《Challenged Dungeon and the Arrival of Mana》


 Prologue - Despair

    Despair, Astral Plane in the general vicinity of Earth, Day 0


    It was an odd thing they were doing, Despair considered, pondering his three companions as they drifted across the astral plain, their centuries old act of defiance having progressed fully into sheer boredom. As High Spirits, they were powerful enough that the gods of the various astral domains sought the keep them in check and unable to influence their followers, and as a result it was a very rare occurrence that someone managed to summon them, even if they had sought to be summoned. It had been a spur of the moment decision of their group to leave the astral domains behind, and yet, he thought, sighing waves of violet-black energy into the grey tides of mana surrounding them, with no ability to act within the domains, there was little to do but wait and wander, so they had wandered.


    He turned to look at each of them: Storm, who was somehow still flitting about every which way at twice their travel speed, even after more than five centuries of uninterrupted drifting past the farthest edge of the nearest Astral Domain, though how mixing an energetic wind spirit with a typically sedate, at most playful water spirit somehow managed to improve upon that wind spirit¡¯s energy was beyond him; Nature was lagging behind, acting out mortal sleep whilst the floating tree she had manifested five hundred and twenty-three years ago instead of what had at one point appeared to be skirts, carried her along; Honestly, Sun, straightforward and brash as he was, was the only one determined enough to keep pushing forward at this point, everyone else just kind of passively followed along. That being the case, Despair was momentarily surprised to notice that Sun had just paused, and was clearly searching for something, though much less surprised to notice neither of the others noticed anything at all, still drifting ahead.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    Suddenly, Sun gave a cheer and cried out ¡°I think I¡¯ve found something!¡±


    ¡°And what, pray tell, did you-¡± Nature paused momentarily to yawn, ¡°Find out here in this chaotic mess?¡± she indicated the astral plane about them, slowly diffusing into a grey sea of mana away from the potent influence of the astral domains.


    Sun gave the group a grin so wide he had to distort his facial construct to do it, ¡°I am almost certain that there is a disruption in the light nearby,¡± he began, then after closing his eyes to concentrate for a moment, he pointed in a seemingly random direction and exclaimed ¡°There!¡± while opening up a minor rift in the astral sea to see what was happening to the physical world beyond.


    There was a collective gasp as we saw a blue-green world with cities of steel, stone, and glass and contraptions of metal traveling faster than beasts, racing along black scars in the earth, and the most shocking thing of all, no mana was present at all. Sun managed to make his grin even bigger, and more ridiculous, by causing it to meet around the back of his head, effectively sawing off his snout, brain, and ears, which he then caught with his free hand, ¡°If we claim this, we can establish our own astral domain! We can become gods!¡± he turned to look and gauge our opinions.


    Storm was clearly eager, Nature gave the world a dark glare before declaring, ¡°We better, before those mortals eat that poor world dry,¡± I merely nodded my agreement, and we were decided.


    It was time to become gods.

 Chapter One - Stanley

    Stanley Greene, Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 0


    ¡°Stan¡­ Stan¡­ Hey, Stan¡­ Up! God, Stan!¡± Stan¡¯s fading in and out of consciousness was arrested by his childhood friend and now partner, Marie, giving him a good hard slap in the face, ¡°Come on, get up, you¡¯re too young to pull the alcoholic cop, Stan. I¡¯m here to take you home.¡±


    ¡°What¡¯re you doing here Marie? I don¡¯t want to go home, I want to drink.¡± Stan slurred.


    ¡°I know, that¡¯s why I¡¯m here, the old man is closing down now, so I¡¯m here to pick you up. He gave me a call.¡± She replied, muscling him out of the chair.


    ¡°Oh, really?¡± Stan asked, trying to do his best to land on his face, only to be held up by Marie, ¡°What a nice guy, I should t-urp!¡± he was interrupted by a sudden rush of vomit.


    ¡°Really, Stan? Don¡¯t worry about it, I already left him a big tip.¡± She replied, continuing to half-carry half-drag him out the front door, ¡°Sorry about the floor, old man Jiang!¡±


    As they were leaving the Chinese restaurant with a drinks menu too good for its drab appearance, Stan thought he heard the old man respond, but couldn¡¯t understand him. ¡°Thanks, Marie,¡± he said in a moment of clarity, ¡°you put up with a lot.¡±If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    ¡°Yeah, I do.¡± She grunted, leaning him against the car and looking for her keys, while he slid to the ground and rested his head against the side of the car, ¡°Now let¡¯s get you home.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t fucking want to go home!¡± Stan exclaimed, beating his fist powerlessly against the car door, ¡°Reminds me too much of Betty.¡±


    ¡°Is that what this is about Stan, Betty? She just went to her mother¡¯s for a few days, she¡¯ll be back, you know she loves you,¡± Marie reassured him.


    ¡°No, she doesn¡¯t. Betty doesn¡¯t fucking love me at all!¡± He yelled into the night, only to get distracted by a momentary glimmer out of the corner of his eye, ¡°What was that?¡± he asked.


    ¡°What?¡± Marie asked, concerned, stopping to turn and look at him.


    ¡°Over there,¡± Stan said, waving in the vicinity of the nearby alley, ¡°the alley sparkled, the alley never sparkles, I mean, sure, it smells like half of New York died down there, but it doesn¡¯t ever sparkle¡­¡± he went on while Marie got back to finding her keys.


    ¡°God, Stan, you¡¯re seeing things,¡± Marie answered, exasperated, finding the key and opening the passenger door, ¡°Come on, just a little more and then you¡¯ll be home. Betty will be back soon, then everything will be better, I promise.¡±


    ¡°The papers arrived today.¡± Stan told her, no emotion in his voice.


    ¡°Papers?¡± Marie asked as she snapped his seat belt on and went to close the passenger door.


    ¡°The divorce papers.¡± Stan responded.


    ¡°Fuck,¡± Marie swore, slamming the door shut in surprise, before going around the car to the driver¡¯s seat, ¡°I¡¯ll take you to my place then, does that make you feel any better?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, thanks,¡± Stan said, drunkenly holding back the tears as the pulled out into the late night traffic.

 Chapter Two - Dungeon Core

    Chapter Two


    Dungeon Core, tangentially located in the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 0


    The dungeon core awoke to a sense of immediate surprise, as its senses extended instantly from nothing to a scale many times greater than it felt it should be. After the initial disorientation, it was able to confirm this when it identified its core, a crystal gleaming with a rainbow shine, and determined the size of the room it currently occupied to be well over a thousand times its size, almost fifteen times what it had expected. That it itself wasn¡¯t bad, as already mana had begun to slowly come through the larger walls and be drawn toward its core, causing it to glow faintly brighter, no, the other thing it noticed was the bad news.


    The opening between the dungeon and the mortal plane was a grate, many times its own size, occupying an entire edge of the roof on its long side, a good third of the roof overall. This terrified it, as it instinctively feared dealing with creatures so large until it could handle them, something it most certainly could not do at the moment.


    Security was its top concern, it had to find a way to keep creatures out until it could properly fend them off from its core, or they may kill it. The dungeon quickly scanned its innate knowledge, and came up with only three feasible possibilities, summoning terrifying monsters most certainly being the more appealing option of all that it had seen, but sadly not feasible as it couldn¡¯t even sense any impure mana trickling in through its entrance yet. The three feasible options were: move the core, place traps, and obstruct the way to the core. It decided it would be smart to try all three.


    The first option was by far the easiest, as the core naturally knew sorcery was easier than creation, but still took a few tries. Its first attempt, it created a simple one layer earth spell <move the core towards the back of the room> but it didn¡¯t include enough mana and the spell broke down. On its second attempt, it did the opposite, putting too much mana into the spell caused it¡¯s brown light to roughly grab the crystal and chuck it at the wall, but fortunately the walls were made of packed soil at the moment, and the hit was not damaging. Its third spell was once again under-fueled, being the two layer <move the core to the middle of the wall and place it into the surface of the wall>. It had to wait a dozen or so minutes to gather the mana to fuel the two layer spell again, though it went very smoothly this time, the brown light gently lifting the crystal and melding the wall around it to hold it in place. Fortunately, moving its core to the back wall also had the side effect of giving most of the mana flow a unified direction, slightly improving its speed of absorption.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    The second option was its first attempt at creation magic, so it drew on a pattern it instinctively knew, a stone spike, and located it beneath the entrance grate, pointing up. It took another five minutes to absorb the mana required to materialize the spike, and the most of an hour to materialize eleven more spread out to hopefully catch something if it tried coming in.


    The third option was the first real test of its creation magic, as it carefully focused on the surface around its core for a few inches, and then carefully focused its mana on extending that space out and up, creating a small tunnel a few yards long and sloping upwards, pushing its core back into the wall. Sensing the mana flow settling into the tunnel, it then promptly declared that spot at the end of the tunnel the start of its dungeon, and not the conspicuous, trapped entrance.


    The dungeon core began to slowly build out the dungeon from there, according to its instincts. It first made one room, then another separated by just a doorway, and another. To its surprise, it had outpaced its expected rate of growth, at least until it remembered that it was technically larger than it should be already; so, actually excited for the first time, it pushed and managed to finish a total of five rooms in one week, getting faster and faster in small increments the more it expanded. It made sure to keep its core in the back wall of the last room.


    It did grow concerned, however, about the fact that no creature had entered it in all that time. It knew instinctually that creatures would be drawn to it by the mana that it released, and if not that then by the flows of tainted mana being drawn back into its entrance so it could extract the miasma. The fact that neither was effective was concerning, but for the time being, it decided to sit on its miasma supply until it could create a creature capable of scouting around from one of the patterns it instinctively knew, but even with the healthy inflow of miasma that had begun midweek, it would take about a month to reach that point.


    The only thing it could productively do in the meantime was to continue to expand. As a short term goal, it decided it wanted to complete its first floor and get started on its second within ten days. It was less a creative task than an instinctive task at this point, given the core had no experience in real dungeon building, but it distanced rooms with corridors, then bent and twisted those corridors, then split them and sent them into loops and dead ends that it felt was fit for a proper dungeon. Then it began working on its traps, steadily developing them, what was on the first day a spike or pit, became a spiked pit by the sixth, and then a hidden spiked pit on the eighth. It made sure to upgrade its entrance defense as well, creating even more spikes and putting them in a pit to trap the invaders, though in that case it didn¡¯t bother to hide it with a cap. Everything seemed to be going very well as it started building its second floor.


    Everything that is, except its lack of any intruding creatures whatsoever.

 Chapter Three - Dungeon Core

    Chapter Three


    Dungeon Core, tangentially located in the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 8


    As the dungeon was building out the third room on its second floor, it suddenly felt an odd disturbance in its core, causing it to screw up and pour too much mana into its expansion, making the room inflate, stretching a corner of the room out like an oversized-bubble instead of the rough-packed square look it had been going for so far.


    As the dungeon focused on the disturbance in its core, it became able to pick up an ongoing resonance between a part of its core and a nearby presence in the astral plane. The resonance increased in magnitude quickly until, suddenly, the resonance settled into an unbreakable link between it and the presence, a link it inexplicably knew ended with its creator, residing within the astral plane.


    It was a matter of minutes before a telepathic connection flowed down along the link, ¡°Okay, Three, what progress have you made?¡± It demanded to know.


    The dungeon, no, Three now, happily answered ¡°Hello, Creator, my initial chamber was unusually large, but I have resolved that by barricading the room and building out my first floor following it. My first floor is quite nice, it has five rooms which is more than the-¡°


    ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± Three creator interrupted, ¡°That means you can help me out now, One and Two are still starting out. We need Miasma at the moment, so I want you to channel all the miasma you can get along this link and up to me. Do you understand?¡±


    ¡°Creator! Are you certain, without miasma my ability to crea-¡± Three¡¯s complaint was interrupted.


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter, you seem to have plenty of mana, figure something out, and while you¡¯re at it, we want you to work on pumping as much mana outside as you can, and conquer all those humans.¡± Three¡¯s creator then broke off the telepathic link.


    Three contemplated its store of miasma, about ninety percent of what it would need to create a lesser imp, which it had been saving for. If Three was able to summon an imp, than it would have a scout and infiltrator of some measure of intelligence, which would be ideal to figure out the cause of its lack of creatures and perhaps enable it to secure more. At the same time, if it didn¡¯t begin to channel miasma up to its creator soon she would surely notice, and perhaps reprimand it. On a related note, she didn¡¯t seem to care too much, so she might not notice a slight decrease in the amount offered compared to what he had, and following her instructions well might make her happy enough that she eased up and allowed it to keep some of its miasma once she no longer needed anymore.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Just let me use a little, Three thought, as he pulled up the pattern for dungeon moss and began gathering mana to start constructing it. However, when Three went to pull some miasma from its pool to stabilize the construct, it was suddenly overwhelmed by a flash of pain as its core threatened to tear itself apart. The construct immediately destabilized and turned into a putrid black ooze before disintegrating.


    After spending a few minutes recovering and making sure its core was okay, Three tried again, on the surface around its core this time, I need something, I can¡¯t work from nothing! It screamed mentally against the pain that erupted, carefully threading the bare minimum required miasma out of the pool and into the construct, fighting against the pain, and it was done! The construct stabilized for an instant, and then, totally beyond its control, the miasma was dragged back into its miasma pool like a hammer as the construct exploded, fragmented into a million pieces, and drained half Three¡¯s mana pool in myriad unstable explosions of random material that quickly broke down into nothing, all the while Three was mentally screaming in agony at the pain of the micro-fissures that just erupted inside its core.


    This time it took Three what felt like an eternity, but was more like a half hour, to recover enough to do anything, even think. When it did, its first thought was ¡®So I have no choice but to obey,¡¯ followed shortly thereafter by ¡®For how long?¡¯ and ¡®Hopefully performing well will eventually make her ease up.¡¯ It desperately buried the worry that she would just continue as she had begun, saying ¡®She created me after all, she must have some concern for me!¡¯ optimistically. Three then carefully worked to create another thread of miasma, mindful that it not snap back this time, and fed it into the link. The thread began to get sucked into the link, more and more quickly, causing a sharp ache as it drained Three¡¯s miasma pool until it was empty, only slowing down when the pool was depleted and it was forced to drain the miasma as it was filtered out instead. As it was easing up, Three relaxed a bit as the ache began to subside, but it never seemed to quite ease up enough, leaving a lingering ache around the link which aggravated the micro-fissures and caused it some pain.


