"Self-defense is Nature's eldest law." -- John Dryden

My eagerness seemed a bit out of character, but the bloodlust I'd felt in the early days seemed a bit farther in the background at least. Possibly it was working its way deeper into my psyche, but I think mostly I'd just started to come to terms with my dungeon existence. It certainly helped that none of my visitors were concerned about me killing a few intruders, much less some random goblins who might or might not be sapient. I wasn't going to try to wipe them out, or anything, but there didn't seem to be any real reason to work harder to keep them alive either. I wanted to look at this as a way of calibrating the challenge rating for my less official visitors.

With that in mind, as the goblins moved a bit nervously towards my entrance, I sent the bear cubs out to forage away from the entrance but kept the dungeon spawned bear in her home chamber, ready to defend. The cubs were mostly grown at this point, but I wasn't going to be able to respawn them in the same way I could their caretaker. In another month or two, they'd be ready to set out on their own. I could probably keep them if I wanted to, but multiple adult bears in a territory was rather unnatural (and probably too hard for the first room of the dungeon).

The goblins, or at least the forward members of their party, did spot the bears leaving. They may or may not have known one still remained, but in any event, it did seem to bolster their confidence. That was a mistake on their part, as the first few squabbling entrants were unprepared for the waiting grizzly. The three groups of goblins had formed up, loosely, in front of the entrance, and the lead group gestured for the others to wait while they went ahead. The first goblin to enter was the largest of the group (though still fairly slight by human standards) and he stepped into the darkened entrance with a leveled spear.

The grassland grizzly came charging from the back of the room, and the goblin hastily backed up, but his cry of alarm cost him dearly. The bear's massive paw swept out, snapping his spear from his hand and leaving a nasty set of gashes across his forearm. The goblin was sent nearly rolling back out of the entrance as the bear's charge carried it out into the light of day. The other members of the lead group rallied hastily, bringing up their crude spears and spreading out to encircle the angry bear. Their initial spear thrusts didn't do a lot of damage but did bring the bear up short. The goblin that had been directly in front paid with his life, as the bear snapped its neck with a violent swipe. The lead goblin recovered his feet and his dead compatriot's spear as the other three distracted the bear with thrusts from both sides.

By this point, the other groups of goblins had clumped up, with a few looking for angles that would enable a spear throw. More concerningly for the bear, an older, wizened looking goblin in the back seemed to call out some hooting instructions while shaking a roughly shaped staff rattling with a variety of small bones.

My language skill seemed to work on the goblins at least a bit, but as far as I can tell, it basically amounted to "Kill! Go! Stab!". No scholars in this bunch. They did have at least a loose strategy, though, which amounted to "keep it distracted by stabbing and running away until it turns on someone else".

The fight was a long one, as these things go, as the goblins slowly wore down the bear, and it wasn't entirely one-sided. Two other goblins from the lead group were killed – one by having its head bitten, and the other with its skull crushed – before the bear was finally brought down. Frankly, I thought it was blood loss that did the trick, but it's possible that one of the thrusts had finally hit something vital. The two goblins left from the lead group were the original entrant and a smaller, wiry one – and both had some minor wounds. The goblins all paused for a couple of minutes to loot the bodies, and the two wounded goblins set to butchering the bear. The two shared the raw liver between themselves and passed the kidneys to the staff rattler. I wasn't sure if that one was some official leader or a shaman, or just the oldest present, and the grunts and hoots weren't all that informative – boiling down essentially to "Good! Eat!"

If I'd cared, I could have had the bear hold position in the entryway, and the fight would likely have been longer and more costly for the goblins. Still, it seemed like a good start. The mana released by the dead goblins, as well as just the extra from having delvers at all, more than made up for the cost of the bear, though the system rules prevented me from respawning the bear with the goblins still present. I thought I'd be able to respawn the bear with the priests and Hakdrilda around, but it seemed the hostile intent of the goblins would prevent it at least until they entered the second floor or departed entirely.

After half an hour or so, all the remaining goblins had eaten their fill, and the wounded ones were left to continue butchering the corpse as the remaining 10 goblins pushed on into the entry room. This time, they were led by an older, skinny goblin who moved slowly, with his eyes darting back and forth as he sniffed cautiously. Apparently finding it safe, he gave a couple of low hoots and the two groups continuing on trailed in after him. I recognized the survivors from the first goblin foray in the rearmost group with a new addition to make up their numbers, and I could see the lead female dart for the healmint. Interestingly, none of them brought the herb to the wounded outside; it seemed as though they didn't feel the need to share – either because their wounds weren't that severe or because they weren't in the room to make their case.

