“This sucks.” The human whined again, as he stepped in yet another puddle. Valens watched in amusement as the adventurer kicked at the water disconsolately. It amazed me how these humans who were tier three and supposedly more experienced than his normal intruders, were messing up so much. “Why is this floor so big?” Another gripped as he prodded an alligator with his spear to keep it away. For starters apparently, none of them had talked to the locals, which meant no maps for the floors and no optimized ways through his swamps.

Magnus thought this group was supposed to map out his lower floors, and if they were great for them. They seemed great at finding every obscure nook and cranny of his dungeon, but he wouldn’t put much stock in their cartography skills. The current map they were trying to make looked like a little kid’s doodle, at least it was mostly recognizable as his dungeon, mostly. He did wonder why they were mapping out the swamp floors though, those already had been extensively explored.

Another human sank into a patch of mud and cursed up a storm as a hobgoblin jumped him. The monster died of course, with a rapier straight to the heart, but still, inconvenience, take that human. In all honesty, he’d have to wait until they got into the desert to get any kills from them, or maybe Aspen would off a few. His fae boss hadn’t fought at all, but she had been playing around with her magic, a little at least. Messing around with earth mana didn’t come as naturally to the fae as wind and water magic had. Also, the earth attacks seemed a lot less effective than the water and wind blades, maybe they’d be better for blunt damage?

Aspen hadn’t really fought much she couldn’t cut through with her other attacks though. Well, Magnus said that earth magic would be great for defense once she needed that. The problem right now was, she wasn’t good enough to raise an earth wall quickly, it was easier just to fly out of the way of something. It also drained her power too much to be a great strategy right now. She’d eventually be able to use it to great effect but she'd need to be a higher tier. Valens grumbled at that, why did everything have fun always have to be higher tier? High-tier stuff was completely busted, at least he had the drake around to be even more busted in the meantime.

The core made a quick check on the humans and was startled to find them another floor deeper. They were actually on the last floor before the ice floors, good for them. Then they could stop complaining about the damp and humid swamp and start complaining about the freezing cold. Because they had no winter gear, of course, they were tier three though. He also thought they were all chi users, though the archer guy might have a chakra class, it was kind of hard to tell. Well, in any case, that meant the cold on the ice floors probably wouldn’t kill them, but it would hardly be comfortable.

Valens waited for them to get moving, before snorting in dissatisfaction. He moved off to the twenty-fourth floor and began expanding once more. As he did he kept an eye over on the adventurers, splitting his attention into two separate pieces. It was a bit bizarre as he hadn’t done anything like this before, but it was also incredibly intuitive. He briefly wondered if Magnus had known he’d be able to do this eventually, before deciding it didn’t matter too much.

He began digging again, taking the majority of his focus deeper into the dungeon while leaving only a sliver of awareness to observe the humans. As he continued to dig the core began to feel a slight strain as the split perspective wore on him. The core felt his mind stretch and stretch like a rubber banding wanting to snap back into a single point of view. With brute force and concentration built from his endless digging, he forced the split to maintain itself. Finally, he stopped digging and let his perspective pull back together as soon as he noticed the humans reaching the first of his ice floors. Their expression of sheer indignation as they came out of the stairs and got a glimpse of the frozen expanse before them was hilarious.

As the humans kicked the snow around and cursed their luck, the world, and his dungeon, Valens took a deep breath and tried to relax. He felt a deep ache in his core, like a pulled muscle, it was an uncomfortable but satisfying feeling. Like what Sora felt after running for miles or fighting off a horde of enemies. The core smiled a little at those grandiose comparisons and winced a little at his continued headache. It seemed like his split perspective trick was something he’d have to practice a bit before he could use it regularly. Just the thought of using it in his current state made alarm bells ring. His instincts screaming not to try it, it had been quite a while since they had kicked in so strongly. In this case, he felt it was best to not push his luck, he did a quick check of his scaley friend and sighed. Magnus was fast asleep again, so he would definitely not be messing with any unknowns today.

He contented himself to resting and watching the humans as they made their way through the frozen tundra. Valens had thought there might be a chance for a few injuries on the floor with the wolves proving time and time again that they were effective hunters but no such luck. The cold appeared to motivate the humans to move more quickly and they practically bulled their way through the floor. The few wolves they bumped into were quickly slaughtered by the faster and stronger tier-three humans before they could try anything.

