《Brainiac Dungeon》 Chapter 1: A Whole New World!
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...what... What¡¯s going on? Everythings all...fuzzy.
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What? So that means¡­ I reincarnated? Well shit, there goes date night...
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Oh, that feels very weird. Like a prickly, itchy feeling, somewhere between a healing bone and a loose tooth, but without the pain. It¡¯s also kind of all over? Well, at least I¡¯m not going to be torn apart or whatever. Still not sure what the heck is happening.
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Oh, dang, and I was...just starting to...wake up... When I wake up next, it¡¯s to a blend of sensory information that I have to take time adjusting to, nothing being quite like what I¡¯m used to. There¡¯s the sort-of normal senses, like the fact that I could feel/hear faint vibrations, moisture levels, and heat gradients over my...form? I can taste/smell a surprisingly rich mix of what I get the feeling is some kind of sandstone-and isn¡¯t that a weird gut feeling to get?-and I can see...well, not much. In fact, it seems mostly pitch black, only a faint stream of moonlight glowing against stone a few dozen feet away, my sight abruptly cutting off only a foot or so out of the mouth of the cave I seemed stuck in. It¡¯s not even that it blurs out, or turns into a cloud of grey or whitenoise, past that point there is literal nothingness. If I had to guess, I¡¯d say it¡¯s like what a blind person would ¡®see¡¯, maybe. Oddly enough, no headache from that paradox. On the other hand, there are the fucking wild senses I suddenly now have, which can only really be described in aproximates. For one, I¡¯m aware of an unreasonably complex web of...blood vessels? Nerves? Roots? Maybe a bit of all three. Either way, I could ¡®feel¡¯ them, a massive web that seemed to start around where the Core of my new body is, thick branches splitting over and over again in recursive fractals. The thickest roots seemed to stay in the rock, while the thinner ones float through the air in the cave. And when I say ¡®in¡¯, I don¡¯t mean ¡®embedded in¡¯ or ¡®floating through¡¯, I mean that they were occupying the same physical space. It¡¯s like the roots are ephemeral ghosts, unable to interact with the world at all. Despite that, I could feel something flowing through them, pumping all along the system, dragging stuff into my Core and pushing stuff back out. Maybe it¡¯s like a respiratory system? Then there¡¯s the Mage sight. Well, maybe mage sight? It seems like it, anyways. It almost seems like synesthesia. Rather than ¡®seeing¡¯ color or shapes, I can see...elemental energy? Like, the stone in the cave is a soft-rough-strong Earth, a blend of minor elemental energies peppering the overall material, mostly threads of long calcified Life, pockets of old water and Water, and porous Air. More evidence that it¡¯s some kind of sandstone. There¡¯s more nuance there, stuff that can¡¯t really be described, though the little spots of life in the cave are much more interesting. There¡¯s little patches of moss and lichen all over the place, along with dustings of fungal spores, pollen, old twigs and dried out wood chips, what might be weeds outside, and a small family of...fennec foxes? No, they¡¯re a bit bigger than a fennec fox, and they¡¯ve got surprisingly mouse-like forepaws, like tiny little hands. They¡¯re mostly brown and grey furred, though one of them has an oddly colorful tail, a mix of oranges, yellows, and reds, along with faint hints of Fire energy embedded into the tail fur. It¡¯s hard to tell which ones are male and female. I mean I don¡¯t really have eyes, per say, maybe I can-whoah, that¡¯s more then I wanted to see! I can apparently see into the little critters. Oddly enough, no squeamishness at seeing all that blood and guts. And uh, it¡¯s a male and a female. It honestly takes me a solid minute to realize that I¡¯m not processing all of this all at once. Well, not in the same way as I¡¯m used to, anyways. Rather than switching from one set of input to another real fast, I¡¯m actually processing everything at the same time. Parallel processing, like a computer! After some quick testing, it doesn¡¯t seem like there¡¯s a solid limit on how many things I can concentrate on, though once I get to around 10 I noticed that my perception of time started to get slower. As in, the fennec mice (Fennice? Fennice.) start moving like they¡¯re on 1.25 speed on Youtube instead of normal speed. There¡¯s also a kind of strain? Not exactly a headache, but definitely some kind of ¡®stop being an idiot or you¡¯ll hurt yourself¡¯ kind of soft limit.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Alright, enough procrastinating. I really did need to get used to all of this sensory data, but my new body seemed made to handle large amounts of data, so there was surprisingly little disorientation. I just focused on them so I wouldn¡¯t have to look at my Core. Denial, I guess. But time waits for no one, so I focus my senses on my own central body. Most of the senses give odd, yet kind of expected sensations, the taste of your own mouth, the feel of touching your own hand, etc. Physically, I look like some kind of dark blue crystal brain, though a bit bigger than an actual brain. My insides are like some kind of crazy mess of fractals and crystals and organic bits, and I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s bigger on the inside? That really does give me a bit of a headache, so I stop looking inside of myself. From the little smooth, eggshell-like fragments of crystal beneath the floating organ, it almost looks like I molted out of the old Core. And why do I keep mentally thinking of the Core with a capital C?! Ok, ok, deep breaths. In, pause. Out, pause. Rinse and repeat. Calm down. After doing a mental review, I know a few things: 1) I¡¯ve been reincarnated into something called a Node Core. 2) Somewhat obviously, there¡¯s magic here, though the kinds of magic are currently unknown. 3) I¡¯ve developed new instincts. Maybe leftover from that ¡®Soul Framework¡¯ error? Or it could just be natural to the Core¡¯s biology. Crystallogy? Whatever. Alright, first thing to do is figure out how to actually use this body. Thankfully I get a strong feeling that it will be more like moving all your limbs after a long nap, rather than retraining an injured limb with physical therapy. First thing to notice, the ¡®breathing¡¯ I did seems to have had an effect on everything in the...dungeon? Yeah, dungeon. A thin layer of the limestone in all of the cavern seems to be infused with energy, probably mana or something, and it almost feels like buzzy-ozone-lemonlime. All the plants either grew or germinated and rooted, which was fascinating to see. None of it by very much, the biggest reaction was a patch of particularly reactive fungi that spread its mycelium out in all directions by a few inches, as if to catch even more of the energy. The Fennice had jolted up out of their sleep, both of them jumping around and playing like little cubs, despite the fact they were sound asleep just moments before. So, ¡®breathing¡¯ through my roots has a decidedly dramatic effect on things. With a moment of concentration, one of the air-based roots twitches, flexing and curling up before relaxing again. After some mental adjustments, I can move it with decent dexterity, though the whole ¡®boneless¡¯ thing takes a bit of getting used to. That and the whole infinity-fractal thing. I can¡¯t even see the ends of the root, it kind of just turns into a fog of feeling, almost like a cotton ball. I intersect it with a nearby rock, and twitch a kind of mental muscle. A small swell of mana pushes through the roots, and the segments inside and around the rock shift and move like a tree in a storm. Before my non-existent eyes, the pebble dissolves into motes of light-on both the true and mage sights-before being sucked into my roots oh holy shit- Whooo, alright, headrush over. Ok, I think I¡¯ve got that under control. I suddenly became intensely aware of some kind of...mind space? It¡¯s like a whole new set of senses, but in an area entirely removed from reality. I have a photographic 3D blueprint of the stone I absorbed, down to the individual crystalline structures, and how much of each element it¡¯s made of. Now that it''s in here, I can mold and shape it easily, like something between playing with putty and a CAD system. With just a little focus from one of my trains of thought it starts turning into a variety of simple shapes, like a cube, a sphere, a D20, etc, etc, before I finally try pulling it apart into its component atoms. Oddly enough, there seems to be more elements than really should be possible, and less of the ones I expected. The main ones are silicon, iron, calcium, etc, what you would expect from sandstone, but...it¡¯s like there¡¯s a spectrum of each individual element, with mundane atoms making up the bulk, and with various smaller groups of each atom that seems to have magical connotation, like Earth or Air. These connotations seem less intricate than the ones I found in the natural rock. Maybe they¡¯re like the building blocks of magic? Keeping that train of thought to experiment in the mindspace, I refocus most of my attention back on the cavern. Yeah, I couldn¡¯t really deny my new reality anymore. I really had turned into some kind of Fantasy Dungeon Core, like all those novels. What now? ______________________________________________________________________________________________ Alright, mental diary update! It is now daytime! From what I can see of the outside, there¡¯s some barren rocks with little sprouts of stubborn weeds in the cracks, and that¡¯s about it. I¡¯ve also been working on the whole ¡®I can mold the world around me thing¡¯! As I was expecting, I can¡¯t extend my roots out past my area of influence, which seems to be limited by how much mana I can circulate with said roots. When I tried to pull one of my thicker roots out into the open air it was like there was a heat wave, but made of magic, to the point that the plant life directly next to it went through its entire growth cycle in just a few seconds, withering into a rotted slurry before little new sprouts started growing out of it. It also felt like I was pulling a tooth out without anesthesia, so I¡¯ve concluded that I should not do that. I can shift my aura around slightly though, but oddly enough it seems like my smaller branches start to wither if they¡¯re left in stone for too long, it¡¯s like they pop under some pressure. So I guess the cavern must be like, the optimum size ratio? Probably made by the original Core soul, now that I think about it. Inside that area though, I can do a whole bunch of stuff! Though there are some restrictions. As long as I know how to make something, either from direct blueprints or via mind-space modification, then I can produce it, but otherwise I can¡¯t do diddly squat. For example, I can¡¯t just make stacks of gold, because I don¡¯t have gold blueprints to base the creation off of. Although I can make silicon, iron, calcium, carbon, tin, and other trace elements found in the materials that I¡¯ve absorbed. One thing to note, any of the magical elements, like Air-Aspect Tin, takes a lot more mana to create than their mundane bases. That and I don¡¯t really have much use for them at the moment as more than curiosities, which I can¡¯t really afford with so little information about the world outside and any danger I might be in. More interesting is what¡¯s going on with the plants and animals! Overnight, the cavern had filled to the brim with moss, lichen, and small mushrooms, and the two Fennice had done the dirty, evidenced by the fact the female seemed to already be in the 3rd term, a litter of 6. I have no idea where most of the material for that growth is coming from, but I could feel the air gradients as the plants absorbed carbon dioxide en masse, so the plants are at least trying to act within the bounds of normal science. All of that is nice, but the real thing to note is the fact that they all radiate mana! It¡¯s like there¡¯s some kind of snowball effect, my mana encourages growth, they produce more mana, which I can then cycle into my own, further increasing the growth, etc. etc. Also, fun fact, I don¡¯t need sleep. Don¡¯t even feel mentally fatigued, which is trippy, but very good for continued testing. For now, I¡¯m gonna focus on testing my limits, and making my cave look nicer. Just because I¡¯m a Dungeon Core now, it doesn¡¯t mean that I have to look ugly! I start by fixing up the little trickle of water in the top corner of the cave, opening it up and making a channel down to the center of the room. From there I empty out a shallow depression, covering it in a layer of black sand and multicolored pebbles (Thank you various oxides!). I splurged a little and made the black sand out of Life attuned silica and carbon. I discovered another interesting thing at this step. You know how I mentioned that the broken down Aspected atoms seemed to lose a lot of the meaning the stone they came from had? Well I can build up new meaning by thinking. The process is an odd mix between programming and painting, which is really the closest I can get with the mere english language. For the sand, which I¡¯ve decided to call Verdant Sand, has all of its elements attuned to Earth, Water, Air, and Life aspects, though more of the latter than anything else. I gave it the connotation of improving growth, along with connectivity to hopefully increase the overall effect the sand has, but it is sand so I¡¯ll hold my breath on any big breakthroughs Once that was done, I completed the channel (Filled with more Verdant Sand and pebbles) out of the cavern, allowing the water to trickle away from my sight rather than flood my little home. With the main centerpiece done, I started to shift all the stone in my range into a uniform material, though with Science-Fu it wasn¡¯t quite natural ¡®stone¡¯ in the traditional sense. I made a composite of buckyballs and basalt, arranging them into hexagonal columnar structures of differing sizes for simplicity. For aesthetic affect, I add veins of verdigris copper shot throughout the basalt columns. I did all of it mostly from a mix of boredom, dungeon pride, and to do more experimentation, along with being a geek and wanting to see how the buckyballs would affect the stone. Now I¡¯ve got a nice little abode! I¡¯ll need to figure out what to do for the organics though...Ah! I¡¯ve got an idea. If you¡¯ve ever seen those inca terraced farms, I do something similar to that, raising little ledges and walls of the columnar basalt and filling the spaces with variously sized sand and pebbles (the closest thing I had to dirt), before growing and shaping more of them to shift the displaced moss and fungi into them, along with any twigs that look alive enough to maybe sprout with the help of Literal Magic. As for the Fennice, they seem oddly calm about the whole thing, to the point that they just start moving their little nest area into one of the terraces. Odd. Still, with the dark black stone with turquoise veins, the calm pond of black sand and sparkling pebbles, and my Core floating above the center of the pond, giving off a midnight blue glow, I¡¯d say I¡¯m quite proud of what I¡¯ve accomplished! ...The heck do I do now? Chapter 2: Biohacker The cave is serene, the soft trickling of water flowing through the dungeon mixing with the quiet rustling of my two Fennice, both of them settling down for the night as the sun sets outside. Well, I assume it¡¯s setting outside, the only indicators I have to suggest that is the slow decrease in heat and light at the mouth of the cave, along with the small space just outside of it. Despite the calming scene inside of me, I could only sigh, dissolving the quartz crystal veined with glittering tin I¡¯d been playing with. I¡¯d been hemming and hawing since I¡¯d finished transforming the cave, despite the gnawing instinct in the back of my mind, like a particularly insistent intrusive thought. It was time to start experimenting with the living matter within my walls. There were logical reasons for doing so besides my instincts of course. For one, the more organisms I had in my dungeon, the more mana they would produce, which meant I would gain a higher net level of mana to work with. There¡¯s also the fact that I could potentially create new, modified creatures, designed to defend my relatively exposed Core, the mere thought of which sent intoxicatingly pleasant feelings through me. That¡¯s the problem though, creating them. Absorbing plants wasn¡¯t all that ethically damning to me, especially something as simple as moss, but something much more complex, like the Fennice¡¯s? I wasn¡¯t really comfortable with that. There¡¯s