I awoke to find my core under vigilante guard from the nameless skeleton. I could sense my crow out and about, somewhere beyond the confines of my small tunnel. Once again, I felt larger and more powerful. I breathed just a little easier.

I surveyed my little tunnel. I was able to take in all 12 feet or so from mouth to root without much thought. I pondered what would happen if other creatures were to come and kill. I could consider myself safe from common scavengers. The memories I had absorbed hinted and outright told of more terrible things. Some men had dreamed of nightmares to overlay their enemies – terrible things that may or may not exist. Apart from that, the men themselves would be a serious challenge if they came seeking me for any reason.

Thankfully, the entrance to my cave was small currently. Despite how stifling that felt, I resolved myself not to expand it until I had improved my defenses within my dungeon body.

The first defense was something called strategic depth. Apparently, simply being far enough from my enemy to be able to see him coming and react was of paramount importance in any kind of war. This was a trait I could directly apply to my current situation. A 12 foot long downward slope was simply inadequate.

First, I began to absorb the dirt and stone at the back of the cave. The first few feet were simple, but I found that the further from my core I went, the more mana intensive the process became. I solved that issue by controlling the skeleton to pick me up and carry me to the back wall that I wished to affect.

Once again, time passed untracked by my mind as I dug out the beginnings of a real cave. I lowered the floor another three feet and created an eight from diameter round tunnel that ran straight and smooth for about 50 feet. The further I got from the entrance, the more I wanted to expand it to let my mana flow more freely, but I restrained myself. I took a nap.

At the end of the 50 foot tunnel, I carved out a larger room, roughly 15’ across. As a precaution, I placed my core off center, so that I could not be seen without entering the room. It ran contrary to my sense of symmetry that seemed to demand even sized rooms and tunnels and my core in a central and centered position. As the skeleton set me down on the ground, I felt the claustrophic sensation of drowning, like those men who died with lung wounds. Quickly, I used a bit of earth and stone to raise a small pedestal below me. I slept again.

When I awoke again, my mana had finished permeating the new depths of my cave. I saw Fide had returned again and directed my mind to him. With a start, I found myself looking through his eyes. He stood uncertainly at the wider opening to the new tunnel. At his feet lay a pile of bones, his offering to me. I saw that Fide had brought me the bones of the dead men above and each was heavy with a gobbet of overripe meat. From his mind, I gleaned that this was his best effort to give me what he himself desired – the very tastiest morsels of food.

Clearly, I had no use for such damaged flesh. It would a largely intact and moderately fresh corpse to make a decent zombie. I tried to communicate this to him by sending him images of what I wanted, a complete skeleton.

Eat, I told him. Flesh yours. Bones mine.

Fide at first hesitated, his natural instincts telling that the proper way to fulfill social responsibility was with a gobbet of rotten meat. His own hunger quickly won out, however. He cleaned the bones of all but reddish shreds, and I absorbed and cleaned them. I had an excess of major bones now, arms and legs.

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Fide, now engaged in a physically easier task, left to collect bones with my happy allowance that he could feed while he was out and about. Despite that, I knew that he would be back frequently. His body ran on my mana now, and he would never feel comfortable away from his home.

I noticed, absent mindedly, that he was larger than when I first met him, and perhaps smarter. I could hope so, at least. My primary attention was focused on my cave. Certainly, I would have enough time to conquer any more would-be explorers the size of crows. However, I was certain that anything larger could walk straight down the tunnel and crush me.

I began to consider my likely enemies. I doubted that I would see many flying creatures, since logically they would remain airborn and leave holes in the ground alone. Even if one did come in here, Fide’s wingspan was wider than he was tall, so I can assume any bird large enough to be a threat would be equally grounded from flight.

Still, this was an issue I could affect. The mouth of my cave was merely two feet in diameter. I reasoned that my tunneled could share those dimensions without making me short of breath. I took some of the dirt from my recent digging and made alternating baffles every 5-10 feet of the tunnel, sometimes widely spaced, sometimes distant from one another. Again, this would prevent anything from flying down the tunnel directly to my core. It would also help to limit overly large creatures, against whom I would need the most time.

Moving dirt I had already devoured into place proved to be much easier than devouring new dirt and stone as I had been for the last while. I immediately pushed forward with my next idea. If my opponents were to be land bound, a nice big hole in the ground would go a long way toward stopping them.

About two thirds of the way down the tunnel, I had placed three the baffles quite close together, a quick zigzag in the tunnel that would block line of sight. Now, I devoured the ground between those four baffles, creating a pit. I even had my skeleton walk me back to that point in the tunnel in an effort to make it as deep as possible. That turned out be just over five feet deep, before I felt it become such a strain that further progress was negligible. I considered jumping into the hole to dig deeper, but the memory of drowning in deep mana stopped me. I would just have to deepen the pit little by little as my mana permeated its floor and walls. In the mean time, it was less a trap or hazard and more of a tactical obstacle. If anything came into my cave, I could have my skeleton waiting to rain attacks down on the intruder while they tried to climb up. Tired from digging through raw earth, I ordered the skeleton to replace me back on my pedestal and promptly slept again.

When I awoke, I was happy to see a new pile of bones helpfully deposited at the mouth of the tunnel by Fide. My skeleton might be a better protector, but I couldn’t help but appreciate the initiative Fide was showing. I quickly devoured the bones, and found all the major parts of a skeleton. I quickly fell to rigging another skeleton and soon it took form and stood up next to its fellow.

I paused after creating it, and compared the two. My first skeleton had noticeably stronger ties between its bones, as well as a thin sheath of mana supporting and reinforcing its whole body. That hadn’t been the case when I first created it. It seemed that my mana would continue to reinforce skeletons that I made if they simply continued stayed near me. Since that seemed to be the case, I didn’t hesitate to station this new skeleton in the room with my core as well.

I had just finished scraping another few inches off the bottom of the pit when Fide reentered the dungeon. It immediately drew my attention because he was flying full speed and threaded the first two baffles along the hallway like an aerial acrobat. I soon saw the reason for his haste. Another creature squeezed into the tunnel and tumbled down the slope as well.

It appeared I was about to have my second visitor.