"Ya know Cara, ye really should be 'avin ye Crunchers doin' this."

Cara watched as Brick put the finishing touches on her newest pit trap. He could complain as much as he liked, but when it came down to it her creatures weren't smart enough yet to do complicated construction. Sure, they could go dig a hole or spit some rock back out, but when she wanted something done specially she needed Brick to help.

"Sorry Brick, but you know how dumb these bugs are. I wish there were a way for us to speed up the evolution until we got a semi intelligent beast."

So far Cara had converted a lot of different bug species and some bats she found. Apart from that she was hurting for monsters now. A Dungeon's primary way of gathering new creatures was for them to wander in due to the ambient mana, which was something Cara hadn't thought of when she agreed to be the subfloor to Manning's forest.

Oh well, it's not like he was getting anything special anyways. Just a bunch of different rodents and some birds. She was sure that he would share anything she asked for, but her pride was holding her back until he had something that she genuinely wanted.

"Fooking ‘ells!"

Brick seemed to have stuck himself a bit while climbing past the stone spikes he had just finished sharpening, he'd be fine.

"Al'righty girl. Nah can ye explain to me why ye shaped 'em this way?"

Instead of explaining, Cara decided to show him. She funneled her mana into the pattern for water that she had learned. slowly the pit, more of a tunnel really, filled with water and got darker. The tunnel/pit was at the end of one of her dead ends and looked from the surface to be a circle of water 2x2 meters. When adventures dived into it, they'd find themselves squeezing past rocks to swim down a U-shaped hole. On the other end Cara planned to have a prize in a shallow room for adventures who swam through, along with some lighting in the room so that adventures would see a light glow in the water.

Ideally the glow wouldn't be enough for them to make out the fact that the tight tunnel was rows of layered spikes pointing towards the treasure room. Adventures would swim in looking to continue their dungeon trek, only to find a dead end with a similarly tight return, albeit much sharper. Cara didn't think anybody would die to this trap, but her goal was to bleed them and cause them to expend resources or mana to recover.

Along with classic pit traps, false walls, and falling stalactites, Cara's first floor was turning out to be a dangerous place. While she contemplated her first puzzle room Cara noticed a disturbance in Manning's realm.

She redirected her attention towards the distraction to see what was what.

"Oh no."

* * * * * * *

It had been 4 days since the return of my birds.

Most of my avian followers had settled down and laid their nests down in the trees I was claiming, although there were a few stragglers.

The first 3 litters of hedgehogs had been born, averaging about 14 to a litter. Although the babies were not finished growing, I noticed that they grew a lot faster than normal. Cara told me this one of the effects of being born of a dungeon creature while living in a dungeon. The ambient mana not only affected them while in the womb, but also after being born allowing for rapid growth.

My predictions had them not being quite as large as the first male hedgehog, but still much larger than their original species. The claws and teeth were still sharpened, and I also felt like they might be slightly more intelligent than their parents, but that could easily have been my imagination.

Suddenly my attention was diverted to my outer boundaries. I could feel panic from one of my birds perched out there, and so I focused my attention in that direction. With any luck it would be an Owl for me to catch, or some other predator that I could claim for my own.

Instead what I saw entering my domain were two creatures who looked much like the ones from my dreams. They were dressed in dull greens and browns and walked on two legs chattering to each other. Unlike my dreams however, their ears were pointed, and their eyes were a different shape.

"Ash, I think we have some visitors. They are coming from the direction of the willow saplings, what should we do?"

"Nothing. We aren't ready for adventurers, so we need to just watch and wait. If we are lucky they won’t notice that you are a dungeon, after all there aren't many above ground."

So, I watched, and I listened. I needed to learn as much I as I could about them.

* * * * * * *

Echil had been a ranger for the better part of 70 years now. Exiled from his forest when he was a young elf for theft, he roamed until he found a human settlement.

For a few years he worked in the settlement, a young frontier village, as a hunter and tanner. He sold his game and furs to the local populace, and for the first time in his life he learned of the concept of currency.

