Plans, Smoke and Mana !

Your scouts have returned

Map data updated

No spoils

A dungeon was discovered

It is hostile against you

So it was a dungeon !

I right away opened the map and took a look. There was indeed a new added portion and a red field was visible.

Hey that radar skill really pays off. Can i appraise this thing?

Name: Spiders Den

Rank: F

Level:2

It´s actually below me in level !

This actually opened up a whole new set of possibilities to my thinking. I informed Gobar roughly of the new information and we both waited for the scouts to come rushing back into the goblin home.

Wow they really seem to have put in an effort.

The scouts were completely drenched in sweat and panted roughly in exhaustion. I motioned them to sit down and catch their breaths and instructed some of the other goblins to bring food and water for the hard workers.

"Well then what did you find ?"(Me)

"Lord, we have found the entrance to another dungeon. It is without a doubt the place where the horde came from. All the trees surrounding the entrance were filled with spiderwebs but they are almost completely vacated. "(Gobtar)

I nodded in leisure and considered the chances. Gobar had said that dungeons developed ego´s normally much later on. Which meant that this dungeon could be simply a infant dungeon.

"Was there any sign of a dungeon being around before ?"(Me)

"No at least we would have not noticed so as we travelled up the mountain, Lord. Especially since it is level 2 there is a high chance it has been born not too long ago. "(Gobar)

"I see, was there any other things you noticed, Gobtar?"(Me)

"Once we had approached the dungeon closer the spiders all retreated back inside. We killed a few of them but we didn't chase them inside the cave. So we do not have much more information."(Gobtar)

"Well done, you and the other scouts can take a rest now. "(Me)

After i dismissed them i started to ponder about what to do now. I could not allow the dungeon to grow since it was hostile. But i also had to make sure not to lose too much of my battle force. There surely would be other obstacles in the future and if we took too long to regain our strength it could be fatal.

Time for some meaner tactics.

"Gobar instruct the goblins to harvest every single strange of the poisonous plants. Let the goblins prepare for a march tomorrow. We will attack the Spiders Den at dawn."(Me)

"Is that not a bit hasty. You yourself said we have to be cautious in our approach. "(Gobar)

"Haha oh, we will be cautious. But if they depleted a lot of their strength in the previous attack then this will be the best chance. "(Me)

The old goblin reluctantly nodded and got up to relay my instructions. Meanwhile I swiftly returned to the crystal cave and stored my body back inside the tank. I looked over the insects I had and saw that we regained some numbers but it was still far from the previous. For the time being i forbade the evolved insects to battle each other and let them feast on the lower insects to make sure we had every bit of additional strength we could have. After looking over the preparations the goblins did and adding some additional instructions I went to sleep myself. Tomorrow would be a big day after all.

The next day at dawn:

I took a deep breath outside the dungeon for the first time. It was a glorious moment to watch the sun rise in the distance and listen to the slowly awaking nature. But after all we did not have a lot of time for now.

Time to get rid of some vermin.

"Follow the scouts! Do not dawdle and stay together but proceed in a reasonable pace. We do not want to arrive there exhausted."(Me)

Measuring only by pure distance it was not too far of a march. Especially downhill. The problem was, nature in its untamed form is a bitch. There were of course no neat paths to follow or any such things. The best we met were some animal paths but even those were not very passable. Going down the mountain made some parts into some slippery traps as well. Well mostly for me and Gobar. The other goblins were mostly used to it from scouting. Like this it took us a few good hours to arrive there. Especially since I let the goblins take frequent breaks when they showed signs of tiring. But there was one big surprise waiting for me as we approached the other dungeon.

You have entered a hostile dungeon´s Territory.

"It is extending outside?!"(Me)

I called out in surprise and Gobar who was next to me nodded thoughtfully.

"This is very likely. A natural born, infant dungeon has to extend outside if it wants to get additional races. Since it has not many intelligent beings at its disposal. It is instinct."(Gobar)

Hmm I guess I would have done something similar if I had not had the goblins from the start. Most likely it got some of the spiders like that.

