Fred saw Kumbanaka slip out of his lair. So Fred looked at the lair`s opening. It was deep and plain stone, and he had no trouble creating a simple wall that completely blocked it up. "Okay, your stuff is safe, Kumbanaka."

　　On the black steps, the Tropes continued to chatter with lots of admirers. Fred was certain Kumbanaka had things well in hand, so he turned his attention to what else he could do. He and Jim had discussed digging another path into the mountain, through what was once the ogre`s room. Jim had also pushed him to dig deeper, making a third floor, for even more dangerous things than dragons (though Fred couldn`t really imagine what that could be). Finally, Fred had an idea. If he was to eventually take over the whole mountain, he should cover more of the surface by digging under it. And if Martin would be allowed to fly, and needed a place to land (that didn`t upset or endanger the humans), perhaps a nice flat rock or cave far upslope would work for everyone.

　　But he was still a bit grumpy at Martin right now, so he decided not to dig upslope right now. He looked at the now empty ogre den. It was pretty much as the ogre had left it, though shallower, since he`d filled in much of it during the eviction. He decided to fill in the rest, erasing the old room entirely. "It probably stank anyway," Fred thought.

　　Now Fred was facing a blank wall, and his imagination came to life. He started digging a tunnel back into the mountain, and he made it even a bit bigger than what the entrance was now. After fifteen spans, he made it bend right ninety degrees, and then opened it into a smallish room with a high ceiling. The tunnel continued on the other side of the room, and after a left bend, it continued over a hundred spans straight back into the mountain.

　　For some reason, he felt the blank, flat stone walls of the tunnel were too boring now. So he made a shallow cut in the wall, as deep and thick as a human thumb. Still too boring, so he erased it, and made it slanted, 45 degrees down. This was a bit cooler, so he made these diagonal notch cut things every span along the wall, from floor to ceiling. "There. That was weird and artistic", Fred thought. "I bet Jim will like it."

　　Now, from the back, he made rooms on either side of the tunnel. He wanted these rooms to contain creatures that would be more tough than the wolf, but less tough than the ogre. He made six rooms, three on each side, a normal pattern for him now. He made them just a bit bigger than the wolf room, but spaced them out a bit more than the rooms in the front hall were. That left him room for adjustments, he thought.

　　Before the six rooms, there was room along the new tunnel for more, and Fred suddenly thought that his third floor could proceed from here. So he made a side tunnel, and made it slope down. But this wasn`t going deep very quickly, so he erased it and started making flights of stairs. He`d made stairs before, in his buildings, so it wasn`t hard. But he made these stairs into several long flights, with wide landings between them. The stairs turned, so after several flights and several landings the stairs started to resemble a big spiral downward. "Anybody who has to climb all these stairs is gonna get a workout," Fred thought.

　　However, stepping back, Fred thought his stairs dropped deep enough, so from the base of the stairs, he made a tunnel back even deeper into the mountain, but before he`d gone another ten spans, he broke out into a huge cave. "What is this??" he whispered to himself. His tunnel had come out on the wall of a natural cavern, filled with stalactites and stalagmites. It extended quite a ways, at least 200 spans, and was roughly spherical (as he learned later; he couldn`t initially see very much).

　　Now that Fred was looking at the space carefully, he realized that he could see more of the cavern every second. He reasoned that his& presence (he guessed) was expanding to take over the cave, bit by bit. As it did so, he saw more interesting things. The left side of the cave had a lake or stream in it. "Always good to have more water in my domain," he thought. The water had more of those little sightless fish. But he could also see that there were other small creatures, insects, peeking out throughout the cavern.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

　　There was also the pyramid. It was about ten spans high, perfectly smooth. Well, reasonably smooth. Fred`s expert understanding of stone told him that the pyramid had been hand-crafted by humans, from native rock, so it wasn`t exactly perfect, but still very impressive. Fred looked all over it, but couldn`t see any writing or designs. He looked deep inside it, too, and found nothing. "Huh. Just a pyramid of rock, then." He thought to himself.

