《The Dungeon of Blood and Bone [Dungeon Core Progression]》
Prologue - All Deeds That Last Are Steeped In Blood
My dear, lovely readers. If you are an old-timer, welcome back. You¡¯ll recognize much from my other fictions. If you are new, welcome. Let me introduce you to the rules of this game. I will write, you will read. Of that, I am confident. Beyond that, you will note that this fiction is tagged with the notorious Reader Interactive tag.
I know, I know, but hear me out. The way it will work is simple. Our little dungeon core will spread, create monsters, and do all the funky little things that dungeon cores do, but if and when it succeeds in acquiring fresh...meat, its next mutation will be determined entirely by you. At the end of each chapter, there will be a poll. In this poll, there will be several mutations that will determine the future of the story.
Each mutation will be real. There will be no Ability A: Rabbit Hair, Ability B: Bear Fur, Ability C: Dragon Breath. All paths are viable; if you wish to go down two paths simultaneously, that is also viable. In the comments, I strongly encourage you to make your case for your desired ability. Sometimes, I may fumble, but that is not my intention.
You can find a more detailed description of how tiebreakers are handled, how to suggest abilities, and more in the end note of each chapter.
That being said, let us begin with a kidnapping...
Richard kicked the door open, heaving the heavy cage into the workshop. He dumped the cage, ignoring the indignant squeal from the occupant, and poked his head out the door. He took careful glances up and down the snow-lined street. When he saw no one watching, he dashed inside and slammed the door behind him.
A heavily used workshop greeted him, full of materials, components, and half-completed projects crammed into whatever nook they could fit into. Mana lamps hung from the ceiling, casting an even white glow on a scared, thick-timbered workbench against the far wall.
A pained, mournful whine rose through the heavy bars.
¡°Shut it,¡± Richard cursed, kicking the cage enough to shake the heavy construction. He leaned down, golden eyes piercing the chained-up occupant with enough hate to burn. ¡°Or keep making noise. In fact. Please do. I¡¯d love to tear off another arm.¡±
The cage¡¯s occupant shrank back as much as its chains allowed it, and Richard stood with a grimace. He shot a furtive glance at the door leading deeper into the house and then hefted the cage to the back of the workshop. He grabbed a heavy brown tarp and threw it over the cage.
He stared at his new resident for several moments, then cracked his neck and turned to sit at the workbench. There was still a lot of work to be done before the plan could be completed. This part of it, however, was far slower. He pulled out an intricately inscribed piece of silver steel and began engraving the detailed runes into it with a diamond stylus.
An hour passed swiftly as he worked. His massive muscles rippled as he deftly maneuvered the stylus to perfectly inscribe the runes necessary for the last phase of the¡ª.
¡°Papa? I can¡¯t sleep.¡±
Richard spun on his swivel chair for half a turn to behold his young daughter standing at the door to his workshop. She clutched her faded brown teddy bear to her chest like a lifeline in a storm. Her wide, innocent eyes glistened with the barest hint of tears as she leaned against the heavy oak doorframe that dwarfed her diminutive frame.
¡°What is it, Kerry?¡± Richard asked softly, loathe to disturb the thoughtful silence that had settled during the night. He carefully set down the diamond stylus and turned fully to face his young daughter. Before he even managed to go all the way, Kerrigan rushed across the cold concrete floor and buried her head into his stomach.
¡°I''m scared,¡± she whimpered into his rough spun sweater. ¡°The monsters keep howling.¡±
¡°Shh, it''s all right, sweetie,¡± Richard said, rubbing comforting circles on Kerrigan¡¯s back. She responded by scrambling up to his lap and curling into his chest as if trying to escape the cool air of the workshop. ¡°You have nothing to worry about. The walls always keep out the monsters.¡±
¡°But what if they don¡¯t?¡±
¡°Can you remember a time when the walls have failed?¡± Richard touched Kerrigan¡¯s chin, and she reluctantly abandoned her death grip on his sweater and met his gaze.
¡°I dunno...¡±
¡°If they never failed before, then there is nothing to be scared of, sweetie.¡±
¡°Hmff,¡± Kerrigan grumped, digging her small body into his chest again.
Richard suppressed a chuckle and kept rubbing her back in soothing circles. In his few short years of fatherhood, he¡¯d learned that few lessons were more important than making sure not to belittle Kerrigan¡¯s very real troubles. This particular one, however, was very, very real.
The warbling call of a corded vinewing seeped through the thick walls of the workshop like a corrosive ooze hungry for flesh.
His eyes wandered to the frosted window above the workbench. Ice gathered in the corners of the thick glass, partially obscuring the dark city and the massive eighty-foot-tall wall of polished granite. It loomed over the silent, slumbering city like a dark harbinger, foretelling dark times to come.
Movement flickered atop the wall.
His eyes narrowed dangerously as his gold-tier vision pierced the darkness easily to spot a cadre of furred hellbeasts flapping toward the wall. Not a second after he spotted them, a wave of faint blue energy bolts flashed out from the battlements, barely visible against the black sky. They slammed into the hellbeasts like the vengeance of an old god, tearing them to pieces in an explosion of gore that would have left Kerrigan shaking in fear.
¡°Look, Kerry,¡± Richard roused his daughter and pointed out the window. Her reluctant eyes peeked distrustfully through the frosted glass as several more distant blue flashes lit up a parapet. Melanie might have scolded Richard for calling attention to such violence if she were here. A sentiment Richard fundamentally disagreed with.
Not that it mattered. Copper sight had no chance of discerning precise details from this distance. To Kerrigan, the mana missiles ripping through and raining the ground with blood and viscera were no more than a black smudge with perhaps a couple of distant blue flickers.
¡°See the Kingsguard?¡± Richard continued. ¡°Even in the darkest parts of the night, they stand vigilant on the walls and repel any hellbeast that dares to endanger our people.¡±
Kerrigan squinted through the window for several long seconds, then looked up at Richard with huge eyes. ¡°Are they strong?¡±
¡°Super strong,¡± Richard smiled.
