Humans are the most dangerous of beasts. Unless this planet had, like, giant unkillable worldserpents or doubledragons or something. Not sure what sort of fantasy setting I got dropped in. Either way, humans are terrifying and unpredictable and the dude leading the trio walking into my cave is doubling the mana pressure in my cave by his mere presence. He’s not even doing anything with it, I think. It’s just there, being intimidating at me.

Not that I need help to be intimidated. I’m an immobile rock the size of two fists. If I twine all my tendrils together I can gain the strength to lift a small bird. I could be killed by a small child with a stick probably. I can’t even use my tendrils- they’ve all instinctively pulled back into my shell.

I’m not the only one intimidated though. All the tiny little critters in my domain are trying to hide, huddling in little cracks in the walls, their usual murderous squabbles are forgotten in the joint desire to not be anywhere near this dude. All except a small few. The chosen, my most loyal of minions, who I inherited from Wash- Small Birds and Rodents But With Scales.

They’re quite unimpressive. The birds can’t even fly anymore.

Still, I appreciate the sentiment.

As one they rush towards him squeaking and squawking in primal rage. A brave, glorious, completely impotent charge. He doesn’t even bother to kick any as they scrabble uselessly at his boots- really nice boots. Like cowboy boots made out of crocodile hide, shining with magic. The tiny claws and beaks leave no mark on their scales and attempts by my warriors to climb them slide right off. A few go for the other two and they at least do a weird little hopping dance as they fling off the animals and squish them with the butts of their spears.

“Hmm.” He looks down at them with interest so I study him in turn. An older gentleman, a bit of a silver fox. As with the other two- the same two that visited me before- he is subtly inhuman. My vision is quite a bit better now. Instead of skin he has tiny little scales covering every inch of his body. They’re colored like sand. His eyes are adapted to low light and slit- as desert dwellers I spose they’re mainly awake during the night? They also have nictitating membranes. Lizardy. They’re not in use right now but I can see them beneath his main eyelids. His ears also have the same sort of thing ready to cover the inner ear. To protect them during sandstorms? Idk. Big feet and ears. Thick strands of hair.

Desert elves perhaps? Certainly not lizardmen, despite the scales. One of them appears a little different- he’s got bigger eyes and ears that almost look like a fennec. Patches of fur among the scales. Oh, and they’re not speaking English. I might be psychically sensitive- I hear the noises as gibberish but the meaning goes through. Isekai cheat or natural talent?

“It’s interested in us. Scared a bit, but curious. Interesting. Not the usual unthinking rage.” He glances up in my direction, then turns back to the critters. He reaches down to snatch a scaled jerboa mid-hop. It scrabbles and gnaws at his bare skin to no effect as he peers at him. “Monsters already?.. No, merely a twisted. Still, a remarkable change. Last week it was still killing whatever it touched, yes?”

“Yes sir. The amount of essence it’s putting out has increased too. By a lot.” Fuzzy ears replies. I’ll call him Tweedledee. They’re all outfitted mostly in what looks to be suede adorned with bone. The two, uh, scouts? They’re wearing fairly simple, practical clothing. Covers most the body, tunics rather than shirts, simple pants. The most complicated things they have are their backpacks, which are pretty nice. Mr. McMagic is fancier. It’s in the same cultural style but he has almost modern-looking pants with pockets and a long-sleeved shirt with cuffs and a collar. Cowboyish hat, with a peak like a wizards hat. Cowboy wizard. He looks kinda like a Native American who became the sheriff and is also a wizard. Style doesn’t match any tribe I know tho- makes sense, this is an entirely different world. Also I know little about Native American style.

Are the cowboy movies I watched with my gf accurate? She loved those.

“So which one of you got it pregnant?” He smirks to himself, but the other two don’t get the joke.

“I-”

“Wha-”

“IT WAS ALREADY PREGNANT WHEN I POKED IT.”

He pauses, turns to non-fuzzy scout. Tweedledum. He quirks an eyebrow. It’s the kind of eyebrow quirk that brings lesser men to their knees.

“I mean, with my finger. Sir.” Despite having scales they do sweat.

“That’s better, at least. Still irresponsible. No wonder these things are so riled up. Must have received orders to battle to the death rather than preserve their forces. Dungeons have no sense of scale and they see retreat- any retreat, even if you’re just done with your business- as a victory.” If they’re Tweedledee and Tweedledum maybe I should call him Mr. Crow. His hair is grey tho. Whatever. Also, he’s talking about important things I should pay attention to. Am I putting out more essence? Is that good or bad? I can order critters around? Maybe just the critters I alter. I must test. Later.

Mr. Crow flicks the scaled rodent away negligently. It bounces off a wall unharmed and immediately attacks Tweedledee’s shoes and then gets squished. I feel like I should feel something about that, but I don’t. Wash wouldn’t have given a single shit and Zeke put out mousetraps when some mice got in his pantry. Still, maybe a little gravestone. He gave his life for his dungeon.

...Wait, that one was female.

Mr. Crow goes striding forth, my defenders snapping uselessly at his heels. The others follow him, taking care of any stragglers. It’s not like they’re in any danger either, but their boots DO take minimal damage from the little claws.

“Are these worth harvesting, sir? They do have scales.”

“If you want to skin them.”

“No thank you, sir.”

My cave is only about 30 feet deep, I think, so it takes him only a moment to reach me. “Fascinating- it IS budding. There’s an entire separate core there, with a tiny soul inside. I’ve never heard of such a thing. It’s theorized that the gods seed the dungeons, though they don’t protect them. Akasha isn’t telling either way. It’s not rooted into anything though, must receive the essence it needs from the parent core. Or host core. Mr. Crow pokes the bird core.

Birdcore, already confused beyond belief, squawks in fear and outrage. Doesn’t like that, even if it still has absolutely no clue what’s happening. Don’t think it can parse the input from the new senses.

“Sir.” Tweedledum protests. He’d just been scolded for doing the same thing.

“What?” Mr. Crow smiles at him innocently.

“Nothing, sir.” A flicker of rebellion, utterly crushed. I can feel a faint amusement radiating from Mr. Crow. I don’t think the amusement is faint, I just don’t think I’m that psychic.

“Well, I’ve seen enough. The bud isn’t nearly mature enough. It seems to be already protruding from the shell- I presume it’ll bulge out more and then drop off when it’s ready. We’ll pluck it just before then and plant it somewhere secret. That way we’ll have a spare when the Empire arrives to crush the main one. Keep checking on it and we’ll keep on hunting everything it attracts until then.”

When the Empire what.

“Why do they do that anyways? I know they protect their own dungeons.” Talk faster you fuckers. The three of them are already walking away. The few survivors of my defense force cluster near my core, apparently content to let the invaders ‘escape’ after being ‘driven off.’ Good little lads and lasses. I’ll give em headpats when I no longer have tentacular dysfunction.

“They want to keep us weak at the borderlands. They justify a lot of shit in the capital because of our cruel and inhumane food raids, so we can’t get stronger otherwise we’ll raid deeper. Then-” Tweedledum interrupts.

“We wouldn’t NEED food raids if we had food of our own.” He mutters scowling.

“Would you get revenge if you could?” They stop walking. Mr. Crow catches his eyes. Tweedledum- maybe I should give him a more dignified name- matches his gaze for a few seconds, then glances away.

“They killed my brother.”

“Yes. And when they kill you, your son will want revenge too.” Tweedledum scowls harder. Mr. Crow continues. “They don’t much care about random warriors and raids, but they won’t allow any empowered to pop up in our territory. I’m allowed because I’m an academic from the university on sabbatical, but if any of you manifested an aura? They’d hunt you down. Why? Assassination. The legion can defeat an army but they can’t protect against a longbowman a mile away.”

“Don’t they have wards?”

“Magic for magic, steel for steel. Only defense against a sniper is another sniper and good ones are rare. But yes, the wards are why I haven’t killed the governor yet.” Mr. Crow spits off to the side. The others look scandalized.

“Third, water dungeons. It’s rare but a dungeon can make water out of thin air.” I can? “Troublesome for three reasons- they’re a pain to kill, it hides their essenceflow, and worst of all.” He gives a tired smile. “That might finally unite the clans. Give us something to protect. Then they’d have a real problem on their hands.” He looks back. I can feel his gaze lock on the bird orb. His smile gets a bit more lively. He begins walking again, this time silent. Lot to think about.

Me too.