《Dungeon Oasis》 Awakening Awakening ¡°Hello there i see you are awake, i have a few quick questions before we start.¡± Ok what would those be, and where am i, i can''t see anything am i blind. Oh no am i. ¡°No no nothing like that, you are fine. Everything is normal. Now for my questions. What would you say is your greatest motivation?¡± Umm i don''t know, i just want to live a simple life and make the lives of those around me better i guess. ¡°Ok good start, now say you have to defend an area from people trying to take something what would you do?¡± I guess try to find out why they want the thing and talk them out of taking it if possible. ¡°Not standard but good, now say you are given the choice of the four basic elements as magic which would you pick and why.¡± Earth, as the other ones can not build things as well as earth can. ¡°Describe your greatest fear.¡± That would be harm and willful destruction just to destroy, of those around me. ¡°Describe what a perfect body¡± Tall, well balanced, good night vision, able to have a big family and protect it. ¡°Would you rather take a slow but safe path, or a fast but risky one.¡± Slow and safe, why take risks when they are not needed. ¡°Well thank you for your answers, with that we can get you started in your new body and role as a dungeon core guardian, your assistant will be with you shortly.: Wait what new body what do you¡­ ------------- ¡°Wake up sleepy head, oh i thought they would have given you some cloths to start with oh well, better to get used to being naked sooner than later.¡± I felt the cold ground on my skin as a voice from above was talking to me. I stood up and looked at the thing talking to me, it was a small creature with gossamer wings and a clearly female shape with not a bit of cloth to cover herself. I looked down and saw that it seems i too was female and in a similar state of undress. ¡°Where are the clothes?¡± i asked and covered myself. She waved a hand and dismissed the question. ¡°Only thing here is us, the core, the rest of the cave and a single entrance leading out. And now i welcome you to your new life as a dungeon core guardian. You managed some great feat in your last life and by the grace of the balancers are set to guard this new dungeon. You will decide how this area grows and changes, and i will be here to help you as you need it to start with, and once you gain a greater understanding i will be a companion so you will not be lonely. ¡°Ok that is a lot to unpack there, dungeon core? Guardian? Balancers? Last life¡­ you mean i died and now i am this?¡± i moved my hands and showed off all that i now am to the little flying thing. ¡°Hmm true, it is a lot to dump on someone, even more so when you wake up with no memories in a full adult body. But don''t worry for i am here!¡± the little one proudly said as she put her hands on her hips. ¡°Let''s start slow with just us, i am a pixie, and you can call me...umm ya that will work ahaha. *caugh* you can call me titania or just tia for short.¡± titania said and looked over her shoulder and just smiled back at me. ¡°Ok tia but what am i then, and what is my name?¡± i asked the pixie. ¡°Oh ya call out or think status and that should pop up, i have a guess as to what you are but only you know who you are. I will wait while you find out.¡± tai said and just looked around the cave. ¡°Status¡± i simply stated. And a block of text showed up before me Race demon, subrace succubus Name alexander¡­. Name alexandrea Age 32 years¡­. Age 10 mins ¡°Stop. what is wrong with this?¡± i said as the text changed before my eyes. Tia gave me a quizzical look. ¡°It says my race is demon subrace succubus ok i get that even if i don''t know what that means. But it says my name was alexander then it changed to say alexandrea, then it said age was 32 but then changed to 10 mins. What is going on?¡± i desperately asked. ¡°Oh that was likely the system correcting some old data, you can change your name if you want to be a whole new person,after all why try and be a person you don''t even remember not to mention you don''t have the same body or likely race now anyway. Oh how about for a place holder you go by lilly, that sounds like a good name.¡± tia said and bounced in the air with excitement over the new name idea. I sighed in resignation. ¡°Fine i will go by lilly for now, but if i feel like it i will change it latter. Status¡± i said and looked at my screen once more.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Race demon, subrace succubus Name Lilly Age 15 mins Titles dungeon core guardan Abilities Core Point Command earth magic level 1 Seduction level 1 Soul Siphon level 1 Flight -locked- ¡°Ok so i have questions, like why do i have the ability so siphon souls. And what does that even mean.¡± [Soul Siphon- as a succubus you have the ability so siphon the souls out of those you are physically intimate with. This can have the effect of making them fatigued, exhausted, or dead. It depends on what your intent is. A soul is only truly taken if you kill the subject. Souls can be converted to dungeon points. Even just fatiguing someone will grant you partal soul points to turn into DP] ¡°Ok well that sounds scary, better not use that.¡± lilly stated. ¡°Oh tell me tell me what is scary.¡± tia asked flying in loops of excitement. ¡°...soul siphon. It looks like it can kill people, not exactly what i am looking to do in my new life. But it might have a peaceful application, i guess.¡± ¡°Ya being a demoness of seduction and sucking the life out of people does kind of limit your options. You can''t kill any intruders with brute force, that will make things hard indeed.¡± tia stroked her chin. ¡°But don''t worry let''s go out and see where the cave exit leads to, and we can work from there.¡± she flew off and went down the cave tunnel to the exit. ¡°Fine i have no idea what else to do right now anyway.¡± i walked to the exit with slumped shoulders. When i got to the exit i was blocked and could not leave the cave. But i saw a endless expanse of sand before me, just outside of my new home or cage it as it now seems. ¡°Well this makes things a bit different,¡± tia said as she flew into the cave from above. ¡°I flew up and all i could see was sand all around us, and i went up to the clouds. You are kind of a slow walker for me to do that and get back just as you got to the exit.¡± ¡°Ok why are things different then what you would expect?¡± i asked ignoring her mention of my slowness. ¡°Well normally there would be a town or at least a few cottages near or best case a city. That way you could get points faster by killing those that come into the dungeon an-¡± ¡°No killing, not if we can avoid it.¡± i interrupted her. ¡°Strange but your the boss, i think we need to cover what your job is now and how you are expect to do it.¡± tia slowly started to fly to the back of the cave. I followed after her keeping pace this time. We stopped at a marble on the floor, she laned and pointed to it. ¡°This is the dungeon core, and you are its guardian. It gathers dungeon points which you can use for whatever ends you want. If it ever leaves the area of the dungeon or is broken then you die. If you die then it is broken. Simple so far right. ¡°No but go on.¡± i waved her to keep going. ¡°The core gathers points by itself slowly over time, but if given the life force or souls that are inside of it then it gains more points faster. Your goal is to protect the core and make it grow in power to better protect it. The balancers are quiet as to why the cores matter to start with but best not to question those that can destroy you with a thought as i like to say. Anyway there is likely a very good reason behind why you should make the core stronger but we are unlikely to get that any time soon, unless one of the balancers themselves come to visit our little hole in the middle of a desert.¡± ¡°Fair enough, so without people around what do you think we should do first?¡± i asked not really getting the whole balancers bit but it did not seem to matter for now. ¡°Open up the dungeon core status and look at your options, luckily i can see what your looking at for the core status, as to best help you.¡± tia said and smiled. ¡°Dungeon core status¡± i said flatly. [unnamed dungeon core] [location desert] [ley line minor tributary] [dungeon points generated per day 2] [current points 10] [the following are options to choose from, mobs, loot, environment, personal upgrades,] I chose mobs [you are able to pick a one race of monsters of balance at this time current options, goblins 4 dp, fey 5 dp, dragons 50 dp, vermin 2 dp, slimes 2 dp.] ¡°So what do you think tia?¡± i asked not knowing what would be best or even worst out of this lot. ¡°Well depends on what you are looking for, if you want to kill things with lots of weak things then goblins.¡± i marked them off my list of options. ¡°If you want your monsters to be able to go outside then slimes are not a good idea in a desert,¡± another one to the no list. ¡°Vermen are hard to control but are able to gather up a lot of points from lesser things they would bring into the dungeon and kill then, but they do there own thing without much input from a guardian, at least not till they hit a hive mind.