“Now ya see, ya?” Brick had been insufferable since the newest party set foot in Cara’s dungeon. He especially liked the dwarf with its overly large shield and unreasonable like for mushrooms. A kindred spirit, for sure.

“Just because the first squad fell for your silly little mushroom trap doesn’t mean it's actually good. You didn’t even design it for dungeon divers, you just wanted the troglodytes to stop pillaging your mushroom supplies.” It was at the time, and still was until proven otherwise, a waste of her time and mana. She’d only indulged him because of the overwhelming amount of free time they found themselves with after the raid.

It was also nice to keep her mind off of the things going on in Gil’thuk’s laboratory. Although she couldn’t technically not hear or see things that happened in her territory, it was a lot easier on her conscious if she stayed distracted. Apart from the lineage experiments for the Trogboar clan, entertaining Brick had taken up a lot of her time. What he lacked in dungeon knowledge he seemed to make up for with creativity, but only when it related to mushrooms. He even wanted to start experimenting on a mushroom-based troglodyte to make his own clan, if you could believe that.

The clans were actually something else that was new as well, though the townspeople and adventurers wouldn’t know that. It wasn’t something she’d planned on, but as she pushed specific mutations further and further, it got more difficult to suppress the troglodytes inherit racism toward their different brethren, as if it were in their very bloodline to hate and attack those born with changes. As it was, she had three clans going, the Trogboars, the Trogbats, and the Troglodytes. Not super original, she knew, but it was easy enough to remember.

The Trogboars were being bred to be stronger, with each successive generation containing more and more muscle mass. Their skin got darker and more leathery, as opposed to the pallid green, almost slimy, skin of the original line. They even got taller and wider, forcing Cara to expand their warrens and tunnels. Were it not for their rapidly diminishing intelligence, they’d probably prove to be the strongest line of warriors in her dungeon.

Eventually she wanted to get some of the other hog races from Manning, but asking for them without providing something in return would hurt her pride a little too much. She was already receiving impromptu spacial magic lessons from the man, and he’d never even learned magic before! Sometimes she wondered if it would have been worth losing her memories as well in order to have better dungeon instincts.

“Of course it's good, ya silly. My mushroom crop losses have gone down by over 300 percent since they started fighting back against those scraggly little creatures you breed.” Brick spoke around the mouthful of mushroom cap, having never been taught proper manners apparently. If she had eyes, at least one of them would be twitching as little flecks of fungal matter flew around her core room where he was eating.

“Talk with your mouth closed, you aren’t an invisible fairy anymore and I can see the mess you’re making all over my core room. Brownie you are not, little boggart.” Cara’s relationship with the fey was nothing less than strained at almost all times. He was everything she wasn’t as far as she was concerned.

“Dun think I will. I like airing out the bites, brings out ta earthiness of the mushroom. ‘S not my fault I can’t spectate from any other room. Gots to watch your view through your gem, I do. Wouldn’t dream of missing my little babies’ debut.” If anything, Brick started losing even more of his lunch through the gaps of his teeth.

“Ugh, just do your best or I’m not going to start helping you with your Trogshroom idea.”

“Bah, would be your loss anyways.” Though Brick said that, he did put his hand in front of his mouth. It didn’t limit Cara’s vision as a dungeon, but it was slightly more effective for catching the food refuse. With her immediate concern addressed, Cara redirected her attention back to the party. They’d had their scare from the first room, a particularly innocent looking room with a fairly deep vein of copper hidden just under where the majority of the ‘Shelf Spidooms’.

The ‘trigger’ for the trap was supposed to be damage to the cave, particularly by any miner who started wailing away at the wall after detecting the vein with their skills. Instead, this party had started trying to steal mushrooms, eventually leading to them slamming that damnable shield around enough to wake up the slumbering fungal monstrosities.

The result was… Alright she supposed. It was the first time she’d had someone actively casting offensive magic within her domain and she realized she could pull at their magic and force a heavier cost for their spells. Nobody had died, but that wasn’t exactly Cara’s goal for her dungeon anyways as too many deaths sounded like a one-way tract to an inquisition.

She watched as the party continued down the tunnel, missing every single deposit of valuable ores and stopped at every plant, mundane or otherwise. They took samples of mosses, grasses, mushrooms, and even some green colored rocks. Basically, they were amateurs.

At one point, the dwarf even fell into a pitfall. Not even a disguised pitfall, but an actual hole in the ground. He was lucky that the unarmed human behind him managed to grab his shirt and that he hadn’t lost his grip on the damnable shield. If she had to pick the most powerful in the group, it was definitely the human man.

Sure, the drow had very strong magic and was even dual aligned with healing magic, evident by her patching up the dwarf’s scraps and bruises, but that human man noticed everything. He put off no magical aura but he could still see perfectly well in the low-light and darkness-damping aura she put up. Unless he was a half-breed, which she doubted, or had top of the line enchanted equipment that was powerful enough to put off no aura at all, once again doubted due to his homeless look, the man had superhuman senses.

The group trekked through hallways, down dead-ends, stumbled into traps and ambushes, and eventually, they found the final room on the top floor.

“To me!” the dwarf shouted as he pounded his fist against the shield that was both taller and wider than himself. Whether the shout was for his team, that had already lined up behind him, or for the longest-living Fob she’d had yet that was staring them down, she didn’t know. The effect he had, however, was to alert the two slumbering Night Hogs that had been disguised on either side of the entrance as large black boulders.

