Ok. Aftermath summary.

I had two random evolved guppies remaining. One that kind looked lizardy-fishy-ish, and the other with the six spider/crab legs. Mimi was currently getting hollowed out by her own children, and Rab was protecting what was left of the fortress that protected both her and my two new human inhabitants. I had Silver, the dragon the size of a large dog, Bottom Dweller, Subsonar, and my newest compatriot the demon. I also had two Sneakies, two mice and one rat from the ambush parties.

Oh yeah, I meant what I said. Two Sneakies. According to her- sorry, their story, the nurseries were guarded by two bat-kin. She managed to strangle one, but not without letting the other tear her in half with its teeth. My plan of having her body be segmented and survive killing blows worked (after some major healing). As a result, my one Sneaky has become two. Both were much dumber than the original.

One side effect I hadn’t accounted for was the fact that the back half of Sneaky didn’t turn into a proper snake. Sneaky, the original, had eyes all along her body, so this new sneaky also had its eyes on the side of its face instead of the front. It also didn’t have a mouth, so much as a butthole it could open and close. Kind of like the worm I’d based the idea for her evolution on. Next time I found a core fragment small enough that the rear Sneaky could swallow it, I’d evolve the back half to have a proper snake mouth and fangs. For now, I had two smaller Sneakies, and I was happy with that.

I also had all the guppies and the barracuda up in my old core room, but they didn’t count, since they weren’t down here. And oh yeah, I had a living statue, but I guess he didn’t last long. Which was just an absolute shame, because that thing took so much mana. It almost wasn’t worth the effort.

Key word being almost. Obviously I’d still make more, they were just too cool not to! But maybe later. For now, I wanted to get properly settled. And being surrounded by five dungeons as large as me with far more minions did not make me feel comfortable.

Right now, the only thing keeping me safe was the giant, multi-limbed chinese dragon looking thing under Mercy’s control. You know, the one that’s bleeding out and suffering from an infection somewhere? Yeah, that thing wasn’t doing too well. I’d fed Mercy some mana, but it wasn’t working. Our dragon body guard had lost too much blood during the scrap with my new demon and along the way it had gotten something nasty stuck in its wounds. It was dying, but not quite dead yet.

A fact that hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other dungeons. Subsonar was keeping me informed about all their movements, and although a war between them had just ended, they seemed eager for another.

The cavern had been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Besides me taking Depths’ place, only five large dungeons remained, and small handfuls of smaller dungeons deep in no-man's-land. The thousands of monsters had been reduced to hundreds, with concentrated populations in the five larger dungeons. Between the fact that each of us larger dungeons had a giant boss monster, we found ourselves standing in a good old Mexican standoff. I also had my demon that I could use, but during the course of the war, each large dungeon had also created a champion of their own to go along with their boss monster.

With Mercy’s dragon slowly weakening, the two closest dungeons to me are readying their remaining armies to storm my castle, while the two behind them are getting ready to take advantage of the two closer ones emptying their nests in order to claim them for themselves. The rearmost dungeon didn’t seem as eager to join in the war, since they were the weakest, but they did seem eager to egg on the others, ready to pick up the scraps that remained.

So priority could mean one of two things. Either successfully defend myself from an invasion on two fronts, or eliminate the problem at the source.

I never was one to just take things sitting down.

I had one major advantage over the other dungeons. I had access to metal! Although the demon had killed nearly every creature that could actually wear the armor from the knights, I now potentially had access to two humans and the weapons that they wielded. If they were willing to equip the knight's armor, I’d have a full roster of three well equipped minions! Well, one minion in Dweller, and two mercenaries that I had to hire somehow. I wasn’t really worried about the cost of hiring them, I was more just worried about communication. With Grant no longer having muscles to speak through, I was fresh out of minions that could speak to the humans in my care. Did I still have that book that Faux used? Surely I left it somewhere…

Oh. It’s still in the old core room.

