Maria watched the newcomers carefully, the group of twenty were radically different from the goblins she had been dealing with. For starters they were made up of five different intelligent races, secondly, they were using torches.

That was odd as no one she had encountered required extra light, every race more or less having their own ways to deal with the absolute darkness of the caverns. It was only the core room itself that had Alissa’s lighting scheme currently. The network was that far behind, and light was a low priority, although she fully expected the goblins to be using them more often as time went on. Fire was only used to cook and often ran into fuel problems with the sparse vegetation. Most of the fires were magical in nature. Fueled by mana or the crude enchantments of shamans, occasional blood sacrifice and the like.

The adventurers, because that seemed to be the most fitting name, had several large dark skinned brutes with tusks, a few bipedal furred creatures, some higher evolution goblins, bipedal lizards, short bearded men and people wearing cloaks. Though the cloaked group seemed to be a different group that had more or less tagged along. They kept themselves separate from the others and handed over any kills without argument, she might have thought them servants or slaves. The high quality equipment and general wariness displayed made that unlikely.

It wasn’t the first time this group had invaded the domain, but it was the first time they moved away from the opening to her cavern. While she really wanted to invade the next room like Isabella had she was held in place by her mom. Observation was currently the most important goal, and a sense of hostile cooperation with the invaders.

The entrance they used was filled with lesser dangers, and the remaining spread out domain goblin outcastes that ran off and settled in that first room.

Over time it had become obvious that most of the plans involving using homegrown goblins would fail, or at least be more trouble than it was worth. By now Alissa and the Firstborn had settled for throwing new battalions of goblins in a cavern and just leaving them be. A small core force was preserved but otherwise the goblins were used like fire and forget missiles. It just wasn’t worth the effort to maintain discipline or even attempt the plan to rotate large groups back into their tribe. This excluded the issues of reintegration as those who left the tribes were rarely looked at in a good manner.

Maria had also noticed that one group of domain goblins having taken a key bit of central terrain had become different. Qualitatively different, nothing about the area itself was unusual, but the leader was far stronger than his level of evolution should have allowed. This trickled down to his minions as they also outperformed other similar groups.

Back to the newest and most interesting group of invaders. First off they were interesting, so much so that she relayed through Nova that mom might want to see for herself. Actual ironwork, quality weapons and armor. Discipline, coordination and intelligence. Combined with a cross-species cooperation, what was that if not interesting.

She watched as they annihilated one of the small roving tribal warbands. They quite frankly outclassed the competition to a ludicrous degree. She was sure that aside from the Firstborn and her mother they were the strongest beings she had ever seen.

It was clear that they had improved not only their skills but their bodies in a similar manner to what the domain was doing for her. While pure strength wasn’t everything, she did know that fighting them at her current level would be stupid. Sighing at the lost opportunity to test herself and her mother teachings she sat back on her outpost high up on a stalagmite column.

“Maybe I should invite Conrad over to spar? It’s vexing to know I’m not ready for the next level. *Grrrr* I can tolerate not being as strong as that battle maniac and only an idiot would compare themselves to mother… but this is annoying.”

***

Grimfist led his group into a new area of the dungeon and lamented. While he liked a challenge as much as the next orc… this place was to much. He couldn’t lead any groups of inexperienced adventurers here. His party normally operated on the surface in what was known as the “Monster Kingdoms”, a general-purpose label for the collection of monster-controlled territories on the surface. Spread around and in places where humans, elves, dwarves, and other races ruled. These Kingdoms were ruled by monsters and generally hostile to the other races. Cooperation between monsters and “men” on a large scale was largely impossible even if some rulers were quite polite and cordial.

He and his party were slightly different as they were part of the Dungeon Guild. The loose overall body that “controlled” dungeons. Managed might be a better word, in any case while it wasn’t a united or monolithic organization, he mostly had free reign on the surface as long as he was working with or towards a dungeon. Even in civilized territory, his party was grudgingly accepted.

He had been sent here as one of the few parties that was comfortable with the Underdark. He was also expendable, no one expected that the magical readings and oracles had been correct. That a dungeon had formed deep beneath the earth in a place so hostile to life and to dungeons themselves.