also the issue that, if I had to model them like my inanimate creations, it would take an exponentially longer time to create anything, simply from making sure all the little veins and nerves and glands would work-likely with very gruesome failures along the way-just to make basic changes to size or muscle density, let alone anything else. Still, there were enough incentives to get going on it that I could ignore it no longer. Concentrating on a single patch of moss, I command it to deconstruct, a small swell of power reaching down infinitely recursive roots to turn it into light and information. I brace, readying for a mental barrage of complexities far beyond that of mere crystal or stone... And nothing happens? No, wait, there¡¯s something...It¡¯s like another mental space, seperate from the one holding all the iterations of the materials I¡¯ve absorbed or self-modeled. How many mental spaces are there hidden inside me?! I grumble for a bit, but mentally sigh and move back to being productive, exploring this new mindspace. There¡¯s a bundle of light inside, presumably the moss, and when I focus in on it many lines seem to branch away from the central sphere. As I watch, various tidbits of information write themselves out above each line, germination rates, moisture retention, rate of natural mutation, natural lifespan. It feels more like the reams of analytical data plug directly into my thoughts more than me taking in the information visually, which I assume means that I already ¡®know¡¯ all this, and this is just a way for my conscious self to actually make sense of everything. Well, as fun as learning the photosynthetic efficiency of the average moss strand is, my true goal here is to modify them. Following my instincts, I subsume the train of thought in the mindspace within the sphere of moss-light. It¡¯s like diving into a sea of ordered, kaleidoscopic processes and sensations, waves of green and bubbles of structure. After a brief adjustment, I find myself before the true structure of the simple plant. It¡¯s...not quite the same as DNA, at least as I remember it. There¡¯s a similar structure to it, a winding chain of hydrocarbons, both an immense expanse and a minute thread in this space of fluid perspective, but the inherent magic of this world means that even the building blocks of life have had to adjust. Rather than a two-sided helical spiral, the DNA is made up of three sides, sometimes making three-way connections in each segment, sometimes two-way connections, other times multiple two-way connections that seem superimposed over each other. Each atom is Aspected, working in an intricate symphony of elemental networking, minute branches of meaning working across the triple helix with just as much sway over the power of life as the physical material. With a prod of intent (and with a few extra trains of thought dedicated to the process), the mosses entire genome is displayed before me, paradoxically giving me a detailed look at every atom and its connections, while also letting me see the entire strand from an eagle-eye view. Some of the kaleidoscopic light surrounding me resolves into a universal view of the moss, as if I were looking at the real thing in the real world, starting at its germination and growing all the way through its natural life cycle before starting again like a very detailed gif. Different segments of its DNA light up at different points, showing what activates and deactivates during every moment of its life. I slowly learn the patterns, the full brunt of my consciousness focused on the process now, learning the genetic blueprint of such a simple life form with a fervor I¡¯ve rarely seen in myself before. Once I felt familiar enough with my mossy experiment, I started to try out modifications, replacing a nucleotide here, cutting a segment out there, focusing on the sections of code that modified its already extant biology and anatomy, rather than the bits that govern its more fundamental processes, mentally tossing any failed products. Each change would be shown visually, the altered processes popping up as explanations for why the aging cycle changes in the ways it does. I managed to make two different variants, though I stopped before I did anything too crazy, I didn¡¯t want to end up spending days on this. I float back into real-space, trains of thought branching away from the concerted focus I was using with something similar to a mental stretch. Apparently doing that actually takes effort now, despite my years of practice with it. Already I¡¯ve started seeding the new moss types throughout my little terraced gardens, sending small flows of mana into them to jumpstart their growth. There¡¯s obviously the original moss in abundance, which I¡¯ve decided to call Cavern Carpet Moss for the sake of discerning it from the others. It grows in thick mats when conditions are right-which they always are in my dungeon-bound together mostly with their longer than normal rhizoids. The rest of it grows as stout little puffs of green, adding a nice contrast of color to the rest of the cave. The first modded plant I made actually borrows from its evolutionary origins as algae, making a waterborne moss. With the spore floating on top of the water, it quickly sprouts and grows a single sprout, new ones branching from it to create a spiralling pattern, held together by a single rhizome tangled up beneath the green. The surface area keeps it from sinking, and it completely ignores the water below it, relying entirely on absorbing moisture and minerals from the air rather than risk over-watering. I seed a good handful of the now named Pond Lily Moss into the waters below my main core.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The Pond Lily Moss was mostly just for aesthetic affect, but this new one, the Honeysuckle Moss, is for a purpose. The green sprouts of the plant have shifted, forming wide, shallow bowls rather than stout stems, though it looks more like tiny little green scales from a cursory glance. This moss is much more mana and material intensive, turning it into a mana sink in fact, but as I watch the patches quickly growing all around the cave mouth, they get to work making that investment worth it. All of that energy goes into its hyper-functioning photosynthetic processes, the excess water and sugars collecting in the miniature bowl sprouts. The water slowly evaporates, leaving behind a slowly thickening, lightly sweet-smelling pseudo-sap, perfect for attracting other small creatures for me to collect. With the new plants settling in, forming their own spheres in my species mindscape, I have to say I get pretty giddy. If I had the vocal cords for it I¡¯d whoop and holler and just, celebrate! Dungeon instincts are probably amplifying the feeling, but I made life. Like, there¡¯s all the issues with having some weird semi-organic magic body, and the wonder of being able to control the very building blocks of matter, but creating living things just hits different, you know? It¡¯s every biologist''s dream! Filled with the giddy energy, I start taking samples of all the other plants and fungi in my little slice of the world, and get to work diversifying. The lichens threw me for a loop for a little bit, since they looked like multiple species spheres overlapped on top of each other, but I remembered that they¡¯re composite organisms which cleared things up for me. The idea of having multiple organisms bound together like that did intrigue me though, and gave me an idea. After a lot of fiddling and making sure that it would have a decent expected lifespan, I ended up making a mycelium composite, each strain losing their fruiting bodies and specializing in breaking down specific materials and making different organic molecules, a high-efficiency sediment converter. Naming it the Converter Myceliate, I seed it all through the sand and pebbles under the moss gardens, speeding up their growth until they¡¯re practically universal, already starting to turn it into a very basic soil. Next come more traditional mushrooms, a mix of the natural Tan, Brown, and Teal colored varieties that were already growing, named as such since they weren¡¯t particularly visually impressive. Along with them are the stubborn weeds found just outside, quickly sprouting small red flower bulbs, some ferns that curl in spirals, and two stubborn, woody plants from the twigs I¡¯d collected. One of them grows mostly underground with a spiky topside, collecting water in thick, tuberous roots, while the other seems more like a bramble, spindly branches quickly covering themselves in waxy, dark red leaves. At this point, I feel something close to exhaustion, less an actual mental fatigue and more an inability to drive my actions, a kind of laziness coming over me. Over the next few minutes my thoughts collect enough for me to come to the conclusion that this must be the ¡®low thaum levels¡¯ those odd screens had mentioned when I first came too. Where are those screens, anyways? I would have thought there¡¯d be a whole system thing here, but so far I¡¯ve been pretty much left on my own. My attention drifts and swirls, idly taking note of my quickly flourishing ecosystem, however simplistic it might be. Ideas slowly tick through my mind like the teeth of crystal gears, both ephemeral and clear as day. I note with a distant glee that I¡¯ve gotten some new visitors during the night, the tiny creatures crawl or fly into my dungeon, attracted to the Honeysuckle Moss and the energies swirling inside. The critters range from vaguely familiar to completely strange, the only commonality between them being how low they are in the food chain. Ponderously slow worm-like creatures burrow through my basalt walls, working hard to get through the reinforced material, chitinous rings of armor protecting them when they breach for air. Tiny crab-shaped animals the size of a pinhead swim up my small stream, or walk along its shores, filtering stray organic bits and minerals from the water. Possibly the oddest to arrive is a single winged wisp, dragonfly-like wing frames filled with solid Air mana, its main body transparent and brittle. Rather than settling on any of the gardens, it drifts along the currents of my roots, drawing tiny amounts from them to feed on. As my mana returns to me, more available now with the larger number of plants and the new arrivals, I get to work once more. Woody red-leaf brambles are joined by a vine-like cousin, each grasping bramble-vine reaching its tendrils up along the walls. The tuber-like plant gains a watery variant, the roots burying deep into the sands of the pond and the stone below, spikey top leaves extending into long strands, like a thick, rubbery form of seaweed. The curling ferns are joined by a three-way hybrid between the red-bulbed weed, the fern, and the Honeysuckle Moss, creating a spherical bulb of tightly-packed, curling stems and tiny leaves, dotted with tiny pink flowers dripping a blood-colored nectar. From there, I begin doing the same with the little critters, absorbing and replicating them en masse to populate my verdant cave garden. The only one I didn¡¯t absorb was the dragonfly air wisp, since I wasn¡¯t actually sure I could replicate a not entirely organic creature. I mostly left them alone, since I wanted to see how they would settle into ecological niches before I started making new, mobile species. I did, however, summon a nice pile of the armored stone-eater worms up as a present, to congratulate the new family. The Fennice couple had moved into the largest and thickest of my red-leaf brambles, the female just recently having given birth to her litter. She tiredly munched on each worm her mate nosed over to her, the six kits whining and snuffling at her belly in search of warmth and milk. If I could have, I would have squealed. They were so dang cute! Their eyes and ears were still closed off, fur soft as downy feathers against my dirt and moss, a pale grey color that would fill in with color and fullness as they grew. I¡¯d have pampered them all some more, but before I could I felt a shiver run through my form, as if someone had thrown an ice cube down the back of my shirt. Almost like a gravitational pull, I felt all of my focuses drawn to the border of my world view, the edge of my vision warping and bulging as a foreign field of energy passed through, followed by two more. My mana swiftly intermingled with these auras now that they were completely subsumed in my own, and the mysterious intruders resolved into people. I...wasn¡¯t quite sure how to feel about seeing them. On the one hand, it was people! Real, living people! Even though it had only been two(ish?) days since I was dropped in this body, knowing that I wasn¡¯t alone in the world soothed a burried panic in me, now knowing that I¡¯m not alone in this odd place. On the other hand, my instincts were screaming at me. I had no traps or dangers to ward them off, no creatures to protect my Core! Holy hell, they could probably spot my Core from a few dozen feet away with the way it was just on display. The closest thing I had to an able fighter was the male Fennice, and there¡¯s no way it could do more than scratch up their boots! On the third hand, the people I saw weren¡¯t all human, which was surprising. I mean, yeah, new universe and everything, so I guess it¡¯s more surprising that any of them look human, but it was still a bit jarring. The two in the back of the group are probably the closest to human I could hope for, a man and a woman in a mix of leather armor and hemp clothing, only the bare necessities on their persons. A backpack with a sleeping bag and canteen on each of their backs, The man holding a hatchet while the woman had two stiletto daggers at her hips. The man was short and stout, thick bones bound in bulky muscle and tough skin, a golden tooth and a long scar along his cheek adding character to an already gritty, smirking face. The woman was almost the complete opposite, lithe and tall, looking like a wary tomcat in human form. Her eyes roved over every inch of my cave, looking for threats. The one in front though, they were almost alien, looking like if you mixed a generic elf with a bird, maybe a bat too. It was taller than the human woman by at least two feet, rail-thin with smaller shoulders and hips than they probably should be. Their legs were digitigrade, covered by cloth wrappings up until their knees, loose, long shorts and a long-sleeved shirt made of wooden vine and leaf material hiding its skin. Their hands are large with long, four-digit fingers tipped in thick, claw-like fingernails. Their face was mostly human, though their ears were long and large like my Fennice¡¯s, and their eyes were a bit bigger than a humans in proportion to its face. Instead of hair, it had a mane of brown feathers, paired with a plume of similar feathers around each wrist and their porus, bird-like bones to hint at their potential ancestry. It wasn¡¯t immediately apparent if they were male or female-if they even had distinctions like that-and I wasn¡¯t really willing to peak into someone¡¯s organs just to see what reproductive parts they have. There¡¯s also the problem of their aura, which would prevent me doing so either way. Just as my mana mixed into their aura, their mana mixed with mine, the three flavors of mana quickly making my control over the dungeon murky and ephemeral, my roots acting drugged. I could feel the influx of mana circulating through me, but the process of assimilating it all seemed to keep me from actually interacting with them. Or maybe it¡¯s something specific about humanoids? I¡¯d have to figure that out later. For now though, the important thing is that I can¡¯t really do anything except watch as they walk further into my body, metaphorically sweating at what they might do. Chapter 3: First Contact Scout duty sucked, and there¡¯s little you could tell Emilia to change her mind about it. The Cracked Marsh is rife with danger, everything from the variety of semi-magical wildlife that have adapted to it over the years, to the crackling lightning vents still left over from the calamity that formed the marsh. Normally she wouldn¡¯t take one step on the craggy, water-slicked grounds, but with how close Witmore is, regular patrols of the marshland nearest to the cliffs Witmore stands on are required. Of course, the Guard are much too busy protecting the city (sitting in the barracks and getting fat as hoglins, more like), so the patrols are most often left to adventurers stuck in the Iron rank, like her. So, she¡¯s stuck out in a three man scout squad, trying to get the damned tinder to light on the driest slab of rock they could find to set up camp on. Eventually she threw the flint lighter to the side in frustration, groaning and falling on her back to look up at the sky. Ironically, it¡¯s a bright and sunny afternoon, pinks and oranges bleeding into the sky, though the high humidity makes it unbearable rather than nice, the only thing keeping her from stewing in her armor like the inn¡¯s soup last night is the light breeze coming in from the sea, barely visible from where they¡¯d set up. ¡°Come on now girl, you¡¯re going to give up on our fire that easily?