¡°As strong as Papa?¡±
¡°Definitely,¡± Richard chuckled, grasping his daughter in a huge bear hug. He couldn¡¯t help but let a tiny fraction of his vital aura seep through his gold channels. Kerrigan¡¯s mouth fell open in an O of surprise as even the tiniest fraction of her father¡¯s power threatened to crush her. He quickly retracted his presence and sat Kerrigan on his workbench. ¡°Good?¡±
¡°I guess,¡± Kerrigan shrugged reluctantly, though her teddy bear that lay forgotten in Richard¡¯s lap told a different story. He scooted his chair forward, picked up the diamond stylus, and tried to remember where he had left off.
¡°Why don¡¯t you run back to bed, then? You have school tomorrow.¡±
¡°You¡¯re making a pee-on!¡± She gasped, entirely ignoring his request as she pointed at the silvery steel disk on the workbench.
¡°Pylon, sweetie,¡± Richard corrected halfheartedly. There was no chance Kerrigan would be willing to go to bed now. Might as well humor her. ¡°And no. This is an evolution core.¡±
¡°It looks like a pee-on.¡±
¡°Hmm, good eye. The mana channels for this device are based heavily on a pylon frame. It needs to serve a very similar purpose at the end of the day. Can you find where I integrated the pylon controls into the superstructure of the spell matrix?¡±
¡°It''s uhm, this spot does the sucking spinny thing, and uhm,¡± Kerrigan sucked her lip into the gap where her baby incisor had been only recently. ¡°Oh! That¡¯s the stabby part.¡±
¡°Mhmm,¡± Richard nodded, then pointed at a specific spiral with the diamond stylus. ¡°That is correct. The Condensation Vortex extracts corrupted mana from the Mind Spike formation and purifies the sequestered mana into copper mist that can be used for personal cultivation.¡±
¡°What is sekwestard?¡±
Richard gently touched the modified pylon frame and drew out an unreasonably long strand of golden mana. His vital aura twisted a tortured screech as his iron will forced it to bend around his daughter and prevent her from suffering its effects. The mana was then attached to the stylus and carefully scratched into the silver steel of the evolution core.
¡°It means to keep the mana for themselves. Hellbeasts are very greedy.¡±
¡°But that¡¯s not good!¡± Kerrigan gasped. ¡°Papa! They need to be taught a lesson.¡±
¡°I know, sweetie,¡± Richard¡¯s eyes hardened. ¡°Monster hunters all over the world are trying to push the hellspawn back into the earth. It''s hard, though, and no one is quite good enough at it just yet.¡±
¡°Well, when I grow up, I¡¯m gonna be the bestest monster hunter ever!¡± Kerrigan balled up her fists and bared her teeth ferociously. ¡°Sharing is caring. Even I know that, and I¡¯m five!¡±
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Richard chuckled at Kerrigan''s determination, a soft smile breaking through the hardened expression in his eyes. He ruffled her hair gently and said, "I believe you, kiddo. With that spirit, you might just be the one to do it. Just remember to be nice to people along the way. A cultivator¡¯s strength is not for pushing people around.¡±
¡°That¡¯s right,¡± Kerrigan nodded firmly. ¡°A cultivator¡¯s strength is for showing off to girls, right?¡±
¡°Exactly,¡± Richard nodded sagely, proudly patting her on the head. ¡°You¡¯re learning so fast.¡±
Kerrigan puffed up, and they fell into a comfortable silence. Richard returned to his work with the mana etching, checking pathways with his mana-flooded eyes for any error or flaw.
Kerrigan¡¯s night terrors were long forgotten, and she started to hum a rhyme under her breath to fill the silence as she fiddled with other half-finished projects littering the workbench.
¡®If you delve, don''t lose sight.
Of what is wrong and what is right.
Monsters fierce, with teeth that bite,
will urge you to lose the light.
Hellbeasts swarm, simply to rend.
Yet, you must always fight the urge to descend.¡¯
Richard finalized the evolution core design with just a few more long strokes with the diamond etching stylus. In principle, it was done. In practice, he had no way to test whether it was working properly. Such was the nature of non-human augmentation.
¡°Papa?¡± Kerrigan knocked him out of his train of thought by pointing at the evolution core. ¡°You did this wrong. You¡¯re not supposed to make long bits without curly bits.¡±
¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± Richard raised a brow, impressed with his daughter''s perceptiveness. Copper sight was terrible in the grand scheme of things, but as the old saying went: It''s not the size of the boat that matters, but the motion of the ocean that ensures the completion of a voyage. An idea Melanie firmly disagreed with.
¡°¡®Cause you said the whooshy bits get all jiggly, and then nothing works right. Also, it''s dirty.¡±
¡°That¡¯s intentional in this case.¡± Richard paused. ¡°Unlike a regular pylon frame that allows harvesting of deep mana, I¡¯m not designing the evolution core for mana extraction. It needs...the whooshy bits to get all jiggly, or else it won¡¯t be able to do its job.¡±
¡°That¡¯s stupid,¡± Kerrigan huffed. ¡°You¡¯ll get sick if you don¡¯t woosh the mana.¡±
¡°Did mom tell you that?¡± Richard said, hiding a smirk as he pulled another overly long thread of mana and attached it to the construct, much to Kerrigan¡¯s horror. ¡°Maybe it''s just girls who get sick.¡±
¡°Don¡¯t be silly, papa!¡± Kerrigan commanded sternly. ¡°You have to whoosh the smoke out before you eat it. Everybody knows that!¡±
¡°Mhmm,¡± Richard hummed, smiling faintly. ¡°That¡¯s true, I was just messing with you a little. The truth is I¡¯m not going to sell this at the shop. I¡¯m making this for a very special person.¡±
¡°Ahem.¡±
Kerrigan squeaked, jumping up and nearly falling off the table''s edge. Richard smoothly caught her, then staggered as a wave of silvery blue vital aura washed over him like a tidal wave. For the briefest second, the platinum wave crushed his golden mana to the surface of his skin. Then it was gone, and he recovered enough to face his wife standing imperiously in the doorway.
¡°Mama!¡± Kerrigan squealed, having completely missed the wave of greeting. She squirmed out of Richard¡¯s grip and ran into Melanie¡¯s knees. Melanie shifted her gaze onto their daughter, and Kerrigan wilted under the assault.
