It had only been a few hours at most when I was woken by Sisslkin. The Kobold that was running liaison between the Doppelgänger and me, woke me up and informed me that the Adventurers had encamped inside my domain. I had slept through the alarm, too exhausted to wake up. And by the nervousness of Sisslkin, the little guy had clearly been attempting to wake me for a while.

After I thanked Sisslkin, I asked him to have one of the others wake me at sunrise and told him in no uncertain terms to go get some rest. The little guy looked dead on his feet. He nodded and bowed before the Kobold scampered off; I had fallen asleep again before he was out of the room. Sunrise came way too fast. I contacted the Doppelgänger scout with Telepathy; The adventurers were already up and about and making preparations for their assault. Ugh, damned inconsiderate assholes, couldn’t they at least wait until midday or something?

My mood improved tenfold when some Kobolds arrived with a perfectly cooked Shroomcow Steak and Greencap Tea in a cup made from a mushroom cap, finally civilized food. Sure there were no eating utensils, unless you viewed the use of a sharpened bone to spear the meat as utensils. But at least it was warm, it was seasoned, and it was absolutely divine; the tea helped further as it alleviated some lingering fatigue. No potion of healing nor potion of stamina by any stretch, but this still did wonders for my mood and morale.

Seeing my approval, the little things seemed overjoyed and nearly danced on their way back out. I couldn’t blame them, this was nice enough to make world-class chiefs green with envy. In my opinion at any rate, then again I had never really eaten anything more fancy than steak from the meat shelf of the local supermarket so… eh.

Another Kobold entered, this one presented a piping hot soup in a bowl carved from a mushroom cap. Another cup of tea was with it, well now. First meat and now soup. After graciously accepting the dish, I took a sip. My eyes widened. This soup was just as good if not better than the steak. It was light yet creamy, but had a rich flavor that seemed to continue to explode on your palette in new and interesting ways. Whoever had cooked up this had outdone my wildest expectations tenfold.

The Kobold that had presented it seemed quite pleased at the news. And she promised to tell Lienru I enjoyed both her dishes greatly, as she left with the now empty cup and bowl. So, it was Lienru who made these two dishes, I had to ask her to be my personal chef; she was beyond talented at making food.

With my much-needed morale boost, I dissolved my avatar and flew out of the dungeon. I watched as the party approached; it seemed like the maze would give them some trouble due to their sheer numbers. The enclosed space was quickly starting to build up heat as the dark gray stones started to absorb sunlight. That wouldn’t be fun in the long run. After I checked on the Doppelgänger I returned underground once more. I needed to make sure everything was ready to “greet” our “guests” with all the proper etiquette reserved for a pack of murder hobos.

It quickly became apparent that they were far better than I had originally given them credit for. Rael, which apparently had led the 12-man team the last time, was leading this expanded party too. And this time they made mincemeat out of the Oozes. A frontal assault was not going to work. Time to switch tactics, didn’t help that they were making a joke of all my traps. Then one of the rogues messed up and fired a Mishap Teleport! So long ro… gue… 1 meter, that’s it? GIMME A BREAK HERE!! Of all the rotten luck. That sorry bastard could have wound up anywhere in my domain, except the core room. So, why only one meter, WHY, gah, time for Plan B.

I sent the Oozes and Rats into the Kobolds tunnels. But the damn detection spells of theirs rendered the entire plot pointless as the leader slammed his shield down and blocked them in and warned the others. Whom quickly plugged the crawl spaces with soapstone. I considered sending in a Depths Worm. But immediately dismissed the idea. The amount of firepower the adventurers had would annihilate it long before it could do any serious damage. Plus it wasn’t exactly subtle in its approach, I needed something else.

Alright then, they wanna play hardball, they will get hardball, Magical Labyrinth Activate! The Maze started to shake, woah lucky! That wall would separate the party. Common, close faster close, faster, what in the-. How did they hold the wall back? That wasn’t fair. Argh, I almost manifested in front of them and attacked, but I took a deep breath. OK, play it cool, stay calm, these guys are too strong to take on in a frontal assault. Well, if you can’t beat them in strength, bleed them dry instead. I had done that song and dance before, I could sure as hell do it now. Enough playing around, time to put my game face on.

I changed tactics, instructing oozes and rats to run through the crawl spaces without ever any intention of attacking. I intended to force the mages to expend mana to plug the exits. I simultaneously deployed two groups of Kobolds to pick through the stone and re-arm traps in their wake. It would only be a matter of time until they had to backtrack.