¡± ¡°Oh shut up Bronswick, you¡¯re the one with the flame affinity, I don¡¯t see why I have to light the fire!¡± ¡°Experience girl, experience! If you ever want to climb the ranks, you¡¯ll at least need to know how to light a fire on your own!¡± Emilia rolled her eyes at the old man¡¯s posturing. He couldn¡¯t really talk, he¡¯s one of those lowlife types that purposefully stay in Iron, coasting by on the maintenance check. If he wasn¡¯t a decent meat shield she¡¯d never have agreed to team with him. Tilting her head to the side, she spots the oddball of their little group, the fey-touched hovering over one of the little gaps in the craggy rocks featured all over the cliffside section of the marsh. They had one of their arms shoulder-deep in the crack, scrabbling around for something. Assuming they¡¯d lost something, she sighs and gets up, walking over to see what¡¯s going on. ¡°Talano? You good?¡± ¡°Mmm?¡± They turn their head to look up at her, wide eyes blinking in confusion. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m perfectly fine Emilia.¡± She waits a moment for them to explain what¡¯s going on, but they just go right back to looking in the deep crack, apparently scraping at something. She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose, reminding herself not to shake the birdman silly. Somehow, she managed to get stuck with a weird one, they kind of fey-touched that never seem to understand how to function like a person. For example, implied questions. ¡°What are you looking for, Talano?¡± ¡°Potentia water!¡± ¡°...What?¡± They finally pull their hand out of the crack, holding a ball of strangely vibrant moss, shoving it in her completely flat face. They smile like a child presenting a new pet, and she almost believes that they¡¯d gone mad, until the tiny wisps of Potentia clinging to the moss ball brush against her cheeks. ¡°I thought I felt an oddly strong flow of life, and when I went to investigate I found this moss! I believe there might be a dungeon upstream-¡± ¡°Yeah no shit Talano!¡± Ignoring all decorum, she grabs the fey-touched by the hand, dragging them back to the main campsite where Bronswick was quickly going from bemused to serious. Before he could ask what was going on, she hurled the moss ball at his stupid face, getting some satisfaction at seeing his gobsmacked look before her urgency put her to packing up her things. ¡°No time to talk, we need to get to that dungeon! Talano, do you think you could track it?¡± Bronswick grumbled but got to work packing up along with her, the birdman standing off to the side with their head tilted a little, a second eyelid sliding over each of their eyes as they looked around. They hum a little, eventually nodding and pointing right for the sheer cliff wall to their right. Considering they¡¯d only just been settling down for the approaching night, it didn¡¯t take long to pack up and get moving. The run is pretty easy-well, as easy as it can get when running over slabs of rock and tangly, wooden brambles-thanks to various reasons. Bronswick is experienced enough to walk through the hazards like they aren¡¯t there, Emilia has her Rogue and Dancer skills along with natural balance, and Talano...is Talano. Before long, she could practically smell the Potentia trickling by in the little stream, growing more and more anxious. They turn around a small bulge in the cliff wall, Talano in the lead thanks to their longer stride, but they all skid to a halt once they spot the entrance, Bronswick nearly slipping on the wet slate stone. The dungeon stood out with its angular walls of black stone, veins of turquoise color splashed across them. A faint ripple in the air hangs in the space in front of the structure, the barrier between the normal world and the space the dungeon controls bulging out like a giant soap bubble. In the slowly fading sunlight, a dull blue glow was prominent inside of the entrance, like a shining star in the night sky. Something moving in the corner of her eye snaps her out of observing the structure. An eel-snake had somehow managed to make its way all the way here, drawn to the Potentia of the dungeon. Jolting back into motion, Emilia dashed ahead, pulling out one of her stilettos and tossing it at the creature, the edge of the blade shining with a white light as its trajectory bent and readjusts, slamming into the back of its head just before it could slither into the dungeon¡¯s influence. They needed to keep it from absorbing any more creatures, especially something from The Cracked Marsh. For a few minutes, the only sounds were their heavy breathing and the distant crash of waves and squalls of birds. Sighing, she inches closer, pulling the still slightly twitching beast away from the dungeon by its tail, pulling her stiletto out of it and wiping the blood off on its scales. Sheathing it once more, she walks back over to her companions, bag off of her shoulders in order to stuff the beastie inside. ¡°Alright, we¡¯ve got an actual, gods damned dungeon pretty much right underneath Witmore, facing the tidal swamp of various deadly creatures. The fuck are we supposed to do?¡± ¡°Aye, quite the sight too. What do you reckon¡¯ll be in there by now? No clue how long this thing has been here-¡± ¡°It¡¯s a fresh sprout.¡± The stout man stumbles on his words, both of the humans looking to their companion. The owlman¡¯s secondary lids were folded over their eyes, giving them a look at magic that no human could see on their own. They seemed almost entranced, as they watched the cavern, words spilling from their mouth as more of an afterthought than a true conversation.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°The roots make it hard to tell what¡¯s inside, but I can see the outline. It¡¯s only about the size of a small cave, no twists or turns or corridors. We must have caught it only a few days after its emergence.¡± ¡°Roots¡­?¡± Emelia murmurs to Bronswick, but he merely shrugs and waves for the fey-touched to move forward. ¡°Welp, you¡¯re the one with the magic sight, best you take front.¡± Talano blinks their eyes, the extra membrane clearing away once they open, and gives the both of them a smile as they take the lead. Emilia herself hesitates as they approach the barrier, but drives herself forward on sheer will. If she wanted to be a real adventurer, she¡¯d need to be able to face anything. She couldn¡¯t let a baby dungeon get the best of her! Stepping in with Bronswick after Talano, she shivers at the feel of the foreign aura pressing down and mingling with her own. She¡¯d only been to a dungeon once before, during her days as a rookie, out at Vestholm. The aura it emitted always seemed to be trying to drown her in bloodlust, urging her to be aggressive by mere proximity. Predictably, its monsters had been terrors, willing to gnaw through each other for even a chance at killing an intruder. Her trainer had restricted her and the rest of her training group to the top floor, where the monsters were most frequently culled, but it had still been a harrowing experience. As the group stepped into the almost supernaturally dark cavern, the dungeon¡¯s aura mingling within her own, she felt...curious? And caution, though surprisingly little aggressiveness. The feelings being pressed down on her were more like an inquisitive child looking at an interesting creature then something that wants to kill her. Just as she thinks she¡¯s gone mad from the stress, a scroll pops up in front of her, confirming the feeling.
======================================================================== Diver¡¯s Boon: The Scholar (Miniscule) Little is known of this aberrant structure, made of sculpted stone. The air here seems oddly tranquil, perfect for a scholar to muse on the mysteries of the world. Effect: Mana-based skills form slightly faster than normal. All Scholar-Type skills gain a minor boost in effect while within this structure. ========================================================================
She looks to the other two, Bronswick looking back at her with a raised brow. Talano, of course, has ignored the Boon, instead looking at the shorter hexagonal columns right at the mouth of the cave, their tops covered in something green, little trails of light green sap flowing off the sides. ¡°A bit odd as a Boon, wouldn¡¯t ye say girly?¡± ¡°Yeah, I thought I was going mad until I saw the scroll, but considering what it says I¡¯m still not sure.¡± She shakes her head and sighs, moving forward to cover her absentminded owlman friend¡¯s back for any potential danger. ¡°Come on, we¡¯ve got a job to do.¡± The stout man simply shrugs, moving in front of the both of them, pulling a glowstone from his pocket and hanging it from a jacket hook, the pale glow helping to light up the cave more. The black stone seems to absorb the light like a void, but the slight sheen of condensation and the reflective veins of metal outline the shape of the cave well enough. The shadows cast by the odd shape of the stone does weird things to her perspective, though. As they venture a few more feet inside, they find the oddest things. Plants. Well, it¡¯s not that strange to find plants, in fact they¡¯re quite common in dungeons for whatever reason, but it¡¯s usually wild growth, like if you put a jungle in a cave. This looked like a garden, multiple layers growing as high as her chest along the walls. It¡¯s too...organized, too intelligent. Honestly it¡¯s giving her goosebumps. The miniature hall widens out shallowly into a small, vaguely circular room, mostly taken up with those terraced gardens and a big, black pond. In the far back, a stair-like set of the stone columns lead down to the pond, the top of each column filled with a small amount of water before spilling down to the next one, eventually falling to the pond below. With the dim lighting from the glowstone, small, colorful, sparkling stones shine in the stream and pond, obscured by thick, wavy lines of seaweed and odd, fuzzy-looking lilypads. The plantlife is rife in this room, most of them familiar from her time in The Cracked Marsh, others similar but very much different. The odd thing is that there didn¡¯t seem to be any Warped. No tumorous growths, no barkless brambles, even the insects she could see didn¡¯t seem off in any way. There was a single razorwing pix floating through the eddies of magic, already nearly double the size a normal one would be, and yet it was the only one there. She¡¯d have thought that there would be swarms of the things! Floating above the pond, the core floated at the center of its oddly tame domain, shaped very oddly. She¡¯d heard that dungeon cores tend to simple shapes, spheres, squares, crystal cuts, etc, but this one was oddly complex, kind of lumpy and wrinkly, with a little bulge at the bottom that tapers sharply into a rod. Basically, nothing was the way it should be and she was very concerned. Bronswick seemed to be feeling the oddness too, looking back and forth for some hidden threat. He probably knew even better than her that something was off here, there simply was no reason for a core to leave itself out in the open, even a baby core would have embedded itself in the ceiling or something. Everything was just...calm. Talano, of course, completely ignores the atmosphere, instead squinting at the pool. They kneel down, lightly dipping their hands into the water, dragging their hands through the black sand and pulling some back up into the air. They stare at it intensely, despite the fact that she hissed at them to stop messing around, before taking another look around at the strange gardens. The fey-touched gives the core a wide, silly smile, before standing back up and turning to the two of them, an odd sense of purpose in his posture that she¡¯d never seen in them before. ¡°Alright, that¡¯s about all we¡¯ll see here. I suggest we head back to Witmor and report it in, that should give the dungeon plenty of time to get some proper protections in place for any greedy types that might want to take its core.¡± ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we-¡± ¡°Come on now, there¡¯s the Leaving¡¯s Offers to do!¡± Emilia watches the fey-touched walk past her and Bronswick, pulling a coin bag out and letting the sand in their hand slip into it. She looks back and forth from them to her human team mate, very much confused, but gains nothing but another confused look in return. After a moment she just sighs, slowly following the humanoid back to the entrance, hating her life just a little bit more. They stop in the space in between the barrier bubble and the dungeon entrance proper, turning to face it once more. She and Talano get down on one knee, out of anxiety for doing the ritual for the second time and respect for the being, respectively. Bronswick, the old lump, simply sits down on the rock, complaining about his knees despite his skills. Talano leads the Offering, being both familiar with and passionate enough about it to do the whole process properly. ¡°For those who fell in the past, and for those who will rise in the future, we of the present leave these gifts, in hope that we may achieve great things with the lessons and experience gained today.¡± Talano¡¯s tone is solem, but with a hint of excitement, likely from whatever they saw in that black sand, but she ignores it, instead focusing on what to offer. Talano, somewhat typically, pulls a necklace from under their shirt, a primal thing made of hemp string, carved bone, and different feathers, along with a single ¡®gem¡¯ of amber. Obviously they wanted to encourage more growth in the dungeon, despite the fact that¡¯s usually never considered a good idea. Bronswick simply shrugs, taking his glowstone off of its jacket hook, leaving it on the stone next to Talano¡¯s necklace. She takes a few more moments to think, before sighing and pulling out her lucky rat¡¯s tail. She¡¯s pretty sure it¡¯s not actually lucky, but it was magically preserved and had saved her in a few fights just from being a weird thing to throw at people. It was also the most harmless thing she could think of to give a dungeon, while still letting her say she was following the ¡®give something meaningful¡¯ rule of Leaving¡¯s Offer. A long moment passes, and they break from the ritual, getting up and walking out of the barrier. Looking back, the three of them watch as the dungeon seems to come alive again, their offerings dissolving into motes of magic and light. The density of the Potentia the dungeon was giving off already seemed thicker, and as they turned to make their way back to Witmore, the faint sounds of grinding stone and warbling water rushing by rock fill the air, growing fainter the further they get away. She stole a glance at Talano, seeing the determined gait in their steps that forced Bronswick to jog just to keep up with them. ¡°Are you sure that was a good idea? Just leaving it alone, to do whatever it wishes with whatever animals might come in?¡± They give her a grin, made slightly disturbing with the double-canines found inside, despite the fact the owlman literally wouldn¡¯t hurt a fly. ¡°Of course! It was producing enchanted sand, the kind that¡¯s built into the fabric of a material. Specifically, sand that encourages good growth with everything else, I get the feeling it''s an Artisan dungeon.