¡± i added that to maybe. ¡° dragons are strong and will keep anyone away by just being a dragon, but they will also make some come here just because they are a dragon and dragons always have great loot. Leading to a lot of killing.¡± ¡°Ok fine none of them sound like a good fit for me so far, tell me the last one so we can move on.¡± i said expecting to be disappointed once more. ¡°Oh i saved the best for last, my own race the fey.¡± she stated proudly and puffed up her chest. ¡°There are many kinds of fey, but most of them are helpful while we still have some good fighters in our ranks like the red capps and the boggarts. Mostly we like to help and play tricks, the down side is we are not high on the combat even with our best fighters. We are kind of on the goblin level for the most part, kind of funny did you know goblins were once part of the fey but they broke off and became their own thing.¡± ¡°No i did not know that but as you know, i don''t know much. But it seems like fey will be the best bet when i pick a race.¡± i said and moved on to other options this time picking loot. [you can choose loot to drop when one of your mobs dies or it can be found in a chest, options sand 1 point, rocks 1 point.] ¡°Ok why does loot only have sand and rocks as options.¡± i glared at the information. ¡°That is likely because that is all that has shown up in the dungeon so far, remember it is as old as you are. Whenever something is dropped in here the dungeon can make a copy of it so long as it is an object. And all you have so far is sand and rocks.¡± tia shrugged. ¡°Fine moving on then.¡± [environment, you can add floors or other features: room 1, floor 20, water 2 points, magma 10 points, plants 4 points, or radiant mana 20 points, ] ¡°Ok fine i know the drill.¡± tai said as i just looked over at her to explain this as well. ¡°Like it says you can change the dungeon adding new rooms or new floors, the more floors the harder it will be for someone to harm you or the dungeon, but i think we can wait on that for now at least. You can make little streams or ponds for those living in here to drink from, or use them as a bases for a trap a few of my cousin fey like to do that. You could also just make an area magma but that would kill most things it touches and for you i think it would best be used as a no mans land that no one wants to cross.¡± i nodded in appreciation at her understanding. ¡°Plants would be good as well as we will need something to eat and it can be used for other things as well.¡± she looked me up and down pointing out my lack of cloths. ¡°And last is radiant mana, that is a great ability and i am glad it showed up and with such a low cost. It makes it so anything alive in the dungeon does not need any nourishment not matter what they normally eat, they can just be fuled by the radiant mana, the down side for us is it also lets those that attack the dungeon use more of their abilities as they will refill there own mana at a higher rate.¡± ¡°Thank you for the rundown, i know that was a lot, but we are now at our last one.¡± i said and opened up the personal upgrades. ¡°And to wrap up my info dump here we go. Increase dp generation will up how much we get in a day by 1, and each time we can pick it after that the price goes up and it goes up fast. You get unlocking flight, but i don''t think it matters till we have a big room for you to fly in. siphoned slave hmm must be a succubus only one, best guess is you can turn anyone you used your soul siphon on into a slave. And random new skill, that can be great or just pointless, i heard of a guardian that picked that and had bubble snesses. Funny but not very useful. I say save up for dp generation after we get some basics out of the way.¡± [personal upgrades, increase dp generation 10 points, unlock flight 5 points, siphoned slave level 1 10 points, random skill new skill 25 points.] ¡°I am guessing plants and water first then fey, and last dp generation and see where we stand then?¡± i asked. She nodded sagely ¡°You catch on quickly.¡± tia zipped over and sat on my shoulder, the first physical contact i have had since awakening in this new body. Note I still have to understand how to make the standard blue boxes. day 1 [water-2 points] My first points were spent on water, and I saw a transparent orb of water not much bigger than my hand show up and it moved around where I was looking. ¡°Tia a little help, the water is just floating there.¡± I ran to the exit as it became more and more solid till it solidified on the ground right next to the exit and flowed out into the thirsty sand. Like a spring without end. ¡°I am here what..oh ok no big deal it is just some spilt water¡­.our water going into the sands. Ok that is a bit annoying but at least we can pick it once more and get the placement right.¡± ¡°True ok i will try. Dungeon core status environment¡± [environment, you can add floors or other features room 1, floor 20, glass 4 points, magma 10 points, plants 4 points, or radiant mana 20 points, ] ¡°Ok looks like we have a bit of a problem. Umm pick plants and lets hope for the best.¡± tia said, ¡°we need plants and might get water to pop up once more.¡± [plant-4 points] Once more I spent points and I saw a swath of transparent green cover my vision, I looked near the water that was spilling out of the dungeon. It settled in and became solid, now the start of the dungeon was covered in a green carpet. ¡°Oh come on something is screwy with this core, giving us moss in a desert¡± tia said and sat down on the soft moss. ¡°Well at least it is something soft, and we can eat it. We are down to 4 points today right, we should be fine for today we have food and kind of some water even if we can''t get more than a mouthful at a time before it leaves.¡± ¡°I have an idea I have earth magic at level 1 i might be able to get that water to come back in umm somehow.¡± i said and i looked at the sand and pushed my will onto it to make it solid, i felt my mana leave me and nothing changed on the sand that was just outside the exit but my mana was still spent.¡± ¡°Well too bad it looks like you can''t use your earth magic outside of the dungeon, maybe try it later when you have a higher level in earth magic?¡± tia said upbeat despite my failing. ¡°Tia can i change the exit of the dungeon?¡± i had the inkling of an idea. ¡°Sure but it still has to be accessible to people, some dumb Balancer rules.¡± she said fully relaxing on the moss. [room - 1 point] I saw the overlay of a transparent room over the exit to the cave and i kept looking there making sure it lined up with the exit and after it flashed for a few moments it solidified and then faded away. I took a step and to see if my idea worked and it did, i can walk out of the exit to the cave. I kept walking and then hit an invisible wall not that far away. But still i can go outside now, it was not long i was trapped in that cave, less than a day really but still it was a victory. Now to test out the next part of my idea. I knelt down on the sand next to the water, and dug it out making a deep bowl shape, and then channeled my mana into the sand once more and let it flow out of me and into the sand, this time the sand came together and formed stone. The earth magic worked this time and we now had a bigger area to drink from. It did not take long for the water to spill out from the new container back out into the sand like it did to start with. I felt good though two things worked out for me after two things did not. I hope this pattern of things not working out for me did not keep going. ¡°Ah thanks lilly you made a bath for me,¡± tia ran on the moss and took a flying leap to jump into the water, i narrowly grabbed her before she hit it. ¡°No that is our drinking water, you can have your fun with it when we can live off of mana alone, or dig out your own bath from the sand and i will make it into stone.but for now you leave that water alone. ¡° I sat down and moved my legs into the sun baked sand while I was on the cooler stone. ¡°Fine.¡± tia lazely hovered around. ¡°So now that you have food and water done what do you have planned next? Going to pick fey and start up some minions, save up for radiant mana or something else?¡± ¡°For now just save up for radiant mana it should take 9 days with the 3 points i have left, and i don''t know how fast this moss grows and if any fey will be able to eat it.¡± i tucked my legs back into the shade and continued. ¡°After all we are in the middle of nowhere we can spend a few days saving up points for free food for all.¡± ¡°Fair enough but you know you will be the only defender this place has and you are not that combat based. You are more night time seduction in a town or city. So out here.¡± she motioned to the sands. ¡° you are not in your element.