The second week was much like the first, but busier. Now that the soil and rock could flow, they made better progress. 

The original area cleared was more of an accident, which gave it a haphazard look.

With the experimentation more complete, the two of them worked together to create a more organic feel to the space. 

The pile of rocks became a smoothed hill, with nooks and crannies just like any other mound of time worn bluffs. The clearing around the opening gathered flowers and plants together in clumps to provide a clear path through the meadow.

With a simple twist of thought, Taylen provided a template and the dungeon core threaded the right amount of power through her to get the job done.

The longest part of the last week had been the thinking problem. Taylen was a word thinker, a speaker of thoughts-while the core itself was almost purely visual. 

Today, the cold room was still stocked with enough meat for a few days, allowing the new partnership to get a little tighter.

To keep her restlessness at bay(even the cool, calm insides of the dungeon couldn't put her completely at ease) Taylen did her usual midday round of the group of tunnels comprising the core's domain.

According to the ineffable logic of the core, more was more, which meant the darn core was always popping up surprises for her. Yesterday she’d spotted some new fungus which had NOT been there that morning during her rounds, and today, she could see that there was a new corner down the northernmost tunnel.

The only source of illumination seemed to be from some trick the core developed somehow which produced mid lighting from the rounded walls of the tunnel.

Making her way back to the dungeon core, Taylen reached out to put both hands on the core. Communing physically always left her hungry,  so her feasting kit was already prepared with fruits and meat for afterwards.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Blank, calm mindscape.

She always knew where the core was, both distance and elevation, somehow, and so easily brought both hands up to the warm globe suspended in a hazy pillar of light.

A feeling of connectedness and power felt its way through her mind, where it negotiated with the barrier she'd prepared.

Since everyone knew that a dungeon was inherently difficult to deal with, not to mention that one's mind was the only thing keeping them together in this world of magic and energy, she had spent some time mastering the basics of shielding before striking out on her own.

Despite the finding of the core, which still felt suspiciously unlikely, she would not have felt safe without having some defences, even above ground.

Contact and cordial greeting complete, the two entities, one a glimmering speck of light, like a firefly and the other a raging inferno of energy by comparison, spoke.

Greetings small one. Are you ready for the next step?

..i am, your core-y ness.

Today we will begin with dimensions.

Dimensions are the core of the builder's toolkit. Without an accurate grip on how large a thing will be, construction can only be limited by your presence.

Requiring your presence causes … difficulty.

Taylen rather enjoyed the accidental puns.

She absorbed this nugget of core keepers wisdom, and thought on it.

While the dungeon was currently quite small (since the core had been reawakened) it was always striving to grow and change. She would not always be able to walk the distance in 10 minutes. If she could appear in different places instantly, then yes, maybe-a flicker of surprise? Satisfaction?-from the core connection caused her to pause briefly in her thoughts. 

Their connection allowed her to see the inner pulsing of the energy's mass, betraying slight feelings from within.

Summon an image of the dungeon, now.

Taylen raised her head and opened her mind's eye, looking forwards as if her eyes were open.

She felt a hazy picture form from motes of the energy she felt from the core, representing the tunnel around them-unfortunately dim compared to the blaze she was seeing directly in front of her.

Using her hands to push herself a quarter turn anticlockwise, she saw in real time the hazy outline of the room in her mind rotate as well.

The core's implacable bulk provided a handy anchor for her mindmap, which held herself and the core central to the image.

Raising her hands in front of her face, the young lady gripped the image behind her closed eyelids and gently tried to push it away, to move the image but not herself.

The fuzzy image seemed to respond to her touch, moving slowly with her hands.

She dropped one hand to better grip the image and it tipped crazily to one side.

Momentarily gripped by a feeling of spinning herself, Taylen quickly opened her eyes-to check she wasn't actually spinning. 

Oooh, the core's having a good old chuckle is it? I'm not sunk yet, mister!

Stubbornly turning so her back was to the enormous ball of light and power, the young student closed only one eye, in case something else made her nauseous.

This time she only used one hand to reach out, and holding it up in front of her, attempted to summon the image again. This time she could see the opening of the tunnel upwards with her open eye, and the slanted fuzzy after image of the mindmap with her closed eye.

After several tentative minutes practising gently moving her hand and fingers, she found that it was simpler to merely think of moving forward, backward, and left to right. 