Fewer people on the surface cared, including the guild. There wasn’t a way to exploit or manage a dungeon this deep down, surrounded by the corrupting elements in the mana. His mission was a token effort, even if he returned to the surface he wasn’t going to get support. There might be a few who would risk forming a guildhall down here but what would they do?

Well to be honest it’s not like the surfacers acknowledge the underground kingdoms beyond those of the dwarven holds, and here he was significantly deeper down than even those places.

For a while Grimfist had thought to challenge the dungeon for a few weeks then leave. The Underdark was anything but comfortable, there was no infrastructure. No taverns or inns. No smiths or alchemists. Aside from growing in strength there was no point for him to stay, this dungeon was also in the center of one of the Underdark’s great goblin kingdoms. Not a nice place to be, no one liked goblins. This included goblins themselves.

The tribal shaman he met was cordial, and old. Far older than he should be, making him smart and powerful. He at least tried to control the access in a reasonable manner, but he lacked the power to make it stick.

Not so for his new guests. The dark elves that joined his party were looking for… well here. A controlled place to enter the dungeon, a place where they could set up operations. They were also one of the few races of the Underdark that could both understand the importance of a dungeon and cooperate. With the power to make it stick, even against the goblin kingdoms.

He and his party spent much of their time in the first chamber, it was a common practice with explored dungeons, forget the unexplored. Taking time to acclimate, map out, and gain experience was the most basic of basics with the horrifying existences that were dungeons.

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There his party had collected the basics, and gathered their daily bread as it were in the form of hunting. They also lost the majority of their hangers on, mostly goblins that glommed onto the group like parasites. Goblins rarely made good adventurers, but it had happened, these had joined up and died horribly much as he expected.

No, the scary part was how closely some of his group had come to death. Spiders and lizards, goblin warbands that lived their whole lives in this oversaturated dungeon, well it just wasn’t funny.

While monsters presented unique challenges based on their form, goblins shouldn’t have been a challenge. That is until he factored in the dense mana this far down, it made even the normal goblins far fiercer opponents than they should be. Dungeon goblins were worse, and there was something wrong with the dungeon itself. Like it lacked control or was a newborn.

If he had to describe it, this dungeon was like the wildest land he had ever seen on steroids. Take that wild and dangerous land and give it dungeon benefits and see what happens. That was what he was seeing. An overwhelming amount of growth from every angle, dangerous creatures of the Underdark made worse.

If the elves weren’t paying him he would be getting ready to leave for good. They had shown up and after seeing him had asked for his party to guide them and teach them how to survive in the dungeon. What had perked him up was their stated goal of creating a dungeon city, that might be enough for him to stick around.

The catch was that the dark elves down here had the same problem as every other Underdark inhabitant. They didn’t have dungeons down here and book knowledge only went so far.

“Is this normal for a dungeon?” That had come from a female mage who refused to give a name, being referred to as Gold.

Grimfist looked around. Then he shook his head. “No. There are too many monsters, and they’re fighting each other just as much as us. It’s not normal at all, that said nothing about this is normal. The first levels of a normal dungeon are sparsely populated by weak monsters, there will be very few resources to gather, by dungeon standards that is. The scholars say that monsters help a dungeon process corruption, so the numbers make sense down here. Their behavior is odd.”

“What about the resources?”

“This dungeon is stingy. Usually, we would have seen places to gather good stuff, or established hunting grounds. This one hides the good stuff in places we are obviously not supposed to go. I think and it is just a guess that the corruption here prevents it from getting its own resources like normal. Its mining itself here to make things. The few places filled with goblins are probably ok to hit, I don’t want to fuck with the golems. There are a lot of plants and beasts around, an alchemist might have a field day. None of you are crafters or alchemist by chance, are you?” He asked.

“No, they will be sent with the follow up, the resources are secondary to what we want this place for.” Gold replied.

“Weird that there is no boss so far, but it might be deeper in.”

“What about the child the goblins mentioned?” That came from Red, the fighter of the elven group.

“Probably not a real boss, an elite or rover most likely. Although I don’t know what to make of most of this.” Grimfist expressed his confusion.

“No matter let’s continue I want to get as far as possible before we have to return. This entrance looks far more promising than the other.”

Grimfist nodded and shouldered his two-handed war hammer. Then he paused. “What do you mean the other entrance?”

