Elder Hasil walked towards the hut, his normally sluggish pace further slowed by the nausea and fatigue that came from an old man with too many responsibilities. He wasn’t a wizard or sorcerer, nor a priest or druid - but he was a person that had seen a lot in his life and knew a lot. He was perhaps the most knowledgeable person in this village; that title became hollow after the strange events in the forest.

He rested on his cane and breathed heavily at the entrance of the hut before opening the door and letting himself in. Stor, one of the best hunters of the village and his nephew, was mumbling to himself as he stared at an empty corner. His skin had aged a decade, going from slightly dusty middle aged to elderly mold.

“Stor, my boy, are you ready to talk?” asked Hasil, speaking the higher tone he used with children. He was eating himself apart inside - the once handsome and fearless young man he watched grow up, get married, and sire many healthy sons and daughters was in front of him. That man had been broken fundamentally, in a way that no spell or herb he knew of could fix.

There was no magic or curse or possession. Hasil had fought in wars with wizards, while he didn’t know the ways to cure curses or possessions, he was good at knowing that they were there. A core part of Stor had shattered. Maybe he can recover, maybe he can’t. This wasn’t the first time Hasil saw a person he cared about fall forever into madness.

“Stor, what happened? Please tell me, your family is starting to break down,” he asked again and again there was no response. He was found collapsed and alone with claw-like cuts deep into his flesh from his own hands. Nearby him was a cave, a cave that caused a variety of strange feelings.

The group of hunters and Stor had gone out, without approval from the village, to find food. He only became aware of it when a large portion of them returned, many were youths disgruntled at being treated like children. Hasil and many others rushed out to try and find them, praying that it wasn’t too late.

It was too late. There were screams, or maybe there weren’t, the sounds were just at the edge of hearing. These whispers of sounds seemed to come from everywhere. Then a true scream carved the air like a knife. When they found him, they didn’t think he could actually survive.

Animals going insane or fleeing. People disappearing or going insane. Hasil believed that this was the work of a wizard, though his gut was telling that it was something else. The fact that Stor managed to escape was important, they needed to know what was happening in this forest.

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The cave he was found close to was secured, they didn’t want anybody going there. They even made going near the cave taboo from the effects it caused in people. Again, there were no spells or curses from what Hasil could discern.

Nobody knew what was going on. Hasil, with all of his wisdom, had only a slight idea of what might be happening. He had friends deep in the kingdom, he was hoping to get their help with the strangeness that was happening. Now, he had the feeling that they didn’t have the time to figure out what was going on.

Hasil gave Stor a pat on the head and turned to leave. He felt like a failure, like he failed in the most important job for him. He looked through everything, he used his lacking ability to read to try and figure out if anything like this happened before. There were many strange things over the decades and centuries, but nothing like this. The forest always acted too alive, growing and consuming. Now, it felt like the forest was dying.

“Cave…monsters…they’re looking at me…” Hasil turned around, hoping that Stor will finally talk, but it was just his ramblings. He left the house, and headed towards the village center. There wasn’t much food left. Traders had been charging high prices, smelling their desperation. He made sure to remember them and pay them back.

They needed to know what was in that cave. If all of this was caused by a wizard of the level of power he was thinking of, then there was no chance they could flee with their lives. If it was a wizard, then maybe they could negotiate or seek mercy. Time had run out, now was the time to act.

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Alex finished the maze on the upper portion of the dungeon, near the entrance. Having a straight line to the dungeon core, even if down a massive cliff, was a terrible strategy. He needed a way to distract and confuse people - and hopefully animals, but mostly adventurers - from discovering his one weakness.

After he finished his cave, he used some soul points to create a small tunnel that circumvents the cliff. This allowed the smaller animals under his control to have access to the space above. As these animals were under his control, that meant that he could attack with his rats without putting his dungeon core in danger. Unfortunately, his maze wasn’t a particularly strong defense.

Now that he thought about it, he had been neglecting his rats. Dominating a creature puts them under his control but only for a certain time. This was to reprogram them to better adapt to the dungeon and the roles the species needed to fill. He had neglected this fact and that would be a problem.

The small tunnels weren’t something he even needed to if things had turned his way sooner. The rat-like species he controlled had some abilities to carve into stone. He could have modified them to do it better and create the small tunnels without wasting soul points, but there was no point kicking himself over something he didn’t have any control over.

At later levels, soul points become a lot harder to spend with the increase in the soul tax. At that point, he would need to change strategies and have to use his animals, mana system, and theme to be able to modify his dungeon. His foundations in the early game were important, to the point where he shouldn’t level up past level four until the rough skeleton of his dungeon was made.