I had to admit, the prospect of opening a chasm underneath this ragtag [Angry Mob] and dropping them all to their deaths was looking more appealing with every shovel-stroke into the goblin graves I’d watched Nar-shesh claw out of the root-choked earth painstakingly over the course of hours, just yesterday.
I’d started moving the roots out of the way, after a bit, to help him. I hadn’t told him that, and I didn’t think I ever would.
As distasteful as I found the humans’ arrogant rummaging, however, it probably still didn’t warrant death. That meant I had only one option remaining.
What? Talking to them? No, are you fucking kidding me? You saw how that went with Kizurra. I’m gonna make creepy noises and do ominous shit until they get spooked and leave.
I found a suitably crunchy-looking fallen branch near them and “stomped” on it with [Dungeon Domain]. Something moving in the woods that you can’t see — that’s scary, right? Well, apparently not. A few of them looked up, searching for the source of the noise, but when they didn’t see anything they relaxed. For crying out loud, guys, show a little self-preservation! There could be monsters out here!
I menacingly snapped more dead branches, one by one in an arc around where they stood — like some invisible predator was circling them, stalking them. One of them, a sweaty guy in somewhat nicer clothes than the others, looked up and said something that, though I still didn’t speak the human language in this area, I’d bet good money was something like “Did anyone else hear that?” I would have mentally dubbed him Trust Fund, if the system hadn’t told me his name was Jens Gunterson - Lv. 2 Human Villager. Yes, good, Jens. Feel that fear. That’s healthy fear, it’s gonna keep you alive as long as you listen to it and get the fuck out of here.
Experimentally, I tried grabbing the air and sending a spooky breeze through the trees. It worked a charm, a mighty rush of chill fall air sending dead leaves tumbling and shadows shifting. I snapped a big branch off one of the trees and it fell to the forest floor with a satisfyingly loud noise. They were looking a little skittish by this point — god, if only I could send a swarm of bugs at them or something else creepy but not overtly magical. I partitioned my awareness and began looking through my skill list to see if there was anything in there that could let me generate some spooky effects. A few of them were talking nervously to each other, and they’d at least stopped digging. That was good: I should strike while the iron was hot, keep escalating. But how?
Another duo of humans was off inspecting the section of palisade the goblins had raised under my direction. Looking at it now, it was pathetically small in comparison to the diameter of the hill. I was a little demoralized. But, since it was so far from done, I wasn’t really losing much progress in the absolute sense by widening the foundation-hole for one of the posts enough that it started falling on them. So I did that! Sadly, they dodged out of the way, but they made very gratifying noises of surprised fear, and one of them did fall on his ass.
My harassment campaign was interrupted by Thomas, the mob’s only Hunter and the highest-level member of the party, calling to the others from where he was — worryingly — standing atop the central hill that contained my cave. They all started moving towards him, mounting unease dispelled by the distraction of something new to pay attention to.
An idea occurred to me - speaking of talking to people, and how that had gone with Kizurra. Moving fast and burning azoth, I tugged dirt and roots into position just in time for the big lunk with the same last name as the fire mage to take a step. Down his foot went, confidently and vigorously, into the “rabbit hole” I’d just excavated… and down he went, immediately thereafter. With my awareness suffusing the earth, I got a truly panoramic close-up of his ankle twisting in a way ankles aren’t supposed to twist.
Bingo. Fuckin’ gottem. Eat shit, loser.
As he went down with a bellow of surprise and pain, the other humans all rushed to help him in a display of camaraderie that I hadn’t expected. In short order, they’d gotten him extricated from the hole and his leg splinted. They were conferring about something, I assume whether or not to turn back given that one of their party had been injured. Temperance didn’t seem too concerned by her husband’s injury, though — she looked vaguely contemptuous, if anything. She was busy talking to Old Thomas as he pointed out whatever it was he’d found — I couldn’t see anything, but then again I wasn’t a grizzled wilderness ranger.
