks already deposited topside and merge them together. The structural integrity of my creations will suffer as a result, but that shouldn’t hinder their operation. I begin to shape a dozen elongated hollow boxes from the merged stone with dimensions of 8 cm x 20 cm x 1 m and a generous wall thickness of 4 cm. On each, I then cut out one of the square faces such that each box has one open side.

I expend my dungeon influence farther over the land and put the 12 animal traps in place. Each one is spaced 3 m away from their closest neighbor. I lay them down on their sides so an animal can easily walk through the entrance. Looking about, I probably went overboard, but it’s not like it was difficult so I don’t worry about it. Next, I slice slots into one side of each box. I then cut the previously discarded former sides down to size, they’ll function as a door that slides through the slots.

As much as I’d love to flex my inventor’s talent, without access to a greater variety of materials like rope, wood, or metal, I realize that it wouldn’t be worth the effort. I will be manually operating these traps, when I notice an animal taking the bait, I will quickly slide the doors shut. Lately I’ve noticed a significant growth in my ability to multitask, paradoxically I have no trouble interpreting senses coming from multiple locations simultaneously. That’s likely a result of adapting to my new nature as a dungeon core. As such, I should be able to keep an eye on things while also working on other projects. I bait each trap with either the dead invertebrates or seeds that the regular leafcutter ants had procured earlier and shift my focus away.

I have a couple plans that should satisfy some short-term needs I can start laboring on right now. One simple idea is creating a dedicated hidden core room for trying situations. With the success of my singular ventilation duct, I want to similarly isolate my core behind a sturdy domain-permeable barrier. If my dungeon is ever discovered, having a hidden core could very well save my life.

About 6 m of the way down the new tunnel leading to the disk-shaped room, I focus on a portion of the mossy tunnel ceiling which is particularly dense with vegetation. With practiced ease, I cut a grill into the volcanic stone that will serve as a grate leading to a small temporary cubby that will house my core. I leave a large enough gap for my 10-centimeter-wide core to fit through, I’ll backfill later.

Steeling my nerves, I prepare to move my core for the first time. My attempts to telekinetically hoist my core into the air are met with failure. I’m even unable to lift the object underneath it. I saw this coming though, so I’d already requested a contingent of 4 helpers to assist me.

Each ant grasps the opaque red surface of my crystal cluster and works in unison to move me to my new home. As soon as I am lifted off the ground, however, I instantly notice something new. As I’m being carried along, my dungeon domain is moving with me. Though its original shape is maintained, as the leading edge makes contact the oncoming walls, I lose control of that area. In other words, as I am moved along, the portions of my domain shifted into stone are destroyed. Even my core’s orientation seems to be directly tied to my domains!

I’m not too alarmed though, expanding my domain is a piece of cake, it shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes to reclaim everything I’ve lost.

It takes only 2 minutes to complete the journey to my new mount. I dismiss the ants and spend a little while reclaiming everything as well as patching the temporary hole on my domain-permeable vent. I put the finishing touches on my hiding place by ensuring it is fully obscured by vines and moss. Though my mana regeneration rate seems to have decreased slightly (it’s probably being inhibited by the stone grate over my core cubby), the difference is negligible. In fact, on the whole, my regeneration rate has skyrocketed thanks to the proliferation of wildlife in my newest (and largest) room.

It seems logical that I wouldn’t be able to lift myself because doing so would also move my domain relative to my core. In essence, it boils down to Newtons 3rd law, “for every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.” Without something to push on, I couldn’t have been lifted up. When the ants carried me, their standing pushed down on the floor just as the floor pushed up on them and by extension, my core. For every force, there is an equal and opposite reactionary force. That is to say, every force comes in action-reaction pairs. To grossly oversimplify it: you need to have something to push off of in order to exert a force. This brings up many questions about my telekinesis, if I’m exerting a force on an object with telekinesis, through what does the reactionary force act? My running theory is that when exerting a force on an object via telekinesis, it exerts a reactionary force on my domain. Unfortunately this doesn’t make complete sense, the implication would be that something is bracing my domain which is hard to reconcile with its seemingly immaterial nature…

…

I spend the next 12 hours micromanaging my microbiome, performing basic experiments, and operating the animal traps. Throughout this period of time, the biomass in my domain has been increasing and the ambient mana concentration has been steadily climbing at a proportional rate. Eventually I feel a tingling sensation from my secondary sense which I have come to associate with the ambient mana concentration in my dungeon passing an arbitrary threshold. Soon after I hear the two notifications I’ve long awaited!

I take a moment to finish capturing a rabbit in one of my traps before focusing on this new development.

As you’ve probably already figured out, there seems to be a connection between the ambient mana concentration, my mysterious second sense, and the timing of these unique additions. Thus, the obvious conclusion is that these organisms are more heavily dependent on ambient mana than the other inhabitants of my dungeon.

Inspection of the “ember blossoms” as my fire flowers are apparently called, reveals that they’ve dropped their flowers entirely. In fact, without their flowers, they look just like regular plants. I suppose it’s normal for them to not always be in bloom. What was I expecting?

On to the purple bulbs or “archer pods.” Before, I was unable to classify them as plants or fungi, but it turns out I was never even close! They’re animals! Analyzing their full notification listing as “Sessile Network Gastropods,” I can infer that they are, well, sessile, networked, and gastropods. Heh.

In order: they are stationary organisms, linked together, and relatives of snails, slugs, and whelks. Why they have followed this evolutionary path remains a mystery to me. Already, I’ve noticed some tiny new bulbs sprouting from the archer pod ‘roots.’ Once I have a greater number available, I think it’d be prudent of me to dissect a few.

Feeling satisfied with today’s progress, I once more tend to the surface traps. Each one has been triggered. I’ve managed to snare a fluffle of 3 black rabbits, 4 birds that look to be a kind of swift, 3 strange squirrels sporting what resemble a mole’s forepaws, and 2 large lizards with bright yellow scales. As I’m unable to directly lift these larger animals with telekinesis, for whatever reason, I move their boxes through a temporary access hole leading into their new dungeon home.

Oh, it bears mentioning that I do all of this in a mad rush. In the distance I can clearly see a cloud of dust wafting into the luminous evening sky. Leading in front of the dust column is a procession of nearly 100 horses-drawn wagons and carriages.

And they’re coming right in my direction.