¡°Off to bed,¡± Melanie said sternly, gently nudging Kerrigan around her legs. Kerrigan shot a regretful look back at the workshop before dashing deeper into their house. Melanie watched her run for a moment, then turned a mischievous grin toward Richard.
¡°A little birdie told me you made me something,¡± Melanie sauntered into the room and sat in Richard¡¯s lap.
¡°Congratulations on platinum, honey,¡± Richard replied, scooting back to make his knee a more comfortable seat. He reached around his wife and handed her the evolution core. The silvery steel was dull, with visible engravings all across the frame. It wasn¡¯t his best work, but it didn¡¯t need to be pretty. ¡°It¡¯s done. Or as done as it can be, all things considered.¡±
¡°Thank you, honey,¡± Melanie turned and gave Richard a quick kiss. ¡°I got you something, too.¡±
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crystalline gemstone that pulsed regularly as if a heartbeat was present inside it. It was perfectly spherical and emanated a weak fragment of hyper-dense vital aura that still somehow managed to brush aside Richard¡¯s presence like it was no more than cobwebs. More than gold. Far more.
¡°Oh! You found one of my...balls,¡± Richard chuckled awkwardly. ¡°Where¡¯s the other one?¡±
¡°Don¡¯t worry, your secret is safe with me,¡± Melanie smirked. The words carried a rote cadence to them. As if they were a comforting ritual shared only between the two. ¡°We¡¯re doing this? You¡¯re sure?¡±
¡°Tonight,¡± Richard nodded firmly, squeezing his wife to affirm his conviction. ¡°Did you bring the blood?¡±
Melanie nodded and pulled out a thin vial full of red fluid so dark it was basically black. Richard took the vial and carefully appended it onto a small spike on the underside of the evolution core. Then, he reached out and fed the construct a steady stream of his mana.
The device whirred to life, emitting a staccato buzzing as cerulean bolts of mana lightning zapped the small biological sample. The blood sizzled and darkened, filling the workshop with the smell of ozone and char. Seconds later, no more biomass remained on the sampling spike.
The device froze, then shot out a rapid-fire series of digitized pulses that rippled through the air like a mirage in a desert.
¡°Alright...let me see,¡± Richard yanked a notebook from the corner of the desk and flipped it open. The notebook fell open to a well-worn page all on its own. ¡°Code 006 followed by...103 is...¡±
006:
103:
¡°Damn, I was really hoping we wouldn¡¯t need a live sample,¡± Melanie grumbled.
Richard grunted in acknowledgment, then gently pushed his wife off as he went to the back corner of the room. He ripped off the tarp covering the heavy cage with a wrench to reveal its extremely disgruntled occupant.
The Putrid Urchin vibrated against its chains at the sight of Richard standing over it. The black metal creaked as the hellbeast flexed its two dozen appendages in a vain attempt to break its bonds. Pale yellow bile oozed from the oblong main body where several legs had been torn off and dripped onto the concrete floor, steadily burrowing through the hard material. Black smoke seeped from underneath its rigid carapace as if its flesh was perpetually burning. An oscillating air purifier hung above the chained creature and sucked in the continuous stream of smoke it produced.
Richard ignored the horror quivering with hate before him and reached through the bars to jam the thin spike of the evolution core into the creature''s main body. Golden mana flared as the evolution core drained more and more of Richard¡¯s mana. Bolts of electric blue flickered over the putrid urchin¡¯s body, scorching the carapace and causing the creature to spasm as it struggled desperately against its restraints.
The lightning dug deeper and deeper, and after only a few moments, all that was left of the hellbeast was a steaming pile of ash and char.
¡°Gods, that¡¯s gross,¡± Melania muttered from the back. Richard curled his lip but maintained focus as he sprinted back to the workbench to record the staccato series of digitized signals coming from the device.
¡°006, 104, 104 and yes! 104. Let me...just,¡± Richard crowed, spinning the notebook around and frantically deciphering the encrypted message from the device.
¡°It works,¡± Melanie glanced over his shoulder. The traits themselves mattered less than the fact that the machine had succeeded in extracting anything at all. ¡°How far were you able to reduce the timeframe of the assimilation?¡±
¡°It¡¯s still too long,¡± Richard grimaced, then got up and stood in the prepared area in the center of the room. ¡°Hopefully, fusing it with the platinum core should speed it up.¡±
¡°But you don¡¯t have much hope,¡± Melanie said, noting her husband''s tone. She stepped behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. Her vital aura flared, filling the room with enough electrifying potential to make breathing difficult.
¡°No,¡± Richard said. He took a deep, steadying breath. The monster core he held in one hand and the evolution core in the other. ¡°Begin.¡±
Richard¡¯s gold mana rushed out, flowing and suffusing both objects with power. The evolution core accepted the mana readily, but the monster core fought. Platinum mana was strong. Viciously strong, but there was only so much the fractured foundation of a broken spirit could achieve against the full might of a high gold cultivator.
It succumbed with a hiss of displeasure, and Richard brought the two items close. With all the dexterity a lifetime as a crafter imparted, he wove his mana into a dense web of pulsing connections. Second by second, hundreds of strands bound the two tighter and tighter.
Compressing. Crushing. Combining.
The two objects started merging, sharing the same space under the immense pressure of a high gold¡¯s will. Waves of distorted, unstable pressure shot out from the meeting point, only to be caught by the heavy web of Melanie¡¯s aura.
¡°Almost¡ª¡± Richard gasped. Sheets of sweat poured from his temple as he strained to elevate his creation. The two cores were fundamentally incompatible. On the one side. Biological. Domineering. Powerful. On the other. Mechanical. Tyrannical. Unyielding. Both vied for control. Neither willing to give an inch to the other.
¡°Now!¡± Richard wheezed at the moment when he could push no further.
Melanie¡¯s response was instant from the outside, but an instant to a copper was an eternity to a platinum. Melania hesitated as she gripped her husband''s shoulders. This was the most brutal part of the plan. A most heinous act that would haunt her for the rest of her days. But it was worth it. It had to be worth it.
Melanie snarled as she directed her vital aura into Richard¡¯s back. Right over where his heart resided. Instead of flowing around him as normal, the concentrated platinum aura spike stabbed right through the fragile flesh and imploded within.
