“I know. Come, we need to make a few final preparations for tonight," I sent to Finn.

The rest of the rotation we spent on final preparations before waiting several hours. The pixies drilled with their new swords. I made nine razor-tusk boar constructs. Everyone kept the mood light, distracting us from wondering which of us won't survive the night.

Shortly after the sunset, we heard them again. But this time only the war cries of monkeys and colrums echoed through the forest.

"The dungeon decided not to bother with smaller monsters anymore," Finn warned.

"Then it is getting desperate. It must be low on energy." “Perhaps, for now, we must focus on the fight ahead,” Jarh said.

Everyone fell into silence. Not long after, we saw the first of our opponents burst through the brush on the other side of the clearing. A few earth touched monkeys could be seen, but the bulk of the horde consisted of colrums. Forty, fifty, no- at least sixty charged us. Each carried a spear and net. I saw the fear wash through the pixie army, soldiers shuffling their feet, knuckles white on their weapons at the sight of our foes.

My constructs, however, felt no fear or any other emotion. They silently awaited my command. Patiently, I waited until they passed the halfway point.

“Now,” I sent to Orsa.

With a squeal, ten trees on the right side violently shook. Creaking and groaning, the massive trunks fell in a boom that reverberated throughout the field. From above, I could see the battlefield was now divided into rows between the trees. Already, a dozen colrums lay flattened and the rest of them stumbling or knocked down.

By this time, Eva’s ubees swarmed them, blinding and stinging any vulnerable targets. From the side of the forest, my razor-tusk boars emerged. After successfully collapsing the trees, they charged in a v formation, Orsa in the lead. Any spears aimed her way skittered harmlessly against her rock skin. The blinded and disorientated colrums stood no chance.

In the wake of their stampede, my boars left broken and bloody monsters behind for others to finish off. Some of the agile monkeys managed to climb out of the boar’s way in time but were soon struck down. My own earth-touched monkey pelted large rocks from the shelf on the treetops. With his magic helping to guide the stones and his height advantage, nearly every throw resulted in a kill.

The pixies cleaned up the crippled and dying colrums while my boars charged down the next row. The process repeated itself. With the attacking horde separated by the trunks and distracted by ubees, the stampede slaughter continued. Only the very last few colrums managed to properly prepare a defense. They formed two lines, the first bracing their spears and second ready to throw their nets. Unfortunately for them, a sneaky air-touched mongager appeared behind them. Batoor ripped through three colrums before they turned around to fight him. But that left enough of a gap for the boars to take advantage of, breaking past the line of spears. Tusks flashed, blood sprayed, the colrums fell dead.

The whole battle lasted perhaps ten spins. Compared to the previous battle, this one certainly felt anticlimactic.

However, the aftermath proved more complicated than before. All the energy couldn’t absorb into me fast enough. Through the heady rush, I remarked some of it beginning to dissipate. I moved to quickly spend some energy in order to take in more when I noticed it wasn’t actually disappearing. Instead, it flowed into my monsters. Oddly, none of the pixies or constructs were affected. Something certainly interesting was going on here, but before I could investigate further, Finn interrupted me.

“Have I mentioned lately how glad you’re on our side?” he asked with a laugh.

Ignoring him, I focused on Jarh “How many pixies did we lose?”

At first, I didn’t think he heard me, but suddenly he jerked out of his reverie. “Huh? So far only one, but I will need to check with Healer Wilona to see if all the injured will pull through. Looks like only a few are in critical condition.”

I felt my tension and worry ease up. “Good. I lost a few constructs, but fortunately no monsters. The traps worked better than expected.”

“You can say that again,” Finn muttered.

With the immediate concerns out of the way, I flew over to the battlefield to address the buildup of energy. The piles of colrum corpses painted a grisly picture. Yet, I felt only slightly disturbed. These were invaders, attempting to kill those I swore to protect the home that I nurtured. I felt a moment of pity for their existence, given life via a dungeon who treated their lives no different than constructs. Then the moment ended.

Gathering the bodies of the colrums into one giant pile, I went to work. I started the process of making a new monster. This time I wanted to try making an air-touched colrum. Except when before I could start infusing air energy, I noticed the new corpse already began soaking up blood. Perhaps I shouldn’t have started it literally in a pool of blood. Regardless, the process couldn’t be stopped now. I satiated the void.

