Allen’s mind froze, the magic inside the chamber fluctuating and twisting as a massive ball of information was forcing its way into his conciousness. To put it simply, the feeling was anything but comfortable, enough discomfort and even pain being caused to put Neith on edge, rushing through the crowd to find the offender of whoever had done this to her creator. While she couldnt feel his discomfort, she instinctively knew something was wrong.

At his core, a single greenskin stood, small in stature. Upon trailing where the construct had rushed towards, would several orcs notice who had been the cause of this strange behaviour. Ozram stood at the core, his hand still touching the surface which he’d quickly retract upon seeing the entire group and one very angry Spider-construct staring at him. ‘’W-what? I only wanted to thank it… Jigi told me this glowing stone is controlling the construct…?’’

From voice alone, anyone could know that the child had meant no harm.

Anyone besides a automated construct with questionable conciousness.

Ozram crashed into the ground, Neith ontop of him, fangs quickly closing in and puncturing the youngling’s skin. Though before the highly-potent corrosive liquid could set in, the construct halted, a weak, etherial-sounding voice echoing through the room.

‘’Neith… Stop… I’m fin-…’’

The voice halted, before continuing again.

‘’Test… test…? I can speak now?’’

The Group suddenly released the breath they had failed to notice had been stuck.

After both Turok and Jigi calmed down the group, sending into a different tunnel after Allen had created a square hole further underground as well as the orcs having bandaged Ozram as best they could, the 3 stood besides one another, a ‘Warrior’, ‘Shaman’ and ‘Chieftain’. Though it would be a while till they recieved these titles.

‘’I’m… sorry for touching you so suddenly… I really didn’t know anything would happen…’’ The youngest of the 3 would start, scratching the back of his head with his good arm.

Allen inspected the 3, noting how they looked more like green humans with sharper, more blunt features and small tusks appearing from the bottom jaw, albeit the last only counted for the largest of the 3, then disformed goblins or the more common disfigured kind of Orcs.

‘’It all worked out in the end, you gave me the ability tos peak. Atleast in your language anyway. It is a strange feeling of being only able to communicate with a language you’ve never spoken before.’’

A strange feeling indeed. Allen’s thoughts were still in his native language, that he knew, and yet every word he spoke would be effortlessly translated into ‘Orcish’. He’d found out fairly quickly on what that earlier creature was as well, an Ogre. Followed by being told the Clan’s story.

If anything, he was glad on finally meeting something he could talk with, that wasnt a mindless (Or in the case of Neith, maybe mindless) creature or something that was actively trying to kill him.

‘’Noble being of magic, will you allow our stay inside your grand cavern?’’ The largest of the 3, Turok, would kneel infront of his pyramid-like pedestal, making him quite uncomfortable…

Allen gave a soft cough-like sound. ‘’I don’t know whats so grand about this cave… it’s a flat square. No need to act so polite. I haven’t been living for long’’

Jigi, the middle of the 3 in both size and age, (his translation of Orcish placing him around 15 of age in terms of human years, Turok and Ozram being 2 years above and below him respectively as it seemed a ‘Generation’ spanned about 2 years) would speak before the warrior could.

‘’Dungeon core-‘’

Much like how Jigi had interrupted Turok, Allen would now step infront of his own sentence.

‘’Allen. My name is not Dungeon core…’’

‘’Master Allen-‘’ Jigi corrected himself, still using a honorific which, in all honesty, Allen still felt uncomfortable with. ‘’We are willing to earn our keep. From what folktales have us believe, it is possible for monsters of the outside to be ‘recruited’ by a dungeon such as yourself. We Orcs are not considered monsters, though we are the closest when viewing all humanoid races. We’re willing to defect and submit to the system if it means our surviva-‘’

Turok would grab Jigi’s arm, his face turning red with anger as droplets of spit flew out with his speech.

‘’YOU DARE!? Everyone of the clan has died and you’d just submit this easily?’’

‘’Turok, it does not matter whether we submit or not if we’re DEAD. I’d rather continue living then see the rest of our clan suffer away, even it means being under the control of a dungeon, we have nowhere to go!’’

While Ozram would try and calm the two members of the clan who had gotten into a debate on who was right, one choosing honor and the other logic, Allen would raise a awkward, soft voice, the words held within the sentence silencing all three.