The first time they triggered one of the rearmed traps was comedy gold. The rogues were not paying attention because they had swept the hallway already. And while the sensors were tense because of the constant activity in the walls and under the floor, the rogues were relaxed, too relaxed. *Kra-KOOOOOOM* a burst of blue-teal energy made it clear they had let their guard down. The first rogue was sent flying into the wall and got stuck there for a moment, like some kind of cartoon character. The second was flung into the party, knocking Rael over, who then knocked over the one behind him and so on. The third did several somersaults forwards then skidded across the floor on his face before stopping. While the fourth, the unlucky sod that had stepped on the mine, had been blown clean into the roof ten meters straight up. Damn, I realized I forgot to add delay timers on them, ah well. Too late now.

Still, that was hilarious. But not as hilarious as watching their reaction. First, utter surprise. Because there was no way they would have made it past that mine without setting it off the first time. Then wonder about how in the world it could be live. Then, as they saw the mined out soapstone, fear. The rogues themselves were obviously not OK, but required extensive healing. Even after being healed, the one who had played “Face Surfing” would probably need a plastic surgeon to fix his face, that or some really potent regeneration magic. Because even with the healing there was clear disfigurement there.

Their progress slowed to a crawl after this, with even plugged holes now viewed with suspicion and fear. More than once I had a Kobold stop on their quest to re-arm traps to tap one of the stones next to the party just to mess with them. Most players in the game always forgot the psychological aspect of the delve, if you made them miserable, they would be more prone to make mistakes. A happy delver was a focused delver. A miserable delver would more often than not be more focused on their misery than what they were doing.

Even so, they were nearing the end of the dungeon, and that would be bad for, oh Magical Labyrinth was off Cooldown? WELL THEN, time to make the miserable adventurers even more miserable. I waited until they were halfway down the last corridor. Then activated Magical Labyrinth again and watched as the party panicked as the exit of this hell started to close before their very eyes. One of the mages even hammered on the wall and demanded I open it up. Poor girl, as if I would listen to those who were intent on making me a pet, no thanks.

On their way back down the hallway they actually, unbeknownst to them, walked past an illusory wall with a 90-degree turn that would have taken them to the stairs. It would take them another half an hour to even realize those were present, and the result was absolutely gold. The girl with the temper, Miriam, had barely avoided getting hit by a Spike Wall Trap. The only reason she survived was because one of the others had grabbed her by the collar of her cloak and yanked her back. She stumbled backwards, off balance from the sudden change in direction. She then lost balance and fell through the illusion.

There was a dead silence as the party stared at the illusory wall. “Is that an… Illusion?” The resulting storm of screams and curses were music to my non-existent ears. Now they also had to spend mana on casting dispel magic on the walls. Just in case it was dealing with an illusion they were dealing with. I wished I had popcorn at this point. This was like watching a comedy movie.

This routine of utter misery and suffering continued merrily for another while as I slammed the door shut on their faces a 2nd time. This time Miriam was so upset she tried to cast a fireball at the wall, ouch temper, temper girl. Even so, this was going fine so far, I could keep this up indefinitely. Or so I thought. By the third time they had wised up to my ploy and countered in flawlessly. I begrudgingly applauded their efforts, well played on their part, I hadn’t even noticed they had cast the haste spell.

Well then, time to up the ante. How will you handle the Depths, I wonder? According to the Doppelgänger, you had old records and little else of knowledge on this biome. Hmm, let's see if my assumption is correct… I ordered a long-range strike on them to one of the Winged Striders in the area. They were taken by complete surprise, good it had an effective attack range longer than that of their detection. The same would then likely be true for the grounded Striders.

After this success I had the Winged Striders do near constant strafing runs on the party, no rest for them, EVER. Seeing them use their equipment to form a wall above them just opened the opportunity I had been waiting for. A long range snipe from regular Striders. Several spines fell short or bounced off their armor, but one scored a brutal hit on the shoulder of one of the tanks. They healed her up just fine and continued, none of them even realizing she was dying as they walked, until the bookworm suddenly spoke up.

Dammit that little guy was always running my fun, didn’t even get them to waste a resurrection because of him. Well, it was nothing I could do about that, except to see if I could single him out later for revenge. Then Rael walked right into the path of an erupting Fire Geyser. The result was hilarious; he hadn’t taken a direct hit, so he was only lightly singed, but even so that was too much fun to watch his reaction. Too bad there was no way to record this stuff.

They soldiered on constantly, harried and hounded and had to dodge and avoid hazards. It was less entertaining since it was rather samey and I didn’t have the psychological impact of instant death as a threat anymore. But it was amusing enough. It took me a while to notice, but they had been walking in a giant circle for a while now. And I was not the only one to have noticed. So did the dwarves in the party. Who now took the lead away from the Ranger.

