While I was digging down into the depths of the world, I managed to uncover something new and surprising.
RETREAT!!!
I SAW PURPLE!
I immediately jump into action, sealing the glowing purple gap in my newest tunnel's wall with a sizeable stone.
I’m no fool. This was supposed to be the part where something dangerous happens. Not today!
Sorry, but this situation is going to be handled appropriately.
My first course of action is to create a heavy cylindrical rolling stone door at the threshold between my core room and the entrance to the downwards sloping 6-meter-wide tunnel leading to my latest discovery. Though it takes a stupid amount of mana to move, for safety’s sake, it’s worth it. The rolling door fits into grooves I’ve carved into the roof and floor of the tunnel, thus it can only slide back and forth, pushing it perpendicular to its face should have no effect. Furthermore, the groves are sloped such that it takes significantly more effort to open than close. If I wasn’t a dungeon core with overpowered telekinetic skills, it would be impossible to move. Well, that’s the hope anyway. In order to maintain control of the other side of the door when sealed, I create, for lack of a better term, a ventilation duct. This should allow airflow and dungeon control to remain unimpeded while preventing anything larger than a mouse from passing through.
Before sealing the passage, I station all 2000 of my helper ants inside to confront any potential dangers. Individually, they are insignificant, but leafcutters (by necessity) have robust cutting mandibles. They should hopefully be able to swarm over an enemy and continuously lacerate it.
Yes, it would be unfortunate to lose all my troops in an instant, but they’re not too difficult to recuperate. With each ant in place, I roll the door closed. I’m happy to see that I’ve maintained control over the tunnel, my “ventilation” system is working as intended.
It’s time to see what that purple light was, honestly, I haven’t the foggiest idea as to what it could be. Creating my trademarked pin sized gap in the area I’d patched up previously, I peer inside.
What greets my eyes is the most stunningly beautiful vista I’ve ever seen.
Even more so than the forest.
I gaze out over a truly massive cavern, filled with innumerable 15-centimeter-wide glowing purple bulbs sprouting from every surface, enormous yellow mushrooms with skinny stalks and wide, flat caps standing at anywhere from 1 to 8 meters tall, and a dozen glittering brooks of crystal clear water converging at a nearby pool that is positively packed with multicolored corals. Spreading from the base of each purple bulb is a tangle of pulsing mycelium while the towering mushrooms are firmly planted in the dense beds of moss coating the floor. Hanging from the ceiling are moist strings of glowing blue beads swaying in the slight breeze. Like swiss cheese, the cavern’s walls, floor, and ceiling is pocked by 14 of what I presume to be dormant lava tubes filled with even more lush flora.
My sense identifies a high humidity in the air, which is also heavy with organic particulates. Furthermore, I can detect a moderate heat emanating from some of the tunnels. And the sound! I can hear the familiar calls of birds, frogs, and cicadas. Yet I can also hear the alien and haunting songs of hidden creatures that I couldn’t even begin to fathom the nature of.
This will all belong to me.
But not yet. I will claim this untamed wilderness for myself, mark my words, but I’m not willing to risk venturing into it on a large scale yet. I’m going to need to substantially expand my army and defenses before I’ll feel safe securing this territory. Why am I so nervous, you ask? Let me finish explaining what I see.
On to the fauna, of which there is plenty. The air is filled with thousands, nay, millions of flying insects. Likewise, birds and bats are constantly feasting on the airborne prey. I even witness a gigantic dragonfly absolutely rocket across the cavern to snatch a hapless bird up into its razor-sharp mandibles. Effortlessly drifting through the air are jellyfish, of all things, trailing sparkling tendrils to catch their prey. I pause to call magic BS on them. The floors are filled with critters such as rodents and lizards, but I can also clearly see predators such as stealthy vipers and massive 1-meter-long cave centipedes, with each of their numerous legs each longer than their own bodies. On the walls are thousands of admittedly normal roaches waving their antennae in the air and at the opposite end of the cave is a dense tangle of webs stretching between the towering mushroom trees. Just beneath the surface of the pond rests a pink olm. In place of its eyes is only skin and its feathery gills are a bright red color. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s a pretty standard olm. Oh, other than the fact that it stretches 5 m long.
You may be surprised to hear that none of these things worry me in the slightest, as long as I were to take proper precautions, none of these creatures could pose a threat to my core.
No, what has me on edge is the small party of men stalking the aforementioned olm…
Well, calling them “men” is generous. These are small folk no more than 1.3 m tall, they have a short layer of fuzzy white fur covering their whole bodies, long triangular ears that stand erect on their heads, somewhat resembling a bat’s, and huge circular eyes that are darker than the blackest light-absorbing graphite ablative hull panels. Their mouths are filled with two rows of what appear to be shark’s teeth.
On their bodies are red paints, which, if I’m being honest is probably blood. Each one carries a wooden spear and leather purse. Finding no humor in that observation just serves to drive home how unnerved I am.
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You’d be tempted to call these folk primitives, but I haven’t described their leader yet. This one is wearing a perfectly fitted bronze colored metal breastplate made of what is probably exactly that. In his hand is a dark grey wand cast from a metal I can’t identify.
As I’m making these observations, the little people get into position and crouch in a wide semicircle facing the pond’s edge. Next the leader begins to drive mana into his wand which I can instinctively detect even from a distance. He then casts a bolt of lightning which arcs between his wand and the water’s surface causing the olm to instantly begin thrashing!
The spearmen all throw their weapons at the beast, each one finding its mark and penetrating flesh.
