Martin`s tantrum lasted the entire rest of the day.

　　He cursed the humans. He cursed the heavens. He cursed his own hide. And he cursed Fred. Repeatedly.

　　"This is all your fault, Fred. Why didn`t my breath hurt the humans? They wore masks. And who didn`t tell me they would wear masks? You. You didn`t. If I`d known they were ready for my breath attack, I`d have played it different. And then they`d all be dead. Dead! Just like they should be. Them and all the rest of the worthless humans."

　　Do you know how much that hurt? Do you have any idea? I haven`t been stabbed like& Well, I`ve never been stabbed! It hurt like Hell! Holy Hells it hurt. It still hurts just remembering it, which I can do just fine, by the way. What`s up with your magic, Fred? Why do I remember everything so well? Your simple creatures don`t seem to remember their deaths. If they did, I assure you, they`d have left by now. Which they can`t, by the way! They`re trapped here. I`m trapped here. With you. And all these stabby fucking humans!"

　　He went on like that for hours, while hiding as deeply in his gold piles as he could. Fred was initially very sympathetic, and took to showering new gold onto the dragon, more than was needed to make up for the gold the humans had taken. But after the first hour, Fred couldn`t, anymore, and simply tuned Martin out. Martin didn`t seem to mind. His rant was a monologue, not a dialog, anyway.

　　As the day stretched on, Fred saw no human anywhere, except for the dragon-killing team. They seemed to play it smart. Every thirty minutes, two of their number would run out of Fred`s domain, hauling a sack of gold between them. The rest stayed in the ogre`s lair (killing it as soon as it reincarnated), hiding from the dragon. The two would run as fast as they could to Fred`s building, where they would deposit the sack in the center of the main floor. Those two wouldn`t come back.

　　The Three Kings were the last to leave. They ran out together, each shouldering a huge gold sack, wicked spears in hand. Even in all that armor, and carrying so much, they moved very quickly to get to safety.

　　But despite his threats, Martin wasn`t interested in chasing them. He didn`t leave his lair at all. A few times during the day, his rage flared up, and he left his gold to slam around his main lair, knocking all the trees down. Once he`d done that, panting and spent, he`d crawl back into his gold piles, just to do it again later.

　　The trees didn`t mind; Fred`s magic repaired them in just a few minutes.

　　As the sun set, the whole place grew quiet. Martin had finally settled down to a deep sulk, and all the humans had made themselves scarce. The Three Kings were back in Fred`s building, victorious, but they weren`t celebrating, at least not loudly. Fred was frustrated. He wanted everything to work smoothly, and for the kids to wash and get food. He didn`t want Martin and these few elite knights to screw things up for everyone else.

　　But for the whole night, everything was very quiet. Fred stewed about it, but didn`t really see anything to do, so he stayed with Shelley`s family all night.

　　In the morning, humans were shouting. A lot of humans had gone to see the Three Kings, and they clearly weren`t happy. Lots of voices were raised. The knights looked haughty and bored. Fred wondered if someone was about to get stabbed. But nobody did, and finally the humans dispersed, though nobody gathered outside in groups, and everyone was watching the sky.

　　It was obvious that the Three Kings hadn`t consulted anyone before they went and killed the dragon, and people weren`t happy about that. But to Fred`s eye, the Three Kings didn`t look sorry. They looked entitled. No wonder the other humans were annoyed.

　　Throughout the morning, only a brave (or foolish) group of a dozen humans fought in Fred`s domain. The kids didn`t show up, and the town was still empty. The Three Kings and their large retinue seemed to be settling in. They erected tents inside the building, for privacy, Fred guessed. They got the fireplaces burning, and it seemed like the whole group was gonna stay a while. But they made no move to strap up and attack Martin again.

　　Around noon, Fred reached out to Martin.

　　"Hey, Martin. How are you feeling?"

　　"Like I was killed by some humans, Fred. What do you want?"

　　"Well, I wanted to tell you that the humans don`t seem to be getting ready to go anywhere today. So they aren`t coming back to fight you, today. I just wanted to tell you."

　　"And what about tomorrow, Fred? Or the next day? Am I to be a big green pincushion for the rest of my miserable existence? Is that my life from now on?"

　　"Look, I didn`t want you to be killed either. And I know you`re not an animal, like the other creatures in my domain. I`m sorry it happened, and I`m sorry it`ll probably happen again. I have no idea why you can remember what all the& animals can`t."

　　"I doubt you can feel sorry enough. I don`t think you can even feel pain, can you?"

　　"Yes, I can. When those weird wizards attacked me, I certainly could. Now at some point you have to stop crapping on me for this. You came to me, remember? Let`s just make the best of it, cause neither of us are going anywhere."

