It felt like a bug on the skin but unlike the scenario, he could not easily scratch this away. He could feel them walking along the stone pavers of his home; their heavy footfalls felt like they were treading upon him. Curious, he did not feel this way when Isolde was here, but his connection to the dungeon had been minimal at best. He reached out with his mind but he could not see them; the goblin only knew that they were there…He needed to lay eyes upon them, to judge them.

  Time to set up and spy upon these intruders; he opened one of the hidden passages and went in. He quickly hurried to their positions with the help of the clever design of his maze. It didn’t take long but he noticed something: the closer he got to them, the harder it became to manipulate the maze. It eventually got to the point where the maze would not respond to his commands. He eventually abandoned the secret tunnels because he could not get in proximity to the party.

  The goblin eventually used a loop around to get behind the group; the number of adventurers was small, three in fact. There was a tall, lithe figure with pointed ears wielding a staff like a walking stick, another more average-sized fellow who was well-muscled holding a spear at the ready, and finally a short and stout figure holding a warhammer casually slung over his shoulder. An elf, a human, and a dwarf walk into a dungeon; the goblin chuckled to himself as he tried to listen in on their conversation.

  “This place is worth absolutely nothing,” sighed the dwarf.

  “You give up too soon Gideon…” The human chuckled. “We have barely been here for an hour’s time.”

  “I hate to agree with him but I believe this place is barren.” Spoke the elf. “Although it seems quite a waste to have ventured into the forest of death only to find this.”

  “You say that if we willingly took on this arrangement.” The dwarf countered the statement.

  “True,” sighed the elf.

  “If we can just find some food and water, we can get out of this hellhole.” The human interjected.

  “We could have made it if someone didn’t midnight snack.” The elf said, directed at the dwarf.

  “You’re one to talk, bottomless twiggy.” The dwarf rebutted.

  “Save your energy, you two, but you are both right.” The human laughed. This got the goblin thinking: if he resupplied these individuals, perhaps they would leave him alone. But how to do so without revealing his home or himself… He quickly left, heading back to the main room. As he moved, he closed the doorway to the caves and rerouted the path the adventurers were following to it. He then patiently sat by the dungeon core in case the adventurers somehow found their way over; he needed to be here.

  The adventurers meandered through the stone hallways for a long time, almost turning back but were soon awestruck when they entered the massive underground cave.

  “These tuberous plants are edible,” the elf said with some satisfaction.

  “Save your rabbit food for yourself; I need some proper grub.” The dwarf protested. A faint hiss brought their attention to the undergrowth as a forked tongue poked through the foliage the elf was rooting through. He in turn barely dodged the green substance that launched directly at his face. “Now that’s better!” The dwarf smiled as he readied his hammer, bringing it down and perfectly hitting the large lizard in the head.

  “That’s quite the haul,” the human said, admiring the lizard.

  “Poisonous Cave Lizard, if I recall correctly.” Said the elf, “This one is a juvenile, about a third of the adult size.”

  “It is more than enough for a proper meal.” The dwarf did hesitate to pull a dagger from his side and shove it down the center as the guts unceremoniously spilled out and onto the stone floor. The elf visibly recoiled and left as the dwarf was too immersed in the thought of satisfying his hunger.

  The human turned away, shaking his head as he gathered some loose wood and pulled out a flint and steel. Quickly lighting a fire, he headed to the pond of water. He pulled a kettle from his satchel, filling it; by the time he returned, the dwarf had set up a fire crane and had already skewered the lizard and had it roasting over the fire. The human hooked the kettle over the fire.

  The elf finally returned with an armful of various leafy plants and roots; reaching into his bag, he pulled out a cutting board. “A couple of days here and we can easily become restocked,” the dwarf happily stated.

  “Let’s make it sooner rather than later.” The human replied.

  “Why?” Asked the elf, “We should be well prepared for our return trip.”

  “You don’t find it odd that when we let our guard down and talked about our purpose here, we just so happened to find an exact location satisfying all our needs?” The human said, clearly a little weary.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “I think you are overthinking it.” The dwarf replied, already pulling the roasted meat from the fire.

  “I can’t help but agree to a certain extent.” The elf added on.

  “Him or me?” the dwarf asked, pointing between the two of them.

  “Him, obviously.” The elf pointed to the human. “I feel something watching us.”

  “I may disagree with you on practically everything, but I respect your instincts.” The dwarf commented, pulling his hammer a bit closer.

  The elf poured some of the now heated water into a cup with a couple of choice leaves; taking a deep drink, he sighed. “What now?” The elf asked of the human.