¡± She had to blink at that, delving into her thoughts. She didn¡¯t know much about Artisan-type dungeons, but she remembered that they were considered the Orven to the normal dungeon¡¯s Warg. Much like the domesticated cousin of the Warg, Artisan dungeons don¡¯t rely on monsters and aggression for protection, instead focusing on making new things, often producing plants and animals that can actually survive in nature, rather than being ravenous monsters. The reason they were so rare is that organized forces usually were not the first to come across them, usually being destroyed by some bandit group and sold on the black market. If this one was, they were going to end up with a lot of conflict in the near future. Gods, she really hated Scouting duty. Chapter 4: Renovations Well, that was...an experience! First things first, no idea what they were saying, and not just because they were speaking a different language. It was like there was something missing when they were speaking to each other, and I just couldn¡¯t process their words. There were only two times that I got some actual clarity, which is when those hardlight scrolls popped up in front of each of them, and that weird ritual thing at the end of their visit. The scrolls each had little flairs to them, seemingly based on each of them. The rogue¡¯s scroll looked like it was made of steel and parchment, the warriors looked like it had some stains on it, and the elf person seemed to have one made entirely of a roll of bark. They all said the same thing though, written in actual english, which I could only assume meant that they somehow translated into whatever the observer was used to. Apparently people got a ¡®boon¡¯ as soon as they entered my area of influence? Definitely something to keep in mind for the future. The ritual though, that was more interesting. I still couldn¡¯t figure out what exactly they were saying, but I could feel the intent behind the words, an odd mix of excitement, solemnity, and anticipation. Once they all stepped out of my sphere of influence, my control over my roots snapped back into place, all of the mana they¡¯d left behind quickly getting processed. That¡¯s definitely a weird reaction...maybe the humanoids themselves cause the inactivity? I didn¡¯t feel any particular problems though, I just stopped being able to affect things. Enough recollection though! I was expecting to have at least some time before having to defend myself, and I know for a fact that less scrupulous individuals will want to either destroy me, or hold me hostage to force me to make things for them. What I need to decide, here and now, is where I want to take my dungeon. What is most important to me? First off, I refuse to kill without reason. Obviously if someone¡¯s trying to actually come after my core, I¡¯m going to defend it, but I don¡¯t want to stop being empathetic of others. I was human, and I will stay human at my core (ha!). So, I need to figure out how to defend myself in mostly non-deadly manners. Considering the state of my creatures, that means traps for now. And the offerings given to me may just be pivotal on that front. The rat tail and talisman necklace are great for adding some more mid-level animals to my ecology, but the stone is the big catch, because it¡¯s enchanted! Now, I had been doing stuff like the verdant sand (which had, in fact, slightly increased the growth speed of the water plants), but that was completely passive. This light stone, once I absorbed it, showed me how to set up what were essentially magic functions. For example, the stone-quartzite mineral, artificially uniform structure-has a kind of neutral mana I hadn¡¯t seen before threaded through the structure, forming a somewhat basic weave of magic that¡¯s a cross between a spider¡¯s web and circuitry. Using dungeon-fu, I easily make a copy of the enchantment and examine it, looking over its functions and triggers. In simple terms, the enchantment stays static until something is placed through the hole in the middle of the stone. When something is, it triggers a minute observational field in the hole, exciting the rest of the enchantment and making the atoms give off light, using mana as fuel. Basically, a longer, fancier way of saying they made a magic flashlight. With this new knowledge, and the proverbial fire lit under my ass from knowing I¡¯ll probably be getting a lot more visitors soon, I get to work renovating. I burrow my roots into the back wall of my cave, the thicker ones staying ahead of the smaller ones, which dissolves the stone as they¡¯re pulled back with the larger ones. With the new space, my root system grows larger to fill in the gaps, my core floating back as the wall recesses more and more until I have a good sized tunnel, a good 100 feet long. With the new space, I find several more cracks letting loose more water, which is slightly concerning for tunnel stability, but with some more reinforced columnar basalt, that problem goes away. Rather than have multiple little streams, I reroute all of them to the middle of my rapidly growing pond, the now much larger space filling up with more water. With the pond now filling up most of the front half of the corridor, I deepen the channel letting the water out of my cave. The pond area is now the entire width of the dungeon, making it seemingly impossible to traverse without swimming. A singular column made of seven basalt columns sprouts up out of the water, the middle one going all the way to the ceiling and into the channel for the water, each of the outer ring of columns getting lower in a circular pattern, allowing the waterfall to glide from one pillar to the next without making too much racket. Embedded into the columns are dustings of purple, blue, and white crystal and metal, each tiny piece enchanted to glow with a soft light, the specific light level always shifting and twinkling. It bounces off of the condensation on the walls, and reflects off of the water to create multicolored ripples on the ceiling, creating a very cool effect. Next, the big project. Once the water level in the deep pond section is stable, I raise a variety of completely dark basalt pillars up in the water, the dark color making the person-width pillars near invisible. I raise them so that there¡¯s just a tiny amount of water covering the top of each column, and start threading the neutral ¡®Info¡¯ mana through each of them, along with most of the rest of this section. It takes some experimentation, but after some time I get a quite cool puzzle-trap for people to get through. A massive observational barrier covers the corridor just before the deep pond area, which triggers the puzzle. On the main waterfall column, a set of slightly larger ¡®stars¡¯ will light up brighter than usual, creating a constellation that any intruders can see. Lighting up in time with the constellation is a copy on the ceiling, which light up purple and shine down on the pond, directly above where the pillars to walk on are. The visitors have to make small jumps from one pillar to the next, either in time with the constellation, or by memorizing where they are. With the puzzle done, all I need to do is make some actual danger, to keep people from just swimming through it and ignoring the challenge. First, I hybridize a new variant of the Lakelurker Grass, the pseudo-seaweed I¡¯d made. This new species, the Black Tangler, takes some traits from the vine-like bramble, creating a sneaky tangling weed to stop people in their tracks. Instead of several green leaves like the Lakelurker Grass, the Black Tangler completely leaves behind its ability to photosynthesize, turning pitch black to camouflage in the dark waters and subsisting entirely off of mana. Each Black Tangler root only has one long leaf, which is wider and thicker than its cousin, each side covered in tiny spikes like a burr that grab onto a person, allowing the weed to tangle them up even more. I only planted a few of them, so that they didn¡¯t take over and outbreed the Lakelurker Grass, but I made sure that their single leaves were very long, winding through all of the water. Now, for a more active threat. You know those tiny little crab things? Well now I have a massive version the size of a human torso, with a pale white, semi-transparent shell. I thickened the exoskeleton and gave them stronger book lungs, a hint of magic increasing the efficiency of their lungs and circulation to keep up with their size. They spend their time at the bottom of the now deeper pond, scavenging for algae and sucking the sap out of the lake weeds. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Playing off of their instincts, I set up their nesting areas at the far end of the pond area, so the closer a swimming person is to the end of the puzzle area, the more territorial and aggressive the macro-aphid crabs become, though I made their ¡®attacking¡¯ claws more like clubs than anything, essentially bullying people back to the other side. Funnily enough, they kind of look like mirelurks now that they¡¯ve been sized up. Mentally taking a step back to look over it all, I have to say I like the look. A sparkling tower of water, the soothing sound of trickling water, reflecting waves of cool colors of light across the walls and ceiling. A test of wit and bravery, ¡®walking¡¯ on water over a miniature lake filled with lush green moss lily pads and lake weeds, little sparkling colored stones at the bottom of the black lake like a second sky, occasionally covered by dark lines or distorted behind glass-like creatures to hint at the danger behind the beautiful scenery. An Alien Pondscape. Satisfied with my work and the aesthetic it gives off, I move on to the other half of my new workspace, the section where my core now resides. I hum and haw over what to do, eventually deciding to review the new animal genomes I now have available for inspiration, summing a few of each in order to give the base species a chance at making a niche for themselves. While I do so, I go ahead and make some little hidden burrows and tunnels in the terraced garden zone, leading past the Alien Pondscape and into the new zone. The rat tail, obviously, gets me some rats, though these seem to grow larger naturally than the ones I¡¯m used to, nearly the size of a medium sized dog. I make sure to summon an even mix of males and females, all different colors and patterns for some genetic variety. The necklace gets me a nice mix of creatures, mostly birds, but the amber is a surprising boon as well. I summon in what are, for all intents and purposes, is a regular raven, though their feathers have an odd magibiological structure that essentially makes them hard to focus on. It doesn¡¯t work on me of course, since I can see everything inside of me, but it¡¯s a really cool effect! If I¡¯m looking at it right, normal eyes will just glide over them, reading as ¡®normal not-threatening object¡¯ when the mind is processing them. In the dark of the cavern, they¡¯re essentially invisible. The other bird is quite unique though, looking a bit like a woodpecker mixed with a sparrow, striking feather color contrasts making them stand out even in the gloom. From what I can tell, they tend towards bloodletting, landing on large animals and poking through their hide with their needle-like beak. They get away with it because their saliva is a numbing agent, along with an antiseptic and blood clotter, so once they¡¯re done the animal is left none the wiser, and they¡¯re insectivores too, so they probably deal with parasites as ¡®payment¡¯ to land on big animals. Big potential for a medical good for adventurers! Probably the coolest animal I¡¯d seen so far though, is what I can only describe as a weasel-bat wyvern creature. It¡¯s got the long body of a weasel, with a poofy tail for balance, and six limbs which is freaking wild to see in person. Rather than having an upper torso protected by ribs and a lower torso with just organs, they have ribs more like a snake, but with two sets of legs at the ends and a pair of bat-like wings in the middle. Their heads are very much bat-like though, with big eyes and ears and a short snout, and their legs are longer than a weasels, made for climbing trees. As for the amber, even though most of it is mineralized, the resin still has enough DNA for me to get a good copy of the tree that made it, along with some pollen from a flower that managed to get mixed in. Making some copied pseudo-dirt from the terraced garden zone, I summon up seeds for both of them and infuse them both with a good bit of mana. Fun fact, It¡¯s less mana intensive to grow something from a seed, rather than summoning something full grown, less Aspected atoms that you need to summon yourself. Sprouting from the dirt comes a small, stunted pine tree-esque plant, turned into a kind of shrub thanks to the ceiling being too low, the needles sprouting in aquamarine blue clusters all along the branches. The ancient flower almost looks like a sunflower, but the stem is only about a foot tall and much thicker, with the petals being a deep, burnt orange. The amber and the fact that I just Jurassic Park¡¯ed some plants back into existence gives me a sudden bolt of inspiration for this room, and I get to work setting things up. First, base stuff. I pretty much copy-paste the Terraced Garden zone¡¯s schematics, recessing the floor of the new core room down a good 5 feet and filling it with a mix of larger stones, terrace soil, and groundwater. After that is the moss, ferns, and weeds, along with all of my mushrooms, pretty much everything ground-level. Next is the new variant of the ancient pine tree, which I gave some traits from both the ancient sunflower and the red bramble vine. It has a more winding trunk and branch growth pattern, almost like a full-sized bonsai tree mixed with a weeping willow. I can only fit a half dozen of them inside, but they definitely give off an ancient forest feel, especially once I add the crimson leaf vine all along the walls to give the room a thick forest feel. The new trees have very thin, orange leaves, thin enough that light can shine through, along with little clusters of maroon flowers that hang from the drooping tips of the branches. I fill in the rest of the space with the normal brambles, along with a harder kind of table mushroom made to mix woody lignin into its structure, and a completely alien mushroom that is mostly spherical, a small enchanted piece of amber in the center of the sphere allowing yellow light to shine through. At the very back of the room, I grow one last tree, forcing the trunk to split and wind around my Core before fusing back together above me, creating a protective wooden cage. If someone got this far, they¡¯d have to cut through the bark and wood to get me out of the dungeon. As a final touch, I mix together my patterns for amber and white quartz, peppering it liberally into the ceiling and enchanting it all to light up, the light growing weaker or stronger in undulating waves. It creates a soft orange-gold light that mixes well with the light of the glow-shrooms, shadows and light shifting over the mini forest like it¡¯s a cloudy day at sunset. Personally I think it contrasts well with the dark black, purple and blue of the Alien Pondscape, but that could just be personal bias. Alright, the environment is set up, time for the animals! First off, I make two new species branching off of the Bloodpecker. One is more passive and smaller than the Bloodpecker, perching on the drooping tree branches with their tiny talons to sip up the nectar of the tree¡¯s flowers. They¡¯ve switched entirely to red plumage, camouflaging to look like the flowers they feed off of as protection. The other species I only make a few mating pairs of, so that they don¡¯t devastate the rest of the population. They are much bigger than the Bloodpecker, looking a bit like an Emu but with fully functioning wings. The needle-like beak of its cousin now has a blade-like edge on both sides, ending in a spaded tip. When hunting the rats that have already started to proliferate, they spear them on their beaks, then use the muscles in their jaw that are like the reverse of an alligator to slice their prey in two. For the rats and ravens, I decide to specialize them in intelligence, considering their already smart bases. Now situated in the Terraced Gardens with the Fennice and their kids are a small colony of mice. Still larger than earth mice, I managed to boost their intelligence, to the point that I¡¯m vaguely concerned they might be actually sapient. They¡¯re certainly trying to make tools already, and they seem to be quite interested in the Fennice, which are about twice as big as them. The new ravens stay in the ancient forest zone, the few that I made becoming somewhat of a gang. Visually they look almost identical to the regular ravens, except for being a bit larger with silver colored beaks (a personal distinction), but when they open their wings another little trick makes itself known. I¡¯d been experimenting with the natural enchantment on their feathers, and ended up making something essentially the opposite, white feathers that glitter with iridescence and draw the eye. I liked the look but didn¡¯t want to destroy their camouflage, so I put them as the feathers on the bottom side of their wings. They seem to like dancing to each other, and last I checked they were scouting out the whole dungeon, and developing what seems to be an actual language. The weasel-bat thing (Which I have mentally titled Weaselern, as in weasel-wyvern), while doing reasonably well in the ancient forest, I felt could do better elsewhere with some evolution. I made a new species that, oddly enough, fit best in the Alien Pondscape. They got a bit larger, with a more otter-like look to them, slipping in and out of the water and using their wings for both flying and swimming, water sliding off of their fur thanks to a special oil. They like to harass the Mega Crabs, and I ended up making burrows in the walls that start underwater and lead up to little air pockets to nest in. Back in the Terraced Gardens, things haven¡¯t changed much, the main difference being that the