After he’d let the freed slaves go to sleep, Dominik considered what to do to fill the dungeon. He’d decided to try creating life, perhaps just a few more creatures to help fight off anyone who came to attack them in the dungeon.

He made a simple human being, a perfect brain, with blood pumping throughout the body, but even though it was technically alive, it didn’t seem able to actually think. Not with the same curiosity and randomness of a child, or an animal. It would only do what it was set to do, a list of actions set into its brain.

There was no soul in the body. He could feel the souls of the animals contracted to him, but he couldn’t feel any such thing from this body. Nor could he seem to create a soul, he couldn’t even fathom how to go about creating anything like a soul. Only a cheap imitation of one, set reactions in the mind.

The only thing he could use these biological machines for is predetermined actions like manual labor, or as traps. Perhaps rather than filling the dungeon with physical traps like some dungeons, he could create biological traps. Things that detect pressure, or movement, but programmed not to attack anything tagged with his spirit. Perfect traps to protect his dungeon.

He began filling the third floor with basic prototypes. He created holes in the walls and filled them with creations of flesh and bone, long tentacles with spikes, bones, claws, everything he could create. He did the same with a few spots on the floor.

For the time being, he focused on filling the third floor with traps, and refining them, he even added a few to the second floor. He began pre-programming basic types of traps he had made with the same basic responses, refining the process itself. And creating a maze on the third floor. It was as good as he could do without any real testing, and with only so much time left before the grand opening of the newly formed dungeon.

A few days later, one month after he’d told the guild about the new permanent dungeon, and brought the tags to them, the outpost was ready.

Being some of the first to explore a permanent dungeon, especially after a shift, was dangerous because of all the unknowns. But it could also bring good money and glory of a sort. The bragging rights of being among the first to explore a new permanent dungeon. The people seemed a bit too happy in Dominik’s opinion, treating this like a festival.

In just a few days, they were all set up, and the adventurers started flooding in. Most of them at least seemed to be amateurs based on their gear, but a few did seem a bit more experienced, or at least wealthier. Thankfully more advanced forces like the royal guard were either used for attempting to fully clear a dungeon, or to protect the area outside of a permanent dungeon that had been sending out powerful monsters. Dominik wondered if the demons could be coming from another dungeon, but there shouldn’t be another one so close by. He also hadn’t seen any more activity from them in the forest, though he hadn’t been paying very close attention, preoccupied with other things. Nor was his spy network very advanced yet.

There were still adventurers and merchants with slaves, but only a few people or groups had them. It seemed to be an accepted activity in this area, at least by legal precedent, but not well liked by everyone. Though this was only based on what could be gleaned from the sight and hearing of his crows.

Most of the slaves wore a magical bracelet on their wrists, which would require a key to unlock, if the key wasn’t already destroyed, or a powerful magic user to disenchant the seal. From what he recalled, it was mostly used to torture slaves with shock magic if they disobeyed an order from their master, or anyone named as a temporary owner by the master. Or it could have more complicated mechanics to ensure certain behaviors, even without command. It could also work if the slave got too far, or too close, if the master gave them a command to stay within a certain distance of themselves or within a certain area. And of course, it was a brand marking you as a slave, so even if you somehow escaped, you’d likely be rounded up and branded as a criminal.

Others preferred the subtlety of an ankle collar, and a few others preferred a much smaller, more expensive collar around their slave’s neck. The royal guard preferred a less direct form of control, being one of the few forces that employed the use of slaves, without collars. There were exceptions with unruly members of battalions being sent to others that did use collars, though they were unofficial, acting as reserves to back up others.

The royal guard prided itself on its training methods, and the loyalty of its slaves in that sense. Though they did employ what they called training collars on unruly slaves after they’d been bought. He remembered it when he was a child. Those memories seemed very clear, and there was no lack of them. The more he watched these things, the more of these memories came flooding back.

He remembered this going on from when he was six, to when he was twelve. When he fully realized that his family didn’t want him. That no one would come to help him. And that no magic he ever learned would be enough to get away from the royal family. When he barely cared to speak anymore, and he only enjoyed reading and sleeping, that’s when the collar finally came off. When there was no more point in torturing him. That’s when the trainers at the castle, at the training facility, finally considered the training a success.

As he looked at the people all around, smiling and laughing, pretending everything was normal. Pretending everything was fine. He felt a deep sense of hatred. He was too disgusted to keep watching the people on the surface. So instead, he checked everything in the dungeon again, made sure his avatar was ready on the sixth floor. And he waited.

When Dominik finally looked again when he noticed they’d started to move closer to his dungeon. There were healers and support mages near the entrance to the dungeon, barely half an hour’s walk from the dungeon. They dared not get closer, or they simply wanted to waste time, so they could charge for spells with a longer duration. They sold casts of spells, with more powerful spells, and longer durations costing more. This was of course to make sure everyone had a fair chance of receiving beneficial spells. Unless they had no money of course.