    Hoping to alleviate the pain, Three channeled some mana into its core in an attempt to heal the fissures, but to its distress, any attempt to concentrate or focus mana around the fissures just resulted in the mana splintering and fragmenting off into a chaotic mess, rendering a much larger portion of its core matrix completely useless. It took the core an entire day to manage its distress to the point it could effectively concentrate on its three, no, four, goals: give all of its miasma to its creator, it had no choice in the matter, done; channel as much mana as possible to the outside, achievable through sustained growth, not done; conquer all humans, whatever those are, not done; find a way to please its creator such that she alleviates her restrictions, or in the case that is impossible, find a way to get back at its creator, not done.


    For the time being, all Three could do was get back to working on its second floor, now with a painful distraction forcing it to slow down.

 Chapter Four - Despair

    Chapter Four


    Despair, Astral Plane in the general vicinity of Earth, Day 8


    ¡°Goodbye, Metis.¡± Despair finished greeting his second dungeon and had a look at the others, who should have been doing the same.


    Sun and Storm were busily conversing with their dungeons, yet it seemed Nature was already lounging around impatiently, she can¡¯t be done already? He wondered, concerned, how long could she have taken dealing with each of her dungeons? However, reminded of his own remaining dungeon, he began to create the link with Callisto, his third dungeon.


    Once the link was established, he opened up a telepathic link, which she quickly latched onto. ¡°Hello, Callisto, my name is Despair. How have you been doing?¡±


    ¡°Oh, Despair, I awakened as anticipated, but after an initial period the abundance of lesser beasts and miasma has been fantastic!¡±


    ¡°Oh, really? That¡¯s amazing!¡± Despair praised, ¡°So, how far have you managed to grow?¡±


    Callisto gave him an awkward chuckle through the link, ¡°So, far I¡¯m about half way through a triple-sized first floor, because there has been such an abundant amount of resources I felt it would be best to scale up in order to adapt, given the circumstances, I felt it was a good idea?¡± she questioned.


    Despair held in a sigh, and gave his second response instead, a chuckle, ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, both your sisters Europa and Metis did the same. To be honest, I would have done something similar in the same position, so I guess all of you take after me.¡±


    ¡°How wonderful!¡± she gushed, then paused for a moment before asking, ¡°Do you think I can talk with my sisters at some point? I would love to meet them.¡±


    Now it was Despair¡¯s turn to make a nervous chuckle, ¡°Sorry, you and each of your sisters are on different continents, so unless you grow much bigger, or dig much deeper, it won¡¯t be feasible as a dungeon.¡± Callisto gave a sad sigh, ¡°However, after a few hundred years, I can help you, and your sisters if they want, become spirits. You¡¯ll be able to meet them then.¡± Despair suggested.


    At that she paused, ¡°Hundreds of years? I¡¯m not sure about that, by then I will probably not want to leave my dungeon behind¡­¡± she gave a sigh, ¡°For the time being I¡¯ll just think on it, do you think you could help me become a spirit if my core would be destroyed before then?¡± she asked.


    Despair responded instantly, already ready for that question, ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll do what I can at the time, but I must warn you that, at the moment, I can¡¯t help you become a spirit.¡±


    ¡°Why is that?¡± Callisto asked.


    ¡°At the moment, me and my fellows are trying to establish an astral domain in the area at the moment, and you, your siblings, and your cousins are our first wave of dungeons in a world that didn¡¯t have mana to begin with.¡± Callisto gave a gasp of surprise, ¡°That is why there is such an abundance of miasma for you, but it is also why there is a shortage of miasma over here, and I would need some to help you become a spirit, at the moment my reserves were spent making you sisters and I have none to spare.¡±


    ¡°So, you want us to give you miasma then?¡± she deduced.


    ¡°Yes, but we don¡¯t have any great expectations of you at the moment, we know you¡¯re getting started and need it to set up.¡±


    She spent a moment, clearly strategizing, and then made an offer, ¡°How about this, I give you some of my miasma now, but you save the amount necessary to turn me into a spirit if necessary.¡±


    Despair had to admire her independence, always a good thing, ¡°That sounds like a solid investment, the minimum amount required to make you a spirit, a lesser spirit mind you, but you can advance after that, is the amount of miasma it takes to make an imp. If you can offer any more than that, to help with our work, I would appreciate it.


    ¡°Oh, an imp? I have a few of those, they''re surprisingly good at extending my reach. Give me a minute to pull together that miasma, I should be able to get together a little more without setting myself back.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    A few minutes later, about 110% of the cost of an imp came up the link, and he made sure to set aside enough to make her a spirit if need be, alongside her sisters reserves, they really might have taken after him too much. ¡°Thank you, it¡¯s perfectly okay that you can¡¯t provide much right now, honestly, I¡¯m just happy that you seem to be doing so well. If you can send up some more miasma when you can spare it, it would really help out up here. Once you really get going, it shouldn¡¯t be hard at all.¡±


    ¡°Anything else I can do to help out?¡± She asked, sounding slightly contrite.


    Despair could definitely give her something else to do to help out, ¡°Yes, you remember how I said the world had no mana to start right?¡± she gave a surprised sound when what he wanted finally clicked, ¡°So, if you can help pump mana into the world, that will help out too.¡±


    ¡°Absolutely, I can definitely work at spreading mana,¡± she answered confidently.


    ¡°Thank you, Callisto.¡± Despair replied, noticing Sun was finished with his conversations, ¡°I still have some work to do, so goodbye for now, feel free to get in touch if you need anything.¡±


    ¡°Goodbye, Despair.¡± Calisto replied happily, and Despair broke the telepathic conversation.


    Despair turned to his companions, seeing Nature in a huff now, but Sun looked like he was done, and Storm was finishing up, so he pulled up a viewing portal to Earth to distract himself studying the humans for a while. It took Storm about fifteen minutes to finish up, it had never been her way to go at anyone else¡¯s pace, but once she had, it was time for everyone to report their results. Sun started, ¡°Meredith, Susan, and Jocelyn are doing well. They¡¯ve almost completed their first floors and have some of their first insects and flora already, they¡¯ve been able to benefit from the abundance of miasma, but could only offer this much,¡± he finished by releasing a small ball of miasma into the space between them.


    Despair waited a moment for Nature to step forward, but when she didn¡¯t Storm did instead, ¡°Spring, Summer, and Fall are still getting started, so I didn¡¯t bother bringing up miasma yet, though they are enjoying their oceanic dungeons, the ocean is apparently riddled with creatures.¡±


    ¡°Oceanic dungeons?¡± Nature exclaimed, ¡°Why would you put them in the ocean? How the heck are they supposed to take out any humans?¡±


    Despair intervened before the two could get into a fight, stubborn and energetic, their last fight lasted seven years. ¡°Nature, we are working to spread mana throughout, and harvest miasma from, the whole Earth. The oceans make up the majority of the surface of the planet, and water tends to conduct mana better than air, and if you see here,¡± he said, enlarging the viewing portal to display a seafood market, ¡°the humans eat sea products in abundance, which will help to spread the mana amongst them that way. Good job, Storm,¡± she giggled happily, ¡°so, Nature, are you ready to report yet?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± she said petulantly.


    ¡°Okay, then, I¡¯ll report.¡± Despair said, ¡°Callisto, Europa, and Metis are doing okay, they all decided to scale up their dungeons given the abundance of resources available, but that in turn has increased their resource needs and so all they were able to spare in terms of miasma was this,¡± he finished, by releasing the free miasma they had offered in a ball next to the first, his was about two-thirds the size.


    Nature sat silent, her arms crossed, clearly frustrated, for almost a dozen minutes, and then suddenly, she gave a sigh of relief that quickly grew into a huge smirk as she gave her own report, ¡°One and Two are still setting up, but they just loved me so much they gave me all their Miasma anyway,¡± she cooed, obviously enjoying the shocked looks Sun and Storm were giving her, ¡°Three somehow ended up with a larger initial chamber and has finished its first floor already, he had so much Miasma to spare, he couldn¡¯t wait to just offer it all like such a good little dungeon core, I didn¡¯t even have to ask,¡± she obviously enjoyed the ego trip of releasing a miasma orb easily ten times the size of both of the ones already there, more than enough to start creating an astral domain.


    Despair had to hold back a snort of derision, but Storm didn¡¯t even bother to hold back, adding ¡°Yeah, they couldn¡¯t wait alright, that¡¯s why we had to wait instead I¡¯m sure, because they fell over themselves to give you all their miasma,¡± meanwhile Sun just looked confused, he never was very good at reading between the lines unless it was pointed out to him.


    Despair turned the window to look at each of Nature¡¯s dungeons, ¡°Let¡¯s see here,¡± he said, ¡°This dungeon looks like it¡¯s doing okay, working on its first floor, got some creatures and vegetation, dungeon moss, that¡¯s a classic, its floor is only half populated though, yet its working more on expanding?¡± he half-questioned, then moved on, ¡°This dungeon is about the same size, has some creatures, more dungeon moss, not a lot of variety here but it¡¯s still going for size?¡± he asked, pointing out the dungeon expanding a room, ¡°and this dungeon¡­¡± Despair paused in bafflement, ¡°working on its second floor, not as fast as I would expect though, and look here, no creatures whatsoever? Are you sure you want to stick with the ¡®they wanted to¡¯ excuse?¡±


    Nature snorted and slapped her tree awake, ordering it to take her away for a bit, avoiding the issue. ¡°Are you sure you needed to go that far?¡± Sun asked, ¡°We have to work together here, and rivalry will only hurt us.¡± He said diplomatically.


    ¡°Those are her dungeons, Sun!¡± Despair snapped, ¡°They may as well be her children! If we want to be gods, we have to act the part, do you think she could do that?¡±


    Sun started to talk, but before he actually started he held back, a serious look coming to his face.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Despair answered, ¡°Now let¡¯s get prepared to make this domain, when Nature finishes her tantrum we can get started,¡± Despair answered and got to work.

 Chapter Five - Ms. Winters

    Chapter Five


    Ms. Winters, Apartment in New York City, Day 9


    Ms. Winters prowled down the slope, stalking a deer across the slopes of the snowy mountain, the scent carried on the wind tickled his nose as he prepared to pounce, his weight settling onto his haunches in preparation of a great and powerful leap, yet as his paws left the snow beneath him, and the weightless feeling overtook him as he hurtled toward his prey, he woke up. The clean air and brisk wind of the mountainside replaced with the stifling and unpleasantly stale air of the apartment, his bulk once again lying curled up on the couch.


    He shifted his aching legs beneath him, getting up onto his paws and climbing up onto the back of the couch, checking the food dish, which had yet to be refilled by the dispenser. He looked around for a new spot to sleep, and saw the armchair by the windows, which looked like a nice spot to nap. He moved forward and prepared to leap, but his aching hind legs changed his mind, so he just climbed onto the floor, walked over, and climbed onto the armchair where he curled up for his next nap.


    As he was settling down, however, an aggressive, irregular, stomping sounded outside the apartment, followed by a slurred ¡°Fuck, where¡¯s the key!¡± from Stanley, causing Ms. Winters to perk his hears in excitement, and the sound of him fumbling with the lock, and opening the door soon after. Stanley came through the door, and headed straight for the kitchen, where he grabbed the half-empty bottle of whiskey, the door swinging back almost into place in his wake.


    Ms. Winters whined, demanding food, but Stanley ignored him, pulling the bottle open and drinking a few swallows straight from it. Once he was done, he slurred out ¡°Tish flashe shmelsh ike sit!¡±, though it made no sense to Ms. Winters, and headed to the window, roughly pulling it open to let in the smoggy New York air, though even Ms. Winters could tell it was much better than the air inside the apartment with what little sense of smell he had left.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Eager for some more of the fresh air, Ms. Winters got back up and climbed over the armchair up onto the windowsill, at the same time, Stanley suddenly lurched into the armchair and nearly sat on him, putting Ms. Winters on edge. When Marie suddenly opened the door and came through, Ms. Winters bolted out the window and down the fire escape, chased along by the startled shouts that followed him.


    He ran down one set of steps, reaching the next level down, but he was moving too fast to stop, and didn¡¯t think he could slow down without killing himself, and so he ended up leaping off the fire escape, falling several yards while flying along the alley to land on a dumpster, hurting his paw and giving him a limp. As he turned around to look, he didn¡¯t think he could make his way back up to the fire escape, so he hesitantly jumped down to the ground, favoring his paw, and began to look around instead, hungry.


    As Ms. Winters padded slowly around the back allies near the apartment, looking for food, he spotted a mangy old rat rounding a corner. That could be food, he thought, and started working to push himself up to a pace, bolting around the corner.


    After the first minute or so to build up to his speed, he began to catch up, but rat noticed and began running for his life, bobbing and weaving in and out of holes in fences and debris, Ms. Winters following as best he could, though where he couldn¡¯t he worked to take the long way around, quickly losing stamina in his efforts to catch it.


    Eventually, the rat ended up diving into a grate, and caught up in the chase, Ms. Winters leapt headlong after it through a hole torn into the grate, only to be surprised to find himself falling headlong into a spike. Despite his surprise, Ms. Winters reacted as quick as he could, twisting to avoid the spike, but to his misfortune, that just propelled him straight into several other spikes, which pierced his back and side, making him cry out in pain and pinning him in place.

 Chapter Six - Three

    Chapter Six


    Three, tangentially located in the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 8


    Barely an hour had passed since Three had relinquished its miasma pool to its creator, and since it emptied as fast as it filled, Three had no chance to use it now. At the moment, it was stretching out some corridors between its second floor rooms, creating curving and intersecting loops designed to lead invaders back to earlier rooms in the floor, starting at the beginning and slowly expanding it toward the end of the floor. At the moment, it was expanding between its second and third rooms on the second floor, but the telltale signs of another incoming conversation from its creator distressed it.


