Selenia peeked out the tunnel exit and felt her chest tighten along with a slight sense of dread, a hand came from behind and gently pushed her through the threshold. Selenia’s breath was caught in her throat as she saw the familiar ancient trees of her home.

Lucifer appeared from the tunnel behind her and loudly said, “you can come out now” catching her by surprise, she looked around and finally noticed the dozens of fully armed elves appearing within the trees.

Each of them was slender and tall just like their weapons, some carried glaves and very few held swords, knives or a combination of the two, most carried a bow with a green crystal tip already notched ready to fire.

Their gazes were locked onto Selenia, she had changed into her armor, but left her helmet off, Lucifer could vaguely hear rustling in the canopy, probably someone leaving to inform the elven hierarchy.

While they sent subtle glances to each-other Lucifer had Kuro come out of the entrance and patted her, ignoring the fairy sitting on Kuro’s head.

This seemed to get the point across as the elves gaze intensified. Lucifer announced, “Greetings elves of the Deepmist Forrest I am Lucifer Morningstar, the dungeon core of the recently discovered dungeon, these are my creations, Kuro, and Lucky”, he gestured to each of his floor bosses then continued, “and this is Selenia as you are probably already aware--”

One of the elves stepped forward and commanded, “Selenia the high elf, you're going to have to come with me, the elders of the grove summon you”

Lucifer smiled faintly after he observed Selenia's glare towards the man, he replied in her stead, “Selenia is mine so she will go nowhere with you”, causing the surrounding elves to tighten their grips on their weapons, some even drew their bow is preparation for a fight, Lucifer laughed, “you can fight me if you wish, in fact, I encourage it, however, if you do try me I’ll send thousands of beasts rampaging throughout your Forrest every week until someone stops me”

The same man who interrupted him rebuked, “your just a human mayfly, do you think coming out of the ground with a few pets would fool us, Selenia is coming with us and you have no right to interfere with eleven business, so get out of my Forrest before we stop being so polite”

“this is you being polite, well I would love to see how you are when impolite” countered Lucifer.

The man made a sound that Lucifer could barely pick up with his enhanced hearing and all the elves exploded into action. Arrows were drawn, small daggers were thrown and those with pole-arms dashed forward.

Lucifer allowed the flying daggers to hit his armor and was surprised that a few actually went right through his metal armor as if it wasn’t even there, however, this time he had already dampened his pain receptors so he just ignored it and let the life energy stored In his body take care of the injuries.

Half a dozen arrows cut through the air aiming at different points on his body, Lucifer inwardly praised their method of cutting off any escape paths just before the polearms came to bear. Since his armor was likely useless against their crystal tipped arrows he pulled his over-sized waraxe out of his storage ring, then moved to the side and used the blade to deflect the remaining arrows that would hit him.

The arrows slammed into the blade and he was inwardly shocked by the recoil from the impacts, their bows must have an absurd draw strength to output that much force.

He saw the front-line elves thrusting their spears towards him, he grinned as he activated the magic crystal in the back of the axe rocketing it into a vicious arc, however, the elves were more experienced than he thought, the length of his axe which was able to reach them along with its sudden acceleration wasn’t able to catch them off guard, they dashed back ducked down or jumped over the swing receiving no injuries.

Just as both groups were about to clash again a powerful voice shook the ground, “STOP THIS INSTANT”, the elves who were about to let loose another volley quickly untensioned their bows and the elves fighting with Lucifer dashed backward before waiting.

Lucifer glanced back towards Selenia and found her standing behind his back with her weapon drawn, that explains why he didn’t receive an arrow in the back. He could see her ugly expression which told him that she recognized the voice.

Moments later an Elven woman who looked 30 years old by human standards appeared from the treetops, “master” escaped from Selenia's lips and Lucifer could tell she was not fond of this ‘master’ from her tone.

The woman walked towards the duo as she asked one of the elves, “where is Elias”, the elves looked around for their leader but couldn’t find him, suddenly something fell from a tree and made a sick wet thump when it hit the ground, several elves jumped and their eyes widened when they recognized the thing on the ground, it was the mangled corpse of their leader.

Everyone looked up only to see a strange shadow in the canopy shrink before vanishing, the woman arrived before the due and her faint smile was now a grimace, “I am elder Bear of the grove, most call me mother bear, I would say its nice to meet you sentient dungeon, but”, she gestured to the mangled corpse, “we seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot”

“indeed,” said Lucifer

“you have nothing else to say” she asked.

Lucifer chuckled, “he had people attack me and my house cat took exception to that”

“I don’t think a dungeon monster qualifies as a ‘house cat” she countered

Lucifer just casually smiled, “I don’t care about your moral outrage, I didn’t do anything wrong”

“You came into our lands and killed a member of our community, is that considered nothing wrong to a dungeon”

Lucifer replied, “ok let me rephrase that, I don’t care even if I did do something wrong, so what is it your trying to get from me”

elder bear said, “Selenia was born in the deepmist forest and is a part of our community, she broke our laws and we reserve the right to punish her for that, so I want you to return her to us”

Selenia exploded, “BROKE WHAT LAWS!!!”

