Oh no!

Just in time to see the dust settling in the threshold of one of the formerly blocked off lava tubes connecting to my cavern, my jaw metaphorically drops.

Someone, or something, has just infiltrated my dungeon!

I rapidly spread my domain across the newly exposed territory in search of the cause of the explosion.

That’s when I catch a glimpse of some familiar faces; the tribals have returned.

Peeking around a natural stone outcrop further down the forested tunnel, I spot the fuzzy white faces of the bat-eared and shark-mawed men. Seemingly staring straight into my soul, they look out into the cavern with their coal-black eyes. At the head of their party is the bronze-clad mage who’d killed the giant olm with a single lightning bolt spell. Behind him was a sizable group of short spear-wielding men with thick red lines painted over their bodies.

The man barked out a command to his apparent underlings and, fortunately for me, it was in English, just as it was with the humans.

Unfortunately, however, his words didn’t sound friendly at all.

Wildly sputtering, the old mage said, “Stay back, you hear? This Imposter is mine, if y’all try to interfere, you’ll only get yourself killed!”

I couldn’t tell if he was warning them about potential dangers or threatening to kill them, surely the former, right?

Continuing, he said, “The Imposter obviously made this barrier with its infernal imitation of the Powers, I will subdue its forces and capture it. I will claim glory for the Seed and the rest of you will leave now.”

It’s odd the way he emphasized “powers…”

Wait a moment…

Is he referring to me?!

Oh, this is Bad, with a capital B!

I should have seen this coming! If I was a prepared dungeon core, I would’ve had plugs ready for each of the tunnels I’d dug into the natural cavern. As it stands, the tribals have direct access to my dungeon proper.

What a fool I am, I keep telling myself that I’m improving and yet I overlook the obvious! What else have I ignored? How else have I unwittingly sabotaged my chances of survival?

Without hesitating, I unleash a flurry of well-placed cuts to collapse the tunnels leading to the artificially excavated portions of my dungeon, making sure to confine my actions to the portions of the tunnels farthest away from the cavern so that he doesn’t hear any noise.

The moment I do so, his ears perk up and swivel around to face the direction of my performance. A crazed toothy grin crawls upwards as he begins to shake in place uncontrollably.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I’ve gone and made another idiot’s mistake! It’s bloody obvious that his hearing is superior to that of a human’s, his bat-like ears are as large as his head! Gah! All I’ve done is given away my location! And who am I kidding, if he was able to blast through my stone barrier, a little bit of rubble isn’t going to stop this mage’s advance!

If my understanding of the situation is correct, (And yes, I do realize that it’s likely that I’ve misinterpreted his words.) then this strange sapient creature is going to attempt to kidnap me. If that happens, I will lose everything, potentially even my life!

Communication, you’re my only hope!

I reach out to the man with a telepathic probe.

No response. I’m unable to establish a link!

What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?

I can’t come up with anything, there has to be something I can do to stop him.

He’s jogging over to my collapsed logistics tunnels right now, come on brain, or core, or whatever it is I use to think!

I know why I can’t think of a solution; I have a mental block.

I’m unwilling to kill.

Nononono, I can’t do this.

But what else can I do? I’m wasting time debating over it!

All people's lives should be cherished, this I believe.

Ah, but-

But I cherish my own life more than this aggressor’s.

Resignedly, I prepare to crush the man quickly and painlessly with a boulder. It’s kill or be killed now.

From here on, I’ll do my best to ensure I won’t ever have to make this sort of decision again.

Right as I focus my will on the rhyolite ceiling of the cavern high above the mad mage, he looks up and chuckles. I immediately lose control of my cut ability, doing little more than scratching the stone.

In typical dungeon fashion, I reach out my sense to detect the flows of mana in the area and notice that he’s consciously forcing it to move in chaotic patterns which are directly hindering my actions. In fact, it reminds me of the effect metal has on my cut and merge abilities, except it’s even more pronounced! And the range! It’s massive! He’s affecting nearly the entire cavern and even some of the space in my tunnels!

And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s already arrived at the boundary between the natural and artificial portions of my dungeon.

Quickly, I telekinetically levitate a large rock and chuck it at the mage. While not as severely hindered as my cut ability, I’m still unable to impart the desired velocity on the projectile. Thus, the old man easily dodges the slow-moving stone. From there, he turns a dial on his wand and casts a full-body shield spell. I have no time to contemplate over the workings of his multi-purpose wand as I frantically try to assess the situation.

Once he’s finished with his shield spell, he steps into the tunnel. I’m not too concerned with his protection; I’ve already performed extensive testing on the very same spell and have a solid understanding of how much defense is received from a given quantity of mana. I can sense how much he used for his shield; I should be able to overwhelm it if I can get my dungeon helpers close enough.

The moment he exited the cavern’s expanse, his limit on my abilities partially receded at the fringes of its range. This gives me a chance to clear away the rubble in some of my more distant logistics tunnels, as I’m going to need a way to move animals from the cavern into the excavated portion of my dungeon soon.