Richard¡¯s mouth snapped open in a silent scream as twin beams of brilliant cyan shown from his eyes. His flesh turned transparent as his skeleton pulsed with an internal light. A blooming flower of golden light bloomed from above his heart, opening slowly to engulf the twinned cores struggling for dominance in his hands. It melded with the thousands of golden threads. Refining them. Strengthening them. Pulling the two cores together and forcing them to exist in concert.
Silence.
The light faded from Richard¡¯s eyes as he slumped back. Melanie caught him and gently lowered him to the floor.
¡°It¡¯s done. Breathe, honey, breathe. I got you,¡± she whispered. Despite knowing what she had just done, she couldn¡¯t help but probe her husband with her aura. Gently. Oh, so gently. And yet, she still shivered to find nothing there. Only an empty shell. Breathing, but barely.
¡°It¡¯s done,¡± Richard croaked, his eyes sagging into his skull as pounds of corded muscle over his frame withered away in seconds. "I believe--" *cough* "I have learned some valuable lessons from this. Death isn''t real, and I am basically god."
"Oh, hush you," Melanie relaxed, unable to prevent a short chuckle from escaping her. If Richard was joking then he would be fine.
Richard smiled wanly, holding up the pulsing crystal that was the result of all their effort. ¡°The unbridled power of the hellbeasts combined with the flexible ingenuity of humanity. Kerrigan will be safe with this.¡±
¡°And held together with her father¡¯s remnant. Don¡¯t forget that,¡± Melanie shook her head. ¡°Can you imagine, a remnant not full of hate, and we use it to create a weapon of war.¡±
¡°We¡¯ve done everything we can to prevent it from turning monstrous.¡±
¡°And if it does? Turn monstrous in the end?¡±
¡°Then it turns monstrous. But if she dies, it dies. No matter what happens, our baby is surviving this.¡±
¡°I can live with that.¡±
Chapter 1 - I Am Confusion
** Year 1 **
The first year was the hardest.
The first time I came to awareness, I did so slowly. Little bits of information seeped into my conscious mind. A field of floating blue motes of light skirted on every side of me. Some bounced eagerly, excited and bubbling. Others faded in and out of my awareness as if shy. Each of the alien creatures was unique.
I watched the motes, curious and overwhelmed in equal measure. What, why, how? My thoughts stuttered, struggling to conceptualize the alien dots so wholly unfamiliar to me. In an effort to understand, I focused on a single mote of light. It was one of the energetic ones, and though I tried, it swiftly vanished in the sea of dancing lights.
I shook, feeling pressure crushing me as a whole host of unknowns threatened to snuff out my nascent mind. I hadn¡¯t the faintest understanding of what I was seeing. What were these strange lights? Even more disturbingly, what was...I? How was I?
Was I...me?
I desperately latched on to another mote of light in an effort to compartmentalize. This time, it was lazy. Slow. I gleefully watched it. Characterizing every aspect of its existence as it bobbed slowly to music only it could hear. It dimmed. Then brightened. Then dimmed once more.
Then it vanished.
I panicked.
That perfect, insignificant mote was gone. No matter how I scanned the environment, I couldn¡¯t find that small island of stability I¡¯d latched on to. For the life of me, I couldn¡¯t locate the precise variant I had studied so thoroughly. Was it gone, or would it come back? Should I wait for it? Maybe I should study a different mote, but...what if I missed the originals return while I was focused?
I reeled. Feeling small in such a massive expanse of alien mist.
Desperate, I reached out more forcefully. A tendril of pure will coalesced. A golden ephemeral cloud reached out to grab a handful of the motes. The lights scattered as my aura approached. To my utter dismay, it was as if they were repelled by my mere presence. I wouldn¡¯t be able to restrain the lights for study.
Perhaps...
Perhaps I didn¡¯t need to understand every single mote. What if...yes! I focused on one, noting its broad characteristics, then discarding it in favor of another. Then another. There were differences, yes. The first was larger but somehow dimmer. The second felt lazy and bright while more inquisitive with a touch of gentle softness.
I noted these differences and moved on. More and more lights passed me by. I observed each one in a cursory fashion. Perhaps I couldn¡¯t understand why there were differences, but that didn¡¯t mean I couldn¡¯t simplify things. Generalize. The point wasn¡¯t understanding but conceptualization. A framework to contain the incomprehensible soup into a single comprehensive idea.
I shall name thee Mana.
I relaxed, tension melting away as I attributed a series of meaningless syllables to the boundless concept I¡¯d formulated within my mind. No longer did I stare into the starry void, struggling to understand. No. Mana was known to me. Was it alien? Of course. But known. No longer a source of fear.
Fear?
I felt at the edges of my perception, noting the tightness slowly fading as I relaxed. How strange. How wonderful! And what was this new thing? Excitement?
I reveled in the new sensations. Each one was alien and brought with it a touch of fear, but this time, I knew what to do. Giddy, I accepted these emotions into myself and gave them names: joy, curiosity, shock, and determination.
I shall name thee Emotions.
I looked inward, determined to collect all of the emotions that existed. It was hard. With each new emotion, it felt as if every additional one required more mental contortion to touch upon. I persevered, pushing farther and with every passing second, I added a new emotion to my repertoire.
Hold on. What was...a second?
How delightful!
Time became known to me, and I used my newfound understanding to reach out to the starry void. Hungry for more knowledge. Hungry for more names.
What greeted me was both perplexing and wonderful in equal measure. In the Above, there was a new substance. Air, I named it. An emptiness that was not empty. It moved and twirled like mana but was slower and behaved differently to the capricious motes that filled my perception. Above it, a Ceiling stood stalwart and steady, flanked on four sides by Walls. They formed a box that contained the idle Air.
In the Below, there existed a broad expanse of another strange material that rose and fell rhythmically. It was...warm? No, warmer. At least when compared to the air. It also possessed an unparalleled effect on the underlying mana. While the air seemed to ignore the dancing lights, the supple beige substance possessed millions of tiny channels of coursing mana tinged a glittering orange. Every second, the channels swelled like raging rivers, then relaxed, then swelled once more. Each pulse attracted the ambient mana before pushing it away. It was mesmerizing.