When he tugged aside the underbrush to reveal the entrance to my cave, though, I felt like I could probably guess what he’d been telling her.
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“-and there’s no mistaking it, the gait’s all wrong for humans, even children. It’s goblins for sure. Anyway, the tracks just vanished partway up the hill, into thin air,” Old Thomas said. “At first I was worried they’d hidden themselves somehow and were waiting to spring a trap on us, but I don’t think they are given that I walked all over the hilltop and none of them leaped out from the brush to attack me.”
“Goblins don’t just vanish into thin air,” Temperance said sharply, ignoring the sounds of her husband grimacing and groaning in the background. “So I’ll assume that’s not what you’re telling me happened.”
Thomas’ attitude of patient deference showed its first cracks of the day, as he just looked at her flatly for a long moment before saying “No, that’s not what I’m telling you. Look here.” Pulling aside a few dry, leafless branches, he revealed what was unmistakably the mouth of a cave. Not quite tall enough for a human to stand straight, though wide enough for three or four to walk side-by-side, the hole led down into the hill at a shallow angle.
Temperance looked at the hole thoughtfully, then at Old Thomas. “And how many goblins did you say had been here, again?” she said.
“At least half a dozen,” he said. “Easily could be more. Tracks’re a mess.”
Temperance rotated in her mind the idea of crawling into a cave that either had six goblins in it, or something that had magically disappeared six goblins in it, and concluded it was a bad idea. “Let’s head back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on out here yet, but we’ll need a bigger mob to deal with it.”
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“Alright, they’re gone,” I announced as the last of the angry mob left my domain. The goblins visibly relaxed, their relieved murmurs filling the cave. “I’ll open the shaft to the surface back up, but they might be back at any time so stay ready to move. Also, I’m gonna be doing some earth-moving: don’t be alarmed, but do watch your feet. Nar-shesh, Teekas, Kizurra, hang back. I gotta talk to you.”
As the goblins filed out of the cave and headed back towards the surface, my two minions and one teenage edgelord waited for me to speak. “Okay,” I said. “We got lucky this time. Nar-shesh, I’ll have more instructions for you when you get upstairs, but if you could see about arranging some sort of lookout rotation past the borders of my domain, that would be great. Without the siblings’ early warning, that could have gone a lot worse.” I then briefly described how far my domain extended, so he knew how far out to post the sentries. “Kizurra, you can keep the crossbow if you agree to let me teach you range safety, okay?”
Kizurra flipped me the bird, which I assumed meant the same thing here as it did back home. Chalk up another one for evidence of anachronistic contamination from past isekai events. “I’d like to see you try to stop me walking out of here with it. You only got it back last time because I-”
Nar-shesh smacked him upside the head, sparing me the effort. “Stop being a shithead,” he said.
“Ow! Alright, fine, sheesh. Dick,” the teen said, wincing as he cradled the impact spot.
“Thank you, Nar-shesh. That’s all for now for you two, I’ll talk to Teekas alone,” I said. That seemed to make all three of them a little nervous, but the boys left and gave me and Teekas the privacy I’d asked for.
I mentally took a deep breath. “Teekas, I really am sorry about your teeth. I promise I didn’t mean for that to happen, and I can try to put them back to normal if you want.”
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“Oh! No, it’s, it’s fine,” she said. I couldn’t tell if her smile was forced, or if I was just projecting my own emotions onto her. “I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble.”
“It wouldn’t be any trouble,” I said. That was a lie, sort of: it would cost me time and azoth I could spend on keeping us all safe, but it wouldn’t cost her any of my goodwill, which was what I figured she was really worried about.
“No, really, it’s… it was a little scary and gross when all my teeth started falling out,” she said with a sheepish laugh, her new rows of razor-teeth gleaming in the low light. “But it’s fine. It’s like Kizurra said — we can’t afford to turn down any advantage, in this world.”
