For now, Logan decided he'll take what he can get. Whatever the reason, as long as they don't settle in the safe zone, he established by wiping out the nearby camps he'll not provoke them by attacking. Saying that he has Siobhan temporarily suspend the search for survivors and other dungeons. He needs at least one team to monitor the elves and kobolds who have begun to set up joint camps just outside the safe zone. The other team is needed to monitor the rest of the safe zone. Sure, there are patrols now but they can only do so much and there are rather large gaps in their perception. Besides he still doesn't have the entire town within his territory. Once he has the entire town surrounded by a huge stone wall protected by is troops, he will be less timid. Although he will still be open to negotiation.

Over the next 5 months he managed to get another 26 western expansions and 26 eastern expansions. With it he slowly realized that the cave tunnel network was a lot more interwoven and elaborate than he had previously thought. Again, hearing about it and actually being able to observe it for himself are two entirely different things. In fact, he could swear some of the tunnels were made deliberately to connect existing tunnels together.

Logan has decided not to construct anything to elaborate in the massive cavern since that is where the majority of the towns iron is coming from. He does set a few fire mantises and slag slimes to patrol the tunnels. What he does decide to do instead is use the giant cavern to store some of his larger creatures. Sure, he could simply turn off the spawner, but he doesn't want to do that just yet. Truthfully, he isn't sure he ever will.

During that same time an important milestone was also reached. Jankins, the first child born in the sanctuary turned 5 years old. It was an important milestone because Jankins represented a generation that will never know the horror of being enslaved or constantly hunted simply for existing. Logan couldn't help but notice the deference between Jankins and the four amigos who were about that same age when they first arrived. For one thing he is a lot more childlike than they were. He has started practicing his swordsmanship just as they did at that age, but he isn't as clouded by thoughts of revenge and so is not as motivated to join the front lines as soon as possible.

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The other groups weren't exactly idle during this time either. Sending out scouting parties every so often to try and figure out what's happening in the area around the sanctuary. Logan is always quick to send out troops to make sure the scouting party doesn't return to their camp. He has to make it obvious that the safe zone around his territory is a no-go zone for everyone else. Otherwise, what's the point of clearing it out at all. Eventually a few new camps were established just outside of the safe zone.

Now that things have settled down, they only need one recon team to keep an eye on the camps. This means that the other one can get back to searching for other dungeons. Logan still doesn't really expect them to find any this relatively close to him. He still has to look though on the off chance that there is one right next door, relatively speaking. In reality he expects that whoever brought him here placed him in this spot specifically so that he would have time to develop. This opinion is based on the fact that so far, he has faced a different enemy in each of the four directions. Of course, that's not counting the goblins, but even then he has only found goblins in the northeast-ish area. Combine that with the fact that aside from the dwarves he has only found camps and no real settlements, and it starts to paint a pretty clear picture.

Thinking about it Logan asks Siobhan to have the recon team focus on exploring to the west. Since he encountered an actual settlement, he suspects that the dungeon the dwarves came from is probably the closest. That's not to say that it's close but it can't be too far away. There is always the chance that he's wrong and the dwarves just don't do small camps, but he has to assume that his hunch is correct for now.

Meanwhile in another plane of existence, a group of figures are watching the events unfold on the planet's surface. " I sure hope you know what you're doing." The one to the right of the figure in the middle says suddenly. "If you idiots had actually done your jobs instead of just plopping them down and expecting the mortals to 'figure it out' I wouldn't have had to do anything." The figure in the middle retorts angrily, emphasizing the last part. "Where were you idiots the last thousand years anyway?" He continues without even giving them a chance to respond to his last statement. The others immediately averted their gaze not wanting to admit that they simply got distracted and forgot. "You're all 12 million years old! How much longer am I going to have to keep cleaning up your mistakes?" "Look I know you didn't mean to destroy their planet." He says comfortingly. "But you can't just fix it by moving them to another planet and hoping that nobody notices!" "Especially when doing so nearly causes the extinction of the sapient creatures already on that world. The least you could have done would have been to exert a bit of influence and create an oracle within each of the mortal races and set down some rules, but you couldn't even be bothered to do that much."