I knew that a person could easily lose all sense of direction down in caves, but that was ridiculous. I mean these caves were easy to navigate, then again that was probably my Darkvision. To me, the caves were as bright as daylight for nearly half a mile or so.

Finally, with the aid of the dwarves, they reached the room where the Abyssal Eye was waiting for them. I poked in on it, wanting to see it get ready and. Was that lazy eyeball SLEEPING? OY, WAKE UP LAZY PIECE OF you got work to do.

The eye woke up, opened its eye and… petrified the ranger instantly. A great start. The rest of the party wisely chose to not reveal itself. Then one of the other archers shot a flare arrow. This distracted the Eye and let a few of the adventurers move down the line and take cover behind the pillars, really? Then it happened again… dude seriously, you have 3500 intelligence you should understand this is a distraction! And again!!!

OK THAT’S IT, WILL BINDER, NO DISTRACTIONS FROM THE FIGHT! The next time the arrow flew past. The Eye didn’t even bat an... eye… at the distraction. But calmly waited for the adventurers to happily walk into its line of sight. The first one was the tank from earlier, she turned into a frog then got hit with Bleed and died. The firebrand Miriam got hit with confusion, then got about half a dozen other status ailments before she joined the ranger as a statue. And finally Laham, one of the unlucky mages that had been eaten by my Typhoid rats on the last trip. Was nailed by both Slow and Torpor. The poor guy was now so slow a snail would win a race against him even if he had a 4-hour head start. Despite this he managed to fall out of the way of the gaze and into cover.

2 down, 22 to g- that’s when they started their counterattack and my confidence in an easy victory quickly started to fall. First, they nullified its gaze, then started to tear its smaller stalks to pieces. It could regenerate those, but that was still damage dealt to the boss itself. Still, things were pretty even. Then they shredded the main stalk. Shit, not good, no no, big guy, no need to get angry over that. It was just a scratch and… ah shit, it’s too angry to listen to instructions now. Well, this either ends with the adventurers vaporized or the eye gets killed. It had abandoned all semblance of defense and was starting to charge its “Eye Cannon” at the hidden Dwarves. The damn thing had 3500 intelligence yet was behaving like an utter moron!

It’s so hard to get good help these-. HOLY SHIT THAT’S BRIGHT!! The cannon had just vaporized the hidey hole of the dwarves, who even while moving were keeping up their stupid ritual somehow. Well, the shot had passed right through where “I” was hovering in the room, turning my entire view into just “Beam” for a moment. I was seeing stars, didn’t know it was possible for me to even get retina burn in my current state.

The Eye was just shooting wildly at the nearest target that moved now. And it ignored the obvious danger of the mages that were peppering it with magic. Its health was dropping. Then the adventurers went into high gear, as they had probably realized the Eye’s plan. It wanted to force them to the bottom, then kill them with its poison mist.

I was glad I did not have actual ears in the resulting chain explosion. Though looking at the remains of the Eye I truly felt sorry for it. After the fall damage, the Abyssal Eye still somehow survived with 5HP and it was hurting badly. I used Will Bender to make it use Genus Call while simultaneously making it lose consciousness. The poor thing had fought hard, and I would not let it suffer while it had to wait for its now inevitable death.

The Elder Evil Eyes were overrun almost instantly. I can’t say I was surprised. The Adventurers would be so hopped up on adrenaline and fear by now that they would be borderline rabid. The Eyes had come in expecting a live and healthy boss, not a rampaging horde armed with sharp, stabby things.

Even so, the Elder Evil Eyes took a horrid toll in revenge. They could never seriously harm or kill anyone, but their constant hounding prevented them from getting any rest. I could see their nerves were almost completely shot. They were quaffing potions of healing, stamina and mana just to keep going. Because to stop would mean an instant attack by the Eyes.

The Strider Hive was the only thing between the adventurers and me now. Time to take the gloves off, I started to send out groups of Striders that had been buffed up by the Amber Crawlers, the result was spectacular. A spike sheared straight through Rael’s tower shield, helmet and head before embedding itself in one of the others. That was a serious buff, I wondered how much stronger the Pharos Wing would make them.

Hmm, only one way to find out, let’s call in some. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get ever so slightly affected by them. They were gorgeous things and I could look at them up close too. Meanwhile, Rael nearly had his second death, and this time a far more permanent one as “Bewitching Beauty” nearly had him walk right into the lake. There were… Things in that water that never surfaced. Big Things, if he fell in, I doubted he would ever be found again.

