It was an odd thing, to be so convinced sothing was about to fall on my core. Even as I looked over the ninth floor and all the work I had put into it, an instinct older than the stone around urged further down. It said great threats were coming, that death was on its heels if I were lucky, and enslavent were I not.
Surprisingly convincing, that. I angled my gaze to far back of the floor.
If I started on the tenth floor, no matter the distance, it would just be an empty room that I had to hope would be enough to keep invaders back; and it would be more distance for Seros to cross before he reached . Not ideal. What mana I had would be going towards creating creatures for my Heartwood and ninth floor, filling in the arctic wasteland as the water rose and glaciers froze, not creating a new floor that I didn't even know what I wanted yet. I knew that. I knew that.
Still I kept staring at the flat expanse of stone.
Fuck it.
I gathered my mana, what scraps remained, and flew to the end. I wouldn't be making the floor, not yet, but I would be moving my core down—tucking it further beneath the stone, a tunnel leaning down to tuck into the depths. I wasn't full of the farcical hope that invaders would simply turn around rather than descend the tunnel, but if there was even a chance they took a mont longer to locate the proper way down, that would give Seros just a little more ti to reach here. And I would take a chance over nothing.
The ninth floor humd in quiet anticipation, water lapping at the stone as more mana gushed through the cloudy gems. It would be ages until it was full, which was the unfortunate downside of creating my own water instead of siphoning it from the cove, but I rather saw this as the only option. I was not interested in another hole punched through my walls for critters to scuttle through into my lower levels; the War Horde was still too fresh in my mind.
I picked a spot sowhere higher than the water would be, requiring a precarious climb up the broadside of a future glacier, and started to dig.
The listone crumbled away, devoured by my mana and recycled back into the digging claws; I andered my way through the Alómbra Mountains, channeling out a path just wide enough to fit Seros moving at full speed. He was the basis of my design, as always. The glaciers of the ninth floor were thick enough to hold his weight; the tunnels were tall enough to fit his horns. There was a certain peace to at the thought of building around him. Oh, how I still dread of him becoming a proper sea-drake, a monster of unfathomable power—but I had been a sea-drake, and still I had died. And sothing about that was now less important to , less fundantal to how I viewed the draconic monitor. I wanted him to be a dragon, yes, but I was also content in him just being– him.
I called him Seros. It ant friend. And it was him that I spoke to through our bound souls, puzzling over choices about my dungeon, conversing on the passage of ti and change of those within my halls, how his latest hunt had gone and a new note of the Song he had found. All these fundantally wasteful, aningless topics—and yet ones I relished in. All the golden truths of not being alone anymore. And with this new floor, perhaps I could have even more creatures, or evolve myself to unlock more Nas, more companions, more conversation–
The stone broke, and air billowed back.
I froze.
My mana stilled, drawing away, dust drifting through the half-crumbled listone—my ambient mana bled from my control, spilling forth, escaping through the hole I'd just carved into my own fucking dungeon.
What?
My mana kicked up as though in a maelstrom, fleeing for the exit; I didn't have ti to panic. All hells, but at least I was adept at this—I grabbed my mana and slamd it shut, dragging all the looping coils back until they were under my fucking control, locked within my halls. It snapped and snarled at , wanting to escape, to slither out into the wider world, so I hauled it back into my core until it obeyed.
The entrance closed to my mana; my sight was locked out. I now could see nothing but a black void in my halls, a gnawing emptiness where objectively I knew there was an opening, but without my points of awareness, I couldn't see anything.
There was a brief mont of perfect, helpless terror. Where I waited, coiling in on myself and burning with arcane fear, for another War Horde to fall through the gap—for my doom to co to with claws out and teeth bared.
And nothing happened. Just stale air, sickly sweet like rot. No monsters. No threats. Nothing to see.
Seros, I called, just a touch hysterical. Seros!
He raised his head, pausing from where he'd been entertaining himself by chasing a moray shark to test both their agility—and felt the thrumming panic through our connection. His golden eyes flared wide.
