She was quick, i’ll give her that. Her weapon came up and, with a sizzling snap, fired a bolt of plasma that illuminated the cavernous room, brilliant blue light blinding the hoppers as they sailed through the air towards her. The damage on impact was spectacular, the thumb sized bolt plunging through the hoppers carapace and instantly detonated inside it, sending chunks of chitin and ichor in all directions, most smoldering.

‘STOP!’ I could see the hoppers flinch hard as my word and intent hit them, causing some to fall off course, though flinching did little to stop them while they were already airborne.

She got off two more shots, apparently slam firing her weapon, taking out another two hoppers. It probably saved her life. The first impact was accompanied with the sound of her hardened chest piece crunching under the weight of the impact, surprising me as flecks of suit material scattered about like confetti. I was moving as the second hit, slamming into her hip and shattering the belt section that joined the torso and hip. She fired again at that moment, a wide shot that did nothing more than make a small crater in the stone.

She was hit once more before I could intercept the insects, manifesting my will and feeling them slam into my ‘form’. She took the last hit to the head, her body already limp and slumping forward was snapped back as the helmet joined the other hardened sections, shattering under the weight of the attack. Her body slumped back, halfhearted steps carrying it nearly under one of the ceiling traps before it crumpled to the ground and stayed there, unmoving.

It couldn’t have been more quiet if I was in vacuum again. I stared at her limp form, holding my breath as I prayed she would breathe or something, anything, to confirm she wasn’t dead. I then checked on the intruder window, taking it into my own hands, and almost wept as I saw the status hadn’t changed. I still had an intruder, and I chose to believe corpses couldn’t be intruders. Instincts kicked in and I moved to help her, finding I couldn't interact with her.

Warning: Interaction with intruders, denizens, or delvers must be done through a dungeons forces.

Figures, though I just took that as another confirmation that she was alive. But now what the hell do I do with her? I couldn’t just leave her there, she might be badly injured. Wait, that’s probably the better plan, if i moved her now after that head injury she might die just as easily. Well, I did have another option. My slimes, the ones accompanying the, now confused, hoppers were sitting at the edge of the mineral field. I quickly summoned them, using the skill rather than a command, spawning them again right beside her.

‘Consume the helmet, consume no biomatter. Do not damage the creature within.’ The slimes radiated a feeling of surety as they moved towards her head and I marveled at the confident little jello boys, always surprised at the strong feelings I could feel from them when I gave them commands as a leader might. With the reminder of being a leader i turned back to look at my hoppers, and they must have sensed something from my emotions as they seemed to almost cower, looking more like guilty dogs than fierce dungeon monsters. Several lay dead, the ones that I'd intercepted and had hit the intruder.

‘Good job in nullifying this intruder.’ That seemed to catch their attention, stopping their looks of guilt anyways. ‘I won't lie. I’m not happy with the injury to my first intruder but I had not ordered anyone to run from them, or keep them alive, so I wont be angry or punish any of you. But from now onwards there will be no more attacking intruders until I order it. You are all of you ordered to run, hide, do anything to avoid interaction with anything or anyone, foolish enough to find themselves here.’ That seemed to perk them up, as far as I could tell anyways. I wondered if I'd have to issue that order multiple times but, in the meantime, I had the third, and last, slime clean up. While I wasn't happy with the attack, I might have just got a new resource out of it, in the scattered suit fragments.

Things took time from there, the order to not damage the suits wearer caused my slimes to move even slower than usual, gently working around the helmet in shallow layers rather than taking it all at once. I also constructed a slab bed, coating it in moss for comfort, so I could have her moved upwards and possibly get a look at any injuries. While I couldn't interact with her, my spiders just might have enough precision to set up bandages, or possibly some kind of silk neck brace so I could be sure moving her wouldn’t just kill her outright.

The first sign that the slimes were done was a message window, alerting me that my unknown intruder had been identified, and it took me looking at her to believe my screen.

Intruders:

Elves: 1

Elf intruder, class scout, name unknown, race elf.

Status: Defeated.

An elf is a long lived and somewhat delicate being.

Scout:

A scout is a base class known for quick movement and information acquisition, generally paired with sub classes that require long distance movement, information gathering, and patience.

Base class:

A base class is a class that forms the base for a beings skillset

My head swam slightly from the influx of information, but, on looking at the pale face, elongated ears, and the window confirming it I was sure it was right. I was expecting something more akin to an Asgard, a little gray dude, not a space elf. I put my wonderment to the side for the moment though as the elf was clearly injured. Her face was streaked with blood on one side, and I could see fragments that must have come from her helmet shattering that pierced her face. I wasn’t a doctor so i couldn’t say anything for her eye, but i could have the shards dealt with.

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I ordered my spiders forward and had them start laying sticky silk strands over her face, using them to soak up the excess blood and, when removed, to pull at the fragments still embedded in her face. It worked, for the most part. Many fragments still seemed just too deep, or too small, to pull up with sticky silk so I'd have to hope they weren’t poisoning her. For now I had her head slowly wrapped in silk, hopefully stopping the bleeding, along with the rest of her body so the spider pair I'd brought over could ease her onto the bed of moss. I made them move slowly and it obviously strained them but the job got finished and I was left with a cocooned astronaut elf. One who would likely completely panic if she woke up like this.

I had the spiders strap her to the bed and had a sudden intrusive thought that, even in my own mind, felt completely alien to me. ‘Breed her.’ I was a little more than stunned, what had come over me? Then I realized, it must have been the dungeon part of me, or maybe I was getting residual feelings from the spiders. Or maybe spending eons clinging to life bent my mind. Whatever the case, I pushed the thought aside, becoming concerned when I couldn't completely banish the idea from my mind. I had a slime climb up and scoop some of the silk away from her, apparently, good eye and sat back to consider what next.

