You know the feeling when you walked to your kitchen, rummaged through your fridge and have no idea why you went to the kitchen in the first place?

I'm kinda having the same feeling but instead of a fridge and a kitchen, this feeling stems from an unfinished second floor and a bunch of distractions such as the gnomes, levelling up and an unwelcome intruder that has just dug its way into one of the tunnels of my unfinished second floor.

Processing...

Intruder? second floor? DUG its way through!?

When did that happen?

Doesn't matter, I first need to assess the threat and have a look at what I'm dealing with.

I zoom my consciousness towards the area where I've felt the intrusion. One of my previously smooth tunnels is now marred with a jagged and pitch black hole. Weirdly enough, there are no intruders in sight though. Did something come through already? Or did, whatever or whoever that did this, just break through and retreated to gather his/her/its strength before invading me? Both possibilities are equally disconcerting although I secretly hope it is the second possibility. If it is the first, I have an invader running loose, one which I can't feel the presence of and that I would have to find by searching every single tunnel one by one.

Or maybe...

I was thinking of putting some flash flood traps throughout my tunnels so I can flush away annoying people. All of the water of the flash flood would converge in one location, thus cleaning out my tunnels. Despite the unfinished status of my second floor, with just some minor tweaks, I should be able to redirect all of the water towards the breach and flush out anything that invaded me.

Quickly shattering some dividing walls and raising new ones in other locations, I quickly connect every single of my tunnels and make them converge somehow near the hole. To ensure the safety of the gnomes, I temporarily close off the entrance to the natural tunnel system there. I create large spaces above the start of my tunnels near the stairs leading back up to the first floor. Every single space gets connected to the tunnels by crude interlocking stone plates that will have to act as seals for the massive amounts of water that I intent to fill the spaces with. To test my idea, I start filling up just one of these spaces with water and keep an eye out for any leaks. When the space is filled to the brim with water and still does not leak, I quickly fill the other spaces as well.

Ah, if only I had some epic classical music. I'm pretty sure that this would be more epic with, I don't know, some ride of the valkyries maybe? Anyway, here goes nothing. Since the seals are just a rush job, I just reabsorb them instead of bothering with creating some mechanism for them. Thousands upon thousands of litres of water fall out of each space. Thanks to my foresight, the water flows rushes outwards, away from my staircase, thanks to the fact that my tunnels slope gently down and away from the centre of my maze.

With a massive roar of displaced air, the water eagerly rushes through my tunnels. Thanks to the smoothness of the walls and the perfectly round shape of the tunnels, the water encounters barely any resistance, only slowing down a smidge when encountering a bend or a split. Still, the speed of the water when it all converges near the hole is impressive. Frighteningly so even.

While the water was rushing through my tunnels, I took the liberty to quickly create a rudimentary grate in front of the hole that will catch any item, person or monster that might get washed away.

When the flood of water is mostly gone and the amount of water that passed through the hole has slowed down to a trickle, I look at the grate to see if I managed to catch something.

What I see there made me yelp, not going to lie.

The thing that lies broken and hopefully drowned at my grate looks like a gnome had an incestuous relationship with an elder (Lovecraftian) god. The thing that lies there looks at first glance like a gnome. If you ignore the tentacles that grow out of its face and back of course. As far as I can tell at first glance, the gnome-thing's body has suffered massive concussive damage when it was propelled forward by the water and hit everything in its path before hitting the grating face first.

As I bring my consciousness closer to have a closer look, the body twitches and the tentacles start feeling around.

With a totally manly screech, I 'jump' backwards.

The thing stirs some more and even tries to stand up despite its clearly broken body. Supported by its back tentacles, It eventually manages to stand up and starts an awkward shuffle/shamble towards one of the corners of my tunnels.

Whatever this thing is, It seems like its quite sturdy and hellbent on reaching something.

Stolen novel; please report.

Stopping to think for a second, I quickly recap what I know about the thing to see if I can devise a valid strategy for defeating it.

One. Despite having a broken body and most likely having suffered massive internal damage, It can still move albeit with more difficulty.

Two. The fact that one part of it looks gnomish and the tale of the gnome elder leads me to believe that this might have been one of his people.

Three. The tentacles look like to be in charge, acting like some sort of parasite that controls a clearly dead and broken body.

Conclusion. Some sort of zombie gnome that is infested with a Lovecraftian parasite.