I named it Skin.
Looking further, I spotted many new, nameless oddities. The Floor glared insolently up at the Ceiling. A Desk made of Wood sat upon it. Wood was hard and full of mana channels like Skin. Unlike Skin, the mana contained within Wood collected in stagnant, lifeless pools with no life-giving pulse to drive the flow. Upon the Desk sat a crystalline cylinder with a hole in the top. A Water partially filled the Glass.
The more I named, the harder it became to develop new names. Some things were too large. Too complex to understand all at once, so I split them into pieces and named those pieces. I wondered, however, if the Bed resting beneath the Skin was made up of a Blanket that, in turn, was composed of a woven Mesh of tiny, individual Threads. Or perhaps I was falling into the same trap of overcomplication the Mana had tricked me with initially. Should I name every Thread by its color, length and consistency? Or should I forget all these names and simply call the agglomeration a Bed?
Was the Cup part of the Desk, or were they two separate entities?
In my search for knowledge, I ran into an intractable wall. My awareness wasn¡¯t endless and all-seeing but limited by the rough shape of a sphere. A bubble where my ability to observe waned the farther away from the pulsing Skin. Looking past the Walls was possible, but the Beyond was blurry and faded.
There was one part of the environment that caught my attention the most. Stars. Glittering orbs of mana so distant that I could barely make them out floated in the Beyond. They pulsed with mana, some impossibly bright and blue, while others dim and red. Two such stars burned within the sphere of my perception, and I dropped my prior quest to focus on them.
One originated from within the Skin. It was orange and red and pulsed rhythmically with power. Every time it did so, the millions of mana channels radiating from it pulsed sequentially.
The source of the mesmerizing pulsing. A Core.
It was beautiful.
The second Core was smaller. A bright, painful gold hidden within a Crystal. A Gemstone? No, it was something else. I shook slightly with imagined fear but centered myself, focusing on observations to push back the fear budding within me.
It was small in the grand scheme of things, even when compared to the other core. It was nestled within a cage of bright Brass, a Necklace wrapped around a bulging appendage of Skin.
I examined the gemstone for many, many seconds. It felt strange and yet...familiar. Then, it came to me. The gemstone¡¯s core pulsed with the same gold as my aura had earlier. It also existed precisely in the center of my bubble of perception. Could it be...
Me?
Before I could revel properly, a Great Change settled over the Room. The Window brightened. Its glass glowed with an incandescent light. Dim but steadily brightening. Sheeting waves of mana poured in through the Window. I¡¯d thought the amount of mana before had been numerous and uncountable, but what the Window casually spewed into the Room was unfathomable.
I tried to watch every step of the Great Change, but it burned my perception. It was too bright. Too much. The mana density spiked with every second, blinding me. It shook me to my core as I struggled to find anything that wasn¡¯t bathed in golden radiance.
How could the other core handle this?
I directed my attention to the pulsing orange core in the Below and found that the Skin possessed even more properties than I¡¯d initially observed! It wasn¡¯t merely a gorgeous mesh of mana channels but an unbreakable barrier that prevented the intrusive mana from burning the fragile core beneath.
I wanted some Skin of my own, I decided. But how?
I reached out but found my touch thwarted as the pulsing mana channels repelled me much the same as my touch pushed away ambient motes of mana. Pushing harder succeeded in slightly shifting the dense web of mana channels, but only served to exhaust me as the Window¡¯s light burned ever brighter.
Reluctantly, I tabled the desire for skin and turned my attention back to the burning mana. The mana was repelled by my touch, so perhaps I could gain a reprieve by impressing my will upon the world around me.
I did just that, pouring my aura out into a small sphere around my core. It was small, barely extending beyond the faceted edge of my gemstone. The moment I did so, the ambient mana recoiled and left me blessedly free of the sizzling pain.
I uncoiled but couldn¡¯t relax completely. The Window¡¯s mana surge crashed against my fragile barrier, eating away at my will and introducing me to a different type of strain that steadily grew with each passing second.
I winced, the edges of my perception blurring as I tried unsuccessfully to retreat from the multitudinous pain. My will was only a stopgap solution. I needed Skin of my own, but I couldn¡¯t touch it. So...how?
The mana could touch the Skin, I realized after several long seconds of pondering. It couldn¡¯t pierce through, but it wasn¡¯t repelled so completely as my touch was. If the mana could get close enough, maybe I could somehow use that to scrape a little bit of the Skin away and cover myself in it.
I approached the ambient mana, watching intently as it reacted to my tendril of will. It rushed away as I approached but then seemed almost eager to fill in the void left in my wake.
I could take advantage of that.
I focused my will into two parallel plates that I slowly manifested into the world. Mana rushed away, but the motes trapped between my creation compressed into a facsimile of a wall. Mana oozed out of the edges of my creation, and I swiftly capped them to prevent further leakage.
I strained, pushing my plates of will together until the vague wall of mana thinned, condensing down until it was thin and sharp. Like a blade.
Gently, I lowered the mana blade toward the Skin. As it neared, the cap I¡¯d placed on the lower side frayed, leaking out precious mana and dulling the edge. I accelerated, bringing the blade down faster but with less precision. I didn¡¯t have the time to cut the Skin perfectly. Any amount would do.
The blade touched down, far weaker and fading by the second, but I forced it to scrape roughly against the Skin in a circle around myself. Even greatly dulled, the blade scraped a thin layer of Skin away from the main body. It left a red welt behind ¡ª an observation I tabled for later ¡ª as I dragged the mass of torn Skin around my gemstone with jerky desperation.
My barrier of pure aura broke.
The mana washed over me and...cascaded off the mess of protective skin and the flickering mana channels within it only to rebound back into the Air.
It didn¡¯t hurt.
It didn¡¯t hurt!
I jittered in nervous excitement as all the tension and pressure vanished suddenly. Then I wilted in relief, a weary exhaustion setting in.
The Great Change continued, oblivious to my relief. The light grew brighter and brighter until it leveled off at a blinding radiance. With my barrier of Skin, I was safe, but I still struggled to acclimate to the terrible brightness suffusing the Room.
I named it the Dawn.
The Skin moved.