    Three tried to ignore the conversation, but then the conversation connected beyond its control and then its creator was talking, ¡°Three, you are a terrible dungeon, a complete disgrace! Was that really all the miasma you had? Are you really just on your second floor? How pathetic of a dungeon are you?¡±


    Surprised at the rush of vitriolic insults being hurled at it, Three was too stunned to respond, ¡°I thought so!¡± she exclaimed, as if Three¡¯s silence proved her point, and then a sickly sweet tone entered her voice, ¡°So, I thought of something wonderful, that¡¯s going to help you, oh, so, much.¡±


    Instantly, the only thing that Three could think of as being helpful came to mind, and blurted it out, excitedly, ¡°You¡¯re going to give me my miasma back?¡±


    ¡°Of course not!¡± she snapped, aggressively, before returning to her sickly sweet tone, ¡°I¡¯m going to give you some direction, so you know what to do, and are no longer confused.¡±


    ¡°Confused? You¡¯re going to explain why you need miasma?¡± Three asked, trying to follow the thread of conversation.


    ¡°You really are stupid aren¡¯t you?¡± she needled, then gave an exasperated sigh and continued, ¡°Here, your guidance. You are no longer allowed to build traps or corridors, and no more wasteful mazes.¡±


    Three was horrified at the thought, ¡°Please, creator, I¡¯m begging you, if I don¡¯t have those there¡¯s no way I¡¯ll even survive!¡±


    Its creator laughed, her cheerful tone making Three wish it could feel sick, ¡°Oh, you¡¯d better, you have to conquer humanity after all!¡± and ended the connection in the middle of another bout of laughter, all while Three just had to pause and figure out what, exactly, it could do.


    In the end, without creatures, Three¡¯s first thought had been to make up for them with mazes and traps, slowing and dissuading their progress. The inability to make corridors was just another blow, as they were an efficient way to construct those mazes and space out rooms and floors. In the absence of more traps and mazes, Three¡¯s only real delaying tactic was to make a large number of rooms, and perhaps give the rooms innate obstacles, such as slopes or difficult terrain, but it didn¡¯t know where terrain ended and traps began, so it would ultimately have to find out with the flash of pain signifying it couldn¡¯t do what it was doing. Exasperated, Three began to build out its fourth room on its second floor, its half-finished corridors now condemned to be dead ends.


    As Three was working on building its fifth room on its second floor, it was surprised to get its first invaders: a rat and a cat, which had been struck by several of its pit spikes, which made it feel better. Usually insects would be drawn first, being small life forms, they should¡¯ve been attracted before larger creatures like those that had appeared in Three¡¯s dungeon. At the same time, it appeared the rat would be suitable prey for the cat, so it was likely that their chase brought them to its dungeon instead of the natural lure.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    The cat was almost dead, and if the cat had the misfortune to die, then Three would be compelled to provide the resulting miasma to its creator. The very thought of that was frustrating, and so Three decided it would be best to take over the creatures and make them its first monsters; even though doing so would be horrendously inefficient, it would be far better than giving their miasma to its creator.


    Focusing on the cat, Three began to gather mana and focus on channeling it into the cat, sustaining it through its injuries while it diverted some of its focus and mana to a sorcery to <lift the cat and move it to the floor beside the pit>. Three didn¡¯t want to risk failing, so it had to divert its entire mana flow into the two magics, making sure to divert overflow from the sorcery into the channeling, helping to keep the cat alive. That meant that it ultimately worked, but about halfway through three lost control on directing the channel, causing the cat to naturally pick up the slack.


    By the end of the process, the cat wasn¡¯t in its original state, it appeared maybe half again larger, though it was thinner now, seemingly fit. Most significantly, the cat appeared significantly younger, and healthier, all traces of its wounds gone. Three decided to consider those results, and compare them to the results of other creatures it obtained, as they may prove to be the standard effect of unregulated channeling, or something else.


    Three then tried to claim the creature, to override his mana with Three''s own, except that was already the case? That was deeply surprising to Three, why don¡¯t creatures have their own mana? He wondered, then proceeded to ¡®claim¡¯ the cat, to tell the mana within the cat that it belonged to Three once again, and then he began a telepathic connection with the cat, ¡°Hello, my name is Three, what is your name?¡±


    Rather than talk back, the cat sent back a memory of a childish voice saying ¡°Ms. Winters,¡± apparently the creature wasn¡¯t quite smart enough to outright talk for itself, though it could understand to a point, something Three would have to work on.


    Three then instructed Ms. Winters, ¡°Catch the rat, but don¡¯t kill it, I want you to pin it down.¡±


    Ms. Winters obviously was excited at the challenge, and sprung after the rat in a pounce, though he missed, then ran after it. The rat was actually quite a good dodger, running along walls and dodging under or around Ms. Winters, tricking the cat into running into the wall, several times before Ms. Winters finally pinned the rat down, quickly sending an eager impression to Three, who responded with a ¡°good job.¡±


    It had taken long enough for Ms. Winters to catch the rat that Three now had enough mana to channel it into the creatures again, though not nearly as much as it had already spent the first time. Regardless, it split the mana between Ms. Winters and the rat, letting them both naturally channel it.


    The result of this was surprisingly as expected, both grew larger, though the relatively mana spare rat almost doubled in size while Ms. Winters maybe grew a fraction of an inch, probably due to its already existing large natural volume of mana at the present. It was only slightly harder for Three to claim the rat.


    Now officially in control of its first creatures, Three inquired ¡°What do you know of the outside of here?¡±, getting two very different responses: the rat imagined a toxic hellhole nothing would enter if it had a choice; Ms. Winters just imagined an alley, a dirty stone passageway. Three wondered at the difference, but then realized that Ms. Winters had been in pretty awful condition to begin with, and might not have noticed in its chase, ¡°Did you not notice the conditions?¡±


    Ms. Winters sent out a sense of uncertainty, so, no he probably didn¡¯t know the conditions. If it really was so toxic outside, how would Three build its population of creatures? All it had was two males of different species and no access to miasma. The only option Three had was to hope it was possible to improve its creatures to the point they could serve to bring it more, and would at the same time improve as defenders, the cat and rat Three had seen would be poor defenders against most foes, but if it could develop them into monsters then they may serve well.


    First, however, Three thought, I need to expand, and I need to improve them some more, no point if they don¡¯t make it back, and got to work.

 Chapter Seven - Three

    Chapter Seven


    Three, tangentially located in the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 40


    About a month later, Three had built a dozen simple rooms and appended them to its second floor, channeling just enough mana into Ms. Winters and the rat to sustain them in place of food, which Three totally lacked a supply of. What its new rooms did offer it though, was an abundance of mana, making it ready to enhance its creatures in preparation of sending them out to gather creatures.


    Diverting his attention to the entrance of its dungeon, Three was surprised to see that they had completely failed to channel the ambient mana, making no progress on their own. ¡°Why haven¡¯t you channeled any mana?¡± it asked.


    Both returned impressions of confusion, they didn¡¯t understand what channeling was, just that they had somehow not become hungry in the meantime. This was a setback for Three, as it meant it had to at least initiate all attempts to improve these creatures, and in all likelihood, others as well. On the other hand, that meant the creatures would be unlikely to advance just from Three¡¯s mere presence, reducing the chances of the threat against it increasing over time.


    With that happy thought, Three was left hoping that one day its creatures would pick up the ability to channel for themselves. Over the following day, it focused as much of its mana flow as it safely could into each of the creatures, just below the level where they got mana poisoning, focusing on skirting the fine line of mana poisoning in them both occupied a surprisingly large amount of its focus, preventing it from really monitoring the results until it was done.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    The rat had grown immensely, now almost five times its original size, its short and flexible limbs had grown stronger and sturdier, its fur was now thicker and rougher, more like bristles than soft fur, overall, Three got the impression the rat had diverged from a quick scout into more of a brutish tank. On the other hand, Ms. Winters had only tripled in size in comparison to his original size, but that meant he was half again larger than the rat, his fangs and claws were proportionally larger than before, his orange tabby pattern had increased in contrast, developing darker stripes on a lighter, sandy base coat, but his overall construction hadn''t changed much, still lean and predatory.


    Excited at the fact that they had progressed well, Three praised them happily, ¡°You guys have advanced well, do you think you can handle the outside now?¡±


    The rat sent back a mental impression of uncertainty, but Ms. Winters sent back a strong, confident impression. Three was sure that Ms. Winters probably wasn¡¯t capable of judging the issue, but enjoyed the confidence. When Three inquired of the rat as to why it was uncertain, all it could communicate was the impression of being different than it was, which three took to mean it just didn¡¯t know. In that case, no shame giving it a shot, Three thought.


    After spending about half an hour to expand the entrance so that there was a path in and out, the pit was moved behind its security tunnel instead of where Three¡¯s new ramp was. Then, Three told them, ¡°Okay, I¡¯d like you to go out and scout, see how you can take it outside now. If you can, stay as hidden as you can, and bring back as many creatures and samples as you can, safely.¡±

 Chapter Eight - Ms. Winters

    Chapter Eight


    Ms. Winters, Alley Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 41


    As Ms. Winters emerged from the dungeon into the darkness of the alley, pushing the grate open like a trap door, he was confronted by an odor so thick and awful he immediately recoiled back into the dungeon. Panting, he desperately tried to catch his breath. He wasn¡¯t willing to give up on the chance to impress and aid his master though, so once he recovered he took a deep breath and bolted out the grate, heading deeper into the alley as fast as he could until he made a turn, and the noxious odor began to decline.


    What surprised Ms. Winters about the decline, was the fact that it declined over feet rather than yards. He stopped, searching for the cause of the strange phenomena, and eventually found several layers of colored paper objects taped to the walls of the alley, which seemed to reduce, or more accurately, he noticed, give off scents to help mask the odor of the alley, making it tolerable. He wanted to grab some on his way back, but first he needed to wander through the dark alley, trying to find his way back to Stan¡¯s apartment while looking for creatures to bring back.


    A flash of movement caught his attention, and he saw a tail disappearing into a drain pipe, he leapt after it, but couldn¡¯t fit his paw into the drain. He tried to get into the drain, but even as he tore into the pipe, the rat wasn¡¯t there any longer, keeping at it was a waste of time.


    Returning to his search for Stan¡¯s apartment, Ms. Winters found a dumpster under a fire escape, and, remembering his descent, concluded that must be the way back, though several fire escapes dotted the alley. He pulled back onto his hind legs, reaching up his paws to place them onto the fire escape, and then jumped up, causing it to creak under his weight but hold. As he made his way up the stairs, he peaked in the windows, looking for Stan¡¯s apartment, but before he spotted Stan¡¯s apartment, he saw a cat resting on the windowsill, on the other side of the window. Overly eager to bring them back for his master, Ms. Winters quickly began to beat his paws against the window, waking the cat, which bolted off in terror before the moment it saw him. Not wanting to lose the cat, he quickly tried to push on the window, causing it to shatter under him, but, no longer supported, he fall partway through and got stuck.


    As Ms. Winters tried to pull himself out of the window, an alarm began to ring from deeper in the apartment. Ms. Winters panicked and began to claw at the wall, desperate to widen the hole and escape. Soon enough, a woman peeked out of the hall, saw him, and screamed while running away. He¡¯d been discovered! Now worried, Ms. Winters redoubled his efforts, clawing at the wall, and soon enough the wall collapsed under him, allowing him to advance into the apartment, looking for them.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Ms. Winters was drawn to the bedroom, where he heard soft crying and an oddly distorted voice, he just rammed his way into the room, trying to get to her, causing the woman to scream. He didn¡¯t see the cat in the room, but maybe if he brought her back to the dungeon, nobody else would notice him? Deciding to follow that logic, Ms. Winters pounced on the woman, rendering her hysterical, so he batted her with his paw several times, causing her to faint. Now that she was subdued, most of Ms. Winter¡¯s problems should have been solved, so he bit into her arm, gently holding onto her, and flipped her over his back, so he could bring her back to the dungeon, but when he got to the hole in the wall, he found they didn¡¯t fit through together. After he managed to pull them out of the hole and back into the apartment, he had to drag her behind him to get them both through the hole.


    That prevented him from reacting to the noise from an adjacent fire escape, and a gunshot rang out, followed almost instantly by a sharp, piercing pain in his back. When he turned around to see what it was, he found Stan on a fire escape across the alley, pointing a gun at him. The gun erupted again, and a pain emerged from his shoulder.


    Ms. Winters cried out in distress that Stan was attacking him, trying to get Stan to calm down and notice him, yet Stan just shot him again, this time hitting his shoulder. Frustrated and sad, Ms. Winters grabbed the woman and leapt off the fire escape, falling twenty feet to the ground, bolting away as fast as he could, gunshots and footsteps ringing behind him, but they fell away as the distance between them increased.


    Too upset to care, Ms. Winters ran headlong down the alley, around the corner, and shoved the woman ahead of him into the dungeon. As soon as he arrived, however, he heard ¡°You brought back something strange, but you¡¯re injured, what happened?¡± from his master, alongside the refreshing wave of mana that began to heal his wounds.


    Ms. Winters tried to convey that he had found a cat, but when he went into the building to find it, the woman had seen him. When he went after her, he couldn¡¯t find the cat, so he brought her instead, on the way back he was attacked by Stan. His master did not understand at first, so he had to try communicating it several times, but well before he finished, his master began to freak out, ordering him deeper into the tunnel that suddenly expanded at the other side of the room and closed behind him and the woman, followed by a rumbling noise as he worked to drag the woman over the spike pit at the entrance of the room, wondering what was going on.

 Chapter Nine - Three

    Chapter Nine


    Three, tangentially located in the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s Chinese Restaurant, New York City, Day 41


    Rather than concentrate on figuring out Ms. Winters¡¯s vague explanations, Three got the gist and outright panicked. Ms. Winters had revealed himself and potentially lured in attackers, and it was completely unprepared. As a two level dungeon, with only one creature and no ability to spawn, the only thing it could think of was to collapse the entrance chamber down and hide, pushing the surface area into the first room of its dungeon instead.


