Another mouse scuttled into the dungeon, casually strolling down to their doom. The core wasn’t upset exactly that it was just another mouse, even though it had unlocked their template mice were still a great source of food. It was a little frustrating with the lack of new things, the core was still a little shaky on the whole concept of time but it had been three whole light cycles since the last time it found something new.

It would even take a new plant at this point, but it just kept finding grass, grass, and more grass. The core’s new and improved defenses were doing quite well though, it hadn’t lost any of its mice ever. The wild mice, reflected the core, were way too timid, the latest invader proceeded to get brutalized by its dungeon kin. The core was also greatly disappointed in the latest failure of a template, birds.

There had been so much promise to the creature, they were larger than even the mice, and the template complexity was nearly the same. But the core had eventually come to a depressing conclusion, birds were useless combatants. Granted their odd beaks could do some damage if they hit the right spot, but the things were just way too frail. The one bird the core had ever created had been killed by a wild mouse that had broken the poor minion’s neck. The bones of the birds were way too flimsy, and the core still had no idea what their second pair of limbs did.

The mice used their second pair of limbs to assist them in walking or fighting if needed. The birds however did nothing with their so-called ‘wings’ even during combat. The core had even let one of the wild birds wander around its dungeon for ages trying to figure out what they did. They fluttered them around on occasion when they had enough room to hop but other than that nothing, the core gave up this template was just not worth the effort.

The mice on the other hand were performing quite well. Not only could the core’s mice take on their wild kin one on one with relative ease, but they were also highly efficient at tracking down all the smaller pests that made their way into the dungeon. Everything from ants to scorpions and beetles to wasps was systematically hunted down and killed by the fury defenders. The core had been concerned at first that some of the smaller invaders would be able to slip past the mice but it hadn’t turned out to be a problem.

The core’s scorpions also joined the surviving ants in retirement, if they just told the obsolete minions that they were free to do whatever they wanted and let them be. This resulted in the scorpions hunting down some of the few ants they could find along with fighting each other over the small area that the core had allowed them to stay in. This had reduced the population of the ants and scorpions quite a bit but the core didn’t mind too much. It didn’t have a use for the creatures anymore and it had been pretty entertaining for the core to watch the antics of the scorpions.

The expansion of the dungeon was also going quite well, the core’s domain had almost tripled in size from when it had first claimed the mouse template. It had also decided to make getting down to the lower reaches of its dungeon much more difficult. Invaders would now have to wander the entire width of the dungeon until they found a tunnel leading downwards. The core had had a few issues with one particularly inventive mouse trying to dig straight down towards the core which it hadn't liked at all. What was the point of building such elaborate and well-thought-out tunnels for invaders to get lost in if they were just going to bypass them entirely? Soon after that incident, the core decided to switch all of its construction into stone, this put a stop to all attempts to dig through the dungeon.

The core had also devised a masterful strategy to protect the lower reaches of its dungeon. The tunnels that connected to the core itself had been shrunk to tiny holes that only the smallest of creatures could fit through. The core was rather proud of itself for this innovation which both protected it from invaders as well as still allowing it to maintain almost full mana regeneration. Watching yet another beetle wander into the dungeon, the core fervently wished for something more interesting to kill. It would even take that giant creature that had slithered through its dungeon on one occasion.

As if by magic a familiar-looking blunt snout poked its way through the entrance followed by an equally familiar looking forked tongue. The core was thrilled, it also wished for more food and for the invading creature to fall dead immediately saving it the trouble. The core paused waiting, drat no luck back to basics then. The core directed a single mouse to attack the behemoth, it needed to know how many mice it would need to bring down the invader.

The core’s brave test dummy charged towards the intruder ready to show it the core’s wrath with tooth and claw. Quicker than even the core could perceive the invader struck, all the poor mouse saw before the jaws of death closed on it was a flash of needle-like teeth. The mouse squeaked and thrashed against the jaws of its attacker but its motions grew more and more feeble as the intruder wrapped its coils around the mouse holding it in a deadly embrace.

Grimly the core recognized the doom of its guardian carefully and observed the final struggles of the mouse learning all it could about the invader. The frantic final struggle of the mouse had been brief but it had left small scratches on the flesh of the intruder. This cheered the core up considerably, it had a lot of mice that could be sacrificed if necessary and it appeared that even this massive interloper was not immune to their teeth and claws.

