‘Your species is fairy and fox. How does that affect your magic?’ ‘Wow you have no tact… it doesn’t. Also foxes don’t have magic.’ ’uhh. I knew that.’ ‘You should know not to touch a girl where it hurts.’ ‘Sorry… want to talk about it?’ ‘No.’ Well I feel crappy. Feelings suck.

‘Hey how do creatures with magic work?’ ‘Someone or something be it a god or a dungeon bestowed or forces it on them. Or a group of people believed they had magical powers. Or they instinctively shaped magic and over time it became a part of their species.’

‘Magic is confusing sometimes. Both to you, to me and to itself. We both know the difference between wolves, dire wolves and fenrir. They're all different but similar creatures. Magic gets confused and when a wolf is growing, getting stronger, fighting. Magic will pull from its desires and people's belief about them. So you end up with dire wolves evolving from wolves.’

‘They should be variants but because of misunderstanding people think they are dire wolves and that gets imprinted on their species. So real wolf warrants are rare. Instead most just change race. It's not inherently bad. Dire wolves are a lot stronger.’

‘Can people change race?’ ‘Oh yeah, all the time.’ ‘humans to high humans. Elves to high elves. Its like an upgrade. You also get the occasional angel, demon or abomination from cults and stuff.’ ‘that is rather unnerving.’ ‘You should see the things people can become in some of the more estranged cults. Truly horrific works.’

‘Why would gods let those kinds of cults exist?’ ‘They don’t. Well not all of them. For the most part they’re too busy keeping their followers and each other in check. Ever wonder why there's so many pantheons? Why aren't there any single divinity gods? Why is divinity shared?’ ‘Never thought about it.’

‘Bah. You should have. If a god held all the divinity of a single aspect. If they hoarded all that faith. They'd be slaves to it. Imagine a god of mercy with no other aspect. They'd be unbalanced and at the whims of it. Now imagine a great plague swept through the word. Everyone who's fallen ill is in grave pain and everyone's grieving. What then would be mercy?’

‘Death.’ ‘Yes. That god would grant them the mercy of death. Of course other gods wouldn’t stand aside. The whole world would be destroyed. So a war of gods happens… By the way, that wasn’t hypothetic. That really happened. It's why gods share divinities with each other.’

‘Got anything that isn’t dark to dark about.’ ‘Not really. The world is not that great… Want to hear a fact about mimics. I swear it's a fun one.’ ‘Shoot.’ ‘Mimics love sugar. So much that they’ll eat themselves into a food coma. It's a good distraction in a pinch. Wouldn’t recommend it though. Sugar’s super expensive.’

‘I don’t remember hearing about it when I was an adventurer.’ ‘It's frowned upon. Specifically by gods of hunting. Trapping baiting it all fine but if you throw sugar every time you see a mimic it kind of ruins it. Sugar is a Mimic weakness. If you're controlling it with its base instinct then it's not really a hunt is it. It is one of many secrets that have a lid on it. If a priest or paladin of the hunt heard you spreading it around they’d knock you down a peg.’

‘So why aren't slime's weakness or vampires kept secret.’ ‘Okay one, really obvious things can’t be kept secret. Two vampires don’t become dogs or cripples because you throw garlic at them or expose them to light.’ ‘But sunlight kills them.’ ‘Yes. That's all fair in the hunt. You're not controlling them or torturing them and they can still fight back.’ ‘Aren’t traps a bit torturous?’ ‘They're perfectly fine. Unless you specifically make that way’

Anyway enough with the questions. Between the two of us we could talk an eternity. Let's do something productive. Like expanding your influence.’ ‘wait one more question.’ she grumbled. ‘What about people with no magic?’ ‘That's just that. No Magic. They literally don’t have magic. It not their fault its just people believing some people can’t have magic. Its literally a condition brought about by people believing the condition existed in the first place. Like a self fulfilling prophecy.’

‘That's awful.’ ‘Stop distracting me. Alright, focus! You need to push your mana into the surrounding rock. Into every crack and crevice. Dirt stone metal everything.’ ‘we're in a stealed space/ how did you get in here?’ ‘Focus!’ ‘alright alright.’ the earth began to shake ‘Stop! Don’t bash it in! You need to imbue it with your magic not collapse it on us.’

‘You should have started with that. I don’t need the whole be in tune with your surrounding kind of spiel. I was a human, I know what imbue means. I was in a heroes party for sake.’ The earth began to glow softly and fade in ebb and woe. ’See I got it.’

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‘Yup, just do that for a while. You should expand a tendril in each direction to get a feel for your surroundings. You wouldn’t want to expand into a camp or village by mistake.’ ‘Already ahead of you. What about a monster den.’ ‘That would be pretty bad too.’

‘If say we did, how would we go about fixing that issue?’ ‘Lure it away with a mana trail and make traps before it comes. Good thinking we should prepare. It’ll be a while before you can start making monsters of your own.’ I began to shift the soil, compressing it to make a tunnel. ‘That's if I want to be in a dungeon, but I have to defend myself in the meantime.’