The fuzzy image was able to move independently of her position.

Once she had managed to set the image straight again, so that the roof and floor were once again normal she tried something new.

She moved forwards, towards the sloping upwards tunnel leading to the surface.

The fuzziness of the image got fainter and fainter before she found herself back at the bottom of the tunnel. Apparently the core couldn't get her above ground that way.

It was a little bit disorienting having skipped back a metre or two, but nowhere as bad as seeing the room spinning behind her eyelids.

Okay-phase two!

Gaining confidence, she tried rotating the map in different directions. 

She immediately found the lines she was imagining in the fuzz sharpened when the map began to rotate away from level, and found that looking from slightly above the room downwards towards the other wall, and looking directly downwards seemed to be the most effective, the lines strong and bold in those positions, while in between was fuzzier and fuzzier until the mid point.

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With a triumphal feeling, Taylen stood, one eye open, and began to move forwards, while looking down on her position with her other eye.

She was ready for the immediate disorientation, and fell to her knees on the soft dirt floor.

Deciding the floor was the best place to practise, several minutes later she was able to walk around the core with both eyes shut, and then one eye open.

Now was the most interesting part. She'd thought that the energy she felt near the core was from her connection, but that was to be expected from something which appeared to contain multitudes within it.

This map making skill, though-was it external or internal?

She was now standing 2 paces away from her core, relaxed, but ready.

She slowly brought her mental shield up, imagining a closing of a globe around herself, completely encompassing her body the energy could be coming through the ground, for one.

As the two halves of the sphere began to reach full contact, she closed one eye and called up the image of the room from above. As the sphere’s halves soundlessly, seamlessly met in front of her face, the map's strong lines lost most of their definition.

Success!! It is magic!

'O great core', intoned the happy student, 'thank you for your great blessing of vision.'

The answering sparkle was small, but she could always see its inner workings. It was slightly happy to hear that.

It had been happy, and disappointed.

It had been implacable

It had been slow, and fast. After a mere 2 weeks, nearly, she had seen many moods, but each seemed to be a slightly different pattern of sparkles.

Feeling mentally drained from all the new thinking, Taylen slumped down.

'Thats all for today, i think' she said.

Fetching some food stores from the cold small room set aside for that, she munched on a bit of jerky on her way up the tunnel.

It seemed … slightly longer than it had been yesterday … 

The sun was shining brightly from the east, about halfway up, her shadow about half her height.

It was time for a hunt and forage.

Today was a north east day, a slight breeze catching some stray hairs.

She needed to be downwind if there were any animals about. Otherwise they'd catch her scent.

Oh, that was quite the scent. Why did she seem to stink more when she came out of the cave? Shouldn't it stink more inside the cave.

“Alright girl,’ she said aloud, ‘get your butt together.

We've got a long day ahead of us.”

Several hours later, she'd managed to get herself washed and dried, the drying process taking much longer without any kind of towel, but it was much easier and safer to be naked out here than it was elsewhere.

With her trusty spear stick and knife, there was nothing short of a randy animal to take her on. She had taught the other animals smart enough to think, that her food was not to be bothered.

She was going to have to take another trip to town though. She had jerky, clothing (a couple of outfits), her knife and her boots, but she was going to have to get some more supplies.

Unless there was a much much easier way to provide for herself, it was a necessary diversion from her new freedom.

If she could, she would have gone even further away from the town, but loathe as she was to admit it, somethings she just couldn't make herself.

Clothing she could do, yes, but weaving and knitting? No ma'am!!

Trading though, that was her specialty. With the bounty of the forest, she had a lit of raw materials and needed a lot less of it for her own use.

She did look forward to seeing some of her oldest acquaintances, but most of the people there were just known by sight.

The sun was higher in the sky by now, which made things a little brighter through the canopy.

The closer she got to town, the thinner the canopy seemed to be. She had always preferred the deepest woods, and now she had managed to live in them!!

The trees thinned out and the grass seemed to drink in the extra light, much like Taylen was. The breeze picked up a little, with the teasing gusts tugging at her loose brown hair.

Her clothes were simple homespun tunic, belted with rope. Her simple pants were light brown, with most of the dye washed out already. Shed not changed much since her 15th birthday so she'd been able to wear all her clothes for the last 2 years. 

