Lucifer called for everyone to meet in the room he used to negotiate with Merlin and the mages guild, then he started to make his way over there himself while testing his new body.

At first, he was rather clumsy and nearly tripped several times, but after several minutes he managed to start moving at a competent level, he thought 'note to self, create an obstacle course to practice on later.

With a gentle push, the door swung open and crashed into the stone behind it making everyone already inside jump. While he was again reminding himself that he needed practice with this absurd body, he ducked through the doorway and entered.

Once inside the small round room, he found that everyone was already here and Salenia and Ahri were staring at him with an odd look. Lucifer looked behind himself to see what they were looking at, but then he realized that he wasn't etherial anymore and they were looking at him.

Selenia asked "who are you"

Lucifer coughed to clear his throat when he caught Rick's grin in the corner of his eye, this gave him an idea.

He replied "I'm Draven Green, most just call me Green" and motioned to shake Selenia's hand. She looked at his outstretched hand and just rolled her eyes and chose to ignore the new man.

Lucifer thought 'It seems elves are immune to a beautiful face unlike the unblinking Ahri'. Noticing his hand still hovering there Salenia wanted to change the subject so she asked: "where is Lucifer".

Lucifer lowered his hand and casually replied "he is upgrading the defenses of the dungeon" then he put his arm behind his back and formed a crystal used for recording things and placed it onto the table, "he wanted your opinions on how best to fight off the Dutchy if they come knocking".

Everyone was slightly surprised for a moment before Lucky popped out of nowhere and started playing with the shiny crystal on the table, all the while taking sneaky glances at Lucifer and trying to hide her laughter at the trick being pulled.

Selenia was the first to give her opinion. "we should create more poisons for the ventilation system"

Rick countered "If the Dutchy itself is our enemy then a few poisons would not do much"

She replied "it worked quite well last time"

Rick explained "our enemy is not a simple noble with his personal guard this time, its equivalent to a small country and they will have an army to back it up too. Most armies are designed either for sieging or defending against sieging and the Dutchy has been having skirmishes with the Swadia kingdom for decades now, so most of their forces are designed to attack strongly defended positions and won't fall to poison"

Before Salenia could argue further Ahri interjected "the arcane university occasionally trains military mages and since most military mages aren't very well educated in comparison to someone who studies the art, we focus our their training on support based spells that are easier to understand and cast. Anyway the point is they have contingents of mages who watch for things like poison, once they spot it they will cast the wind-based magic "Air control" which is an inferior version of "weather control" which allows them to create a bubble of air that would not let in any poison, also --"

Rick interrupted her overly educational lecture with "they have counters to poison even touching their armies and they have large groups of healers spread out in the army to heal any such casualties so its a waste of time"

Lucky suggested "why don't we just stick a sign outside that says "out of order" so they don't come in"

Everyone looked at her for a moment then went back to their conversation causing Lucky to pout.

Ahri said, "why doesn't the dungeon just create more monsters?"

Lucifer replied, "because it takes energy for every monster the dungeon summons, and a trap can kill dozens or even hundreds of people while a single monster can be outsmarted and overrun with no casualties whatsoever."

She thought for a moment then replied "then if traps are better why not just keep making the traps behind the door they seem quite effective to me and if there were more of them no one could pass without running out of mana and dying"

This time Rick answered her "traps can be disarmed and more importantly an army does not have the same limitations as a person, they can rotate the active warriors and mages to keep them fresh, also if they set up a decent supply line then resources they can use basically become infinite."

The group stood there in silence for a while before Rick suggested: "The problem is not whether we can defeat the army but whether we can hold off long enough that Swadia repels the invaders, I'm sure the Kingdom does not appreciate an enemy power stealing a new lucrative dungeon from their territory."

Ahri added "Merlin was going to move the arcane university in a few months to this mountain, Once I tell him about the threat I'm sure he will move his timetable up and I'm sure the nobles will be quicker to act once the University is involved"

Rick nodded to himself as he thought that it would help but not why she thought it would. then he added "It is a bit short notice but I can create some things to help against an army"

Selenia announced "I am not leaving this time, they came because of me, its only right that I face them"

Lucifer split off a part of his consciousness back into its phantom state and used his old voice to say, "good, I will make a new set of armor for you using some of Rick's materials.

Ahri, you try to get the University here sooner.Rick work with Selenia on creating a poison for me to gift our new guests with, then work on whatever you were thinking of working on. Green, you can do what you do best. Lucky... just.. have fun I guess"

After giving everyone a task they began to disperse with a sense of purpose, except Lucky, she just flew off with a strangely happy expression that sent chills down Selenia's spine.

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Once Lucifer walked outside the room he saw Ahri waiting and when she saw him come out she greeted "Hello green, when did you become a dungeon servant like me?"