    As Three began to close down the tunnel behind Ms. Winters and the woman, it felt the familiar pain of trying to defy its creator. It was not completely restrained, however, so Three pushed and gradually shrank its entrance chamber to being barely larger than its entrance, it pushed to squeeze the tunnel down to only a few inches across, twisting the tunnel entrance around the chamber, the pain approaching the point where it rebounded last time. Worried, it stopped shrinking the tunnel and entrance chamber, and the pain immediately began to ease, much to Three¡¯s relief.


    Now that Three had made its dungeon more secure against the immediate threat, it returned its focus to Ms. Winters, ¡°Why did you break into the building? I asked you to be careful?¡± it asked, ignoring an inexplicable twinge of discomfort.


    Ms. Winters returned an impression of emptiness, and after several other attempts, was able to convey that there wasn¡¯t anything else to bring, so he went for the cat. ¡°Are you sure?¡± Three asked.


    Ms. Winters paused, working to finish moving the woman to a corner of the room, and returned an impression of confirmation, which was suddenly cut off by a feeling of uncertainty, and then an impression of denial, followed by a rapid-fire burst of impressions of toxic scents, and then them falling away, and scent releasing papers which must have helped mask the toxicity. Three was astounded, ¡°Why didn¡¯t you bring those papers? Being able to address the toxic environment would have been incredibly helpful,¡± It responded.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Ms. Winters frantically gave impressions of apology to Three. It¡¯s too late now, Three sighed to itself, ¡°it¡¯s okay, it¡¯s okay, don¡¯t worry about it, I¡¯m just going to have to handle this somehow,¡± it reassured Ms. Winters, momentarily distracted by some discomfort.


    As Ms. Winters began to calm down, Three was proven to be just in time as its entrance opened, and a human hand reached down into it apparently searching for something, but giving up soon after. Three kept an eye on the entrance, and noticed several more intrusions in the following minutes, but they eventually seemed to stop. Three decided to devote the minimal amount of attention to its entrance and move on to focusing on the woman.


    Luckily enough, the woman was still unconscious, so Three felt that it should be easy enough to take over her, but after it channeled the first dose of mana into her and tried to take her over, it noticed that there was a rapidly increasing mana disparity, she was somehow taking over its mana. In a gut reaction, Three immediately drew as much mana as possible from her and her surroundings, and checked again. Yes, she was subsuming the mana it had channeled into her.


    How strange, Three thought, the ability to subsume mana is an ability limited to higher beings, wait, is she a human? Three posed the question to Ms. Winters, and got a vague impression of affirmation and uncertainty, so it concluded she was probably human. This meant that humans were potentially major threats, being able to take over its mana, maybe that¡¯s why my creator wants them conquered? Three pondered, regardless, I have no means of handling this woman at the moment, maybe it would be better to just kill her, but the thought of giving all that miasma to its creator was incredibly unpleasant, what if I found another use for her instead, Ms. Winters immediately came to mind, loyal but too weak of mind to be of real help, made more than clear by this debacle.


    As a higher being, it¡¯s only natural that she would be more intelligent and magically capable, regardless of her other failings, honestly, no fur, no claws or fangs, no scales, these humans have nothing but their intelligence behind them, Three lamented. It would take some work, but maybe it could use her to help out Ms. Winters eventually, and anything would be better than just giving miasma to its creator. For the meantime, however, Three used some of its mana to create a cage to contain her, and then pulled the corner she was in out into a small room connected by only a small tunnel near the ceiling, allowing Three to drain as much mana from the chamber as possible while it considered possible methods to approach the task.

 Chapter Ten - Stanley

    Chapter Ten


    Stanley Green, his apartment in New York City, Day 41


    Stanley woke up to the muffled sound of breaking glass, but while he was still half asleep, he tried to leap out of bed, scrambling for his gun at the same time, but tripped on a leg instead, landing face first on the rug. ¡°Shit!¡± he swore into the rug, as he untangled himself from the sheets and pinched his nose to stop the oncoming nosebleed.


    ¡°Stan? What¡¯s going on?¡± Marie asked from the bed, pulling the sheets back to cover herself.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said, pulling on a shirt as he palmed his handgun and some bullets from his drawer, ¡°I heard something breaking,¡± his statement was unfortunately punctuated by the sound of a security alarm.


    ¡°Shit,¡± Marie replied, scrambling out of bed, looking for clothes, ¡°Go check it out, I¡¯ll be there as quick as I can.¡±


    ¡°Got it,¡± Stan said, loading the bullets as he peeked out of the bedroom and into his living room.


    Seeing nothing, he advanced into the room, searching with his gun ready, but there was nothing. He gave a cursory glance at the bathroom, but since the sound seemed to be coming from the alley, he headed toward the fire escape. He set the gun down to pry open the window, the window he hadn¡¯t opened since Ms. Winters vanished down the fire escape a month ago, opening it just in time to hear a scream. He stuck his head out of the window, looking for the noise, and saw a tiger trying to break into an apartment downstairs and across the way.


    ¡°What the heck?¡± he muttered to himself, struggling to grab his gun, but before he could maneuver the gun to aim at the tiger, it tore its way into the apartment and disappeared. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a hard to mauever position, with one arm and his head and shoulders through the window, and his stomach resting on his counter, so he struggled to maneuver himself out of the window and onto the fire escape.


    By the time he finally managed to get his feet on the fire escape, he heard another, more terrified scream from the hole where the apartment window had been, causing him to worriedly rush downstairs, trying to get closer. The other escape was too far away to reach, however, so all he could do was wait and see for a few tense minutes, gun at the ready.


    Soon enough, the tiger returned through the hole, this time biting an arm in its mouth, but before he could aim away from the woman, the tiger got stuck in the small hole, backed up out of sight again, and then came through backwards, dragging the woman with it. Stan carefully aimed his handgun at the tiger, and fired, hitting it in the back, provoking a cry of pain.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    The tiger quickly pulled out of the hole, tearing at the walls more with its bulk, and turned to spot him, dragging the unconscious woman behind it. Stan hoped that the first shot would have caused it to drop her, but since it didn¡¯t, he fired again, hitting the shoulder. To his surprise, the tiger dropped her arm and began to whine and cry at him, but he couldn¡¯t tell why. He fired again, hitting its shoulder a second time, trying to scare it off, but instead causing it to give off an awful caterwauling.


    He hoped the tiger would leave, but to his horror the tiger bent down to grab the woman again, and leapt off the fire escape and down into the alley. He pulled the trigger as fast as he could, but his next two shots missed, and then his gun gave the familiar click of an empty chamber, he was out of bullets.


    As the tiger raced down the alley, Marie called him from upstairs, ¡°Hey Stan, James just called in, a woman reported a tiger around here, and he¡¯s on the way. You fired your gun, was there really a tiger?¡± she shouted, as she climbed out the window.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± he grunted, ¡°It took three shots and kept going, with her. I¡¯m out of bullets.¡± He let her know, pointing down the alley, after the tiger.


    ¡°Shit,¡± Marie answered, ejecting the cartridge of her gun and giving him five rounds to put in his own cartridge before replacing it, while they momentarily fumbled in their attempts to drop the ladder, before they rushed down to ground level, hurrying after the beast.


    As they got deeper and deeper into the alley, however, Stan began to notice where they were heading, already signaled by dozens of air fresheners taped to the walls, ¡°Marie, it¡¯s heading to Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s,¡± He warned her.


    Marie paused, surprised, ¡°Stan, nothing goes behind old man Jiang¡¯s, you said it yourself.¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± he replied, not stopping as Marie picked up the pace again, ¡°Hold your breath, it¡¯s going to get worse, fast¡± he advised about the already foul odor seeping from behind the dumpy corner restaurant.


    As they rounded the corner behind the restaurant, the fetid odor assaulted their noses, but they continued, hands over their mouths and noses to help keep the smell out. However, there was no tiger. As they wandered down the alley, however, they noticed a large grate in the ground, large enough for a tiger to enter, but when Marie used her phone light to check it out, it was just an unusually large drainage hole. Stan checked it out anyway, but there wasn¡¯t anything inside, so, with nothing to show for it, Stan motioned them back up the alley.


    Once they reached the first layers of air fresheners, Marie asked, ¡°You said it was going behind old man Jiang¡¯s, Stan. It¡¯s not there,¡± she sighed, breaking out into coughs, ¡°That¡¯s a problem.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Stan agreed, ¡°Let¡¯s keep looking, it can¡¯t have gone nowhere, that woman must be somewhere, we have to be able to save her.¡± He hurried down another alley, looking for the tiger and the woman.


    As he bolted around the corner however, he spotted a giant rat in his path, causing him to shout in surprise, ¡°What!?¡±


    Unfortunately, Marie was a ways behind him, and he had startled the rat, the minute he realized that, the rat was already leaping at him. He tried to aim his gun, but before he knew it, the rat was on him and biting and he just fell to the ground screaming while the yard long rat tore at him.


    As he was struggling, he heard two gunshots, and felt a sudden pain in his arm, but the rat slowed down. Two more gunshots followed, and the rat stopped moving. He pushed the rat off from himself, and climbed to his feet. He checked his arm, finding he had a gunshot wound.


    ¡°What the heck is that?¡± Marie asked, ¡°A giant rat? What the fuck?¡± Stan had to agree.

 Chapter Eleven - Three

    Chapter Eleven


    Three, tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s restaurant, New York City, Day 41


    After several minutes of wracking its inherent knowledge, Three had to conclude that its only hope was channeling. A simple sorcery couldn¡¯t resolve the issue of developing Ms. Winters mind and nervous system to be on par with a human, Three couldn¡¯t comprehend the depth of the spell required to achieve that; Three imagined that spirit magic could probably achieve it, but the only spirit it had contact with was its creator, and it doubted she would help; the best solution would be to use a two or three layer creation on Ms. Winters after killing the woman and learning the basic pattern of a human, but that would take miasma, leaving channeling the only remaining option.


    In order to direct the channeling however, Three had to have a strong pattern, one much more complex than the basic pattern Three would get from killing her. Returning its focus to the woman, still unconscious, Three sent a pulse of mana through the girl, which immediately began to be subsumed, but before it was, Three devoted all its concentration to remembering the mana flows and biological systems the pulse revealed as well as it could. Keeping that in mind, it repeated the process, but this time different information came through, so Three did its best to remember that too, and scanned again. Unfortunately, this time, when it tried to add what it observed to the combined total, the patterns overlapped, and conflicted. Turning to focus on the pattern, Three noted that the conflicts and inconsistences seemed to be all over the place. Three made a few more scans, struggling to add them to its memory, only to find it becoming less and less clear, as gradually her nervous system and brain and surrounding areas in the pattern became confused clouds of conflicting information. Three groaned to itself, as those were the systems that it needed to replicate, not lose focus on. Disappointed, it threw out most of what it had stored, and set about adding more detail to the pattern of those systems.


    Several hours later, Three was beginning to feel like the seeming chaos of its scans of her brain and nervous system was more ordered than it initially thought, as it was beginning to notice a few emergent patterns. Unfortunately, just as Three reached that realization, she woke up and started to panic, screaming, yelling, struggling against the several inch thick stone supports of the cage, and even crying. It took Three a few more scans to realize that, now conscious and active, her systems were acting totally differently and had disrupted its sample.


    Enraged at the critical damage to its record, it discarded the entire thing, and aggressively used a sorcery to restrain her, <binding her limbs, pinning her to the ground, and restraining her with the stone>, not caring about the strain of a three layer sorcery at the moment. When tendrils of stone reached out and dragged her to the ground before hardening in place, she became absolutely terrified and nonsensical, sobbing uncontrollably.


    Deciding to ignore her, Three began to rebuild its model again, scanning her over and over and over again as mana became available, adding more information to its model and trying to figure out her patterns so it could cause Ms. Winters to mimic them. After a while, the incoherent woman obviously began to notice the scans, visibly reacting to the waves of mana, struggling and screaming as each one struck, and at the same time, Three began to feel an ache as the complexity of the pattern grew ever more complex and occupied more and more of its attention.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    To Three¡¯s frustration, that ache was revealed to be its core¡¯s capacity being strained, and when that ran out, the pattern memory tried to use the damaged portion of its core, and the delicate magical construct was subsequently shredded and broken down by the micro-fractures. It couldn¡¯t physically store all the information it needed to process in order to figure out how to improve Ms. Winters, so it would have to make a substitute for its core.


    The only substitute it could readily make was a mana crystal, so, as they woman cried, begged and screamed for three days, three concentrated its mana into a mana crystal sufficient in size to hold the woman¡¯s pattern imprint, and once it was ready, Three started up again.


    Each time it scanned her, she trembled in pain and terror, too weak from hunger to scream anymore, but her body greedily subsumed the mana to recover and soon enough she was screaming and straining at the stone holding her in place once again. Each time, instead of remembering everything, Three would make a faint imprint of its observations in the more fragile mana crystal, gradually overlapping them over the tens, then hundreds of scans it did over the course of a month, sparing just enough attention to keep Ms. Winters alive and the woman alive, restrained, and conscious in addition to its research.


    Over time, the mana from the scans did more than just keep the woman alive, as her body channeled the mana, under the constant stress of her imprisonment, her body and muscles bulked and her sense degraded, turning her into something of a rabid barbarian, though Three couldn¡¯t tell if that was actually because of the mana, or something else, however, as it noticed these changes, it gave less focus to her brain in the imprints and more to her nerves, which were becoming more enhanced over time.


    Finally, to Three¡¯s dismay, the woman managed to tear herself apart in a brutally violent struggle that finally managed to break through one of her stone restraints, but shredded half her muscles and caused her heart to rupture and barely functioning brain to hemorrhage too fast to heal, leaving Three with most of what it needed, but not a guaranteed shot at success, and since the pattern was recorded in a mana crystal, it only had one chance.


