It has been about an hour since the flood happened and now that my senses have returned to mostly normal, I decided I should scout out whatever is going on in that room, it is still part of me, but I can't push my feelers into it. Everything inside feels muddled and murky. Floating down the corridor I pass by the group of ants that were working in the room when shit hit the fan and being the excavators they now have very little they can do other than wait for the situation to clear up or dig more tunnels connecting the other rooms, which the other half of the excavators are already doing, so they are all just waiting in the hallway apprehensively, like a person who arrived for their shift early and doesn’t know what to do with themselves for the time being.

As I pass each one they bow their head and their antennae droop slightly, I receive a fleeting feeling of sorrow and apology from them. I'm still not entirely sure how they can perceive where I am through the bond, as I’m more or less incorporeal in this state, but I don’t have time to contemplate it as I arrive at the sealed doorway, the stone I used was different from the rest of the natural rock so it stands out decently enough to make out the outline of a door.

I push myself through the stone creating a ping-pong ball sized hole in front of me as I go and fill it in behind me so I can pass without expending the ridiculous amount of mana it costs to just phase through the solid rock. As I enter the other side I find the cavern is almost three quarters full of water, and there is surprisingly a small but thriving ecosystem of fish and small insects swimming about in their new lake, there are lots of small bits of water plants I can’t identify floating about, presumably ripped out of the other cave and deposited here, on the floor a layer of silt had formed and given enough time I'm sure the whole area would be a bed of algae and small plants like a giant aquarium. Unfortunately, practically none of the plants are dead so I can't consume any of them.

I had made it to my attempted water break and I can see that I would have run out of mana before making the wall tall enough to prevent the flooding, which reinforced my thoughts that sealing the doorway was a good choice in the long run. Out of my peripherals I catch a flurry of movement and whip my line of sight around to see a short reptilian biped with muddled gray scales detach from the ceiling above me and perfectly dive into the still pool to begin chasing down a large pale fish, gliding through the water with a flowing grace that would put Olympic swimmers to shame as it brought up a short javelin like spear made of what looked like the same bone material as the arrows used to shoot me earlier. With a quick jab the reptile was able to skewer the fish and then immediately retreated to the surface of the water where I followed and used discern on it.

Male Cave Kobold, Uncommon, Level 3

Kobolds are a semi-aquatic reptilian species often found in caves with natural springs or in marshes and mangrove forests, named and colored respectively for their habitat, very agile swimmers, and adept at climbing sheer surfaces they are often seen creating communities on ledges or trees overlooking bodies of water where they hunt the majority of their food as they are obligate carnivores, and cannot consume vegetation, at least not before a substantial amount of processing before it is consumed. Generally living in warring tribal societies they are very loyal to their kin, and will often pick fights with other kobolds that aren’t a part of their tribe. Tribes consist of two mature males and several mature females along with their offspring until the offspring reaches an age appropriate to find a group and start their own tribe, very rarely two or more tribes will join together and form a small community but this is generally only the case in cave kobolds due to the lack of available space for multiple tribes to coexist in one cavern or cave system.

Kobolds lay eggs and will guard their progeny with fierce determination, willing to throw themselves against much larger and more dangerous predators. Kobolds become sentient after their time as water-bound juveniles, leaving their spawn pool and taking part in tribe activities seems to wake the dormant half of their brain, generally taking six months as a “tadpole” or infant after leaving their egg but this process is accelerated with higher local mana densities and proper water properties, water is a requirement for the eggs to hatch, however, the lack of water or substantial humidity will not kill the embryo. In times of drought, a tribe may forgo a spawning pool, allowing their eggs to dry out causing the shell to harden into a bone like material resistant to impacts. The embryo becomes dormant in this state and will not resume gestating until adequate hydration returns. Under perfect conditions, a clutch of eggs can hatch in as little as two weeks but as with most creatures, high density mana can reduce the amount of time needed for gestation, and can negate the adverse effects of poor environmental conditions.

I continue to follow the small kobold as I read. We pass down through the jagged hole in the wall where the water had come from up to where my barrier is, or rather was, and cautiously carry myself through. Waiting to run into that invisible wall, it never comes as my unsuspecting guide and I surface into another cavern that must be a few times the size of the room I had carved out. Is this all a part of me now? I stop following for a moment and put out some feelers, I am able to sense the entirety of the cave that's above water but below that, I get that same murky feeling that I had when trying to feel out past the wall into the flooded room and likewise, I am unable to push my feelers into the more familiar part of my dungeon from this side of the lake. Water really is the bane of my existence. I return my attention to the lizard that was now walking upright into the cavern from the rocky shore, the walk is otherwise uneventful up the rocky shoreline until we turn into a rocky outcropping to a shallow cave where a small fire is lit and more of the gray kobolds are huddled, cooking various small fish, lizards, and snakes.

