Well, speak of the devil, huh. I was just thinking about enlarging the dungeon, when those people showed up.

Bad Thing: It’s a much larger group than last time. Good Thing: That also means plenty of energy for me. Plus, only half of them have weapons... though, if the guy from last time is any indication, this shouldn’t really matter that much for these people. In particular, there’s a big, mustachioed fellow at the back of the group who isn’t carrying anything, but still looks like he could be plenty dangerous.

But... even with all that weaponry, they’re just... there. Not even looking at the side rooms, or anything, not even the guy from earlier. They’re all just staying in the main hall. Some look like they’re standing guard, others are training, but most are... just sitting on the ground?

Well, not just sitting. I’m not sure exactly what they’re doing or how, but I can feel the energy around them swirling and getting drawn in. It’s mostly just excess that my core doesn’t have room to properly refine anyways, and it’s more than a fair trade for their life energy anyways, but... what exactly are those people doing?

Lana sits on my core, distracting me from those thoughts. “Hm. Looks like they have a different magic system here.”

I try to question her, but confusion and mental communication don’t go too well together and all my thoughts, about the magic, about what she means by ‘here’, and if she could please not surprise me like that again all jumble together into one big mental question mark.

She looks down with a bit of an amused expression at my confusion, but goes on. “Well, you are still a new dungeon, so I guess you didn’t understand what happened... not that I’m so sure either, though.”

“But basically: it seems that when you were supposed to have come down to earth, there was some sort of spiritual turbulene that knocked you way off course- and I got dragged along through even just the half-formed fairy bond. We... seem to be in a whole other world now.” She muttered something under her breath I didn’t fully catch about weird shit and dungeons, then got back on track. “I don’t fully either know where this leaves us, but the elements here feels a lot different from what I know, and the sort of magic these people are practicing is weird to me too... but at the end of the day, dungeon seem to still work and I’m not feeling anything bad, so, well, life goes on, I suppose.”

She seems awfully nonchalant about something this drastic. Won’t she at least miss people from back there or something? I start to ask, but the state she gives back makes me drop the question. There seems to be something uncomfortably personal down that line of questioning.

We fall into, if not wholly comfortable, at least calm silence, just observing the people in the hall remotely.

Well, this situation seems to be favorable to both parties, yes, and I all but explicitly built that hall as a safe zone, but still... it seems kinda wrong, just leaving people just sitting there like that. I won’t attack the hall, of course, just... maybe direct some Deep Dwarves- yeah, that’s what I’m calling them- to stand near the doorways menacingly and counterattack if the people hit first.

———Villager POV———

Zhi Yi, the trader, surprsingly- or perhaps not, since merchants have to protect themselves- managed to score a spot in the fighting force. Either a free soul, full of energy, or a jittery, flighty paranoid, depending on how charitable the person you asked about her, she undisputably knew her way with a sabre. And now, she stood leaning against one of the pillars of the dungeon, given guard duty due to being too unquiet to cultivate properly, her restless eyes scanned the doorways.

The plentiful Qi was doing wonders for everyone- it had been less than an hour since they were there, and even those not fully concentrated on cultivating were feeling a definite invigoration, a small but definitely real tingle of vigor flowing into their lungs, energy coming into their bloodstream. With such great results, and no worries as of so far- the whole expedition was feeling quite satisfied, many of the guards starting to relax and practices breathing exercises as well.

So, in the end, it was only the paranoid Zhi Yi who noticed when, an hour into their cultivation, a pair of strange, short humanoids of earth trudged into view in one of the doorways. She immediately got out of her post- not crying out just yet, but yanking Li Gong out of his cultivation, and jabbing a finger in the door’s direction to bring his attention to the figures.

He looked at them and nodded. They seemed similar enough to the beings from last time, at least. Not seeking to disturb the others’ cultivation, he signaled a couple of the more alert guards over, and the four of them went to confront the duo of rocky figures.

The dungeon’s corridors were wide, a tad more than wide enough to fit a pair of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder in them, so it wasn’t a problem for the more agile Li Gong and Zhi Yi to both position themselves in front, with the two polearm-bearing guards behind them supporting. The dwarves, one carrying a large battle axe, the other a pair of hammers, both turned to look at the group entering the corridor, their eyes burning in their sockets.

The two parties simply faced each other for nearly a minute, until finally one of the two behind couldn’t take it any longer. Taking a step and rearing his arm back, he flung his spear in a textbook-perfect throw, sending it whistling through the air to slam into one of the monsters’ chest, near the shoulder- and, to all the humans’ surprise, firmly embedding itself there with the dull thud of a stick being thrust into gravel or soil. The dwarf seemed none the worse, only grunting and giving the arm an experimental stretch, finding movement to have been impeded by the large piece of wood stuck in its joint.

The barely-sentient monster found this to be not an impediment, and proceeded to charge forward either way, punctuating the attack with a battlecry similar to the sound of a rocky avalanche, raising the axe above its head. Not intending to let the lunge complete it’s trajectory, Li Gong took the opportunity to dash forward himself, abusing the opponent’s momentum by grabbing the dwarf’s raised forearm and yanking it forward while simultaneously kicking it’s shin backwards, sending him whirling out of balance and into the wall with a satisfying CRUNCH of stone against stone, but merely dazed, and still not out of it.

Meanwhile, Zhi Yi carefully stepped forward to confront the other, hammer-wielding opponent with sabre held in a low, defensive stance, eyes focused on the enemy. This one, seeming mildly more intelligent than the other, confronted her, circling around the opponent as well, a low, rumbling growl exiting it’s mouth accompanied by a shower of sparks. As soon as the hammerdwarf found itself distracted by a careful, poking stab from the last armed guard, Zhi Yi took the opportunity to launch forward, aiming a fast strike at what seemed like the best target on the monster- the head. The dwarf managed to regain its footing fast enough and push the attack away with one of the hammers, but the strike still managed to score a gash against the clay ‘flesh’ spattering on the floor.

Taking a couple of retreating steps, the merchant woman then shouted to the other two fighting villagers-

“Aim for the head!”

They turn back to her, Li Gong with a quick thumbs-up in between blurring fists, and the spearman with a simple nod. The cultivator matched the axedwarf for two more exchanges, not meeting the heavy axe head-on, but weaving around it’s savage slashes, before taking the advange of a heavy downwards attack leaving the enemy off- balance, slamming the monster’s head against the wall with a palm strike, leaving it to lifelessly crumple to the ground. All the while, Zhi Yi slashed, parried and danced around strikes like she hadn’t ever before in her life, the adreneline of survival instinct driving her to meet the dwarf’s steely strikes time after time, even as her muscles grew sore- until she managed to grab one of the hammerer’s in a lock, crying out for the spearman, who promptly took the opening and managed to drive his weapon right into the monster’s face, burning eyes extinguished in a flash.

They all took a minute to catch their breaths, until Zhi Yi marched up to Lu Gong and demanded:

“What the hell happened to them being weak?!”