It took about 3 days to completely dig out and create the other 2 rooms I had planned to make. The room to the south was about 8x10 with, that opened up into both my first chamber and connected to my middle chamber. It was also going to connect to the southeast corner chamber, but since that led to the open cave I held off for now. The northeast chamber came off my central cave and was also 8x10. I had been worried that I would open out into the world since it was situated slightly farther north than my first chamber, but luckily it did not.

I had taken the chance to send one of the regular mice from my first chamber through the crack to see what would happen. At first I could still feel a kind of connection to it, not enough to talk to it like the bats, but just like a tether that let me know it existed and where. I wasn’t really commanding it, but pushing the idea to explore and come back into its mind. But after it passed about 2 feet deep, I lost the tether. I was worried that meant the mouse had died, but about 10 minutes later it came back. Obviously it wasn’t going to tell me anything in detail, but I was able to get the faint idea that the crack turned towards the west about 5 feet in.

Hearing that I decided to have one of my Kobolds go through. When I had asked for one of them to go, they had started arguing at first. I thought it was because they were worried or scared, but after a heated discussion in their guttural language, they began to wrestle. After a few bouts, my first Kobold came out as the winner, proudly standing in front of my core. It would seem they weren’t arguing because of fear, but about who would have the honor. These walking little canine like Kobolds were adorable, even with their retractable 1 inch claws, needle sharp teeth, and aggressive snarling language.

Seeing how she was so excited I asked her to go out and do minor exploration of the entrance crack. But with strict instructions that if she were to see anything that may be a threat to immediately return, as her life was more important. She nodded happily until I mentioned the rule about returning, seeming a little sullen that she wouldn’t be able to prove herself to me. But once I mentioned how important she was, her eyes grew wide before she started bowing in front of me.

I was still very uncomfortable with the way the Kobolds seemed to worship me, but every time I told them to stop they just agreed before continuing to do it. Because of them being tier 2 I could feel how much they deified me, how loyal and devoted were, which honestly was amazing. It was like when someone came home to a pet or maybe a significant other who just immediately showers them with love, but all the time since I never left. I can’t say I was the most sociable person before, so to receive this much love was terrifying in its own way. The fear of letting them down, or failing them in some way was a constant pressure. My other creatures had also shared with me their love and caring, but nowhere near the level of the Lesser Kobolds.

Either way, as I was finishing up the rooms, she had gone out and explored the entrance in a finer detail than the mouse. When she got back I found out that the entrance was almost 10 feet long by 3 feet at its widest point. It would seem it was just a large crack like entrance into what was a mountain range. How did I know it was a mountain range? Well since she didn’t see anything dangerous, my little Kobold decided to step outside the crack in the wall to see what lay beyond.

What she described to me boiled down to a simple landscape. The crack after turning west led out to a slightly slanted open tundra, filled with small bushes and scrub. Almost straight out from the mountain I lived in, she saw woods that traveled north, while to the south laid a large body of water. I wasn’t sure if it was a lake or sea, but she said she was unable to make anything out on the horizon past the water. And all of this was covered in light dustings of snow, placing me in a mountain range that ended in a body of water. Farther west and heading north a large forest that seemed to follow the mountains, but never grew that close due to the more gravely ground.

I was upset she had decided to take a risk, but also happy she was intelligent enough to decide that some more information on our surroundings was important. It was a complicated feeling, but overall she helped me greatly. I now knew I could probably build another room to my west side, but eventually I would hit open air. I also knew the mountain range extended into the east, though I don’t know how large the actual mountain was. If I kept going south, I would eventually hit water, while to the north the range extended, meaning I had plenty of room to grow. I wasn’t sure how big my first level would be, but I had plenty of space to grow. Well at least I did once I found what was behind the southeastern wall.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The days were pretty uneventful, as I watched and learned more about my creatures. The first expedition had been about halfway through the first day of excavating, and I had sent the Lesser Kobolds on 3 more trips since. The second time I decided to send 3 of them out, letting them explore a little more around the entrance for any small scrubs and plants. They were able to bring a few back, adding to my templates, but since they were outside plants, they wouldn’t do well in the cave. They mentioned seeing some small animals closer to the forest edge, but I didn’t want them going too far yet. The 3rd trip was the same as the second, except I sent the other 3 Kobolds out so they could see for themselves. On the last day of excavating, I sent the whole pack out, asking them to explore to the south, towards the water.