There must be an entrance to the surface somewhere in here because the few small huts in the distance are made of wood, at least I think it's wood, and I'm pretty sure it's also what they are burning in their fire so it must be relatively close by. The Kobolds converse in a language that sounds to me like a bunch of low guttural hisses and rumbles similar to what an alligator sounds like, which would have startled the daylights out of me had I heard it before I saw what was making the sound.

The kobolds themselves have more rounded features than alligators or crocodiles, and obviously being bipedal were generally what I would deem as anthropomorphic, aside from the obvious size difference, being even smaller in proportion than Rennie, who would be almost a foot and taller. Hazarding a guess the Kobolds would come up to my hips, maybe, if it were a particularly tall one. Inside the nearest hut is a small pile of furs, hides, and dried grasses, presumably this is what passes for a bed in their little tribe so I move onto the next, this one however has a pair of kobolds with bows and spears watching the entrance, and another kobold hurriedly leaving with a basket, I enter the hut and in the center is a floating bone dish of some sort with a clutch of leathery cream colored eggs.

A devilish idea crosses my mind. I may not be able to bond with any of the already grown kobolds, but who’s to say I can’t “obtain” a few eggs for myself and start my own tribe of the little devils, of course, I don’t know in the slightest how to take care of them but I could probably learn on the job. I leave the small encampment and check the third hut, a few kobolds are laying on a pile of furs that look much nicer than the other hut's furnishings, there is a distinct lack of grass bedding, and another two are sitting cross legged across from each other passing a small carved pipe as they quietly talk with each other; upon closer inspection, these two look older than the others by a fair stretch, probably the chiefs?

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I leave them to their sleep and search around through the rest of the cavern finding three more small camps like the first one, the kobolds inhabiting them looking mostly the same aside from slight changes in their scales colors or how their huts were constructed. satisfied with my findings I decided to head back down to the entrance as I feel Cardinal nudging the bond so I switch over to my physical form and bandaged my leg, shoulder, and side before checking how my arm laceration was healing then making my way into the nursery where Onyx was also waiting. I assume this was what Cardinal was getting my attention for and indeed it was she confirms as we have a small conversation, catching Onyx up on how things went in his absence, I also share my findings and my plans on how I intend to recruit another species of little helpers for the dungeon.

Cardinal seems slightly apprehensive to the idea, but Onyx seems to like it, stating things along the lines of "More soldiers for the war effort," what war he is referring to I honestly don't know. Perhaps he still holds a grudge against the spiders and wants to wipe them out. I let him have his little spiel without interruption because it seemed to assure Cardinal, if only a little, that having more diverse allies wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

The basic plan I had for abducting the eggs would be to dig a tunnel from the hallway over the flooded chamber then up into the main cavern where the Kobolds were camped out, then to flood the chamber with ants and hopefully overpower at least two of the tribes to give me enough eggs with enough genetic diversity to start a decent sized population then let them pair up to begin churning out a decent force of small reptilian foot troops, it sounds a lot more like a warcrime on paper than it did in my head, to be honest. But this world seems largely survival of the fittest so I guess being kidnapped before birth and bound into indentured servitude is one of the better of their outcomes; especially considering the giant centipedes, dinnerplate sized spiders, and what I could only describe as a giant eel-alligator thing that I saw living in that cave. Not to mention I’m still harboring a small grudge for them having shot me earlier.

However, this plan will require a decent number of ants and I feel I am going to have to wait until the current brood has hatched from their cocoons, the first of which is only just beginning to be made, so I doubt I will be mounting an invasion any time soon. On the other hand, I could just bind all the young in their eggs and infancy... But in that case, I don’t know how the adults would react to that if at all. In the meantime, I suppose I should learn as much as I can about the care and feeding of my soon to be lizard people. With that thought in mind, I head off towards the cavern in my incorporeal form once more, consuming the bloodied bandages that fall away from me as I disintegrate; the metallic taste of my own blood mixed with the stuffy dry taste of the bandages becoming far more familiar to me than I would prefer.