If I know my zombie and Lovecraft lore well enough, the thing is most likely looking for a new host to infect, hoping to spread its infliction. If this is the case, I need to keep it away from both the gnomish survivors and my own dungeon denizens. Who knows what would happen if it manages to infect my creatures. Would they still be mine? or would they be taken over and become uncontrollable?

Thankfully, zombie and Lovecraftian lore agree on one thing. If it shambles and looks gross, it is most likely vulnerable to fire.

Hans, get se flammenwerfer. Or better even, Musk, get the Not A Flamethrower. And bring one of your fancy tunnel bores as well when you are at it, It might come in handy when I've dealt with this invader to finally finish my floor.

Seriously though, I need fire and lots of it.

Fire needs three things to thrive.

A fuel source. Plenty of oxidising agents. And an initial spark/heat source.

If I were to fill my tunnels with something burnable and set it ablaze, the fire would die out quickly since it wouldn't be able to draw in enough oxygen to sustain its fiery blaze. This means that I need something that is a little bit more precise yet capable of burning the thing long enough for it to get turned to ash. If only I had some napalm, then I wouldn't have to worry about it burning long enough. Alas, I haven't found the proper materials to mix me some.

For now, I've decided to just trap it in a sealed-off portion of my tunnels so I can devise a device or way to thoroughly burn it.

So. Fire. Burning. Fuel. Oxygen. Napalm? No naftalate and palmitate. Also no diesel and styrofoam.

Molotov cocktail? Doesn't burn long and hot enough. Also, don't have the materials for it.

Fire magic? Possible but since I have no experience with it, It should be a solid plan B.

Back to chemistry then. Fire. Hot. Ash. Oxygen. Fuel. Bunsen burner?

Bunsen burner.

Thanks to the stone walls of the tunnel and the slabs of stone I used to trap the thing with, I now have a nice closed of space that I can burn the thing in. Ideally, I would turn that part of the tunnel in some sort of furnace but without access to electricity, I can't create a muffle furnace to burn the thing until there aren't even ashes left.

So, I need to heat up that space and burn the thing while I'm at it. Problem is, I have no combustible gasses at my disposal. Or do I? So far, the only things I've been absorbing were either solid or liquid in nature. No gasses.

With a mental shrug, I target the air in one part of my tunnels and absorb it.

Congratulations!

New materials have been added to your collection.

Gasses:

Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon-dioxide, Methane, Hydrogen, Helium, Neon, Argon and Krypton

Problem solved, I guess. So without further ado, I create a fine stream of methane and oxygen and send it through a hole in one of the walls. With a mental snap of my non-existent fingers, I create a spark in the stream that sets it alight.

The flame I just created is yellow/orange, a flame that we chemists call a tier one flame.

I slowly increase the amount of oxygen in the mixture until it reaches the second tier. The second burn tier of a bunsen burner is a mixture of the first tier and the third, where the flame is blue at the bottom and yellow at the top. It also starts to produce some noise.

With some additional oxygen, I push the flame to the third and final tier. It now burns completely blue and makes a loud, roaring noise. The hottest point of the flame lies just above the blue cone-like shape of the flame and easily reaches temperatures of 1900°C and higher. Definitely high enough to torch this sucker.

Let's just hope that I don't melt the walls first whilst torching the tentacled gnombie.

Interestingly enough, I'm perfectly capable of observing inside my improvised furnace and thus have a front row seat to watch the thing burn.

First, the hairs on the gnome's body ignite and burn away with a flash. Thankfully, I'm incapable of smelling things and thus don't have to smell the acrid stench of burnt hair. Next, the gnome's clothes catch on fire and his skin starts to blister. The tentacles start to slow down with their movements and start to look dry and brittle.

His skin then starts to char while the fat underneath starts to melt away, making it look like the gnome is melting away in front of my eyes. The gnome's eyes first pop and explode because of the pressure and then melt away as well.

When the first glimpse of bone can be seen, the tentacles finally burn away completely.

As all of the flesh is burned away from the body, the bones become charred and brittle and eventually, breaking and turning to ash.

In the end, even the ash is burned away until nothing is left of the tentacled gnombie.

All I have to do now is to close up the hole and be done with it. Hopefully, the gnombie was the only one of its kind and I'm not dealing with some kind of monster lair.