Fennice family is all up and about, interacting with the super mice. There are 4 females and two males, with the males tails having wisps of Life and Water aspect in the fur. I¡¯m assuming it¡¯s some kind of way to ¡®look¡¯ more attractive to females, which implies that they can see mana. Definitely something to test later, but for now I¡¯m quite happy with what I¡¯ve accomplished. I¡¯d say I¡¯ve done a good job of setting up, and the whole making new forms of life thing! ...except I¡¯m still just a straight line. Shit. Chapter 5: Scouting and Preparation One moment he didn¡¯t exist, and in the next, he did. Sudden corporealism is, as one might expect, very disorienting, so he relies on his instincts. Screeching like a bastard and flying as high as he can. Considering he is in a half-cave half-forest place, this ends up with him smacking high-speed into the black stone ceiling before wobbling onto a small sapling¡¯s branches, feathers ruffled and very disgruntled. When the others come into existence too, that¡¯s how they find him, and that is also how he gets his name. Rufflefeather. It¡¯s...a name, and while he¡¯d have preferred something more along the lines of ¡®Starshadow¡¯, or ¡®Cut of Night Sky¡¯, it¡¯s a serviceable name for now. Hopefully he¡¯ll be able to earn a true name from their Dungeon, maybe even become the boss of the first floor! After all, there are few as beautiful as he-or one of his fellows, he supposes-and none that would take such a job as seriously as himself. Well, if the Dungeon even knew about true names, they certainly didn¡¯t seem to know most things a Dungeon should. No traps, no vicious beasts, heck the most dangerous thing in the whole floor is the spear-beaked greater raptors, and they were growing fat on rats rather than focusing on getting faster and more deadly. And what even is the room tone?! Three completely different themes in each of the main rooms, no variation in level, just a straight line, what the heck is that! He squawks, flaps, and stamps his taloned feet to get his frustrations out, before taking a deep breath and getting back to his given role for now. He is technically the oldest and most experienced of the dozen of his kind, and he is an adult compared to the rest of them being adolescents, so he¡¯s been left with arguably the most dangerous task, scouting out their Dungeon home. Although, with the Dungeon¡¯s temperament, a chick could probably wander off on its own and be placed gently back into its nest with a stern scolding before being given a tasty worm treat, which while appreciated is not how things go in a Dungeon. No, no, he¡¯d already decided to ignore that for now. Job now, griping later. He¡¯d already done a quick flyby, when he¡¯d thought they were in more potential danger than they really were, so now he was going through each room meticulously and noting everything he could. Their home room, also technically the Boss room, had their Dungeon¡¯s Core obviously, along with the foliage that was growing even thicker as he watched. The bloodpeckers and crimrose nectar birds would be good sources of meat, though he also figured one of the large rats might be easy to take down as a group if they ever felt like stocking up on food. Flapping into the much more quiet water room, Rufflefeather perches on the central column for a quick drink of water, taking a moment to open his wings and preen at his glorious heart-feathers, enjoying the way they show off his sparkling personality as actual sparkles on the water. He takes some time to look over the room once he¡¯s done, though he can¡¯t really do much here thanks to pretty much everything being underwater. He does have to yell at one of the big swimming fur-wing beasts when they try to spit a stream of water at him, laughing even as it dives back below the surface. Ruffling his feathers (yes, he recognizes the irony), he flies to the other side of the room, where intruders would start, before finding his gaze pulled back to the water room by a new sound. Apparently he¡¯d tripped the puzzle, the constellation and the ceiling lighting up in the pattern he¡¯d seen his first fly through, but this time a set of notes plays out, seemingly embedded in the water of the lake. The surface vibrates and ripples slightly with every note, each one simple but clear as they activate with each star of the constellation, echoing in the large room pleasantly. Well, he can at least appreciate the Dungeon¡¯s aesthetics. It helps that a small amount of thick mist hangs over the water from the excitement, making it even more difficult to cross properly. He picks up the room-feeling of embarrassment, the Dungeon apparently having focused in once the puzzle was tripped. Good, hopefully it would be able to filter out Dungeon monsters like himself. It completely ruins any attempts at sneaking, which will be needed when intruders inevitably come to hurt the Core. He moves on to the last ¡®room¡¯, though it¡¯s really just a prettied up corridor. There is the surprise of the smaller rats that come out to see him once he lands on one of the little terrace ledges. A trio of them scurry up to him, each only about a third his height when standing on their hind legs. Rufflefeather cocks his head from side to side, getting a better look at the trio. At first he assumed they were just smaller versions of the forest rats and was prepared for a quick meal, but stopped when he saw the gleam of true intelligence in their eyes. They weren¡¯t base species like most of the other creatures in the dungeon, they were potential allies. They were ugly as sin with their lack of wings and weird non-feathers, but he could see the practical application in those little intruder-hands they had. Even as he watched two of them pull apart a piece of woody vine until they had a bunch of fibers, then started weaving it together with their little fingers. It seemed mostly for fun rather than practicality, the third trying to climb up his foot while they all chatter in their not-bird language. He shakes the third off and ruffles his feathers in disdain, but preens a loose heartfeather out and drops it for them to play with. Obviously not for any empathy, the little creatures would be useful tools for defending the Dungeon entrance and a good start to relations would be best, and the feather was loose either way. He watched them play with the feather yes, but merely to make sure that they didn¡¯t try to eat it or something! They might be intelligent, but that doesn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t be stupid. Before he could fly off back down the tunnel to report in with the rest of the Gleamwings though, the Dungeon set itself to rumbling, The walls of the corridor grinding, dissolving and growing in turn as its two walls receded. As he crouches in place, he can see as the walls curve, creating a crescent moon, arching around the pool room and leaving a thick wall to seperate the two zones. Rather than the closed in walls he¡¯d expect to see, columns of stone that spear up from the now circular terraced gardens allow the Dungeon to stay in control of the space despite the open air, more forming to fill up the whole space. In between the circular gardens, moss and shallow water puddles cover the pathways, and the columns grow little small-rat sized stairways, little bridges cropping up like angular tree branches to connect all of the gardens. Along the actual walls, larger sized pathways and holes crop up, also connecting to the small-rat paths, and as he watches a family of larger fox creatures start exploring them. Feeling something stir underneath him, he blinks and opens up wings he didn¡¯t realize were covering something. Popping out from beneath his wings come the three small-rats, chittering in surprise as they look around, and he huffs at his instincts. He leaves them to reconnect with their fellows, flying down the now arching crescent gardens, watching the mana-boosted growth of the new garden columns plants. Each one seems to have a different combination of the plants he¡¯d already seen, just in different patterns. He squawks in surprise and indignation at the sign of what he sees at the end of the path though. At the end, he sees the forest! Well, he sees a quickly growing expansion of the forest, but he can see it, the Dungeon just opened the path directly to the Core?! He¡¯s ready to fly over there and scold it just for that, but before he can he thwacks into something right at the border of the two zones and drops to the floor, feathers ruffled. A vague feeling of panicked apology draws him out of his daze, and he climbs back up to his feet with an annoyed screech, preening his feathers back into place after the fall. Cautiously hopping closer to the invisible barrier, his outstretched wing eventually presses against the mysterious object. None of his inherent Dungeon Monster knowledge can tell him what it is, so he¡¯s completely puzzled. After pecking at it for a moment, the Dungeon room-feeling fades into anticipation and joy, and he watches as it materializes a circle of black metal with gold-love the shiny-etchings, pressing it against the barrier. Lines of light grow from the circle, creating very pretty shapes that outline a door from ceiling to floor in the barrier. After a moment, the light fades and the slice of barrier slides up into the ceiling, the warmer, more humid forest air mixing with the cooler, drier air of the gardens.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Rufflefeather flaps through, turning around to watch the door slide back down into place, becoming unnoticeable once more, with the black shiny floating into the rapidly growing plant life of the gardens. An interesting alternate route to the central pond room, though he¡¯s unsure how it will hold up to the intruders. Still, he¡¯s seen plenty enough for today, it¡¯s time to get back to the little brats. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ ¡°Hilda, I have a High Priority report that I believe you may need to hear as soon as you¡¯re available.¡± The small, glowing crystal on the desk dims slightly, before glowing brighter once more and repeating the message. It was once a well made desk, but has since been tarnished over time by spills, inkstains, and the slight deformations and discolorings from low-grade wood magic used for repairs. The office room the desk is in is of similar condition, showing a large amount of wear-and-tear that has been roughly repaired, prioritizing practicality over looks. Slumped over the desk, snoring loudly, a stout, literally bronze-skinned woman can be seen, face twitching slightly at the repeating noise but otherwise staying deep in her slumber. After the 5th repeat however, the crystal goes more dim than usual, before flashing stronger than ever, coalescing into a ball of water and ice cubes above the woman. It loses its fight with gravity quickly, and as one might expect, she jolts up, smashing right through the back of her chair and falling to the floor, sputtering at the cold. Sitting back up and looking around with a fighter¡¯s trained eye, she relaxes after a moment, her skin heating up a dull red to steam the water and ice away. The heat fades soon after as she gets to her feet, sighing and rubbing her eyes to clear away the gunk. Sitting down at her new stool, Hilda looks over at the crystal, practically oozing with amusement from the mind connected to it. ¡°Alright Ezos, I¡¯m up. What is so important you decided to go with the ice water method? You know how hard it is to find a carpenter that can make a comfy chair that can handle me.¡± ¡°A High Priority report, Hilda. It appears that a Dungeon has formed some 12 miles away, down at the cliff before the Cracked Marsh.¡± The dwarf has to just. Process that for a moment, simply from the ridiculousness of that statement. The Cracked Marsh was known to be a hotbed of magical irregularities, but a Dungeon was¡­ Her eyes sharpen with the aura of decades of experience, going from ¡®lazy guild leader in a backwash city¡¯ to ¡®master adventurer fighting the forces of evil.¡¯ ¡°What¡¯s the approximate development stage? How many of the reporters were lost, and did they get any valuable info? And how the hell have we had this thing under our metaphorical noses without noticing before?!¡± ¡°Easy Hilda, easy! To sum up, it seems we¡¯re actually quite lucky. The scouting team had a Feytouched among them, who led them right to it only a handful of days after its emergence. Even better, they were under the strong impression that it¡¯s an Artisian Dungeon, rather than a normal kind. I¡¯ve already sent out a Silver group to subdue the Dungeon for study if it¡¯s not Artisian, or secure the area if it is.¡± Hearing the measures already being taken, Hilda almost leans back in relief before remembering that her chair has been stool-ified, instead settling for resting her elbows on the table with her face in her hands, sighing in exasperation. ¡°How is it that you¡¯re both the most stressful and the most calming part of my job, Ezos?¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s has to keep your adrenaline going or you¡¯ll get rusty. Might as well be me! How would you like to prepare for the inevitable flood of people that will come to see the new Dungeon?¡± Hilda drags her hands down her face and groans, but knows that she has to think seriously about this. Obviously the other factions of Witmore would have a large say in the actual city-side of things, but for something like a Dungeon, she and the magical guilds would have the biggest say in their development, only seconded by the baron of the city. She had to think carefully of how best to guide the Dungeon¡¯s growth, especially if it was an Artisian Dungeon. They tend to stick to one, solid theme based on maybe a handful of things it has recently absorbed for a few floors before moving on to something else. After some deliberation, she speaks out to the crystal once more. ¡°If it¡¯s a normal dungeon, usual tactics, feeding in animals and plants with valuable parts. If it is an Artisian type, gather some samples of crystals, metals, and plants, both mundane and magical, anything useful for crafting really. We can squeeze some big favors from the crafting guilds if we push for practical material floors first, and it will let the economy boom along with the population growth to hopefully keep things relatively stable.¡± ¡°Excellent idea, Ma¡¯am! I¡¯ll see to it that the appropriate people are contacted and brought in for negotiations before sending out the Emergency Missives.¡± Hilda snorts at her secretary¡¯s cheery voice, long used to hearing the cunning snake behind her sunny disposition. She is very glad that Ezos is on her side. Still, she had mountains of paperwork to do with a Dungeon popping up, and all of the meetings as well. Best to get started before things really got heated up! She just hoped that the Silver team was one of the less...eccentric ones. No need to scare the dungeon after all. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Outside of the dungeon, a few dozen feet away, an odd, heavy clanking sound can be heard. The rapid clacks slowly grow louder, seemingly without an origin, before some odd creature comes into view, climbing down the side of the cliff despite its large size. It seems to be a golem, created to be a mix of a spider, a carriage, and a pagoda, obviously quite densely enchanted. It finishes its descent, seeming to scan the area before moving closer to the dungeon and settling down, the base of its main body setting itself on the stone. The door in one of its ten sides gets slammed open, someone jumping out with a holler. ¡°Whohoo! Time to fuck up a dungeon!¡± In the light of the cloudy day, the person sprinting for the dungeon entrance shows the fact that they¡¯re a reptilian woman, covered in charcoal-colored scales. Baggy pants and a short shirt are her only real clothes, covered in a waxy fireproof sheen, only some belts for equipment and pouches giving her clothes any flair. Before she can get more than a few feet away, something snaps out of the now open machine, wrapping around the reptilian woman¡¯s waist and jerking her to a halt. While she lands on her back with an oof, something climbs over the top of the door frame, the tendril showing itself to be its tongue as it winds back into its split face. ¡°You know the orders Essalaire, we can¡¯t just go spells blazing. Especially you.¡± The reptilian simply crosses her arms and grumbles as the creature settles itself above the door like a gargoyle, the rest of their companions following them out into the open air. Next to speak is what anyone who didn¡¯t know her would expect to be a normal-although quite fit-grandma, comfortable grandma clothes and grey hair in a messy bun. The human elder walks up to the huffy reptilian, crouching to give the younger woman a pat on the cheek. ¡°Oh come now dear, don¡¯t fret. If there¡¯s anything dangerous in there you¡¯ll be first to fight it.