Knowing what to expect, they made short work of the badger in the second room, taking no damage at all. Still full, apparently, they simply gutted it and one of the goblins flung it over its shoulder as they pressed on. The skinny pathfinder poked nervously around the rest of the room; I think he spotted the gemstones, but either he didn't care or he recognized it as the trap it was – or maybe both.

Likewise, they sidestepped the discouraging pit, and the pathfinder goblin (or so I decided to call him) carefully triggered the gutcrusher with his spear. I'd have to consider ways to change up my traps, if repeated delves by the same group were going to keep happening. That brought them to the end of their prior knowledge, though, and from this point forward they were working in the dark.

The pathfinder eyed the waterfall, but didn't do anything beyond cautiously prodding at it with his spear. Dismissing the shallow hollowed out region as a dead end, he moved cautiously toward the pond room. One of the others trailing behind him did give into curiosity and thrust their hand into the greed-punishing trap; it took a couple of minutes, a lot of hooting, and one firm cuff to the back of the head before the goblin released the lure and drew back a hand bleeding from a number of minor cuts. He seemed to make a plea for healmint, but was hooted down in a mocking tone.

I looked forward to having runic triggers and arcane boltcasters, but hadn't had the opportunity to install them yet. Probably I wouldn't put them on the first floor in any event, but still... It grated a bit, somehow, to let them keep coming.

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They fanned out into the pond room, splashing a bit in the shallow shore areas while they poked through the rushes and stabbed at some of the fish with no immediate luck. One unfortunate goblin wandered too close to the trapdoor turtle while exploring. The turtle seized onto its leg and launched them both out into the center of the pond and pulled the frantic goblin under. The other goblins quickly abandoned the pond, but while there was much brandishing of spears and clubs none of them seemed willing to enter deeper water to assist. Somewhat gruesomely, the thrashing continued for a couple of minutes in a slowly diminishing pattern until the goblin's struggles finally ended.

The goblins collected some healmint carefully from the pond's edge, but discontent was clearly growing, as there was obvious reluctance to continue onward. Between the female who'd led the first foray and the bone rattler, they convinced the doubters to continue onward.

I had begun to doubt the wisdom of waiting to move my core to the second floor as they worked their way closer. I'd been assured by various parties at this point that the goblins weren't actually a threat to my core, but I wasn't looking forward to them figuring that out the hard way. Still, it was too late to change things now, and I should be able to outlast them if I needed to. For that matter, I think Hakdrilda would happily slaughter them all if I asked, but I was too proud to ask for help just to preserve my dignity from some interloping goblins.

The cave goblins in the next room spurred some desperate attempts to communicate or at least intimidate them from the invaders, but I had them simply charge the pathfinder while brandishing their clubs. He went down with a squawk and was quickly silenced by the falling cudgels. That did leave my defenders open to counterattack, though, and they were taken down in short order, managing little more than injuries to two of their opponents that would limit their mobility – with one having their foot crushed and the other taking a nasty blow to the knee. The cudgels were claimed as loot (and two were put to use as makeshift crutches). The few copper nuggets were found during a cursory inspection of the room, as well as some roots my cave goblins had dug up somewhere; I can't say I'd been paying much attention to them.

I suspected the invaders were on the verge of calling it a day, as of the original 15 goblins, 5 were dead and 4 of the others were injured (one having injuries to both hand and foot). As I'd hoped, the loss of the pathfinder was giving the rest of them doubts about the wisdom of pressing on. I could almost see the shaman and female leader making a deal with the remainder to continue – if they didn't find anything good in the next room, they'd leave...

The next room was the one with Lesser Cave Wyverns in it. They were good for a jump scare, but weren't likely to actually kill any goblins, and the anklebreaker trap wasn't going to either. Still, they did function as hoped, and the unlucky goblin (who had been lucky enough to still be uninjured and was therefore tapped to take over from the pathfinder) picked up some nasty scratches to his scalp and a badly wrenched ankle. The female leader had picked up a nasty sting as well; it would burn and be painful, but a bit of healmint would keep it from doing any worse damage. The bone rattler had excitedly harvested manashrooms while the others fished the new guide out of the trap and loaned him the third looted club as a crutch. One of the wyverns was killed in the process of defending the room, but the other survived, screeching loudly but keeping out of reach after its partner was skewered.