¡± ¡°I will have to take your word for it. But i don''t know what being a succubus is or how strong i am, i have nothing to compare to yet. Well other then you tia but i don''t think that will give me a good gage of my own ability.¡± i stood up and brushed myself off and walked to the back of the cave, tia following me as i walked. ¡°I still have so much to learn, and find out what i can do as a guardian, a succubus, and my earth magic.¡± ¡°Well we have time right now right, let''s start with something you can do right now. Lets play with your earth magic.¡± i nodded at her idea. ¡°Good, well first how does your mana look right now?¡± i gave her a confused look, she sighed. ¡°Fine you can see it by thinking or saying attributes, in time you will just get a feel for how much of it you have.¡± ¡°Attributes¡± [health 58/58] [mana 40/80] Strength 3 Dextary 6 Stamina 8 Wisdom 4 Intelligence 5 Alure 8 Luck 7 ¡°Looks like i have 40 out of 80 mana, after i did the trick with making sand into stone around the water.¡± i said. ¡°Hmm not that great on efficiency. But in fairness demons are not known for being masters of earth magic, they tend to go for fire above all else. Looks like you have to spend more mana because your race affinity does not match.¡± tia thought aloud. I slumped at the revelation. I had picked a bad magic, but how was i to know i would be a demon i thought i was saying all those good things and had no way to know i would be a demon for it, or get a new body at all. ¡°Please tell me there is a upside.¡± i said under my breath. ¡°Yep earth magic is rare, and you can use less mana by having it come out at a slower pace. In the end the result is the same if you do it fast or slow and that is one of earth magics strengths. And it is fire and air magics weakness they have to go all out to get any result worthwhile. You could make a mountain with earth magic even with a small mana pool, but the other elements need to have a huge mana pool to pull off there amazing feats. So even with it being a bad affinity for you, it was a smart pick as a dungeon core guardian!¡± she patted me on the back hard. I smiled a bit from her efferets. ¡°Thanks for that, this has been quite the day.¡± i slapped both my cheeks. ¡°Ok i am ready now i just needed that boost. What can earth magic do for the basics, and how do i start?¡± ¡°That''s the spirit, i know this has been a lot to take in but it will get easier.¡± she gave me a smile. ¡°At its core earth magic just moves the earth, simple right.¡± i nodded. ¡°The trick is most things are made of one kind of earth or another, and by moving earth in different patterns you can make another kind of earth. Metals would be an example they still are found in the earth and are therefore still earth.¡±The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°I asked for the basics.¡± ¡°I know i am getting there, just let me be happy you are an earth mage.¡± she beamed a me. ¡°The basic stuff that you have done some of already. Is to bind earth together into a given shape. You can move earth in any direction you want so long as you have the mana for it, it is easier if you just move it while still touching other earth then say shooting rocks in the air at people. That is a very mana intensive move even for those with earth affinity. But you could arrange some rocks to be tossed at high speed not using magic but they don''t go as fast or nearly as actually. Earth magic an encourage growth by feeding mana into what you want to grow, normally it is plants but it can be used for healing too, but water is the best as far as primal elemental magic goes for healing and growth. But be careful if you ever use earth magic to grow or heal, as too much can fill the subject and make it burst like an soap bubble. It can be messy¡­.¡± ¡°Got it i can move the earth around or make it bind to other earth, healing and growth will be helpful latter but i don''t want to risk missing those up just yet.¡± i put my hand on the earth and started to poor my mana into it willing it to stand up from the rest of the ground. It formed a small spike with a divot around the base it was no longer than my thumb. ¡°Good start hmm can you make another one next to it just a little apart.¡± tia said with a blush. ¡°Sure i just want to see how much mana i just used first.¡± i said then thought attributes [health 58/58] [mana 38/80] Strength 3 Dextary 6 Stamina 8 Wisdom 4 Intelligence 5 Alure 8 Luck 7 ¡°Looks like that just used up 2 mana. Ok doing your request.¡± i then made the next spike of earth right next to the first and same size. ¡°There done.¡± i looked back to my mana and saw it was once more had a cost of 2. ¡°Nice, can you make the top a bit more rounded and all of it smooth? Lets see your detail work.¡± she said still having a blush. I did as she asked and checked my mana this time it used only 1 point. ¡°Thanks¡± she gave my shoulder a hug. ¡°It will be lots of fun having a succubus as my friend. No judgement at all.¡± she spun in the air in joy. ¡°Ok i have to ask what do you mean no judgment, you know i was not born a succubus well i guess reborn, but i am only a day old and have no real memories of anything really. So i can''t be seen as a standard succubus.¡± i crossed my arms as i looked at tia. ¡°You know what that is true, but i will make things simple. I am going to show you what i mean and you can tell me if you approve or not.¡± she flew down and sat next to my now rounded out earth spikes and started to lick one all round the top of one. Then she repeated her actions on the other till i could see them slick. Then she lowered herself on them letting out a moan that got louder the farther down she went. I just stared at her in confusion. She used her wings to lift herself up then stopped and went back down getting louder as she went. I just sat down and watched her repeat this for a good hour not saying anything till she shuddered her wings beating erratically and a quick burst of liquid came from her lower half. ¡°See you had no problem with me doing that, i can even see you got a little excited yourself.¡± she panted and pointed to a wet spot on the ground around me. She lay down on her belly and looked at me with a silly grin. ¡°I have no problem with it because i don''t know the meaning behind what you just did. I also don''t know what is going on with me. Once more you are in the position to explain things, like is normal. Tia went on to explain the birds and the bees. ¡°And now you know, i just did it for fun and it feels so nice. As a succubus you kind of do the same thing, only you can be a bit more deadly. Go on give it a shot make a smooth shaft of stone and do what i did. I know you will like it.¡± she said playfully. ¡°I think i am good, i want to go back to my earth magic but not that way. My mana is now full and time to do some learning.¡± i moved the two shafts tia had used back into the ground making the area flat. ¡°Oh that is not very nice.¡± tia pouted. ¡°Fine i will just be here guarding the core while you have fun with your magic.¡± she huffed and sat right next to the shining core. ¡°Ok i will.¡± and i went to the sand outside of my cave. I started to poor the smallest amount of mana into the sand to see what would happen and saw the small grains of sand start to jump together more and more the sand came together and it looked like it was becoming a solid stone the size of a pebble. I checked my mana it had used one mp to do that trick. ¡®This is not good i can make a pebble with one mp and small spikes with a little more. Lets see what all my mana can do at once.¡¯ i stepped past where the water was being collected and put my hands to the sandy ground and pushed with all my mana, i felt it leave and flow out of my hands and my knees and tips of my toes. It was flowing out of all of me that was in contact with the ground. Good to know for latter if nothing else. For my efforts i got a disk of sandstone no larger than the reach of my arms. I then fell onto it out from my excursion of my full mana, as well as the not small drop the disk made. It fell into a suddenly appearing hole that was easily from my fingertips to my elbow, and the landing was not soft, i got a little scraped from the now sandstone. [you have made sandstone hemisphere] [you gained earth magic subskill transmuter level 1] [with the transmuter subskill you can change one form of something you have dominion over to another form of something you have dominion over for a lesser cost or greater effect. As you level this up your range of options will grow] ¡®Great now the blue things pop up when i don''t summon them¡­. Wait hemisphere? What is that about i made a disk.¡¯ i waited for a bit for my mana to recover and crawled over and dug out the side of my disk, and as i dug deeper i saw and felt it was curving gently in the shape of a sphere under the sand. ¡®Ok well now i have a small pit with a sandstone floor at the bottom of it before my new home. What can i do with this.