Bear expressionlessly replied, “you left the forest without permission”

Selenia was about to say something, but Lucifer cut her off, “I don’t care about your laws, just take me to whoever your leader is”

Elder Bear looked troubled for a moment before deciding to escort them deeper into the forest, “we don’t have a leader, the elves are governed by the grove of elders”

Lucifer thought, ‘this one sure is annoying”

Half an hour later the trio was walking through what counted as the elven city, the trees had houses built into them, some made of wood or stone, but most seemed to be made of the trees themselves, the branches curved and shaped themselves in unnatural shapes creating houses.

Lucifer looked towards the bridges connecting each building in the air and Selenia explained, “the extremely thin walkways are designed like that so four-legged beasts cant cross them”

Lucifer asked, “won’t people fall from those, they aren’t much wider than a few ropes”

Bear answered this time, “only children ever fall from the walkways, so they must learn proper balance before becoming adults”

Lucifer saw several elves crossing said bridges and they seemed to walk across those bridges as easily as he was walking on flat ground, he then asked, “what if the wind blows”

“any elf is skilled enough to deal with a little wind” bear countered.

Silence continued for several minutes before Selenia caught Lucifer staring at tunnel entrances near the base of each tree, she explained, “elves live in the trees, but sleep underground”

Bear added, “that is only true after the war with the humans, we used to sleep in the treetops too, however, with the loss of most of our experts we are forced to make reinforced underground shelters to sleep in”

Lucifer questioned, “you aren’t at war, so why are you still using bunkers”

Bear glanced pointedly at Selenia, “deepmist forest is essentially a peninsula of the sea of trees that the great beasts have control of, we can keep most of the weaker monsters out of our territory, but sometimes a stronger monster that is wounded or has lost its territory would come to our Forrest, they leave quickly because of the low mana density of the Forrest in comparison to the sea of trees, but that's not before eating a few elves, and the ‘bunkers’ as you call them gives our experts time to get back from the border to repel the invader”

Lucifer mused, “so the monster have to dig out each elf it wants to eat, lowering the casualties before your few experts can get back, however, don’t you elves live a long time, why don’t you have more experts to defend your citizens”

Bears continence darkened as she answered, “indeed we elves should have more experts, but the human war was a disaster, they managed to do more damage to us by accident than they could ever hope to do by themselves… the war filled the deepmist forest with blood and fire, human blood is not a problem some plants love it, and the fire is easy enough to deal with, but it attracted a monster from the sea of trees.

We fought valiantly against it and managed to kill it with serious casualties to some of our best warriors, however, what we didn’t know at the time was that “that” monster was only a child, when its parents came looking for it they went on a rampage”

Lucifer added, “this is probably why you're so interested in Selenia’s bloodline”

Bear didn’t respond but Lucifer took that as a yes, he looked behind him and thought, ‘if looks could kill that would be one dead elder’ he continued, “if your people are so weakened then why haven't they fallen to the humans”

“Pft, even in our weakened state there is no way humans could defeat us”

Soon they arrived at a gigantic tree, it was easily three hundred meters tall and Lucifer could feel light fluctuations of life energy coming from it, once they entered Lucifer found himself along with Selenia standing in the center of a circular room, around the room sat 12 elders, although they only looked roughly 30 at most, Lucifer was sure that they were several hundred years old at least.

Lucifer introduced himself and began negotiations, “A Swadian army is going to attack the duchies, I want access to this Forrest so the army can ambush the duchies effectively”

“armies ravage the lands they tread upon, what can you give that would offset such damage to our Forrest”

Lucifer could see most of the elders eyeing Selenia causing him to sigh, “a dungeon can do many things”

“we have a dungeon in our forrest”

“not a sentient one” countered Lucifer

“perhaps giving back our high elf would be a good start”

“I didn’t know old elves were so greedy” laughed Lucifer, but they didn’t seem to react or even care about the insult.

“Lucifer looked around at the silent elders and began, “fine if you don’t want to state a price to keep the advantage then allow me, I will create several dungeon rooms which your people can use in the event of a monster attack”

“dungeon stone is indeed strong, however, we have our own enhancement methods so that is still not enough to trade for a high elf”

Lucifer replied, “it seems we are under a misunderstanding, Selenia is mine, I’m not buying something I already own, all I’m buying is free travel for an army, unless of course, you want to keep insisting Selenia is yours, then I will have to consider it as kidnapping my servant and that would not end well for this forrest”

Elder bear snapped back, “Selenia was born and raised here, she belongs to the elven people”

The expression of the elders finally changed as one of them yelled, “SILENCE young bear… it appears we Do have a misunderstanding, Selenia are you with the dungeon out of free will”

Selenia jumped at being suddenly called upon and replied, “yes, I’ve agreed to be in the dungeon”, leaving out several important details, Lucifer’s eyes narrowed towards the elder that just spoke, he looked like the oldest of the elves he's seen so far, perhaps 40 or so in human years, he was probably over 1000 years old.

