There was still plenty of night left, and Fred wanted to get started on expanding his lair space. The first, original floor of Fred`s domain was kind of cramped, he now felt, and he didn`t have a good idea of how he would expand it. "I guess the only real way to dig is towards the mountain," Fred mused. That meant past the man-bat`s cave and the ogre`s den. He`d also have to be careful not to intersect the big shaft the tree was in, though that was off to the side a bit. The kid`s pool room and access tunnel were also a bit in the way, but Fred was confident he could do this.

　　Then he had a thought; why not connect creature rooms? The man-bat `s room was big, and the entrance dropped down three spans to the floor. In the recent past, humans had left a ladder into the room, but as soon as the humans had left, the man-bat destroyed it. Now they brought a ladder and left with it when they did. But what if the entrance led to a narrow walkway that crossed the room and kept going?

　　Fred created exactly that, a walkway from the door of the man-bat`s room, across to another doorway on the opposite wall. Fred reasoned that the man-bat could still swoop and knock the humans off the walkway, and they`d struggle to get back up. Fred looked at the man-bat, and saw it was still green and happy. Good.

　　Now Fred extended the tunnel another ten spans, turned it 60 degrees left, dug another five spans, and then dug out a large circular room. He wanted the ogre to live here, so he made the room the same size as the current ogre room, and intentionally made it as rough and chaotic as he could, leaving rocks and boulders cluttering the entire space. Like the last room, he made an exit on the opposite side, and continued the tunnel a few dozen spans deeper (with another bend). By this time he was very comfortable with how magically he could shape and modify stone. He could make changes as fast as he could think them, it seemed. This made him wonder about creating incredibly large caverns. Hundreds of spans wide, thousands? He boggled at the possibilities.

　　Now, how to get the ogre into his new room? Fred knew it would be simple to fill in the existing ogre room, and get it to move. But it barely made it inside the domain to begin with. Fred knew he`d either have to widen all the hallways to let the ogre through, or make a special big tunnel to the new room, that he could close off after the ogre moved. He thought back to how cramped he felt it all was, and decided to widen everything.

　　He started back at the main entrance. The first main tunnel was only about two and a half spans wide and tall, so he changed it to almost four spans. This required him to re-adjust the three entrances on either side, but that wasn`t hard, and his creatures didn`t seem to mind. He also threw some lighted rocks into the roof, to make the area a bit more navigable.

　　He widened the tunnel as it went, splitting one way to the ogre`s lair and the big ramp, and the other way to the man-bat`s room. Four spans wide and tall certainly relieved some of the cramped feeling of the space. Now Fred made the tunnel wider all the way through the man-bat`s cave, and even past the new ogre`s den. He added a few ceiling lights as he went, but only in the tunnels. He assumed his creatures liked the dark.

　　Now the path the ogre could take to its new room was wide enough, so Fred decided to evict it. He simply started filling in the back wall of the old ogre`s den, and watched the ogre turn yellow, and almost orange, before it grabbed its abused old club and wandered into the new tunnel. Fred watched it step heavily into the man-bat`s cave, and look around. It snuffled, and yelled, and trudged along the walkway, til one of its huge feet slipped off the edge of the walkway, and the ogre tumbled to the bottom of the lair.

　　This triggered a big ogre tantrum, screaming and smashing at everything around it. It got up and started running and crashing into walls, pounding its fists into everything. The man-bat didn`t appreciate the hubbub, and started shrieking and hissing from its little cubby high above. The ogre didn`t listen at all, and continued til it smashed one of the big spikes, breaking it off. Then it suddenly got quiet. It picked up the broken spike, which was still three spans long. It swung the spike a few times, then shouted in snot-filled glee. Fred was sure the ogre had just found a new favorite club.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

　　The ogre put its new spike club under its arm (dropping its old one), gave a big leap, and scrabbled up onto the walkway. It then roared at the man-bat one last time, released a giant fart, and walked down the tunnel to its new home. The man-bat shrieked and yelled for at least ten minutes after that. Now Fred was again glad he had no nose.

