Over the next week, the dungeon of Valterra Unok’Davaas changed. Hordes of small invading creatures were drawn into the conflict on the first and second floors. Larger creatures continued to test the boundary of the clearing, their attacks unable to break through the ward that pulsed with every strike. Terrestrial creatures weren’t the only creatures to be drawn to the dungeon. While there had always been the occasional predatory bird, now there were flocks of smaller birds that sought to roost in and around the dungeon.

  Some sought to make their nests in the tree that sprouted from the top of the lower roof. Others made them below the roofs in the hollows formed for climbing creatures or on the outside lip of the roofs themselves. They quickly became the scourge of the third and second floors, preventing many creatures from climbing higher. Those that managed it were higher-ranked creatures, able to withstand the beating imposed on them as they climbed.

  The mice of the third floor were aware of the issue, but they had their hands full with another growing conflict. The Black Warden Ants had responded exactly the way that Valterra had expected them to. As their numbers grew, they eventually encountered the mice of the fortress, and it wasn’t long after that the second war of the ants began. This time, the conflict wasn’t for possession of the core of the dungeon, but a cultivated conflict meant to inspire growth.

  The problem was that the feathered invaders had no qualms about interfering in the conflict. Casualties were usually one-sided, with the ants taking the majority of losses. Some mice came away grievously injured, but none had died yet. Something needed to be done, and both sides of the conflict had come to an instinctual understanding that hostilities would cease until the feathered menace had been dealt with.

  The mice of the third were bolstered by the arrival of three Mouse Guard Veterans and a Mouse Sneak, all of whom had finished Ascending during the beginning of the week. While their addition didn’t solve the issue, they provided a much-needed addition of mousepower, especially since they were accompanied by a train of other creatures that had followed in their wake. Seven of those creatures were fellow mice, but none in the fortress could confuse them as anything other than magical.

  Having begun on the second floor, where Valterra had placed them, the Other-Touched Mice had awoken in an entirely bizarre manner. The Aether around their slumbering forms had popped and crackled, coming alive as their Ascensions drew to a close. Eyes the color of kaleidoscopes opened and gazed around their burrows while they stretched languorously. Each a foot and a half long, not including the tail, they were magnificent creatures with golden fur from tip to tail except under their bellies, paws, nose, and the insides of their large ears, which were black.

  As they had begun to explore the outside of their burrows, their inherent powers had come into full display. Some of them became hard to see, indistinct, while others flickered in place as though they weren’t there at all. Still others were perceived to be half a dozen paces forward, back, or to the side as the Aether determined. Each one moved instinctively to climb higher. Their place was not to be on a lower floor. Their stage of Ascension had demanded a proper place, and the Aether had called them higher. Their forms certainly caught the attention of their fellow mice who guarded the fortress on the third floor.

  Around the same time they were traveling to the top with the other mice, molten forms began to shed their Ascension light back down on the first floor. The new Fae-Touched Salamanders blinked red-rimmed orbs, nictitating membranes passing across their eyes with a hiss. Almost immediately, there was a presence to guide them, prodding them to move in a particular direction, whereupon they formed a small column that moved up to the second floor.

  Creatures stayed out of their way, eyeing the group of flaming amphibians as they made their way to the large stone-covered doors that had once been the Archmage’s entrance. Fires were put out in their wake, grass regrew, and miniature trees healed. Before them, the wood and stone peeled away to reveal a hole they could pass through. The presence momentarily departed but instilled a particular direction to keep the salamanders on track.

  The next to awaken were the Bronze Rank mantis Ascensions. The Cinder-Spark Mantises woke as a pair within the wooden inter-wall passageway not far from where their climactic battle against the invaders had taken place. They woke with an ache, an ache that would not diminish. What they were searching for, they had no idea of until they felt a presence come and guide them. Following the presence, it led them past the slumbering, Ascending form of their old Pack-Leader and fellow packmate.

  Even as their former packmate woke up, the Cinder-Sparks were gone, moving with the flow of Aether that would bring them to their new home. When they reached their destination, they waited while the presence began to work. Aether was pulled and transformed as the wooden edifice before them transformed into rock. The space beneath where heat and Aether were escaping was sealed, and two smaller doors of stone were etched into the rock before being opened.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Immediately, vast amounts of heat and Aether began to drift out, and the Cinder-Spark Mantises needed no other guidance from the presence that had led them here. With a clack of their mandibles, they rushed inside together. They didn’t notice at first as more of their kind were produced from the very Aether around them, but it didn’t take long for them to find them. Perhaps it was residual instincts left over from being Pack-Mantises, but they quickly found the others and formed a rough pack.

