45 minutes after the kobold left the encampment of Felipe and his group.

I had watched as Felipe sent one of the kobold prisoners out of the canyon with a scroll in his hand. I wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing, but considering the fact they were currently besieged, I strongly suspected it was either a declaration of surrender, or some sort of negotiation. I had continued my ammunition production despite the current lull in hostilities, and was now fully satisfied that I could lay waste to any attacking force of kobolds, even if my accuracy could be compared to a blindfolded child playing with a piñata, not that I was even remotely close to being that bad of a shot. As I was currently waiting to see what would happen next, I pondered what Felipe’s group might have been able to use as a bargaining chip with the kobolds, if they weren’t going to be surrendering.

It didn’t appear that the group had an abundance of goods with them, I suppose they might have bargained with their skills, after all Felipe’s group did have several magic users among them. However, would the kobolds even care, they seemed to get along without magic just fine, even if their lifestyle was quite primitive, from my perspective. As I pondered, my thoughts turned to the human wizard Alesandro who had been helping me learn their language, he had a skill the kobolds might want to take advantage of, the ability to talk to me. If they did use that as a bargaining chip, did they promise something else along with that. I don’t want to see Felipe’s group killed off due to starvation or something, nor do I want to kill the kobolds, I really just want them to leave. 

The lack of sanitary behavior during their short stay in my dungeon doesn’t inspire confidence in the possibility that they might exhibit civilized behavior, although I have only been around them for a few days, I could be wrong. Whilst I am waiting for Felipe and Alesandro to come over and talk to me, I might as well see about expanding my territory a little, as that seems to be the best use of my time. I started to stretch out my influence to the eastern side of the mountain I was currently in, I figured that I might as well do so, as I had planned to do that eventually anyway. Not that I had made much progress before I noticed Felipe and Alesandro come down off of their defensive wall, and slowly make their way back to the display I had set up in the pocket canyon.

It took more back and forth explanations of vocabulary before I managed to get the whole story out of Felipe and Alesandro than I would have liked. Frankly their story made me very frustrated to the extent that I put up a “please wait” message, before I started cursing them out and possibly ruining whatever positive relationship I might have with them. I withdrew my focus from their canyon and focused my attention on my railgun testing room, and with little further ado, vented my frustration by firing enough rounds fast enough that I melted the barrel of that railgun and made a significant mess of the back wall. I will fix them both, eventually. It ended up taking me just over an hour to fully calm down.

When I no longer felt like I would be gnashing my no longer existent teeth in frustration talking to Felipe and Alesandro, I removed my please wait message, and started to grill them over, questioning their motives and what they desired most as outcomes to this negotiation with the kobolds. It took a while longer than I would have liked but after an hour of questioning I came to a rough understanding as to what exactly they wanted, and what they expected the kobolds to want out of this negotiation, which was as I suspected a safe mana rich environment to live. Felipe and his group, and the elves that sent them to evaluate me as a dungeon on the other hand, wanted a sane dungeon that wasn’t planning on sending waves of mana changed creatures to attack towns, or in general conquer the world.

As I had no real aspirations to conquering the world, I wasn’t really opposed to that idea, even though I did want to spread the influence of the technology of Earth across the planet, I had no desire to rule anything as troublesome as a country, let alone a planet. I started asking a series of questions indirectly related to inter-racial interactions and general politics of the continent, it was quite enlightening. Although racism exists, it doesn’t really seem to be as virulent as it is back on Earth, the news and social media sensationalization of white and black conflicts just seemed to make things worse in many respects. Here, on this new world, racism involved prejudice and fear to a great extent, but not to the extent of de-anthropomorphization. Here it seemed, avoidance and petty insults, were more prevalent than racial profiling and brutality, at least on this continent, apparently the southern continent still has outright slavery and other issues, according to Alesandro. 

My goal in asking these questions was to determine if Felipe and Alesandro believed that the kobolds had the potential for civilized behavior in the long term, and whether or not other races would tolerate their presence if they interacted in a controlled setting. The answer it seemed was a tentative, yes. If I ended up agreeing to provide a haven for the kobolds, it would likely end up being a long term project to civilize them, in other words the work of several years, or perhaps even generations if they prove less amenable than Felipe and Alesandro indicate. Interspersed amongst my questions about the continent, I managed to determine that the settlement closest to my dungeon on this side of the mountain range is what they termed as 180 leagues to the southwest, or forty-ish days of travel away. 

