Core had a confusing look at the pudling. The other two stood still while this third one was acting erratically. He looked on as the defender sat in the water turning its head around. He tried to exert his will on the pulling but unlike his undead defenders, this one didn't receive his orders. He tried it with the other as well, assuming that the soul thing was interfering with his mental command, but they as well didn't receive his orders.

The third pudling was now making a run for the entrance to the Monster den and was promptly repelled by an invisible wall. Core already knew they couldn't leave the Monster den but was still surprised to see it in action. Core remembered how the invading pudling had used the light orb to see so he placed a torch on the right-hand wall to illuminate the new room.

The weird defender called out to the other in the weird language Core didn't understand.

Wait, is that why I can't give commands? Because I don't speak the same language?

While the defender examined the others he placed two more torches around the room. After he had regenerated enough mana back he also placed the enhanced door in his tunnel. The stone rumbled and shook the dungeon as it reformed into a solid wall and a heavy but simple-looking wooden door was placed inside the wall. The door shimmered with white light as the link between the door and the Monster den was established. 

Warning:  An invader has entered the dungeon!

Core looked towards his entrance and found a new type of lizard was the invader. It was bigger than the others that had entered his dungeon before. The lizard had a dark brown scaly skin.compared to the green taint of the others. Either by chance or because I knew where to go, the lizard entered the tunnel towards the Monster den. The pudlings instantly attacked the invader while the third one just stood in place. Core tried again to take control of the defenders but still wasn't able to give them orders. Slightly annoyed Core looked on as the battle unfolded before him.

The weird one eventually joined the fight as well now a three on one their chance to win went up again. He shouted something again to the others their meaning lost on Core. The others still didn't respond to the spoken words. 

The lizard charged a tail attack and aimed it at the two-handed spear wielder. Instead of hitting the intended target, the third pudling jumped in front of his fellow defenders and used the shield to take the brunt of the attack and was promptly knocked back. It sat on the ground dazed. 

Qualtys has accepted the title of < Alpha >. He can now command the other defenders stationed in his Monster den.

The change mentioned by the notification was visible shortly after as the other two defenders now took deliberate actions. Core assumed this Qualtys had a similar ability to his own to command defenders by thought. The fight again shifted in the defender's favor now with someone directing their efforts. The fighting continued for a while longer before the notification popped up for Core.

Rockscale Lizard < Runt> Level 3 has been killed by < Spear >  Experience gained: 16. Current experience 22 / 150.

Dungeon Points gained: 1. Current Dungeon Points: 42.

Progress gained: Lizardman archetype experience gained: 18.

Lizardman archetype current experience: 36 / 1.000 Spear experience gained: 3.

Spear current experience: 3 / 50.

Shield experience gained: 3.

Shield current experience: 6 / 50.

Qualtys experience gained: 12.

Qualtys current experience: 18 / 50. * Rockscale specie has been added.for < Lizard >.

The notification was a big surprise for Core.

Qualtys was the one from the earlier notification and the one that acted on his own. Was he the one that named the other two because he was the Alpha?

The second surprise was that the experience they gained counted for all three of the defenders. The leveling speed of the Monster den would be very high if they killed the invaders.

With the Monster den on track to be the biggest roadblock, for now, Core decided to focus on upgrading his little labyrinth. He still had to place some Assets to hide the correct tunnel as well as trapping said tunnel. His first step was to place a few torches in the dead-end sections to lure in invaders and make them waste some time and stamina. This was followed by placing the doorway in the correct tunnel and covering that with the thick root growth to hide it from sight. It would soon be time for the health drain from the gift and with that mana he'd place the first of three trap tiles.

Qualtys woke up from his well-deserved sleep. He hoped to wake up in his own villages but when he opened his eyes he saw the water-filled cave he found himself in yesterday. Shield and Spear still stood unmoving near the center of the room. He reached out with his mind towards them to get a general idea of their physical state and found that all of the wounds from the previous day had been healed completely even Spear´s broken arm was mended.

It would be a lot easier if we could form a party. Then I´d be able to see their health, mana, buffs, and debuffs.

Wait a moment, I´m the village chief can´t I just order them to join my party?

He opened his Party interface but instead of an Invite function, it was replaced by Add function. It looked and worked similarly but when he added Spear there was no delay you'd normally see since the invitee had to accept the request first. Shield was also instantly added. Their portraits, health, and mana bars now clearly visible in his interface. They currently had no buffs or debuffs meaning the broken arm was indeed completely healed. The party interface had two additional options but both were currently locked. He assumed they were level related and closed the interface again.

He decided to test out his control over his new companions, find out how they moved, and acted on his commands and the limit to the complexity of the commands he could give them.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The first set of common exercises were about movement, walk over there, jog over there, and run over there. All commands were executed perfectly. He then mixed it up with move & attack and move & defend. Again finding no issue with his commands being followed.

He rounded off his training with a little sparring match between Spear and Shield. Spear would attack every few seconds and Shield was to block the attacks. Both defenders did their assigned job and then Shield was to attack Spear with the latter assigned to block with the shaft of his spear.

