Ham waited for some time before deciding that the gods had decided not to intervene this time.

Swiftly he grabbed the first option. He wasn't using creatures to kill the invading monsters, and so only the first option was truly helpful.

Increased Mana Gain selected 20% bonus mana over time and from monsters

Returning his view to the floor level, Ham decided to add additional rooms.

Within the set up he began making the second room a similar long corridor like room, but this time it included a sandy surface over relatively sharp spikes. It required extra mana as the spike were created as spike pits of zero depth. More imporantly he set the room up as an up hill slope. His Addax would have the high ground.

With the sand covering the spikes he was able to consider them passable, whilst actually having extended sections of spikes.

Unfortunately, the number of invading monsters was starting to slow. Perhaps the local population of monsters was being reduced faster than they could be replaced. That would slow his mana and experience acquisition. At this point the you smell good curse was seeming more like a blessing.

As Ham began to work through his third room, which like the second was a climb up, a large creature entered the room.

Unlike all the others, it was warm blooded. And even worse for Ham, it was a bird. The Nkwazi according to the status screen that popped up.

Nkwazi

Large Size

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Non-venomous

Talons

Flight

Fortunately for Ham, the corridor did restrict the motion of the bird. It had some form of magic that meant it could fly even with its wings tucked in, but it wasn't able to swoop at speed in the way it would outside.

It did however clear the first room by flying straight over the Addax.

Rushing, Ham finished placing the third room, this time including spaces in the tunnel that were only 1m squares to pass through. His Addax were trapped in different sections, and he couldn't move them around, but it would force this bird to the ground. The sections around the narrow points could not be trapped, and so it would be up to these few Addax, newly placed and at low level to hold the line.

As the bird continued through the second room, the slope gave the Addax the higher ground. As such they managed to clip the bird with their long horns a few times, but it was still limited damage. In return, the bird succeeded in killing a couple of the lower level Addax, the strong talons able to punch through their heads.

Finally, as the Nkwazi reached half way through the tunnels of the third room it was brought down by an Addax, managing by chance to gore the throat of the bird as it shuffled through the narrow section.

Heaving a sigh Ham returned to his building efforts. The first thing he did was recreated the killed off Addax, then start increasing his number of levelled up Addax.

Then he was interrupted.

Odin Intervenes: Curse of Jormundandr

INVADING SERPENTS TRIPLE IN SIZE IN ALL DIMENSIONS, WEIGHING 27 TIMES AS MUCH.

Oh... Oh dear. Now that could be a problem as well.

A new snake poked its head into the door. As it crossed the threshold it was surrounded by a red haze before growing substantially larger. At the first pit it slithered out and across without much difficulty, bridging the gap entirely. It also had sufficient mass that the hot cold cycle of the room was not causing much damage.

Ham directed his Addax to charge in as it crossed the second trap.

The Addax, like the temperature did little damage. Thankfully it knocked the snake back and into the pit. Unfortunately, the snake managed to bite, envenomate and drag the Addax into the pit with it.

Both creatures were killed by the impact, both having too much mass to avoid the effect of the spikes. A new notice popped up.

Mana absorbed from creature affected by a rival god. 0.1 store of "Blessing of Jormangandr" stolen. Each full store of this blessing may be used to modify a snake type creature to triple in size in all dimensions.

That would be increbibly useful, if he only had a snake at all.

Still he should probably start setting more rooms. Hopefully he would soon unlock a new floor and gain more options.