Protection and Comfort

First from your seat on your throne, and then quietly shifting around your cave, you began to set up you plans.

Step One: The Entrance. You had further plans for it, like that one about the tunnel you’d thought up when you had left to gather stone earlier in the day, but the very first thing had to be that gate. It didn’t make sense to leave your cave standing wide open with so many Adventurers hunting you. Better to have some sort of barrier, even if they could get through it - some warning was better than nothing.

You had more than enough stone and wood to set the gate to be constructed, so the first thing you did was go to the entrance and open up your build menu. Now that you had stone and ore a few different options were available, but you went simple and picked that first gate you had looked at before. You locked in the choice and your Dark Dwarf immediately perked up.

“Use whatever tools you need,” you told him quietly, and he nodded and fetched your hammer from the work table with a ‘Bzzatdat’. He began swinging the hammer at the left side of the entrance, the ‘pink, pink, pink’ of the metal on stone echoing lightly through the cave.

The harpies were already asleep, each sitting in their chosen ‘nests’ and resting their heads against the wall of the cave. Hopefully you could let them sleep a while before things got too noisy, they’d had a long and painful day even before flying halfway around Imporne to try and find you.

As you started in on the second part of the plan, your main hall, you wondered about how they heard about you. Adventurers certainly talked amongst themselves, in towns and cities and whatever their ‘wikis’ were. But monsters didn’t do that, not really. Yet somehow these young Harpies had known about you and your ‘conquests,’ and so had Greg the Hill Giant.

Who the hell was Greg the Hill Giant talking to?

The only answer you could think of was that it was either your meteoric rise in Fame, or the effects of your Liegelord ability. Or both? Or… maybe neither? Was fucking an Adventurer really so notable?

Well, was fucking a willing Adventurer that notable?

You got back to work. Your main hall, as it was, was little more than a slight curve from the open cave entrance and an oblong cave of rough stone. The divot where the… Hold on. Where the fuck is my water spring? It was just gone, no trace of it.

Pawing through the various construction and resource menus, you finally found it listed as a ‘Natural Feature.’ Apparently you were going to be able to choose where you got your water. Interesting.

For now, you decided your ‘hall’ needed a change. From where the gate would sit flush to the original entrance, you decided on a long, tall rectangular chamber that came off of it at an angle. It would be about 70’ long and 30’ wide, but most importantly it would also be 70’ high. You did some quick figuring and decided you probably still had a good 40’ from your planned ceiling to plateau above the cliff. The length and height of the hall caused the cost in stone, wood and ore to rise, though not painfully so. You were prompted whether you wanted your spring to be in the hall - it would appear as pool you could place anywhere inside - but decided against it. You were also prompted on lighting and decided ‘dim’ made the most sense. If you wanted more light you could make brighter chambers when you expanded the place.

Instead of accepting the build, you were able to chain other build points on top of your current Hall selection. This was where you were going to get creative. The harpies wanted a raised area with ledges to build their new aerie. Starting on the mountain-side of the hall, you selected the top 20’ of the hall and designed an open-sided room going deeper into the rock. It lined the central 50’ of the hall, and you made it 30’ deep for now. Most importantly, even though each one ate up extra stone, you designed stone plinths that started 5’ from the edge into the hall, and were 5’ from each other. These ‘nest roosts’ would hopefully be perfect for the harpies, as they would feel high up being in the smaller cave and off the floor, but would be protected in the hall as well. The only problem was your rudimentary math was off on the sizing of the chamber - it didn’t look right and there was strange spaces. After some experimenting, and expanding the room, you ended up fitting 12 roosts, each about 7’ wide, but expanded the room to the full 70’ feet of the hall.

You were starting to think about your next idea, and also considering your dropping amount of stone, when you heard a ‘K-thunk’ and turned to see the Dark Dwarf looking proudly at the freshly built Gate. How long had that taken? Certainly it should have taken longer than that.

“Good job,” you told the dark dwarf, nodding appreciatively as you left your construction menu hanging where you had been working on it to examine your new door.

The interior was plain boards. The gate itself were double doors that opened inward, with iron brackets for a pair of crossbeams that could be used for a lock. The crossbeams were square lengths that looked too heavy for you to move, leaning against the wall. There was a single torch bracket above the double doors, the torch lit and crackling, the only source of light in the cave. You realized you had become used to the dark of night, and that the faint glow of the menu you had been working had been the limit of light in the space before now since the sun had gone down.