Neither session resulted in anything special, they went through the motion but there was almost no variation in the attacks or the blocks meaning they lacked the flow of battle he heard his old trainer talk about. So either he himself would be a deciding factor or he needed better control over their actions.

Warning:  An invading party entered the dungeon!

It seemed he'd get the practice sooner than later. Qualtys still didn't know where he exactly was but if it played out like last time they would soon find their opponent in front of them.

It was indeed only a few minutes before the invaders entered his Monster den. A group of three filth ugly little goblins entered the waters of his cave. He let out a defiant hiss as they entered. Goblins and Pudlings had a long-standing feud between the two races. The reason for the feud was long since forgotten but both sides had no inclination to end the feud. It was good training for their young to gain valuable experience and combat training and both sides often clashed in the mountain and forest that made up the mountain chain.

The goblin in front was armed with a big wooden club, well big compared to the goblin at least as it wielded it with both hands. The other two were armed with respectively a shaped piece of rock and some kind of gnarly tree branch. Qualtys almost immediately went over his battle plan. It's a three on three making it easy to gain an advantage once either side lost one of its fighters. He deemed the club wielder the most dangerous one simply due to the size of the weapon that it wielded. Shield could block and Spear had the range advantage but he doubted that Spear would win with only range so assigned Shield to fight the goblin with the club.

The other two goblins were very similar, the branch had a better range but looked weapon while the stone had almost no range but looked more dangerous. Spear's defending wasn't particularly good and if the goblin got past the range of the spear he'd be in trouble. He assigned Spear to the branch wielder and he'd take the last one.

With snarls and yells, the goblins tried to charge at the pudlings but the water slowed their movement considerably while the pudlings made it look easy due to their passive effect. The given orders were simple enough. Shield would focus only on defending against the club wielder while he and spear would straight-up fight their opponents and once one was killed uses the numbers advantage to clean up the other two.

The pairs faced quickly in combat with Shield pulling out the club wielder more to the center of the room with Qualtys and Spear fighting on either flank. Qualtys focussed on defending for a while to position the goblin so he got a good view of the other two to see if he needed to adjust his orders.

The club goblin's attacks were incredibly slow. Each massive swing put the goblin off balance and it had to readjust after each of them. Qualtys quickly added an order to attack after each missed and deflected swing since the attacks, while powerful,  added almost nothing to the fight. 

Spear's order was to simply stab and step back over and over. The goblin would need to defend and the step back left almost no room for a counter-attack.

With the battle clearly in their favor, he gave his sole attention to his opponent. The short-range of the weapon meant the attack could be easily caught on his shield either blocked or deflected. He opted to use a similar strategy like the one he gave to Shield and counter-attack his opponent's attacks. He mixed in a tiny back-step like Spear to make full use of the thrusting force of his one-handed spear. 

Blood soon colored the water around him as his spear hit the mark time and time again. The goblin made no real attempt to parry or dodge his attacks. While most attacks graced the arms and torso of the goblin he was yet to land a good solid hit. His lack of weapon training now apparent in these fights. His thoughts wandered to the teaching of the trainer looking for any traces of advice still left in the back of his mind.

The thought of a sparring match between his brother and the teacher popped into his mind. Similar to his current fight the teacher was constantly pressed by his brother he relied mostly on his strength to overpower his opponents. A missed stab from his spear was met with an attack from the teacher to his left side but the attack was shallow and a feint as the teacher quickly altered the trajectory of the weapon while his brother set up a defense on his left side and was struck on his right side instead. 

The goblin lashed out with the sharp rock and was blocked once again by the shield. Qualtys tried to copy his teacher and feign an attack to the right side causing the goblin to turn and expose its torso. Qualtys aimed his spear and this new opening and struck true, piercing the creature's chest. The goblin slumped down on its knees and he pulled out the spear of the invader's chest. 

He quickly checked on the status of Spear and Shield to decide which of the two he'd help out first. Both had managed to score some wounds on their opponents while taking almost none in return. The attack of the club wielder was slowing even more as it burned up a lot of stamina to keep the attacks of the heavy weapon going. This was quickly abused by Shield's own attack as he had more and more time to get a hit in between attacks. Spear was still winning the fight but not as convincing as Shield so he ran over to the branch wielder. The focus of the goblin was solely on Spear and never saw the attack aimed for his back coming. A quick stab broke the goblin's skin as the tip got caught on a rib. The creature howled and raged as it tried to turn around and face the new attacker. A fatal mistake as it was quickly skewered through the stomach by Spear. The creature's muscles went limp as the last life was leaving its body as Qualtys finally managed to pull out his own spear.

Now three on one they ran over to Shield only to see the goblins skull being caved in from yet another club strike to the head. Notifications of their victory popped up in his mind as the last of the invader's body started to dissolve in rainbow-colored flakes. Another battle won probably one of many more to follow.

Goblin < Runt> Level 2 has been killed by < Qualtys >  Experience gained: 9.

Current experience: 27 / 50.

Goblin < Runt> Level 3 has been killed by < Spear >  Experience gained: 12.

Current experience: 39 / 50.

Goblin < Runt> Level 3 has been killed by < Shield >  Experience gained: 12.

Current experience: 51 / 50. You have reached level 2!