    ¡°Ms. Winters,¡± Three called the cat that had been lazing about deeper in the dungeon to ignore the woman¡¯s screams, ¡°Come to my core room, I¡¯d like to try something.¡±


    As Ms. Winters was getting up to head deeper into the dungeon, it sent a questioning impression, leading Three to believe he was asking why.


    ¡°I want to try to make you smarter, we¡¯ll see how it works,¡± Three answered.


    Seemingly understanding the concept, Ms. Winters hurried to the core room while Three began to refine the impression left in the crystal, increasing and decreasing its definition based on an intuitive understanding it desperately hoped was inspired by its newfound basic understanding of humans after her death, rather than guesswork. By the time Ms. Winters had arrived, Three thought its chances were as good as it could hope for, so it pushed as much mana as it could into the crystal for an hour, overcharging it into a vaguely ordered mass of energy before channeling it headlong into Ms. Winters, who immediately began to shake and seize with the task of processing the enormous mass of mana.

 Chapter Twelve - Ms. Winters

    Chapter Twelve


    Ms. Winters, in the dungeon tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s restaurant, New York City, Day 51


    As Ms. Winters waited for its master to begin the experiment, it saw a crystal begin glowing brighter and brighter before suddenly disintegrating into a grey cloud which then rushed at him too fast for him to respond, and the instant it touched him he absorbed it into his body and was wracked by terrible pain like his flesh was burning and being torn apart at the same time. As time went on, and the pain got worse and worse, everything went black.


    When Ms. Winters regained his senses, he didn¡¯t find himself in the dungeon, but rather floating over a black plain. As he looked around confusedly, trying to understand what was going on, the darkness gradually lit up on one side by a gray light, which grew brighter and brighter, and veins of gray began to slowly travel across the dome of the sky, lighting up the plain with a dim light, and making Ms. Winters feel a deep sense of danger, though he didn¡¯t know why.


    Ms. Winters tried to run from the light, but rather than running he began to drift away from the light at an increasing pace, the gray veins stretching across the sky like a tree¡¯s branches as if keeping pace with him, and before he knew it, most of the sky was covered in gray, and he was standing under the last patch of darkness in the sky, stretching down to the ground behind a large tiger. Instinctually, Ms. Winters felt a phantom sense of intimidation from the tiger, at least until he noticed that the tiger seemed more familiar and comforting than intimidating, but felt a sense of awe at the majestic beast nevertheless.


    As Ms. Winters was distracted, the gray light encroached closer and closer, and the tiger began to cower away from it. Seeing this, Ms. Winters felt a sense of wrongness, why was this great tiger cowering from these gray lights, they weren¡¯t that scary! With that thought, suddenly, Ms. Winters wasn¡¯t watching the tiger, he was the tiger, and he gave out a roar of resistance toward the encroaching gray.


    Almost as if in response, the gray veins stopped moving across the dome of the sky, and emerged instead as countless tendrils, descending and reaching out for him. Before they could reach him however, he bolted from his place, racing back from where he came while dodging the tendrils that were still aiming at him. As he dashed across the wide plain, more tendrils emerged from the sky and descended after him, forcing him to keep running as hard as he could, dodging to the left and right to avoid them as they crashed into the ground behind him. He continued for so long he lost track of the time, but never seemed to make any progress toward the gray light on the horizon and away from the tendrils.


    After Ms. Winters had long become bored dodging, he could only contemplate attacking the tendrils back as a way to break the monotony that wasn¡¯t even interrupted by exhaustion. On impulse, the next time a tendril came at him, he tried to take a bite out of it in the midst of dodging, but missed. It took several more tries, but eventually he succeeded, and when he did, the tendril quickly disintegrated, and he somehow felt stronger, and more energetic.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Excited by his success, Ms. Winters continued to attack the tendrils, and as he gradually took down the tendrils one by one, he gradually grew in size. Unfortunately, as he became larger and larger, he began to get hit more often by the tendrils, which would cause the part that was touched to itch and burn while paradoxically also becoming numb and slightly unresponsive and stained gray, but as he took out more tendrils, he recovered. As the resulting game of catch between him and the tendrils continued for what felt another eternity, neither side was entirely successful, but Ms. Winters proved significantly more successful overall.


    Another thing he noticed, was that as he grew bigger, he also seemingly grew closer to the grey light on the horizon, while the grey covering the sky gradually depleted and plunged the world back into darkness, leaving only the gray light, and a massive Ms. Winters. When he finally reached the light, he saw the figure of the woman he had captured earlier, crying. Concerned, he went up to her, however, she suddenly erupted into an unavoidable tide of tendrils that raced toward his bulky form in an attempt to grab or hit him, much too fast for him to react. Before he knew it he was half pinned down and struggling to resist with half and soon his entire body afflicted by a mild burning sensation, chomping away at tendrils at the glacial pace his mostly numb body allowed him.


    Though he was ultimately dies gray by the experience, he emerged the victor and there was once again just the two of them. The faint ghost of the woman he had captured, and the tired, sore, bedraggled behemoth he had becomes. The woman reached out as if to hug him, but he thought it better to just bite her head off and be done with it, causing her to disintegrate like tendrils had, leaving him alone in the dark space once again.


    As time passed, Ms. Winters felt himself drifting back toward the center of the plain, and began to glow with a faint gray light, illuminating the recently darkened space once again. Soon after he began to glow, the grey light began to emerge from him as tendrils stretching out slowly across the plain. Despite the fact that the tendrils were now emerging from him, he proceeded to bite them out of habit. Rather than disintegrating the tendrils remained, so he proceeded to eat them and prevent them from reaching out, slowly growing full and bloated with them. Over time, the tendrils slowly came less and less, and the gray light dimmed alongside it. Swollen and bloated, Ms. Winters found itself exhausted for the first time since it had arrived, so he closed his eyes and went to sleep.


    When he next opened his eyes, he was once again drifting about the space, but this time he was once again watching the tiger he had been in the center of the plain. As he watched the tiger gradually began to shrink in size as it became a gray crystal, and once it had reached only a few inches in diameter, with a sudden crack, the glowing grey crystal broke open and crystalline roots began to emerge from the seed and dig into the plain. A short while later, a sprout emerged from the remains of the tiger and grew up into the sky, rapidly becoming a great tree whose branches reached out across the dome of the sky, with crystal leaves and blossoms giving off shimmering pollen that gently settled upon the plain, now uneven with roots. Once he had had his fill of the sight, he closed his eyes to it for the final time in a long, long while, and opened his eyes to see the final room of the dungeon once more.


    ¡°Mrrr¡­ Hrrr¡­ Harrr¡­ Hall¡­ Harro¡­ Hallo¡­ Hello,¡± Ms. Winters managed to growl out to his master.

 Chapter Thirteen - Three

    Chapter Thirteen


    Three, tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s restaurant, New York City, Day 51


    After watching Ms. Winters absorbing the mana for a few minutes, Three noticed that he had managed to absorb upwards of 95% of it already and had stopped seizing, so it just grasped at the remainder and channeled it back into its core for other uses, and began to focus on the behavior of its mana in Ms. Winter¡¯s body.


    For the first dozen or so minutes, the channeling seemed to work as planned, with Ms. Winters subconsciously interpreting the pattern and beginning to channel it. Unfortunately, just before Ms. Winters began to physically adjust to the pattern, the channeling was disrupted internally.


    After that, Three was forced to wait and watch, as the internal battle of mana inside Ms. Winters too delicate to interfere with at this point. The pattern it had painstakingly recorded was being fought off, countering in turn, and ultimately being slowly broken down by the mana already in the body. It took hours for Three to notice that the mana fighting back against the pattern was a pattern in itself, some sort of vague and ephemeral pattern tied to every cell in Ms. Winters body, a natural pattern as it were. This was incredibly intriguing to Three, as it had never really considered that such a thing could exist, and its thoughts immediately began to drift to how to use such patterns to its advantage, before it redoubled its focus, paying significantly less attention to its overall body than the area immediatly surrounding Ms. Winters and Ms. Winters himself.


    As Three watched the patterns fight each other all over the Ms. Winters¡¯s body, with the natural pattern steadily winning, it began to notice slight disruptions in the natural pattern, repeated over and over again at almost every point of conflict between the two, and while the pattern it had provided lost in most cases, each conflct appeared to subtly change the natural pattern in the process. Three wasn¡¯t certain but it hoped that the pattern might still succeed at its job, even as it deteriorated.


    In a last spark of conflict, just as the pattern it had provided was about to be destroyed, the last spark of mana in the pattern reserved for finalizing and stabilizing it in the host suddenly surged through Ms. Winters''s body, waging one last great battle, its death struggles in a sense, and though it ultimately failed to win, that burst was the most successful in adjusting the natural pattern by far, and in the end the natural pattern survived, different than before, though Three didn¡¯t know how.


    Three expected the natural pattern to immediately begin channeling throughout Ms. Winters¡¯s body, but to its surprise found no progress there either, every time some of the mana began to channel, it was suddenly cut off and reabsorbed. Over the hours, then days of this happening over and over again, the mana began to change inside Ms. Winters, strange yet subtle shifts in density, nature, and wavelength began to propagate more and more through the pool of mana, until, finally, like a small tear in Three¡¯s mana pool, a single fragment of the pool suddenly wasn¡¯t Three¡¯s anymore, and the change spread rapidly through the mana in Ms. Winters, soon after the channeling reignited in the absence of Three¡¯s influence, advancing at significantly higher speeds than it had expected, finishing in minutes.


    As the monster cat began to regain consciousness, Three noted how its size had almost doubled once again, its fur growing even more pale, and though it still looked more or less the same even a cursory glance let alone the full analysis of what it had just witnessed would have told it that Ms. Winters¡¯s body now had some measure of passive magical reinforcement, a portion of his mana constantly flowing throughout his body and strengthening it. Three worried if Ms. Winters would still be friendly.


    To Three¡¯s surprise, mana began to flow towards Ms. Winters¡¯s throat and mouth, and shortly thereafter, Ms. Winters spoke, ¡°Mrrr¡­ Hrrr¡­ Harrr¡­ Hall¡­ Harro¡­ Hallo¡­ Hello.¡±


    ¡°Hello, Ms. Winters!¡± Three responded somewhat cheerfully, hiding its worry, ¡°It seems my plan more or less worked if you can talk and manipulate mana somewhat now. How are you doing?¡±


    ¡°Haak¡­ Okk¡­ Okkarr¡­ Okaaie¡­ Okay.¡± Ms. Winters managed to say, ¡°Haak... Haat¡­ What. Hsss¡­ aass¡­ is. Mrrr¡­ Maarr¡­ Mana?¡±You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    Three pondered, coming up with a strategy, then channeled a wisp of grey mana out of its core to float between them, ¡°Mana is an energy like this, which you can use to do magic, like sorcery, or the channeling you are using to talk right now. If you don¡¯t entirely get it, let¡¯s see, the next time you talk, concentrate really hard on the area around your throat and mouth and try to ¡®feel¡¯ yourself talking?¡± it suggested.


    This time, Ms. Winters repeated himself over and over again, speaking very carefully and slowly, as if trying to sound out the words ¡°Hrrr¡­ Hall¡­ Hello. Okaie¡­ Okay. Haat¡­ What. Hsss¡­ is. Marr¡­ Mana.¡± This continued on for quite a while, about three days overall, and Three channeled just a touch of mana and sent some encouragement Ms. Winters¡¯s way to help keep him going while he figured it out. When he finally made some real progress, speaking in clear words, ¡°Hallo¡­ Hello. Okaie¡­ Okay. What. Is. Mana.¡± A look of realization appeared on his face, ¡°Is. This. Marrka!¡± he started choking and wheezing when he accidentally interfered with the channeling construct allowing him to speak, and needing to take several minutes to recover before trying again, ¡°Was that mana?¡±


    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s mana, you also have some flowing through your body too, so try to check that out next.¡±


    It took significantly less time for Ms. Winters to find the channeling construct in its body, only about a day of pacing, leaping, play swiping, and similar activities. Three suspected that Ms. Winters got distracted about ten minutes in, but even then he managed to figure it out eventually. ¡°I think I found it.¡± Ms. Winters said.


    ¡°Great! Now, I want you to try taking that cycle and turning it off, just for a bit. Feel around the cycle, until you find a place with a lot more mana than anywhere else, then, I want you to start holding mana in that place, as much as you can, until the cycle shuts down.¡± Three said.


    This was the hardest activity yet, and even with guidance and advice from Three throughout, it took Ms. Winters an entire week, but he managed to shut it off. ¡°I did it!¡±


    ¡°Congratulations!¡± Three cheerfully told him, moving to the next step in its plan, ¡°Now, I want to ask you to do something, okay?¡±


    ¡°Sure, what!¡± Ms. Winters excitedly answered, losing control of his suppression and causing the cycle to gradually spin back into life.


    Three hesitated a moment, ¡°Okay, so, you see¡­ Technically, you are no longer my creature, okay. You took over all the mana inside you when you became smarter, okay.¡± Ms. Winters looked confused, but otherwise calm, ¡°So, I would like to contract with you instead, okay? It¡¯ll be a little different than the first time, but it should help with your magic control too, is that okay?¡±


    Ms. Winters paused to think about it, then replied, ¡°Okay, I will make a contract with you.¡±


    Three was immensely relieved by that, and began the process of carefully excising a small shard of its core and repairing the damage left behind. The process took an hour, but in the end Three was unharmed and had a roughly one centimeter long sliver of core which it maneuvered between the two with sorcery, and then it explained, ¡°Okay, so, this is technically a part of mana channeling, we are going to connect our mana pools with this shard - no don¡¯t sniff if!¡± he reprimanded the curious cat, ¡°So, the way this will work, per se, is that I¡¯ll channel some mana into the shard while giving you my terms, imprinting those terms in the shard and linking my mana pool to it, then you will do the same, and then we both pour as much mana as possible into the shard as a sign of consent, and then it will enter you and sit in your mana pool, okay? If we fail the second part then I have to wipe the shard, and we have to negotiate, and then do it all over again, so please go along with it for now unless there is something that makes you really uncomfortable, and please avoid any unreasonable terms on your end. Do you understand?¡± Three asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± Ms. Winters replied.