As much as I'd like to interact with this elf, I didn't really have the ability. Shouting earlier hadn’t affected her in any way I could see, despite flinching my hoppers. I could understand her but that didn’t mean I could speak or write her language, possibly understanding her through some dungeon ability or quirk of the system that governed this place dimension. And, my monsters lacked lips and vocal chords. They could hiss with the best and chitter pretty good but that wasn’t terribly good for conversing with someone.

With nothing now but time, and not desiring to strip her further to check other injuries, I checked my inventory, wondering if I had new material to play with. I was surprised to find ‘treasure’ as a new material. Apparently it was for intruders to find, and be distracted or weighed down by, so I now had a ‘broken helmet’. All it took to summon was a little intent, knocking my treasure counter down to zero but depositing a badly damaged helmet in my hands.

The helmet seemed simple enough, and light if my senses were right, but a look inside showed how wrong i was. The visor was opaque, allowing no light through except for the cracked portion. The elongated portion must have contained a sensor suite, or a computer as it only held enough room, in two slots, for the elf to slip her ears into. Other than its odd shape and screen the helmet didn’t bring anything to mind, just a dead hunk of material that was no longer as air tight as it once might have been. Though, a curious part of me led me to inspecting the point where the helmet would seal against the neck portion of the suit, still infatuated by sealing techniques. It was in my inspection that the elf woke up, and began to struggle.

My spiders were suspiciously good at tying defenseless girls down as her panicked wriggling did little more than shift her head and waist side to side. It seemed the struggling girl was less injured than I feared, but her struggling couldn’t be doing anything good so a simple command brought my spider around. Just hearing it moving, feet thumping into the ground, convinced her to stop her struggling, though her exposed eye moved wildly as it tried to locate the spider, growing as wide as a dinner plate when it stepped into view.

The spider stared at her for a long time, an unnerving thing but something i had ordered so that the girl would at least think before she acted, which gave me time to think up a new way to communicate. While I couldn't speak with her, I could communicate simple things, like with my door. I quickly made a slab of stone in front of the spider, making it take a confused step back, which made the elf flinch. I moved quickly and drew a simple pictogram, illustrating the hopper slamming into her head, then a second image that showed a bone broken in her neck. While it wasn’t anything close to anatomically correct, looking more like a dog toy, I hoped it would convey the feeling of ‘you’re injured stop fucking moving.’

A quick command brought the spider forward again, using web to stick to the tablet and hoist it up in front of the girl. If anything, that made the situation worse. She froze and the expression on her face, that I could see, was abject fear. Not my initial hope but having her frozen in place was the overall goal anyways. I made a quick drawing on the back of the tablet and had the spider spin it around, an image of a person webbed down and a copy where that person hadn’t moved but the webs were removed. I then gave her a few moments to consider it before commanding the spider to start removing the webs. While it felt a touch cruel I also had my second spider move over in front of the door leading out, a simple warning that she wouldn’t have a chance to get away even if she fled.

When the last strand came off her she started to move, though deliberately slowly, eye locked onto the spider. The spider hissed loudly, at my order, one of its pick-like arms slamming into the stone bed and piercing it deeply, possibly an over reaction on the spiders part but it worked and she stopped.

“M-medicine.” She spoke in a tremulous tone, having to clear her throat and, apparently, steel herself to speak more clearly. “I have medicine on my belt, something that can heal me.” It looked like she was trying to mime wrapping a bandage around her arm, or something to that effect, so i had the spider back off, then made it back all the way to the door with the other, trying to bring the elfs tension down, and it seemed to work somewhat.

The elf had to pry the silk from her suit, luckily not made overly strong or sticky, and pulled a section of metal from her belt. It must have been a small case or something as the elf hauled herself up into a sitting position and started to pull more and more spider silk off her suit. When she got to her face I could see a grimace in her eye, and a glance at the spiders as she must have realized they’d bandaged her up on purpose. Fresh blood lazily flowed as she eased the silk off her face and she groaned as her other eye flickered. I must have been right in assuming it was injured.

Cleaned up enough she opened the metal case and pulled a few instruments from it, the first looking like a tube of lipstick that she waved over her face, grimacing at whatever was on the screen. I moved around her, peering over her shoulder. The case was clearly part of the medical equipment she had, having a display on it, but it did me no good as I couldn't read anything on it, all looking more akin to ancient bible texts than a modern day text, flowing and artistic. Whatever the moon runes said it apparently wasn’t good as her expression grew more and more grim.

With her examination apparently done she withdrew another item from her case and pressed it against her face then spoke in a low tone, words i couldn’t understand. I guessed she was cursing as, when she moved the tube, she was bleeding from some new wound at each point, making me guess she was pulling helmet chunks out of her face. She had another two case items, one apparently for sealing up the cuts and another that only showed its use when she removed her suit, apparently ignoring her eye for now.

I wont say i’m a perfect man, far from it, so i did stay and watch as she bared herself to the cavern and its occupants. She had a lithe body, pale and very obviously bruised. While I did enjoy the show I wasn't enjoying the dark purple bruises that accompanied the hit to her chest and hip. The final device made its job painfully clear as, with a sickening pop, she placed it over broken ribs and apparently pulled them into place, accompanied by a pained shout from the elf scout. Luckily she was sitting down, and had apparently only broken two ribs, her body swaying as the pain must have nearly put her out again.

With her body repaired, somewhat at least, she focused on the spider, a flash of revulsion crossing her face, and spoke after clearly gathering her resolve.

“What would this noble, ancient, dungeon have of me?”