More importantly, this old man figured out that he couldn’t use Selenia as a bargaining chip to increase the price, so instead he acts like a good guy and asks if it's her choice to be with the dungeon, then pretends as if it was a misunderstanding that the elders wanted to include her in the price.

Lucifer smiled faintly after seeing Bears ugly expression then asked, “so elder, what is the price of moving an army through the Forrest”, although he half expected the man to keep silent.

However, the elder actually spoke, “well, other than the damage an army does when they move through a land, there is also the political price, if we let an army use our home to ambush the duchies won’t they be angry”, any goodwill Lucifer had for this old man when he started talking vanished as he cursed him internally. The old man only spoke to further increase the price.

Lucifer countered, “I don’t think the elves fear a few Duchies do they”, he hoped the extreme arrogance Bear showed would be in these elders too, then they might disregard a few ‘humans’.

“a few humans can do a great deal of damage” countered the elder, he didn’t take the bait, apparently these elders were not easy to rile up

Lucifer sighed on the inside as he thought about how bad such a reclusive race would be as allies, “either name your price or I’m leaving”

…

Lucifer turned around and began to walk away when one of the elders spoke up, “create a cultivation room”

Lucifer paused then turned around and asked, “all this for a plant farm”

“it's not a farm, its a room where the concentration of mana is far more dense and pure”

Lucifer replied, “the mages tower in my city has such a room, can’t you have the humans make you a cultivation room”

“we can make those poor imitations too, however, we want the original kind that our ancestors used”

“what is the difference between the two” asked Lucifer.

“the mana from those imitations is dragged from the atmosphere and condensed into the tower, it is way too impure for us elves, while the original digs down into the earth and pulls it from the ground, this mana is far more dense and pure”

Lucifer said, “I can’t dig in this hardened stone at any reasonable rate, I’ve only ever dug down a kilometer at the deepest and there wasn’t any special mana there”

The elders looked at each other in confusion for a moment before the oldest man said, “we can give you the method for digging through this stone effectively… for a price”

Lucifer countered, “it's you who want me to dig this mana well, so you should give me anything that helps with that”

The old elder replied, “yes, but that technique is more useful to a dungeon-like yourself than to us”… … after a minute of silence the elder spoke again, “how about you include the dungeon stone underground houses for emergencies”

Lucifer answered, “fine, on one condition, you ignore what is going to happen next”

“what is going to happen next?”

Boom, the elders jumped from the sudden explosion of sound, they turned their head and saw Selenia trying to cut elder bear in half, however, elder bear had transformed her arm into a giant bear paw which was holding her blade.

The other elders looked to the oldest elder and saw him nod his head and shut his eyes, the other elders followed suit causing Bear to shout out angrily in response.

Selenia pulled her blade free of bears grip and activated her armors barrier, then she dashed forward in a storm of blades, bear transformed her other arm and desperately defended against the onslaught, the blade only cut an inch deep in her arms thick hide, but there was soon dozens and dozens of such cuts.

Blood caked the floor, however, bear didn’t seem like she was going down very soon, between flurries of attacks she would cast healing magic closing some of the wounds.

Several minutes went by and Bear screamed, “why me, We all voted on that decision”

The other elders glared at bear for trying to drag them into this.

Selenia countered, “yes they may have voted for me to be taken away from my parents, however, they would never force it, they would know better than forcing a potential powerhouse to do anything that could form a deep grudge”, several elders nodded in response, power must be respected in any lasting civilization.

Bear argued, “but what does that have to do with me, we all voted the same way”

Selenia exploded, “yes they VOTED the same way, but who had all the other elves scorn and distance themselves from my parents removing their choice entirely”

Bear defended herself, “That wasn’t me, it was probably one of the numerous suitors that spread rumors to get you away from home”

Selenia countered, “my parents are good people, no-one would believe any rumors from those idiots”

“well even if it was an elder that doesn’t mean it was me” bear replied.

Selenia finally had enough of cutting her up and decided to get serious, she pumped mana throughout her body and increased her blade dance speed several times, bear started screaming as her arms started being cut faster than they could heal,

less than 30 seconds later her arms layed limply at her sides as she was completely out of mana, Selenia raised her sword and said, “yes, it could have been any of the elders that spread false rumors about my parents, but having someone publicly ostracized is the way woman fight, and your the only female elder”, Selenia cut down and Bears head flew.

Lucifer commented, “this some pretty flimsy reasoning”

Selenia replied, “call it woman's intuition”

“how scary” Lucifer joked.