I froze in shock as the Skin ripped the Bed in two and staggered upright while expelling horrific auditory vibrations into the Air. My gemstone bounced against the Skin, and my vision blurred with every step the Skin took. I watched, fascinated, as the Skin staggered to a Wall and ripped a massive rectangular hole in it which revealed another Room beyond.
No! A Door! And...and, and¡ªa Hallway?
The Hallway was long and narrow, but I had no time to study it properly before the Skin hobbled into another Room. I felt myself start to shake. Too fast! Everything was too fast. There weren¡¯t enough seconds.
Shellshocked, I watched the Skin step into a strange contraption and removed parts of the torn bed still attached to it. It touched the Walls in strange ways. Suddenly, Water spewed out of the Ceiling in torrents. My thoughts ground to a halt as I tried to reframe my understanding of Ceilings. Was there a link to the strange massage the Skin had given the white porcelain Wall? Did all Ceilings produce water like this? If so, why hadn''t the other Ceiling behaved like this?
...how come this water wasn¡¯t inside of a Glass?
The Skin raised two appendages and began touching itself as the water cascaded down.
I tried to keep up. I really did, but I couldn¡¯t understand what the creature was doing. I hadn¡¯t even been ready to understand that the Skin could move, let alone behave with such alien mannerisms.
No. Impossible. It wasn¡¯t Skin. It was a creature. A¡ªa Human piloting the mass of Skin. That was the only explanation.
The Human finished, stopping the flow of water from the ceiling, and stepped out of the contraption. It stood before a Wall that reflected a copy of the Room. I could only shake as the creature touched the red welt around the necklace. It then pulled me off its neck and dunked me into more Water before it began to scrub.
Before I understood what was happening, the layer of Skin I had so carefully cultivated was stripped away, and the full power of the Dawn blasted me right to my core.
I burned.
Dusk eventually came to shoo away the Day. It brought Night with it and blissful, blissful darkness. I shook in agony for many, many seconds. Minutes. Maybe even hours. I waited and watched, content to recover as the Night progressed. It grew colder and darker, but as time inexorably ground on, I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if the Day would come back.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
If it did, then I would burn again. Or maybe not. Perhaps after Night, there wasn¡¯t another Day. Perhaps what I had experienced was a once-off event. A terrible, terrible event that would never ever come back...
I snipped that train of thought in the bud. I couldn¡¯t afford to waste time chasing theories when there was a very real and very present danger. For the time being I needed to assume the worst case. Days followed Nights in a cycle until proven otherwise.
I had no reference for how long Nights lasted, but I was exquisitely aware of how long a Day lasted. If they were equivalent, then...I only had a few short hours before Dawn returned to burn me. It wasn¡¯t enough time¡ª
I snipped that thought in the bud as well. I had to focus.
My previous strategy would have worked if not for the unexpected meddling of the Skin. Or...the creature that piloted the Skin. The...Human. It owned the Skin, using it to protect its core from the harmful rays of Daylight. I couldn¡¯t have known that the Human would have removed my barrier, I hadn¡¯t yet acquired sufficient data on Human behavior to make such a prediction. But now I knew that a Human valued cleanliness and disliked theft. That was good to know, though the knowledge only set me back to step one.
How in the world could I survive the Day?
Minutes passed as I let thoughts bounce around my mind. None of the materials in my vicinity could block out the Day as well as Skin. Or at all, for that matter. Some materials like wood were potential candidates, but it would require aura augmentation to work which I knew was a limited resource and wouldn¡¯t be sufficient for an entire cycle.
So I needed Skin, but I couldn¡¯t get Skin.
It was a perplexing problem, for sure. Perhaps my first ever perplexing problem. That alone was enough to make it exciting, and I felt joy rise up inside of me as I came to a potential solution.
If I couldn¡¯t wrap myself in Skin, perhaps I could dig my way under it.
Which would require relocating my gemstone.
A few quick tests revealed that I was surprisingly mobile. I could nudge my gemstone with a concentrated wall of trapped mana, which should be more than enough since all I needed was to move beneath the Skin.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Scraping the Skin hadn¡¯t gone unnoticed by the Human. In fact, the bright red patch of skin around the necklace was still bright and angry. It had shrunk slightly since the morning, but it would take approximately 4.28 Day/Night cycles to vanish completely. Assuming a constant regenerative factor. That ruled out simply piercing through the protective membrane with a mana blade. I would need a more subtle approach.
I examined the surface of the pink flesh for what felt like an eternity. I traced the slithering mana channels and mapped them out carefully in my mind. It was hypnotizing how the mana wove a tapestry more beautiful than anything I¡¯d witnessed up until now.
Wait...
The Skin had Mana inside of it. It wasn¡¯t that Skin possessed mana-like properties. It had Mana inside of it. Two separate concepts infused together to form a more powerful ¡ª more different ¡ª whole.
The realization shook me to my core as the possibilities of such a revelation struck me. If the Skin possessed Mana, then that meant that I could manipulate the mana within the skin like I manipulated mana in the Air.
I reached out, solidifying a plane of concentrated aura an inch above the intransigent Skin. Unlike the last time I¡¯d tried this, I didn¡¯t force my aura to butt up against the skin. I simply let it sit there. Patiently waiting. At first, nothing happened, but moment by moment, I witnessed a magical change.
The mana channels began to distort.
They moved away from my golden aura as if skittish. Far more slowly than the mana in the air, but they still moved. Minutes passed as I pushed the mana channels away from the skin''s surface. A dark spot appeared, and I distantly sensed the skin touching my gemstone begin to cool.
When the effort of maintaining the pressure began to grow too great, I struck. I formed a scalpel of concentrated mana and drove my gemstone through the thin layer of skin. It broke through like Water, letting me in as a strange red substance welled up from the wound.
That was no good. I couldn¡¯t leave a trace of my infiltration, or the Human would reverse all my hard work.
With deft manipulation of my will, I gathered up all the red Blood and forced it back into the Human. I stole a Thread from the Blanket and wove it into the cut to bring the pieces of skin back together. The Brass chain of the Necklace needed to go, and a concentrated Mana blade gently extricated my gemstone from its cage.
