Chapter 8: unexpected guests

I was planting some new plants bought with the use of essence, thanks to my income I had some to spare. New and weird plants sprouted from the ground, ranging from trees, vines, mushrooms and moss, apparently moss was recognized as plant.

The new plants quickly spread around the cavern, some of them, like the moss and the vines fused themselves with the trees and the walls, others like the mushrooms prefered to spread to some places instead of others, like the puddles created by my water generators and below the roots of some trees.

But the most appreciated change was the number of little animals and insects settling in my dungeon and their changes. Apparently, when literally everything around you is either made of mana or full of mana, evolution tends to be rushed, much like I had theorized. The results were: a colony of bees that after feeding on the bright coloured berries had evolved to use neurotoxins, a lizard able to spit some kind of sticky black glue, fireflies that when killed would either self-immolate in fire or spread acid and some kind of toad that would stay all day with his mouth open in the water using his glowing tongue to attract insects before closing his maws on them.

But still, besides all these dangers, that wouldn’t probably do nothing more than annoy a trained soldier or a knight, the one I was most proud of was the evolved stellar worm. His leathery glowing skin had expanded to two small legs like limbs and two front wings like appendices, he couldn't fly but gliding was within his capabilities. Moreover his size had increased to that of a small puppy and his head could shot forward like a snake for 2-3 times the sizes of his own body.

I watched his cute lil mouth hole filled with teeth, shot forward like a lasso and drag his prey to the body. Apparently, the specie didn’t exist before, as testified by the bestiary, so I decided to call it a moon worm, because of the white skin and the fact he always stayed up on the roof watching for preys.

My jungle was getting deadlier by the moment when suddenly unexpected visitors came barging through the non-existing door to the dungeon. 6 impish men of different shades of green and black ran inside while dragging one of their own with an arrow sticking from his sternum. Their shrill shouts probably meant something, unfortunately, I had never bothered to learn the language of the groll.

I had always been fascinated by how the groll could survive so well in spite of their weak bodies and small brains. The biggest of them could reach 1.50 meter if lucky, however, they would retain their short legs and arms making them comically unbalanced and weak fighters. On the other hand, they were good at hiding and walking silently, which made them natural born hunters.

The groll used to “rule” this continent before the Eluvians led us humans and other humanoid species on their expedition here, at first the Groll tried to somewhat resist our invasion, however, eluvian magic could never be stopped by crude arrows and wooden walls. Soon their civilization fell and the few survivors escaped to the monster-filled areas. Nowadays most people just consider them nothing more than slightly more clever beasts.

I frowned upon their arrival, if I allowed these little critters to settle here soon they would claim the room as their own, building their nest and hunting down my creations! I could not allow this! After a long time I finally reactivated soul overwhelm against the biggest of them, my fully restored soul tendril shoot forward hitting him in the chest, the poor creature growled in pain, probably wondering what was happening, however, I could not FUCKING PIERCE TROUGH!

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Target soul is too strong for overwhelm to work on

DAMMIT, I tried the same attack on the others hoping for a different result and still NOTHING! They took a circular formation, spear raised at the air trying to locate the assailant without much success, the injured one breathed weakly from inside the formation, even in such a dangerous situation they still protected their friend. That gave me an idea, I shot my attack at him and thanks to his injury I found one way inside. Ahhhh, souls, you just need an injury to weaken your soul core enough for a big bad wolf to waltz inside.

I immediately devoured his little soul and raised him as my servant, gaining 30 essence in the process. From inside him, i could access to his memories, which amounted to around 9 weeks of life, they sure age quickly. I absorbed the part relative to their savage Tongue and savoured it like a lemon sorbet.

The other grolls realized that something was wrong and turned their heads at the same time, their mortally injured friend had with a calm they had never seen stood up and pulled out the arrow without even yelping in pain. His lifeless eyes stared at no point in particular as I used him as my speaker. “You fools have entered my Domain!” I told him to use an enraged tone but his tone was as monotone as it could get, amateurs, can’t do anything right.

“Leave now or end up like your friend.” the last part was actually a half-lie, I currently couldn’t overwhelm them, but that could be solved by subjugating enough creatures and sending them in suicide waves physically overwhelming the young warriors.

They paled in fright, ogling the exit but remaining where they were. Their leader cleared his throat and with a humble and fearful tone spoke to me, “O-oh great s-spirit, we are sorry to have intruded on your home, however, we cannot leave just yet. The metal men and the fire talker have destroyed our homes, if we leave now, we will just die. P-Please allow us to stay, in exchange, we will serve you!” he fell to his knees with the hands behind his back and the forehead against the ground, in a moment all the other grolls did the same.

A group of 5 groll have asked for your protection, if you accept they’ll never disobey you unless you break the contract first. No additional essence is needed to form and maintain a contract.

Ignoring the metal men and the fire talkers metion, this contract thing actually needs pondering, I could get 5 loyal subordinated in exchange for nothing. The room basically doubled in size at each level up, so soon I would have enough space for them to stay without destroying the other animals habitats.

I Accept.

The contract has been formed, +15 skill points awarded + 50 essence gathered from the contracted monsters.

Not bad, suddenly I could feel a connection between me and the grolls that were gasping for air in relief while still on the ground. I tried to send them a message “If you want your own place here, you’ll have to earn it, bring me sacrifices!” I added a little mana to the message just to see what effect it would have and, as if they had just seen a ghost, all of them jumped back upon hearing my mana powered message, scuttling out of the dungeon in search for preys.

The grolls had survived for hundreds of years in these jungles after they were banished by the eluvians, so it was no wonder they were proficient hunters. All of them could recognize and follow the footprints on the ground while avoiding the more dangerous predators. Upon reaching the prey they would silently surround it spears in hands and kill before it could even understand what was happening.

Soon they were back each holding small rodents and birds, I ordered them to kill them and share the meat among them as a reward, after all, i didn’t really need meat as long as I could get their essence. Their daggers immediately found target spilling blood on my floor and satisfying my essence cravings and allowing me the final bit I needed to level up.

Congratulations! You have reached level 2! Skill points awarded: 5.

This could become the beginning of a beautiful collaboration. I immediately decided to enlarge my size of another 150 cubic meters doubling the size of the jungle and giving a small separate room protected by a door to the grolls, I had accepted to protect them after all.