The coming days had little to do. I had expanded the doorway so now it was large enough to fit a child if they tried to squeeze through, but that really didn’t do much. The only thing of note was an increase in salamanders coming in every once in a while.

There were only two other things that happened. I leveled up once again and got something called a cool wind. It was apparently an alternate version of another skill dungeons get, where you spend a tiny bit of mana to create some ambient wind but due to [Winter Lover] mine comes out a little colder than normal, which was fine by me. But the only thing it really did was spook some of the salamanders outside. It was all fun and games until three of them came bursting into the dungeon in a blind rage. That was a bad day for my clothling, but was much more manageable once we realized they couldn’t swim. Afterwards I expanded the moat a bit.

From there, my nibblers finished them off, which led to the second major thing that happened. After the fight, one of my more energetic nibblers evolved into a biterfish! It was super cool, until it tried to eat another nibbler. I immediately put my foot down on that. Brothers would not eat brothers in my dungeon. With a form of fishy resentment, it went back to eating kelp like before.

But with 405/500 mana, I’m just waiting to level up again to see if I can reach level 5 soon. As I metaphorically sat back, I heard something off coming from the other side of the landslide.

It wasn’t the weird bourps of slimes nor was it the quick inconscient tappings of salamander feet. It sounded bigger. Rapidly approaching too.

I called out to my units to saddle up for something big. The spitters all got gills filled with water ready to spit, the bitter circled the surface and my clothling readied themselves by a premade pile of rocks. “On my mark!”

I could hear the pitter patterings of salamanders running out of the way of whatever was approaching. I could hear the thing panting in hungry breaths as it drew closer.

It stopped for a breath moment. Then it roared.

“SKEEEROOOOK!”

Then it dove for the entrance of the cave.

It barely fit but it was able to slide through in a flaming ball. It was covered in flames near the front and seemed to curl itself into a ball and...roll around on the ground? Maybe it was some advanced form of pill bugs? They were on the list. But something seemed off about it.

Tentatively, I had my spitterfish splash it with water. A hiss erupted as the flames on the thing died out and a choking noise came from the beast. Then it sat up.

It was a human.

A young woman by the looks of it.

She seemed to cradle her left arm in a way that showed it was very injured. She slowly stood up and glanced at the room. Eyes falling on the moat, my clothling, and then me.

For a brief moment, our eyes locked. In her eyes, I could see a mixture of amazement, relief, and awe all rolled into one. I wonder what emotions she saw in my pale white orb?

“SKKARAKAAA!”

The girl looked away, fear consuming her as she glanced at the room once more, and the only exit was back the way she came. She pulled a knife from her belt, her other weapon seemed to be missing.

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Serval rocks got moved around as whatever had been chasing the poor girl forced its way inside. Soon, I was able to know what it was as well.

It was a lot like the sizzle salamanders, but a whole lot bigger. Its head looked like it could swallow one of the blighters whole and it had hard scales on its shoulders and limbs, like a draconic skateboarder. Not to mention that it was completely on fire! The rocks around it seemed to warp just from the flames alone! If this girl actually survived the thing, that’s impressive enough.

It broke through the rocks and slithered its way in. it reared up on its hindlegs and roared in intimidation at everything nearby. The flames swirling its body rose to the bump in the ceiling, filling the room in an orange glow. And filling the room with heat.

No.

I would not just let some no named, wildbucked, four legged, vermin, straight out of hell knockoff dragon looking mofo charge into my sanctuary and start effing up the place!

The salamander opened its mouth and fire started collecting to be shot out in some kind of fireball, but I wouldn’t let it.

I focused everything I had on [Winter Lover] and [Cold Wind] and blasted it with everything I had. The wind blew into a whirlwind of icy breath as the flames on the salamander all died out, leaving it in a grey drooping state as it flopped its fire breath attack. It and the girl shivered in the sudden chill.

“Ice this botch!” I yelled, although the girl didn’t seem to hear me, my dungeon friends did.

The spitters began dosing it with water, which was mixed with their silva for a rather gross but effective poison that would freeze to its body. The clothling threw rocks at it with surprising accuracy, hitting it in the eye more than once. But my little bitter went above and beyond, literally leaping out of the water to chomp down on the salamander's throat.

“SKKIII!” It roared in a damaged voice.

Whatever shock my cold snap had on it seemed to wear off as it charged the nearest thing that it could, which happened to be the girl.

“Jump!” I tried to yell at her, but she couldn’t hear me. Instead she dodged to the left, her right arm ready with her knife to slash into it. However, she forgot to account for the moat behind her.

As soon as the salamander’s head passed, she tried to stab it in the side, but the moat was too close, and the beast ended up falling in before she could strike. Unfortunately, its tail was really big, and ended up knocking the girl in with it.

Muffled gurgles could be heard as the girl tried to swim to the surface while next to a 4 foot long lizard trying to do the same and also kill her. The water was just deep enough that it wouldn’t go over her head if she stood but the girl was also under 5 feet.

Her hand breached the surface, trying to grab onto something on the smooth floor. My clothling needed no prompting as they raced over to grab her hand and try to pull her up. It took a bit more prompting on their part but my nibblers eventually banded together to push the girl from the behind onto the shore.

The salamander was still trying to grab her as it managed to grab her leg with a claw. The girl screamed as she was dragged back under. Her knife flew out of her hands and onto the surface. She gurgled as she thrashed about under the water, neither finding purchase or freeing herself.

The fishes were just sitting doing nothing, thankfully. The spitters were swarming its eyes and nostrils, trying to spit in them as much as they could. The nibblers were trying their best to separate the two, nibbling where they could on the salamander. But the MVP was easily the bitter, who bit down hard on the leg that was holding onto the girl. In one mighty bite, it served the claw straight from the leg.

With the loss of its leg, the salamander began to slow, it's time nearly up as its breath faded away. That allowed the girl to half carry, two thirds be pushed/pulled onto dry land. The clothling had to jump on her chest to get her breathing right but she had survived.

She looked into the moat at the dissolving corpse of the salamander and my nibblers eating what they could. Then she turned to me, and then she started laughing. And laughing.

And she didn’t stop.

It got to the point she was starting to turn purple. We were all really worried about her health at that point. Then she fainted, on the hard cold stone floor.

This was going to be the start of something big wasn’t it.

“Sigh, oh well...Medic!”