In the end, the group includes Bastet, Lathani, Fenrir, Catch, Pride, Hades, and Persephone – who is willing to be dragged away from her eggs to inspect her new home. The others either aren’t really interested enough or have gone back to the samuran village.

River is one of those: she went straight back to the village with the other samurans who joined us on our trip and has been there ever since. I’ve missed her and sense through the Bond that she’s missed me too, but I agreed with her that she would do most good working with Tarra on exploring her Fire-Herbalism and carving out a place for herself in the local community. I’ll have to give her the tour later.

“Everyone ready?” I ask with excitement and nerves mingling. What are they going to think of our efforts? “Then let’s go,” I continue after receiving various positive responses.

We move to the entrance. Once just a large hole in the ground, it has been moved further down the slope and is now a more even hole with a less-steep slope. As we go inside, more differences are immediately obvious.

“Kalanthia and I thought that a straight route forwards to the heart of the group wasn’t a good idea, so we’ve included a few switchbacks,” I tell them, pointing out the changes as we walk through. “These various bends should offer our forces more cover in order to attack an intruder and slow them down.”

I did suggest putting in a few hidden passages, but Kalanthia pointed out that passages could be used against me – there’s no guarantee that my forces will always be smaller than the enemy. In the end, I’ve hidden a few ‘surprises’ in pockets of the stone – poison, extra-sticky spider-silk, sharp bits of flint, and bone caltraps.

In the event of an enemy coming, either I can trigger them to fall on the creature’s head, or my Bound can use force to crack the thin stone keeping the trap substances hidden, releasing them on the floor. I’ll have to check them from time to time just to make sure that they’re not degrading, but hopefully this will help give us the edge even in the event of another Tier three trying to attack us. If a Tier four or five attacks us, we’ll probably have to use the emergency exit instead.

“And here we are in the first room,” I say as we get to the end of the passageway. “This is the area with the least Energy density, and as you can see, it’s pretty big.” It’s bigger than the original cavern, but not quite as big as the space that had been revealed after I’d succeeded in fulfilling the terms of the deal with Raven. It’s also a lot more intentionally shaped and almost a perfect oval. I have a feeling that that isn’t going to be the most useful shape, but since I didn’t know what would be most useful, I decided to just use Kalanthia’s help to build the basic structure. Later down the line, either I can do some more shaping with magic, or others can build walls with clay.

What will this room be used for? Persephone asks. I hope it is not where you intend me to guard my eggs – it is far too open.

“No, I’ve got another place in mind for that,” I assure her. I’ve got a special area at the end of a passage leading off from the main room for that. “I figure that this is basically the living quarters of anyone who can deal with the Energy levels. Actually, are any of you suffering from Energy poisoning right now? If you’re not sure, I can check.”

There’s a pause as each of them seems to take stock of themselves. Bastet, Pride, Persephone, and Hades all indicate that they’re fine. Catch seems uncertain, as do Lathani and Fenrir. I check them out. Catch is fine, as expected – he’s a Tier 1 and none of my Bound suffered ill-effects last time we came through.

Lathani, oddly enough, is suffering from something, despite also being Tier 1. It’s not affecting her health, but it is affecting her mana and stamina. I’ll need to dig more into it after the tour to find out why. For now, though, I assess that she’d better stay on the surface level with her mother.

Of course, she doesn’t like that idea.

Why does everyone else get to stay and not me? she whines sulkily, the closest to outright rebellion that she’s come in a while.

“It’s dangerous for you,” I tell her again, exasperated. “I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but it’s clearly badly affecting you in some way.”

But you said it’s not causing my health any damage, she argues.

“No, but having your mana and stamina drained can’t be healthy,” I say, crossing my arms and narrowing my eyes at her. “Until I know why it’s happening, I don’t want you down here.”

But why is no one else having any difficulties? she demands.

I sigh and shrug, moving over to check on Fenrir.

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“I don’t know. But they aren’t, so you’ll have to just recognise that you each have differences and go back to the surface.” Then, as I touch Fenrir, I frown. “Actually, you’ll have a companion.”

Oh? Lathani perks up. Who?

“Sorry Fenrir,” I say to the lizog. “Looks like you’re more sensitive to Energy since your Evolution. Your health is going down bit by bit. It’s not a lot at this point, but this is the lowest Energy density. You’ll have to go up with Lathani.”

It’s fine, Fenrir says, not displaying any of the annoyance that Lathani is. Keep Lathani company.

He evidently broadcasted that to more than just me as Lathani instantly melts.