I studied my humans, trying to think of a way to talk to them. They sat in the crossroads cave, pinching Grant’s clothes tight and tying them together with extra thread from the sleeves and a mouse bone needle. I didn’t want to waste mana, so directly talking to them was out of the question. I’d rather have a monster able to speak for me. I could evolve things with my mana, right? It wasn’t like I had any more dungeon cores laying around, since I used them all to fight Depths.

I remembered a second later. While resisting the urge to slap myself on the forehead, I teleported over to my new core room. Mimi sat there, holding my core loosely in her hands as she just sat there, not doing much. I liked her touch very much. It felt very serene . She stared blankly with empty eyes at the large purple pyramid that sat broken off the center of the room.

Right. How to divide the spoils of war?

Dweller, Silver, and… uh, demon guy. Come to the core room.

A few seconds later, and the three monsters entered the room. The demon dropped to one knee, bowing his head to my core. Dweller judged him with a haughty glare. He just slung his new mace over his shoulder and regarded me nonchalantly.

Master. The demon rumbled. What are your orders?

His deep baritone voice did not match his ugly mug. Granted, he didn’t really fit my mental image for a demon to a tee, and while I would be willing to be lenient in favor of having a little variety in my monsters, I didn’t want him to be ugly. The bat-like features had to go.

I jerked my head towards Depths’ remains. Take a piece, each of you. A reward for surviving the battle.

The demon bowed a little deeper, not moving even when the other two happily took their shares.

Master, I do not deserve such an honor. I fought against you, and have wounded the great dragon. I-

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I flapped my hand, mocking him. Blah blah blah, I don’t care. You’re fucking ugly, take the damn core piece.

The demon tightened his muscles, but eventually gave in. Yes, master.

What a prude. Dweller muttered to Silver, swallowing his core. Silver nodded agreement, leaving the room with the fish man.

I split my will, directing the evolutions of each monster. I didn’t really care about Silver's evolution as much, since they were just supposed to get bigger, but Dweller didn’t really have that option if he still wanted to wear his armor. I directed his evolution to include vocal chords and better lungs. I stopped the demon before he could leave the core room, wanting to focus on him a little more than the others.

I had him stand still in the center of the room as I flew around him, judging every facet of his face. He didn’t need to be perfect, but I certainly wanted him to look a little more human. He could keep the large bat ears, but his mouth needed a little shrinking, and the teeth needed to be a little wider and flatter. Still sharp, just more human was all. And his nose. Good god, that thing needed fixing pronto! Thanks to the effect of swallowing a core fragment, it only took about two hours before I felt satisfied. He didn’t look perfectly human, and his nose was still a little more upturned than I liked, but he was at least able to speak passable english. Or whatever language this world called it.

Damian the demon received his next task. Talking to the humans.

He walked into the crossroads cave, regarding the light shining from within with a noticeable disdain. However, he did seem to take a special notice of Mr. Vernant’s sword sitting in a sheath off to the side. We were lucky that it didn’t land on him as Damian caught him during his fall.

“Lucid greets you.” He rumbled. Oh yeah, the voice suited him much better now!

Owyn and Mr. Vernant looked up at him skeptically. Grant just waved cheerily.

Hey! Nice to meet you! What’s your name?

Damian. The demon responded.

Oh, neat! You guys can talk to each other now! I thought. Wait, why? Grant couldn’t hear Mimi before. Hey, Mimi! Can you try talking to Grant please? You don’t have to move, he should be able to hear you from there!

Owyn recovered first, nodding to Damian. “Greetings. Does this have anything to do with Grant?”

Grant perked up, not from the comment, but because he heard Mimi calling from the other room. They talked for a while. Grant really wanted to know if she’d picked out names for any of the babies yet.

Damian shook his head slightly. “The master requires your assistance. Although we have gained this safe space, we are not free from danger yet. There are many enemies outside our borders, and they thirst for our blood.”

Owyn’s eyes changed somewhat, and a small smile worked its way onto his face. “Is that so? Well that does sound serious. What would Lucid ask of us then?”

“He wishes to hire you as mercenaries in his armies. We shall invade the neighboring dungeon and claim its resources for our own!”

