Elder Hasil felt the few remaining hairs on his barren head loosen. A miracle happened then was brutally slaughtered before his eyes. The missing animals had been found, and despite his creaking joints he was ready to get up and dance. His excitement died when he was told where the animals went.

They went into that damned cave. Hope turned into dread as he started to understand what had caused the strange emptiness in these dangerous forests. There were people waiting and watching, but even after a day none of the animals left the cave. They had no meat left because of that cursed cave gluttonously devouring all the animals that came to it.

Were the animals still alive in the cave? Was the cave housing a dangerous magical beast or some other strange creature? A group of five of their best hunters went in, with only one surviving in body, not in mind. Who knows what dangers were within there, or if that danger could leak out of the cave.

Only Stor knew, but he wasn’t in a state of mind to say anything. Hasil looked around him at the other elders. None of them tried to hide their age or the toll the events had on them. Years were shaved off of them and even if they could, somehow, avert this crisis, most of them wouldn’t live long enough to see the outcome.

“Hasil, what do we do?” asked one of the elders. Normally his suggestions would be dismissed or ignored by the rest of the elderly, believing that their experience was better than his knowledge. Now, they falsely held hope that he would help them out of this mess.

“...We can do anything. Unless Stor manages to overcome his madness, it is far too dangerous to investigate the cave. Even if we did investigate the cave, what can we find that will change anything? It has almost been one moon since the animals started disappearing. I doubt the cave has been keeping those animals alive, or luring the fleeing animals back. We must leave this place, and pray to the gods that we can find a new hope further within the kingdom.”

“Where can we go?” they asked before listing the many problems and issues.

Hasil listened for a moment before tapping his fingers on the table. Despite the loud voices, his quiet tapping caused the room to go silent.

“I have a friend, and while this is quite a hefty favor, he is the best contact I have. With him, we might manage to find a place. I will admit, I don’t know the state of the kingdom much. If there is a strong need for workers in the cities, like there was during the war, then we will be welcomed with open arms. If not, then we will be despised and hated. The letter I sent out won’t come back for a long time, far too long for us to stay.”

Silence remained after his last words. No one wanted to speak because there was nothing left to say. All considerations were already on the table and they had been trying to come up with a plan for weeks. All problems and issues had been put forward and all proposed strategies were evaluated until none were left. They were a village at the edge of civilization, only barely considered a part of the kingdom. They kept to themselves and had few friends, their main connections were clients that had no use for them if these ancient forests became barren.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

This silence was interrupted by a slight commotion as the door opened up to a boy with a red face, wheezing to shovel enough air into his lungs. He bent over as if he was about to faint, before uttering between breaths, “He’s…ha ha…he’s awake…haa haaa.”

“Who's awake, boy?”

“Ha ha, Stor…Stor’s awake…ha…”

Hasil got up and rushed towards the door. He wasn’t alone, the rest of the village elders got out of the seats as fast as their bones allowed and followed him. Hasil almost left when the thin hand of the boy stretched out to block him.

“Don’t waste your time,” the boy said, having recovered his breath.

“Why?” Hasil demanded.

“Because Stor is almost here,” the boy said. The door opened, and the haggard form of Stor hobbled through with his hands clinging to a cane.

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Alex grit his teeth as he dealt with the annoying animals. He first lured the small animals through the tunnels into the heart of his dungeon, then he mercilessly killed them with his horde, the ones that he didn’t want to dominate. Many of the ones he did want to enthrall and add to his dungeon were killed accidentally too.

The maze managed to delay the larger animals a little bit. The animals seemed to smell his dungeon core from how they avoided the dead ends he created. The small tunnels served as a distraction as his smaller animals stuck their heads out long enough to draw agro. The cliff he had broke the bones of the rest.

He sorted through the larger animals and dominated the ones he liked without caring much for their injuries. He needed breeding pairs for his ecosystem - all he needed was one pair for a species. He could use his abilities to mutate and create genetic diversity later.

The major failing he had was still the lack of traps. He had created a simple maze but that was in case any adventurers came. Using animals wasn’t a long term strategy, for many of them he was getting close using up half of their time spent charmed. He needed to create hazards, then create ways to keep those hazards running indefinitely.

Of course, the monsters of a dungeon were important, but they were only one piece. He needed to start thinking about traps too. Dungeons were assembled in three ways, first it was by theme. In the late game, dungeons can have a certain theme to them, like volcano or winter. Then there are floors which are semi-independent ecosystems that maintain the traps and hazards. Then there are rooms, which house certain hazards or monsters.

Forget themes and forget floors, he needed to start setting up rooms with hazards. Insects, he also needed to start dominating insects. A few bits of rotting meat near the entrance could work, that was how the game did it. More than rats and small omnivores, insects were the most versatile organism for maintaining a dungeon.

One step at a time. Before he did anything, he needed to get his hands on some insects. The process was the same as getting mushrooms, but that was logic from the game. He was irritated as he was forced to wait yet again.