Her tendency to decorate the rooms had, as she hoped, made the group comfortable enough with large rock portusions that they hadn’t even investigated the hogs to see if they were living. She’d strategically placed pillars, stalagmite, and boulders in several of her rooms. The party had investigated the first few before eventually passing them off as miner-fodder, assuming their insides contained the ores that used to litter the walls of her first floor.

“The rocks aren’t rocks!” Ah, Cara had forgotten about their little wannabe rogue. The human girl had attempted to start scaling one of the boars just before the dwarf yelled. Thanks to that, the rest of the party was able to back up into the tunnel and put the dwarf between them and the beasts.

“Kali!” The drow yelled the name of the wayward human girl as Lefty, the beast who she attempted to climb, bucked her across the room. The girl slammed into the wall with an audible crack before sliding down unconscious. Funnily enough to Cara, getting knocked out-cold was the most beneficial thing she’d done for her team the entire dive. It wasn’t the poor girl’s fault, there were probably plenty of dungeons where she’d be helpful.

But in Cara’s dungeon, at least on the first floor, there was no stealth or lockpicking required. No complex traps to be disarmed, no monsters that were good to fight in knife range. The poor girl had been outclassed at every turn and it wouldn’t be until the second floor where more humanoid enemies appeared that she’d be able to show whatever skill she may have.

Luckily for her, Cara’s monsters weren’t so aggressive that they’d prioritise a downed girl over a team that was still up and fighting. The drow brought up her magic circle and began throwing icicles at the boars, aiming for their beady little eyes even as they stood up. They were many things, but fast wasn’t one of them until they got a running head start.

It was apparent that the woman didn’t have much practice with that particular spell when one saw her aim, but she was lucky in the sense that her projectiles were somehow able to pierce the skin of the boars.

“For that is Mushed and Roomy! That woman’s water affinity must be godly!” Brick, having already forgotten Cara’s request, stood up and pointed at her core where the image of that room was being projected in real time. Bits of spittle of half-chewed mushroom fiber covered the surface of her pristine onyx core, but she didn’t let that detract her from the battle.

She continued pulling at the mana threads that made up the drow’s ice formation, watching as the blue elf had to put even more mana and concentration into holding the circle and runes in place. Her aim continued to go wide but, as is always the case with fools in over their heads, she ended up getting lucky and spearing one of the Night Boars through its eyeball. The long, frozen arrow stabbed its way through Lefty’s brain at the same time that Righty started charging the dwarf’s shield.

Well, perhaps charge is not the best word for the situation. The Boar had been sleeping merely five feet from where the group entered the room, though after they backed up it was a distance of about 15 feet. Idly, she realized that the Night Boar could barely fit in the tunnel with only four feet of space on one side of it. Not nearly enough space for the massive hog to turn, which degraded it to merely swinging its tusks side to side against the dwarfs shield as the monk threw out punches and kicks at opportune times. Meanwhile, the drow seemed to have run out of mana and took off the staff she’d had strapped to her back.

Of course, the Fob was not sitting idle through any of it. He’d been seated on the other side of the room, directly in front of the descending staircase, and started running over.

“Brick, remind me later that, while entertaining, the Night Boars are almost useless when they are next to the entrance. They have little to no impact when discovered and the Fob is too far to benefit from their distraction.” Even as she said it, the second Night Boar, Righty, fell dead. The drow had used its own shadow to spear its underbelly when she wasn’t looking. Likely she realized that the dungeon was interfering with her magic and remembered that shadow magic is much more subtle. Smart elf.

Unfortunately for the drow, she found herself out of position. Being a dungeon of darkness and shadows, and a mage of the same affinities in her previous life, she was intimately familiar with the biggest weakness shadow magic had. That being the caster needing to have had line of sight with the shadow they were manipulating.

“Fuck me!” Cara couldn’t help but compare the dwarf’s vulgarity with her companion, Brick. Still, she couldn’t think of a much better reaction to a spear being thrown across the entire room and catching their healer in the stomach.

The drow was pinned to the wall, the human man had his knuckles and feet bleeding from where he struck the almost-metallic boar fur, and the dwarf could scarcely lift his shield above his feet after having been pounded on. Certainly carrying the thing through the dungeon hadn’t done him any favors, no matter how used to the weight he was. No, this was check and mate, her first real full squad wipe.

The Trogboar Fob approached the group, slowly walking now that the ranged attacker was down for the count. Off his back, he pulled the second spear that Cara had started providing the Fobs since they started throwing their first one.

Then, for some dungeon forsaken reason, the Fob decided to throw his second spear. Cara could almost feel time slow down as she watched the pig-shit-for-brains Fob lean back and aim. She would have screamed if she could, as the spear was about to leave the creature’s hand. She would have sighed, regardless of how well the throw turned out.

At that moment, before the spear could even pick up momentum, the red-headed human girl reappeared behind the Fob and stabbed her daggers into either side of its neck. Her floor one boss bled out, the thief looted the coin pouch she’d started spawning alongside the boss as a reward, and the healer, surprise surprise, was not out of mana. The drow patched herself and her companions up enough that they were able to limp their way out of her now cleared dungeon, none of them feeling brave enough for the next floor.

Cara’s first floor had been cleared once again, still with no casualties.