    ¡°I, Dungeon Core Three, do hereby offer this contract to the Cat identifying itself before me today as Ms. Winters, that he shall protect and serve me for so long as both of us live, and shall not seek to do me harm by any will but my own.¡± Three began, channeling his mana to the shard.


    ¡°Uh, I, do hereby offer this contract to Dungeon Core Three, that, uh, so long as both of us live, Three shall aid me in my pursuits to, do, stuff? Oh, and won¡¯t attack me with a gun or scare me off a fire escape! Yeah, that about does it!¡± Ms. Winters said, while channeling mana into the shard, trying to mimic Three¡¯s tone and failing miserably.


    ¡°I agree to the terms,¡± Three said, seeing Ms. Winters¡¯s terms were full of loopholes, and began channeling mana into the shard.


    ¡°I agree to the terms,¡± Ms. Winters said and also began channeling mana into the shard.


    As more and more mana poured into the shard, it began to get brighter and brighter, like the mana crystal before it, and then diffused into a cloud of grey light and rushed into Ms. Winters chest, coming to sit in the middle of his mana pool, right behind his heart, and rapidly recrystallized, absorbing his mana pool in the process, growing steadily bigger to match the capacity, until it was about three inches across. Ms. Winters was grimacing from the discomfort, but once it finished, and his organs adjusted, he calmed down again.


    ¡°What just happened?¡± Ms. Winters asked.


    ¡°You became a full-fledged monster,¡± Three replied.

 Chapter Fourteen - Despair

    Chapter Fourteen


    Despair, Astral Plane in the general vicinity of Earth, Day 66


    As part of his weekly checkup, Despair turned his viewing window, currently looking at a seemingly ordinary part of the Sahara where Europa resided and was working on her insect dungeon, to the isolated spot in the Andes mountain range in South America where Metis resided.  Opening another window to view her dungeon, he started calling to her telepathically, and a few minutes later she picked up, ¡°Hello, Despair,  How¡¯ve Callisto and Europa been doing?¡±


    ¡°Hello, Metis.  Callisto just finished her fourth floor and Europa has started to add a queen to each of her hives.  How has your cross-breeding been going?¡± he responded, focusing the window to look at her breeding chambers to check himself.


    ¡°Very well!¡± She replied as he saw some baby horned apes, ¡°My first generation was born a few days ago, I¡¯m not sure what will result from breeding those monkeys that appeared and imps, but their response to mana seems to be good.¡±


    Pleased, Despair happily responded, ¡°Wonderful! It¡¯s great news that you¡¯re making progress advancing those creatures, we didn¡¯t expect there to be such difficulties getting the species to adapt to mana when we started out.¡± He paused a moment in regret, ¡°I suppose we should have considered that not having any prior experience with mana of any kind would influence the local biology¡¯s ability to control it.¡±


    Metis chuckled at him through the link, ¡°Yeah, that would have been smart.  So¡­ everything is going well over here, anything come up over there?  Just a courtesy call?¡±


    ¡°Not really any news here either, we¡¯re still in the waiting game as you and the others spread mana, though thanks to you and your sister¡¯s help, I¡¯m now the second-most prolific miasma provider to our domain, just after Storm, with Sun and then Nature falling behind me.  Thank you for that.¡±  Despair responded, looking around the surroundings of the dungeon, ¡°I¡¯m looking around your dungeon, and I¡¯m noticing some more human activity in the nearby villages, they¡¯re still about forty miles away, but look out for that, anything you need before I break the connection?¡±


    Metis pondered for a while, ¡°No, I think I¡¯m fine, thanks for the warning though, goodbye!¡±


    ¡°Goodbye, Metis¡± Despair said, breaking the conversation and retuning the viewing windows to start scanning the areas around each of the twelve dungeons.


    As expected, the ambient mana concentrations had risen across the board, and the ambient miasma concentrations had dropped.  The humans around the five dungeons in more populated areas were already showing a decline in rates of illness and improvements of general health, but their ability to channel or use the mana had yet to develop.  Until that began, it would be best if they could avoid revealing themselves and the dungeons, though they may not be that lucky.


    As Despair scanned past the back alley in new York Three resided in, he noticed that the mana density was only slightly more than the last time he had checked, even though the miasma concentration had continued to decrease.  Curious, Despair tuned the viewing window to actually look at Three¡¯s dungeon, trying to figure out what was going on, only to be absolutely stunned. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    The most apparent thing was the dungeon¡¯s crippling retardation for its age.  While the dungeon was currently expanding out a large chamber, it otherwise only had twenty-seven chambers, with traps and corridors cutting out in the first few rooms of the dungeon¡¯s second and last floor.  In contrast, Callisto had 93 rooms up through her four floors.  Worse, the dungeon only had one creature, with no other beasts or even vegetation.


    Far less apparent, but far more shocking, was the nature of the that one creature.  The creature was an enormous feline monster, a true monster tied to the dungeon by a piece of dungeon core, as compared to the mana crystal most summoned monsters possessed.  That meant that the monster must be a contracted beast, or in other words, it could wield mana.  No other dungeon had yet succeeded in that endeavor.  Upon further analysis, he discovered the monster was also a higher being, something otherwise found only amongst humans on the planet. How in the world did Three create a higher being, and this fast? He wondered.


    Despair excitedly called a meeting while continuing to watch Three slowly expanding the chamber, noticing the unevenness of its construction, but while he waited for the others to arrive, he noticed, to his shock, that the cat was actually talking, giving Three some sort of instructions in the creation of the chamber.  Three had somehow created a being far beyond anything the other dungeons had created, perhaps even beyond the planet¡¯s creations.


    Before he knew it, the others had begun to arrive, ¡°What¡¯s up¡± Storm asked as she arrived, Sun on her heels.


    ¡°Take a look at Three over here,¡± Despair indicated the viewing window before enlarging it, ¡°I don¡¯t know how but it seems it¡¯s managed to do what we¡¯ve been looking for way ahead of schedule.¡±


    ¡°What were we looking for again?¡± Storm asked, ¡°I wasn¡¯t really paying attention.¡±


    ¡°We wanted our dungeons to adapt native species to mana, develop means of utilizing magic that can be displayed and shared with native humans, and then reveal ourselves to the native humans and become recognized by the locals as gods, cementing our ownership of the domain.¡±  Sun answered, ¡°What did it achieve, all I see is a big cat monster?  If you¡¯re looking for that Susan has some too.¡±


    Despair sighed at Sun¡¯s obliviousness, ¡°The cat is a true monster,¡± when neither Sun nor Storm got it he continued, ¡°Which means that the cat made must have made a contract with Three.¡±  That got the shocked response he was looking for, ¡°More, the cat is a higher being, and it can talk.¡±


    ¡°What cat?¡± Nature asked, arriving when she felt was fashionably late.


    ¡°Three somehow made a super-cat!¡± Storm replied, excitedly, after confirming for herself.


    ¡°Three?¡± Nature replied, taken aback, ¡°That pathetic retard actually achieved something?¡± she muttered under her breath, though everyone heard her anyway.


    ¡°Yes, have a look for yourself,¡± Sun gestured at the window, where Three was slowly building out a crude imitation of the alley above, under the guidance of Ms. Winters.


    After she got a look herself, Nature quickly regained her more arrogant attitude, ¡°Of course he did!  He¡¯s my precious little baby after all, he couldn¡¯t have done it without my help.¡±


    ¡°Oh, really? How did you achieve it? Why didn¡¯t you tell us earlier? This is great news!¡± Despair replied, giving a legitimately cheery exclamation to hide his sarcasm.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Nature responded without thinking, ¡°Three, uh¡­ did it¡­ by¡­ um¡­ give me a second.¡±  She said, turning away.


    ¡°If you¡¯re making a call to Three, make it open for all of us to talk, that¡¯ll be more productive,¡± Despair said.


    ¡°Yeah, I want to talk to the cat!¡± Storm added in.


    ¡°Getting advice for my dungeons would be good,¡± Sun requested.


    Nature grimaced, ¡°Of course, that won¡¯t be a problem at all.¡± She said, and opened up the connection.

 Chapter Fifteen - Three

    Chapter Fifteen


    Three, tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s restaurant, New York City, Day 66


    ¡°How about this?¡± Three asked, carefully constructing a tall corridor that, higher up, opened up into one larger chamber, gradually getting better at it as it practiced.


    ¡°No, its too small, it needs to be about¡­ twice this size I think¡± Ms. Winters replied.


    ¡°You¡¯re twice as big as you were, the whole point of me carving out what you remember of the outside here is so you can train for a return, it should be properly sized. What¡¯s next?¡± Three asked.


    After looking around the few short segments of imitation alleyway, Ms. Winters selected a junction and began to instruct Three on what to construct further, and this continued on for several hours, gradually carving out a cavernous chamber around a few branching paths, with little metal stairs anchored here and there with balconies every floor. By that point however, Ms. Winters couldn¡¯t remember any more, so that¡¯s what they were left with. Three continued to refine the construction long afterwards, moving the entrance to a tunnel emerging from an appropriately sized hole as its own entrance.


    While it was distracted however, it sensed its creator trying to establish a telepathic connection, and continued its work until she forcibly established the link once again. Three stopped working before she could screw it over again, waiting for her to start the conversation, and was surprised, ¡°Hello, Three, how are you doing?¡±


    Suspicious, but hopeful, Three answered ¡°Hello, creator, I have been modeling the lands above with the help of my creature, so that it may learn to seek out more creatures for me.¡±


    ¡°Creator? Why¡¯d it call you creator, Nature?¡± came a cheerful and energetic voice down the connection, ¡°Didn¡¯t you bother to introduce yourself?¡±


    ¡°O-of course, it just calls me that because it loves me so much!¡± Nature replied, voice shaking, ¡°Right, Three?¡±


    ¡°Not really.¡± Three replied, to a sharp gasp and some laughter and chuckles coming down the connection, ¡°Hello, friends of N-¡± Three began to call its creator¡¯s name, only to feel a sharp pain, clearly Nature did not want it to name her, ¡°my creator.¡± he finished with a frustrated sigh, ¡°who might you be?¡±


    ¡°Hello, Three, I¡¯m Despair, one of Nature¡¯s fellow gods,¡± answered Despair, in a kindly old voice.


    ¡°You can call me Sun,¡± responded Sun, in a strong, masculine tone.


    ¡°I¡¯m Storm! Your kitty is awesome!¡± Bubbled Storm, in a sweet, girly voice.


    ¡°Oh, really?¡± Three responded, surprised, ¡°I know I only have one creature at the moment, I had to go into hiding and the other never returned. Ms. Winters made some mistakes, but made some pretty amazing progress recently, would you like me to connect him to the conversation?¡±


    There was a collective gasp down the line, ¡°You can do that?¡± Sun asked, seemingly stunned.


    ¡°Sure, go ahead, I¡¯d love to talk to the big guy!¡± Storm replied.


    Three momentarily started a telepathic conversation with Ms. Winters, saying ¡°Hey, Ms. Winters? My Creator and her fellow gods just called, would you mind hooking up to this link?¡± he pushed a filament of the telepathic conversation toward the cat, who took a few tries but eventually got a hold of it and joined the conversation.


    ¡°Greeting, gods. Did you happen to have some reason to call upon my master? Three was in the middle of helping me prepare a training ground for another excursion to the surface, I made too many mistakes last time.¡±Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°The surface?¡± Despair asked, ¡°Is that how Ms. Winters has grown so much?¡±


    Storm giggled, ¡°Ms. Winters! I just noticed, he¡¯s named Ms. Winters!¡± some other chuckles started coming down the link, causing Ms. Winters to tilt his head questioningly, ¡°Hey, Nature, I think Three inherited your naming sense!¡± Full blown laughing began to come down the link.


    ¡°Um, what¡¯s wrong with his name?¡± Three asked, concerned, ¡°He¡¯s had it as long as I¡¯ve known him and I wouldn¡¯t want it to hurt him.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you didn¡¯t name him? Who did?¡± Sun asked, interested.


    ¡°Stan!¡± Ms. Winters answered, ¡°I lived with him for years, but after I found Master, and came back on my excursion, he attacked me¡­¡± he stopped, too depressed to go on.


    ¡°Okay, Three, do you think you could explain to us what happened here?¡± Despair settled the conversation, ¡°To be honest, we¡¯re calling you because of Ms. Winters. We can get to the name later, but he is something we¡¯ve been trying to accomplish with the help of our own dungeons and nobody has succeeded to nearly the degree you have, and we¡¯d like to know why.¡±


    ¡°If you say so,¡± Three said, confused, but began to narrate his life story back to the spirits, with the occasional helpful interjection by Ms. Winters, and the occasional unhelpful interjections by Nature whenever it began bring up something she did, forcing it to continue on with its story without bringing the incidents up. He made sure to bring up his unusual starting state, lack of creatures, the arrival of Ms. Winters, the first exploration trip, Ms. Winter helpfully narrated what he remembered of the hunt, Ms. Winters bringing a human, analyzing her, saving her pattern in a mana crystal and channeling it into Ms. Winters, and then Ms. Winters¡¯s unusual transition and training afterwards.


    ¡°Oh, boy,¡± Storm sighed when Three was finished, ¡°That¡¯s a bit of a mess.¡±


    ¡°Certainly, but the important thing is Three has a human pattern.¡± Despair said, ¡°Would you mind giving a copy to us so that we can give it to the other dungeons and help them grow?¡±


    Three pondered it for a while, before responding ¡°I don¡¯t mind, but wouldn¡¯t it be better to create a repository of all patterns absorbed by dungeons and then give copies to each dungeon. I know most dungeons wouldn¡¯t just create everything, but if a human pattern would be helpful, wouldn¡¯t other patterns be helpful too? I mean, we¡¯re already born with some patterns naturally, wouldn¡¯t increasing that pool increase a dungeon¡¯s ability to adapt and grow?¡± It tried to reason its response.