After that we continued on carefully to the dungeon's entrance. It was a simple cave entrance just like mine was. It seems this time the spiders had already retreated inside the cave or had remained inside since the scouts last visit. Just to be sure I spread out our insects around us and in front of the cave.

"Goblins! Gather stones, earth, wood and grass. Make sure there is plenty dry wood and fresh wood. As much as you can and place them close to the entrance."(Me)

The goblins looked somewhat unsure and confused at my orders but did as they were told. Meanwhile it let some Soldier Bugs walk into the dungeon. It seems unlike my dungeon there was a tunnel first before it joined to the first cave. The tunnel itself was empty but in the cave were some spiders apparently as the bugs came right back. I had told them to return once they met an enemy.

Hmm so they remain on the defense as well ? Very good. That is just perfect for me.

For now we simply waited. The goblins gathered and gathered until I thought it would be enough to begin the first step of the plan.

"Excellent. Now my dear goblins we will start our battle !"(Me)

The goblins stared at me even more in doubt now but i forgave them for that. Out of their perspective it must have looked like a lunatic's order.

"Throw all the grass and the poisonous herbs inside the tunnel, start to build a wall of stone and earth at the entrance until it is almost closed up. We will smoke those bastards out and lessen their numbers! "(Me)

I could almost hear the hamsters run in their imaginary wheel inside some of the goblins heads. Slowly the dots connected and they chuckled in a delighted way. As soon as they had understood the purpose they went to work very eagerly. The plants were thrown in and all goblins that could not help on the construction of the makeshift wall went to collect grass and more wood.

"Like that it could work, Lord. A very devious way of fighting."(Gobar)

Hah aren't you a little sadist as well you old man ?

The goblin stood there grinning from ear to ear and instructed his apprentices on how to strengthen the earth with their spells a bit. They made the earth, that was between the stones, stick together stronger. Meanwhile I sat down in leisure under one of the trees nearby. Actually Gob joined me and zealously kept watching around as a guard.

I guess those titles are there for a reason.

After a few hours of me enjoying leisure life the preparations were done. The entrance was almost closed up and the inside was filled pretty well with all the stuff we had thrown in. Just for safe measure i had posted three Soldier Bugs and Acid Snails inside which i now ordered to come back out.

"Very good work. With this it should all be going pretty well."(Me)

I approached the wall and inspected it for a moment. The exterior was now completely looked like a wall made of pure earth and would surely keep the smoke inside.

"Gobar, if you would kindly light the flames? I am growing hungry for some smoked spiders."(Me)

"Of course, Lord, we live to please."(Gobar)

I guess their depiction as little monsters were not all too far fetched. But who am I to judge?

The goblins laughed unisono. It was obvious that they were delighting in what was to come. Was it because they were already like that or did I spread some sadism culture? Who cares, after all it was better that way. The old goblin and his apprentices approached the wall and begun to throw in some of the fire crystals. Soon little bursts of light could be seen from the hole until around 10 crystals had been thrown in. Then Gobuta and his helpers quickly closed up the hole to not let too much of the produced smoke, escape.

"Very good, keep watching in shifts and rest well. This will take a while to work properly. "(Me)

Most of the goblins sat down somewhere in little groups and begun to eat the brought rations or take little naps. Gobar joined me and Gob under the tree as well and we begun to chat leisurely. Though gob was not the most fascinating conversational partner yet, he had begun to be able to join small banter.

Well then I wonder how much the dungeon will be able to deal with this. I guess it did not even understand the purpose of all this before we lit up everything. Since so far nothing much was happening i decided to put the time to some better use.

"Gobar, since we are just sitting around for now how about you teach me some things about magic ?"(Me)

"Ah you intend to become a magic user, Lord ? A shaman ?"(Gobar)

"No i do not think i will turn to the shaman class. I will leave that to you and your disciples. We need some more diversity."(Me)

The old goblin looked slightly disappointed but then nodded and carried on.

