Early in the morning, the Marms’ procession starts. It’s composed of 54 of them, mostly young and old ones. At the head of the group is Klaatu, she looks happy to see so many of her compatriots following her. They have 3 small carts full of fruits, sea products, and small game.
Klopri stays at the village, he oversees the final steps of the village reconstruction with the rest of the new council. There is only a little more than one hundred Marms staying in the village.
All the survivors now have a place to live and most of the orphans are taken care of by remaining family or old Marms willing to do it. There is still a small group of 5 children that wander in the street ‘stealing’ food and blankets and sleeping in ruins. They are not really stealing as the others survivors leave food and stuff without surveillance for them.
I count that among the Marms there are 3 women that are with children because of the pirates, the others pregnant ones were already like that before the raid. I will keep an eye on the ones the pirates knocked up, I have to prevent any abortion attempt as I’m curious to see the results.
Anyway, at its current pace, the procession won’t arrive at the cave until a week, that gives me time to work on the former slaves.
There are three groups of wannabe adventurers that are readying themselves to enter the maze. Jack’s group and two others.
The first new group is composed of 4 slim human women and one dumb looking man. I think he’s only in there to gain the favor of the women of his group by protecting them with his body.
The last group only have men in it. It’s a bit strange when you consider that more than two third of the former slaves are women. Like the previous group, they’re only planning to explore the maze for a few hours before exiting it.
Jack’s group on his side is planning to stay the whole day in the maze. Once inside of it, they go quickly at the start, focusing their exploration on parts of the floor they have not been yet.
While they are in the maze I perform a new experiment. I roll an apple seed and a cheery one in the same hole, a tight one, then I force them to sprout. As they are growing they quickly fill the place and start to entangle themselves. I force them to grow more and use my mana to weaken the forming barks and weaken them. I keep in mind the image of the two plants merging into one and after a few minutes, it’s a success.
With a flash and a dent in my mana reserves, the two sprouts finally become one. Merging two plants cost me a lot less than forcing the fertilization of a squirrel by a bat. I keep pouring mana into the plant and make it grows into a flowering tree, I can see three kinds of flowers on the tree, cherries, and apples blossom, but most of the flowers are a merge of the two.
I use some bees to pollinate the flowers and speed the growth of the fruits. The result is a tree bearing some apples, some cherries and a lot of fruits in between. I make some of those fruits grow into new trees and I now have a small orchard of this new kind of tree. I make some birds go into the forest to plant some of those and make them grow.
I have created a new kind of plant, soon I’ll have a new kind of animal. That’s a start, but I need to create stronger monsters to train my future people and to defend myself. What I have now is good against untrained people. I can easily breed some of my creatures like foxes and owls to make better challenges, with a bit of work I can make dangerous opponents out of cats, rodents, bats, birds, and bugs. But I have nothing to deal with any Second that could come in, except traps. And I can’t affront a Third yet.
It’s been almost two weeks since the pirates’ raid, I still have a few months before they come back. I’m in no rush, but I don’t have time to lose. I must make a defense corp out of the former slaves.
Speaking of which, while the two new groups advance slowly in the first floor Jack’s group is nearing the room where I placed the stairs to the second floor.
---
Grundy is walking with his new friends.
He trusts them. They are not like his previous friends. They don’t yell at him for being clumsy. They don’t ask for his help without helping him in return. They may not be nice, but they respect him. He’s strong, and he has a good nose, not as good as Jack’s, but better than most. That’s why he walks at the front of the group, to protect his friends.
So when he smells something in the air he stops and warns his friends.
“Danger.”
“What are you talking about?” Asks the beautiful woman, the one with fire in her smell.
“Strong smell, stronger beasts in front.”
“I smell it too, but I don’t think it’s really stronger that what we already encountered.” Adds Jack to this. “But we should still be more careful.”
“Ok.” Answers the two brothers.
“Grumpf.” Makes the little woman that smells like dirt.
Grundy and his friends resume walking, soon they come to the entrance of a bigger room than usual. They enter the room on their guards and thanks to that and the little experience they gathered in the maze, they are not completely surprised by the attack.
A bunch of the usual rodents and bugs. But this time there is a fox that tags along. This beast is using the others to hide and shield it from the adventurers' strikes and is attacking them from behind and biting at their calves and ankles.
Grundy tries to grab the fox with his big hands, but he fails each time. After his fourth tries, the fox grapes at his right arm with his maw and Grundy manages to catch the little canine with his left hand. He then hugs it tight on its chest squeezing harder and harder. Soon the fox starts to suffocate and dies just after passing out.
While Grundy was hugging the fox to death his friends were finishing off the other beasts.
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“Search for the loot.” Says Jack.
“Grundy, come here, I’ll clean your arm.” Calls Mililara.
“Good for you big guy.” Cheers Mickel.
“Enjoy it.” Says Charles with a wink.
After the bit of time needed to gather the loot, the group gathers itself in front of the chest.
“It’s better than usual.” Starts Charles.
“Did you see the door in the back?” Asks Mickel.
“Yes, we saw it. We’ll look at it after the chest.” Answers Jack.
Klong! Makes the bearded woman, hitting the side of the chest with her small hammer.