“There is another entrance a few days journey from here. The dungeon is at war with the goblins on that side. It has sent thousands of goblins into that cavern, though they stay inside the domain. It also deployed those constructs in the battle, the dungeon beat back the combined might of half a dozen major tribes!”

“That shouldn’t be surprising it is a dungeon after all. The surprising part is how small that would make this dungeon, it’s tiny compared to other I’ve seen. The force it has is unusual but with where it’s at I expect it to be pumping out defenders like crazy, be advised any city you build will have to move. This place will likely expand a lot before it gets the crazy space magic older dungeons have.”

As they spoke and while traversing a gully in the cavern to avoid being spotted by the massive roaming patrols, the group came upon a large group of the blue-eyed dungeon goblins currently devouring an unfortunate group of invaders.

Grimfist wasted no time, his party knew what to do and the elves were equally competent. He leapt forward bringing his hammer down on the nearest enemy. The blow pulped the goblin before it could react. A backhand caved in another’s chest. Then arrows and spells flew by killing most of the clustered dungeon creatures. The melee line joined in, and the fighting got real. What should have been a short and brutal culling turned into a slog.

Grimfist lashed out at any that came within reach, on the one hand he enjoyed the fight, on the other they were fighting too many. The original group was long dead now others joined in including goblins from the tribes outside the dungeon.

Luckily, the only real danger was in being worn down. While the dungeons goblins were strong they still didn’t match the veteran fighters.

The battle finished with him smashing a hob’s head into the wall with his hammer, producing a satisfying corpse. The rest of his party was finishing off the wounded and beginning to loot while guards took up position.

Far all that was going on Grimfist’s job was to ensure that the elves he was escorting got what they needed. Combine that with a few more delves and he and his party could get back to the surface, and civilization. The important thing right now was to dump the corruption that had accumulated on their journey here.

With that in mind he continued on with the frankly ridiculous slaughter of goblin and hobgoblin dungeon monsters.

***

To alleviate her stress Maria moved on to more important matters. The initial plan for securing their home was going in odd and unexpected directions. Isabella was dealing with what Nova had called the First Goblin War, a swarming mass of goblins that ceaselessly charged her defenses. Production bottlenecks and the core prevented large numbers of construct troops being deployed. Then her mother’s broken/damaged link to the core was the final nail in the coffin.

The core lacked the real means of becoming a kingdom, namely intelligent workers and a massive investment of mana locked into the network and reducing capabilities with upkeep costs. The current goal was to tread water, buy time and gather information. The functionally limitless resources the domain could provide with its creation ability had been a topic of much study by Her and her family. The domain was a strategic asset, every bit as important as those fought over by the nations she had studied. That said domain also balanced the planets ecosystem by clearing out corruption and purifying corrupt mana… was capable of creating lifeforms from pure mana if it was available…

Most issues were already being addressed, Alissa and Nova working hard to get the tools they as a family needed to survive. The goblins they were using were more of a counter disease released to destroy their opposition. The spread and fragmentation of their tribes happened easily and naturally, every day as the population increased the domains goblins became more like those Maria was fighting against.

It was the constructs that would make the change. Already Karl’s plan to make a simple and primitive brain had distanced the simple machines from the core’s control. So much so that even new swarm production was being halted to update them to use some form of magical control rather than the intent they ran off now.

It crippled the domain in the short term. Ultimately it was why she was still in her checkpoint overseeing the culling of both invaders and domain goblins and all their evolutions. The long run was a different story. None of the kids were stupid or arrogant enough to believe that they were at the top of the food chain, or that they were invincible. If they existed then so did equally powerful potential opposition, they simply hadn’t encountered them yet.

Maria’s job was to get resources and hold this position. The current stalemate was acceptable if not ideal. Even now her reserves of construct troops were rotating back for upgrades, both to their operating systems and their bodies. Soon she would be able to deploy them in mass numbers, the issue was that the constructs individually were comparable to the average hobgoblin. It was the discipline and formations that won them battles, that needed to change… it was changing.

Now the big question was presented did they make contact with and try to work with the actually intelligent creatures of the underground hell hole. Or do they continue as they were, it might be time to go looking for better genetic material and exploiting the domain’s ability to create life in order to kick start an economy and production.