Beabea hoped that the dungeon, or how Melia called it, Gorm would soon wake up again. His clansmen had difficulties with holding back the boar clans that tried to push their way into the first floor. They had a huge number of monster boars and their leader was close to becoming a sapient. The only reason they hadn’t stepped foot on the first floor was that Beabea already was a sapient and could train and command the Beavers’ way more effectively than his adversaries. If Gorm was awake he could try to convince him, that monsters from the second floor couldn’t come up to the first floor. With the help from Melia, Beabea was quite confident.

Melia was completely team beaver, how could she allow ugly boars to attack her favorite animals. Especially because her cute Beabea was their leader. She had given him this name when he just had upgraded. The upgrade not only gave the beaver vastly improved intellect, the ability to speak and huge power boost, it also reverted him back into a baby beaver. Since then Beabea had grown a lot, but he was still only the size of a young beaver. All this made him Melia's favorite and it cost him. Every day he had to play with Melia for at least an hour.

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When Gorm just fell asleep, Beabea was still a huge monster beaver just short of becoming sapient and it probably would have stayed like this for a long time. There was a common river turtle that had mutated into a monster, its rapid increase in intelligence made it seem like it would become sapient before him. But because Gorms plan for the second floor worked a bit too good, the first floor soon saw itself invaded by monsters from below.

At first, the beavers stood no chance, their only luck was that no monster could attack their leader, Beabea. Otherwise, they would have been destroyed completely. Under the stress of the constant attacks Beabea finally broke through and after receiving Melias “care”, he started to lead his kin.

He developed traps and revised new dams and castles that maximized defense. Through this help, they started to regain ground. And with the help of Melia, who vowed to send Sek for everyone that harmed the young of the beavers, they slowly recovered their population. Only that they now had several monsters.

A few years into the ongoing war between the second floor and the beavers, the second ever monster on the first floor, the river turtle, had a breakthrough and became sapient.

It started to support Beabea and became his advisor and commander. Soon they had an absolute advantage against the second floor. Especially because internal strife had broken out on the second floor. Grasping this chance, the turtle commanded a group of beavers to ambush some of the nearest light oases.

They killed everything that lived there, including young, old and crippled animals. It was the biggest massacre thus far. So it was only natural that the death spirit Sek discovered it. Despite him staying out of everything that happened, he decided to uncover what had led to something so senseless.

He found out about Melia's rule concerning the young beavers. After he scolded her for this unfair rule, he changed it so that it protected every living being that was defenseless as long as it wasn’t hunted for food. The turtle that had commanded the atrocity was also punished. From then on it wasn’t allowed to take part in any fighting and Sek took it with him when he went into seclusion again.

The new rule caused the strife on the second floor to develop into a full on war. Because the defenseless couldn’t be killed anymore, an endless circle of revenge killings was created. The first floor took this chance and solidified their defenses and strength.

When Sek got wind of this circumstance he was shocked. He always thought he would never make a mistake like this.

No matter how hard he thought he couldn’t find a way to change the rule to stop this vicious cycle. He needed a second take on this problem. Sek didn’t want to ask Melia and Beabea was too involved to have an objective opinion. So his only option left was the turtle. It had become calmer and more foresighted while in seclusion with him.

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After a bit of thought, the turtle had the idea that it could travel on the second floor and collect the defenseless, especially the children and teach them peaceful ways. Sek liked the idea and gave his go, but decided to stay around to observe how it worked. He didn’t want something like after his last intervention to happen again.

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The river turtle had changed while in seclusion. Now he couldn’t even understand how he could ever make that decision. His main goal with the suggestion he made to Sek was to repent and make his home a better place. To never forget this new goal, he gave himself the name Keeper.

Keeper knew his name wasn’t very original and if Melia found out she would probably scold him for picking such a stupid name, but he didn’t care. He now had a mission. And it was more important than his name.

And so his journey began. He had to brave a lot of difficulties. In most places, he wasn’t welcome and sometimes the owners of an oasis of light would even try to hunt him down. But he still managed to pick up some abandoned and orphaned children. The one that left the deepest expression on him was a basically newborn badger. Its clan had been wiped out by a herd of wisents. They stood no chance against the huge animals that were one of the only nomadic species on the second floor. The only time they came to an oasis was when they were about to have young in their herd. And the badger clan was unlucky enough to have their home chosen.

When the herd left three days after the fight, there were only ten badgers still alive and only two weren’t injured. One was a nearly blind old badger and the other one was the newborn. Despite Keepers efforts, the eight injured animals died only two days later.

The old badger decided to follow the turtle together with the newborn. After spending some time with them Keeper found out, that the badger was a nearly sapient monster. It got blinded when dug up a sun stone by accident.

While wandering around with his always growing entourage, Keeper kept looking for a place to stay. He didn’t want the young animals to grow up on the road. But he never found a place to stay.

One day he discovered a half-dead stork after searching for survivors of a raid on an oasis. Keeper managed to nurse him back to health. Out of gratitude, he led them to a small opening in a wall. When Keeper started to question what they wanted there a second stork stepped out of the opening. Soon they were led into a tunnel, after several turns, they arrived in a big cave.

The cave was completely lit, several sun and moon stones covered the ceiling. The vegetation was lush and there seemed to be no traces that indicated a lot of animal life in it. Short, it was the ideal place for Keeper to build his bastion of peace.

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In the beginning, Sek didn’t think that the Turtle could change anything, but only one year after Keeper began his journey, Sek could already see a difference. Nonetheless, he kept observing.

Sek soon discovered that all the animals, but especially mammals, were much more intelligent than they should be. And not only on the second floor but also on the first floor. To verify this, he continued to watch the dungeon. But to his surprise, they weren’t only already smarter, but they kept getting smarter. Sek couldn’t find any natural reason for this and even after considering all the things Gorm could do he couldn’t find the cause. He would have to talk with Gorm about it after he woke up.

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As the organization Keeper founded spread over the second floor, the fighting started to slow down. So much so, that some clans started to attack the first floor again.

The constant fighting had increased the number of monsters on the second floor, so they had a huge numbers advantage, even with only one or two clans attacking together. But The beavers didn’t sit still in all this time, Under the leadership of Beabea, they developed many new traps and other defensive buildings. Some elites had also been sent to the second floor to become stronger there, so they could easily defend against all invaders.

This only changed when a monster boar, that was incredibly close to becoming sapient, appeared in a boar clan. It started to gather more and more boar clans around itself before it started to attack. It ruthlessly sent normal boars first, as to discover and destroy all the traps. Then it sent a lot of monsters to fight the beavers.

Thanks to the good preparation, the Beavers could still hold on, but who knew how long.

That was the reason that Beabea wanted Gorm to wake up again. With Gorm present, he could negotiate a truce. Maybe more with the help of Melia.

When Beabea was deep in thoughts he suddenly felt a wave of pure mana rushing over the entire dungeon. He knew Gorm had woken up.