The Hungering Reefs squawked as one as he dove into the water, kicking up a trendous splash with his hydrokinesis—the armoured jawfish and his tidewalker sprite fumbled back, gnashing his teeth, but Seros was a beast possessed. He flew through the floor like a loosed arrow, geysering through the third room. The sea serpent lunged back as Seros clawed into the shipwreck, scrambling down the drowned tunnel, and ran through the Scorchplains as though they were his own personal damnation. Even the kobold tar barely had ti to lift his head before Seros had leapt over the basalt pillars and plunged into the tunnel down, water droplets still streaming off his scales.
There was only a brief mont of confusion as he faced the new Heartwood—though I'd lovingly talked about all of the changes, he hadn't yet seen them himself—before he was clambering into the treeline, bracing weight on the laddercaps as he hauled himself up. Verdant howlers shrieked at him, their territory still so new they were trying to defend it, but at least they had enough of a brain on them to understand that challenging my Seros would be a swift and unremarkable death. They stayed back and just scread.
He splashed into the ninth floor, water barely more than up to his dew claw, but the cold was enough of a shock to make him hiss. He charged through, eyes wild and hunting for whatever the threat was, the reflected pain from . The tunnel down took nothing more than a heartbeat.
Seros ca to a stop before the hole, horns held high and mana thrumming through his channels. Wary confusion bled through to , Otherworld mana flickering around the cragged stone.
When nothing attacked him, he tilted his head to the side, exhaling a plu of mist. He pushed a thought of questioning through to .
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I don't know, I admitted, still hackled like prey before a devourer. I broke through.
Seros hissed, forked tongue flashing through his fangs. He padded forward, tail swishing over the stone, and poked his head in—very odd to , where to my sight it appeared as though his head had been spontaneously cut off—as he investigated the hole.
He would have to be my eyes. And for to actually see sothing, that ant I had to travel alongside him, putting my mind with his through our Otherworld connection.
It would leave blind, but the risk was worth it. I had to know what was on the other side, if my dungeon would be forever frozen at nine floors or if a threat was about to taste the ambient mana and co to consu . I couldn't afford to just block up the stone and dig my tunnel elsewhere.
I gathered all my points of awareness, coalescing into a single conjoined consciousness—ti slowed as all my power ca together, the distant buzz of insects and splash of water muting as I gathered in this tunnel. Then I followed the pull of Seros' soul, the Otherworld connection woven through our beings, and fell into his body.
All at once, my mind locked itself into him, pressing at the edges yet unable to move beyond. It was remarkably disorienting. I'd quite forgotten that lungs had to inflate, a nasty little sensation that moved one's chest, very odd, and that was without ntioning the weight of a body or the rasp of dragging scales over stone. Did all my creatures experience this upon every waking mont? I pitied them.
Seros huffed air in faint amusent, which also felt weird. He shifted, testing the movent of each limb with my added presence, letting mana spark to the tips of his fangs. I urged him forward. Caging myself within a mortal form tore at my composure; I was so used to a dizzying array of perception, everything open to my points of awareness. Seros only had two eyes, advanced though they were.
He churred agreent and stepped forward, weight shifting, tail sliding, a million things to keep track of and still all within his scales. I simred in his mind, peering out alongside him.
The stone was grey and cragged, rooting in on itself where I'd stopped halfway through eating it entirely. The hole was a shallow thing, the height of the tunnel but half the width, and beyond was– more grey, more stone. A cavern, maybe?
Seros braced his claws, gathered his mana, and stepped through.
The loss of my ambient mana struck first, aching and omnipresent; the little sparks of healing and soothing presence I always pushed into Seros disappeared, his scales suddenly heavier, his limbs less agile. He stumbled once, tail lashing, hissing at the darkness—he was one for the deep waters and shadows did not hide the world from him, but it was achingly dark here regardless, a passage towering before.
Stop, I murmured, and Seros did so—we stood still, only his breath echoing against the stone. We just stared at the impossible world right beneath my halls.
The stone was– I wanted to call it naturally ford, being so deep in the mountain, but it wasn't. It was ruined.