In the next moment I coaxed the mana channels I¡¯d displaced back to their initial positions. Their density was intense, and they blocked my perception, but that was a worthwhile sacrifice. I took extra care to return every mana channel to its exact position. There was no telling what the Human would find offensive, so I needed to be precise. Even if such precision turned out to be unnecessary. Still, as I watched in exultation, all evidence of my infiltration vanished.
Darkness closed in as I waited with bated breath. By my calculations, Dawn was only minutes away and¡ª
There it was. I sensed the cascade of mana smash into the skin and winced as a terrific glow shone through the thin membrane. No pain. Moments later, a pulse of vertigo hit me as the Human rose from its slumber. It moved around, shaking and bouncing. Incomprehensible auditory vibrations washed through me as the Human seemed more agitated than normal.
But I was safe.
Another star became visible. This one was a vicious platinum blue that shone with such cold frigidity that I recoiled. More sounds vibrated through me¡ªa back-and-forth exchange between the two Humans. Something pressed against me through the skin. It poked and prodded, but eventually, I was left alone.
...I hadn''t angered the humans.
I was safe.
All the tension that had been collecting inside me over the last two cycles unspooled. I drifted as I allowed time to pass. It was dark inside the skin, but I wasn¡¯t overly bothered. It gave me time to observe just the few things I could see. The mana channels, for example, were even more vibrant and brilliant here than they were from the outside.
They were doing fascinating things.
While most of the channels extending from the human core resumed their normal behavior, the threads close to my core were...changing. It wasn¡¯t anything intrinsic to the channels. They were still channels that carried mana. But now, the few channels near me disconnected from the main collective and attached to my core.
I shivered as a new sensation became familiar to me¡ªa new appendage. I reached out with my aura and watched in awe as my core pulsed in that familiar rhythm. A wave traveled down the channels in an exact replica of the Human¡¯s core. The mana drank up my aura and became mine. It moved to my will as easily so easily I almost mistook it for aura.
The pulse of my core cascaded down my nascent channels, and I playfully pulled and pushed the tiny amount of mana around me.
It was a fundamentally different force to aura. They were opposites in many ways, and yet one was required to manipulate the other. I wanted to spend a cycle studying this strange new power. Compare and contrast it to my aura. Figure out why it wasn¡¯t repelled by my aura now when it had been before. Not just one cycle. Two cycles! Wait...could I experiment for three cycles?
Three whole cycles!
I shivered in excitement at the thought of having as much time as I wanted to do whatever I wanted. Before I could lock in the plan, a spike of pain drew my attention.
My mana channels clashed with the human channels in a sphere around me. They crashed together, sparking and fizzing in uncoordinated violence. Uh oh. I pulled my mana channels closer to myself, but the damage was done.
The human channels thrummed with coppery power and began expanding. Sparks of pressurized mana frothed out of their ends, burning into the environment and causing small ruptures and tears in the skin. The area around me was almost immediately flooded by several heterogeneous fluids, but before I could name the new development, the human¡¯s channels crashed into mine.
White noise halted my thoughts. There was only so much I could pull my channels back, and before long, I was forced to retaliate. The human was uncoordinated. Fighting haphazardly on all fronts, a weakness I abused.
I initiated a rolling attack, focusing on weak points by clumping up my channels and driving them deep into enemy territory. My strikes were vicious and deadly. Somehow my golden mana was able to shred the coppery human mana like it was made of Air. I abused this fact to sow discord within the enemy ranks.
Even with my advanced tactics, I couldn¡¯t trade evenly with the human. I was having trouble differentiating between my channels and the enemy¡¯s. They were different colors, but I was only able to taste that difference once I actually interacted with them. From a distance, they all looked the same.
The problem was that the human had many, many more. Even my powerful aura could only survive so much abuse before destabilizing and losing control of the mana. I didn¡¯t actually know how to get more channels, and until I figured that out it was only a matter of time before I was overwhelmed.
I didn¡¯t have the bandwidth to analyze that fact. Instead, I marshaled my aura to sow discord within the human¡¯s ranks. Whenever a wave of wrathful attacks descended upon me, I unleashed a vicious spike of aura that dispersed the attack.
Why was this human so mean?
The thought bubbled up through my subconscious as the rest of my attention was consumed with survival. Unlike every other thought, I paid it a modicum of attention. How come this human was doing everything in its power to destroy me? All I wanted was to survive.
It had skin that kept it safe from the Day. I didn¡¯t. Why couldn¡¯t it share? It had so much skin¡ªso much that it certainly didn¡¯t need all of it. Even when I grabbed some excess off the surface, it washed me in the Water and subjected me to an entire Day of suffering.
Was I here just to suffer?
I squashed the fatalistic thoughts. If I waited for events to carry on, my gemstone would be destroyed. I didn¡¯t know what that meant, but the pain of the process was more than enough of a deterrent for me.
I was in an odd dual state of being. One part of me¡ªsomehow separate but not¡ªwas handling the defense of the core with perfect precision. The other part, perhaps even a larger part, was watching the developments with an analytical eye.
This could not continue.
The question was how did this process work. As far as I could tell, there was not enough information for the human to be doing what it was doing. It shouldn¡¯t be able to prioritize my channels so efficiently. They looked the same. They were the same. All the way down to the mana they carried. The only difference was the unique blend of aura infused within the mana...
Wait.
I isolated a drop of human mana and brought it forcefully closer to me. It was different. There was a metallic flavor to it. A coppery tinge. Something I hadn¡¯t seen before. An exact deviation from my airy, golden mana.
Interesting.
With almost casual curiosity, I sampled the human¡¯s mana more deeply. I felt a whirring buzz within me. A mechanical clicking that hungered for the strange mana. Every time I tasted the mana, I extracted more information from it. There were differences. A sort of harmonic oscillation created by the human¡¯s aura. The core¡¯s effect painted the mana with a unique blend of sensations that seemed utterly random.
That didn¡¯t mean they weren''t important or that I shouldn''t try to replicate it.
I touched upon my core and gently changed the rhythm I was using to communicate to my channels so that it was identical to the human¡¯s.
At first, the war continued. Mana exploded just beneath the surface of the Human skin. Fluids of various origins suffused everything, cooling the area and removing torn and mangled flesh from the warzone. The temperature kept rising despite the cooling fluids, and the skin suffered for it.