¡¯ i saw a little bit of water start to wet the side closest to the dungeon. ¡®Well tia did want a bath and i guess i could make the sides of this into stone and have the extra water drain into it. It is just pouring into the sand anyway why not make some use of it.¡¯ i then spend the better part of three hours slowly transmuting the sides to stone and resting to regain my mana. I found that i regained my mana slightly faster if i sat down and closed my eyes and let my mind drift thinking of nothing. My last action was to direct the flowing water into my bowl of sandstone. I sat in the bottom of the now sunbaked bowl and felt the water come in and cool me down, it was warming up a little from the sand stone but still felt quite nice. I got out when the water was ankle deep and walked over to tia who was asleep and curled into a ball. ¡®Oh this will be fun.¡¯ i thought as i ever so gently scooped her up and seeing as she did not wake from this, i ever so slowly walked over to the still filling pool and tossed her in. ¡°Ack what, bla, what''s the big idea. Tossing me in the water like that. A lady could drown like that.¡± she stood up and beat her wings a few times to toss the water off of them. Then she took a look at what she was standing in. ¡°you made this? How? When?¡± she tried to fly but her wings were still too wet, then tried to climb out but the walls gave her no pertace. ¡°Oh you know i was just playing with my earth magic and this just kinda happened, still a little shocked i changed so much sand into sandstone though. I thought i would have needed a lot more mana to do that.¡± i hopped down and picked up my little pixie companion. Then got us both out. ¡°Oh ya i also got the subskill transmuter, does that ring any bells?¡± ¡°Hmm well ya but only the basics of it, it is as you know a sub skill of the earth magic tree, the most extreme use of it is turning base metals into rare ones in a single go. But you could do the same thing over time, heh you could even turn this sand into gold, but it would take a lot of sand to get a bit of gold, the stuff you transmute tends to get smaller the rarer it gets. But on the other side you can make something rare into lesser things and get more of the lesser material.¡± she looked down at the sand stone. ¡°But as far as making sand into sandstone that is not that big a leap even without the subskill transmuter. You did not even try to shape it past the transmuting the sand into sandstone, that likley made it easyer on your mana too.¡± ¡°If you say so, i would have thought this much would be beyond me given making those..toys.. Of yours took 3 mana each.¡± tia brushed it off. ¡°That was changing where it was with a fair amount of precition, you were telling the stone where to be and you mana moved it by force. For the sandstone you asked it to come together how it saw fit and gave it mana to do with as it wanted. Or at least that is the easiest way to think about the process. Earth can be stubborn but if you let it do what it wants it can so some surprising things when fed mana.¡± tia nodded sagely, as if giving out great wisdom. ¡°Ok well it looks like it is getting dark, so any idea what we should do for sleeping arrangements. All we have is the sand and the dungeon cave, does not look like things will be that warm tonight.¡± i said dreading the chill to come. ¡°Hmm ya the next few days are going to be bad. I wish you would use some DP to buy something to keep us warm, but it is a smart move to get radiant mana so we don''t need to eat and latter on feed everything that is going to live here. Uh oh i know.¡± she clapped her hands at the thought. ¡°How about you try to lower the lip of the cave entrance, that should keep some of the heat in.¡± i looked up at the opening to the cave and tried to touch it but could not reach. ¡°Hmm ya you can''t move the earth if you can''t touch it. Ah ha how about making smaller little cave that we can sleep under, think of it like a burrow or a stone blanket¡± ¡°Ok fine, but do know i likely won''t have the mana to do so in one go, and tonight might just suck.¡± with that said i started my work and after using up all of my mana i got the stone to move a grand total of four hand spans up, and half a handspan down from the material moving up. I sighed and double checked my work by measuring it with my hands, placing my hand on top of each length of moved stone, and yes it was as if i only moved four hands worth of stone. ¡°Well i might be able to get it two or three times as high today. But it still wont cover us at all and we will still freeze.¡± i muttered to tia and then started to regain my mana, i let all sounds drift away as i meditated. earth mother moss ¡°Ah i see you are done meditating, i had an idea.¡± tia said and pointed down to a pile of sand. That was now next to the magicly moved stone. ¡°If you can''t move the stone quickly then just make the sand into stone, you will likely have to hold it between your hands and transmute it in place, and i hope that it would attach to the rest of the stone. If not then it will be kind of like making bricks and go from there.¡± she said with a never give up attitude clear on her face. ¡° That is really clever idea tia, good job. Now let''s see how well it works in practice.¡± i grabbed a handful of sand and put it between my hands and then transmuted it to sand stone a third the size of the sand i had held. It did not stick to the stone that i had already moved, so i moved it to the ground and added more sand and transmuted it to see if it would stick to the already transmuted sandstone and it did. The whole experiment took 3 mana. ¡°Ok sandstone will stick to sandstone i can work with this.¡± i went out of the cave and grabbed handfuls of sand and started to transmute them into sandstone rock and tossed them inside, each rock only costing 1 mana and was a messy shape the size of my fist. ¡°Oh i see what your doing, making something to build with and then adding sand after to seal up any gaps. Rocks as an outline then sand, then rocks on top of that then sand, each time transmuting the sand to sandstone.¡± tia said while clapping her hands, she started to grab the stones as best she could, some were shaped in a way that she could not grasp them well. I made 40 rocks and then moved onto stacking them up and making a small shelter out of them. It was starting to get cold as i kept working and taking small breaks to meditate and get back my mana. It was done it was a tiny thing that i could just barely fit into but it kept my body heat in or at least that was tia¡¯s theory. ¡° well at least we have a chance with this, goodnight lilly, i hope we can sleep well.¡± tia then curled in next to me and started to sleep, i tried to drift off as well but she started to snore loudly. It was also getting colder then i would have thought and my teeth started to chatter as i shivered. I stayed awake through the night my eyes drilling holes into tias small form. ------------------ ¡°Yaaa, hmm¡± tia woke up and stretched, she turned and saw me staring at her with death in my eyes. ¡°Wahhh¡± she flew out of my grasp and to to roof of the dungeon cave. ¡°So umm lilly uh how did you sleep?¡± she asked sheepishly. I crawled out of the shelter staring at her the whole time. ¡°What do you mean by sleep tia?¡± i said sickeningly sweet. ¡°Oh you mean the thing you did while you snored so loud i had no way to sleep if i wanted to.¡± i shouted at the pixie, then regained my calm. ¡°But i should thank you because of you i learned a new skill and it should be very helpful.¡± i said between gritted teeth [heat of petite hatred-fueled by a petie hatred you have found a way to keep yourself warm so long as you are around a petie or greater hatred, the stronger the hate the stronger the heat.] ¡°See even when i am asleep i still help you out. But in fairness you are a demon and they tend to do fire very well, also negative emotions.¡± tia stated pondering. ¡°It seems i can make the area around me warmer but only enough to keep off a chill, nothing like actually fire, with my new skill. But now that it is day time and starting to warm up i think i will take my turn at sleeping. You keep watch tia and make sure you don''t nod off out of boredom.¡± with that i went to lay on the moss as my bedding and let my exhaustion take me. ------------- I awoke feeling my body starting to overheat. I shot up and saw my legs were a deep red and i felt some sand fall off of me as i stood. I brushed off the sand and felt a pain when i touched the red areas. I took a look to make sure the sand was off and saw that it was actually patterns that were rough but easy to see. The skin where the sand was on me was lighter then where it hurts to touch. ¡°Tia what happened why is my skin red and hurting?¡± i called out to the pixie, ¡°and why are there patterns on my skin?¡± she flew over to me and flinched at how red my skin was in places. ¡°Umm that would be sunburn, it happens when you are exposed to the heat of the day for too long and it does go away in time. As for the patterns i kind of put sand on you to make them as a joke. I thought you would just tan and have lighter areas as a neat little patten but did not expect you as a demon to get a sunburn, who would have guessed.