He chuckled as snow accumulated on the irate humans, as they finally showed the competence their tier implied. They practically tore through the ice floors with almost reckless fervor. Eventually, Valens got bored of watching them though and decided to go back to expanding. He did not, however, attempt to split his consciousness again. He still felt like he had a headache, and didn’t want to risk anything bad happening. Just in case though, he alerted Aspen about the incoming adventurers, then went back to the eternal task of expanding the dungeon.

Aspen perked up as the boss spoke to her. Her beloved creator could be quite mean at times, sending her cruelly out into the world to fight, but she still liked him. She was a generous fae that way. Aspen laughed musically and let herself tip-off of the branch she was on, intruders were coming and she would be ready. Making her way to the entrance she settled down on another tree with a good view into the rest of the dungeon. Then she waited, and waited, and waited. Impatiently she tapped her foot on the tree wondering what was taking so long. The boss had never been wrong before, but this was ridiculous. None of the other humans had made it down here either, so maybe she should just go back to her nap.

Shaking her head firmly she sat down on the branch staring resolutely out into the dungeon. It was her duty to protect the deeper floors of the boss’ domain, and she was going to do her job well. It wasn’t like hunting where she could be lax, confident in the knowledge that whatever happened would be good for the dungeon. These were vile invaders, interlopers to the creator’s domain, and she needed to stop them.

After some more waiting, the fae began to slump on the branch, stress giving way to tiredness as time dragged on. Suddenly she popped to her feet and slapped her cheeks, now was no time for sleeping she needed to pay attention. She remained standing as she scanned the rest of the dungeon, squinting through the billowing snow trying to see even the slightest hint of movement.

Her attention began to fade again, but she didn’t quite fall asleep again. Standing in a fugue-like state, until finally, finally, she noticed motion. The humans made their way out of the freezing floor, and Aspen shrank back observing them carefully. They made dissatisfied noises and began to stop around her precious room, crushing grass with their too-big feet. The fae boss ground her teeth in anger but resolved to wait for an opportunity. That opportunity came as one of the humans wandered away from the others, and then she struck.

Water raced out in its ever-reliable arc as she darted between the trees. Her spell struck true and she was rewarded with a satisfactory spray of blood, the wound didn’t seem as severe as normal though. She didn’t have much time to ponder that thought as a buzzing stick went sailing over her head.

Dodging behind another tree she let loose another blade of water at the stick thrower and gritted her teeth in anger as he dove into a bush. Another projectile lanced out from her splitting the shrub to pieces, but still no bisected human. She looked around for the other humans but unfortunately, she had stayed still too long. Aspen spun through the air like a top as she was hit heavily with some sort of weapon.

Taking control of the wind she tried to cushion her fall, but in the chaos of not knowing up from down, she was only partially successful. Slamming into the trunk of a tree she slid to the ground and tried to get her bearings as her head swam. Another human was bearing down on her with its spear heading straight for her, she needed to get out of the way. Disoriented from her unexpected tumble, the weapon still grazed her, but then the fae was back in the air.

Drawing on her reserves of mana, she launched a massive blade of water into the spear wielder, leaving a massive gash down his torso. The other humans quickly converged on her location and she beat a hasty retreat, watching what would happen. One of the humans hastily bandaged the injured one, and others bunched around them staring out into the trees, waiting.

Aspen grinned and decided to oblige them, sending another blade of water sailing into the tightly packed group. To her shock, a rapier cut down through her attack letting it harmlessly split around the group. The returning fire almost killed her as she dodged behind a tree. That wasn’t fair, they were just supposed to die when she attacked them, and actually survive direct hits of her water blades, how?

Darting out from cover she tried again, but this time a heavy ax split apart her attack before another arrow came sailing her way. The deadly game of cat and mouse continued as the fae boss would pop out from the tree to attack while the archer attempted to get a lucky shot in. Aspen managed to get a few good hits in through their defense, but eventually one of them got lucky, but it wasn’t the archer. Flying low to the ground to avoid being shot, the ax wielder smelled an opportunity, and before she realized her mistake he took a massive leap forward. Before she knew what was happening a giant ax had split her almost in two as her awareness faded, she hadn’t even gotten a chance to use her earth magic.