For nearly 5 minutes it continues to madly buck, only widening its wounds in the process. As a cloud of blood drifts through the once-clear water, it slowly passes away. Without uttering word, the little men haul the corpse onto the shore and begin dragging it down one of the many side tunnels.
Just as they’re about to pass from my line of sight, the leader halts. He dramatically turns and looks in my direction. As he marches over, I try not to panic. I gather all of my ants on the other side of the wall and wait for him to arrive, there’s not much else I can do at this point.
Finally, having approached the wall where my patented pinhole lies, the wizard glances around. He gropes the mossy stone, sniffs the air, and even a patch of moss. Curiously, he steers clear of any glowing purple bulbs in the vicinity. He spends a couple minutes looking around but eventually turns and leaves with his group.
…
I exhale. That was close. If I hadn’t been paranoid about peering through a literal pinhole, I would have been found out immediately!
I wait a little while longer and then roll aside my stone door. My dungeon helpers are probably hungry, so I leave them to their own devices.
It’s time to address the elephant in the room. Sapient life. Humanoids. Civilization. WIZARDS.
I saw it coming but that doesn’t make it any less significant. I don’t know what to think, on one hand, I’m deathly afraid of dying again, being reincarnated doesn’t really seem to have altered my opinion on the subject. Intelligent enemies are my single largest threat, wild animals are easy to hide from and fortify against, but sapient opponents can use cunning to discover and defeat you. When you throw in magic as an additional unknown variable? You can see where I’m going with this.
On the flipside, I’m grateful to have potential companions available. At some point I’d like to work with a civilization. But before that time comes, I’ll need to be capable of defending myself. As it stands, I’m a sitting duck. Which brings me to my next topic.
Some of the cave denizens I had so recently discovered were truly impressive. Of particular interest to me were the giant arthropods like the cave centipedes and dragonflies. Somehow, likely via the arcane, they had handily bypassed the respiratory limitations I grappled with earlier. This reason alone is justification for me to procure some, uh, specimens. Hehehe.
The dragonflies would be of limited use to my dungeon, with its confined space, but when I do eventually expand to the surface, they could prove very helpful. The cave centipedes, which are not to be confused with regular centipedes, (their long legs and short bodies being the key difference) are very likely quick and venomous. I highly value both traits.
As it stands, my ecosystem can’t yet support these large predators, both from lack of space and adequate prey. Additionally, as I’ve said before, I don’t think my dungeon helper army is large enough yet to capture some breeding pairs while also maintaining safety. I’m just not ready for a large-scale operation.
This is an excellent reason to expand. With my new minions, excavation will be easier than ever, I should be able to make fast progress. Life is already beginning to return to the surface, I’ve spotted rodents, lizards, and birds. I’d like to begin increasing my dungeon’s biodiversity and set the foundation for a robust food chain. It shouldn’t be too difficult to create some baited traps for the surface dwellers.
Though I can’t do much with the new cave at the moment, I see no reason not to grab a couple purple bulbs and moss species as long as I’m quick about it.
Once more I move the ants into the tunnel and seal the entrance, next I begin to create a 5-centimeter-wide tunnel leading into the cave along with a premade stone plug for later. I instruct a squad of 12 ants to enter and collect some choice patches of moss and mycelium. They go about their task with ease and before long they’re back inside alongside the new species. I command them to head back out once more, this time I personally guide them into harvesting some glowing purple pods. 3 sets of 4 ants each find a bulb and begin cutting through the pulsing roots anchoring them to the wall. Once separated from the wall, the 4 ants in each group work together to haul their prizes back to my dungeon.
As soon as the last team makes it through the breach, I use the plug I created earlier to seal the opening. I take special care to merge it perfectly with the stone wall on the other side so that I don’t give away my location to any nosy cave people.
With that taken care of, I allow the army of ants to return to their nest as I begin to study the latest additions to the dungeon. The patches of moss aren’t entirely dissimilar from the moss already found inside my dungeon, which is surprising considering they were gathered from a drastically different environment. To be fair though, moss obviously has a winning design, occurring almost everywhere with sunlight and water. Or in my case, mana and water. The purple bulbs, however, are much more alien, I can’t tell if they’re a plant, fungus, or something else! I’ll have to wait and see what Mr. Normal has to say about it.
Grafting the new moss onto some choice locations was simplicity itself, it should have no trouble surviving. The purple bulbs are a bit more challenging though… I plant two of them on the ground, carefully weaving their pulsing roots/hyphae/whatever into the substrate. Hopefully they can survive after being severed from the main network in the cavern. I plant the remaining one on the ceiling, making sure that I anchor it securely to the surface. For the first time since my birth, light shines in the core room.
With that all settled, I instruct one of the modified queens to lay another clutch of 2000 dungeon helper eggs. Meanwhile, I begin digging a new 2-meter-wide downwards sloping tunnel pointing in the opposite direction of the cavern. My intention is to create a new room for my (at this point) jungle to take root in.
Excavation is much quicker this time around with the help of my eager earthmovers. In a measly 20 hours I’m able to dig a staggering 12 m before deciding to stop. Thankfully not stumbling on another cave in the process, I begin to mine out a new room. My ambitions for this section are great. The plan is to dig out a roughly circular disk with a ceiling height of 3 m. The diameter of the circular floor will be 10 m. Interspersed at regular intervals will be wide structural pillars. I’m fully aware this room will take ages to complete, but I don’t expect to finish it all at once anyhow.
Once this is done, it’ll be time to create some animal traps and begin working on a new layer of defense.