When my first Kobold had gone out she had mentioned the water, but they had no way of measuring or guessing the distance to it. I wanted them to explore and see if the water was relatively close, because I felt my best bet at getting some kind of water node was to access water itself. Yes my western walls were damp, but it seemed that was more from moisture seeping through the rocks and gravel from the snow outside. It wasn’t anywhere near enough moisture to collect and make a node.

When they had returned they mentioned it was about 8 cave lengths away from my southern-most room. Seeing how my main cave was 10 ft. long, that meant that from my newest addition I had another 80 feet before I could reach it. I contemplated just trying to build a tunnel there, but decided to wait until I find what was through the wall. For all I knew that cave next to me could lead all the way out, a terrifying idea, but if I could gain control of it then it would be much less time consuming. Digging a 80 square foot room took almost a day, digging a 3x80 foot tunnel would be almost 5 days, and I wasn’t sure my Mana Integration would even go that far.

My bats had also been curious about outside, so I had let them leave the 2nd night as a swarm. They had only been out about an hour before they all came racing back in, fear evident in both mind and body. It took a while for them to calm down, but once they did, my main female sent me terrifying images. It would seem that during the day many things are quiet and calm, but night is the exact opposite. They had flown out the entrance, catching a few of the nighttime bugs, when they noticed a dark figure flying higher in the mountains. At first they had thought it was relatively small, but as bats, they don’t understand the concept of relative distance. It would seem the small shadow started circling, growing closer to the forest from the mountain peak. As it got closer to the ground it kept getting larger and larger. By the time they realized that it was not some small animal, the unidentified creature was about halfway down and from what they could tell, larger than all my rooms combined. That meant there was some creature who lived at the peak of the mountain that was probably close to a hundred feet long. And that still was only halfway down the mountain, meaning it could be double that size if it were on the ground.

Now my Foxen bats were basically just the frame of a fruit bat, with the echolocation found in other species. What that means is that they have eyesight that is more suited for outside in the day, then the dark caves they lived in. The only reason they could “see” was because of the echolocation, and that I had subconsciously given them slightly better dark-vision than would be common for their species. That meant that outside, where they had more natural light from the last rays from the sun and the moons reflection, they could actually see better out there then in my cave.

Which meant the outside world I had spawned next to was home to a very large flying creature. That lived up at the peak of a mountain range, and could be guesstimated to be a 100 to 200 feet long. Several fantasy creatures fit that criteria, though many of them were not known described as being nighttime hunters. So that meant that they were not the creatures I could think of, like a Dragon, Garuda, or Roc. Or they were but did not fit the format of Earth’s legends and fantasies. It could also be something I had never heard of at all, a completely unique creature or species.

But then why hunt at night? This was the tundra region, where being out during the day with the sun was more natural, since the nights most likely got very cold. Was it like the Skink, aligned with an element to survive better? Or an even more terrifying thought, did it hide during the day because there were even bigger, more threatening creatures out hunting at those times.

Luckily I doubt my bats were on the creature’s radar, being how they were so small and only having 15 of them. Either way whatever it was meant no more nighttime excursions. The bats may not be on the radar, but there was no reason to take risks. They could see fine during the day, and they basically slept whenever they wanted, basically being cathemeral, instead of diurnal or nocturnal. The Lesser Kobolds seemed to be more diurnal, while the mouse and centipede were nocturnal.

But expeditions outside would have to wait, as it was finally time to go through the wall.