Everywhere Seros turned his head was destruction; the walls broken down to fragnted pillars, fractures snaking through the ground and overhead. A thick layer of stone dust swirled by his ankles, clouding the air and littering shrapnel over the path—what had once been a path, relatively straight and purposeful through the rock, but had seemingly been explored at so ti in the distant past.
What was this?
It was frankly terrifying not to have my mana fill this land in its entirety, to understand each turn and twist because it was my own—we were walking blind, our only awareness being that which was before us, all else hidden. But even still, I got the impression that this was large; stretching far beyond our claws, beyond the stone walls and pressing darkness. This was sothing more than a cavern, than the depths. It had been sothing once, and then it had been destroyed.
There was a part of that hoped it was just the pathways left by a stone-wurm's travels, snaking through the mountain range, but I had not survived as long as I had by relying on hope.
Onward, I said, less than confident. Seros rumbled deep in his chest and pressed on.
It wasn't just one path but a dozen, all weaving around themselves and coming back together. The land reeked of death, sothing recent and rotting, but all around was stone and stone undisturbed. It had been destroyed, yes, but found again? What could have died here so recently, yet not change?
Seros' nostrils flared, head cocking enough his horns brushed the outer wall. He and I saw it together—beneath a fallen boulder, looming through the darkness, was sothing sharp and white.
Bones.
Bleached by age, by neglect; they were yellowed and twisting, most broken by the falling stone and splayed in their corpse's final pose. Humanoid but smaller, parts hunched where they were still configured. And oddly familiar.
This was beyond a mystery now. I needed more than just Seros if I wanted to investigate this cavern system right against my dungeon; if I wanted a tenth floor, if I wanted any more floors at all. Gods, but if I didn't have both this and the Marquesa de Wolf to haunt .
One thing at a ti, as little choice as I had in that matter. Grab it, I said, pulsing through our connection, then return.
Seros churred his agreent—being woven in his mind as I was let sense his own unease, the shadows lurking through the darkness. For all he had explored the cove and found Arroyo, he was not fond of being in territory not made by . Threats were larger things when they were unknown.
He crouched, tail flicking, and carefully picked up one of the larger segnts. I was treated to the uncomfortable sensation of ivory scrapping against fangs, which echoed with an odd resonance that was deeply unpleasant, but then Seros turned and padded back the way we had co, though we had barely explored anything and both of us knew it.
What was this? Why was there sothing like this so deep beneath the mountain, and what had happened to it? Why had I dug for so long and only now found anything?
Seros moved faster now, weaving through the passages, head raised and nerves rising. Sothing about this was very wrong. He squeezed back through the entrance, letting the bone fall out of his mouth. It clattered over the ground, my mana sweeping in to surround us, familiar walls and feeling.
I dove out of Seros' form, imdiately exploding into ten, twenty, a hundred points of awareness as my consciousness blood out to the wider halls—Seros huffed as I luxuriated in movent and focus and sight and being a dungeon core again.
Hush, I chided without any venom. If you knew what this felt like you would–
And then I paused.
Because my core, two floors above, was flashing; golden runes wrote upon its surface, gleaming through illegible mysteries. This in of itself wasn't a surprise; I got hundreds of things requiring my attention throughout a day, from lesser evolutions to the schemas of Underranked insects. All inconsequential gatherings.
But my core wasn't acting like it normally did. The runes were fever-bright and burning, scouring out at the surrounding stone with a vengeance I hadn't felt before. It dragged at my awareness, sothing heavy and furious, growing, getting angry at every mont passing.
Seros felt it as well. Which was concerning.
I darted up, weaving through the ninth floor to hover over my core proper, peering at the light spilling forth. At the ssage waiting for with the opposite of patience.
The runes wrenched themselves to the surface—still gold, still glowing, but sothing black beneath. Sothing hungry.
Your creature, a Vampiric Mangrove, is
Please select
Borwood Tree (???): this will not be
Borwood Tree (???): this should not
Borwood Tree (???): YOU CANNOT HAVE
I balked, panic ratcheting. What–
In my Drowned Forest, one of the vampiric mangroves exploded into shadow.
-
Far away, in a glass-paned room beneath spread draconic wings, a man with black eyes raised his head.
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