  “We fill our water skins and fill our bags with travel-ready food and get out of here. There is something greater lurking here.” The human soberly but authoritatively ordered. The dwarf and elf nodded at his suggestion and quickly went out to fulfill the request. The human took a deep breath; he had his suspicions, but he wasn’t completely sure.

  It was the longest hours of his life; he sat in his armchair with his fingers gripped on the armrests. He thought he was strong but the aura coming off those three was extremely intimidating. He watched as one of the lizards died and felt its soul get pulled into the dungeon core. They remained still for a moment and then began moving once again. After some time, they began to move back to the tunnel they came from.

  He tracked them as they moved farther and farther away, eventually reaching the dungeon exit. Never was he so relieved as when they left the dungeon; it felt like he finally got to scratch an itch. However, he had to remain vigilant; after all, they could return at any moment. That whole excursion had revealed several things: while he could find and track the individuals within his dungeon, he could not see or hear what they were doing. He also did not appreciate being a sitting duck for the whole thing. The goblin stood upright and headed over to the hall; he needed to clear his head after that stress.

  As he opened the door to the hall, he was greeted by the sight of several more rows of bookshelves filled to the brim with leather tomes and various scrolls. He excitedly approached and began to peruse the titles; his little collection had become a veritable library of content.

  For some reason the books tended to be sorted by visitors; one of the shelves contained mostly weapon and armsmithing texts with the occasional literature book and hammer weapons manuals, most likely from the dwarf. Another shelf was filled to the brim with spear manuals; this brought much joy to the goblin and he secretly thanked that human for their visit. At least he assumed it was the human based on their choice of weaponry.

  The greatest gift, however, was a huge number of shelves filled to the brim with different books on magic. He assumed this was perhaps the amassed collection of the elf; for some reason this dungeon could copy any books a person had come across regardless of whether they read them or not. But this was a godsend since he was severely lacking in magic knowledge beyond ice magic, thanks to the collection of Isolde’s late mother.

  He couldn’t waste his mana or physical strength till he was sure he was safe so it would be beneficial to engage in some light research. First he needed to learn more about magic. The goblin perused the sea of options before him and settled on Magic Explained for the Mundane. While not mundane in nature, his level of knowledge was.

  To begin, there were many types of magic. The best way was to categorize it base on three things, source, school, and purpose. The source was where the magic came from, either mana taken into onself or supplied from an external source. Often many extraplanar creatures provided magic to the magicless in exchange for their soul or having a puppet in the material plane, while most wizards cultivate mana from the material world. Next was school; the school of magic was what the magic was based on. There were too many of these to count but for example, evocation focused on creating elements using mana. Next was the purpose of the spell. If the spell was meant for protection, it was ward magic, while those for damage are referred to as attack magic.

  What he was looking for in particular was a way to monitor his dungeon from the safety of his core; the best choice was probably divination. Specifically the ability to scry. He was also looking for something about souls; he wanted to enhance the souls in his dungeon core and better enhance them for his final purpose. For that he settled on necromancy, which, while normally about manipulating the dead, had soul manipulation as one of its many strengths.

  Then finally he needed to find a way to enhance his constructs; they needed to be strong and provide a steady supply of mana. For these he needed two schools of magic, enchantment and artificing. Both of these were deeply interconnected but they would allow him to empower the constructs. He would have liked to learn alchemy as well but he lacked the resources needed for that.

  Satisfied with his superficial knowledge, it was time to collect the specific knowledge he needed. Pursuing the shelves, he first found The Present is More Enlightening than the Future, a Guide to Scrying. Then he picked up You're Dead but That’s Ok, Soulful Magic over the Dead. He then needed a book for enchantment; the goblin settled on Enhancing Beyond Measure, Enchanting to the Maximum. Then finally something for some artificing, Magic Machinery and You, Construct Construction Compiled. All four books were extremely large in size and he could barely hold onto all of them.

  He started to head towards his main room, summoning a table before his big leather armchair. The books heavily thud against the table, making it groan under the weight. Why are they so particularly large? The goblin wondered. He sat down and grabbed the book regarding scrying first; when opening it, the goblin saw massive drawn diagrams covering many pages with detailed descriptions of what the diagrams did as well. He perhaps needed one other book; he headed out, perused the shelves, and settled on Magic Methods and how to Cast Correctly. Armand returned to his reading position and finally settled into the chair and propped open the book.

  He did not move for many hours; even when exhausted, he continued to sit there reading but also secretly preparing for the return of the adventures. This continued till he was physically incapable of continuing and unconsciously slipped away into sleep much against his will.