A clear tone rang throughout the Vault as Argent's fingers left the jasper core, through the stilling of mana rather than the vibrating of particles. For a heartbeat my core was filled with a single magical note as every mote stopped, mana became as one, a single superconducting volume such that the 'sound' existed everywhere, all at once. Argent's hands flew apart, then together as though to scoop the core up once more when a rippling sound of grinding stone filled the chamber. The four large tablets of the History tessellated, erupting from the inside in cubes that branched and unfurled, consuming the plinths upon which they'd been placed. Blocks of serpentine stone rolled, slid and extruded from every new surface in perfect 90 degree angles, even through each other. Slates grew on their table or suddenly cracked into two perfect halves along their edges, sliding to reveal new runed tablets. As the orthogonal chaos clattered onwards Kelter popped out of the unfinished automaton, hammer and spanner at the ready, eyes wide - in his mind I saw the geared muse roaring to life once more. The serpentine tiles moved the two hulks to separate sides of the Vault effortlessly, the enormous metal constructs sliding off the growing stage.

Tasglann Nilavarai, The Chronicle Vault.

For each stage of of the Vault, a single Dungeon may be commemorated.

The History of Dungeons will evolve with each stage of the Vault.

The thunder stilled as suddenly as it started and with its end...came quite literally nothing new. I had seen this pop-up before, could recall it any time I examined the Vault. It was obvious that by commemorating the Jasper Core the History had evolved and with it so too had the Vault, triggering the panel but...this was nothing new. Yet another esoteric question to add to a growing list about how all this worked.

By contrast, this latest evolution was novel indeed. Serpentine floors rose seemlessly to evenly spaced plinths covered in slates and from the corners four towering steles. The stone gleamed darkly under my light, its own deep green almost black in contrast to the emerald of my light that danced along every harsh angle. Argent seemed as awed as I, gathering slates with eager movements. I basked in the reflections, each rune falling under my gaze at the speed of light. The knowledge...

Each slate was a fragment of some unknown Dungeon's existence, idle musings, elaborate plots, internal politics, hundreds of slates but the steles. Runed front and back in characters no larger than those on the slates, they reach recorded almost as much as all the slates combined. Better, they seemed to be linked. One face seemed to be a timeline, its reverse an entire genus of plants. Greedily we delved, and deeply. Time passed unchecked in the trance, a petty rebellion by a fickle God. I surfaced like a drowning creature breaks the surface to desperately needed air. No creature can survive without time for long.

My consciousness spread through my realm once more to find over a week had passed. Without the daily supply of food I had been creating in the interim, the Ochre Tiles had been forced to begin their harvests early. Muddy water was strained through cloth and thin, emaciated crops were boiled into a meager, watery broth with trembling hands. The fledgling populations of crundles and helmet snakes on my third floor had been hunted to extinction, simple traps scattered the level. Similar devices were being constructed by the Craftwind smiths, armourworks abandoned in the face of starvation. To my dismay the Granite Mob had several missing members, at least one of whom was dead - I found no wounded in the makeshift hospital put together in the blockhouse by the Ochre Tiles but my spiders gnawed at a ragged corpse caught in their webs. The Chimaera skulked on the same floor, further mutated. Every scale oozed a tarry, viscous substance; unnaturally jointed legs sprouted not just from its sides but from its back and belly. A second head glared malevolently in all directions, a lizard's eyes protected by thick spiky fur scattered haphazardly across a scaly globe. The first head drooled endlessly from a ravaged skull, flesh, scale and fur rapidly rotting from a grievous wound. Around its nest in the ceiling, wet globs of thick webbing dotted the walls and floor in puddles the size of a goblin's torso. Each was connected to the creature by gossamer thin threads of silk to one of its seven long ratlike tails.