　　Martin didn`t answer, or move, so Fred left him alone. He felt frustrated and antsy, and he needed to do something. So he decided to make a new lair. He started with a tunnel off the ramp, just below the Jinpa`s room. After a few spans, he widened it out quite a bit, and made the roof taller, and just kept going. But not in a straight line. He kept changing the direction of the room at a whim, and before long his new room was more like a maze. Or like a long tube with lots of kinks in it.

　　Then he broke out into the air, which surprised him. He had an innate grasp of where everything in his domain was, sure, but he simply wasn`t paying attention right now, just digging to dig. But now his long winding tunnel was connected to the outside, about three hundred spans downslope of his main entrance.

　　Fred immediately considered closing the new opening, but then he said, "Why not?" He was free to have more than one entrance to his domain; This tunnel would bypass the main entrance, but that wasn`t automatically bad, was it? But why make it an easy way in? What would make this tunnel a challenge to the humans?

　　This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

　　A maze! Fred thought, and he was instantly excited by the idea. Perhaps he just wanted to get his mind off Martin, or he was remembering that other Earth Spirits had made traps for their domains. But an area that didn`t have creatures to fight, but challenged the humans, sounded fresh and new.

　　So first Fred widened much of the tunnel even more, and then started putting in walls. Just big floor-to-ceiling walls, randomly, everywhere. Every time he made a dead end, he smiled to himself. Once he realized he`d blocked off the whole tunnel, so there was no way through. He fixed this with a smaller opening in one wall, which only one human could get through at a time.

　　Satisfied with the shape of the maze, he decided to add those pit traps Jim had talked about. He made four, not so deep that they`d kill anyone, and added a thin rock layer over the top. Just enough that a human would break through. Then he thought about weedy wizards, and spent some time adding drop blocks to the ceiling, throughout the Maze, as he was coming to call it.

　　This got him thinking about high and low, top and bottom, and also light (since the whole thing was pitch black right now). He liked the idea of the Maze being spooky and disorienting, so he decided to put lights on the ground, not in the ceiling or walls. He made brightly shining spots on the floor, scattering them around the Maze so that there were bright areas, and dark areas, but no area was completely dark. He figured that, as the humans stepped over the floor lights, their shadows would spook them.

　　Finally, he worked on the entrance. He didn`t want it to be a big deal; he already had a Main Entrance, after all. But, he reasoned, it wasn`t any use to make it secret or hidden. It wasn`t that far away from the main entrance, and once the humans found it, they`d all know about it. So instead of a grand entrance, he decided to make an imposing door.

　　This was initially harder than it looked. He`d never actually made anything in his domain that was designed to move, or rotate. Doors normally had hinges, but the stone hinges he created didn`t seem to move easily, or at all, really. He was about to give up, and just make a "door" that was "stuck" half-open, when he remembered he had an advisor for such things. Well, something that was sort of an advisor.

　　"Hey, Martin. I need your help."

　　"With what?", Martin replied tersely. He still sounded cross.

　　"I want to make a big door for my new maze. But I`ve never made hinges before, and I don`t know how."

　　"Hinges are normally made of metal; iron or steel. Have you tried that yet?"

　　"Well, no. But I will. Thank you."

　　Fred quickly removed the big chunky door hinges he`d made of rock. Then he "compressed" some rock, transmuting it into a flat chunk of steel. He knew very well how hard steel was, and how normally it took great heat to mold it. But at his whim, it shaped and warped itself easily. "I guess I`m really getting the hang of this", Fred thought. He broke the steel into two pieces, then broke off another smaller piece. This he stretched out into his pin, a straight round cylinder, a bit like a pencil. Then he made long teeth on the other two pieces, and bent them around the pin, so they interlocked, and both held fast to the pin.

　　He made two more hinges like the first, and then it was simple to attach them to the entrance on one side, and then attach the rock door to the hinges. He was proud of himself, but then when he pushed it, it still wouldn`t budge.

　　"Okay, Martin. I made steel hinges. But the door still won`t move. What am I doing wrong?"

　　"Sigh. Hinges must be lubricated. Usually with grease, which also helps protect the hinge metal from corrosion."

　　"Well where am I gonna get some grease? I`m not a Grease Spirit!"

　　"You`re an annoyingly ill-educated Spirit!"

　　"Well, you`re& Maybe so, but I still need some grease."

　　"Sigh. Two possibilities. You could try graphite powder. Just a form of carbon, but it`s sometimes used as lubricant. Or just use magic. You have lots of that."

　　Both ideas were new, and dubious, to Fred. But while he knew instinctively that he could come up with some graphite, he also knew that his magic had a tendency to "just work", when he needed it to. So he tried that. He focused on the hinges, willing them to be slippery, willing them to move freely against themselves.

　　And it worked, just like that. The door now moved with the slightest pressure. "Hah", Fred exclaimed to himself.