¡± tia said. ¡°So do you have any idea how long this ¡®sunburn¡¯ will last?¡± i asked in slight annoyance. ¡° on a common race it would last a few days then the burnt skin would start to peel off, it is so gross.¡± she stuck out her tongue. ¡°But on a demon i have no idea how it would work, it could take a day or year, i have no info to go off of for this.¡± i sighed at the news. ¡°Well at least something you are not a know it all about so there is that.¡± i said cheekly to her. ¡°So how do most of the common races speed up recover if you know. And by that i mean something we can do with the resources we have on hand.¡± i looked around the empty cave. ¡°Hmm well drink more water and stay out of the sun is all i got.¡± she shrugged. ¡°I am kind of shocked you did not get burnt yesterday while you were making the big bowl, you were out for hours in the sun.¡± ¡°I ran out of mana and then went inside to the shade and waited to get it back, i was meditating longer than i was in the sun by a wide margin. Mana gets spent fast when working on projects.¡± i explained. ¡°True enough, not like you were an earth elemental using earth magic. Those guys can just keep casting the non combat spells all day long it is nuts.¡± ¡°Well i guess today will be fixing up our little shelter to be a bit more cozy, and making some pots to store water inside.¡± i said and moved to the shelter of sandstone. Looking at it in the light of day made it clear how much of a rush job it was. It had clear gaps that let out the heat, and on the inside had bulges that blocked off some space. I started out by smoothing out the inside of my little sleeping hole, no use making the outside look any better till the inside was livable. Then i filled in the holes with some sand i gathered from a few quick trips outside. I then started to make a small area of the ground as smooth as i could. After that was done i put some sand on top of it and made it smooth as well. then i transmuted the sand into a small sheet. It was more or less smooth on both sides the edges were a bit off but i ran my finger past the edges slowly while willing it to transmute back into sand. And the end result was not perfect but it was closer to a smooth rectangle sheet of sandstone. ¡°I am glad you made a rectangle sheet but why did you do that?¡± tia said while hovering over me confused at my work. ¡°This way i can make building blocks of sorts, something i know that would take me a long time to shape with my mana i can just transmute to the shape i want to make, and look i can make containers with this idea too.¡± i set my sheet aside and put some sand on my smooth cave floor. This time the sheet was a circle, i transmuted the sand and then put a small ring of sand along the edge of the circle of sandstone, then transmuted that. I repeated that till i had a rough bucket. ¡°See now we have a way to keep the water inside.¡± i said proudly. Then i went to lift the new sandstone bucket and found it to move but with a lot more effort than i expected.¡±If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Good luck moving that full of water, it is made of sandstone not the normal clay or lighter still wood. But it is good to know what tools we have on hand. Put it off to the side and made a smaller one something i can lift and i will till up the new bucket.¡± tia said and stood next to my small workspace. I went to work and made a small sandstone bucket that was pixie sized. It did not hold much but it looked like tia could pick it up at least. I don''t know about flying while it was full but will find out shortly. ¡°Ok thanks now lets see how well this works. Oh nice i can fly with it.¡± tia said as she hovered just slightly off the ground and did not get much higher even with visible effort. ¡°Well it is still better than walking.¡± she flew off and grabbed some water, as she was doing that i moved the first sandstone container to the side, and saw her start her walk back. ¡°Well this sucks looks like i cant fly or even hover with a full load of water, next time i will grab half as much and i hopefully can fly then.¡± tia huffed as she moved her small bucket of water. ¡°Well at least we have more stuff to work with right?¡± i said trying to cheer her up. She nodded while walking. I started making other flat areas on the cave floor putting little walls up along the edges of them to make a small templet to put sand into for transmuting to sandstone. I thought myself rather clever for that. It was just simple flat shapes so far but i could build on it in time. I lost myself in my work and started to make my transmuted sandstone objects from my templates, the time flew by till i was stopped by a blue message. [dungen points +2 current dungeon points 5] I sighed it is going to take 7 or 8 more days till i can get the radiant mana, that means all i have to eat is the moss, something i haven''t even tried yet. Well i am low on mana right now anyway and have enough plats of sandstone to cover the small sleeping cave for tonight. I might as well see how the moss is. I walked over and grabbed a pinch of moss and tasted it. Nope nothing i want to keep tasting. So i swallowed it and left it at that, i took a few more pinches worth of the moss cutting out a section of the moss pinch by pinch. I moved the now seperated section of moss up with my mana and cut the stone free it was just the size of my hand but would be worth it even if i my next idea did not work as i hoped. I placed the mossy rock into the sleeping mini cave and made it sink down into the stone of the cave making it flush. Then i meditated to get my mana back to full for this next bit, but as i was near done i heard some moaning and saw that tia was masterbating useing only her hands. I rolled my eyes at her actions but walked over to her and grabbed her by her tiny waist and she stared into my eyes not stopping. I scowled at that and gave her a quick swat. ¡°Oh yess do it again.¡± tia moaned out. I was confused but did it once more this time with a bit of hesitation. She moaned out louder and her wings started to beat erratically. ¡°Thanks, oh it is much more tiring when you actually touch me, must be a succubus thing. Now check your status, i need to cool down.¡± she then broke free from my grasp and used her little bucket and poured water over herself. ¡°Status¡± Race demon, subrace succubus Name Lilly Age 1 day Titles dungeon core guardan Abilities Core Point Command earth magic level 2 Seduction level 1 Soul Siphon level 1 soul points 2 Flight -locked- ¡°Ok it says i am 1 day old now, and wait what. It says i am level 2 in earth magic and i have soul points. I did not activate soul siphon, i did not even sleep with anyone. How do i have a soul point?¡± i asked confused. ¡°Easy i was masterbating and you were around. You should have gotten one yesterday, and i am guessing with how tired i am now compared to yesterday you got two more so should be at 3 points or so.¡± tia explained while ringing the water out of her hair. ¡°Now you need to find out what you can do with those points you have. Say soul siphon soul points, lets see if that will tell you what you can do.¡± ¡°Soul siphon soul points.¡± i said to the air. [current soul points from soul siphon 2. Would you like to know more yes or no] ¡°Yes.¡± i said. [actions that can be done with soul points: use of 1 point list, heal self for 50% of total life, recover 50% of mana, increase a skill by 1 level for one activation. Use of 2 points list, heal another for 50% of their total life, recover 50% of there mana, increase a skill by 1 level for one activation, increase an ability by 20% for one action. For 5 points, trade for 1 dungeon point, increase options or strength of things bought with souls or soul points. For 1 complet soul uses, can be put in gear to make a cursed item, can be exchanged for 5 dungeon points. Additional options, auto use is active do you wish to turn it off to conserve points. Leave on or turn off ] I thought turn off. ¡°Hmm looks like i have a fair amount of options. Oh oh nice tia we might be able to get that radiant mana ability a bit faster, but i will need to use soul siphon on you a lot more. Do you think you will be able to take it?¡± i asked her, getting a puzzled look in return i explained the list of things i could use with soul siphons soul points. ¡°I think so but i want to make sure i am not exhausted from it beforehand, we don''t know at what point that ability kills someone and takes the soul. So best to have me be in top shape and wait for any negative effects on me to go away.¡± tia said. ¡°But it is a good idea that way we can get things up and running faster, and this has more possibility when we get some mobs running around. Ohh this is going to be so fun, having a succubus master will be great.