You opened the doors of the gate, letting in the cool of night and the smell of the outside, and relished the feeling. Protection. It felt good.

Stepping out onto the trail, you walked about ten paces down the trail and turned to look at your gate from the outside.

Oh, fuck. It was the same on the outside. Which was bad, because where once your cave had an unassuming look about it that could pass as just a shadow in the rockface of the cliff, now it was very obvious that someone live here. Adventurers and monsters down the cliff would be able to tell in an instant that something interesting was up here, let alone those in the sky who could spot it immediately.

“Gotta hide it. Need to hide it,” you muttered, rushing back to the gate and tapping the stone next to it repeatedly until your Construction Menu appeared in front of you, the two rooms you had done still designed and ready to be acknowledged. You quickly panned the menu around to look at the gate, which was now showing as Green instead of yellow. There were upgrade options for the gate, but none of them were camouflage and most required more resources, or different resources than you had available. You needed this now, before sunrise.

Your answer came when you realized you could select the ground outside the gate. There were options for buildings like watchtowers and other structures, but you found what you needed in the ‘entrances’ section of the menu.

Secret Entrance: Natural Rock. It looked like a fold in the mountain, even more than your old natural entrance.

It’s perfect.

You selected it and placed it, and realized how many resources building a natural rock wall where there wasn’t one to begin with took. You were going to drain your Stone with this, and wouldn’t have enough for the Hall and the Aerie. You erased the aerie for now and planted the secret entrance, then initiated construction.

“We work on this together,” you ordered the Dwarf, pointing to the entrance. He nodded and went and fetched the shovel and started whacking it against the ground. You pulled the pick out of your menu, figuring it was the stone-workingest tool you had, and started pinging away at the same area.

It took several hours and the moon was high in the night sky by the time the progress bar inched it’s way to success. The tools certainly helped, as did the determined pace of your dark dwarf. If only he could leave the lair and do some resource gathering. As the progress bar hit the cusp of success, you backed away and let the dwarf make the final few swings.

‘K-thunk.’ One moment you were looking at the dark dwarf, the progress bar and the open gate behind, the next you were staring at a rock wall. It looked perfectly natural in the light of the moon, a sloping piece of the cliff wall starting from the open left and closing off the trail you had walked for ages. The door was a fold in the stone, easily missed and offset from the very end of the path so someone looking for a door might miss it. It was large enough that you had a couple feet of clearance above the top of your head and could walk in, but anything much thicker than you - or maybe even wearing some of the heaviest armours Adventurers wore - would have a difficult time maneuvering through the passage.

The secret entrance bent around on itself and approached the now hidden gate at a parallel. You’d never seen one used, but for some reason you knew Adventurers could build equipment like a battering ram - there was no way they could bring one in here and use it on the gate. The doors still opened inwards, and as you stepped from the tunnel into your cave you let out a sigh of relief.

Secret meant safety, and the likelihood any adventurers were going to just come across your lair had dropped significantly.

The dark dwarf had already begun tapping at the back wall of the cave, somewhere in the shadows behind your throne. A progress bar, a dull green in the torchlight, was making little progress compared to the way the two of you had moved on the secret entrance.

“You have walled us in, Lord?” one of the harpies asked quietly. She was one of the blues, and stepped from her nest to stand next to you. Her stance was subordinate, slightly hunched in the shoulders and not meeting your eyes.

“No, sweet one,” you said, slowly reaching over and taking her clawed hand in your own. “Come and see.” You showed her the tunnel, and as she stepped outside onto the path you admired her fine, thick ass as she spread her wings, enjoying the fresh air.

“I have plans made. We won’t be cooped in with little fresh air for long,” you said, beckoning her back inside. As she stepped forward you pulled her into your arms, kissing her as you had before but this time you added a firm grope of one of her breasts, teasing your dull claws through the down and palming her pale grey nipple.

She crooned, and as the kiss ended nuzzled into your furry neck. “Your touch, Lord… you are too kind.”

“Just kind enough, my dear,” you said, leaving her breast for now and taking her hand again, leading her back into the cave. Inside two of the others harpies, the other blue and one of the pinks, were awake now and looking at the new construction. “Go through the tunnel, see how we are hidden,” you said, releasing the first blue’s hand and gesturing for the others to explore. “Come back in quickly though, I would like to shut the gate for the night. There are less adventurers about when the sun is down, but we all know how conniving they are.”

