The ratfolk jockeyed for position by the twin entrances to my realm, each trying to shove the next forward and none wanting to take the lead. I was unbelievably glad I had chosen goblins. The ratfolk were emaciated, starving beasts riddled with scars, cuts and sores. Not a single part of them was ever still, perpetually twitching and spasming in relentless movement. Their weapons, where they had them, were crude - jagged pieces of metal or even stones clutched between cracked claws. Their clothes were rags, unwashed and so thoroughly soiled even the stains were stained. There was no order or uniformity to them, no two alike. Some were so hairless as to be almost entirely bald, others thickly furred to the point they could barely see. They were nothing more than an unruly mob.

And they stank. I had no sense of smell and even I knew their stench was overpowering, a musk so heavy on the air it was palpable. My light travelled slower through it, outlines blurring with every gyrating movement throwing more dead skin, hair. flakes of scabs, droplets of pus, blood and other foul secretions thrown into the air. You cannot comprehend the level of stench required for a Dungeon to notice. I didn't even have a sense of smell and even I recoiled, reluctant to push my light through the stench to see the beasts beneath. Argent was twenty metres down the tunnel now, Kelter thirty and both were clearly smelling them. Argent covered her mouth with her sleeve, still working her magic into the stone. Kelter's compatriots tucked their mouths into their tunics, whereas that brat was taking enormous horrified sniffs, tears welling up at the corner of his eyes.

Which was disturbing on many levels. Goblins didn't have tear ducts, those beads of moisture were either sweat pooling in his eye sockets or the eyeballs themselves dehydrating and he was still sniffing.

I began to suspect that if any future Dungeon were to read my history that the beginning of my downfall would be the moment I created Kelter.

The Granite Mob were taking up their positions, crossbows and slingers by the few vision slits and their commander marking locations for new ones. I ate away the new slits, creating new shields and helms for my warriors. The disorder of the ratfolk appalled me, I required order with my soldiers. Their new shields were simple, nethercap wood in the shape of a coffin door, banded with iron. Each was created aged, the black nethercap fading to a granite grey. The helmets were more complex, an iron bowl for the main piece, padded, with two flanged plates to guard the cheeks and a hood of mail to protect the neck. Workings of such delicate nature were expensive, each rivet and plate needing made individually but it was worth it. My warriors were better defended now and distinct from the ravening horde above. The squad of five spearmen had reached Argent and been sent back, ordered to stay well behind her. I didn't like it but I trusted her, her will almost fully saturating the tunnel ahead of her in a dark, febrile lattice of mana.

There was a screeching roar, a flurry of words I couldn't comprehend, and the horde surged forwards. Stinking beasts clawed over each other towards Argent, stymied by the confines of the narrow tunnel. Dozens poured into the river in seconds, running along the banks to either side. The first casualties came without interference, rats tripping or being pushed off into the ravine of the still filling stream. I consumed the bodies of three that broke necks or caved in their skulls on the walls as they fell. The others I left, their flailing beginning to attract the new denizens of the river.

My new creations hung overhead, so still as to be almost undetectable. Their green scales were rimmed by fine hairs, emerging from each plate. Their eight eyes were the snake-like irises of a snake, covered by transparent spectacles to protect them from water and attack. The four pairs ran down each side of their flat and narrow skulls, nostrils sealed shut against the ratmen's stench. Their legs were eightfold like a spider but short and flexible like a skink's. Their abdomen was articulated, one pair of legs to each section, their long prehensile tail dotted with thin slits from which they could spool silk to form webs or adhere to prey.

And weave webs they had, the dense conelike structures stretching across the entire passage, even reaching down into the ravine. The ratfolk were crawling over their vanguard, literally tearing them apart to clamber over their trapped compatriots. As they expired beneath the weight, heat or claws of their fellows I consumed each one, replenishing my mana and harvesting six Dungeon Points each. A paltry number but these animals were truly pathetic. Each body that I consumed allowed another to fall into the webbing.

The Scinsids pounced. They tackled rats in flying leaps from the wall, catching themselves on the sides of the ravine with silk and devouring the flailing beasts wholesale over agonisingly long seconds. They rappelled from the ceiling, retracting back to their nests with their prey. The Ratfolk leaped at their hapless compatriots, clambering up the writing bodies to slash and stab at the head's of their assailants. The Scinsids rappelling from the ceiling soon found a new method of assault purely by accident - releasing its prey to escape its attackers, one of my pets swung wildly, toppling two more ratfolk and dropping its assailants into the ravine. They began casting themselves down in long swings, rats either diving to catch them or toppled by the grasping sets of legs with their too articulated toes.