¡± she flew in a loop and pumped her fist in the air before landing. ¡°If not a bit tiring, that loop should not have been hard at all, i am going to rest and look at my own stats for bit. I will tell you when i am ready for another round.¡± she walked over to our sleeping cave and took a nap. ¡°Ok i will be trying something else out then.¡± i said as she walked the short distance. Hmm now to see what happens if i channel mana to the moss. I put my hands in full contact with the moss i had cut out and let my mana flow into it, and nothing happened. My mana was fully gone from that. Well at least i know raw mana does not do anything so that is something, next time let''s see what using my earth magic will do. I used tia¡¯s bucket as a small cup and got some water then started up my meditation. With my mana now full i went over to my area of experimental moss and tried to channel my mana using my earth magic this time. I dumped all of my mana into this once more letting it take whatever path it wanted to with no shape in mind and no expectations. The moss started to grow slowly but surely, i was drained of mana and the new growth was the size of my hand. [you have sped up the growth of a plant] [you have unlocked the earth magic subskill earth mother level 1] ¡°Yes another skill, true it is still earth magic but yes go me!¡± i pumped my hands to the side and hit one the the walls and scraped my knuckles making them bleed. I dropped to my knees and cradled my hand from the sudden pain. A few drops of blood fell to the ground and the moss. [you have created a new kind of moss, please name it] ¡°What?¡± [do you wish to name the new moss ¡°what¡± yes or no ] ¡°No, and more information.¡± [more information. With the earth magic subskills transmuter and earth mother combined you are able to transform plants into new subspecies. They need to have mana from earth magic and a catalyst. This new moss made from the blood of a earth magic using succubus is edible by all that need to eat, it has a side effect of acting as an aphrodisiac when eaten in raw form, other methods of preparing it and consuming it are unknown as are any side effects that might come with them. ] Well at least i know that i can eat it and it does seem to fit with what tia thinks of succubi. Hmm now for a name, succubus moss¡­ no that sounds bad. Lust moss, no to straightforward. Earth mothers lust hmm sure that will do. ¡°Earth mothers lust.¡± [do you wish to name the new moss ¡°earth mothers lust¡± yes or no] ¡°Yes¡± [new mosses name is ¡°earth mothers lust¡±] I looked down and saw where the moss had grown a small pale red patch was on the edge of the normal moss, it had to be no larger than a drop of blood but i guess everything had to start from something. I saw it was getting to be late in the day and meditated and got my mana back and used it all up once more to make my new earth mothers lust moss grow, it was a bit trickier to just pick out that small amount of moss to grow but i got it to spread out and it took the shape of a heart that was half the size of my hand when all was said and done. Soul Siphon tests ¡°Ok lilly i think i am good now, i checked my status and i have no negative conditions, so you can use your soul siphon on me¡­. Ok what is with that moss, and why is it pink?¡± tia paused at the sight of my new moss. ¡°It looks like i got a new subskill earth mother and with having transmuter i somehow made a new kind of moss. And it is not pink it is a pale red.¡± i said with a slight huff. ¡°Well at least it looks like you can make moss and i would think plants grow so that is good. You are on a hot streak you got two sub skills in two days true they are both earth magic based but still, it takes a long time for normal casters to gain any kind of subskill. But we are on a ley line no matter how weak. That should up the chance of a unlock by a fair amount, but still this is great. ¡°Thanks i think, but that is a bit of a letdown knowing that it is because of the ley line i was able to unlock new skills. I thought i was hmm you know what i did not give it much thought, i have nothing to base my speed of learning on. Oh and it looks like the new moss is edible but leave it alone for a bit i want to make it grow a lot more before we start to harvest it for anything.¡± i said. ¡°Sure i can wait on it, in all fairness i was ready to wait till we got radiant mana going and just starve till then. But it looks like you will be able to get some food going by tomorrow it looks like. I might have a suggestion though, give the moss some water it might help speed up the growth, and make it have to use up your mana less for how much it needs to grow. And if i am wrong then we have some wet moss for a bit.¡± tia sugusted. I nodded at her idea. ¡° well time to see if you can get some more soul points to get us that radiant mana, i am ready take me.¡± she tossed her arms wide and flew to my hands. ¡°Well here goes nothing, soul siphon fatigue¡± i said and i felt my hands start to move on there own as they danced across tia¡¯s body, they pinched and proded the pixie getting moans from her in response. I just let the skill take over and watched like a passenger in my own body, i could feel what i was doing but i put no effort into doing it. I waited till i saw tia¡¯s wings start to quiver before i tried to take back control from the skill, it was a simple matter i just had to give the simplest of effort and i was back in control. I gave tia a slap on her ass and that sent her over the edge. ¡°Soul siphon soul points.¡± i said to the air. [current soul points from soul siphon 3. Would you like to know more yes or no] ¡°No¡± i said to the blue text. ¡°Looks like it worked tia i now have 3 points, how do you feel?¡± i asked my pixie ally. ¡°I think i would like to go another round, but nothing past what we did just now, it looks like i have the fatigued status so that is a step better than being exhausted and i don''t dare find out what happens when you start to use soul siphon on someone that is exhausted already. Or at least don''t try to find out on me.¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ¡°You make a good point, but if your sure you''re up for another round lets do it.¡± i gave her a kiss on the top of her head. Then thought this time, soul siphon fatigue. And i let the skill take over, while i was watching and learning what needs to be done. ¡°Ok looks like i have 4 points now i think tomorrow we will find out the limits of trying to get points and how long you need to rest to get out of exhausted and fatigued condition.¡± i said to the now exhausted pixie who just nodded in agreement. I smiled and set her down inside our little sleeping cave. She started to snore, and i could feel my heat of petite hatred trigger and i started to radiate heat. I took some deep breaths and calmed myself and the skill deactivated. This time i will be staying up and keeping my body moving to stay warm in the night. The night came and passed i spend it pouring mana to grow my lust moss and regaining my mana in the sleeping cave next to tia. I used tias idea to give the moss some water and it payed off it grew a lot more for every bit of mana i gave it, by the time the sun rose it had nearly covered the floor, but it kept up the heart shape still. The morning came and tia saw my work. ¡°Wow that is a lot of moss, we should be fine for a few days then. So can i have some moss now?¡± tia landed on the moss and had a spring in her step. ¡°Sure go for it, there is enough now.¡± i said and sat down on the moss next to her. She grabbed a good fist full and started to eat it. ¡°Oh ya i forgot to mention it looks like it has a aphrodisiac effect, whatever that means.¡± i said casually. Tia stared at me and then slapped her forehead with her palm. ¡°Oh of course it has that effect, a succubus made it. And speaking of that i think i am starting to feel the effects. Not that it matters as that was the plan today. So you know an aphrodisiac is something to get a person into the mood for sex or make sex better or last longer. Now get those fingers a dancing boss.¡± she finished with a flush covering her whole body and i could see she was dripping wet. So i activated my skill this time using the exhausting setting. It took an hour but in the end my skill deactivated and tia was left looking like she had no bones. I also got 4 more soul points out of it, bringing me up to 8 total. I used 5 of them to get a dungeon point, making my grand total of DP 6 soon to be 8 when i get my 2 daily points. ¡°Well that was fun, i got 4 points from you this time. Do you think it has anything to do with the moss you ate right before?¡± she gave a moan and a nod. ¡°Well say when you are ready for the next round, i want to put the moss in our sleeping cave as something soft to sleep on.¡± i grabbed a pinch of the moss and went to our sleeping cave and put it down and poured some water on the ground and channeled my earth magic to make it grow like i had all night long. A few hours later tia came over and was back to her energetic self. She flew around looking at what i had done that night and while she was recovering from her last round with my skill. ¡°So you look tired, get some sleep i will stand guard and when you wake up we can try out how many SP you get from me with exhaustion level without me having just ate that moss.