In tandem, mana channels were slowly pruned as they were destroyed by the direct conflict. That had the frightening effect of thinning the protective veil of the skin.
Thankfully, it was Night, and I distantly observed the small human tossing and turning in the bed while two larger humans watched on. The first human possessed the frigid platinum core, but the second one was an enigma. The odd, emaciated creature had a dark core and instead of skin, its body was made entirely of wood.
How decidedly strange. I shall name it Father.
I returned to my task and with every passing moment, I became better and better at mimicking the small human¡¯s mana signature. I continuously sampled the human¡¯s mana and each time, I discovered some new nuance. Every time I incorporated a new subtlety into my own rhythm, the war changed.
The human¡¯s assualts grew confused. Its attacks lost cohesions, which gave me room to work. Unfortunately, it seemed as if the human still sensed something was wrong, and it began resorting to scorching the flesh on which we fought. That wouldn''t do. We both needed the skin to survive the dawn.
My mimicry wasn¡¯t enough. It wasn¡¯t that I was imperfect. It was that I was slow. I was a quarter-second delayed from the human core by necessity. Every aura pulse was subtly different, and there was a limit to how fast I could recreate the energy wave.
I wasn¡¯t thinking big enough. I chided myself.
I forcefully attached one of the human mana channels to my own. The direct connection enabled me not just to mimic the human¡¯s signature but extend it. Instead of a separate infiltrating entity crudely copying a master, I was a relay. A pure extension of mana that pulsed in perfect harmony with the human.
Peace.
The war calmed.
The aftermath of the chaos took many cycles to heal. I sat within my crystal and observed the comings and goings of Blood, Lymph, and Cells. The channels repaired by themselves, but the skin required more tender care. It was a learning experience that was infinitely more relaxing than the chaos of the last few days.
At the same time, I grew more accustomed to the new automatic part of myself. I dedicated a small portion of my mind to maintaining the mana signature mimicry. After a few hours of warily watching the process from the outside, I became satisfied that the part of myself overseeing that duty wouldn¡¯t fail.
This left my mind free to do and think about...whatever I wanted. The only issue was that I was now almost completely blind. I could see a tiny volume around my gemstone, but with all the mana cascading around me, I couldn¡¯t hope to see beyond.
So, I explored.
Playing with the mana channels was a fun pastime and taught me much. Since my mana signature exactly matched the human¡¯s, I could now inject small pulses of aura into the channels and manipulate the flows. I used this to map out the internals of the human.
It had five appendages, two pairs of which were mirror images of each other, and the whole structure was supported by a rigid bone skeleton. The top appendage was the strangest of the bunch. All the joints in the limb were concentrated around the base ¡ª which was exactly opposite when compared to the other four appendages ¡ª with a bulbous bony sphere balanced precariously on top.
I struggled to understand the purpose of such an appendage. I understood the arms and legs; they were locomotion enhancers. I¡¯d witnessed this human''s incredible potential for movement when they navigated out of the poor Bed and into the dreaded Shower. The Head, though...Its purpose escaped me.
That was until I accidentally connected to one of the fragile nerve cells clustering within the bone shell.
My world exploded in imagery and sensation. My first instinct was to recoil, but no pain accompanied the strange flow of information.
Information?
I allowed the flood to suffuse my mind and began to understand.
Thought streams 3719-A to 8419-C were dedicated to vision channels. The Bedroom opened up to me in an array of colors I had never even considered existed. Strangely, there was no mana information inherent to these data streams.
Thought streams 9441-D to 9961-F, as well as 441-AC to 907-S, were dedicated to auditory stimuli. Sensory vibrations were collected and interpreted as precomputed checksums whose meanings eluded me. I tabled the data stream for future analysis after soaking for a time in the cacophony of sounds.
And more and more.
>>>Hello?
I flinched as a small section of neurons near the front of the Brain lit up like mana at Sunrise. A directed assault of information rocketed through my thoughts with a single unified meaning. A greeting...of sorts. Should I respond?
>>>That was weird...I hope I¡¯m not getting sick again.
Warily. Hesitantly. Cautiously. I touched upon that ultra-dense cluster of neurons and willed a bundle of mana to wash over it with my intent
>>>Greetings.
The audio and voice channels lit up as the Brain imploded into chaos. I wilted, struggling to understand the mayhem and hoping I hadn¡¯t angered the human. I¡¯d only just found a place to rest. It would be terrible if they kicked me out again.
>>>Holy Smokeyes! What was that?!
The message shot through me and I wondered if I was supposed to answer that. What if the human wasn¡¯t asking about my greeting? What if they were? But if they were...wasn¡¯t it self-evident? It was a greeting. The same they had sent to me.
I was confused.
>>>Hey! Hello? Voice! Come back! Say something. Please! pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!
A new emotion I had yet to encounter swelled in my soul. Annoyance, I named it. With a touch of Panic.
I decided that responding to the human was the best choice of action.
>>>I am here.
The Human Brain seemed to short-circuit again, and a flood of muddled questions bombarded my nascent mind.
I began to try to answer the questions but then stumbled.
This was too hard. There wasn¡¯t just one question, but many. How was I supposed to answer all of them with one response? Was I allowed to answer only one? Was I supposed to scramble my response like the human had scrambled their question?
But...that was so inefficient...
And hard.
And...why?
I¡ªI didn¡¯t understand.
I¡¯d achieved so much, and still, this world was throwing new things at me. No matter how much I learned or how quickly I solved problems, I kept getting thrust into new situations.
The part of myself handling mana signature mimicry stuttered.
I shook as three strange messages bubbled up from my core. I tasted metal and lightning as new information about a strange multilegged creature flooded my mind. Specifically regarding an organ known as a multi-limb neuron cluster. How to make it. What it did. Where it¡ª
Nope!
Too many new things.
I couldn¡¯t handle it.
I give up.
I retreated from it all, dragging every scrap of my aura back into my gemstone to hide.
While my mind escaped the chaos of reality, a cruel, uncaring aspect of my being ruthlessly continued mimicking the human¡¯s mana signature. At the same time, a deep, soulless part of myself blinked online with several more messages: