Waking up to the sound of hammers is never a good sign. Especially when you didn't order any hammers.
I crack one eye open and immediately regret it. The entire camp is moving. No, more than moving. It's building. Badly. There's a half-finished wall made entirely out of stacked stones and sheer optimism. Bitterstack is trying to herd kobolds into something that looks like a ration line but keeps dissolving into arguments over who touched whose moss pile. Someone has tied a cloth to a rock, shoved it on top of a crate, and is calling it "the Great Rock of Authority."
I am living in a nightmare built by enthusiastic toddlers.
System pings.
[new construction detected: great rock of authority]
[structure rating: questionable]
[morale: +5 for community spirit]
I close my eyes. Open them again. Nope, still happening.
Splitjaw stomps over with a smirk on his face. "You're awake. Good. We started fixing things."
"Fixing," I repeat, deadpan.
"Yep. Infrastructure."
"You keep using that word," I say, "but I don't think it means what you think it means."
Splitjaw shrugs. "It's working, isn't it?"
I look around. And yeah. Okay. Sure. It's working. Sort of. Maybe. Except for the part where a moss-covered pile of rocks just walked by carrying a barrel. No, really. A barrel. Balanced on top of it. The moss is pulsing like it's alive and—wait, was that a mana leak?
"What is that?" I ask.
Splitjaw squints. "Construction assistant?"
"No. No, that's a golem. That is definitely a golem."
He frowns. "Artist said it's an 'autonomously semi-stable support organism.'"
"That's just a longer word for golem!"
The moss golem trips, drops the barrel, and the barrel rolls into the forge.
A small explosion follows. A kobold cheers.
System pings.
[labor construct detected: moss-infused auto-carrier]
[linked artisan: structure artisan "artist" – proficiency increased]
[stability rating: hilariously dubious]
I slowly turn to look at Splitjaw. "How many of those do we have?"
"Five. Maybe six. Artist said one of them self-replicated and he didn't want to interrupt it."
I blink.
Another golem stumbles past, this one dragging two sticks and a log.
[structure in progress: moss walker depot]
[success rate: 47%]
"Why," I whisper, "do we have a depot?"
Splitjaw grins. "We're scaling."
Artist pops into view from a tarp-covered lean-to, wearing two pairs of goggles, one of which is upside-down. "I added logic moss!" he yells. "Now they can prioritize!"
"They're digging into the latrine wall," I say.
"Okay, learning to prioritize!"
System pings again.
[structure artisan proficiency: tier 2]
[new capabilities unlocked – autonomous frameworks (unstable)]
[warning: please supervise your weird moss constructs]
I sit down on the nearest not-on-fire rock.
This isn't advancement. This is progress with a death wish.
Embergleam walks over, eyes narrowed, watching a golem that's trying to shovel dirt onto an already-complete wall.
"Is this normal?" she asks.
"For kobolds?" I ask. "Honestly, maybe."
The golem's shovel catches fire. Neither of us move.
System pings again.
[settlement development: 12%]
[labor automation: functional (risky)]
[morale: euphoric]
I close my eyes and accept that I live in a village run by magic mold and optimism. And somehow, it's still working.
Eventually, I accept that the moss golems are now part of daily life and move on. Mostly because trying to stop them would probably trigger a small localized apocalypse, and I'm not emotionally prepared for that before breakfast.
System pings.
[external scout party detected]
[distance: moderate]
[observation level: passive]
Oh. Good. Visitors. Nothing like unexpected company when your entire house is held together by moss and stubbornness. I flick open my thread view out of habit.
Threads weave through camp like a drunk spiderweb. Splitjaw's is bold and heavy, Embergleam's burns like a tiny sun, Bitterstack's is a tangled spreadsheet of anxiety. All normal.
My eyes drift toward the back fields. And then I remember. Before we left for the deep node expedition, I gave a side assignment to one very excited kobold.
Seedfoot. Legendary Farmer Class.
I close the system window with a sigh. Because of course today wasn't complicated enough.
I trek over to the field section—or at least where the field used to be. There's a fence now. And rows. And scarecrows. Made out of sticks, moss, and what might be actual bones. And growing out of the dirt?
Not crops. No. Miniature carnivorous plants. Tiny little leafy mouths snapping at passing bugs, mana flickering at the tips like glowworms.
Seedfoot stands proudly in the middle, arms crossed, tail wagging furiously. "I did it!" he shouts when he sees me.
I stare at the not-wheat. The not-potatoes. The definitely going to bite somebody plants.
System pings.
[new structure detected: mana-touched aggressive agriculture plot]
[estimated yield: edible biomass (mostly)]
[danger rating: mild]
Mild. It says mild. One of the plants lunges at a passing moss golem and gets dragged ten feet before letting go.
Splitjaw walks up behind me. "Looks sturdy."
"It's trying to eat our infrastructure," I say.
"Sturdier than moss walls."
I pinch the bridge of my snout and breathe through it.
Seedfoot is bouncing now. "They grow fast! Real fast! I even made a water guide using slimes!"
I glance over. There's a gutter system where little trained slimes slide along grooves, oozing hydration into the fields.
System pings.
[agriculture automation detected]
[resource sustainability: 70%]
I blink. Huh. It's horrifying. But... it's working. Just like the moss golems. Just like the ridiculous half-walls and ration stations.
The village is evolving. Into what, I don't know. But it's definitely evolving.
I'm still processing that when another ping slaps me across the brain.
[external scout party: engaged by third entity]
[status: eliminated]
[threat classification: unknown hostile | power rating: severe]
[recommendation: prepare defenses immediately]
I jerk upright.
Splitjaw stiffens next to me.
Embergleam's flames crackle sharp and fast.
Bitterstack runs over, stone ledger in hand, expression tight. "Problem?"
"Yeah," I say, swallowing hard.
I don't know what killed that scouting party.
I don't know if it's heading here.
But I do know one thing:
The dungeon isn't just a home anymore. It's becoming a battlefield. And we're standing right in the middle.
Final line pings across my system feed.
[defense priority updated – sovereign acknowledgment pending]
Because of course it is. Of course.