“Another war?” Owyn seemed exasperated by the comment, but continued talking with a small smile. “Didn’t we just get out of one? Lucid’s forces are down to basically nothing, and we don’t know what else is out there.”

I remotely contacted Subsonar to relay information about one of the closer dungeons to me, and passed that info along to Damian, who repeated me word for word.

“The nearest dungeon has a boss monster of approximately the same mass as our long dragon. It’s a giant lizard with four arms, four legs, and two heads. Two of its arms have been transformed to resemble spears while the other two are large and flat, like a mix between meat cleavers and shields. It seems to be guarded by a menagerie of lizard styled creatures. It has approximately thirty the size of humans, on four or two legs, and nearly eighty dog sized ones. The core is hidden beneath a pond, where its champion monster is in the process of growing. Unfortunately, there is no known information about the champion. Would you like to know about the terrain the dungeon encompasses?”

Owyn’s face grew a lot more serious. Mr. Vernant grunted.

“Well, that is a problem. How many dungeons like this are there?”

“Five. Three with discernible themes to them, two that look to be desperate generalists, taking whatever monster they can get their hands on. Lucid predicts that these two are like him, and do not have the capability to breed stock monsters and instead relies on raiding parties to the few dungeons that remain wild in the center.”

Owyn got to thinking. “If all five of them have similar numbers, it’s no wonder he thinks we’re in trouble. What’s the reason none of them have attacked yet?”

Damian bristled. “Lucid is fearsome! All who set their eyes upon him-”

Damian… I said flatly. He cringed, regaining his composure.

“They’re preparing. They’ve set a number of their troops against their borders, which has enticed other dungeons to set their own troops against the borders closest to them. With a new threat behind them, the first dungeon rebalances their defenses, altering the composition of their attack troops. It’s slow, but this dance is slowly achieving balance. We could be attacked any time within the day.”

Owyn clenched his teeth. “That’s not a lot of time.”

“Soup pot or campfire.” Mr. Vernant muttered. “We stay here, we’re forced into a war. We leave, we’re prisoners to the men that already killed Grant.”

Damian lifted his chin. “If you stay, Lucid will solve your problems. You will participate in this war.”

I chastised Damian again. He deflated slightly. “Lucid will compensate you for your efforts.”

“What sort of compensation?” Owyn inquired.

I thought about it.

“A good meal.” Damian stated. “Since you are not of Lucid’s kin, you are not welcome to the results of his efforts. You will need to hunt and gather your own food. However, if you participate in this glorious battle, Lucid will provide a feast for your victory.”

Owyn scrunched his face. “What even is there to eat? No. You know what? Don’t answer that. I’m not sure I want to know.”

Damian pointed a thumb out the exit. “Some of the bushes grow nuts?”

“Are they good nuts?” Mr. Vernant asked with a raised eyebrow.

Damian didn’t have a ready response for that one. “I… like meat. What’s that?”

Mr. Vernant followed Damians finger. “My sword?”

“The thing that holds it. You can wear it?” Damian still carried his knives in each hand. I’d only seen him put them down when he was moving rocks for me.

Mr. Vernant consulted Damians knives. “Sure can. You want one of your own I take it?”

Damian looked at his knives, considering it. He held the flats of the blades against his body in various places, thinking about where would be best to put them. Owyn got to his feet, pulling out a small dagger from the small of his back.

“I like putting mine here, since it’s easy to take out and it doesn’t get in the way of my bow work.

Mr. Vernant nodded. “It’s the most stable place I’d say. People who put them at their sides always seem to just use the placement to show off their fancy tools.”

Damian stared at his knives a little longer. Master… what do I do?

I drummed my fingers on my cheek, deep in thought. You know what? From what Subsonar’s told me, we’re the only dungeon with tools more advanced than a rock or bone. Why don’t we take advantage of that? We’ve got a bunch of dead bodies laying around doing nothing. Let’s see if we can craft us up some armor.

Mercy spoke up from Grant’s pocket. Dragon is dying… I can’t save it.

I smirked. Ah, don’t worry about that any more. Between you and me, we’ve got a lot of mana, and a lot of bodies. Let’s make use of them together, shall we?