The elves in his homeland of Alfwood had bartered their goods and services of course, trading goods for goods, but only the merchants who traded out of the forest had ever had need of any coinage.

One thing he learned rapidly is that he loved it. Echil found coins of every denomination alluring, addicted to the weight of his coin pouch on his belt and the jingle it made when it was full. His thoughts were wandering again. It was a problem that plagued him frequently whenever he left his noisy pouch behind on mission. It made too much noise.

He'd only become a ranger 70 years past when an adventuring party passed through the bustling town he'd been living in. They saw that he was an Elf and invited him along on a beast slaying contract they were working. Apparently, their archer had gotten himself arrested the night before they left the city and they'd wanted him to fill in for him. With the amount of money, they'd offered, Echil didn't even hesitate to go with them and never looked back.

"Yo, Copper, pay attention. I asked what you make of these saplings and the aura." Glachil. Gladel. Whatever his name was. The other Elves had taken to calling him Copper due to his love for coins. Echil was known for having a pouch overflowing with copper coins, whereas most other elves still distained the use of currency even after leaving their forests. “It feels like an ancient forest here but looks like a baby orchard."

His companion had a point. They had crossed a shallow riverbed and were now surrounded by saplings that stood a foot or two higher than them. They had to be 2 or 3 years old at the oldest.

"Well Glamour, the Guild Druid did say that he felt the ley lines leaning in this direction. It makes sense that anything powerful enough to divert a natural ley line would emit enough of an aura for the forest to bloom."

There was an awkward silence. It should have been obvious to his companion why it felt this way, after all this was the entire reason that they had been dispatched to investigate. The Rangers Guild prided itself in being the first to new places of power, and often made its money by selling maps and guides to these areas.

"Gladil."

Right. His name was Gladil, tree-hugger or something of the like. They walked in silence for a few more minutes, following the path that the nature aura flowed along. They passed several saplings, some young bushes, a few groupings of fully grown oaks, and strangely enough what looked like the burnt husks of wooden structures. Whatever used to be here was either ancient or poorly constructed before its demise, because it was almost impossible to tell what function the structures were to perform during their lifetime. They'd been toughly razed.

"Did you see that Squirrel? It was massive! What is going on here..."

Echil had accepted that he wasn’t likely to find any coin out here in this fledgling forest. The tree lover had a point, the local wildlife seemed to be strange. The forest was much quieter than it should be, even if it was nearly barren, and the size of almost every creature here seemed to have swelled. Strange.

* * * * * * *

I watched as the duo of Woodsfolk, that is what Ash described them as when I told her their appearance, approached my hill.

As they gazed upon my Ash tree, which I was hiding under and Ash was dwelling inside of, they had two very different reactions. The older one who had been putting off a subtle stream of nature mana as he traversed the forest stared at us wide-eyed before rushing over. Gladil, he had said his name was Gladil. The younger one who smelled of Earth mana had a look on his face somewhere between contempt and boredom. He was seemingly unimpressed.

"Do you feel the concentrated mana coming from this Ash!? Copper, this must be some sort of sacred tree. For all we know we could be witnessing the birth of a minor nature deity." I watched as Gladil rushed over and placed a hang on the Ash's trunk. He closed his eyes, seemingly searching for something. He must have been satisfied because he quickly kneeled under the canopy of Ash leaves with his back to the tree, closed his eyes, and began meditating.

The amount of my ambient mana he was pulling in suddenly skyrocketed, but so did the amount that he was expelling after cycling. I wasn't sure how the math worked out, but it seemed to be a net positive of Energy for me.

Copper just sat there staring at his partner for a while. After about 10 minutes he started pacing, and 5 minutes later he started to walk around the base of my hill.

"Tree boy! Look over here, there is an entrance dug into the hill!"

Gladil stopped his meditating and walked over to Copper. They both investigated the depths of the mine entrance, and with a bit of trepidation, they began to venture inside.