After the mouse had finally ceased its struggles the invader’s jaw opened grotesquely wide and the mouse was slowly devoured. The core gathered up a pack of half a dozen mice planning to swarm under the intruder with overwhelming force. Once the creature had finished its mousy meal it continued through the dungeon albeit at a somewhat slower pace. The core decided its forces would face the intruder in one of the old ambush chambers; they had seen little use since the scorpions were retired but the expanded chamber would prove an ideal battleground for the mice. It would allow all of the mice to attack the creature together and hopefully overwhelm the intruder. The mice assembled in the chamber with four of them standing at the far end of the tunnel facing the direction the intruder would emerge from. The remaining two mice took up flanking ambush positions that the scorpions used to use.

The invader slithered into view of the mice and sped up slightly gathering its bulk as much as it could in the tunnel. Then like before it struck, needle-like fangs sunk deep into one of the core’s brave mice, and then the coils came around, wrapping around the unfortunate defender and squeezing. Quickly the remaining mice moved in, the three closest to the head of the creature jumped at its face scratching and biting at its eyes and head. The remaining two mice dashed at the rear coils of the invader, their teeth ripping into its flesh as the creature continued to crush the core’s captured mouse with deadly force.

The struggle was not a quick one, the invader refused to release its death grip on the core’s mouse which allowed the rest of its forces to attack with impunity. However, the great mass of the creature soaked up far more damage than the core had thought possible, but it couldn’t last forever. In the end, one of the mice sunk their teeth into the back of the intruder’s neck and bit through the creature’s spine. Information flooded into the core about the… Snake ...template, and wonderful food drifted through the dungeon.

The snake was a powerful creature with mighty coils and a potent venom, it did have one rather significant weakness which the core had unknowingly hit upon, groups. The snake had only one main form of attack: its fangs and venom, which could only be used against one creature at a time, leaving it vulnerable after its first strike. Taking a second look at the two corpses the core realized that the first mouse it had killed had also drained the majority of the snake’s venom. The second mouse it had killed had succumbed to its injuries and been strangled rather than the snake’s potent toxin.

Although the snake might not be the best fighter against groups the core still decided that this template would be worth using when it finished getting it of course. The new template wouldn't be able to replace the mouse template, but it would still be incredibly useful especially against any larger or stronger invaders. The core had caught glimpses of creatures that were huge even compared to the snake in the memories it had collected, also the amount of venom that was in the first mouse might have been enough toxin to kill most of the living things in the dungeon. With that in mind, the core was looking forward to unlocking the snake template and the benefits that would bring.

Over the next light cycles, the core would collect more and more pieces of the snake template as more of the creatures found their deaths in the dungeon’s tunnels. The core had gotten better and better at bringing down the snakes as time went on, now it only needed two mice to finish them off. One to bait and take the bite of the serpent and another to kill the beast with vicious bites to the back of the skull. The core had found through trial and error that this was the quickest and easiest way to kill snakes. The snakes were so large that wounds to the rest of their body, even bad ones, wouldn't kill them all that quickly, but as always the head was the weak point.

The core had tried to see if scorpions could be used to attack the eyes of snakes but it had been an utter failure. The scorpions weren’t able to climb the coils of the snake to reach its head and they couldn’t even be used as bait as the snakes would just ignore them. So the core had stuck with mice and just had to eat the loss each time it faced a snake. This slowed the core’s expansion considerably but there was nothing that could be done about it.

There had been some new creatures trying to get into the dungeon and frankly, they had terrified the core. They were far larger than the mice, but fortunately, they weren’t able to enter the dungeon. The core was fervently thankful that it had upgraded everything in the dungeon to stone, it didn’t know what it would have done if the creature had dug its way in. The core hadn’t gotten a great look at the creature but it had seemed somewhat similar to the mice, at least more similar than the snakes and birds had been.

Despite all of that the dungeon was still expanding at a rapid pace. The only thing slowing the core was a lack of time and mana to devote to growing its aura. However, its increased mana capacity and regeneration were making it easier and easier to replenish its guardians while still expanding more and more. The core felt that as long as it kept killing intruders there were no major threats to it, as long as something completely out of hand didn’t get into the dungeon.