    There was a long pause, before Despair responded ¡°That would be wise, wouldn¡¯t it? What do you think?¡±


    ¡°Agreed,¡± Sun said.


    ¡°Sounds great!¡± Storm replied.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t my Three such a smart little dungeon?¡± Nature preened.


    ¡°So, it is unanimous then,¡± Despair responded, talking over an attempted interjection by Nature, ¡°We will create a repository and redistribute patterns. Three, would you do the honors of being the first donor?¡±


    Proud, Three channeled the standard human pattern it had obtained on the woman¡¯s death through the link, and then asked a question that he was concerned over, ¡°Now that that is dealt with, can you please explain what is wrong with Ms. Winters¡¯s name?¡±


    Storm chimed in her response, giggling between words, ¡°Ms. Winters is a boy! His name makes him sound like he¡¯s a girl!"


    ¡°What!¡± Ms. Winters exclaimed, ¡°But I¡¯ve been called that for years!¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t Stan attack you?¡± Storm questioned.


    Ms. Winters went quiet, stunned, ¡°My life has been a lie,¡± he said, clearly distressed, ¡°Stan has hated and mocked me my whole life¡­¡± after another pause to think, he suddenly sat up from his relaxed posture and said ¡°Well, if I¡¯m going to be different now, I¡¯ll need a new name!¡± he decided suddenly.


    ¡°Ooh! Me! Me!¡± Storm cried through the link, ¡°I¡¯ve got one!¡±


    ¡°Uh, go ahead and suggest it?¡± Three asked, not having any good ideas itself.


    ¡°Winterfang!¡± She said, ¡°It still has winter in the name, but now it has fang, referring to him being a cat, and it sounds more like a monster!¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s cool! Yeah, I¡¯m Winterfang!¡± Winterfang said, happily taking on the new name without a second thought.


    ¡°Well, congratulations Winterfang,¡± Three said to him, before returning his focus to the spirts, ¡°Thank you for the name, is there anything else you would like to discuss?¡±


    ¡°Thank you for the human pattern and the suggestion, now, you mentioned you were injured¡­¡± Despair said, trailing off, waiting for a response


    ¡°Yes?¡± Three asked, wondering where that line of reasoning was going.


    ¡°We¡¯ll donate the Miasma to repair your core, with that you should be able to make more progress,¡± He said, ¡°Right, Nature?¡±


    ¡°Um-¡± Nature began, obviously having not expected that comment.


    ¡°Three has advanced our plans by a large margin, helping him to heal is reasonable,¡± Sun agreed.


    ¡°Yeah, let¡¯s do it!¡± Storm said.


    ¡°Oh, fine!¡± Nature exclaimed from frustration, and Three felt the shackles on its miasma pool unleash for a moment as miasma surged down the link and into its core. Just before it had a chance to reach out and use it, everything went black and it sank into the darkness of unconsciouness as its core began to heal.

 Chapter Sixteen - Stanley

    Chapter Sixteen


    Stanley Green, his NYPD precinct station, Day 67


    As Stan and Marie arrived to the precinct that morning and sat down to deal with the mountain of paperwork they were each given as a slap on the wrist for their relationship coming out, the chief called out ¡°Stan, Marie, come over to my office!¡±


    ¡°Any idea what that¡¯s about?  Think the new assignments came through?¡± Marie asked as they got up and started heading over to his office.


    ¡°Not sure, nothing has really happened in the last week since our, relationship,¡± Stan coughed, embarrassed, ¡°got approved.  I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll be taken off desk duty for at least a month, though.¡±


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯s about the rat?¡± she asked, ¡°I mean, nothing has really happened on that front.¡±


    ¡°Something like that is above our pay grade,¡± Stan joked half-seriously as they walked into the chief¡¯s office, and immediately saw a man in a suit sitting in a chair across from the chief, and a woman wearing a purple sweater and gray slacks, and didn¡¯t recognize either.


    The man stood up and greeted them, ¡°Hello, I presume you¡¯re Stanley Green and Marie Carpenter?  I¡¯m Mr. Johansson, with the FBI, this is Dr. Livingston, I hear you were the ones who encountered the anomaly, a,¡± he hesitated a moment, ¡°giant rat,¡± he managed to say seriously.


    Stan just stared, shicked, while Marie picked up the slack, ¡°Yes, although actually, we first reacted to a large cat of some type breaking into a nearby apartment, which abducted a woman.  We then proceeded to search for the cat, but lost track of it at some point.  While trying to find it, we were then attacked by the giant rat-¡±


    ¡°The anomaly,¡± Mr. Johansson interrupted.


    ¡°Yes, ¡®the anomaly¡¯,¡± Marie continued, ¡°It attacked Stan, who then spent a day and a half quarantined in the ICU before he was cleared to return to duty, we did manage to kill the ¡®anomaly¡¯ though.  This should all be in our reports¡­¡± She finished, clearly wondering why they were here.


    ¡°Yes, both I and the doctor have read the reports, I was hoping you had additional insights, since the anomaly has proven very concerning¡± He asked, searchingly.


    ¡°No, Mr. Johansson, nothing else to report, we tried following the cat, heading to the area behind the local Chinese restaurant, but couldn¡¯t find any trace of it, so as we searched around, and were attacked.¡± Stan replied.


    ¡°Local Chinese restaurant? The eponymous Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s then, I believe.¡± Mr. Johansson said, ¡°So you believe the other anomaly ventured there and vanished then?¡±


    ¡°That ridiculous!¡± Interjected the chief, ¡°you can¡¯t just vanish!¡±


    ¡°True, but rats do not grow to be a meter long either,¡± Dr. Livingston said, ¡°Analysis came back on the anomaly, it is 99.99% genetically similar to a common brown rat, well within margin of error, yet in size and anatomical characteristics the anomaly diverges from the common brown rat.  Our working hypothesis is that some sort of environmental factor is responsible, and we believe it likely to have also resulted in the characteristics of the missing anomaly as well.¡±  She paused a moment before continuing, ¡°speaking of, analysis reported organic residues on the body of the anomaly.  We thought they may be just contamination due to the state of the alleyway and the struggle, but if the restaurant is somehow involved...¡± she began to ponder to herself. ¡°Would it be possible to perform a secondary investigation of the site?¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± the chief replied, ¡°Although it has been almost a month since the incident.  We did do a preliminary and additional investigation, given the case.  The results and evidence collected should have been in the reports?¡± he questioned.


    ¡°That¡¯s not the issue, though,¡± she replied, ¡°My primary concern is that, barring human influence,¡± she looked at Johansson, as if alluding to his job, ¡°the phenomenon can recur.  We do not want giant aggressive animals on our doorstep.¡± The chief groaned at that, ¡°With that in mind, me and my team would like to conduct a secondary investigation in case we can isolate any potential environmental factors.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°That¡¯s fair, doctor,¡± the chief admitted, ¡°Stan and Marie live over there so for the time being they can escort you, while Mr. Johansson does his own investigation, how does tomorrow sound?  In the meantime, Stan, Marie, get back to work,¡± he sighed, frustrated.


    ¡°That would be perfect,¡± she replied as Stan and Marie got up and left the office.


    After that, they continued through the day with a stop at the local deli for lunch, then went back to Marie¡¯s place for the night, where they had been since the incident, it was still in the area, but was on a higher floor and thus seemed somewhat safer comparatively, though most of the neighbors who could stay with friends or relatives, go on vacations, or even outright move out had already done so, afraid, resulting in an exodus of sorts and a sudden drop in property values that trapped everyone else.


    The next day, they got ready and showed up to work, only to be immediately directed to Dr. Livingston and her team of three other CDC reps, ¡°Hello, Mr. Green, Ms. Carpenter, here are my assistants,¡± she said, ¡°This is Derek, he¡¯s an undergraduate intern,¡± She indicated a sandy blond haired guy in his early twenties, ¡°This is Susan, she¡¯s an intern who recently graduated with a bachelors in epidemiology,¡± She indicated a dark-haired girl in a blouse and jeans. ¡°This is my fellow researcher Ms. Forester, with a masters in epidemiology,¡± she finished, indicating a confident woman with a casual smile, her white grin emphasized by her dark skin and hair.


    Ms. Forester shook hands with Stan and Marie, adding in a comment of her own, ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve met my friend, Dr. Livingston, doctorate of biology?¡± she indicated to the side at Dr. Livingston.


    ¡°Of course!¡± Stan grinned back, ¡°So, our job is to ¡®escort¡¯ you through the alleys, correct?¡± he asked.


    ¡°That would be appreciated,¡± Ms. Forester said, climbing into the van they had prepared, ¡°So, have you noticed any other phenomena in the area?¡±


    ¡°No, honestly, after the incident most of the people who could left, I mean, if your neighbor got abducted by a disappearing tiger that can rip through walls, wouldn¡¯t you?¡± Marie replied, getting behind the wheel and driving them to the Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s parking lot, maybe about ten minutes away in the morning traffic.


    As they climbed out of the van and the others began to unpack, Stan pointed to the alley, ¡°That¡¯s the back alley I referred to,¡± Derek started to head over to check it out, raising his arm to cover his nose already at the smell, ¡°I¡¯d use a gas mask if I were you,¡± Stan told the intern, ¡°if you think it smells bad out here, you don¡¯t know the half of it.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± he assured Stan, ¡°This isn¡¯t my first job,¡± and continued heading into the alley, ¡°Oh, god!¡± he began screaming shortly thereafter, and the sounds of him vomiting quickly began to come from the alley.


    ¡°Newbie?¡± Marie joked with Dr. Livingston, who just groaned.


    ¡°Greatest scientific discovery of our time and we can barely pull a team together,¡± she replied under her breath, before speaking up for the rest of the team, ¡°Okay, everyone, hazmat precautions!¡± she shouted, pulling out a kit including disposable scrubs and a gas mask and starting to put them on.  Once she was done, she pulled out another set and offered it to Stan, ¡°One-size fits all, want it?¡± she asked.


    ¡°If you¡¯re offering,¡± he said, taking it and pulling it on, Marie pulling on one of her own.  ¡°We lost the cat over there, I think,¡± he said pointing deeper into the alley, once he had it on, ¡°Follow me, I¡¯ll take you through the alleys as you sample.¡±


    There was a series of groans and gagging noises as each successive person made their way into the alley after him, though he managed to hold it to an awkward gagging grunt as the quality of the air, even through the gas mask, dropped precipitously.  ¡°This can¡¯t be healthy or safe!¡± Ms. Forester exclaimed, already writing notes on a clipboard she had pulled out from somewhere.


    ¡°Probably not,¡± Marie agreed, ¡°But we all agree to ignore it for cheap good food.  You want to head over to the old man¡¯s for lunch?  You¡¯ll never eat food the same way again.¡±


    ¡°Best not to mix work and play, given the circumstances,¡± Ms. Forester replied, getting straight to work sampling everything, from the various strangely colored stains to the strange ooze leaking out of the dumpster, needless to say, that intern needed to vomit several more times before he was done.


    After the first couple times, it was routine, move a dozen or so feet, sample, log, and categorize everything, repeat.  It was pretty obvious that Stan and Marie were window dressing, maybe there in case something happened, but nothing did, they just pointed out key spots like where they fought the giant rat, where they last saw the cat, and where the apartment was broken into, but even so the four managed to process each of those spots several times faster than the alley behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s.  In all the researcher¡¯s fervor, and the stink carried over since Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s they never got around to eating lunch, so, once they were done they just stripped out of the gear, put that in its own evidence bags, got in the van and drove back to the precinct.  ¡°Thanks for all the assistance,¡± Dr. Livingston said as Ms. Forester and the interns began to sort and catalogue their samples, dismissing them, ¡°Although We didn¡¯t find anything yet, given the state of that alley, I think I¡¯m going to call for a decontamination of the area,¡± she shrugged, ¡°Even if it isn¡¯t some source of miracle science, it¡¯s still a potential source of other problems, I¡¯m honestly surprised it got that bad.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, well, what can you do?¡± Stan shrugged, Mr. Jiang had too many connections to really mess with him, and nobody actually got sick at his shop so nothing ever happened about the alley in the end.  ¡°I hope your analysis goes well.¡± He replied, before heading off to the men¡¯s locker room and the showers.


    Once they had showered, Stan and Marie sat down for a long night of writing reports on coffee fueled-overtime.

 Chapter Seventeen - Winterfang

    Chapter Seventeen


    Winterfang, tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s restaurant, New York City, Day 74


    A week after his last conversation with Three, where they had talked to the spirits, Winterfang was bored.  Three was still unconscious.  He could sense his master was okay through the contract bond, which alleviated his worries, but still didn¡¯t really give him anything to do.  With Three¡¯s help he had managed to develop his channeling by a large margin, but without further assistance, he wasn¡¯t able to make much real progress, and only made one innovation.


    Without any real goals other than to not disappoint Three, Winterfang had spent the intervening time sleeping, channeling mana from the dungeon to sustain himself, practicing moving about the alley training ground Three had made for him, and experimenting and practicing with channeling structures, which he primarily did through speech practice, since he still made the occasional mistake.


    One time, as he tried to climb the makeshift fire escape, maneuvering through the scant few feet of room available to him, it collapsed under his weight instead, dropping him ten feet and stabbing his paws with stone shards.  As a way to avoid having to use them in the future, he spent two days of practice trying to wedge his way up the walls, only somehow stumble onto a new channeling structure when he tried circulating mana around his paws and up his legs.  He didn¡¯t quite understand it, and it was more complex than just what he had been doing, but it allowed him to walk up walls and bypass the fire escapes, though it was pricy in terms of mana.


    He tried some other things, but nothing else really seemed to generate more channeling constructs while he was tinkering with it, so that had been the real extent of his progress, just a little improvement in his skill with channeling, and a new construct he could use to climb walls.  However, with that ability, he quickly grew tired of the imitation alleyway and wedged his way through the tight entryway and into the main dungeon, which had much larger rooms than the space of the alley and allowed him to move about and climb more freely.