　　As his domain expanded throughout the huge cavern, he noticed other things. For one thing, the rightmost wall of the cave wasn`t that far from Kumbanaka`s lair. They were separated by only fifteen spans, more or less. If Martin had chosen Kumbanaka`s space when he came, and Fred expanded the resulting area, he might have found this huge cave sooner.

　　"I smell something& So strange& Fred, are you in a cave?" Martin`s voice came to him.

　　"Yeah, I was digging, and I found this big cave. It`s got water, and a big stone pyramid, and it`s not really that far from where you are."

　　"Okay, then. It may have stayed sealed for thousands of years. Perhaps hundreds of thousands. Does the stone pyramid have writing on it?" Martin asked.

　　"Nope. I`ve looked all through it, and it looks like a regular old stone pyramid."

　　"Have you used your Mana Sight?"

　　No he hadn`t. Oops. Fred quickly dipped into his mana sight (which he could do almost automatically now), and verified that the pyramid wasn`t magical. In fact, the entire cave had no magic, except for Fred`s magic (that was taking the cave over) and the tree`s constant shine, which Fred had gotten used to.

　　"No, nothing. No magic at all."

　　"Humph. I find it hard to believe that even humans are stupid enough to build a stone marker for no reason at all. Keep an eye on it." Martin said. Fred didn`t bother answering him, because he`d already had another good idea.

　　His new tunnel had connected with the cave high on the wall. Fred imagined a walkway, as a ring, encircling the pyramid, with pathways leading off to three more big lairs, for new creatures. He got busy building that ring, a smooth, flat path, almost a road, four spans wide, in a wide circle, with the Pyramid in the middle. He made the path a bit raised, so that humans who fell off the path would fall down, but not too far.

　　This made the entrance to the cave much higher than the ring, so he built stairs down to the ring. Then he made the three paths from the ring to the sides of the cave. He tried to avoid placing the paths in a way that would connect with the dragon or rakshasa lairs. Once all three paths connected to the walls (forcing Fred to knock down several big stalagmites), he proceeded to make lair rooms into the rock, for each of the three paths.

　　Now that it was all done, Fred stepped back. He really liked what he`d done. Humans would have to descend many stairs, deep into the mountain. Then they`d have to descend into this big cavern, walk around the strange pyramid, and then go into the lair of whatever they wanted to fight. Very forbidding.

　　But Fred wanted to make a couple of changes. First, he wanted an extra "rest area" in the cave, someplace to stand besides the path or the stairs. The humans could always hop down from the path, and stand among the stalagmites, but he wanted something a bit more inviting than that. So, almost touching the water, he made a round flat platform, fifteen spans wide. It was a bit lower than the ring path, so he made some stairs connecting the two.

　　Second, he added lights. He decided to take advantage of the plentiful stalagmites, many of which rose to impressive heights. He picked out five of them, and changed their lighting value until they each blazed with bright light. Now there were lots of strange shadows throughout the cave, but the pathway and stairs were all lit pretty well. The ceiling was still mostly in darkness.

　　While he was thinking about lights, he went back up the stairs, back along the lined wall, and back to the top of the ramp, adding a gentle light to the ceiling as he went. "Not enough to blind anyone, but enough so you don`t trip," he thought to himself.

　　That job done, he felt he`d earned a little time resting with Shelley. All was well there, so he spent the rest of the morning, and into the afternoon, just zoning out in his favorite place. He was thinking about names, though. His domain had gotten big, and would probably get bigger. So he decided to give names to the different areas, to better keep track of them.

　　He mentally divided his domain into the Front Zone, the Ramp Zone, the Tree Zone, the Ogre Zone, the Cave Zone, and the Lined Hallway Zone. There was the Kid`s Zone (including Shelley`s den, the garden, and the water room), and also the Maze. He didn`t really count the escape area under the front black steps. He`d honestly forgotten about it, and he wondered if the humans were getting any use out of it.