A week after the pirates left I can see that the Marms are almost finished with the biggest works in their village. I’ve almost claimed the whole island, I just need to claim the village to complete it, I will do it this night when they’ll sleep and in the morning I’ll claim the beds and nightclothes too. Then everything on the island will be mine, safe for the sapient beings.

I see that they are preparing some kind of procession. They’re going to come to me - or the statue they think is my representation - and perform some kind of ceremony. I’ll take this opportunity to ‘reveal’ some ‘holy scriptures’. In fact, I’ll reveal some bas-reliefs that are showing the power of the Goddess, growing plants, taking care of animals and other life-related things. I’ll also reveal an entrance to a stair leading upside to a second room. The stairs have bas-reliefs showing the love relationship between the Goddess and the God.

In the second room, I sculpt a masculine statue with some resemblances with the one in the Goddess temple. It stands high a sword in his right hand and a shield in the left, the statue is wearing an armored kilt and nothing else. On his face, there are three angry eyes looking down at the people in the room. In front of it is a black pedestal with the second mana stone I own and behind it is a closed blood-red door. For now, it doesn’t open, but in the future, it will connect with the former slaves’ dungeon, and another facility I plan to build. The room is light by red glowing stones, in less number than the ones in the Goddess room’s ceiling, they’re casting a faint and gloomy red light on the reflective polished stone floor.

On the other side of the island, the group of test subjects is settling in. They are suffering from the lack of tools, clothes and other types of furniture and are only surviving on the few fruits growing in the location and easily fished fish and crabs that they’re eating row. They’re almost ready to have the maze revealed to them.

The structure of the maze was quickly done, but I had to wait for some creatures to grow enough to populate it. There are three floors, with traps going from the highest to the one below or in pits, the pits aren’t truly deep, but they have loose and sharps rocks at the bottom, they're designed to injure and maim, not to kill - even if I could enjoy a death or two, for the taste of it. The entrance is on the maze’s top floor, I consider it as the first floor. The dungeon’s corridors are populated by bats and rats, mostly, there is also some poisonous bugs and different kinds of rodents. And they are some special areas.

The first have fruit trees in it. Of course, they are more kinds of rodents and bugs in those rooms, some are here to take care of the plants, and the others for better defense, like the bombardier beetles. I didn’t use this one previously because he couldn’t be really useful against the pirates, with they’re leather armors and fighter habits or in half submerged and sinuous tunnels. Now, against unskilled and unequipped people in wider areas, they’ll be more useful, especially since the first have reproduced and its offsprings are growing bigger and stronger than him. The rewards for reaching this place are better quality food and some tools I’m going to drop.

The other special areas are submerged underwater and filled with fish and crabs. There the dungeon divers will be able to loot some weapons and special objects, like glowing stones of various colors.

At the ‘end’ of the dungeon, the former slaves will be allowed to talk to me and ask some questions. Well, those who are able to read, I don’t know how to speak yet. Modulating winds to produce sound is feasible, but making understandable words out of it? I haven’t been able to make it.

I will now open the access to the maze for the former slaves. Some of them are already near the fountain square, but I can operate closer to them than before. The bubble of mana they’re emanating is slightly reducing each day, I think it’s thanks to the fact that they are eating, drinking and breathing my mana, and bathing in it every second of their life since one week, it’s starting to affect them.

---

Jack wakes up feeling something’s different in the air. The air in this cave is strange, but this time there is something more. He sniffs but can’t smell anything he hadn’t smell in the past few days.

Leaving his house he sees that he’s not the only one to have felt it. In the street of the village, other former slaves are walking and looking around.

“You’re feeling it too?” Asks one of them.

“Yes, it’s coming from the fountain’s square direction.” Says Melinda. She’s a nice twenty-five-year-old woman. Like for at least twenty other former slaves women, Jack can smell she’s pregnant, but in her case, it’s obvious she was pregnant before being captured by the slaves. She had lost two children and her husband when the pirates took her and she’s now taking care of the youngest pregnant girls. As the major part of the woman, she’s rather good-looking, especially her big breasts, she has the biggest bust of all and Jack loves big boobs. And she smells good and clean.

Jack and some others walk to the square where the water flows from the wall and then through a stream to the closed sea. When at the square, Jack can feel that the strange feeling is getting stronger and stronger the more his closing to the fountain and the more people are gathering there.

He walks near to Mililara in order to ask her if she knows anything about the situation, but before he can reach her, Lucia and Stella arrive at the place. And at this exact moment, the earth shakes.

Some people run away from the square, but not Jack. He has too much courage in him to flee. He moves between the remaining crowd and the fountain as he sees it moving. The Fountain is moving, the source of the water is going down the wall and moving on the floor, the people are moving out of its way. Then it settles in the middle of the square and starts to grow to make a new fountain, one with a deep basin in it, the fish and crabs don’t seem to care about the change as they are still wandering aimlessly in the water.

Jack looks at the place of the former fountain and sees a big door there. Two big panels of stone with scriptures on it.

“Can someone read that?” Asks Jack to the few people still around.

“Nope, sorry.” Answers Mililara. This woman is a fierce one, she earned Jack’s respect on the first day of their arrival in the cave. There is something spicy in her smell than pleases Jack.

“Me neither.” Adds Lucia. This little girl is not yet a woman, Jack can smell it.

