The inside of this room was filled with dog-sized cockroaches. I nearly vomited at the sight of them, barely managing to swallow down the acrid bile that rose up my throat. They were all bck chitin and wavy feelers, aotally disgusting. I’d almost rather have the spiders…

  As they rushed me I hefted the spear and thrust, feeling hard shells give uhe strike. Foul guts gushed everywhere, and as I swung and sshed, the air soon became unbearable.

  “I don’t care how good cockroaches may turn out to be in bat…” I muttered, almost choking oench. “I’ll not be having any spawned in my Territory!”

  With that I let out another cry and attacked once more, my spear dang until my arms were leaden and the floor was covered in broken bodies. Each was worth little ether, only a bit more than draining lesser spirits, but they came in numbers. Fortunately, despite being vastly outnumbered, I had triumphed again. I repeated this process several more times in other rooms, ing across various other nasty i monsters. The only time I was genuinely in danger was when a several-metre-loipede dropped down from the ceiling and nearly ensnared me, but luckily I mao spear its head quite quickly. Once I had cleared the st room I felt a surge of ether, at least several hundred points' worth, and my Territory swelled, swallowing the building.

  So it’s just as I thought. None of these are strong enough to form an actual Territory, but it is just like when I captured my oartment building, I o clear out the enemies within first…

  I moved to another building and proceeded to deal with everything ihis one had a lot of lesser spirits, in addition to more is. At the tre of the building in the superinte’s office there was ane spider, but again I dealt with it by torg the webs with a bst of aether. The building became mine and now there was only a couple left within my Territory that I o cim. One was a smaller building, a two-story single house rather than one of the many apartment blocks that filled the area. The other was ahree story block like mine was. I decided to take the smaller one first.

  Moving to the front door I again kicked it open, only to be met with the barking of dogs and a volley of small steel-tipped darts flying at me. Swinging up my spear I deflected the ones headed towards my face with the shaft of my spear and dodged others, but several struck me, inflig minor pain. Bag off I dodged another volley, darts hammering into the door and wall in front of me.

  “Out, out!” someone barked. “This is our hideaway. Safe here. Get out, get out!”

  This was followed by another volley of the darts. I swept them aside with my spear quite easily though. I supposed if they hit me in the eye or throat I might take some serious damage, but other than that they were only really a nuisance. I took a few steps inside and deflected more attacks, only to see a group of small dog-faced humanoids huddling in the ers of the room, piles of the small darts at their feet. The rgest of them was about four feet tall, with a bck dog-fad huge floppy ears. In its hand it clutched a crude pickaxe, the metal rusted and pitted with dirt. Okay… not a fan of dogs, but these guys don’t feel threatening. I deal…

  “I told you to stay out, out!” it barked, hefting the pickaxe in the most aggressive ma could muster. “This is our pce. Safe here from the other Seelie and the bad things. Go away, before we fight you, fight you!”

  Behind him the -faced creatures started to bark and growl threateningly, but it came off as rather pitiful. This was really starting to sour my mood. pared to the ghouls or weaselkin I had fought before these were… pretty weak, and could even be sidered cute in a good light. More to the point, they unicate and are clearly afraid. It really feels like I’m bullying them. I’m all for hunting monsters like the undead, and the weaselkin came for me first… but here…

  L my spear I let out a long sigh. “I don’t really want to fight you, but this building is within my Territory, I’m not sure it’s safe for me to leave it unoccupied here. I let you leave, it isn’t a problem.”

  “Not leaving, our pce. Safe here, not safe out there. Bad things like dead walking and night hunters kill kobolds. Seelie not protect us, just use us like sves. Stay here and be safe. You go, you go!” she biggest… kobold… I guess.

  I pondered as they readied another volley of darts. Making sure I made no threatening moves I spoke again. “Well, how about you stay here but agree that this is still part of my Territory? You … pay rent, I guess?” I wasn’t sure if what I was suggesting ossible, but havihe description of the Barracks it should have been.

  “Not sves, not for you. You leave now! Last warning!” he barked at me, the others nodding and growling furiously.

  “Look…” I sighed. “I don’t want sves. We work together here and make it safer for both of us. My cim in this Territory is new, but already it’s far bigger than yours. If it came to a fight…” I gestured to my spear with its wickedly sharp knife-head. “… I’m pretty certain you would e off worse.”

  At that some of the smaller kobolds shrank ba fear, the biggest one baring its es in as menag a fashion as it could.

  “Oher hand, if you agree to join my Territory, not only you keep this building you expand out a bit when your numbers grow. I’m w on gatheriher to set up some more defences, as it would be a lot safer. All I ask is that you tribute a bit in exge. Isn’t that better than fighting me?”

  “So many kobolds are sves of the Seelie, or other bad things.” The leader growled. “We have been tricked before, not again, not again.”

  “No tricks, I promise.” I said soothingly.

  “You must promise, not treat us like sves, protect us from the bad things. Then we work. Kobolds wood.”

  “All right, we have an agreement.” I said, nodding. “I will treat you well, and keep you safe. In exge you will join my Territory. As the first to join up you will naturally enjoy many advantages. Let us work together to improve our Territory together!”

  I stepped forwards slowly and offered my hand. Some of the kobolds shrank back, but the leader offered a vaguely paed hand iurn and took mihe moment he did I felt my Territory expand to cover the building, and silver lettering fshed into my vision.

