A dance of goblins and snails......

As soon as i came to again i found myself inside a cave that was about was roughly 10x10x2 m though of course not perfectly like that and uneven as it would be for a natural cave.

"We succeeded! with this we have a chance for survival!"

Suddenly I heard…. words? No I just understood what it meant but what filled this cave was some screeching and gi gi sounds. Well that was not what i expected. I moved my view around to take a closer look at the noisy beings that were chattering among each other now.

I made up my mind about them pretty quickly.

Goblins ! It had to be goblins….. Shit i really drew the bottom lottery here huh?

They were small, about as tall as a 8 year old child. They had green skin and looked like they had starved for a good time as they were mostly skin and bones. The head structure was a bit similar to humans. They had bigger noses and ears that resembled a bit a bat's ear. As for natural weapons it looked like they had somewhat useful claws and teeth for fighting. Most of them looked like beggars right now as they knelt before the crystal in a semi circle formation and looked somewhat exhausted.

They were clothed mostly in dirty pelts and leather as clothing. If you could even call it clothing. If you wanted to be very generous they could be called coats and skirts on the women, vests and fur kilts for the men. Everything they had gave a very ragged impression and looked like it had been patched up over and over again. Some of them seemed to be wearing basic stone tools or weapons quite the cavemen i got there. The one with the most "luxurious" clothing was a old goblin whose face looked like it had been made of old leather. He wore a somewhat clean brown robe and a old gnarly staff with some clumsy looking runes scratched into it. It seemed like he was the leader as he inspected slowly pulsing crystal body.

"So you are the ones that summoned me ?"

I zoomed back towards my body and faced the goblin leader. He looked startled at first before he had a delighted expression.

"Yes oh great one ! We humble goblins pray that you will take care of us in the future"(Goblin)

Gah ! this screeching and stuff will really need some getting used to. Taking care of these guys sounds like a lot of trouble, but guess i have no choice on the matter. But that was a strange reaction. Aren't they the ones that summoned me ?

"Why did you look that surprised ? "(Me)

The goblin pondered for a moment before he responded

"Well my lord, normally dungeons do not have an ego until they reach a higher level. I have never heard of one having a personality right at the beginning"(old goblin)

That was an interesting fact, so it seems dungeons were not always people from another world. It made sense that he was happy about a smart dungeon if their survival depended on it.

"It seems like i am a special dungeon then. Now tell me more about your situation. It doesn't seem to go all too well around here"(Me)

The goblin eagerly followed my words. He introduced himself as Gobar the shaman and current leader of this goblin tribe.

Wait, Gobar ? Seriously ? They use that silly Go-something for their names?

The speech is translated for you in a manner that is easy to understand.

Since there is no equivalent for the goblin language in yours

everything is translated along the meaning and replaced with

something familiar where it cannot be done.

Ahh that makes sense, guess screeching and stuff doesn't really translate proper names. So guess me reading all those novels is at fault here for the naming. Well let's listen to the rest.

From what understood Gobar led them all here into a mountain range, far from their previous home. Their old home place was raided by humans before and most of their population had been wiped out.

Which really explains their ragged state. Good job surviving this far with those old bones of your´s !

"So for how long have you been here now ?"(Me)

"We found this cave after a month of wandering, then it took us another month to prepare your Crystal, Lord" (Gobar)

"I see well then i will take some time now to get used to this place and look over what is needed " (Me)

As I dismissed the goblins, they went back to chores or whatever goblins did and left the cave except for Gobar.

Well then let's have a look at what i have to work with here now 'Status'

Name: Goblin Cave Rank: F

Mana: 10.000 Mana recovery: 3000 Mana/h

Level: 1

What the fuck ! My name is Goblin Cave?! That will have to change soon.

Your name changes according to what you are perceived on.

Though you can of course have your servants call you by another name.

Meh well for now that will have to do, once i have a body of my own that will be a better fit. Besides i like being called Lord.