Once the other two had explored and returned, you brought them over to the back wall where the dark dwarf was working. He was tapping the wall firmly with two stout fingers, his face grim but determined to keep working - you immediately handed him the pick, which he took with a nod and started swinging. The bar didn’t move quite as quickly as you had expected when he started with the tool. You showed the three harpies how to help the dark dwarf, explaining that they were helping build the first hall of their new home, which would provide the foundation for the new aerie he had planned. They sat down and set to work, each tapping methodically at the stone wall.

Meanwhile, you went over to your work table and put your hands on it with a sigh. A new menu for crafting appeared before you, this one more refined than when you were cycling through the furniture options before you went out that afternoon.

You browsed a bit, and decided the only real decision you had right now was to start crafting tools - they weren’t going to be Iron like the ones Adrianne had given you, but they would be Scrap Iron and much better than anything you fashioned out of just wood or wood and stone.

Before the tools though, and ignoring the fact that you still hadn’t figured out what to do with your water spring, you were missing one key item. A fire pit. You moved through the lists and found a simple construction of ore and stone, a moveable pit with iron grating for cooking on. It would reduce the number of tools you could make, but being able to cook your food would help immensely.

Not to mention that you had more mouths to feed, and you would rather feed them well to make sure they stayed happy.

You fetched your hammer, all the tools you had now being stored in the crate that hadn’t become a nest. Then, selecting the fire pit, you tapped the table with your hammer. A lump of raw stone and ore appeared, and as you hit that the progress bar appeared and started climbing. It took longer than you would have liked, but shorter than you probably deserved considering your gifted hammer, to produce the fire pit. It disappeared on completion and you quickly found it in your Dungeon Resources. You decided to, for now, set it as close to the gate as you could without blocking the doors, hoping the smoke would filter outside as long as you had the gate open. As soon as you placed it, a popup appeared.

Light fire?
Cost: 1 wood

“Yes,” you said, and immediately wood appeared on the stone bowl and lit. Soon your cave was crackling with the sound of the fire and lit up with the flickering flames, and the other two harpies, including the spokeswoman, awoke. “Come, sweet ones,” you said, motioning them over. They both stood, stretching after the few hours they had spent in their ‘nests’, and you quickly set them to work cooking the last few pieces of your Purified Raw Goat Meat. “Tomorrow,” you told them, “You will need to forage for more food while I secure more resources the building. Would you be able to hunt for us, as a flock?”

“We were not hunters, but we know how,” the spokeswoman said. Her soft pink feathers looked almost yellow in the light of the embers - the fire pit had immediately toned down it’s fire and become the perfect, slow heat for cooking when the meat was laid on the scrap iron grill suspended above it.

“Good. I trust you to keep your sisters safe,” you said. “And to be discreet. You should risk nothing on Adventurers and flee as soon as you think one might be around, and you should be doubly sure they don’t follow you back here.”

“Yes, Lord,” both of the harpies nodded. You kissed them both again, enjoying the way the action flustered them and how they preened afterwards.

“Once you’re done cooking, share with your sisters and then take over for them so they can get some more rest as well. I will create tools for you to use, and then I will need some rest myself.”

You went back to your work table and began emptying the last of your ore into a set of five scrap iron picks. Your wood wasn’t becoming seriously low for now, much of the construction other than the gate required very little, but you would need more sooner than later. Now that you had burned through your ore, it looked like you would likely need to head up the mountain again tomorrow. If you brought one of the picks and your axe you could harvest stone and wood across the plateau, even if the wood was scarcer up there, while the harpies went for food.

Things were coming together.

You finished the picks and brought them over to the harpies, who were eating together near the fire. They **** you to share in the meal, practically shoving the now cooked goat meat into your mouth in mouthfuls when you tried to tell them to finish it themselves. Your stomach groaned in appreciation at the hot, cooked food though, and you finished everything they pushed at you.

The three who had seen the outside eventually went to bed, while the other two took up picks and headed towards the back of the cave. You had the firepit go cool with a simple popup interaction, and then you went to the gate and pushed the doors shut.

Lock gate?

“Oh, good,” you murmured. You had no idea how you would have moved those thick crossbeams. You acknowledged the popup and the beams flickered, and then were sat in their iron brackets.

You stumbled around the fire pit and sat in your throne. The three harpies were already crooning lightly in their sleep, and as your butt touched the goat hide of your seat the day came crashing down on you heavily. The ‘pink pink-pink’ rhythm of the picks on the wall behind you lulled you to sleep.

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