My newly improved sloth was a thing of beauty. The size of a small horse, it had claws that could cut through steel, the strength of a bear, and no inclination to use either. Those I had added out of some duty to give the creature the ability to defend itself before sending it out into the wide and dangerous world. No, the true purpose of the sloth was in its fur.

Before, the creature’s untamed, matted hair had only been home to a few species of moss that had latched on to the sedentary beast. Now, it had become a miniature garden. I had planted the whole of my creations there. Bloody Cups, Nematocelia, fans of luminescent mushroom-ears, clusters of long-stalked fungi with fuzzy dandelion heads ready to scatter spores to the wind. It looked a little like a coral reef had sprouted up on the creature’s back, a tangle of abstract shapes and bright pastel colors.

It would carry my creations with it when it left my domain, spreading them across the fertile manure of the sewers. In exchange it would be protected by its symbiosis with the garden; Somnolent Blooms and other poisonous species lined its back, but I had ensured the beast was quite immune against all of them. Anything attempting to prey on the clumsy, harmless sloth would quickly find itself reeling under a dozen poisons, every breath choked with the toxic spore that drifted from the gardens on its back.

That was how I had chosen the name.

[ Sporeback Sloth ]

Slow enough for moss and lichen to grow on its back, this leisurely creature has become a living garden, protecting itself not only with claw and muscle but with an armor of poison flora.

My goal was simple; right now, anyone entering my domain would see a garden of strange and luminous mushrooms, bizarre creatures, as clearly a Dungeon as anything could be. My best hope of protection was to confuse the issue by spreading my influence across the sewers. If the entire underground labyrinth was choking in mushrooms, my little territory would be fade into the background.

I gave the Sporeback a prod, sending it slowly loping from my domain. Once I had Mana I would create more, sending them out as messengers to populate the sewers with my own brand of beauty. In the meantime, I had work to do.

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Argent and Izzis had become friends somehow, despite my mental prods to brave little Argent to stay away from the backstabbing homonculus. They were playing tag with Adamant, thoroughly flummoxing the clod by weaving under his legs and over his head, the clumsy giant clapping his great hands down to catch them and then peeping through his fingers to see nothing but empty air.

I watched them for a while. It was nice to see my creatures playing, the carefree way they could existence within my domain. For me, there had always been a kind of constant hum of anxiety to the air, a sense that something was coming for me. I knew that fear was justified and right. That was the way a Dungeon had to live, constantly digging deeper. I was only soothed from my paranoias by the satisfaction when I had invented some new clever twist or turn to armor myself against the world outside.

They paused eventually, first Argent then Adamant sensing my attention on them, Izzis making several more dive bombs around Adamant’s head before he noticed the other two were no longer playing. He landed on the golem’s shoulder, waiting.

I had a mission for them.

My walls were still breached, the strange black tree stretching its branches through the gap. Rather than close it off I wanted to expand, but with no ceiling or walls my Mana was simply pouring out and dispersing into open air. I need to enclose that flank, and walls of stone were both inadequate to the task and too obvious a sign to humans.

Therefore I had come up with a plan.

On the far side of the lake, a grove of bent, tangle-rooted trees grew up from the water, apparently well adapted to the swampy environment. As night set, Adamant slid down the breach and sank into the waters like a stone, wading slowly across. Perched atop his head was Argent, her nose pointed into the wind like the masthead of some strange ship.

Izzis was the lookout, flitting high into the night to watch the walls and make sure no humans oversaw our midnight mission.

Meanwhile, I was playing with the newly opened space in the tunnel where we’d fought the Lamprey. I decided to make a swamp, churning the stone down to fine mud and digging dozens of shallow craters that I filled via connection to my flooded underground tunnels. Thickets of thin-stemmed glowcap mushrooms promised easy food for vermin, but they’d become food themselves in time.

Next it was time to make a proper den for my snakes. Raising pillars of stone towards the ceiling, I riddled them with small burrows, placing the finest accommodations near the top of each column in the hopes of spurring my vipers to competition.

Unable to resist the artistic flair, I began to carve the images of curling snakes into the pillars, choosing to go for a rough and tribalistic style that blended with the craggy stone.

I had almost taken my eyes off Adamant when the trouble began. He was wading through the lake, his feet sinking into the mud with each step, the waters higher than his shoulders. Suddenly a flicker of orange-gold cut through the dark lake and slammed into his chest, sending him reeling back. Another darted at him from behind, slamming its body against his leg, nearly making him stumble.

With Adamant struggling to keep his footing, Argent could only cling on to his head, barely staying above the water.