I had to consider whether I wanted to make the trap in the next room fatal or not, and I made the decision to leave it in its currently nerfed state. That said, I did take direct control of the shade owl; I was going to make sure one of them fell down the chute trap, and then I was going to have it harry the rest of them relentlessly if they moved towards the core room.

That turned out not to be necessary, as despite hooted arguments and heated gestures from the bone rattler, no further goblin was willing to take the lead, and even the female leader appeared unconvinced. Grudgingly, the bone rattler stomped his way back the way he came – still carefully avoiding the known traps – as the remainder of the troop helped the injured along quietly, in a bid to avoid his anger.

I'd gained very little from the goblins beyond a boost to my ambient mana. The survivors hadn't made any effort to bring the bodies of the fallen out, but they had stripped them of their limited possessions quite efficiently. I didn't see anything that I was going to particularly miss, anyways. It's possible I'd have gotten a new blueprint from the poorly tanned hides that went into their loincloths, but I had my doubts – they looked like rabbit hides to me, but I could have been wrong.

In any event, that seemed to have worked fairly well but now came the tricky part – reporting back to my visitors and finding out their reactions. I wasn't particularly concerned about a negative reaction – this sort of interaction seemed like the default expectation for a dungeon. That said, I was a bit concerned they'd give negative feedback on how effectively I'd handled it. I wasn't sure if they'd feel I should have been harsher or more lenient, or whether sending off the bear cubs had been an error. I'd already concluded that I should figure out how to move my core to the second floor, and the sooner the better. It seemed objectively foolish not to protect my core better than I had.

As it happened, none of my guests had much in the way of insight beyond those things I'd already considered. The priests agreed that moving my core should be a priority, and they reiterated that traditionally dungeons kept their core as far away from potential delvers as possible, so keeping it away from the stairs or the sky pier should be my primary consideration for a second-floor placement. They didn't really have much concern about the goblins, specifically. As Throg put it, "Most civilized people consider goblins to be just a basic part of the environment – they're almost everywhere, they reproduce rapidly, and if their numbers get too high, they become first crop pests, and eventually a hazard for smaller settlements. They don't coordinate well, don't seem to have any long-term planning ability, and are usually easy to scare off."

Hakdrilda, when I spoke with her through Kraal, had harsher words for the goblins. "You should just kill as many of them as you can! We dwarves tend to encounter cave goblins pretty frequently, and they're sneakier and more aggressive than most kinds- many a lone dwarf has lost their life or been maimed, at least, by goblin ambushes. Almost as bad, they tend to break or defile anything they can't steal. In Daekar, we have a standing bounty of ten coppers per goblin ear, just to make it worthwhile to hunt them down!"

I got the distinct sense that while she didn't have a particularly positive impression of trolls, generally, she had a specific and personal hatred for goblins. I suspected there was a story there, but I saw no reason to pry. She had some suggestions for ways to up the lethality of my traps or to improve the odds of my creatures in defense of the dungeon – but they were mostly things I'd considered already, and she seemed a bit hesitant to offer up any truly nasty ideas. I supposed that made sense, but I'd give it some thought on my own time.

By this time, the sun had set behind the central mountain, and the various visitors split up to their own spaces to prepare their evening meal and lay out their bedrolls on the raised platforms I'd provided. Hakdrilda read a bit in one of her books and I could see her making some preliminary lists of experimental procedures to pursue. She seemed distinctly nervous to go to sleep inside a dungeon, regardless of the scenario, but eventually she set out what appeared to be some minor runic warding stones and fell into a somewhat fitful sleep.

The priests chatted for a bit, and performed some simple-seeming, apparently daily rites in honor of their deity and went to sleep, apparently quite comfortable within my aura and leaving no watch or ward that I could detect.

I spent a few hours going over some of my new books and trying to both correlate the dungeon laws for the two polities I'd encountered and get a sense of the dwarves' knowledge of airflow and atmospheric composition, as well as their knowledge of physics, chemistry, and engineering. I spent most of the rest of the evening transcribing my first-year college textbooks for physics and chemistry, curious to see which parts might be autoredacted.

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