Lucifer’s Pov

Well that was interesting, not everything went exactly as I imagined it would, but the situation sorted itself out better than I anticipated. Originally I was going to use my trump card if they could get up the water current but it seems my choice to use poison instead of venom was a wise choice, I thought that the adventurers would squish the ants with their hands when they were bitten allowing the poison to be absorbed through their skin, something that venom cannot do. But it seems that the fire magic vaporized the poison to a similar effect, I'm just lucky that the fire didn't alter the poisons chemical properties turning it inert or something.

Initially, I began to sweat a little when the mage started using the ring of fire magic that didn't allow the small ants to get close to the adventurers. The plan was for the adventures to be swarmed when they were tired which is why I held most of the ants back in the initial attack, but they seemed to have an endless supply of potions and magic items. This allowed them to continue further into the dungeon, they were careless because they made the assumption that I would throw everything at the wall to see what stuck, but instead, I made sure they were in a position where they couldn't turn back before I committed my main force. They also should have guessed from the first level that my dungeon floors are significantly longer than other dungeons. Perhaps the dungeons running on instinct can’t figure out that distance can kill a person just as well as a big monster can.

I’ve realized that even if I added stronger monsters instead it would not make me any safer, larger monsters are harder to create and take more energy to sustain. I can, however, choose to feed my creatures either mana or food so I’ve currently got my minions eating food instead of taking in mana because my farm is sufficient to feed the current amount of minions but soon I will have to expand the farm. Anyway even if I made a colossal monster it probably would not amount to much against strong adventurers, especially with the number of magical items these ones had. I’ve found magic weapons on all of them and the mage had a holding bag that can hold more than it should, some trick of space magic apparently. Although it can hold more items it still weighs as much as whats inside it. I asked Selenia if there is a version which cancels the weight but apparently, those are only held by royalty and the fact that these adventures even had a holding bag meant that they were up to no good for quite some time and were quite successful at it. Only high nobles like dukes can get a holding bag normally, it's not something most countries want people to own when they are trying to secure their borders.

Sadly quite a bit of the gear they had was washed away and having Selena go down to the valley below did not yield any results as I hoped. I didn’t realize how cooped up Selena was until I saw her come back into the dungeon after being outside looking for the adventurer's gear, she looked happier than I've ever seen her. That is not really saying much considering I’m her captor but still, I should make her stay more habitable. Her room only consists of a bed with leaves for comfort a dresser for the few clothing she has left and whatever she can make out of things she finds in the dungeons jungle areas. The wild look when she is wearing mostly jungle weaved attire I must admit is quite sexy.

During the incident, she played a key role in taking down the adventures. She used her abilities to communicate with spirits to stop aiding the adventurers and to start to become more chaotic, something that makes it really difficult to use the mana in the atmosphere that the mages are fond of doing, as a side benefit it slows the number of mana people in the area can create or take into their bodies because they cant get the mana to align with the mana in their bodies. To do this she had to follow the adventures stealthily while concentrating on the spirits the whole time, by the end of the ordeal she looked more exhausted than when she first fell into my dungeon. So I should reward her by upgrading her living environment. Although I am probably only doing this because of that fantastic kick at the end, the look on the mages face was priceless.

I guess I'll go do that now, when I enter her room she looks over pausing from her current carving and asks “is there something you need me for”, I do like that she has started to act more servantly if that's a word so I told her “get out of your room, I’m going to be modifying it” she then stared suspiciously at my general direction for a moment then looking unwilling but still leaving her room making sure to pick up some of her better carvings before leaving. That unwilling face is quite nice. Now I should get started, using some of the knowledge from the Earthmails I began my work, starting with expanding the room to five by five meters, then with the extra room I started to imagine the object I wanted to create and the properties that it needed, without the Earthmails this would be difficult but as long as I have enough information about something I can create whatever I imagine, but the less I understand something the more mana it takes to create it the point of some tasks are just a waste of time and effort. During one of the experiments I was able to make a handgun, but it could not fire because my knowledge on the inner workings of a gun is non existent, I had better luck with a revolver even still it could not fire very well because I don't know the ingredients of gunpowder and smokeless was powder even more out of my range of knowledge.

After a few minutes pouring mana into the air I was finally able to make a king size bed, by earths standard I'm sure the kings in this world have far bigger beds. With a canopy, silk sheets and a pillow-top mattress, something even the kings of this world would not have it is complete. I originally planned to carve the wood posts with images of mythical creatures but it seems Selena loves carving so I left the posts and headboard bare. Now moving on to other amenities I started creating other things now less out of good will and more out of creative desire now than anything else. I created a mirror on the wall which took a lot of mana, apparently knowing what silver nitrate does not make it easier to create if I haven't eaten it before as a dungeon. Then I worked on a bathroom, Selenia usually bathes in the jungle biome in a stream that goes through the whole floor, it’s something I'm sure is not particularly pleasant to do in cold water. This part is where the items left by the adventurers came in handy, they had lots of magic stones filled with mana to do different things. After eating the stones I can now create them and a bath does not take much mana to make, its just a hole in the ground something I'm quite good at by now with my time as a dungeon. After sticking in a water stone to fill the thing and a drain with a plug leading to the jungle floor I added a fire stone which she can pour mana in to heat the water, then adding a toilet that runs out of the dungeon and I'm done.

I should make something for David because he helped out too but my creative juices are running low so fuck it. So now I can go back to experimenting on the items the adventures donated.