¡± tia suggested. I was finding it hard to stay awake. ¡°Fine i will sleep, but this time i will do it with a nice soft area and not that cold floor or that hot sunbaking me. I am still burned and don''t know how long it will take to heal up. Well anyway thanks and time for me to sleep.¡± i layed out in the now moss covered sleeping cave and close my eyes and drifted off. Radiant Mana I felt like I was floating in a void filled with stars. Looking around I saw two bright lights one slightly farther than the other. In my confusion and curiosity, I wanted to see what they were and somehow moved to the closer one and saw inside of the light. There was a young man walking in a town with a woman holding his hand. They were smiling and looked happy as they were walking. I smiled at this peaceful sight and then I saw from the point of view of the woman. I tried to move or say something, but I could not it looked like I was just a passenger riding along. The woman waved the man away and then the world went dark. Then I saw I was in a room and was cooking and getting a meal ready, I looked down into a jar of water and saw the woman¡¯s face it was my own face. the man once more showed up from a door and said how lovely the meal smelled and gave me a peck on the cheek and started to undress. ¡°But what I mostly want to eat is you¡± he said in a flirty voice. Then started to kiss the nape of my neck and down my arm. I could feel all that this woman did and was getting stirred up from it. ¡°The meal can wait come along now.¡± he said then the scene changed once more. I was now on something softer than my moss and felt my skin was bare and the man was naked above me and thrusting away. ¡°Ah I love it when you are so giving.¡± he then kissed me and gave a last thrust and rolled over. He moved me, so my face was resting on his chest and started talking. ¡°Things are finally going my way, my business is booming, I have you and soon have my own kids.¡± he put his hand on my belly. ¡°I love all of this.¡± he said. Then the world faded to black. I was back out in the void and the bright light I was looking at was dimming and went away. The other light was still as strong, but I waited a moment before moving to it. ¡®Hmm that was actually kind of nice, having someone that cared. And have cloths¡­ well let¡¯s see what that next light is. I moved to the light and investigated it. This time there was a man and a woman sitting in a building talking and looks like they agreed to something. I smiled and then saw from the view of the woman. ¡°YOU WORTHLESS WHORE.¡± I heard the man say, then felt an impact to my face. He had slapped me. It stung, and I ran out the building. I was now in the street with others looking at me, the man grabbed me and with a quick motion ripped off my cloths. They came off with almost no effort and I was left standing with nothing on. I looked around and saw people turn their heads away and keep walking. Why was no one helping me I thought. He grabbed my arm and then pinned me to a wall and whispered to me. ¡°This is what you want right.¡± I felt tears run down my face and felt myself nod. ¡°That''s what I thought. Now get on your knees and crawl, you are now mine. AND I DARE ANYONE TO CHALLENGE ME!¡± He yelled. The scene changed I felt myself crying as that woman. but I tried to escape and found that I could easily do so from that bright light. ¡®Well that was a lot worse than that first one, he was scary not kind like the first light. Hmm what are all those lights anyway. I will ask Tia when I wake up but for now I think I should stay away from whatever those lights are. I woke up and heard something unexpected a screeching sound. I crawled out of the cave and saw Tia zipping around holding her head. It was much darker outside then it should have been, I could see only brown where there should be blue sky. ¡°Tia what is going on?¡± I yelled over the sound of the screaming. She turned and flew over to me. ¡°It is a sand storm, and you would not wake up, we need to close up the dungeon entrance or too much sand will get in and..¡± a gust of wind blew her back, sputtering she kept going. ¡°Bla and we won''t be able to live. Now work that earth magic.¡± I did not need any more than that. I started to grab fist full of sand that was now covering my moss and transmuting it to sand stone and started to make a wall covering the only entrance. I can always undo the stone into sand after, but I was only a quarter done and felt my mana was dry. ¡°Activation use one sp recover mana.¡± I said and felt my mana recover to exactly 50% then kept working. I had to use my last two sp to get to only around 75% complete on sealing up the entrance. ¡°Come on you can do it.¡± Tia cheered me on. ¡°I can¡¯t I am tapped out, I used all my mana and all 3 remaining sp and all the mana I recovered while working.¡± I said in exhaustion. The sand was not making big drifts anymore and was becoming more manageable. ¡°Ok fine let''s move to the sleeping cave. We have to wait this out now.¡± Tia said flew into the now soft sleeping area I flowed after her. Hours went by till the storm was over and things cleared up. Tia was tempted to get me to train my skills on her but now was not the time. My starting moss was covered in sand now, and that only left my modified moss from inside the sleeping cave. I moved as much sand off of my normal moss as I could but the damage had been done.(expand on) I worked on getting the sand out of my water source but it was mostly just tossing out wet sand to the side and watching more sand fall in after, but I was able to get a good area to cup water from after about an hour or so of working on it, it was already getting dark as I started work so there was no worry about any more damage from the sun on my still burnt skin. I found the sand a bit easier to shape while it was wet and started to make some rough shapes that could fit in my hand as practice, then transmuting it to sandstone. The objects were too thin and broke after being transmuted but I still was training and learning the extent of what my earth magic could do. -------- A few hours later I saw a shadow off in the distance and darted into the dungeon. Then started to seal up the last of the entrance I was not able to earlier as I ran out of mana. The shadow turned larger as I saw it come closer, it was large and twice my height and longer than if I was laying down. Tia came over to find out what I was so worked up about. ¡°Hmm a camel rider in the dark, that is strange. It looks like he is about to...ok he did fall off. Oh, neat he is getting dragged by the camel.¡± tia narrated the actions of the dark shadow thing. ¡°What''s a camel?¡± I asked, as I peeked my head out and saw the thing on the ground get up and start to walk to the dungeon. I quickly pulled my head back inside. ¡°It is something that people ride or put cargo onto. A beast of burden. Oh, here he comes and he he the camel came over first and is just drinking our water.¡± tia gently laughed as the camel walked passed the person and was now in arms reach of us. ¡°You dumb beast.¡± the person said exasperated. ¡°you should have waited for your master to drink first.¡± the camel turned for a moment then went back to drinking. ¡°It was your fault we lost the water, you panicked when the sand stone hit.¡± the camel payed the person no mind. And the person finally reached the water and one foot sank into the wet sand. He backed up and got his foot out and then started to scoop out the sand looking for the water, much like I had done early. He got a few good handfuls of water then filled an odd flat thing that got fat after he took it out of the water he then drank directly from that. ¡°Well at least we have water, now if only we knew where to go from here.¡± he looked up at the star lit sky. ¡°If only I learned how to navigate by the stars, I could have been going in circles since the storm for all I know.¡± he then gave the camel a light shove. ¡°and it is all your fault.¡± he finished with a smile then sat down. ¡°What''s that?¡± he looked into the dungeon and stood up and walked to the entrance. ¡°Oh, good some place to sleep for the night it seems. He took a few steps inside and tried to look around, but it was clear that he did not see me just an arm¡¯s length away in the shadows. Why could he not see me I was right here.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Ok let''s see how much room this cave has. He reached into a pocket and brought out a rock that shown like the dawn''s first light. The whole of the cave was bathed in light, he then saw me and jumped back and drew a shiny short object from his waist and pointed it at me. ¡°How long have you been there?