Then of course the little spitfire Miriam couldn’t help herself, and she had to shoot at the pretty little things. The effect was immediate. The sheer outrage emanating from the queen through her drones was making even me take a double take. It was beyond ANYTHING I had felt from the Abyssal Eye when it was berserk. The drones went into a killing frenzy, throwing all forms of coordination to the winds and just swarming into Melee to rip the party asunder.

This was getting bloody fast, sure Striders were dying in droves. But that enrage effect also reduced their respawn timer by a lot. They could absorb the losses and not lose much of anything in terms of numbers. Yet despite this the damn adventures managed to press forward. Though it was clearly tough going for them. The healers and mages were essentially constantly chugging mana potions by now, just to keep up with the demand on their spells.

I decided to get a more authentic view at this point and materialized on one of the “Balconies” I had made on the hive. I looked over the battle with physical senses for the first time, the sounds of combat echoing loudly across the expansive cave. It was an equally visceral view, Striders getting torn apart, blown up, incinerated and electrocuted over and over in a slow but unerring march forward on the adventurer’s side. Then the Eyes decided to show up again as one of the Tanks had noticed me and gotten distracted. He got a face full of Gaze and I thought it would be over for him. Until the Eye fell over dead with about half a dozen arrows in its pupil, ouch, poor thing.

I decided to distance myself from the battle as they got closer. No point in exposing myself to a potshot I couldn’t see coming due to the writhing mass of Striders attempting in vain to kill them.

The party practically stumbled into the queen’s chamber, and for a while the fight was even. Then the adventurers started to slowly get the upper hand. Time to take matters into my own paws and I knew just the right… “Ally” to help me. Miriam, there are Striders behind you, burn them! Poor little Miriam didn’t even realize the voice was in her head as she happily obeyed my command, and cast a fireball on her friends. It felt… tasteless, to turn her on her friends like that, even as Rael knocked her out. But then, honor had no place in the heat of battle. If underhanded tactics would win me this fight, so be it, except betrayal, NEVER betrayal.

Then Rael spoke up, “Watch out everyone. The Core has started to make its move, watch out for allies that it has taken control of.” Take control of more of them? Why, what an excellent idea! Thank you for volunteering Rael! Enemies are in front of you, strike them down. They didn’t even knock him out, instead they just cleansed him, breaking my control. Well, that was anticlimactic.

The nearly dead queen tried to take advantage of Rael’s momentary distraction. But that doomed her as the other members of the party were ready to defend him and left me with the burden of commanding the Striders.

I couldn’t help but to pick up on Rael’s thoughts at that moment, however, as the Striders kept pouring in. And I could not help but to reply to his thoughts. “But there is a Queen in this room Rael, you are looking at her, I rule this dungeon, obviously my Striders will continue to come to my support.” No sooner had I said that before Miriam shot a fireball my way. This one was weak, however, unfocused. Even my basic Magic Resistance could repel that one, I swatted it away.

Then Rael and the other Tank rushed me, I batted the woman out of the way and grabbed Rael’s sword. I intended to rip it from his grasp. But I had not noticed the small dwarves coming up behind them as I took 2 really nasty hits. Damn that hurt, that was… nearly 1/2 of my health gone in one go. A clever move... OW!!! The pain turned to indignation, and I released a Roar on them all. A bad move on my part. There was a reason I had not used it earlier. Sure enough, the Roar killed every damn Strider within hearing range. Now I was alone, badly hurt, and had OW had an acid arrow in my side. I took a few unsteady steps back, then dissolved my form. There was no way I was winning this, I was just too low a level.

I materialized back in the core room, I still had a shot... the mirror… damn that bolt hurt. I didn’t see the fireball before it hit the corner of the mirror and exploded. Sending me into the wall hard. Well, 5% HP remaining, yikes. At least the mi- no, not the mirror, dammit. It was lying face-down on the other side of the room. It was useless now, unless I could convince them to lift it up and stare into it, and no one would be that stupid. That was my last hope. No wait, maybe…

Rael arrived, he looked exhausted, can’t say I blame him. He thought he had won, can’t blame him for that either. I was in no state to stop him. He took a step towards the pillar. “No, don’t you… Dare” damn that hurt. I could hardly focus as I opened the menu, I silently praised myself for getting “Avatar Builder”.

He took another slow step. “I… warn… You” I needed to distract him just a little more. There unlocked, just a little mo- I ignored the Records. If this killed me, then at least I would take the adventurers with me.

A third step. Rael was ejected out of the room as pain beyond anything I had felt before racked every inch of my being. Threatening to send me flying into oblivion, no I could not lose consciousness yet. One last… order… I reached out with my mind hanging on by a hope and a prayer. “Destroy the int…ruders… My… Mas...ter Piece… ahhhhhh” Oblivion claimed me as Minos roared.