‘Right, but aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? You should expand more before doing something like this. Also how are you doing that?’ ‘Well it's rather intuitive. Chalk it up to instinct. In the meantime I have more to worry about then expanding.’ ‘what do you mean?’ ‘Did you know pigs can live underground?’ ‘You didn’t.’ ‘Yup got a few angry piggies trying to dig here so if you don’t mind I need to concentrate.’

‘Make a tape! Now!’ ‘Traps were never my thing alright.’ Traps really weren't my thing but luckily I still remembered a thing or two I saw on animal planet or was it the history channel? National geographic? Uhhhhh `Hurry damn it! I don't want to die!” oh right we were about to be mauled by pigs.

The feral squeals only added to my urgency. I made a pit. A really deep pit. Although they live underground I don’t think they’ll enjoy a fall just like any other animal. Reeeeeeee!

(Subterranean Pig. Health moderate. Mana low. Affinity earth. State hungry, excited.) Ah so they are pigs. They look like naked mole rats crossed with a bore. Pigs are already naked. But this. This is just gross. ‘Do something! They're almost here.’ ‘I already did, just watch.’

The ground gave out and three piggies fell in. (Subterranean Pig. Health low. Mana Low. Affinity earth. Status: Hungry, dazed, injured.) I wish the status would just show the important bits. ‘Harty little buggers aren’t they? Time to drop the ceiling.’ I didn’t have a boulder made so I just dropped a square section of ceiling. It fit almost seamlessly. They were surely dead. I could feel it. Also the mana pouring up between the cracks are a major clue. Being able to visualize mana is great.

(Subterranean Piglet. Status hungry, searching, lonely) Oh come on! Now I feel like crap. I just murked the little guy's whole family. ‘Soooo cute! Can we keep it?’ ‘Are you going to ignore what just happened?’ ‘Absolutely not. He's alone because of us. We have to take responsibility!’

‘Also it can be your first monster. You’ll have to subordinate it. It's young so just give it a little mana. Imprint on it. Make it think you're its parent.’ ‘So you want me to brainwash the little guy.’ ‘In a way, yes. But the way you said it makes it sound bad.’

(Subterranean piglet has become a contracted monster.) ‘Hey, why does it say it’s a monster and not an animal or creature? I would hardly call it a monster.’ ‘People are why. They see anything that's related to a dungeon being monstrous. Sometimes a dungeon or any core really, will make people, sentient creatures that can think for themselves. They speak, write and do a whole bunch of things, but are labeled monsters or homunculi to be nicer about it.’

‘In a way I get it, but at the same time that's insane.’ ‘Right! Goblins, although most are quite savage, are more people than monsters. Lammia are literally just people with a snake tail in place of legs. They are seen as no more than monsters by most people. Take a normal goat and put it in a dungeon and it's suddenly a monster. Take it back out and it's a goat again. Do it with a wolf and instead people will think there's a dungeon break going on.’

‘Put a lizardman in a dungeon and people will likely call them a monster even if they were an adventurer going into and out of the dungeon. But that's mostly racism. If the lizardman were a dungeon born he would likely get the monster tag. It's a perception thing. An elf dungeon born would get a homunculus tag. Even though they are most certainly a person. People see it differently. Choosing to believe the dungeon made a facsimile to trick them.’

‘Apart of being a dungeon though is that your intent heavily out ways that of people. So if you make an animal its an animal. A person is a person. It's just the tags that get influenced.’ ‘Your starting to make me feel bad about ever being a human.’ ‘Sorry...’

‘You gonna name it?’ ‘what? Yes! Piggles. No. hoggly hogger hoggins.. Hogsworth!.. What?’ ‘Nothing I just thought naming it was going to do something.’ ‘Uh duh. Now we have something to call it.’ ‘No I mean. Never mind.’

‘Hey, how do I reset traps? It’ll be a pain to remake it every time.’ ‘I’ll do it. Its a bit advanced. You have to make a spell around it. First apply the intent of what the trap is supposed to look like before its set off. Then tip the trap and imagine how long it’ll take to reset. You don’t want it to be too short or it will go off repeatedly if something gets stuck in it. It would drain your mana. Then finish with the intent to return to its original form.’

I could see tendrils of mana seep out of the wall to lift the fallen ceiling back into place. Fragments of the floor shrouded in mana floated back up fighting together like a puzzle. ‘Resetting traps can be costly depending on their material and how damaged they are. You’ll need to set up a system to clean up the place. Some slimes would do for now.’

‘That makes so much sense.’ ‘What does?’ ‘The slimes. There were always so many slimes’ ‘Yeah well they're cheap and they break things down good enough. You need to clear things out and breaking things down can free up any trapped mana. Now hurry and make some before those pigs stink up the place. I don’t want people thinking its a dungeon of the dead.’ ‘That's gross.’ ‘Yes. Yes it is.’