　　"Thanks, Martin. That did the trick! Thanks for the help." Martin didn`t bother replying.

　　Now that the entrance to the Maze had a big stone door, Fred spent a little more time building up the entrance around it, so it looked strong and foreboding. He didn`t trust himself to make scary faces or gargoyles on the rock entrance; that wasn`t his style anyway. He just made the entrance strong and angular, and then made the whole thing pitch black. He made the door look like regular gray stone, though. He didn`t want to hide it.

　　Hello, Fred. Oh my, what an imposing door!

　　"Hello, Jim. Is it dusk already?" Now that he was looking up, Fred could see for himself that it was. "I just got caught up in making this maze."

　　And it`s lovely. What inspired you to make this?

　　"Nothing, really. I just felt like digging, and this turned out to be the result. Is it okay?"

　　Yes, of course. It`s very nice. Very spooky. And you`ve added some pit traps like we talked about! See, I told you that you were a creative person, and you keep showing me you are.

　　"Well, Martin helped me with the hinges."

　　And they`re very nice.

　　"Hey, other Earth Spirits build hinges, don`t they?"

　　Yes. Many of them have doors and other hinged devices in their domains. Most of them.

　　"Well, this is the very first time I`ve made them. And I needed help."

　　They look like your magic, 100%. I can`t tell how Martin helped you with them.

　　"I didn`t& He just said& I guess I still don`t trust my magic, completely. I mean, it works so& magically. Like I just think it, and it happens."

　　Yes, that`s how it`s supposed to work. Your magic works for you, to support your efforts.

　　"It`s just still a bit freaky. I feel like somebody gave me the powers of a god, and I have no idea what I`m doing with it. And I have so MUCH power."

　　Deep breath, Fred. You`re not doing anything wrong, in fact you`re doing everything very well. And you haven`t hurt anything, or broken any economies.

　　"Martin`s getting hurt. He got killed, and he remembers it. And they`ll probably kill him again soon."

　　Well, that I don`t actually understand. Dragons are very intelligent and sophisticated creatures, but they`re still creatures, subject to your magic. And your magic is supposed to make them forget the pain of dying, when they are re-created. To be honest, Fred, you are the first to host a dragon, of all the Earth Spirits I know. Perhaps when another dragon comes to another domain, we can get some answers.

　　"The first, huh? What made Martin show up so quickly?"

　　You`re a very good Earth Spirit, and you made an attractive domain, but honestly I don`t know, really. Right place, right time, right dragon, I suppose. Anyway, are you done with this new part of your domain?

　　"I dunno. I thought it would be a challenge without any creatures, but now I`m wondering if any will move in anyway."

　　They may. But even if they don`t, it`s a good addition. Have you thought of adding extra incentives? Like more plants, or even treasure?

　　"Sure, I`ll add plants. It`s a good spot for them."

　　Great. I`ll leave you to it, then. Bye.

　　"Bye."

　　Fred sat, and mulled the conversation in his mind for a while. Then he got to work, planting his various herbs and flowers around the Maze. He added rather a lot, but he figured he could take some out later if need be.

　　In the middle of the night, the fairies came.

　　They didn`t arrive with a big show or fanfare; they just appeared. Fred wouldn`t have noticed them, except that he knew they were there automatically, somehow. Twelve little fairies, buzzing around the tree. They were all different colors, and seemed to be the size of a human`s hand. Fred looked carefully at them, and got the feeling that they were staring back at him defiantly. They set up in the branches of the silver tree, and didn`t seem to need any lair, or need Fred to do anything for them.

　　"Huh," Fred thought. "Another thing to ask Jim and Martin about." he watched them for the rest of the night, as they played and chased each other through the silver branches. They glowed in their various colors, so the shiny tree looked even more magical.

　　In the morning, Jim stopped by just long enough to exclaim about the fairies. Then Martin seemed to wake up, at least enough to stick his head out of his lair, and observe the fairies for himself.

　　"Quite interesting, Fred."

　　"How so?"

　　"I`ve never seen such color. Of course I know of fairies. They are considered pests in many parts of the world. But all the fairies I`ve seen are blue or green. They also prefer bushes to trees. These are& something special."

　　"Well, they don`t act like normal creatures, to me. They didn`t need a lair, or anything else from me. They don`t sleep all the time. And they didn`t wander in; they just appeared."

　　"Are you certain you were paying attention when they arrived?", Martin asked, while raising one giant eyebrow.

　　"Yes. I mean, pretty sure. I just felt them, suddenly. Normally, my creatures wander in from outside, and I can feel them as they get close."

　　"Hum. Well, they`re pretty enough, I suppose. Good work, Fred." Fred chose to assume that Martin was being sarcastic. He felt it was a safe bet.