I wanted to press the issue further, but something in the set of her jaw and the light in her eyes spoke of a resolve I wouldn’t be able to shake. “Alright,” I said. “You know what you need best, so let’s move on. I’ll bump you up to level 10, and then we can pick your skills?”
“Sure.” She nodded.
A thought occurred to me as I resumed pumping azoth into her experience meter. “Hey, I know I said ‘we’ just now, but if it would be like… improper, or whatever, with the skill taboo, or if you just want your privacy, you obviously have final say about your skills. I just got kind of caught up in the excitement of playing with new toys.”
She shook her head. “It should be fine. Special relationships — parent and child, master and apprentice, that sort of thing — give you a lot more wiggle room. Don’t sweat it.”
“Oh, so I’m your master now,” I said teasingly.
“Well!” Teekas said, cheeks coloring emerald. “I mean, kind of! What else am I supposed to call it?”
I restrained myself from answering that question. “Alright, there you go,” I said. “Level 10. What are we working with?”
Teekas pulled up her status screen, and we began to go over her options. They were mostly the same as Nar-shesh’s had been, but Teekas had the option to take a number of skills that Nar-shesh hadn’t — [Chow Down]’s source was obvious, but she also had access to [Awareness], [Spot Cover], and [Autotomize], among others.
“Huh. Nar-shesh didn’t get those,” I said. “Wonder why.”
“Nar-shesh is not very observant,” Teekas said dryly as she read through the skill list. “Love the guy, known him since forever, but sometimes you really gotta smack him upside the head with stuff.” She pantomimed doing just that, with a sotto voce “Pow!”
“Fair enough. What’s [Autotomize] do?”
Teekas pulled the skill’s description up. She squinted, then frowned, then grimaced. “It lets me make my limbs fall off on command?”
“Oh, wild. Do they grow back?” I asked.
“No, it specifically says they don’t,” she said queasily. “Why would anyone ever take this? It only gives a one-time bonus to dodge attacks or escape grapples…”
“Maybe it’s linked to the mutation,” I said. “Only thing I can think of. Want me to see if I can give you regenerating limbs?”
“No thanks,” she said with a shudder.
[Awareness] did exactly what you might expect, granting an across-the-board sensory boost and making it harder for enemies to surprise you. [Spot Cover] was similar to [Tracking], in that it apparently gave a sort of HUD marker for sources of environmental cover and enemy lines of sight — some real stealth-shooter business, from the sound of it. She decided to pick up both of them, under the theory that I could use her in a scout/sentry role. Given, unlike Nar-shesh, her stated desire to not be directly involved in the “violent” part of “violent overthrow of the cosmic order,” I also encouraged her to spend her skill points more freely on non-combat options that I’d previously dismissed as not worth it. I did suggest she take [Goblin Battlecry], though, for the synergy, which she agreed was reasonable. When all was said and done, she had zero skill points left unspent, in stark contrast to Nar-shesh’s six. This sacrifice in build flexibility did buy me considerable practical flexibility, though. [Horticulture], [Slash and Burn], [Efficient Cooking], [Leatherworking] — Teekas was well on her way to being a one-goblin logistics corps.
With that taken care of, I sent her back upstairs, and split my awareness between my various agenda items. First among them: the surface of my domain was due another major remodel. I’d realized, during today’s sort-of-delve by sort-of-adventurers, that I’d been getting ahead of myself. I needed to build the revolutionary movement I had, not the revolutionary movement I wished I had. What was the point of encircling the whole hill with a wall? I didn’t have the goblin-power to defend it! So, first things first: let’s shrink the area we have to defend.
Another earthquake shook the forest as the broad, flat mound over my dungeon rose into a three-tiered cone. The cave entrance was at the top of the hill, maybe half the radius of the old mound. I decided we’d put a palisade around that and call it good enough until our surface space needs increased — which might be a long while. I carefully scooted the existing section of palisade over, taking care not to topple any more logs. The second tier, about a dozen feet below, was just a fraction smaller than the entirety of the old hill. The third and lowest tier, the same height as the original hill but much wider, now spread about halfway to the new boundary of my domain, which had grown after my level-up earlier that morning.