If I wanted to interact with non-kobolds on a regular basis, then a new settlement for them would have to be built, from the sound of things that is what their original plan was. First evaluate me, then build a new settlement nearby, the definition of nearby would vary based on their evaluation of me and my apparent attitude towards visitors, from anywhere between a few minutes walk to a weeks journey on foot. Despite Felipe strong-arming me into these negotiations, there is definitely some potential for me to at least start to work on some of my own longer term goals. At noon, it was becoming quite obvious that neither Felipe nor Alesandro were up to continuing my question and answer session, and I myself had most of my important questions already dealt with, so I let them get back to what they had been doing, and started working on my own tasks.

I sped my perception back up to it’s maximum rate and started expanding the influence of my core to the south and also to the east. If I wanted to speed access to my environs for non-kobolds on this side of the mountain range, one of the things I could do is to move somewhat closer. My target distance for my southern expansion would be an additional 10 kilometers south from the pocket canyon, as for my eastern expansion, I fully intend to reach the other side of the mountain range. It is going to be difficult at best to maintain a clean room type environment in my dungeon with the kobolds around, if that is indeed what results from the negotiations, but I intend to try.

As for my core, my current plan is to move it such that it is an additional kilometer below the surface and five kilometers to the southeast of where it currently is, of course, I have to expand my influence to reach that far first. So I got to work, taking breaks when my override kicked in to keep my core cool, looking in on both Felipe’s group and the kobolds in the village every break, so as to not be caught by surprise if they decided to kick of the negotiations today, instead of tomorrow like Felipe and Alesandro expect. The afternoon went by smoothly for me, the kobold village looked like it was still in discussion over the proposed negotiations, and was otherwise fairly quiet. The ogre looked like it was recovering as well as could be expected without an actual hospital or some sort of healing magic, which I assume exists in this new world. For the sake of Felipe’s group, I hope the night is as quiet as this afternoon, I’ll just have to wait and see.

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As midnight rolled around, I had successfully expanded my territory in a pinhole to the distance I desired to the south, and I had created another pinhole down to the location I planned to keep my core in for the future. I paused at midnight to look at the mountainside to the east and also to think over what I might be missing if anything regarding the negotiations I think will occur tomorrow. After ten minutes of thinking things over, I realized that I could possibly improve my bargaining position if I created a meeting room for the negotiations, at the very least it would make me seem somewhat more capable than the somewhat naive technical person I am. So as 12:15 AM hit, I started creating that meeting room, I definitely should have started earlier, but obviously I am still someone who can’t see the forest for the trees, just like my brother always said, some days I miss his humor.

I placed the chamber for the meeting room, in the northern wall of the pocket canyon where Felipe’s group was staying. I made the layout somewhat similar in nature to a lecture hall, but with divided sides and a lectern with a seat near the front of the room, where I placed another display, like the one I had in the back of the canyon, in the lectern itself I placed a smaller display that mirrored the larger one, this limiting any craning that might have been done by Alesandro if he would be translating in front of the big screen. The chairs I made in a fairly sturdy design, with a large cutout in the lower back of the chair for my guests with tails, hopefully they should be comfortable enough. I made the chairs slightly adjustable and movable, without being able to be lifted from the floor, kobolds, and gnomes being shorter than the rest of the group. I hope the buttons to adjust the chairs are understandable enough for the kobolds, that could prove awkward otherwise.

I made the meeting room large enough for 11 people to be seated comfortably in the chairs I provided, in front of the two sets of chairs I placed a table so that the negotiators could bring food and drink in if needed. As dawn broke on the horizon at 7:13, I finished adding in a somewhat simplified ventilation system and the last of the ceiling lights before starting to clear away the doorway for room. Serena, I think her name was, noticed my attempt to be quiet about removing the stone into the room, and startled awake. This time she wasn’t as visibly frightened as when I opened up the display, but she did get up out of her bedroll and take a look into the room. Felipe who had woken when he heard her get up, strolled over to join her in looking at the new room. I got the impression that they were quite impressed, at the very least their eyes hadn’t fallen out of their heads yet.

Once they recovered their composure, Felipe went and woke Timoteo before dragging him over to the meeting room. As he was doing that I pull back my influence from the meeting room, and I could tell that Serena was able to tell I was doing it. It didn’t seem like she could see me doing it, but it looked like the tension in her shoulders relaxed as I pulled my influence further away from her. If I didn’t miss my guess, this was the main reason she was included in this group, she was sensitive to either dungeons or magic in general and could act as a canary if I had been hostile.