The prices were outrageous. He wondered how many parties would contain healers when they could make so much money without having to enter a dungeon. Mage’s abilities to counter spells often needed to be used in the fight, and their elemental armor tended to have more specific use, or more limited duration, though there were still a few standing near the dungeon offering their spells.

There were a few potion sellers nearby too, with stalls and tents, waiting to sell supplies to those desperate for something they’d forgotten in town, or in the main area of the outpost.

Many groups drew near the dungeon, and guards came to make sure people formed a line and gave others a chance to go in and make progress, so as not to crowd together too much and get trapped between a swarm of enemies.

The first of the parties entered that morning. Finally he cast spells to increase the speed of the spiders, and even a spell he’d been testing out to increase the efficacy and regeneration of their venom. The party of four entered, choosing to opt out of paying for a barrier spell. They were all human, and lacked much if any resistance to venom or poisons. They were swarmed by spiders just after entering the dungeon.

The spiders jumped on them as they entered the dark. The humans swung weapons and torches uselessly, missing everything, and soon fell. One managed to reach into their pouch and pull out antivenom, but they didn’t manage to take a sip before they were killed by the spiders’ venom. Another managed to run to the entrance, despite the pain and the minor paralytic effect of the venom, but he dropped down dead just outside of the entrance.

Dominik had some of his fastest troglodytes, made even faster with his support spells, run to the bodies just inside the entrance, just out of sight and out of the light. They quickly stripped off the belts and searched for valuables as he instructed them. They grabbed whatever weapons they could, and then ran back deeper inside the dungeon, depositing the loot into a hidden cache he’d made in the wall. One of many he’d made in the first and second floors of the dungeon.

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The group of troglodytes, three male and three female, possessed the greatest speed and agility among their people, and he’d had them train for this in the past few days. They were becoming like rogues. Focused entirely on property recovery of course, rather than assassinations. Dominik had beds to buy for the freed slaves, and for Fran. And he’d need many more books too, for himself and, again, for Fran. She sure loved reading.

The man that made it outside had his body hauled away, and his valuables taken. Some would be used to pay for the fee of moving the body wherever it was requested at. The rest of their possessions would be given to whomever was named as their beneficiaries at the guild. If no one was listed, then the guild would take their possessions, and pay for a funeral for the possibly unknown adventurer. He was a novice adventurer. He might not have given them any real information.

Most of the other parties standing around near the entrance, after realizing the rest of his party wasn’t coming out, decided to go pay for a spell to protect them. Either a barrier, or some sort of venom resistance, or possibly both. The healers, the potion sellers, and even some of the mages made much more money that day. A few parties remained however. They were either prepared, or overconfident, but another party, this time five halflings clad in dark clothing, made their approach when called.

They had clearly paid for a barrier spell, and they all quaffed some sort of potion, likely to increase their resistance to venom for a time, just to be extra cautious. They entered, and some of the spiders tried to bite them, but they couldn’t pierce the barriers. Dominik couldn’t cast a spell to let organic matter pierce through the barrier either, and as their fangs were part of their body, there was no way around it. Two of the seemingly rogue halflings cast spells. One cast fire spells, and one cast shock spells. These hit multiple spiders, and killed most they struck. He commanded the spiders to flee to the holes he’d made in the walls, into the small tunnels to protect themselves, and he healed the few that managed to resist the elemental magic enough to live through it all.

Simply living through it was enough for him to be sure he needed them to reproduce in the summer, and considering they’d already used some of their venom during the previous attack, he allowed them to remain hidden. There were many more spiders for the coming enemies.

The halflings made their way to the second floor, growing hesitant at first when they realized the spiders had retreated, as they walked through the first floor, then they grew confident again when they saw their next opponents.

It was the troglodytes. Mostly current and future patriarchs of their clan, wishing to protect their families, though there were several female warriors among them too. They were all the strongest and most skilled among them with spears and sticks. They were the largest among their people.

Dominik had made them crude stone armor, shaped perfectly to their bodies. It wrapped around their chests, over their shoulders, he wrapped some around their legs in various places, some around their arms, and he gave them large helmets. This armor restricted their movements a bit, and weighed them down quite a bit too. But they could still stab with their spears, and the armor would protect against most slashing and stabbing attacks, especially attacks aimed toward their vitals. Keeping them alive long enough to heal them was the most important part.

They were thirty strong. Most wielded their spears with two hands, but some were given large shields to plant on the ground, to then attack with one arm if able. Their greatest weakness would be strong attacks from blunt weapons, as it could shatter their earthen armor. With the spells cast upon them, their strength, speed, and stamina were increased. They’d even had barrier cast on themselves. They were a powerful, if small army, but they still stood taller than most of the halflings, and they had far greater numbers.