“Let me do it dear.” Says Mililara lowering herself in front of the chest and opening it. “ Let’s see what we got here. A new backpack, always useful. Oh! A chainmail! What’s this made off? Coper? Can it be useful? Who will get it?”
The little bulky woman catches the chainmail from the tall woman hands and inspects it. After a few seconds, she nods her head and hands it over to the group.
“So? Is it good?” Asks Jack.
The dwarf woman wiggles her hand, making Grundy’s friends understand that it’s not a good protection but that it’s still better than nothing.
“The one who’ll fit the best in it should have it.” Intervenes Charles.
“I agree.” Says his brother. “What else?”
“Humm, a new hunting knife, and another hammer. Some knew blankets and a few silver coins.” Resumes the beautiful woman.
“Silver? Really? That’s good, better than copper ones.” Comments Mickel.
“And this thing here.” Ends Mililara, showing a small and round bit of wood, it’s just a bit bigger than normal pieces and it's marked on one side with a blue sign representing a drop of water and the other the same symbol as all the pieces of money. “I can feel it’s kind of warm in my hand.”
“An idea of what it is?” Inquires Jack.
“A wooden piece? Something else? I don’t know.”
---
After wondering what the wooden piece is I see the group heading for the door.
They inspect it and try to understand why I put a door here. After a bit of hypothesis-making, they decide to finally open it. What’s behind is a simple spiral staircase leading down to the second floor.
They’re not sure if they should go down or exit the maze. They make the decision to go down and peek in the first room of the second floor without entering it, then leave the maze for the day.
They walk slowly, wary of the environment, ready to fight back whatever could jump at them.
When they reach the bottom of the stairs then found a new door and after opening it they are in front of a new kind of room. This is a safe room, a room where no monsters will attack them, a room where they can rest peacefully, a room where they can talk with me.
---
Mililara and the other member of the group stand behind the door.
She doesn’t know what is on the other side of it, but she can feel the mana in the air is denser here than on the first floor. This mana has the same feel that everywhere in the dungeon. She always knew she was in a dungeon, it’s not her first run in one, but she’s wary of her companions. She thinks she can trust them on some points, like fighting at her side, or not enslaving her, but she won’t tell them what and who she is.
No, it’s too big a secret, her lineage is dangerous. She is lucky to be here, hidden from the outside world and her family by the dungeon. She knows the dungeon musts have made a deal with the pirates for leaving them here, and she’s persuaded that they will be back one day. So she’s hiding to her new comrades her ability to sense mana like she did for the pirates. This capacity had always brought her pain and sorrow and she doesn’t want the knowledge of her potential to spread.
So, when the group is questioning if they should open the door or not, she takes the time to feel the mana on the other side. She knows there is a room, and that this room is empty of danger, but there is something strange in it. Moreover, the feeling of someone or something looking at her is back, she thinks it’s the dungeon itself focusing its attention on them, but she can’t be sure of it.
“I say we open the door and look.”
“And I say we don’t.”
When Mililara starts to follow her teammates’ conversation she finds the brothers arguing while the others are still examining the door.
“I can smell there are living creatures on the other side, but I can’t tell if they’re aggressive or not.”
“I smell no danger. Only fluffy creatures.”
“Really? Neither of your noses can smell it’s dangerous?” Asks Charles
“Because you have a better nose than them maybe?”
“No, but I’m not stupid enough to pass that door!”
“I don’t say we should pass the door, I say we should open it!”
“I think we should do it.” Says Mililara, stopping the arguing brothers.
On those words, the dwarf put her hand on the knob and open the door, taking care of not walking through it.
“Hrumpf.” She makes.
“Well, now that it’s done, let’s take a look.”
Through the door frame, the group can see a beautiful and bigger place than the ones they have seen upstairs. In this room are several fruit-bearing trees around a bigger pond, there are also lots of bushes with berries on them, grass growth everywhere in the room. There seem to be little wood constructions on one side of the room. And near the biggest tree is a big stone tablet with some words on it. They’re looking like those at the entrance of the maze.
“You see that stone over there? Can someone read this from here?” Asks Jack.
“No, too far.” Answers Grundy.
“I have a good eyesight.” Intervenes Mickel. “It says: ‘Welcome to the first safe room. Here no harm will come to you from me. You can rest peacefully before resuming your exploration or leaving the maze.’.”
“As if. It’s a trap.” Says Charles.
“Doesn’t look like one bro. But It’s too strange for me, I won’t go in there.”
“Neither will I.” Says Jack. “I don’t like the smell of the situation.”
“There is a lot of place beneath the text on the stone, and the dungeon says we can have answers to our questions on its front door. I think it’s the place where we will have those.”
“But what if it’s a trap?” Asks Mickel.
“I have questions to ask, and I need someone to read the answers to me.”
“Me too, but we could come back tomorrow.” Says Jack.
“I’ll read.” Says Grundi.
“Then come.” And on those words Mililara walks in the room, quickly followed by Grundy and the dwarf.
“Shit!” Barks Jack as he follows the movement.
“Hey!” “Don’t leave us here!” Exclaim the two brothers as their running behind the Gnoll.