¡± The woman in question rolls her eyes at the babying, but the twitch in her tail hints to her real emotions. The last two people in their group make their way out, the large bear-like ursan letting out a belly laugh at the scene. The strange creature on top of the door drops down onto his shoulders, the more ominous traits fading from their form as they cross their arms and rest them on top of the small giant¡¯s head. Right behind them is a somewhat normal looking man, the only oddity being the large gravestone slung over his back. The ursan speaks up, looking around the area with a keen eye. ¡°Yes, we¡¯ll have plenty of time to mess about in the Dungeon once we¡¯ve gotten the area cleared and readied for all the higher ups. It¡¯s exciting really, this is probably the first real time we¡¯ll be trying to inhabit a part of the Marsh!¡± The grandma speaks up, already pulling out various reagents and tools, casting long term magics over the area around the dungeon barrier. ¡°That will be a while yet though, they¡¯ll want to make sure to be extra fortified for the Storm Surge, especieally with how close it is.¡± Ignoring the boring leader-talk, Essalaire looks around for something interesting, noticing that Adrian, the one with the gravestone, is standing right before the border of the dungeon, staring inside of the cavern. She walks up beside him, tilting her head to try and figure out what¡¯s going on. ¡°Something wrong bud?¡± ¡°...¡± He narrows his eyes for another long moment, before turning away to help with securing the perimiter with the others. ¡°It¡¯s nothing.¡± Watching him walk away, Essalaire only feels more confused, looking back at the dungeon for a moment before shrugging. If there is something wrong, she could just blast whatever¡¯s wrong. That usually solves her problems! Chapter 6: Getting a Bit Humbled So I may have gotten a bit distracted. Productively distracted, so that¡¯s good! But uh, yeah I kind of forgot the whole ¡®I¡¯ve been discovered¡¯ thing. Point for me, I made myself less linear! Now I kind of look like a pokeball, if you were to see my layout from a bird¡¯s eye view. I didn¡¯t want to just connect my Terrace Garden and Ancient Forest zones though, and I didn¡¯t want just a flat wall, so I ended up making a secondary route between them, for if someone can¡¯t or just doesn¡¯t want to do the water crossing puzzle in the Pondscape zone. Speaking of which, I¡¯ve been experimenting with that light enchantment, and I¡¯m quite proud of my work! I was able to shift the enchantment from emitting photons to emitting sound waves (surprisingly similar, at least in the odd paint/programmer language enchantments use), which I overlaid on my miniature lake. That¡¯s another odd thing, enchantments don¡¯t necessarily have to be overlaid on a specific object, they can also be overlaid on an area, or even just the features that make an¡­ ¡®environment¡¯, I guess you¡¯d call it? It¡¯s oddly both very flexible and very strict in how an enchantment works and what it can affect. For now I¡¯ll internally refer to item-specific ones as enchantments, and area-specific ones as wards, for clarity. But yeah, I have a MIDI-esque ward over the lake, tuned to copy the constellation reaction ward but in sound. I had to add some variables and tune the ward to make it actually sound good, but now that I¡¯ve got a copy of that, I should be able to reuse that ward-program to other things fairly easily if I need it again. As for the ¡®glass¡¯ walls separating the Garden and Forest zones, I cooked up something special, using my material science major and my many hours roaming the internet, and exploiting the fuck out of being what is essentially a living atomic-level 3D printer. Aluminium Oxynitride, or ALON. 3 basic, common elements, in the cubic spinel crystal structure, make a ceramic that is not only clear as glass, but can also stop bullets. Last I checked it was being tested in sensor and bulletproof material applications, but the manufacturing costs made it a bit pricey until mass production could be built up. Not an issue for me though! Right at each intersection of the zones, I make a big, half a foot thick slab of the stuff grow out of the walls, making sure to fuse them to the walls at the atomic level and reinforce the walls where they attach, just in case someone tries to dig around rather than go through. I have to raise and lower the door by myself though, so for now the amulet that I¡¯ve hidden in the Gardens is just a way to alert me to the fact that someone has solved the hidden item puzzle. The light itself is just a bunch of very fine light source enchantments smushed real close together and lit in sequence to make the light look like its ¡®growing¡¯ from the amulet. Also the ¡®gold¡¯ in the tungsten carbide amulet is just particularly good-looking pyrite. I don¡¯t want to have to make it more than a few times, since I know for a fact someone is going to try and steal it to sell the ¡®gold¡¯. As for my beasties, things are pretty normal. I metaphorically facepalmed when I remembered that the amber gave me just fragmented DNA that I reconstructed into one whole piece, which means I could literally just take a bit of fur from my Fennice to create more of them. Which I did! The true walls of the Terraced Garden zone now has several dungeon-born families of Fennice, so that the natural born family can continue to populate without needing to worry about genetic problems thanks to incest. I made at least 2 of each Aspect I know of in the male¡¯s tails, including Info enchanting mana, which oddly enough made their tails naturally form braided fur, giving their tails a thinner, almost whip-like look. The super mice have been progressing nicely as well, along with the gleamwing ravens. The older raven I made seems a bit grumpy though, not sure why. I think the ravens might be a bit obsessed though? All the other ones keep dancing at the foot of the tree protecting my Core, and at this point it looks like a ritual or something, they keep doing it before they eat. The mice at least seem less inclined to worship, the only mildly concerning thing is that the main leader of the mice wears the dazzling feather my adult gleamwing dropped like a particularly stiff cape. They¡¯re very industrious though, the mice have already started making nest structures from the bramble¡¯s wood. Oh, and the air wisp-insect thing finally seems to have reproduced! They left a whole bunch of glittery, gemstone-looking eggs on the damp walls of the Pondscape zone, so I feel better about absorbing it for its blueprint. I wasn¡¯t willing to try and absorb only a bit of it, since I¡¯m not really sure what parts are important for it, and if it even uses DNA. With a pulse of mana through the root it was floating in, it unravels surprisingly easily, and I find quite the surprise. So, for clarity, most every animal uses Aspected atoms for their DNA, since that¡¯s another way to store data other than the basic biochemistry. That doesn¡¯t necessarily mean the rest of them are made of Aspected atoms though. In fact, the vast majority of any lifeform is made of regular matter, with partially mana-based organs sprinkled in here or there, like how the Fennice have hair follicles in their tails that resonate with specific mana type to imbue the growing fur with that kind of mana. The wisp is on the other end of that spectrum, mostly magic with only hints of matter to hold it all together. It¡¯s essentially living magic, which makes my wisp name closer to reality then I knew. Before I can get into the R&D with the air wisp evolution though, I feel that ice-shiver feeling of intruders go down my metaphorical back once more. The main difference being that the first time, it felt like someone put an ice cube down the back of my shirt. This time, it feels like I got dumped with a bucket of ice water! My attention snaps to my entrance, spotting 3 new people, seemingly saying farewell to other people just outside of my view. It¡¯s kind of hard to tell what¡¯s going on when their auras feel monstrous though. I feel like I¡¯m going to be eaten! First off, lizardman. Well, lizardwoman. She has a short snout, scales that blend in well with my black stone, and a mane of feathers in a mix of oranges and reds matched with orange, slit pupils. Other than those and the tail, surprisingly human-looking. Her aura feels like many flavours of fire, and I know that sounds weird but that¡¯s the closest analogy I can make. It¡¯s like her aura just. Is fire, to the point that I actually see a few different variants of the Fire aspect just watching her mana interact with my air and stone. Next to her is what I can only describe as a bear werewolf, tall enough that his head nearly scrapes against my ceiling. He¡¯s covered in thick fur and the occasional discolored scar, carrying a massive pickaxe of all things. His aura feels like the smell of an old forest mixed with an unstoppable force, like if he starts moving, there¡¯s nothing that could stop him. The last one is probably the oddest to my senses, and honestly would make me sweat if I could actually do that anymore. She¡¯s sticking to the large bear-man like spiderman would to a wall, and she seems to have two different bodies overlaid on top of each other. One is a normal, slim human woman with short black hair, a tired look in her eyes. The other is a sinister-looking toad gremlin thing, only about half her size. They both kind of overlap each other? It¡¯s a bit nausea-inducing to look at, honestly. They keep focusing and unfocusing into two distinct images and one hybrid fusion in my senses, and their aura feels like a slimy swamp trapped in a transparent cage. I think I can feel other things in the background of their aura, but it¡¯s hard enough focusing on them so I¡¯m not even going to try looking deeper. In more positive news, I have more data on the blessing thing people get when they enter my dungeon now! I take a look at the lizardwoman¡¯s charred scroll in particular, since she¡¯s the least intimidating of the group.
========================================================================================= Diver¡¯s Boon: The Scholar (Miniscule) Little is known of this aberrant structure, made of sculpted stone. The air here seems oddly tranquil, and the strange life inside is plentiful, perfect for a scholar to muse on the mysteries of the world. Effect: Mana-based skills form slightly faster than normal. All Scholar-Type skills gain a minor boost in effect while within this structure. Note: This Boon is withdrawn thanks to your affective strength being higher than Dungeon strength by a factor of 3 or more. =========================================================================================
While they discuss the Boon itself, I find myself breathing a small sigh of relief. Even if it won¡¯t amount to much, the fact that stupid-strong people like this won¡¯t get a boon to screw me over even more is nice. I mean seriously, I¡¯ve only been in this world for a few days, how the heck am I expected to scare away people like this?! As the group makes their way down my now much shorter entrance corridor, I send a mix of caution and warning out into my zones, essentially telling them all to be prepared. I tell the Fennice, Super Mice, and Gleamwings in particular to hide away, since I actually have an investment in the latter two, and the former are smol babies and I refuse to let them die, and you can fight me on that. A sense of tension completely separate from my own fills the air of the dungeon as the trio walk into the Terraced Gardens, the wildlife seeming to both quiet down and get louder at the same time. The bear-man in particular seems the most intrigued out of them, taking in big, scent gathering breaths to take it all in. The lizardwoman seemed to get bored quickly though, starting to wander through the zone with a dull look on her face. Bearman and his gremlin(?) sidekick do the normal thing and go straight for the Pondscape zone in front of them, only taking a few moments to cross the archway between the two zones and activate the puzzle.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. They tense up as soon as they feel the detection ward, seeming more surprised than worried, but watch the little puzzle I put up play out. The reactions are...disappointingly minimal, I¡¯m assuming they¡¯re both the kind to show emotion in small ways. They speak for a moment, before the frog gremlin girl nods and jumps from his shoulder into the water with barely a splash. She takes to the lake like a duck-well, amphibian to water, though I do notice trails of...not exactly magic, since it isn¡¯t using mana directly, but magic-like effects take place and her aura decreases by almost unnoticeable amounts, so I¡¯m assuming she¡¯s doing something magic-adjacent. Either way, her water resistance pretty much disappears, and the water in a sphere about two dozen feet around her starts to move with her, apparently coming under her control. Thanks to that, she has free reign in my Pondscape zone, which feels somewhat unfair but is hopefully just a poor matchup. She uses the water to push the Lakelurker and Black Tangler grass away from her before they can tangle her up, and she swims circles around the macro-aphid crabs before they can do more than rouse from their spots. The only creatures that can even start to keep pace with her are the Otterverns, though they¡¯re more mischievous than anything else. Unharmed, she scouts out the bottom of the lake and the crossing columns, before returning to the surface on the entrance-side to talk with Mr. Bearman. I¡¯ll need to figure out how to vary the Pondscape puzzle now that I think about it, otherwise people will be able to just do it whenever they want without even paying attention. I want it to be an easy puzzle, but I don¡¯t want it to be that easy! In better news, the reptile woman was amusing to watch. While the other two investigate my Pondscape zone, she wanders around the Terraced Garden zone, looking at all the plants and taking some samples, surprisingly enough. I didn¡¯t take her for a collector or alchemist or something, but I guess that¡¯s what I get for assuming. One of my Super Mice, despite the hunker down order, decides to be a little brat to the intruder. They grab one of the armored worms from the colony¡¯s quickly growing food stash, silently climbs up to a mouse bridge, and when she crosses under it, drops the worm right into her feather hair. Being what I assume is a high-level adventurer, she notices the weight immediately. Unlike what I¡¯d expect from a professional, she promptly bursts into flame and screams. While she¡¯s dancing in her spot and waving her arms, trying to get the already ashed worm out of her mane, the mouse runs off and I find myself panicking. Did I find a hidden weak point or something? Is she going to die? She¡¯s on freaking fire and I can¡¯t make water to put her out holy fuck-oh, Mr. Bearman just smacked her upside the head and she got put out, completely fine. Fuck that was scary! Wait, how did he-you know what, I¡¯m assuming more non-magic bullshit and calling it there, I¡¯m too stressed for this. Other than some smoldering and smoking plants nearby, there¡¯s thankfully little damage done to the zone, and the two of them start conversing. The lizardwoman seems more abashed than anything, with Mr. Bearman scolding her as the froglin woman pads up to them, apparently not having the speed bullshit the ursa werewolf displayed. Walking a few feet further along the ambling path, she spots the meeting point between the Terraced Garden and Ancient Forest, turning her head to look at her teammates, pointing as she speaks up. The other two look from the froglin girl back to each other a few times, before walking over to see it too. The lizardwoman, faced with how close she was to a proper discovery, hangs her head and arms down in shame. If this was an anime, she¡¯d have those straight purple depression lines hanging over her, it¡¯s hilariously expressive! With a pat on her back from Mr. Bearman, the group makes their way down the rest of the path, the ursine taking the lead. Thankfully, bears are not known for having the best sight and he slams snout-first into the barrier. If I had a mouth and lungs, I¡¯d be dying of laughter right now! Instead a sense of the feeling surges through the dungeon, and a background of squeaky mouse laughs, barking Fennice joy, and the distant squawking and tweeting of birds acts as a laugh track. Mr. Bearman growls low in his throat before composing himself, sending little miss firewoman a glare as she snickers at the fumble. Froglin girl walks up next to him and puts her hand against the ALON, asking something of the two. Mr. Bearman says something while rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, and I suddenly feel an ominous premonition. He winds up a hit with his pickaxe, and within only a second or two layers multiple not-magic things (I¡¯m going to call them skills, since that¡¯s the closest thing I can think of) together. There¡¯s probably at least 3 full-body skills that activate and merge together, visible as a tri-color film mixing in with his fur. Several more activate in his head and body, at least I¡¯m assuming, considering his musculature bulges in unison for a few moments. More skill-power imbues itself into his pickaxe, and what looks to be runes light up along its sides (I don¡¯t think it¡¯s directly related to the pickaxe skill, but they definitely synergize). Then, he swings. I¡¯m very glad I decided to tell my more prized creatures to hunker down, because it¡¯s like a hurricane decided to smash through the cavern. The water immediately around the trio just mists and blows away, forced farther into the Garden zone, along with most of the plants and soil in the three nearest circular terrace gardens. The two women, despite their proximity, barely have to brace against the winds to keep from being blown away. The ceramic glass, despite being half a foot of bulletproof-ness, shatters like fine china. Most of it stays in large chunks, but a variety of smaller chunks, shards, sand and powder is made too. It all shreds through the new growth trees and plants in the Ancient Forest directly in front of the barrier for a good dozen and a half feet, along with crushing some forest rats and a nectar sparrow. As the racket calms down and Mr. Bear lets out a big breath of steam, I¡¯m just. What. That¡¯s some actual, genuine bullshit if you ask me! Like, big guy, some skills, probably going to put a big crack in the ALON, maybe take a chunk out, but just fucking obliterate the barrier? Alright, alright, deep breath in, and out. What I need to do right now is pay attention to make sure I can get as much data as I can. For one, Mr. Bearman sways on his feet for a second before going back to normal, so he¡¯s some kind of burst fighter rather than being able to do that continuously. Froglin girl gives him a flat ¡®you done?