There was a simplicity in only having one set of clothing.

It made the rest of the day start a lot quicker, not to mention the non issue of washing day.

The first stop on her shopping trip for today was, of course, the produce store, for walking around flavour. The treeline hid many bounties, but only the town had managed to cultivate orchards and stone fruit groves.

“What's on your list today Carla?” She asked the pretty lady with the fruit on stands outside her house.

Carla's face reddened slightly, which always amused the young lady when she visited, but was still a mystery as to why.

"We've been needing some if those berries you seem to always have handy-oh and the extra large horns."

The lady was slightly breathless, which seemed strange since she did this everyday presumably.

Of course, my lady, it shouldn't be too much trouble. Is the day after tomorrow acceptable?

Nodding, Carla gestured for her young patron to make a selection.

Her hands were worn, like all of the village's hands, and they were slightly brown, probably from the sun beating down on the area. Without the trees she loved so much, Taylen would probably also have that kind of wear and tear.

Miss Carla, Taylen mused, casting an eye over her clothing, are you wearing a new apron?

The fruit lady tittered, and her face reddened again. 

"Ah, …, yes, I had this made to look my best for my favourite customer."

She replied, turning away slightly,  and looking at Taylen out of the corner of her eye.

At times like this, the young lady was always glad to have left her town and travelled to the furthest reaches of people's settlement. They had so many strange behaviours.

"I really like that colour" she said, keeping her thoughts inside as she had learnt to do for safety.

Thank you. Carla replied, busying herself organising another box of fruit to put away. This late in the day it was about time to begin the process of taking the less fresh fruit away to process, and sorting the fresher fruit into boxes for preservation and keeping for tomorrow. 

Completing her talking, Tayken took a rather juicy peach and bit into it, remembering to thank her fruit supplier 

She made a mental note to go to the berry patch, with a berry bag, and make a detour past the rutting tree for any fallen horns. It wasn't the season, but sometimes there was some damage done in the other parts of the year, and there might be a little something for the fruit lady.

Otherwise she'd have to go through the cleaning area and give her one of the horns from her latest kill. It wasn't the largest horns that she'd ever seen, of course, those were reserved for the most resplendent leader of the forest,  and they weren't for hunting.

They were still much larger than any of the horns she saw on the beasts in the town areas though.

As she passed through the town towards the bakery, the townspeople nodded at her, unperturbed by the young lady who came and went as she pleased. They were quite friendly in that way, and could be trusted to keep out of her business if she didn't acknowledge them.

The smell of the bakery had faded somewhat with the middle of the day, but there was always a loaf or two for her. Taylen had never considered whether the baker always made more than they needed or always had some for her in particular, but her nearest town always seemed to have something for her.

It was always worth heading into town for something because it made the trip back feel quicker having something nice to eat and smell.

The stone walkways between the houses and shops were nice and warm now, too, reflecting the heat up onto her legs. 

She would need to get a new pair of boots eventually too, but the pair she had had quite the distance to go before they needed assistance from the cobbler. 

"Knock knock" she said, matching words to action.

“Ah! Our best customer returns!” The baker was a doughy man, with his husband keeping a tight hold on all the thinness in the area. Mahrt always had a smile ready, and most of the time his eyes agreed with his mouth. when one of those rude people from further west arrived though, it never did.

His meaty arms spread wide, the jovial man swept out of the back room.

"Tarn! Get our guest a drink would you?"

“Ah!’, came a strong voice, from elsewhere in the house, ‘she returns.”

Marht had arrived in front of her, with his arms still wide.

She happily accepted his offer, embracing him tightly. His warm floury hug was one of the best reasons to walk this way. The house here seemed to feel similar to when she was in the dungeon. There was a presence which felt like a home.

Loosening his grip, Mahrt turned just as Tarn entered with a small timber tray.

Their eyes met and she witnessed the spark between them. No matter how many times it happened it was always thrilling. To have a connection like that with someone.

Really though, the bread and jam with butter was just as exciting. She knew how to make it, sure, but the bread was another matter, unless she made a fire and cooked it herself or had it heated, she'd never manage to get the butter to melt and the warmth of the bread to spread through her.

The fruity drink accompaniment had flavours shed never tasted before. 

Taylen took her time savouring the rich flavours of the milk and dough. This was the best thing about living near people.