It wasn’t too long before the rest of the camp that hadn’t been on watch woke and came to look over the meeting room I constructed in small groups. I had the display on, so that they knew it was the same as the display in the back of the canyon, but they didn’t seem to see the need to discuss things with me just yet. Timoteo and one of the other more adventurous elves, started fiddling with the buttons on the armrests of the chairs, and quickly determined what they were for. Now, my hope is that the kobolds come here instead of dragging them back to the village to negotiate, as that would waste my efforts of the last few hours.

The members of Felipe’s group, soon settled down, ate some breakfast and fed their remaining prisoners. At 8:23 a group of five kobolds left the village carrying one of their elders on their backs, their cane too. I guess that means the negotiations will be carried out over here, at least my work creating this meeting room won’t have been wasted. I let Felipe’s group know that the kobolds negotiator was on their way. When Alesandro asked me how I knew that, I said by way of the display in the meeting room that an elder was being carried in this direction. That caused a minor discussion to occur, but it didn’t seem to be panicked in the least.

The group of kobolds carrying their elder, made good time as they showed up outside the canyon by 9:45, at that point the kobold who had been a captive came back into the camp under the guidance of Serena’s summoned creature. Some discussion occurred with Felipe and Alesandro before they sent out the creature again to bring the rest of the group into the camp. After a few more minutes, Alesandro and the kobold managed to bring the elder into the meeting room I had constructed and get their own team settled. Alesandro had previously noticed his special seat, and took it as he realized it would quickly become awkward if he was constantly moving back and forth in front of the display. The kobold elder managed to sort out her sitting arrangements fairly quickly, the kobold who had been captured previously was made to stand behind her holding her cane whilst she sat.

On the other side of the negotiations, Felipe, Timoteo, and Serena were joined by one of the two gnomes, and the Tiger beastkin whose name I didn’t catch previously. Alesandro had provided a large stack of parchment to the kobolds, and had kept a similar sized stack for himself. Once everything and everyone was arranged, they got right to it. The kobold elder brooked no delay, and started things off by questioning why I had used a weapon to destroy their village wall. It took a bit of effort on Alesandro’s part to get across my initial reasoning for denying the kobolds entry into my dungeon and the fact I didn’t want their village to block the entrance of my dungeon for other races.

After a period of back and forth between all three sides of this argument, I finally was able to confirm that the kobolds wanted a mana-rich environment for their village, and that a dungeon is one of the better ones possible. I also managed to ascertain that the environment is especially important for their eggs, although they didn’t indicate that it had anything to do with their successful hatching rate. Felipe, having a similar position as me on access to my dungeon, managed to get a concession from the kobolds that so long as I provided a suitable environment for their eggs, the kobolds would have no reason to prevent access to the other races, so long as both parties manage to remain peaceful.

The kobold elder did indicate that could be a problem as there weren’t a large number of intelligent kobolds among the tribe at this time, but that she would try to curb the impetuousness of those who weren’t that intelligent. Frankly this was almost more than I would have expected from them, just from my own prejudice based on how the group of kobolds trashed the bunkroom Timoteo and that wolf beastkin stayed in. After getting that concession from the kobolds and communicating that to me, I then asked Alesandro to ask the kobolds a few questions as that would allow me to tailor the environment more towards the needs of the kobolds. 

First, I had him ask if they farmed in addition to hunting, and if they had any dietary restrictions. Turns out that farming was a foreign concept, but one that sounded intriguing to them, and basically no they didn’t have any dietary restrictions, although their preferred diet consisted of mostly meat, with fruits, vegetables and herb as seasoning and filler. I then had Alesandro ask if the kobolds kept and raised livestock for food at all, turns out mountain goats and sheep are high on their preferred diet and the ogre of the tribe is the one that generally acts as the shepherd, but when they were forced to move out of their previous village, they lost their herd of sheep.

That piece of news surprised both myself and Felipe’s group as they hadn’t made the connection between the sheep nearby ogres as being raised and cared for by them, as they are seen to be dim witted at best. Prejudice hurts when it is proven wrong by facts, it took everyone a couple minutes to calm down, but having gotten the information I needed to make a decision, I crossed my mental fingers and wrote on the display, “I have an initial plan for the disposition of the kobold village, it is going to require work on both my part as the dungeon building it, and the kobolds of the village, as my future residents.”