This power didn’t seem to shine through to the halflings, who all laughed at the sight. They all lunged forward with their daggers, which for them were like short swords. Or perhaps they really were short swords, made by halflings. The largest of them wielded a real short sword, and carried a buckler shield, which was large for a halfling. The two magic wielders each carried one knife, and the other two halflings were dual wielding, likely the true rogues of the group.

The troglodytes held their positions, as they’d been trained for the past several weeks. Ever since they’ve been given their spears by the dungeon lord. Though one halfling managed to get through the spears, with the help of the largest clearing a path with his buckler. The dagger strikes from the halfling didn’t even break the barrier, though they were aimed perfectly at the troglodytes’ necks. His speed and agility was great, he was much faster than the warrior troglodytes, and he exploited the gaps in their armor quite well. If only his daggers were enchanted to pierce a barrier enchantment.

He was struck with a spear, then another, but he was wearing strong chainmail under his cloth armor. These halflings were quite wealthy, though apparently not quite wealthy enough. Or at least, not prepared well enough.

Soon though, as he retreated, one powerful spear strike from a two handed spear wielding troglodyte warrior pierced through his chainmail, though it didn’t go very deep. The halfling retreated and the largest halfling charged in to pull him out, getting stabbed many times himself, even as he smashed several spears away with his shield in the small first room of the second floor of the dungeon.

Once he’d been pulled out from the range of their spears, the two spell users cast their elemental magic. First lightning chained between the troglodytes, which did hurt them. The barrier provided no protection from this, and the earth armor did little to shield them from its effects either. Then the other cast a cone of fire, which burned them. The earthen armor offered some protection, and their scales were somewhat resilient to this as well. And they wore no cloth armor to be set ablaze either. But between the two spells, the frontliners were badly hurt. The wants in the front were taken or to the back lines as Dominik cast healing magic on them.

The other counter, of course, would be powerful spell casters. Especially elemental magic, as he himself had no counters for it. He’d tried casting a proper earth armor spell, but he had no idea how it was meant to be cast, or even made, so he settled on creating the earthen armor.

As they were just finished healing in the back line, more spells were cast. These magic users weren’t able to cast spells without invocations like Dominik had, so it gave the troglodytes some time to retreat, but the other two halflings kept the troglodytes back for them while the injured halfling drank a healing potion, which would slowly treat the wound. He stood in the back near the entrance, and threw a few throwing knives from his uninjured side while he healed. Of course, these knives didn’t pierce the barrier either, but they were aimed very accurately. If he’d had a proper counter spell cast on those knives, he would’ve likely killed, or badly injured many of the troglodytes among them.

The halflings that weren’t preoccupied with casting spells were shouting something at each other, having some sort of frantic conversation. They were likely wondering how the troglodytes’ were able to pierce their barrier spell with their spears. Or how the troglodytes seemed to have a barrier spell that they couldn’t pierce. Dominik guessed they hadn’t expected the eldritch dungeon lord was casting barrier spells on the warriors in this dungeon. Or that he could cast enchantment spells on their weapons to pierce barrier spells.

It wasn’t something you should expect from an eldritch dungeon to be fair. This would likely all be blamed on Salvator, assuming the guild had heard about him. Some of the guards were still alive, and a few of them might have been conscious, so they likely had. Especially if they caught a few of the slaves, they’d likely have told a full account to any search party that was sent after them, to try and keep themselves or their friends safe. But maybe they’d managed to escape on their own with the buffs from his spells.

The fight continued on, with the two spellcasters electrocuting and then burning the troglodytes, as the other two fought them off to protect the spell casters, while the troglodytes moved the injured back, and brought the healed fighters to the front. Dominik’s healing was faster than their casting, and the two frontline fighters were taking damage, which wasn’t being healed at all. Soon their leader, mostly healed from his injuries, gave word to his fellow halflings, and they retreated back up to the first floor. This was after the casters had clearly run out of mana. Dominik thankfully had a very large supply of mana, and it was regenerating quite quickly.

He let some of the spiders jump onto them again and try biting them, but the barrier spell held. His enchantment spell only let the weapons pierce through the barrier spell, not destroy it. And the halflings hadn’t cheap out and paid for an extremely short duration of the barrier spell.

The halflings managed to live through the fight that went on for several minutes. Though the troglodytes did manage to get several throwing knives as a payment.

The troglodyte that made most of the attacks that pierced the halflings’ armor stood proud in front of the other twenty nine troglodyte warriors, and they all cheered.

Dominik was proud of the troglodytes, and he named the strongest of them Mighty Troglydytus. He was now the leader of this group of thirty sort of trained troglodyte warriors. Dominik tried conveying this thought to the troglodyte, and while he wasn’t sure it fully understood, it seemed to understand it was being praised, and it cheered even louder, rallying the other warriors, increasing their morale even more. Hopefully this would help them get through the battles ahead. They would need this kind of spirit to get through this long day.