  You have attained erritory. You have gained a Kobold Den Rank 1 Special. In addition thirty-two Kobolds and one Kobold Miner have joined your Territory as your subordinates. You may now recruit Kobolds from your Barracks when it is structed.

  As I suspected, to use the Barracks instead of the Spawning Spire, I had to recruit some of the species first, before I could create them. Kobolds were hardly the most awe-inspiring of creatures (in fact I reed a weaselkin with a bow and arrow could have killed half of them easily) but I had to start somewhere. And to be ho I’d feel pretty bad killing them off… maybe I am too soft, but whatever, I don't want to go against my sce.

  I decided to take a quick look at the description for the Kobold Den before I did anything else.

  Kobold Den- Rank 1 Special- Special Rank facilities ot be levelled up by Ether, they level as their requirements are met. This den is the warren where Kobolds live and are spawned. All Kobolds' Level caps are increased by one Level. This allows the stru of Kobold Mines.

  Kobold Mine Rank ??? Special- Kobold Mines be structed for the cost of 4000 Ether. They be structed anywhere without limit, but what is found there will be dependant on where it is structed. It will also only produce resources if it is worked by Kobold Miners, or those the Kobolds permit. All mines produe Ether, as well as Etherite ores, metals and gems. Kobold mines focus oones, so their rate of finding these within are higher than average.

  Most iing indeed. Anything that gees ether is good. Four thousaher was quite the cost, but when I looked at upgrading my facilities (especially the Ether Spires) to Rank 2 I noticed that the average cost seemed to be between four and six times as much as the inal Rank 1 facility (for example the Ether Spire was seven and a half thousaher at Rank 2). I could see Kobold Mines being useful, if I could grow my kobold forces and also find a suitable spot or two. I wasn’t sure why I needed metals and gems, but hell, who didn’t want gems?

  “All right then, do you want to have a quick look around?” I asked. The kobolds nodded, cautiously following behind me, looking as if they would flee at any minute. As we left the building that housed their Den they gnced around, eyes shining.

  “As you see, this is our Territory now. I just have to capture that st building and we will have solidated the whole area. Feel free to go everywhere you like except for in there.” I poio my room. “That’s my headquarters so I o keep it clear so I build things. If you have a pressio go there just ask first, okay?”

  “Yes, we get it, we get it.” The miner barked.

  “If you are happy with your Den in that building then we have no problems. I would suggest you look for a site for a Mihough, we would be much better off if you could find a good pce for one.”

  At that the kobolds paused. “Not w as mine sves, no sves!” the miner said with a wary growl.

  “Of course not.” I ughed lightly. “You’ll be able to keep a fair k of what you mine ierritory. I’ll need some, especially the ether and the Etherites, so we build more facilities, but as for the gems aals, you keep a good amount, I’ll only take what I need. Sound fair?”

  There was a long pause and the kobolds nodded, yappiedly. I spent another few hours showing the kobolds around and discussing our pns going forwards.

  “Now that we’ve agreed with all that you guys rex. I’m going to secure the st building, all right?”

  The kobolds agreed, returning to their Den, while I approached the st building. Once I had captured this, I felt I would have achieved most of what I had pnned for this veo the Boundary. Breaking through the first door, I prepared for battle…

  ********

  It took me a fair while to clear most of the rooms, as they were full of nasty bugs again, ranging from spiders and crickets up to more massive tipedes. They were not really a mate with my spear though, although I shuddered to think of how unpleasant it would be having to take them on hand-to-hand. Since I had the clear advaook my time taking them out, practig how to use the spear. It was too early to see the fruits of my muscle training, but I definitely felt a bit sharper in battle.

  As I prepared to ehe room an annou scrolled ay eyes. The Rank 1 Spawning Spire had finished stru. Cheg out my list of options that I could summon, I decided to queue it to spawn degraded weaselkin, as they had givehe most trouble myself. I decided to set it to spawn them from my ining supply of ether rather than from what I was holding, as I had almost accumuted enough for the Defensive Empt, which would finish off my first round of stru.

  These small buildings don’t give anywhere near as much ether as the ghouls' Territory did when I capture them, probably because they are not an actual Territory, rather just an occupied area, but even so, with the rge number of is filling them, even a bit of ether for eae quickly adds up.

  As I stormed the room, spear stabbing out into the chitinous belly of a massive grasshopper, which fell with a squeal, I sidered my move. It might be prudent to try spendiher on upgrading the Ether Spires to Rank two, despite the rge cost, as the soohey are upgraded, the soohey would start paying for themselves…

  Lost in thought I massacred the inhabitants of the building until it finally became mine, cleared out entirely. With that, the whole area was my Territory. My ether supply had also just reached a level where I could afford the fifteen huher for the Defensive Empt. Heading to my room, I started stru, which would take two Astral days to plete. I set the stru point as the roof of my building, so that it would have a good field of view to attatruders. My Territory was now geing more ether, even ating for the drain of creating degraded weaselkin, as since I now occupied the full hundred-metre radius around my Anchor, the base geion was signifitly higher tha first started.

  Now that I had achieved my goals (and my stock of aether was starting to deplete at an accelerating, rapid rate as time passed) I decided to spend my remaining time practig my Chakra exercises while I could take advantage of the easier visualisation aher flow here. I tinued for a couple more hours, until my aether ran dry and I opened my eyes ba the Material world…