¡± he moved the light in a way to better see me, then he lowered his other hand. ¡°Wait what a naked woman, you should have said something I almost stabbed you with my knife.¡± he put away his ¡®knife¡¯ and came closer to me. ¡®Tia, where are you?¡¯ I thought as he came closer. ¡°No need to be scared, I won''t bite.¡± he said in a soothing voice. He looked up and down at my body. ¡°How did you get all the way out here, oh are you a runaway slave? I can see how someone would want a slave such as you after all you are perfect if a bit sunburnt. But I am guessing that has to do with how you ran away.¡± he gently grabbed my wrist and pulled me from the wall then walked around me. ¡°So how would you like coming with me, I can make sure you get back so town and no one has to know you are a runaway slave. Does that sound good?¡± he asked. I just stood there not knowing what to do. ¡°Ok the quiet type, how about we try this. Stop me if I go too far ok.¡± he nodded to me and I nodded in return not knowing what that meant. ¡°Good to even get a nod out of you here I go.¡± he then used his free hand and grabbed my waist and pulled me in for a kiss. He then moved both his hand and lips lower, his hand now on my ass and lips trailing kisses down my neck and toward my breasts. I felt my body start to tingle with his actions and thought ¡®soul siphon fatigue¡¯. I grabbed his face with my hands and gave him a deep kiss. The next hour turned into a haze as my body went to work and I was just a passenger to my own skill. In the end he was as naked as I was, and I tasted something strange in my mouth and something sticky on my flesh. He was panting hard as he got up and went outside ¡°That was amazing, I have to get a drink. And grab something for you.¡± he was walking with a limp. Sp+1 was hovering in the corner of my vision then I dismissed it. I was also feeling full like I ate a lot of moss and drank a fair amount of water, not too much but I felt satisfied from it. ¡°Well that is truly the succubus way to handle things.¡± tia whispered to me, as I just lay on the floor. ¡°Remember if things go wrong you can go full soul siphoned and find out what happens that way worst case he will be too weak to even fight me...I hope. Oh, here he comes bye.¡± tia zipped away. ¡°Ah much better, water does amazing things. And I must say you were amazing I have never had such an intense session with any girl before, normally I am the one making the girls limp after.¡± he laughed. ¡°Here is something I got to start up my own business I never thought I would be giving the first one to a woman that is such a good lover all the way out here in the wastes.¡± I smiled at him and he smiled in return. ¡®This is nice, wait isn''t this the first man from those dreams. The one with a good business and nice home.¡¯ I thought, as I felt a surge of happiness from this physical encounter. ¡°Well here it is.¡± he said and locked a metal ring around my neck. I had no time to react. It was cold but not that bad. I just looked at him confused. ¡°Haha, you don''t even know do you. You are now my slave, not only that but it drains mana so any abilities you might have won¡¯t work.¡± he laughed as I narrowed my eyes. ¡°That will show them I can be a slave trader all on my own and get beautiful women to sell. So, what if I could only get a few mana draining slave collars.¡± he kept talking but I ignored him as I looked at my status. And yes, my mana was draining down. I tried to use my transmuting on the metal to turn it into something else, but I felt the mana be drawn away into the metal. I did what tia suggested and gave him a deep kiss and thought ¡®soul siphon maximum¡¯ I felt my body starting to take over and was pushed to the back to just watch. The last thing I heard from him was. ¡°Oh, you like being a slave do you, this will go over very well for you then. Time for round two.¡± he said. Two hours later I got the message 1 complete soul and his body was cold on the floor, it slowly started to fade away. I then got a new message. [you have absorbed 1 human male +5 dp, unlocks the undead race option] I then went outside and grabbed the camel and brought it inside. It just got on its knees and closed its eyes. I started to go through the stuff on it and found a few small metal sticks with strange prongs and some food. Tia came out and saw the metal sticks and grabbed them and unlocked the slave collar, it dropped to the ground and faded away. [low quality mana draining collar +5 dp, unlock mana draining collar option for loot] ¡°Well that looks like a lot of gain, current dp.¡± I said aloud. [current dp at 18] ¡°Wow almost there only 2 more to go till we have radiant mana.¡± I looked over at tia who was crying now. ¡°stupid stupid stupid, I should have done something. He tried to take you away and I just hid.¡± she was on the ground looking up at me. ¡°I am sorry, I just did not know what to do, I thought everything was fine, you were doing your succubus thing then out of nowhere he hit you with that collar.¡± she fell to her knees and started crying harder. I sat down and patted her head. ¡°do you have any way to attack without getting found out and most likely squished right after?¡± I asked. ¡°Nothing that can do any real harm to a person right now. I am a mentor and guide your dungeon creatures are for attacking anything that comes to threaten you. And we don''t have any of those.¡± she said into the ground. ¡°See, nothing you could do. It was one of the risks we are running while waiting to get radiant mana. If we had quick access to food, then we would already have some monsters. But look around, we can''t go past the outside ¡®room¡¯ and had to buy the moss with dp and that did not play out as well as it could have.¡± I said softly. She looked up and wiped away her tears. ¡°True, I did not see anything we could have used for food yet.¡± she stood up and put on a forced smile. ¡°Let¡¯s get that radiant mana then. How close are you right now?¡± ¡°At 18 points, so we should have it when the daily points come in.¡± I said. ¡°just got 5 from the dungeon well eating that guy, and 5 from that collar. And we started with 8 today.¡± ¡°Silly Lilly we don''t have to wait, time for another lesson by your sexy pixie.¡± she blew a kiss. ¡°Any time a creature dies in a dungeon they are dissolved and turned into dp. The stronger they are the more dp they are turned into. Items are also turned into dp, the rarer or mana filled the items the more dp they turn into. But the lowest value is always one dp here look.¡± she then flew and tossed some rope that was on the camel on the ground, it faded away. [rough rope +1 dp, rough rope was added to loot] She tossed some small bag next. [empty water skin +1 dp, empty water skin added to loot] ¡°The only thing stopping the dungeon from changing items into dp is if it is currently worn by a living creature or has been linked with personal mana. But the personal mana only keeps the dungeon from eating an item for so long, a little bit will keep an item for a day or so. The most I heard about was the item retaining its form for over 10 years without being touched by a person.¡± ¡°Good to know, so should we just toss everything on the camel on the ground and let the dungeon turn them into dp?¡± I asked. ¡°Latter on yes, but as for right now I don''t think that is such a good idea. We might be able to get the monsters you summon to make use of such objects. And the cost to create an object tends to be more than the dp the dungeon gets from absorbing it so no infinite loops.¡± she explained. ¡°Fair enough but looks like we have enough dp to get radiant mana and work on the next step getting something to defend us.¡± I said. ¡°Environment options [environment, you can add floors or other features room 1, floor 20, glass 4 points, magma 10 points, puzzles 4 points, or radiant mana 20 points,] ¡°Radiant mana.¡± I said ignoring the puzzles option for now. The dungeon flashed a brilliant white all at once. I was blinded for a moment but then it faded away and I saw the dungeon was the same but at the same time more vibrant somehow. As if the rock sand and moss took on deeper shades then they had before. ¡°ah ya thought that might happen, with a name like radiant and all that. But still that hurt, how are you Lilly?¡± tia said while blinking heavily. ¡°I am good, but you could have warned me a bit about that.¡± I said. Then I looked past the outside ¡®room¡¯ of the dungeon and the sand was not as vibrant as the sand inside was. ¡°Well one task done.¡± ¡°I think we have done well for being in such a middle of nowhere starting area. In three days, you have done the following. Unlocked two earth magic subskills. Gotten a stable water supply that can lure in the unwary. Made a new kind of moss. Gained a room out in the open air, and I can''t even tell you how rare that idea is. Gotten your first kill and have a camel. And now we don''t have to feed any monsters of balance you summon up. I think that is good for three days work.¡± she gave a nod. ¡°Well the real work starts now then I think.¡± I said as I pet the camel.