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Alone of my creations, the Saurian Mage Eater seemed whole yet its scales lacked some of their previous lustre. They were harder now, less malleable and it showed in the great lizard's movement. It prowled the sides of the river, eagerly snapping at motes of mana in the air. It too had adapted, exhuding a pale vapour from its back that slowly dissolved spidersilk to a watery red fluid and left a waxy residue in its path. The thaumivore was not starving but its adaptation was burning through what reserves it had managed to consume. Its prey was an easy and disconcerting puzzle to solve - almost every spider I had created myself had perished. The remaining Scincid Spiders were natural births, only a pair of the Vermillion Spiders survived to scuttle across the ceiling of the river cavern where the banks were too wide or the walls too smooth to offer the Saurian purchase. Great scratches in the stone and some waxy smears indicated it had nevertheless tried. In the river itself, my sharks had survived with considerably fewer casualties. A few wandering fish and crustaceans from the great river now lingered uneasily amongst the sharks but unable to make their way back to safety. The fish and water here would have greatly helped my starving goblins, if not for the ravenous predators I had so liberally seeded the cavern with. Without my presence to govern and ensure their appetites were sated, my creations had swiftly turned on each other - and the goblins had not fared well against my beasts.

I began filling the kitchens with clean water, foods, plump helmets, cave wheat, new tubers and fruits from the Stele - garlic, onions, bitter melons, cempedak, white beans - and animals mid slaughter. I found I couldn't create meat nearly as easily as creating the whole animal and speed was of the essence. I shaped basic stone bowls and wove two Giant Hedgehogs into existence above them. Stone hoops trapped their limbs to the floor and a sharp ridge grew from it to cut their throats. As the bowls filled the cooks rallied from their surprise, whooping and hollering in their chittering tongue and hastily scooping up the vegetation to get some sustenance into their bellies before taking on the task of butchery. Before long my entire host was gathered around a burgeoning feast, even Argent at my urging feeding herself before discussing what we had learned. She had been as lost as I, presumably sustained either only through proximity to the rich mana radiated by my core or one or both of us had retained just enough awareness to create sustenance for her. I suspected the former given how voraciously she tore into her meal. From fifty goblins, I was down to thirty three. No clan had emerged unscathed, even the Craftwind had somehow lost two members.

While the goblins ate, I replenished the life on my upper levels. When starvation was no longer a concern I would have their matrons report. I created new Scincids for the river, both Viridescent and a smaller number of Vermillion, new skinks, helmet snakes, crundles, insects and arachnids for the caverns. I consumed the remains of fish and lobster from the riverbeds, cracked Scincid husks, helmet snake scales and crundle bones from wherever they lay. I poured mana into the remaining crops and cleansed the soil of impurities from the filthy water that had made its way down into the third floor where the goblins could gather it and their...less than healthy fertiliser. Malnourished beings make poor manure. I further planted some of the new crops I had learned, revisiting the Stele to discover more. The Giant Fly eggs had been consumed, likely from the Giant Hedgehog that had in turn been slaughtered. There I had a sudden realisation - consuming its remains I gained two Dungeon Points and a handful of mana. That was the use of the enormous prey creatures, by consuming and growing from food sources not of myself and being hunted by my other creatures, they too could be a source of Dungeon Points as well as a food source for larger predators.

More predators were not what I needed however. I created more gravid flies and a breeding pair of hedgehogs and loosed them in the the dusty entrance hall nevertheless. What I needed was resiliency, to give my subjects the tools they needed to be self sufficient. I had been thinking purely in terms of defence but after once more losing myself in the History it was clear I would need to ensure they could provide for more mundane needs. I yearned to experiment more, discover what would satisfy the terms of interment - would I need to inter a core each time or would it be possible to fulfill the conditions with a commemoration? Perhaps knowing a name and a story would be enough to unlock the next stage of the Vault and its history?

First though, I had more pressing concerns, questions that must be answered before any further steps could be taken. As the matrons finished gorging themselves on roasted hedgehog and fried cempedak I worked up my will to face hard truths and spoke to them.

"Matrons, I am sorry for abandoning your tribes to starvation. My absence was unanticipated and unavoidable. What happened to your missing goblins? Where...Matron Striker, what happened to Kelter?"