Underground, my caverns expanded. I began to dig out a second layer beneath the first. My cave pools immediately started draining down into it — I don’t know what I’d expected, the stone was porous even before all the accidental cracks I opened — so I had to do some quick juggling to make sure none of the fish suffocated. Chompy slithered down just fine, though.
While I was doing that, I began to design the layout of the first cavern layer a little more intentionally. I decided to split it into three portions: residential, industrial, and military. I did the residential sector first, adding two more dormitory-caves next to the one my goblins had spent the last hour in. I scooted them back from the main shaft and hollowed out an annex that they all branched off from, which I hoped would make them easier to defend if it came to that. I also sunk a well down to the new flooded-caverns layer, to guarantee potable water. I wasn’t sure what to do about sewage, though: I figured I’d consult with the goblins about that one. A convenient hollow tree was dragged through the dirt to sit atop and conceal a chimney-shaft that rose from a long, rectangular cave I’d mentally designated as the kitchen.
Next was the industrial sector. I didn’t really know what I’d need yet, so I left that third mostly untouched, just a bunch of natural limestone caverns. Maybe we could get some mushroom farming going on in there soon.
Finally, the military sector. The goblin living quarters and future fungus-farms weren’t set directly on the path to my core — in fact, they didn’t have a route to it at all. I wasn’t going to oblige the goblins to serve as meat shields for me like that. This layout, therefore, allowed me to turn the half of this floor that the goblins weren’t living in into a hideous deathtrap. With a thought (and a significant expenditure of azoth), several low and uneven caves were brought together into a single, vaulted chamber, dotted with thick support pillars. Limestone wasn’t the best material for what I had in mind. I wondered if I could…
By the laws of physics I was used to, turning one substance into another on the molecular level would require incomprehensible amounts of energy and would probably throw off enough radiation to kill everything for a hundred miles. My instincts told me that the power of a dungeon’s mythos was not so constrained, though. Under the grip of my domain, pale limestone began to change. It grew hard, grey-black, with sharp edges and angular cleavage. Yes, this would serve my purposes much better.
Narrow, zigzagging stone bridges rose and stretched across the expansive chamber. On the cavern floor, I raised tall stone spikes. In the same way I’d sharpened the goblins’ stone axes, I honed the spikes to surgical sharpness. Any adventurers that made it through the goblin fort and wanted to reach my core would have to creep across these precarious walkways, gruesome death awaiting them below, while being actively harassed by my minions. Speaking of which, I’d minionized a couple bats at some point, right?
I combed through my minion list, which was at this point inconveniently long due to all the bugs, worms, plants, and suchlike. Yep, there we go, bats. Sleeping the day away, which… I mean, they’re bats. That was normal. “Hey, bats,” I said, as quietly as possible in deference to their sensitive hearing. “Wakey wakey. Fly down the hole at the top of the hill and into the big cave. You live there now. I’ll feed you all the bugs you can eat.”
Making cute little squeaky bat noises as they were rudely woken from their slumber, they did as I instructed, groggily making themselves at home in their new cave. See, wasn’t this much roomier than your old place? Let’s see how adventurers like getting bodyslammed into spike pits by bat monsters. Get fall-damaged, bitch. Actually, that gave me an idea for a boss monster for this floor. I picked the biggest of my minionized bats and started pumping azoth into him with [Empower Minion].
Or, I did for about thirty seconds, before I realized I’d run out of azoth — actually completely emptied my bar, for possibly the first time. Woof, that wasn’t a very fun sensation. I was getting kind of woozy…
Dimly, through the nausea, I noticed Striga flapping back across the boundary of my domain. There you are, stupid owl. I guess it’s probably for the best you were out, actually, or you might have tried to attack the humans or something and spoiled my attempts at stealth. Good thing we were done with… humans… for the day… ough, I really wasn’t feeling too good.
“
Aw, hell.