Very little has really happened in the past month. As the goblin scout had offered he found someone to teach me. They actually came to live with the others. She wasn’t the only one either. There were now ten goblins that lived in the dungeon. One goblin woman who was helping teach me various things. She had given me tips on removing fur for instance.

On a more disgusting note, she taught me how to use the brain to cure them… She showed me the rock I could dissolve to use as well, and I’d made a not-so-small collection of pelts now. The real problem was finding the room for them all. Not the pelts, the soaking of said pelts. Had I had barrels or bins or something it would be all the easier. Instead, we had the goblin men chip a large trough basin out, and it more or less worked.

Once that was done we hung them up to dry, for that we used fibers from various trees, she suggested I use my hair since it was a bit longer than hers. But I wasn’t remotely interested in pulling all my hair out and using it to make rope.

The plant fibers were a pain to work with and sometimes you cut your fingers on the little thorns. But there wasn’t much else to do in truth. With the help of the men we created something a bit more kitchen-like in the cave, it was a pile of rocks we had rolled in, then coated in thick mud. We set one big slab one of the goblins had found on top of it. This was something I had learned, I couldn’t just say “I need a counter.” it was far more productive to ask for, “A big flat rock.” Once they found something suitable a bunch of them could haul it back. Then we could figure it out from there. I wish this had led to vast improvements in my life, but that would definitely be overselling it.

Still, my kitchen was a far cry from a fire pit now. The goblin woman taught me about a few other foods, and I discovered that the mushrooms that grew in the cave while not edible could be harvested for their glowing ‘ink.’ if you cut them at the stalk they re-grew and because of that, we had filled a few glass vials the dungeon had previously acquired with the liquid which in sufficient quantity gave enough light to cut by.

So I had a small mushroom ink lamp, a cutting counter made of stone and I’d even learned to start a fire on my own. I was tempted to learn to hunt, but when I mentioned that the goblin woman gave me a strange look. While the dungeon didn’t seem to care one way or another about who did what, the goblins clearly had social norms they followed and preferred.

For that reason and that reason alone, I opted to blend in with them a bit more. One night as I lay my head on some of the pelts we had produced and had to share with the others the dungeon spoke.

“You have not made any progress.”

Rather than wake the woman who slept in the same room as me I thought my reply, “What do you mean?”

“Your corruption has remained constant.”

“I’ve been following your directions, letting the goblins fuck me each day.”

“Yes…”

“Also… why didn’t you mention this until now?” I asked a bit frustrated, deep down I’d hoped that I was inching closer to something. Only now did I figure out that I’d been taking goblin dong for no reason?

“I had to be certain that the changes were not below a certain threshold.”

“But you said the first day I got to thirteen percent right? Shouldn’t it be moving faster?”

“I was uncertain.”

I fumed for a moment, “Do you have any idea how pissed I am right now?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to fuck goblins! This was your idea! If it wasn’t working I’d have come up with a better one! Besides you didn’t tell them to do anything else either, just once a day every day, if you were concerned about the rate you could have at least told them to improve the rate, and we could have moved on faster!” I said in an anger-fueled mental rant.

“I didn’t tell them to do anything.”

“What?” I asked suddenly thrown off.

“They were regularly having their way with the woman each day prior. They simply continued.”

I nearly screamed, instead I tried to calm myself. It wasn’t as though that changed anything I reminded myself. I focused on my breathing and after half a minute I replied, “Fine… So what have you been doing all this time? We’ve been improving our living conditions, learning skills, and recruiting goblins.”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean yes, that's what I and the goblins did. What have you been doing?”

“Gaining mana. This location while mostly safe is not ideal for fast growth. Other options such as sacrifices would be far more beneficial in such an area.”

“You said you couldn’t perform sacrifices.” I said feeling like I was about to explode.

“Yes. We would need a god to do so.”

I calmed considerably at the consistency, “So can we get a god?” I asked.

“It's possible, though we are still small.”

“What do we need? More goblins? A church?” I asked.

“Someone with the skills to speak to one. A priest or priestess for example.”

I frowned, “Is that something I can learn?”

“Uncertain.”

“If we could find a goblin that can do it?” I proposed.

“That could work, though I’ve spoken with our scout, he doesn't even understand the concept of a god.”

“Maybe we should go out and find a town? Or a city?” I offered.

“Dangerous.”

“In what sense?” I asked.

“Goblins are considered little more than pests to the more civilized species. The beast kin might trade with them, but even then its doubtful.”

“What about me?”

“We’ve spoken about you, you should stay inside the dungeon.”

“So, I stay here my corruption never improving, I keep cooking for goblins, and years from now you’ll have the mana to do something useful?” I demanded, perhaps a touch too aggressively.

“Yes. I used most of my mana to capture two souls and to create this cave. It will take time to build the necessary quantity to do something more interesting. At least you’ve learned to make fire on your own, this has improved my efficiency.”

I rolled my eyes in the darkness, “So you have another soul?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of monster would they work for?” I asked when it wasn’t forthcoming.

“There was no strong affinity” it noted.

“So… just anything?” I asked.

“Uncertain.”

I sighed, this wasn’t getting us anywhere, “We need to interact with the outside world. Even if that means attacking travelers or stealing shit.”

“Dangerous…”

“It's risk and reward. If we sit around taking no risk we might be relaxed and bored, but we won’t get anything we want either.”

“Curious…”

“I can interact with others, maybe we could even trade pelts or something. Do you have riches? Gems? Metals? Maybe we could mine and sell that.”

“Doubtful.”

“Well at least let me leave so that I can try and figure out a way to raise my corruption?” I asked.

The dungeon was quiet for a long moment, “I will consider.”

“I’m going to stop letting the goblins fuck me.” I added.

“I see no issue in this.” The dungeon replied.

At first, I thought that maybe they would get angry if I did so. But they didn’t seem the least bit forceful with the goblin woman. In fact, she thought it was strange that I let them do what they wanted. Knowing now that they weren't following the dungeon's directions there didn’t provide a clear answer either. Only time would tell what happened.