“I… I can.” Says Stella. Jack would not have bet on her still being there, but the girl’s following Lucia like her shadow. Unfortunately, this one is a woman, a pregnant one, from the smell and the flatness of her belly, she probably doesn’t know yet that the pirates have left her in this condition. Jack already talked with Melinda about that and she asked him to not tell the girl yet.

“Then please do sweaty.” Melinda encourages her.

“I… it says-”

“‘If you’re brave enough. If you’re curious enough. Enter the Maze. Find treasures. Find answers.’ What is it, some kind of weird dungeon?” Interrupts a tall man. Jack doesn’t like him, he smells like swamps and his skin looks gritty. And his name’s Grundy, who's named Grundy? But he is strong and could be reliable in a fight. Everyone looks at him, surprised to hear him read the inscription. “What? I can read too.”

“I don’t know if it a dungeon, but we need to go in and see.” Says Jack.

“I agree. But who will go?” Asks Mililara. “I volunteer, but we can’t all go in.”

“You’re right, some of us need to stay and take care of those who still need it. But if the ‘treasures’ it talks about can help us, then we must go in.” Says Melinda.

“I’ll go too.” Intervenes Jack. “Grundy, will you come? You're big and strong, you could be useful.”

“Yes, I’ll come.”

---

Two hours later the people composing the exploration team are standing in front of the maze’s entrance. They are ready to enter my maze. I look at them, recalling what I learned about each of them.

The leaders of the group are Mililara and Jack. They’re accompanied by Grundy, two other men, and one other woman.

Grundy is looking like some sort of rough human, he has a grey and gritty skin. He’s tall, strong and sturdy, I think he has some Trolls in his closed ancestors. From what I’ve heard, he was born in slavery and the pirates had simply bought him. He’s used to following orders but not quick to do so.

The other men are brothers, Mickel and Charles, they are short and slander for humans and can move quickly. They seem able to work good in tandem. But I don’t think they’ll be able to do really good.

The last member of the group is a rarity. A female dwarf. By this simple fact, she would have reached a high price on the slave market. Dwarves rarely go out of their mountains’ tunnels if not for the outcasts or for settling a Grudge. Dwarves are known to hold grudges for generation and to be particularly stubborn and strong-willed. Female ones are almost never seen outside dwarven cities. I don’t know her name, she never speaks, only responding by some grumbling to questions. The other tried to make her talk or not come but when she sent Grundy on his butt by punching him in his manly parts, they accepted her in the group without more complains. She’s wearing her long and pitch black hairs in two tightly braids tied together on her back, her beard his as black as her hair but it is rather short for a dwarf, even for a woman. I think the pirates shaved her, but it could be more complicated if she’s an outcast.

All of them are wearing rags and have taken some of the chains they were tied up with to use as weapons. I’m pleasantly surprised to see them use the marks of their captivity like that.

---

“Hrmpf.” Makes Franziska, raising her closed left fist over her shoulder.

“What?” Says the big and stupid man. He’s named Grundy, but she doesn’t really care about his name, just about the noise he’s making.

Franziska turns around, looks angrily at him and put a finger to her lips.

“She means to stay silent.” Whispers Mililara. She has a bit a respect for that woman, she can do what is necessary when it’s needed, and she’s smarter than Grundy, she’s not bad for a tall person.

The dwarf looks back in front of the tunnel, pointing to a small crack in the wall. The dogman, or whatever the name of his race, walks to it and sniffs it.

“Rats, mice, voles, and rabbits. Lots of rats. The hole is empty, but it’s recent.” He says, keeping his voice low. Franziska never thought about it, but having someone with such a good nose can be useful under the earth. Particularly when the tunnels under aren’t natural, like those ones, they’ve clearly been dug out for someone with an experienced eye like her. Tunnels with natural lighting on the roof aren’t naturals, everyone could see that part, but there are other clues that the rest of group is missing.

When the group decides to move again the rodents make their moves. They jump at the wannabe adventurers, claws and fangs out. The group moves immediately, they were expecting some kind of attack and weren’t surprised. But they are not used to fight with chains as weapons and in tunnels.

As they are slashing at the rodents with their chains, they hit each other more often than they hit the beasts, fortunately for them, they are more sturdy and can withstand some blows while each creature dies in one hit.

Soon the fight is finished and each of the former slaves look bruised and scratched and is panting heavily.

“Huf. We need to take care to not hitting ourselves next time. Mainly you, Grundy, you hit really hard and almost broke my arm.” Says the dogman, holding his right arm in his left hand.

“Sorry.”

"Hrm." Makes Franziska, showing to the stupid tall people how she coils her chains around her fist and arms. She punches a wall to shows how it's more useful and less dangerous for your friend than slashing them around.

“Anyway. We need to keep going and take the corps. I don’t fancy rat meat, but in a stew, with the other rodents it would be a good change.” Says Mickel.

“And how will you cook your stew?” Asks him his brother, with a smirk on his face.

“Shut up fucker.”

“No, you, shut up.”

“Both of you, keep quiet. We’re going. Maybe will find something to make fire further in.” Says Mililara, stopping the friendly argument between the two brothers.

“I hope we don’t encounter something stronger than rats.” Adds Charles before grabbing one of the dead rats and putting it at his belt.

“Don’t raise those flags, dumbass!”

“Seriously, keep quiet you two, or go back!” Barks in the big dog, making even more noise than the two brothers together, but managing to make them stop talking.