I have spent the better part of the latter half of my evening writing down all the little details I could involving the care of these Kobold eggs, and no matter which of the tribes I visit to catalog the processes it's always the same. I won’t be stuck trying to guess how often to mist the eggs with water or what humidity is healthy for them, the care for the tadpoles however, if I can even call the limbless, scaleless alligator-looking infants that, is a different matter entirely. the first tribe I came across seems to care for and feed them individually, each in its own little sectioned off area of the spawn pool, whereas another tribe keeps it undivided and just tosses food into the water every now and again, letting the younglings fight over the bits adrift in the slow swirling current, and that's another thing, I have no idea how I am going to keep the water constantly flowing like it is in the spawn pools.

If I had to guess, there is some sort of magic involved, creating a gentle swirling current in the pool. Or perhaps there is something natural having to do with the shape or location of the pool specifically that creates the current, frankly, I have no idea and I haven't been able to figure it out by just looking at it or using Discern. Having had my fill of nursery knowledge for the time being I decided to explore the cave more thoroughly, instead of just seeking out the individual kobold encampments. The cavern itself is irregularly shaped, being almost tiered in a way that reminds me of a rice farm, except the cliffs separating the different plateaus range between twenty and fifty feet. Eventually, I come across the far end of the cave, occasionally passing a Kobold here and there scaling a wall, or lying in wait for some sort of prey to blunder in front of them. mapping my way back with my feelers it seems the cavern is shaped like a wavy boomerang, with the flow of water for the spring starting on the side farthest, and highest, from me and ending in the deep underground lake that connects to my dungeon, there must be some opening somewhere at the bottom of the lake allowing the outflow of water otherwise this entire cavern would have been filled a long time ago. I look back at the crack in the floor releasing the spring, the water lazily bubbling and gushing upwards forming a small pond that feeds into a stream running all the way down the cave into the lake, complete with waterfalls and at one point the water runs into a hole in the floor then comes back out halfway down the face of one of the taller cliffs. Small dragonfly-like insects dart across the surface of the water, their abdomen glowing a pale blue as the reflection flickers back from the surface of the pond. I follow the glowing insects back to a small hive on the ceiling that looks like an upside down termite nest, blending in with a group of surrounding stalactites rather well.

Cave darter, common

Cave darters are a benign cave insect that builds colonies on the ceilings and walls of caves with little to no light, these small flying insects often will feed on the deceased remains of animals if available, or cave-dwelling plants and fungi that generally thrive in low light conditions.

Interesting, if not useless, I suppose it would do well for me to catalog the rest of the things living here as well, just so I know what's around. It doesn't take long for me to find another creature of interest as I slowly make my way back towards the lake.

Bellinger’s Centipede, Common

The Bellingers Centipede, more commonly known as the cave centipede, these leg size arthropods are generally docile unless provoked and are highly venomous, their prey generally consists of other Cave Centipedes and Lantern Spiders along with any small animals they are able to get ahold of. Bellinger’s Centipedes received their formal name after the famous explorer Horus Bellinger was killed by one during a spelunking expedition in search of the Grey Elf city of Kar’Amma.

Hmm, interesting, I’ll have to ask about the Grey Elves next time I see Rennie and his group. I float along to the other side of the cave nearest the first group of Kobolds and find a large web containing what I would guess is about ten or fifteen spiders, much too small to be scary after the run in with the bear spiders, but all the more creepy with their glistening eggshell white carapaces.

Lantern Spider, common

These subterranean arachnids are a common sight in caves, abandoned basements, and other dark, humid, enclosed spaces. Non-venomous but still large enough to provide a powerful, and sometimes lethal, bite. They mainly feed on bats and cave-dwelling birds or large insects. When threatened they will grind scale-like protrusions on their back legs together creating a loud hissing sound and rapidly shake their abdomen stirring a chemical concoction together producing a bright orange light that shines through their pale white carapace effectively causing the entire spider to glow. Their eyes have devolved to act as magnifying lenses projecting the ghostly orange light at whatever they are “looking” at, however, the spiders are completely blind and they have to rely on their substantially adequate hearing along with the fine hairs on their bodies to detect movement in the air around them combined with vibrations translated through their webs to detect both prey and predators. The display of bright lights in the usually pitch-black or low-light environment of their natural habitat is usually enough to scare off most would-be invaders or at least blind them long enough for an escape.

I search around a bit but I can’t seem to find that large crocodile-eel-snake from earlier, which is disconcerting how something that large is able to hide so well, even in such a big cavern, it should be like a schoolbus in a Walmart parking, lot the space is large but so is the thing I’m looking for. I’m sure I'll find it eventually so I decide to give my curiosity a rest and head back to my dungeon. I'll have to plan more how to deal with the cave one way or another along with its denizens and a nice cup of tea seems just like the way to do that.