¡¯ kind of look, and he just looks a bit sheepish as they walk over and through the jagged mouth of glass left over from the barrier, looking at the evaporating glass-wait evaporating glass? Huh, that¡¯s...yeah, I guess I¡¯ve never had something be destroyed by someone other than me before, this is a new instinct feeling thing. Despite the fact that I can¡¯t willingly dissolve or create things, there¡¯s an almost automatic twitch in my roots, kind of like when your leg twitches on its own, and the glass dissolves into little motes of light before disappearing back into my roots. The two rats and 3 nectar sparrows killed in the blast dissolve into light two, but something even odder happens there. Some of the motes of light, rather than disappearing into my root system, gets sucked into Mr. Bearman¡¯s chest like a funnel, adding to his aura in an inexplicably completing way, though the amount it increases his aura is barely noticeable. The thing that grabs the most of my attention though is the straight up loot that drops from my creatures. Some of the energy, instead of dissolving into light, transmutes into items, though only one from one of the rats and one from the nectar sparrows. The rat drops what looks like a still furred leather hand wrap, and the nectar sparrow looks to have dropped an arrow¡¯s fletching, or maybe a bolt considering the small size. It¡¯s definitely interesting, and I plan on exploring the function later, but for now I¡¯ve got bigger worries. I know for a fact now that there¡¯s no way to even try to physically scare them off, but I¡¯m not just going to let them stomp through my dungeon, destroy and disrespect my puzzles, and kill my creatures without at least creeping them out. As the group starts walking into the Ancient Forest zone, I send mental orders throughout my dungeon, and things get ominous. All sound just stops, only the distant drips of water and the trickle of the Pondscape waterfall to fill the sudden gap in noise level. They pause, wary, with froglin girl slowly picking up the two drops and slipping them into one of her pockets. As they watch, the edge of the forest where the damage is minimal fills with dozens of eyes, forest rats, spear-beaked feathered raptors, bloodpeckers and every other animal I have perch or sit or stand, just watching them. The trio, obviously, prepare for a battle, fire cloaking the lizardwoman¡¯s hands and the froglin girl¡¯s tongue poking out of her mouth and sprouting boney spikes, Mr. Bearman standing in front of them with pickaxe at the ready. The problem for them is that nothing actually happens, the tension simply increasing more and more as the wildlife all stares at them. After several long minutes, the ursine finally takes a slow step forward, and when nothing happens they start moving forward. Once the group reaches only a few feet away from my creatures, they start to step away from them, in sync with their steps, keeping an even 4 foot distance from them all. Left in a bubble of silent stares, the trio start making their way through the zone, though the whole ¡®being stalked by a mob¡¯ thing kind of ruins the atmosphere. Lizardgirl even tries putting her-now unlit-hand out to see what would happen, but other than some hissing and moving farther out until she pulls her hand back in, my loyal minions don¡¯t do anything else. Eventually, they make their way into the small clearing with my Core and tree cage, absolutely bursting with plant life. Despite my Core instincts screaming in the back of my head at how close they are to me, I ignore it in order to hold back my creatures from attacking for the same reason. They look around cautiously, but Lizardgirl, being the most rambunctious of the trio, walks up to my core with little more than a cautious look at the animals still looking at them from the edges of the clearing. She looks at my core curiously, probably thanks to my odd shape and the tree surrounding me, holding up a hand and slowly bringing it closer. Mr. Bearman says something to her, but she waves him off, hand inching closer¡­ With a raucous caw, my adult Gleamwing raven flaps down from his hiding spot, flapping his wings and getting in her face, giving me a heart attack in the process. Thankfully for my non-existent circulatory organ, she doesn¡¯t roast him alive, apparently aware enough of the situation-even if they could decimate my animal population without trying-to simply back up and flail her arms to try and get him away, blinking rapidly from the dazzle of his wing feathers. Mr. Bear yanks her away by the back of her shirt after another moment, and my raven ends up perched on one of my Core tree¡¯s branches, ruffling his feathers pompously before giving the trio a stern glare and another screeching bark. The three converse for a few more moments before Mr. Bearman gives my core an odd look, which I respond to with a quick prompt to my raven, who does the equivalent of a middle finger in their new dance-birdsong language. The group turns to leave through the quickest path, a straight walk through the Pondscape with froglin girl leading the way across the hidden columns. The water puzzle activates again as they cross the entrance side-right, I need to fix that-and they make their way to the dungeon opening. They stop there, still inside my area of influence, apparently talking to someone just outside of it, and lizardgirl seems ready to walk right out before Mr. Bearman stops her with a hand on her shoulder. He looks back at the cave mouth of my dungeon, contemplating something before encouraging them to do the ritual thing my first group did. I guess some people are more into doing the ritual than others? That axe wielding guy certainly seemed more casual than the other two, so I guess it makes sense. None of this group actually do the whole kneeling thing, but I actually kind of prefer that over the almost worship-looking stance. The ritual feels a bit more foggy this time, though I¡¯m not sure if that¡¯s because of their powerful auras or from the informality of it, but I get a sense of chagrined apology from Mr. Bearman, a faint amusement from froglin girl, and exasperation from little miss godzilla. From Mr. Bearman, I get a small totem-like carving, made from some kind of reddish-tan, very fine grain wood. Lizardgirl pulls a throwing knife out of a pocket that looks too small to hold it, made of a black hilt, bronze-colored pommel and guard, and a bright orange blade. Froglin girl takes a moment longer to ponder, before rummaging through her pack. After a moment, she pulls out a small, articulated horse toy. It¡¯s made of a mix of wood, metal, and different kinds of crystal, and looking deeper I can see a much more complex web of enchantments than the light stone I got. She presses a button on its back when she sets it down, and the horse starts walking around. It¡¯s a golem! Despite the fact I¡¯m still a bit mad at them for the destruction, that golem horse toy alone makes me much happier about the whole ordeal. After they leave my influence and I start processing the stupid amount of new mana they left, along with fixing up the dungeon and absorbing the offerings, I can only hope I won¡¯t have to deal with more senseless destruction for these prizes. Chapter 7: Renovations(...Again) So, problem, the stupid strong adventurers left stupid amounts of mana behind. Normally I¡¯d be delighted with more energy to use, but the main problem is that it¡¯s way too much, it kind of feels like when you have way too much food. Also kind of like holding your breath? Weird dungeon analogies aside, I know I need to use all this excess energy up, but I don¡¯t want to just work in a reactionary way. That¡¯s pretty much all I¡¯ve been doing, reacting based on what I have to work with, but I don¡¯t want to get stuck in that way of thinking. My solution? Make something decidedly Earth-based. First off, while I have the energy, I dump a big chunk of it to expand my floor, hidden behind my Core tree. Rather than making an adventureable space, I make the whole 50 foot cubed section into a whole bunch of small hexagonal spaces for efficiency, filling it with as much mycelium, worms, etc, essentially making a mana farm out of the creatures low on my food chain. It¡¯s definitely not putting out as much as those adventurers, but I¡¯d rather invest in constant, low-level mana production now instead of relying on the occasional intruder. With that and some time repairing the damage from that last delve I feel less like I¡¯m going to explode, but I still need to decide what to make with the rest of it all. So, what comes to mind when you think of an omnipresent entity looking over your every movement and action as you walk through their walls? That¡¯s right, the Portal games! Obviously, I don¡¯t have portals to travel through (yet), but I can really lean on the puzzle theme I¡¯ve already got going. Time to get cracking! First off, I dissolve the tree around my Core and start burrowing down into the stone, my larger roots dragging my smaller roots through the earth even as they dissolve the material into nothing. It¡¯s a lot of digging, especially since I have to dig far enough down that my Pondscape zone doesn¡¯t leak through, but eventually I have a really big rectangular space, lined through with a lattice structure of aluminum and steel for my roots to pass through to control the whole space. Oh yeah, fun fact, I just need an earthy material for my roots to live in! Stone, metal, crystal, they all work. I totally didn¡¯t figure that out as I was putting my roots in the metal struts and how dare you for implying otherwise. Anyways, the space is about the size of two school gyms mushed together, if I had to give a general estimate. Now I¡¯m sure you¡¯re thinking, mental diary in my head, ¡®wow, what are you going to do with all that space?¡¯ Well, I¡¯m glad you asked! My plan right now is to replicate the construction arms from Portal, in order to create an area where I can build and alter rooms on command, even while intruders are inside of my dungeon. Just a few days ago I would have been stumped on how to do it since I¡¯m not much of a robotics engineer, but two things have given me just what I need!...Maybe. First is the ability to make things move. If I were to try and do this from scratch, I would have needed to recreate motors and wires and such just to get started. Not to say I¡¯m against doing so later, but for now I need immediate results. The complex weave of enchantments and materials in the horse golem toy are perfect for creating motion without all the usual finicky problems with motorization and all that. With a bit of copy-pasting and enchantment surgery, I manage to extract just the ability to shift a material¡¯s shape, which is how a golem generates its movement, rather than adding force to a static object. On the floor in the middle of my new workspace, I create a mechanical arm made of aluminum. Well, ¡®arm¡¯ is a bit of a stretch, it¡¯s pretty much just a sculpture of what a generic assembly line arm would look like at the moment. For now, it¡¯s just bolted to the stone of the floor to keep it stable while I test it out. I start threading the basic movement enchantment through the arm, tweaking variables and shifting tones of information magic as I go, testing its movement and rebuilding the arm over and over every time it fails. At the same time as I experiment, I have a few different trains of thought monitoring the rest of my dungeon, while another starts looking into the air wisp creature and my new offerings. Now that I have time to really look into it, the air wisp creature is somewhat of a marvel. Well, a marvel to me, objectively it¡¯s kind of like a plant, but for magically attuned material. It¡¯s mostly made of something similar to resin, a very simple polymer halfway between glucose and hard, biodegradable plastic. It mostly uses it as a kind of exoskeleton, while the inside is lined with what I can only describe as a pure magic equivalent to a hydrocarbon, using all the basic elements and Life magic, threaded together to create a cycle of mana that is self-stabilizing, not needing physical material to anchor itself. It¡¯s ¡®organs¡¯ are very alien too, even if you ignore the fact that they¡¯re purely magical constructs. The wings seem to be less made to help with flight, with the creature being about as light as air on its own, and are more made to convert ambient mana into Air mana for it to feed off of. That air mana is cycled through its organs, along with small amounts of dust and whatever organic material might be floating in the air that gets caught up, so that it can create and fertilize its eggs. As it turns out, the wisp thing would have died in a few days after laying its eggs whether I absorbed it or not, so I feel a lot better about not waiting to see what else it could do. In order to move around, it uses what I can only describe as organic air spells built into its exoskeleton to push itself through the air. The totem seems mostly inert, but it is made of a new type of tree, which I¡¯m certainly happy to see. Unlike my ancient pine trees, which can live for a few hundred years in optimal conditions, this new tree type can apparently live for thousands of years, which is just crazy! I mean, there¡¯s redwoods and stuff from earth, but that¡¯s still a long time for a tree to live. From the preview of its gene sphere, it looks a lot like if you supersized an oak tree, with a massive, thick trunk and lots of strong branches that point out horizontally in groups every 5 feet or so. It also uses a lot of iron and copper to reinforce the lignin in its cell membranes, so I almost want to call it an ironwood tree. You know what, yeah, it¡¯s an Ironwood tree now. The orange dagger, however, completely baffles me. I was expecting maybe an iron dagger made completely of fire-attuned iron, but I got something completely different. I straight up didn¡¯t recognize the metal, either its atomic form in my material mindspace or the crystal formations it makes internally when I summon an ingot of it. From what I can tell, it seems to be a natural fire mana attuner, when you put in magic you get a lot of heat, eventually reaching the point that the fire mana starts to transmute the air directly around it into a pseudo-plasma, a bit hotter than a wood fire, but not nearly as hot as true plasma would be. The dagger itself had a heat redirection enchantment on the handle and hilt, so that you didn¡¯t end up roasting your hand when you put mana into it. The realization that my robotic (well, not robotic, it¡¯s a golem. Golemic? Golemic.) my golemic arm has finally reached a point that I¡¯m comfortable