　　The ogre immediately settled into its new lair, perfectly green. Fred felt proud that he could make a good new lair, and get the creature to go to it. It wasn`t the first time he`d had to do that, but he was still kinda proud of himself. But the work wasn`t done.

　　Fred imagined that beyond the ogre`s den would be another set of six lairs, much like the six at the entrance. But since this would be deeper into the mountain, and guarded by the ogre, these creatures would be tougher, and need more space. So Fred made the six lairs bigger, more spaced apart. He kept the tunnel four spans wide and tall, and even extended it past the lairs for another ten spans, for future expansion.

　　Fred stepped back, and realized that it was almost morning. He mentally patted himself on the back, and went for a quick lie down with Shelley. This lasted an hour, and was exactly what he needed. A little quiet, after a night of continuous work. It felt earned, and righteous.

　　Good morning, Fred! You`ve been busy! How amazing!

　　"Good morning, Jim. How are you?"

　　Very well, very well. Can you tell me about this amazing tower?

　　"Well, the humans kept coming, and the big building& Oh, did you know they call it the Glass Citadel?"

　　That`s fine, but what do YOU call it?

　　"I didn`t have a name for it, and I kinda like Glass Citadel." Fred said.

　　Okay, so it was full?

　　"Yeah, the humans keep coming. There`s a couple of princes in town, now, too. Oh, Kumbanaka told me all this. He can magically walk around in the town and nobody notices he`s not human."

　　Hmm. That`s understandable, with his magic. His kind are very sociable, though they are still merciless, cruel hunters. You told him not to eat humans?

　　"Yeah, that`s one of the first things I told him. I bet if he did it anyway, Martin would know,and rat him out." Fred remarked snarkily. "But anyway, yeah, I decided to make a tower. And then I got to talking with Kumbanaka and Martin, and I made a top floor for Eagles and Hoppygriffs, and riding flying things. Cool, right?"

　　It is very cool. You have great foresight, Fred. But now your town will be even bigger. So I see you`ve been making latrines, too.

　　"Yeah, I knew the humans weren`t super clean themselves, and Martin and Kumbanaka were both complaining that the whole place stinks. And I thought really hard about how to best make sewers or something, but then Kumbanaka asked if I could just erase all the crap, and it turns out I can. Kumbanaka called me the janitor."

　　How do you feel about that?

　　"Well, fine, I guess. I`m not insulted. Scooping a little poop is a small price to pay to fight demons, right?"

　　You`re doing a lot more than janitorial duties, I`m sure you see. And look, you`ve moved your ogre and extended your domain. And you`ve widened your top floor considerably. Excellent!

　　"Yeah, I figured that having the man-bat and the ogre in a line with the new harder creatures would save space and give the humans more challenge."

　　It certainly will. I think gating one creature before another is a serious way to provide more challenge to the humans. But you`ll have to see how it all works out.

　　"Yes, and removing the ogre from its room gives me more room to make another path back into the mountain. Maybe that path can have easier creatures, to fight."

　　I think your plan is sound, and if it doesn`t work out right, you can adjust the layout. Fred, you did all this in one night? You`ve become very skilled at working stone.

　　Fred felt the praise. He looked at the tower, and noticed the humans already moving in, shouting and arms waving. He even noticed Black Mamba already looking around on the top floor of the tower.

　　"Yeah, thanks, I guess. It`s actually a little scary. I can mold stone as fast as I can think about it. Are you sure this couldn`t get me into trouble? I mean, can I make a cavern as big as the whole mountain? Wouldn`t the whole mountain fall into it? What if I screw up?"

　　I trust you. I know you. You won`t screw up. At the heart of it, you sort of ARE the mountain. Your domain hasn`t subsumed the entire mountain, but one day it will. When that day comes, you`ll realize that the mountain itself is your body; your essence is magically tied to it. You can`t knowingly hurt yourself, and I doubt you can do something to collapse your mountain.

　　"Okay. A mountain is a lot, though. Being the whole mountain doesn`t seem possible right now."

　　That`s not something worth thinking about today. I really like your idea for another path into the mountain. Make that, also think about deeper paths, for creatures even tougher than the dragon and the rakshasa. I have to go, but I can`t wait to see what you do next.

　　"Okay, see you."