For now the numbers in the status didn't tell me a lot as I had no idea how much I would need to deal with everything. Next was the map and found that i had a small cave system as my dungeon area so far. Beginning at the entrance was one small entrance cave from which two short tunnels led to different caves. The left one was a dead end cave about half the size of the one my core was in. The other one was about double the size but still just about 2 m high. From this led another slightly longer tunnel to the core room. Both caves seemed to be cramped with goblins. The crystal cave was all the way in the back just as it should be for the most important room. With quick glance outside i saw some shabby fence construct made of mostly branches and some more Goblins were outside as well that seemed to be busy as far as i could tell.

Hmm how many goblins do i actually have? 'Servants'

Which servant race do you want to be informed about?

Currently owned servants:

Goblin

Of course 'goblin' seems that screen thing is not too smart after all in some situations.

Goblin population:

36 adults 10 children

Classes in population:

1 Shaman

2 apprentice shaman

1 apprentice builder

Gender Ratio:

26 male

20 female

Well that does not seem like a lot. Won´t they suffer from degeneration a few generations down the line unless i get some new blood somewhere?

Goblins are very resilient to genetic degeneration.

Well that's useful information, good job screen ! But i wonder on what basis i get information like this.

I waited for a few hopeful moments but i didn't get an answer. So figured I would need to find that one out over time. For now I looked around to see what was needed. What I found out was that they were basically in need of everything. They had some stone tools such as sharp stone knifes but very little in way of food which explained the state they were in. The upside was that they seemed to not be picky at all in what they ate. One of them even snatched a butterfly and ate it as it flew over. That was when i remembered the reward from the tutorial.

Hmm so how do i go about using it. Well let's get some input from the old guy.

I zoomed back over to the crystal room. The old goblin had gotten a bit more comfortable meanwhile on some pelts probably awaiting my return.

"Well Gobar it seems we need to quickly do something about food. I can spawn Meatsnails, Flourbugs and Cavespiders. What would be better for you goblins?" (Me)

The goblin twitched slightly at my sudden voice but caught himself quickly as he pondered my words over.

"Lord, the snails could be eaten raw or by roasting them over the fire. Same goes with flour bugs except they can be dried and grinded to make bread. The spiders offer not much in terms of food."(Gobar)

I considered his words for a moment as i got an idea

"What do Meatsnails and Flourbugs eat?"(Me)

"They eat any vegetation as long as it is not poisonous."(Gobar)

Perfect ! Time to build an insect farm.

I parted from the old goblin in a hurry and went into building. Right now i had about 100x100x10m to work with on dungeon area. Some of it was outside and ended at the fence. I guess my starting dungeon was simply the size of space the goblins had claimed. I moved to the small cave and dug a tunnel into the back. Just big enough for a crawling goblin to get through. After a few meters I switched to making another cave. I made it just high enough for a goblin to stand and the floor was sinking down towards the middle to give it a bowl like shape, though i made it purposely not a smooth curve. At the end it was around the size of the linked cave. At the right side i planted a tiny well and let it fill the bowl a little.Then i planted all of the remaining cave floor with moss, activated growth and watched how the plant sprouted rapidly there.

Good, now for the buffets ingredients!

I begun spawning snails until i had 200. The spawned insects weren't fully grown adults so i watched them a little bit as they went about feeding on the moss and steadily growing.

A object was added to your constructs:

small nursery

Construction needs 50 M

For operation it needs 53M/h

You have 600 points left for insects

You have 950 points left for Plants

Huh well that was quick but pretty useful as addition. Anyway now I need a shepherd for the slimy food.

Swiftly I got back to goblin grandpa and told him to get a female goblin with him to the small cave. For a guy like him he got there surprisingly quick, but if he wasn't at least like that he would have not been able to get his people out of the human raid. With him he had a female goblin that looked to be still rather young but fit enough to do a good job.

"Very good Gobar ! What's the name of this one?"(Me)

Both goblins bowed quickly towards me, i guess they simply did that towards where my voice was coming from. Then the old goblin nudged the female a bit forward for her to introduce herself.

"My name is Gorin, Lord!"(Gorin)

"Good Gorin, you will be in charge of watching the snails behind this tunnel. Harvest the fully grown snails and distribute them first among the females and children, then among the males. "

Gobrin seemed to be delighted, it seemed she understood what privilege i had just given her by putting her in charge of the best food source of her tribe. With that I went back to planning my next steps.