Taken back Lucifer reflexively replied "several months ago" when he thought about the previous owner of this body.

"It's a shame that I hadn't met you then, anyway Lucifer told you to do what you do best, what is it that you do best?"

This seemed so out of character for Ahri, Lucifer was not sure it was the same person, after a moment of thought he replied: "I grind my enemies to dust with my bare hands".

Lucifer could not say anything other than some type of warrior type line because it would seem weird with an 8 or so foot tall mountain of muscle saying "I'm a mage" or "I like playing with potions". So instead he decided to stay in character.

Before she could ask something else he asked "how is the dungeon", he thought that being his own spy would be useful for finding out what people really thought and where their allegiances lie.

Ahri thought for a moment then replied "I don't know, I've only been here for a short time and have only spoken to the dungeon a few times in total. it seems to treat its followers rather well considering its a dungeon, although if you try to manipulate it... it won't like that, but I know it only does that in self-defense so I can't really hate it for that... I don't know. It's sort of good but also evil at the same time."

Lucifer asked "do you want to leave the dungeon"

Ahri looked around for a moment then started staring at Lucifer again, then she replied "umm, I guess if you're here it's not so bad to stay here"

Lucifer was starting to feel a chill run down his spine at the complete 180 her personality did and decided he would rather be somewhere else right now. He said "look at the time I have some things to do" before waving her off and leaving.

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Ahri felt slightly disappointed after he left and began walking back to her room to make the call to Merlin, but when her heartbeat slowed down she noticed that it had been going fast for quite a while now, she thought back to the conversation that she had with "Green" and her face flushed red.

She had no idea what had gotten into her to make her say such embarrassing things, she was red all the way down to her neck on the way back to her room, however, the embarrassment did not go away after she was back inside her room. She wanted to disappear and tried an invisibility spell to see if that would help but now she was just an embarrassed invisible girl instead.

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Lucifer was walking back to his core so he could leave his body in a safe place and modify the dungeon in peace, when Rick appeared from behind a tree with a shit eating grin on his face.

Lucifer knew that this conversation was likely going to be as unpleasant as the one before so he wanted to get it over with quickly, he asked: "and what do you want".

Rick chuckled for a moment then replied "what, don't like that I can see through that little charade haha. Anyway, I've come with some "good" news" before he started chuckling again.

Lucifer waited for him to continue...

Finally, Rick seemed to have finished laughing he continued "did you know best people have some animal instincts that are significantly more potent than a normal humans. Well if you didn't know I'm sure you would be wondering why Ahri has been acting in such a way which is contrary to her character" then he began chuckling again. " well you see beast people value strength amongst all things, and you happen to fit that description perfectly", causing Lucifer to regret "staying in character" with Ahri around.

Lucifer was unamused and asked, "so she's got the hots for me who cares, she's a smart woman I'm sure she will figure it out and stop her weird behavior."

Rick laughed "you could call it the hots, but it would be more accurate to call it heat."

Lucifers expression only made Rick crack up into laughter again before he continued: "normally the best people would have a shaman use a ritual on them on the extremely rare occasion where one of them would go into heat, this is usually done if the person the "heat" is targeted towards does not reciprocate the same feelings"

Lucifer frowned and interjected "this does not sound like the heat animals I'm familiar with go into"

Rick answered, "indeed it's not the same kind, the shamans call it "the bonding" which causes one of their kind to become almost obsessed with their target of affections. Most beast people think its an honor to be a target of "the Heat" they think it means that the Beast god is matchmaking for them."

Lucifer asked "so what your saying is Ahri is in idiotic love with me and I can't get rid of her"

"yep" replied Rick with a barely disguised shit-eating grin.

Lucifer said "I'll just switch bodies then ha"

Rick rebutted "then I hope the rumors are true that it is soul-based"

...

After a short silence, Rick asked "do you not like the girl, she said her master thinks that the only reason you took her was that she was beautiful"

Lucifer thought for a moment and replied "I'm not getting together with a woman who is not completely loyal"

Rick laughed "well she will be soon if she doesn't do something about "the heat".

Lucifer was starting to get irritated at Rick because he knew that Rick only liked this outcome because it gave him trouble. Meanwhile, Rick was thinking that maybe the dungeon would lighten up a little if it got a good woman.

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Meanwhile outside the city to the south stood a general on his warhorse in front of an army. he cursed "what the fuck are all these forests doing on the fucking path all of the sudden". He had gotten orders to send the first major attack on Swadia in decades and he planned to rise in ranks quickly during this conquest, however, at the very onset he found that getting to the destination was more difficult than he thought because several thick forests suddenly appeared recently, this made moving a large army slow and cumbersome.

He thought of going around it several times, but he needed to keep his army concealed until the attack so he couldn't just march around it along the roads.