‘’If… it’s the same system we’re talking about, I’m… kinda against that as well?’’

All three orcs looked at the glowing stone with a confused, funny expression. ‘’What.’’

‘’Long story, just know that I have no idea on how to recruit any of you, because I’m not part of the system. I’ve been here for probably a few months now… dunno. And all I managed to figure out was how to create holes in my wall, and turn a tiny spider into a guardian mech the size of a wolf. Yes, I'm still trying to figure that one out..’’

Allen knew, and tried, that simply throwing his mana at it (considering it was the only way of testing something he had) didn’t work, completely atleast. Turok had mentioned that the greenskin clan did feel stronger then normal inside his cave of square-ness, and as such the Dungeoncore filed ‘’throwing mana at it’ under the tab of ‘buffs’ instead of ‘recruiting’.

All four members grew silent, each of them keeping their thoughts for themselves until the youngest of the party would suddenly give a soft ghasp. ‘’Master Allen, you said you managed to communicate after I touched you, right? Maybe we need to be in direct contact with your Crystal before it works?’’

Allen gave a mental chuckle at the child’s innocence, Mana wasn’t that simple to work out, was it…? Ozram had already placed his hand back on the surface of the Crystal, and Allen himself did… not… totally send out a trail of his energy, just for testing. Obviously he knew the theory would be wrong…

‘’Oh Old man why did it actually work I feel like a idiot’’

Much like with Neith, a strange connection would form between the small Orc and the Dungeoncore.

An almost instinctive feeling overcame Allen, knowing that no matter how far Ozram would be away from his Crystal, they would still be able to ‘communicate’ with one another, albeit in feelings rather then words.

The same feeling overcame the youngling, a satisfied expression together with a grin firmly plastered onto his face, considering his idea had worked out just fine.

As Turok and Jigi followed, something else managed to convey itself through all 3 of them.

A feeling of comfort, and most importantly, safety. They had all seen how easily the guardian, their new name for Neith, had dispatched that Ogre. Their clan had not yet been lost, and the flame of hope was being kept alive inside their hearts.

Allen meanwhile, wanted to test how far their ‘connection’ could go, and after giving every single member of the Orc clan a patch of his mana, asked if a few could go out of the dungeon.

Everything managed to go smoothly, untill the first stepped outside of the tunnel with a single foot, their connection vanishing. Allen, hoping it hadn’t been destroyed, called them back, finding out that upon re-entry, would it reestablish, making him give a mental sigh of relief.

In the back of his mind, knowledge only he knew was stored safely. While he had been establishing friendly relations with the newcomers, his mind had never stopped practicing with mana. He’d continue to grind his non-existent teeth together, glaring at the 5-Phase plan he had made.

Project: Dungeon

Phase 1: -Remove materials

Phase 2: -Create materials

Phase 3: -Make something better then a flat square

Phase 4: -Create new / improve monsters (?)

Phase 5: -Improve capabilities of phase 1>4

Phase 4 was a debate on whether or not it had already been finished, as he counted the Orcs as his new ‘monsters’, guardians to protect his vunerable core. Then again, he doubted these 30 members could even begin to deal with the giant centipede which had threatened his existence not long ago.

They needed arms, and armor.

Yes, he could start forging pig-iron plating as thick as a thumb.

Well no, he couldnt, he had no iron, but theoretically…

He knew how to forge proper steel, if Dungeons could also create materials, and not just remove them (which he desperately hoped was true, otherwise he’d be forever stuck with a flat, square room…), he could spawn in both veins of iron and coal, hopping directly over to sharpened steel.

And use Sulfur together with charcoal and Saltpeter to create a even more deadly weapon…

The Orcs could mine the ore and do the labor, while he’d create the proper facilities to produce the weaponry. Allen gave a wishful sigh at the thought, knowing that such a army was probably a long while away, he lacked quite literally everything.

A stray thought made its way into his head, wondering if the Dwarfs were those that created machinery and the like, or those that spend their entire days mining away under a mountain.

Then again, both kinds did, one just used explosives and the like, while the other used raw manpower…

With a sigh, he stored away the question for a later date, finding himself back in his mindscape to once more begin molding the mana to his will.