I’m slightly dismayed that my super helpers haven’t eclosed yet, but I have plenty of other heavy hitters, the cave centipedes, both those bred by myself and those already present in the cavern, are a good example.

I recall every dungeon helper (Even including the mechanism operators stationed near the human’s mine, though I doubt they’ll arrive soon enough to be of any use.) to the circular disk room which is just beyond my core’s hiding place, making sure that they avoid the path of the strange mage.

Furthermore, I order my archer beetles, giant cave centipedes, griffinflies, and even a few of the vipers, which had recently come under my control, to congregate in several of the side rooms near my planned ambush site.

As much as I’d like to think that all-out reckless attacks are beneath me, I cannot deny their effectiveness.

The plan is to swarm him with dungeon helpers who will put their powerful leaf-cutting mandibles to use on his ephemeral shield spell. I will also use griffinflies laden with yet more dungeon helpers if things go sour. Depending on how the situation develops, I may decide to lead with them.

After the shield is down, or if things are going particularly badly, I will send in the venomous cave centipedes, vipers, and archer beetles to finish him off.

As to why I’m sacrificing the dungeon helpers; they’re much easier to replenish as I already have droves of giant larva maturing deep within their enormous nests.

Approaching the pile of mossy rubble in the logistics tunnel he was inside; the mage turned the dial on his wand once more and loaded two new fully charged magicite crystals into the hilt of his wand and prepared to cast another spell. I have no intentions of interfering yet.

Seemingly satisfied with the flows of mana coursing through his multi-purposed wand, the mage chuckles while crouching down. As he points his wand at the cave-in debris blocking the tunnel, a small gap opens up in his shield directly in front of the tip of his wand. He pulls the trigger and…nothing happens.

A strong concussive explosion rips through the regolith, sending it blasting down the tunnel and thus clearing the mage’s path. From what I can tell, his spell involves compressing and releasing a dense ball of air, resulting in an airburst!

As the man walks through the settling dust, his shield passively displaces the airborne particulates. While I can imagine countless non-combat applications for that property, now is not the time.

Changing the state of the knob again, the mage casts several small lightning bolts at the nearby archer pods clinging to the walls, instantly killing them.

Oh, now he’s done it! From what I’ve observed of the tribals so far, they always just avoided the lethal purple bulbs, but this lunatic is going out of his way to kill my inhabitants!

It won’t be long before he springs my ambush…

…

Heading right in the direction of my core, albeit hidden, the fuzzy old man crosses over my designated kill-zone.

Immediately, I dispatch 12 of the 23 total griffinflies in my possession. Clasped to the abdomens of each of the griffinflies who’re now racing down the narrow corridors of my dungeon are 20 dungeon helpers. At the moment I give my command, each giant leafcutter ant releases their hold on their carriers while the griffinflies simultaneously decelerate and retreat.

The result is 12 griffinflies disgorging their angry ant payloads onto the crazed mage in a manner reminiscent of airplanes dive-bombing a ground target.

To his credit, the mage quickly responds to the new threat and begins casting more small lightning bolts at the dungeon helpers now slicing into the shield with their mandibles, rapidly draining its mana.

Of course, I don’t give him any time to retake control of the situation, as one, legions of ants swarm out of the surrounding green catacombs, crawling along every available surface.

In response, the mage stops casting his lightning spells and switches the knob on his wand to a new position. Next, he ejects the spent magicite crystals and literally crams 6 fresh ones into the hollow hilt of his wand before closing up the opening with a clevis pin mechanism.

Pointing his wand at the horde of thousands of giant ants, he unleashes a wide vortex of fire which sweeps over their numbers.

Now the death-toll is starting to climb at an alarming rate, many ants were being cooked alive within their thin exoskeletons, they simply can’t reach him anymore.

Every so often he has to frantically undo the latch on his wand’s hilt and replace the magicite crystals with new ones stored in a pouch on his armor. I’m thankful that his wand doesn’t include revolver functionality! Even so, if I don’t take a risk now, he’ll pick off every last dungeon helper one at a time.

I command every hidden adult cave centipede and archer beetle to charge at once. Furthermore, I take direct control over one cave centipede who is trailing behind the onrushing wave of arthropods and gastropods. I decided to leave out the vipers for now, they wouldn’t fare well in this heat…

With their somewhat thicker exoskeletons, the goliath2 beetles manage to push further into the inferno than the ants, but unfortunately, their purple passengers don’t fare as well. The cave centipedes especially manage to penetrate the unceasing blaze, due to the synergy between their speed and fortitude.

While the mage is spinning in place in an attempt to torch the new arrivals, I stimulate the centipede I’m controlling to leap straight at the source of the firestorm.

As it leaps directly through the heart of the flames, it instantaneously dies…

But its charred corpse continues to sail through the air…and it passes right through the forward opening in the man’s magic shield.