Thanks Fenrir, she replies, moving over to rub against him. Once significantly larger than him, the size gap has narrowed and she doesn’t even come close to pushing him over.

Now that she’s not going up alone, Lathani willingly leaves the cavern, accompanied by the lizog. Looking at them leave, I’m reminded that I should probably see if Fenrir would rather have a Companion Bond – at this point, there’s no justification for keeping him Bound with Dominate. But first, the tour.

“OK, so this cavern isn’t much to look at right now, but I’ve got plans as to how to develop it further. I’ll talk them through with all of you later – please feel free to contribute ideas. Anyway, let’s continue.”

I lead them to the tunnel which goes into the next part of the place – a series of several smaller rooms along a wide corridor. This is what took the majority of Kalanthia’s time and mana.

I’ve been thinking about the samurans and decided that I wanted to create ways of rewarding the Tier twos. I know that Energy Hearts help, but so does a higher Energy density. But at the same time, I don’t want them gaining direct access to the Pure Energy, or even knowing for sure that it exists.

As a result, we created these rooms. Each, including the cavern itself, has a network of ‘air ducts’ which lead to the Pure Energy stream, but are small enough not to really be noticeable. The closest to the cavern have the narrowest ducts with the ones further away from the cavern gaining increasingly more and wider ducts.

Experimentation with Kalanthia proved that Energy will build up in a closed room to a certain level. Once it reaches that level, it starts being absorbed into the wall enclosing it at a steadily increasing rate until the rate of Energy entering the room and the rate of it being absorbed is the same. The more Energy that enters the room – through a duct of a greater width – the longer it takes to reach that equilibrium and the faster the Energy density replenishes.

It’s not a big difference, but I was able to get an idea by using my hourly Energy absorption rate as an indicator.

Outside the cavern, the Energy density has dropped significantly – our interior works have stopped the majority of it leaking into the environment. As a result, I’m now only getting about ninety-five units per hour, which is only about ten units more than I’d get in the samuran village. That’s without Meditation playing any part which, honestly, it almost always does since I keep the lowest level active pretty much all the time.

Inside the cavern, I get around a hundred and fifty units – closer to the ducts, it’s more. Near the entrance it’s less.

The first set of rooms when they’re fully saturated give me a little more than two hundred units per hour. The second set gives me around two hundred and seventy. The third pair of rooms give me over three hundred units per hour, and the fourth set of rooms over four hundred units per hour when fully saturated. One of these also holds my fire-heated bath. I figure, why not work on my progress to the next level while having a soak?

Between all of these, I figure that I have some good incentive for the Evolved samurans working towards the good of the village.

It’s there that the corridor appears to stop. But what I don’t even show my Bound – though I am planning on showing some of them later – is that the wall is false. Well, kind of false. It is actually a wall, but it’s not the thick rock it appears to be. Instead, it’s only about five centimetres thick. Beyond it, there’s another room – and the entrance to the Pure Energy stream which also serves as one of the emergency escape routes now that it’s unblocked.

There, the Energy density is much higher, going as high as almost eight hundred units an hour. Great, except for the fact that apparently that’s still too much for me to tolerate for an elongated period of time. When I tested out the area, I got the same warning about poisoning that I had before, though with a slower rate. While I’m not nearly as worried about the effects of it on my actual health as before, I’m more concerned about what about the Energy might be causing my health to drop. Like if someone starts coughing up blood – they’re usually less concerned about the blood itself and more concerned about why it’s happening.

I want to use that little room as my personal Energy chamber. Well, probably shared with my Companions too. But first I need to figure out whether it’s actually dangerous to be poisoned by the Energy. Which sounds ridiculous even in my thoughts, but that’s my life now.

Tour over, we head back up to the surface. I know Persephone’s going to want to move her eggs in straight away, so I show her where to find her special room, also accompanied with a couple of Energy ducts – she thoroughly approves of the Energy density in the space, fortunately.

I also show my Bound how to operate the doors of the Energy chambers. Not having access to a DIY shop, I had to improvise. By using a system of pulleys and weights, I’ve made a stone door that can be relatively easily opened and closed. I’ve got the doors opening outwards since it makes them slightly safer for the occupant – if the pulley system stops working for whatever reason, they can force their way out by pushing the door open, and someone trying to break in from the outside will have a harder job.

I’m relieved when Bastet manages to operate the system with her jaws and I get my other Bound to test it too. Only Pride ends up having a bit of difficulty, but he understands the idea when he sees the others do it.

Right. Time to see if I can spot why Lathani’s having issues even with the relatively low Energy density of the cavern – especially when it’s barely higher than the exterior density.