The resulting colrum largely appeared no different. Except for black veins contrasting against unusually pale flesh.

“Welcome to life, Akeldama. I hope you enjoy your time with us. However, I confess I mistakenly gave you blood magic instead of air. The stigma may cause issues, even I'm not sure how your magic will develop."

Akeldama said nothing, only giving a subtle nod as an indication that she heard me. I would ask Jarh to help me keep an eye on her. But my hesitancy would not stop me from seizing a unique opportunity. So I created three more blood-touched colrums before moving on to making four air, four earth, four water, and twenty-three normal colrum monsters.

Jarh flew up beside me to observe our newest allies. “Riva, are you ready to attack? This battle was a complete rout for the enemy. We should press the advantage.”

“I agree, you want to attack tomorrow then?”

“No, let’s move out within the hour,” he clarified.

For a second I thought I misheard him, but his countenance was determined. “That seems sudden, are you sure? Aren’t your troops tired?”

“Tired from what? Your constructs did all the work. Right now they’re high from such a decisive victory, especially after barely managing to survive so many past nights. Moral won’t get higher.”

"Okay, give me a little bit of time. Right now I won't be able to see the fight or help coordinate.”

I returned back to my core and called Eva.

“Bzz bz?” she asked.

“I’ll show you what I need in a moment. Let me make the preparations.”

After the battle I noticed Eva absorbed a significant amount of ambient energy. She currently doesn’t have any magic affinity and I want to see what I can change. I instructed her to touch my core. Once she did I felt her life force brush against mine.

Her mind shone brightly to my inner eye, an ephemeral mass roughly in the shape of her physical body. But this basic representation created plenty of inadequacies. I didn’t realize it at the time, but when I connected to Finn not long ago his consciousness almost perfectly matched his physical form. So, I carefully began to redirect the energy that made Eva’s consciousness to better represent her.

A sharp and regal horn, majestic wings, strong thorax and abdomen, elegant legs, and more. I lost myself in improving her. Once I finished, I admired my work. She’s wonderful.

Refocusing to the outer world, I looked at her, “How do you feel Eva?”

“Mother, I can speak! My thoughts are more clear than ever before, I cannot describe the sensation,” she exclaimed as she circled my core. Her energetic flight and content buzzing told me more than any words could.

“I am glad. Now, I want your permission to make one more change to you. Lately, I’ve noticed that I have a countless number of tasks to do. I need help running this dungeon. I want you to make you my dungeon...administrator? No, Master? That doesn’t work either. Ah, Dungeon Queen is perfect. If you wish, you will be my Dungeon Queen.”

“I would be honored, but I do not know if my best efforts will be satisfactory,” she humbly replied.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You are a Queen Ubee. The leader of one of the hardest working, most organized collections of creatures in nature. You instinctually multitask and delegate. All when you were only sentient, now you are sapient and more capable than ever.”

“If you believe in me Mother, I will too.”

“Hold still a moment.”

I instinctually knew that in order for Eva to command a portion of my power she needed a portion of me. Looking over my core, I selected a rough portion of my outer surface and shaved off a sliver. Moving it to Eva, I placed it on her brow bone. Just below her horn and in between her eyes.

Hoping this would work, I started infusing the sliver with my own energy and eventually added in some that Eva absorbed after the battle. I felt her discomfort but continued until I could add no more.

“How do you feel?”

“Uncomfortably full.”

“Ah, yes. Can you transfer energy to me?”

A moment later I felt a bit flow into me. “I can,” she said, then I felt a small tug, “but I can’t take any back.”

“I felt you tugging though. Feel free to ask for more whenever you need to. Now, one last experiment. Could you go right outside of my domain?”

Following her to the edge of my domain, I then once again turned to my inner eye. There, I saw a thread leaving my core, leading to Eva. Moving along it, I opened my eyes again and saw myself looking out of the sliver. The sensation was disturbing. I couldn’t move at all. I simply sat there, along for the ride.

Retreating from the disturbing sensation, I found my consciousness exiting my core. Great, just what I needed, another confusing way to perceive the world. Sometimes I wish I had a simple, humanoid body.

Shaking off the frustration, I went to find Jarh. We had a dungeon to invade.