  They also didn’t notice, by design, the herd of salamanders that trailed in behind them. These scattered, solitary hunters, though many began to head toward the rivers of molten metal that coursed their way through the floor. Perhaps it was instinct or their new stage of Ascension, but many immediately sought to swim in those depths, utilizing their Affinity to keep themselves from melting.

  Back in the den, the Cinder-Spark Mantises had just left, and the singular Mantis Recluse opened its multifaceted eyes. It paused, immediately seeking the darkness of a nearby alcove. After making sure it was alone, it began to scurry off, pausing only to acknowledge its former Pack-Leader before making its way elsewhere. It took a moment to find its way before a familiar presence homed in on its position. Stairs formed on the inside of the wall, creating a way to the top.

  The mantis took the offered path forward and hurried up the stairs. Despite its appearance as a Pack-Mantis, the eight-inch insect was an entire rank higher, and all of that Aether was condensed into a small frame. To a normal human, the insect would have appeared to disappear, only to reappear at the top of the tiny set of steps. A section of the wall opened momentarily, releasing the insect onto the second floor.

  With a blur of motion, the mantis flashed to the safety of the grass, blending in with its green carapace. Making its way by instinct, it quickly found a place where a pack of its lesser kin had passed by. It didn’t take long after that before it was integrated with the group, hidden in plain sight, and hungry for prey. The presence that had followed it for a time departed, and the mantis fully relaxed into its new pack. Deep in the back of its mind, the old bond with its Pack-Leader still remained, silent for now.

  It was toward the end of the week that more Rank E Ascensions finished. The Mouse Gorger woke first, finding her den filled with more rats than she had left it. She snarled, and immediately, there was food, the corpse of some beast. It was devoured quickly, even as her eyes took in the changes to her brood. It seemed she was going to be a grandrat soon, as many of her brood had found mates. Good, she would need the bodies to collect more food.

  Next to wake up were the Mouse Savage and the Goliath Wolf Spider. Great limbs of black fuzzy chitin unfurled, a monster of a spider rising upward only to bend down to let his mouse companion climb aboard his now gigantic body. The mouse herself hadn’t changed much other than to gain a savage, though intelligent, glint in her eyes. Her spear held in one hand, she tapped on her friend’s carapace, and off they went back on the hunt.

  The Scribblepaw Critter was the last to awaken of the lesser-ranked Ascensions. He woke up surrounded by his horde of valuables and immediately began to scurry around. Aether flowed from his Aether core as he began arranging his treasures in new ways, instinctively preparing his nest for what came next. His paws now sported sharp nubbins, a kind of not-quite-claw, which he began using to scrape lines in the floor of his nest and surrounding walls. It would take time, but his instincts drove him onward.

  With the lesser Ascensions out of the way, it was only a few days into the new week that the majority of the rest of the Ascensions completed. Much had happened in the roughly two weeks since the end of the invasion. Two new floors had been completed, and the route deeper into the dungeon had been established in two separate places. Locations of Power had been found, and creatures dispatched to claim them. Now, the dungeon seemed to wake up as higher stages crawled forth from the burrows Valterra had hidden them away in.

  First to wake in this second wave of Ascensions were the mice of various kinds. The Mouse-At-Arms of the fifth floor woke with a start, nerves firing in tandem with their Sparks to achieve a sort of snap-like quality to their wakefulness. They went from asleep to alert in the space of less than a second, rising to their back paws and observing their surroundings with keen eyes, noses, and ears.

  Many of them remembered the outcome of their fight with the invaders, and their chests swelled with the sense of victory they had achieved. Already, their new thoughts whirled with ideas about how they would have fought better. High on the priority lists of their minds were weapons, and their gazes turned toward the walls of the fortress.

  The fortress itself was soon a bustling hub of activity as the Mouse-At-Arms got to work. The few Mouse Soldiers that had not undergone Ascension had done a fair job at maintaining a presence on the walls. Still, as more and more Mouse-At-Arms woke up and got moving, these individuals relinquished their positions to their awakened kin. The Mouse-At-Arms quickly got the fortress in order, with squads being formed and dispatched to retrieve items left outside the wall after the battle.

  They had not forgotten the weapons used by the invaders, as they cut and stabbed their way through their kin beasts and fellow dungeon monsters. They found these lying where they had been forgotten. They gathered everything and hauled it back to the fortress, where they distributed it to those who needed it most, specifically those who had just awakened. Many still had to make do with the old needles that the Mouse Captain had given to them, but the rest were pleased with their new upgrade.

  And they were just the beginning.