with resounds throughout my consciousness, and other than a single fragment devoted to basic first floor observation, I focus fully on my bottom floor once more. The train of thought focused on experimentation had done some physical tweaks to the arm as well, and half-remembered pride fills me as I test its full range of motion. Each joint in the arm is made completely from a ball of Water and Info-attuned iron, giving it a look similar to ferrofluid, despite still technically being solid. At the wrist section, there¡¯s a ball of the pseudo-ferrofluid, upon which a thick aluminum disc with a quarter-sphere depression in it rests, which gives it plenty of range of movement. At the elbow, there¡¯s another, larger sphere, but the ¡®shoulder¡¯ joint on the floor is only a half sphere of the metal, attached to an iron plate bolted into the stone. The actual lengths of arm are made of regular aluminum, though now the inside of both segments are semi-hollow, like my avian creature¡¯s bones, in order to lighten them up some. Rather than regular robotic clamping fingers, there¡¯s simply four small half spheres of the joint metal. While testing the joints, I remember that these can extend when used, becoming kind of tentacle-y to form whatever shape they need to be. Thanks to the way that golemetic movement enchanting works, the whole thing is technically one piece, with the lengths of arm metal being designated as static sections, while the joints are considered dynamic sections, designed to move the static sections they are connected to across their surfaces. Thankfully, the segment of my consciousness focused on designing the arm had the forethought to make it all mostly modular, which makes copy-pasting much easier for future projects. For now though, I need to figure out how to control this arm and many others while adventurers are inside of the dungeon. Thankfully, I have an idea. Moving my concentration back up to my Pondscape room, I¡¯m delighted to see the wisp creature¡¯s eggs hatching, smaller copies of it starting to populate the room. The tiny, almost Navi-looking creatures follow along my thickest roots, creating fresh air that helps the otherwise stale air move around, the sheer number of them allowing people to see the basic shape of my largest open-air roots. With a basic willing of intent, the young wisps start flying in unison, creating a rough helix rotating in the air before going back to their normal behavior. Perfect! Looks like my hunch was right. My more advanced creatures were harder to give direct, specific orders to, since they all have emotions and feelings and a kind of mental...weight, I guess you could say. The wisps though, they only had the most basic of neural clusters, and they¡¯re mana constructs, which make them even easier to manipulate. All I have to do now is figure out how to make them work in unison. I spend most of the rest of the night split as much as I can, working on different iterations of gene-well, the mana equivalent of genes-manipulation for my wisp blueprint. Oddly enough, despite not being organic in the same way as the rest of my creatures, the air wisp and the new iterations still exist in the organics mindspace. After too many predicted failures to count, I finally manage to get a first prototype for what I want. From a regular, living in the wild standpoint, this Organi-Golemic Core (or OGC, for short) wouldn¡¯t last more than a few days. It¡¯s about the size of a ping-pong ball, made of a thicker, more solid outer polymer, and with the wings turned into individual root-like stems. In mana sight, each stem looks like a feather, thanks to the way each stem either draws in ambient mana or brushes out Info mana. Most of the organs have been simplified down, focusing on extreme survivability and freeing up neural connections that would normally go to taking in sensory input and sending outputs to now non-existent air spells. Essentially, a semi-clear plastic ball covered in long, stiff roots, with magic goop in the middle. It doesn¡¯t even have reproductive organs anymore, since I¡¯d be spawning them on demand.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Summoning it in the shoulder joint of the golemetic arm, however, things get interesting. Tying the outputs into the threads of movement enchantment, and with its inputs melded into the magibiological equivalent of an internet dish for intent, I send an order and hope for the best. For several long moments there are only slight twitches and jerks, and I almost sigh in disappointment, but finally, it moves. The arm rotates its joints, figuring out its ranges of motion, before following my order, holding up its ¡®hand¡¯ and making a four fingered thumbs up. All the dungeon creatures celebrate for a few minutes out of nowhere, sounds of all kinds echoing out into the world as they get caught up in my happiness. I¡¯m so psyched! I just straight up made a golem that can tell what I want! I mean, I have to be pretty direct with what I want it to do, but still! This way, I can change the layout of this floor on demand, even with adventurers on the floor, which will probably be quite the spook for them. Now I just need to make...like, 200 of them. Which will take a while considering how much mana those pseudo-ferrofluid balls cost. Shit. Well, if it¡¯s going to be more than a night to design this next floor, I need to figure out how to make a proper staircase down to my second level. ...Wait, what? Why would I need to do that? Is this, no, hold on...Ok, let¡¯s go through my thought process again. I am making a second floor, below my own. It will take more time than what I have left before morning to even set up the basics of the room, so I need to...make a reasonable staircase down? Wait, no, why? This is so frustrating, it¡¯s like-imagine the blindspot in your eye, where if something like a dot ends up in it, your brain just covers up the dot like it doesn¡¯t exist. Except instead of sensory input, it''s a gap in your logical reasoning, which is much stranger to notice. Is this a dungeon instinct thing? I need to make a reasonable path to my Core, even if it potentially endangers me? That¡¯s so stupid! Well, I guess there are stupid human instincts too from a logical standpoint, like ingroup-outgroup dynamics. Fuck. Just, fine. I¡¯m not willing to try and do surgery on my core without the barest understanding of how my internals work, so I can¡¯t really do anything about these instincts, if it¡¯s even something I could remove without damaging other bits of me. It sucks, but I¡¯m just going to have to work with these instincts as best as I can. I¡¯m going to have strong words with whoever put me in this thing, though! For now, I set up a flat disk of metal and a long metal tube down to the second floor¡¯s...floor. I add a very basic up-down golemetic enchantment, tied to a little podium with an up and down button, so that people can use it like an elevator. At the top of the elevator, right in front of the hole down to the second floor where my Core tree used to be, I put a generic sign made out of ironwood up and burned the shape of two hammers crossed over a clock into it with some fire mana. Hopefully that¡¯s enough for whoever next comes in to get the picture. Hopefully I won¡¯t have any more surprises like those super-adventurers for a while, I could use some time to actually get things running! _______________________________________________________________________________________________ In her well-worn room, now with a fixed chair to rest in, Hilda finds herself scouring over a page of legalese, one of many piled up like little mountains on her desk. Despite the best efforts of her and Ezos, someone along the chain of information had let loose the fact that there was a dungeon nearby, which had obviously stirred up the hornets nest. Thankfully, not much in the way of specific information had been leaked to anyone who wasn¡¯t required to know, but she still had plenty of angry and concerned letters to deal with from various merchants and the lesser, stupider nobility in the city. To the dwarf¡¯s not-so hidden relief, Ezos¡¯s crystal lights up on her desk, and she draws her attention away from the densely worded paper in front of her. Any interruption from paperwork is a good interruption! ¡°Hilda, I have the leader of the Silver group sent to the dungeon on call. He has his preliminary report on the dungeon itself and a potential colonization assessment of the area. Should I have him go to recording, or would you like to take this live?¡± ¡°No no, I want to hear this live! It¡¯s, er, important to have this kind of information as soon as possible, so that we can make proper adjustments.¡± ¡°...Yes, quite.¡± If she could sweat, Hilda would be doing it, hearing the knowing tone in her assistants voice. After a few long moments though, the light of Ezos¡¯s crystal shines brighter, coalescing into an image above the dwarf¡¯s desk. The resolution starts off fuzzy, but quickly clears up, the image of an Ursine stooped over his communication crystal coming into view. He seems to realize that it¡¯s turned on soon after, backing up some and sitting down, back against some kind of construct. ¡°Ah! Hello Guildmaster, Adrian reporting in, leader of the Silver-rank group Soul Sweetie.¡± ¡°Glad to hear from you, silver. Before we get to the meat of the matter, what can you tell us of the area immediately around the Dungeon?¡± Hilda steeples her fingers, making sure not to let her internal rant show through. Why the heck did Ezos send Soul Sweetie?! I mean, they¡¯re a great adventuring group, but...they¡¯re more like a sledgehammer than a scalpel. They do have a lot of warding capabilities though. She can only hope that they haven¡¯t caused an early floor creation thanks to their usual antics. ¡°Yes Ma¡¯am! As we were told, the dungeon entrance is approximately 12 miles out from the edge of Witmore, though we¡¯ll likely need to contract earth-moving mages in order to make and reinforce some kind of road down. If we didn¡¯t have our all-terrain carriage it would have taken quite some time to get down the cliffside.¡± Hilda hums and nods her head, writing down the details on a spare piece of parchment, more focused on getting the important things down instead of responding. ¡°The area itself mostly consists of large boulders with thick, deep cracks between them. Again, earth-moving mages would likely be for the best, to fuse them together and give a settlement a solid foundation. Thankfully, this close to the cliffside, there¡¯s very little in the way of dangerous wildlife, though that might change once construction starts. I would recommend something similar to a mining and hunting town in composition.¡± ¡°Alright...and¡­there! I¡¯ll make sure to adjust plans accordingly, thank you Adrian. Now, onto the Dungeon. What is your assessment of its type and difficulty? I¡¯m assuming you fought its first Boss?¡± The Ursine¡¯s face scrunches up, making him almost look constipated, and immediately Hilda¡¯s stomach drops out from under her. Before she can start thinking of worst-case scenarios, he continues on. ¡°The Dungeon is...very, very odd. I¡¯m honestly not sure how to categorize it. I think¡­ I think it might be some kind of hybrid?¡± ¡°Go on?¡± Well that isn¡¯t incredibly horrifying to think about. ¡°Well, for one, it seems much more, I guess intelligent is the best way to put it. Obviously Dungeons are alive, but this one felt like it knew what we were. Despite it being the first floor, there¡¯s three different themes, each in their own areas. Hell, it uses the pillar technique to make bigger rooms! And all of the wildlife-¡± ¡°Wildlife?¡± ¡°Yes! I mean, I know, logically, that they¡¯re all monsters, but they don¡¯t feel like monsters, they feel like they could walk right out and live on their own! And that¡¯s a big indicator for an Artisian Dungeon, along with there not being any Warped, but they come in the numbers you¡¯d expect to see in a regular Dungeon. Heck, there are these giant crustaceans in a water area in the middle of the Dungeon, and it¡¯s using them as a deterrent to keep people from ignoring a puzzle! A puzzle! On the first floor!¡± The ursine, who had slowly devolved into a rambling rant, takes a deep breath in and out, running a hand through the fur on his head. Hilda gives him a minute to calm down, before bringing up her main question, the one that had stuck in her mind the most from all he told her. ¡°This is all mildly concerning, yes...but why do you think that the Dungeon is full-on intelligent?¡± The bearman looks off to the side and scratches his cheek sheepishly, which on a Silver can only make her shiver. That¡¯s never a good sign. ¡°Sooo...I might have gotten a bit rage-y from all the unexplained differences stacked on top of each other, and while we were going down what seemed to be an alternate path, I smacked face-first into some kind of invisible, solid barrier. No idea what it was made of, but it wasn¡¯t glass that¡¯s for sure. But I could tell the Dungeon was laughing, all of the creatures were doing whatever equivalent they had, and the air-feel broadcasted it pretty openly. So I kind of...maybe used a full-wall breaker on the barrier and destroyed it.¡± He gives her a sheepish grin, and all she can do is just. Breathe. This is why a more subtle team would have been better. ¡°If the dungeon develops the second floor early-¡± ¡°No, no! I didn¡¯t see a Boss monster, so I¡¯m pretty sure it wasn¡¯t even done with its first development cycle for the floor! If it does though, I¡¯ll obviously take full responsibility. The main reason I bring it up is because of how the Dungeon¡¯s monsters reacted.¡± Hilda raises a brow, seeing the adventurer become much more serious all of a sudden. Apparently he¡¯d actually gotten a bit spooked, hard to do even for an older dungeon. ¡°For one, even with all my skills, that barrier didn¡¯t just dust itself like I expected, it turned into a more regular form of rubble. I didn¡¯t think it was even possible for that to happen with something that¡¯s clear without a very specific kind of invisibility enchantment. What really got to me was how the creatures reacted. I¡¯m not sure if it was destroying the barrier, the debris killing a few smaller nearby creatures, or maybe both, but...I guess the best way to describe it is that they were intentionally trying to warn us off, without actually attacking. It was creepy as fuck, if I¡¯m perfectly honest.¡± She turns her head to the side, looking out the window to the city below. How in the hells was she supposed to explain this to everyone? Well, the mage guilds would be foaming at the mouth to study the Dungeon, so they could probably get some deals out of giving them protection while they worked. They¡¯d have to find a Dungeon Worker willing to work on such an aberrant case, too, which would be a trial in and of itself. After some contemplation she sighs and turns back to the ursine. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll start organising things as best as I can on this end. Make sure to give the Dungeon a few days before diving again, it¡¯s a baby Dungeon so Silver rank magic takes a while for it to consolidate. And don¡¯t go destroying structures again! I don¡¯t want it thinking it needs to add poison gas or something inside of them just to deter meatheads from muscling their way through its obstacles.¡± The ursine flinches a little at the reprimand, but nods and gives a salute. ¡°Yes Guildmaster! I¡¯ll get into contact with you again within the week.¡± Hilda lets out an exhausted sigh as the image flickers away. Hopefully this Dungeon doesn¡¯t end up making super-strong abominations or something else equally ridiculous to what it¡¯s been doing already. Halfway across the city, several stories below ground level, the same light screen flickers away in a room full of cloaked figures. One of them collapses into their seat, breathing heavily and chugging a mana potion while the other 5 in the room ruminate on what they¡¯ve learned. ¡°Damnation, that assistant of hers is almost impossible to copy off of. I feel like you could cook an omelette on my head!¡± Soft chuckles make their way around the table, before one of the other, shorter figures speaks up. ¡°So, what do we do now? We can¡¯t sneak over there and steal the Core with Soul Sweetie camping right in front of it.¡± The largest figure, with the most intimidating aura of the group speaks up next, silencing the murmurs of the others with a mere flex of his magic. ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate that we can¡¯t simply take it, but there are other ways to get our hands on the core. In a way, this gives us time to formulate a more cohesive plan. For now, we take our time to learn more, wait for the Silver group to be relieved of duty, and we make our move. To Ganora!¡± ¡°¡±¡±¡±¡±To Ganora!¡±¡±¡±¡±¡±