Zetli snacked on some roast beetles as he watched Netli try to turn the candle off with a spear. After they'd turned the spigot on the candle on it began to spout some sort of thick oil. Netli had the brilliant idea to light the candle on fire. He didn't ask anyone else before putting his idea into action. Now they had a growing puddle of flaming goop.

So sayeth the chief: It was Netli's fault so Netli had to fix it. At least until it looked like he might actually get injured. Bryn had tried to help by pouring water on it, but that had backfired in a spectacular burst of flames. Now she was pouting next to Zetli and picking at the strange melted spots in her clothing.

After the spear caught on fire and Netli managed to put it out the show began to be more pitiable than amusing, so Zetli finally interceded. "Put some sand on it!" Netli gave him a confused look and tossed a handful of sand at the fire. "With the bucket, stupid." Netli got the bucket. It worked. Bucket of sand over the candle put it out and Netli was able to twist the thing closed before the fire raced back up the stream. Problem solved, except for the gross gooey sand.

The honorable elders had finally managed to argue themselves into a stupor so it was finally time to take the first batch of the sickly to Ezekial to be cured. Zetli knew they would, there was so much to be gained and relatively little risk- it had happened to Zetli himself, after all- but they still needed to argue for days to feel important.

Zetli had learned over the years to do anything that needed to be timely himself without consulting anyone but Itzal and throw everything else to the council to get chewed over. It minimized the trouble they caused and sometimes they even had good ideas! Not this time. They’d spent a week shouting ‘But it’s a dungeon!’ and ‘Look at Bryn!’

Eventually, they’d came to the obvious conclusion and approved sending people up to the dungeon to get healed. They volunteered themselves first. Ezekiel had said three per day, but they wanted to show a united front and all came as one. Zetli thought it was fine. Ezekiel really didn’t seem to be the kind of being worried about such things. Even the three-a-day thing had been accompanied by a ‘I don’t want to do this all day, every day.’

Everyone loaded up in the crab-drawn wagon, now outfitted with decadently soft pillows, and Zetli sent a short prayer to any gods listening that this trip would go smoothly.

====================================================================

More people have continued to arrive. Not all of them are Sahii though, but that’s fine. I told Zetli that if they don't get along with the Sahii just shove them off to another entrance to the dungeon, they all have streams coming out of them. Everyone will have equal access to building supplies too. I think I'll set up a council chamber in the tower. The level below the temple, yeah. Metaphorically below the gods, but the temple doesn't have living quarters so the priests are only above them when actively priesting.

Upon consideration, I've decided that I will generally be applying the manfish principle. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life- unless there are no fish around to catch. Whenever possible I will be teaching them to fish, but I won't be letting them starve to death. In this context that means providing them with any raw resources that are necessary and unavailable.

I've already begun this with things like giving them construction materials rather than just carving a dorf fort in the walls, though I want to do that too sometime, but that was for another reason. I want them to get invested, I want them to build their own homes with their own hands. They do have tents and they were doing fine enough with those, but the thing about tents is you can just pick up and move them.

Of course, this puts them on a collision course for a war, but thinking about that... I really don't care. It's a normal human thing. Apparently they've been raiding the empire for ages anyway so I'm not starting the fire, just, uh, fanning the flames.

Hmm, that still sounds bad.

Point is, I think this is still inside my self-imposed moral limitations. The so-called just war. Confrontation is necessary to improve living standards and get the empire to leave them the fuck alone. It helps that the situation is inherently limited- even if a bunch of people gather they can't attack, just defend.

This area can't support an army. The empire can with supply lines. I highly doubt the tribes could unite based on stolen supplies. That makes their defeat inevitable. Right now they're avoiding conflict, but if the empire started building fortifications to control the area there's practically nothing the tribes could do. Only with me they can even fight in the first place.

I could just build some fuckoff walls and then set landmines- and by that I mean buried caches of TNT- but manfish principle. I want them to be stronger, not just under my protection.

Now that I know more or less what I'm doing I set out to survey my little kingdom. Not the human bit, the underground bit. I’ve primarily tunneled out the walls of the crater, making a nice lil warren of subway-sized tunnels. The walls and floor are coated with a foot-thick layer of thick silty mud, which has been industriously colonized with all sorts of plants. Generally deserty, wasteland kinda shit- tough grasses, hardy bushes, cacti, but overpopulated to an unnatural degree.

Honestly, the ecosystem here is incredibly confusing. It’s as lush as a rainforest, everything growing freakishly fast, faster than bamboo- but then it settles down. Rodents pop out a hundred babies and then just stop. Everything is lush, but never taken to the logical limit. With essence they have infinite resources, it should be a rat utopia- not the good kind of utopia, the experimental rat utopia. Instead, they stop at the point of overcrowding.

Actually, everything should be coated with a two-foot thick layer of fungi and bacteria as they treat the entire place as a giant petri dish, but that doesn’t happen either. It’s weird

The mysteries of essence take place on an individual scale though. Some glands recharge infinitely, others don’t. With how this seems to work everything should be drooling an infinite lake of saliva. Plus, I seem to recall overwatering plants being a thing, but I have cacti thriving underwater.

In the immortal words of Todd Howard, it just works. Even when it really shouldn’t. How does the magic determine the… The what? Projected carrying capacity??? Of a desert ecosystem located underground and then fucking flooded. Yes, the land critters who didn’t drown are still doing fine. Though I turned a bunch of them into fish. Not sure how the whole survival of the fittest thing is going to work without any pressure to compete. Guess that’s my job.

Sadly, not everything Just Works. Declaring rats fish did have side effects. Frankly, they're not adapting very well. While I did change their form and genetic makeup, they still have the minds and memory of rodents. They're not actually rats though- some desert rodent that doesn't really have any memorable aspects that I can see.

Modern rats are a marvel of evolution, the consequence of thousands of years of feasting and war. They’ve eaten everything organic in our cities and we’ve done everything we can to kill them. The result is a smart, tough, and incredibly adaptable little critter.

These are basic-bitch rodents, nowhere near as impressive. I mean, I’m sure National Geographic could get some incredible shots of them killing scorpions or something, but they’re not the same. These ones can’t figure out the whole hooves and fins thingy. Maybe they could if I give them some more time, it's only been a day, but so far they're painfully incompetent and sad looking.

The sadness offends my sense of morality and the incompetence bugs my dungeon side. As such I've performed a partial rollback. It's sad and a lot of work, but on the plus side I have abominations now. Ratcows with udders and grasping hands! Ratfish with scales and webbed feet! Goats with rat feet and faces! I’m still tinkering with them to find the proper balance but they seem to be doing better now.

I did, however, set up some pregnancies first so I’ll have some unaltered critters. Hopefully they’ll still recognize the normal cows and such as their babies, if not I can just toss em at some humans. They’ll figure it out. Honestly, while they are useful I’m just not invested in the unaltered animals.

Chickens are doing fine, by the way. I made a fat, egglaying rodent anyways. Don't think these people have any cultural taboos against rodent eating. They eat bugs.

The geyser is working as I obviously intended it to from the very start as well. By spreading a bunch of essence water around it's both encouraging plant growth and attracting more critters.

I got a female boarsaur! Naming her Gretchen. Hans and Franz are no longer friends. I tried telling them that you shouldn't let relationships get in the way of your friendships, but they persist in this love triangle shit. Wonder if they mate for life or this will happen every mating season? Do they even have mating seasons? I hope they're not stuck in eternal conflict as Gretchen watches and decides who she's gonna fuck that week.

Another female catlizard too, but no males. Her name is Nyazard. She doesn't like Ms. Kittysaur. Ms. Kittysaur is a foot taller than her at the shoulder and stares at her rival with regal disdain. Considering modifying Ms. Kittysaur a bit to show that she's my favorite. I'd make her my first dragon but I don't wanna ruin the thing she and Bryn got going on.

What else then? The ratbull? Scaled and horned and massive, with long legs and clever hands and a whiplike tail. Kinda like it. The cons tho: I don’t want to be Rat Dungeon. Not much chance of that being my main thing, I’ve made enough of an impression in other ways, but still. Here’s Zeke, he’s got a thing for rodents.

The emu-thingies? Naw, got another plan for them. Chocobos! I’ve seen gifs of people riding ostriches through traffic, I’m pretty sure it’s practical. And people race them? I don’t know. I need to work on them some more. Lots of stuff on my plate, though.

Still.... Dragons. Hm. Hmmm.

...Men are the real monsters. Ha! HAHAHA! The Sahii even have fucking scales! Oh, ohhhh, this could be beautiful. All this time I’ve been thinking about ‘fixing’ them, making the poor little mutants more human. I’ve been looking at the girl with the shell, wondering if she wants to turn ‘human’ again. Freaks and outcasts.

I’ve been avoiding the words, trying to be nice about it, but that’s what I thought. I’ve been buying into the narrative that the changed are lesser and thinking of ways to make them more human. Fuck that. It’s not my style anyways. Get Netli in here, I’m going to make that brute fifty feet tall!

Once I solve that stupid aura issue. Even there, my thinking has been clouded. Pearls can’t interact with aura, fact. Fuck the facts. Pearls aren’t supposed to pick things up so I made myself some big gloves. Pearls aren’t supposed to see the sun, get a goddamn umbrella. Pearls aren’t supposed to move? I didn’t even give that one a moment’s thought, just pried myself out of the wall first thing.

I’m still bound by my roots. I have to keep connecting and disconnecting the suckers. Why? Because I need warp. I’ll make a warp tank. Stick a straw in it and carry it around like a water bottle.

Aura makes my tentacles retreat. So? Here, right now, I’ll fix that. I’ve already got gloves, sacrifice a bit of my soul and bam! Imbue the threads with soul and now I can go shake Bryn’s hand. She just came in. She’s staring at me, gaping. So are a couple of old people.

Do the same thing I did the Zetli, stick the tentacles through the glove. Can’t do it. Fuck you, physics. Make a tiny little hypodermic needle out of warpsteel and shove a tentacle up it, prick her with that. Let’s try again. Past the skin, past the surface of the aura, it’s all good.

‘Hi.’ She twitches.

“Oh? Ezekiel, you did it! You can talk again!” Ahh, that bright smile. Such a cutey. The scrubs in the back are getting their mutter on.

‘Yes, I was stupid. Overlooked the obvious. Accepting things the way they were. Not important now. Bryn… Do you want to be a demon?’