    At first, he thought about exploring and getting to know the dungeon some more, but it was almost a surprise how surprised he was at its straightforward simplicity.  He had already seen it after all, but it was just a series of corridors and large rooms.  Somehow, Winterfang thought that there should have been something more.  It became less boring once he made it to the first few rooms of the second floor, which were part of a defunct maze, and then the first floor, which not only had a maze but traps as well.  After he tripped into a concealed spike pit by accident in the first floor, he tried using his wall-walking when he thought there was another one, and didn¡¯t fall through the floor.  As an experiment, he then tried putting his paw on where he thought the trap was, and it quickly fell through the thin sheet of rock, Interesting, that will be useful, he noted to himself.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    When he did make it to the entrance, which was as far as he could go, unable to fit through the tunnel that Three had created, he was stunned to discover some rats and bugs, mostly roaches, in the first room.  These were the first creatures Winterfang had seen in a month, and much to his surprise since he thought nothing would get near the dungeon due to the toxic stench outside.  At first, his presence caused all of the creatures to scurry away in fear, but he was too interested in them, so he settled down to watch them while channeling in mana from the dungeon, and they eventually got used to him and resumed their activities.


    One thing he noticed, was how the creatures didn¡¯t seem to take the dungeon well, surprisingly, those that ventured further into the dungeon tended to collapse after a few rooms and die, with the rats able to venture further than the bugs, so most of them just grouped up in the entrance room, but then they couldn¡¯t eat, so the rats would go outside in twos or threes a few times a day, coming back with scraps of trash and refuse to help feed the rest, with the bugs feeding off of the refuse and leavings.  It was unfortunate, if any of them could channel mana they wouldn¡¯t have to bother eating in this mana rich environment. Wait a minute, what If I try channeling into the creatures like Three did to me? He thought, pondering his own initial arrival to the dungeon.


    To start, he found a nearby cockroach, and tried to channel mana into it much like he channeled mana into that fragment of dungeon core as part of the contract, it took him a few tries to properly gather and direct the mana at the roach, but once he did, the resulting explosion of bug guts was not impressive in the way he had expected, or in any way successful except as some sort of attack, not what he was looking for at all.  Startled, all the creatures in the room scurried to the far corners of the room in fear and refused to come closer.


    He retreated to the second room so he wouldn¡¯t disturb them too much, and shortly after he left they returned to their normal cycle of activity, though after a few days a few creatures dared to venture into the second room, and finally approached him after another day. He continued to attempt to channel mana into the roaches over the coming days, each time trying to regulate, stabilize, and decrease the amount of mana he gave them, though at first the end results didn¡¯t change much.  In between attempts he would channel mana to help him refill his reserves, which seemed to be getting easier over time though he wasn¡¯t certain, and when the bugs came near him again he would repeat his efforts.


    Over the following month, he gradually managed to go from exploding bugs, to seizing bugs, to bugs that just quietly died when he channeled mana into them, until finally, when he channeled mana into one of the roaches, it didn¡¯t die!  Excited, he continued to channel mana as an experiment, only to find that, now that a stable link was established, his pool was depleting rapidly as the roach quickly began to shed, swell slightly, regrow its exoskeleton, and repeat over and over again, growing to twice its original size and leaving his mana pool exhausted after just an hour.


    Happy, Winterfang was about to let the roach go about whatever its business was as proof of his success, until ¡®but what if he leaves? Three doesn¡¯t want to reveal us!¡¯ Crossed his mind, and panicked, he crushed it under his paw with enough force to create a dull thud noise and scare the inhabitants of the entrance room.  Satisfied that he can do it, he once again began to channel mana from the dungeon to recover his pool.  Yeah, this is definitely easier than yesterday¡­ he thought, wondering why that was.

 Chapter Eighteen - Despair

    Chapter Eighteen


    Despair, Astral Plane in the general vicinity of Earth, Day 119


    ¡°This is less a repository than a library, librarians included,¡± Despair said to himself as he watched the finished ¡®repository¡¯ in action.  They had all contributed initially, using large chunks of miasma and the abundant mana to create weak spirits that could piggyback on their connections to the dungeons, interacting with them at any and all hours as necessary in order to manage and share the dungeon¡¯s patterns.  Despair had spent days arguing for them to make lesser spirits, intelligent and sentient beings capable of learning to fulfill basic tasks, and finally won over building an automated system instead, despite the increased cost, largely because the time costs of such a construction could have gone into the years, but also because the spirits could adapt and learn and foster communication between dungeons with far more flexibility and growth than such a system ever could.  As their spirits, Nature had made a life attribute sapling, Storm a serpentine fish of the water attribute, Sun a fire attribute lioness, and Despair¡¯s had a skeletal form derived from its death attribute.  With each of them created, and hooked into their links to the dungeons, the others were satisfied to leave it be, as far as they cared, if a dungeon wanted a pattern the spirits could negotiate the pattern from one of its holders.


    Despair hadn¡¯t thought that was enough however, so while Sun and Nature left as soon as they had made their spirits and attached them to their links, he settled down to improve the system¡¯s durability and usefulness by incorporating pattern storage crystals.  As Storm stood around, chatting with the new spirits somewhat, Despair improved upon Three¡¯s clever use of mana crystals by creating a dozen fist sized chunks of astral prism.  The only difference between a mana crystal and an astral prism is that an astral prism uses a small amount of miasma alongside the mana making it up to synchronize the structure of the crystal with the astral plane.  In the mortal plane, that synchronization would basically show itself as a dimensional instability that caused small amounts of mana to leak from the astral plane and through the crystal.  Inside a dungeon, the crystal might produce some mana, but would prove to be largely inert and useless otherwise due to the dungeon¡¯s own ability to draw mana from the astral plane, but in the astral plane itself, that synchronization served to drastically increase the durability and longevity of the crystal and any of its contents, making it useful for storing patterns and magical constructs.


    Eventually, Storm got tired of asking the young spirits questions and wandered off, leaving despair to continue making the prisms until there was a pile up to his knees, before he filled a few with simple patterns and beginning to train the four spirits how to store and read patterns from them.  It took them only a few days to learn how to consistently read even detailed patterns from the prisms, but in the end it took over a  month of tries, and quite a bit of miasma, training them to be adept at storing patterns by imprinting the patterns into the prisms.  This was because while doing so, they also had to channel a small amount of mana and miasma in a very specific proportion so the crystal would grow and not run out of space or destabilize when many patterns were stored.


    Once they were adept at storing the patterns in the small prisms, however, he created a monolithic new one twice his size, about ten feet tall and a bit over four across, for them to load with the patterns.  He watched them carefully to make sure they were doing it right, as a sort of final test.  They were, and so he said goodbye and returned from his reverie, quickly opening up portals to observe the earth and continue working on their strategy.  He looked at the areas outside all of the dungeons for the first time since he had started working on the repository, except his regular weekly check ins with Calypso, Europa, and Metis, and everything seemed to be going well, with mana concentrations increasing over wider areas.  Unfortunately, it looked like Three was still behind, though that was somewhat to be expected given the exponential rate of growth of dungeons.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    A few days later, while he was working, Nature ran over excited and happy, and shouted ¡°Hey Despair, guess what? Three has some creatures now!  Aren¡¯t I great!¡±


    Surprised, Despair replied ¡°That¡¯s wonderful, Nature!  How did it happen?  Did you give Three back his miasma?¡± Despair asked, ignoring her self-aggrandizement and trying to understand what happened while he turned the portal he was currently using to observe over to look at Three.


    "How should I know!¡± she snapped, annoyed, ¡°and my dungeons should want to give it to me!  I¡¯m not taking it!¡± she insisted, but despair was distracted by what he was seeing in the dungeon.


    Yes, Three had some bugs and rats in his dungeon, even some plant seeds, but everything past the first few rooms was dead at the moment, even Winterfang was in the first few rooms.  The dungeon was glut with mana, probably to toxic levels, and Three didn¡¯t appear to be conscious to manage it.  ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± Nature asked, confused at the increasingly dark expression on Despair¡¯s face.


    Furious, Despair snapped at her, ¡°Why is he unconscious?¡±  A dungeon would only fall unconscious as a result of significant trauma, mana deprivation, or an outside force, that being Nature.  ¡°What is going on with Three¡¯s dungeon Nature?¡±  he demanded.


    Nature pouted, but went pale as a look of realization crossed her eyes, her expression changing to one of guilt, remaining quiet and visibly closing in on herself, ¡°Nature,¡± Despair sighed, quietly signaling for Sun and Storm to come over, ¡°What happened to Three?¡± he asked, trying to be reasonable with her, but she made no move to respond, ¡°Nature!¡± he yelled, startling her, ¡°This isn¡¯t just an ego trip!  We can¡¯t afford our dungeons being knocked unconscious, they have a very important role here.  Are you listening to me?¡±  frightened, she just nodded, and Despair forced himself to calm down and try to reassure her, ¡°Nature, you¡¯ve had an attitude for as long as I¡¯ve known you, but this is just going too far¡­  What is going on?¡±


    Nature eventually looked at him, a deep-seated frustration evident, ¡°It¡¯s, It¡¯s-¡± she stuttered, trying to find the words, and just as Storm arrived, she burst out, ¡°It¡¯s you guys!  It¡¯s all your fault!  What ¡®become gods¡¯? All I want is to be praised and worshipped!  Why can¡¯t I!  Back there, nobody even knew me, so I went with you, but now you guys hate me too!  My dungeons hate me!  Nobody on earth knows me either, nothing has changed!  I hate it!¡±  she cried while running away.


    ¡°Hey, what just happened?¡± Storm asked him, looking at the fleeing Nature.


    ¡°Nature just showed that she¡¯s not up for godhood,¡± Despair lamented, ¡°Do you think you could, somehow, get her in a better mood?  She put Three to sleep, and if it doesn¡¯t wake up who knows what will happen¡­¡±


    ¡°Ohhhh, boy¡­¡± Storm said, ¡°you two have created quite a mess.  I¡¯ll see what I can do, maybe I¡¯ll take her on a tour of Earth or something¡­¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not such a-¡± good idea, Despair began, trying to stop her, but she was already gone before he could finish.


    ¡°Hello, why did you need me to come over in such a hurry?¡± Sun asked, ¡°I was busy observing some humans.  Did you know that there are some very impressive ones?  Some of them may even be suited to become my priestess...  As a people they already almost worship beauty and war?  Such a wonderful combination,¡± he said, clearly occupied with other things.


    ¡°It¡¯s a long story,¡± Despair said, deciding it would be better to tell Sun no matter the state he is in, and began to tell him.

 Chapter Nineteen - Three

    Chapter Nineteen


    Three, tangentially located behind Pa Pa Jiang¡¯s restaurant, New York City, Day 128


    Waking up, still half-asleep, Three was surprised by how great he felt, better than he had ever felt before, only half-aware, it tried examining itself, and noticed miasma.  Miasma flowed through its dungeon, entered its core, and then came to rest in its miasma pool without flowing up the link to Nature.  But for how long? Three asked itself, only to drowsily decide not to bother worrying and to do something about it instead.


    As soon as it processed that thought, it began drawing upon the first thought it had, and not having time to waste, Three reached out for mana and miasma.  It drew them out, creating astral prism in the space around its core, but there was so much miasma, so much mana, it just kept making the crystal at a ridiculous pace, filling up its core room, the imitation alleyway, and half of the second floor were packed full of astral prism in moments, the production so fast as to be almost beyond its control.


    Unfortunately, before it even got through a fifth of its miasma pool, it felt a lingering connection coming down its link from Nature, and even as it desperately packed the floor with astral prism, its miasma pool was siezed, and drained up the link once again, while Three cursed its creator with all its being, to no avail.


    It took Three hours to regain its calm, and then more to completely regain its faculties, which is when it finally thought to check its dungeon, only to find that it had filled up more than eighty-five percent of its volume with astral prism, comparatively shrinking its size to less than a floor, just four rooms.  Of which one was the room it had trapped the human woman in, meaning the actual length of its dungeon was three rooms.  Why did I use astral prism? It asked itself, since having the stuff was basically equivalent to filling a room with its walls, in other words, not useful.  Its mana generation had already increased, but its flow was impacted by the mass of crystal, giving it no net benefit, worse, it had taken up space that used to be the dungeon.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Three was about to start growing its dungeon and rearranging the astral prism into a more efficient formation, but before it began, its attention was caught by Winterfang probing their bond.  ¡°Winterfang?  I was about to work on expanding, is anything a problem?¡±


    ¡°Three!  It¡¯s been two months! What happened?¡± Winterfang asked, surprising Three.


    ¡°Two months?  Why?  Why was I asleep for so long?¡± Three asked, though it didn¡¯t expect an answer, setting it aside immediately, ¡°Well, that being the case, how have you been?¡± It asked, turning its attention from the prism-filled rooms to Winterfang, only to see him and a handful of oversized rats and bugs laying down in the first room, experiencing symptoms of mana poisoning, ¡°Winterfang, you have mana poisoning, you and the creatures, what happened?  When did the creatures come?¡±  it asked.


    ¡°The mana density is too high, at first it helped me to channel, but as it got worse it started to wear me out, these are the only ones who survived, sorry there were so many more creatures originally, a month ago, now only seven are left,¡± Winterfang replied, weakly indicating the creatures with its paw.


    ¡°Well, the dungeon¡¯s entrance was reduced, so the mana pressure must have increased over time¡­ without me using it, it must have built up to toxic levels, your channeling it is probably the only reason that the levels in the entrance room stayed below lethal levels, good job, I¡¯ll take care of it for the time being,¡± Three said, ¡°Once I expand the dungeon and build a few more floors the mana density will drop for a while, it should be lower already since I made some astral prism when I woke up.  Once I¡¯m done with that, we can work on the creatures together.¡±


    It took Three over a month but in the end, focusing on building, it managed to build out three more floors each larger than it was before, but Three couldn¡¯t control the astral prism well, in fact, the most it could do was break off some shards of it, though he gave up on that a foot into the mass of crystal, instead moving what had been its second floor to become its new fifth floor.  By the time it was finished, the mana in its dungeon was exhausted, though quickly recovering.  Now it was time to turn its attention to Winterfang and the creatures.