"In this case I will most likely only be able to teach the Lord in regards to the basics of magic. Each school has its own things that must be understood in order to progress."(Gobar)

"Speaking of which who was your teacher? Did he or she die in the raid?"(Me)

At my words the old goblin smiled bitterly and shook his head.

"No I did not have a teacher. People with the talent to go towards magic are much rarer than other talents. I had to research and learn everything by myself. "(Gobar)

"Huh i see. Well then let us begin. "(Me)

For the next few hours Gobar was teaching me about basic magics and for the first time i realized...

This guy is on the genius level ! Damn with him explaining all of the stuff it sounds logical but how did he even work out all these things.

It was hard to find a comparison. Imagine you knew nothing about magic except that it exists. Now imagine you have to invent the numerical system and the pythagorean theorem. To understand it is not hard, but developing it from scratch? that needs some serious brain juices. Only now i realized that the goblins seriously were not as dumb as I thought. They had potential but because of the war it was all ruined. Their country destroyed and constantly having to fight they had simply no chance to pass on their knowledge and skills properly so it was all lost !

That really makes me want to see what a developed goblin society will look like. I guess i'll have to put more time into teaching and establishing some kind of culture. Maybe go for a feudal system ? Since I am not gonna hand over my throne to anyone else. Well that is for later to think about.

As for the knowledge that the goblin explained to me was about the basic laws and properties of mana as well as spell casting. Though there was still a lot of mysticism worked in it had some basic logic. It seems like the part that actually processes magic is your subconscious mind. The conscious part simply does not have the processing powers to deal with all that. Actually all the funny incantations are just ways to help your subconscious to work better and know what you want. Just like the pink elephant thing, a certain image will pop up in your mind. The more often you used a spell the easier and faster it would be processed by your mind, just like training your subconsciousness to do high math calculations for you. As for the mana part, normal beings process the environmental mana to a more diluted kind of mana. So me as dungeon works with plutonium while the magic caster me would work with coal. Though you could strengthen your mana over time, apparently you didn't gain much mana from level ups but had to meditate and strengthen your mana pool through that way.

"So I learn skills by understanding their basis and expanding from that. Does that you can learn every magic that there is?"(Me)

That will be awesome, slinging around magic left and right! But Gobar looked slightly conflicted on that notion.

"Well… yes and no, Lord. Certain magic can be cast with any kind of magic but most will convert your inner mana to certain element. For example my main element is earth. Because nature and Water are easily agreeable with earth i was able to learn them with not too much difficulty. But through that I also have traces of those elements within me so wind and fire magics will be nearly entirely out of question unless i use props like the mana crystals to do basic things."(Gobar)

Aww shit guess it's not as easy as I thought.

"You will also find your… you called it subconsciousness ? Will have a harder time to work with them and you will be much, much slower than someone that uses mainly those elements. There are ways to prevent your mana from taking an element but that will make the higher realms of most spell schools impossible to reach as they need purer mana to work."(Gobar)

"So that means I can, either learn many different magics on a inferior level or, I can learn a few and have those to the highest."(Me)

"That is right, Lord. As said there are some that are neutral to elements but most also work better with certain kinds of properties. "(Gobar)

Meh I am not going to be some jack of all trades and Master of nothing. Besides I am an Overlord, I got minions that I can tell to learn something that I cannot do. Gotta delegate those things and not do them myself. Guess i'll look for some crazy, fun magic to learn.

After that Gobar instructed me on some basic exercises to learn and control mana, which was really not easy to start with. But we were in no hurry anyway. While we were doing that the other goblin had taken it upon themselves to keep the fire burning without me even having to tell them. They continued to collect whatever burnable things they could find and added the most smoke producing and poisonous things to it. Then they occasionally opened up the walls top and threw it all in followed by a mana crystal if needed. After all I had told them to not be stingy with those things right now. Like this we progressed on until night came and grew deeper. The sunset was actually pretty fantastic to watch!