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In the swelling river, the waters had now reached fourteen metres deep. More than forty of the vile rats had fallen, clambering against the sides of the slick walls of the riverbed. They made easy prey. The Frilled Sharks I had created in their caves tore into the rats, eel like bodies curling to propel the monsters from the walls. They caught the rats by the legs and dragged them below the surface, consuming them from the bottoms up or curling their sinuous forms around the writhing vermin and crushing them in their coils. The most fascinating part was the way they would draw prey towards them with negative pressure, sucking water into themselves as they sprang towards the pests. The suction was so immense the animals were drawn beneath the surface before the sharks reached them, pulled directly into their gullets and snared in place by rows of inwardly hooked teeth.

Their bite was weak, the rats able to kick hard enough to force open the sharks' jaws but the teeth dug too deep and too comprehensibly. I dined on rat as did my sharks and spiders. It was a slaughter, meagre fair but gratuitous. In a span of minutes half a hundred of them had perished and more fell every second. My creatures began to glow, first just one, then a second, as they slew enough to achieve the threshold for evolution. I drew a single shark back to its cave, flooding thoughts of rest and satisfaction and began its evolution.

Your creature is undergoing evolution.

You may allow it to evolve as it wills or feed it mana to shape its future.

Greater Frilled Shark (Common) - The shark increases in size and strength, becoming a true predator with pronounced teeth and crushing muscles. Gladioserratus (Uncommon) - Also known as the Cow Shark, this monster is placid and slothful unless provoked. This variant is fiercely territorial, making it a suitable minion. Cave Shark (Uncommon) - Adapt to the local environs, becoming better suited to shallower depths and less varied food sources. The Cave Shark takes on the texture and colours of the rock around it, making it a powerful ambush predator Goblin Shark (Uncommon) - A lethal ambush predator that catapults its jaws to ensnare prey. Named for the pronounced rostrum that extends from its forehead, the goblin shark is also capable of generating intense suction like its forebear Rat Shark (Mutant) - Gain traits from the most potent enemy consumed. The Frilled Shark grows fur, its fins extend to simple limbs, and its frilly teeth grow to pronounced incisors.

I fed the shark mana as it became encased in an amber chrysalis in its grotto, selecting the Cave Shark. As tempting as it was to go for the Goblin Shark on nomenclature alone, the Cave Shark seemed the superior option. I could evolve others to the Greater Frilled Shark but the Cave Shark was the only viable option - the halfbreed Rat Shark was right out. Though not mentioned, I couldn't risk the smell. Similarly the Gladioserratus was out, I needed proactive killers - no matter how territorial a predator named after livestock was not an option. The feeding frenzy continued, some of the Scinsids even achieving evolution - though without a safe space to retreat to I wasn't willing to begin the process.

It was going too well and so, naturally, when I turned my attention to Argent and the Craftwind's tunnel I realised she had stopped moving.

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Argent kept her arm clasped to her nose, trying to stymie the reek of the ratfolk. They were only meters away now, slowed by their own ravening hunger. The vermin tripped and slid over each other in the narrow confines, caught upon each other but edging ever closer.

But she was out of mana. Maintaining the working had grown to the point that her regeneration was almost nothing, even as she felt Sedurzefon's attention on her, intense and alarmed it barely increased to a trickle. Face contorted with effort, every pore in her body dripping sweat she took another trembling step backwards. Her left hand she kept pressed firmly into the stone, preserving the contact - proximity being the sole factor that kept it sustainable. Her array now stretched almost thirty metres in length, evenly spaced across wall and ceiling. The thickest strands of her will ran through the wall, the slimmest along the ceiling. It was all she could do to keep the tunnel intact.

The rats scrabbled closer, almost within reach. Behind her she knew were her escort, ready to put their lives between her and the foe. Unacceptable. She had been placed above them by mere fluke of birth. An entire tribe had been slaughtered to preserve her already. She would not allow another goblin to fall in her place before she proved to herself she was willing to do the same. The miasma was so palpable now that when she dropped her arm to her belt the difference was negligible. The first rat reached her, claws flashing just under her chin. She held her place from exhaustion alone, unable to step forward or back. Its backhand tore bloody streaks from her cheek, wrenching her head to the side. Its teeth flew towards her, vile spit in the air -

Her seax caught it through its jaw, slamming its maw shut and tearing into the brain. The light faded from its eyes, gazing into her own and dissolving into mana.

Energised just enough, Argent glared at the second rat as it tore at the evaporating body of its kin. She growled, the noise low in her throat, inaudible over the horde.

"Shatter," I heard, a heartbeat before her will pulsed through the ward.