The echoes of my prior mistakes remained fresh, not yet faded from the world. The very least I could do was learn my lessons or my existence would be short indeed. All that Leshalinod had done, that great work that became my Guide would be for nought if I continued my infantile foolishness. The ego of a Dungeon is vast, it caused me near physical pain to admit to myself that I had made mistakes, been suboptimal, failed to meet my own standards. It caused me greater pain still to wrestle with the thought that I was still young, inexperienced and prone to more errors.
The natural reaction was to simply reject it. It was not I that was mistaken, my actions that were wrong, it was the universe. I should go on as I willed, I was a Dungeon, an entity with the power of a demigod. I could rewrite reality to my whim within the borders of myself, create matter from mere mana at the barest sliver of what it would cost a mere mortal wizard. I could create life and life I would soon create; a miracle unequalled by any being, the sole purview of Dungeons and the vagrant forces of Creation. Even that a Dungeon surpassed, for our creations were designed with intelligence and forethought; not simple random iteration culminating in a slightly different amoeba.
Perhaps I would have rejected it, compounded error with error and charged headlong and defiant to cast myself against the world. I did not.
I had experienced in intimate detail the patience of a craftsdwarf, surely a master of his craft. I remembered the tiny adjustments of movement and action learned over decades, the shape of the thoughts of a careful being, of the processes that formed those thoughts. I felt the sadness of a Dungeon ancient in the span of life and death, a mournful conviction that had held firm and true to it's melancholy purpose. For both my influences there were surely easier paths to walk but they had persevered. They had faced their own pride and conceit and defeated them.
I would permit myself to do no less. My vanity was irrelevant.
I forced myself to spend a full ten seconds doing nothing but allowing my mana to regenerate and taking in my surroundings, making my action a decision to inaction. To this day I genuinely believe they may have been the longest ten seconds of my life. Overcoming one's instincts is no easy task for any being and I allowed myself a sense of grim satisfaction. My patience was new, unpracticed, but I had it and could now begin.
First I opened my stats screen again, my mana sitting comfortably at 32.8, and began to examine my traits. My most grievous mistakes had been through ignorance, making any action without thinking through all the information available to me would be inviting repetition.
Congratulations, you have gained the trait Voracious Innominate!
Achieving dominion of a second floor before even gaining your Name is no small feat.
To aid in your digestion, you may now attempt to claim entire floors rather than room by room. If you succeed, you may deploy up to one preprepared trap per conquered room instantly, to a maximum of your dungeon level.
Congratulations, you have gained the trait Heir In The Cradle!
Achieving dominion of a Named Location before gaining your Name is an undertaking almost unprecedented.
Do not believe the circumstances of your birth mark you as truly special, intrinsically better than your peers. Nevertheless, your unique circumstance allows you to ignore the mana upkeep of Named Locations you conquer.
My first two traits were powerful boons, rewarding me for rare achievements but they struck me as strange. My nearly unique achievement seemed far less potent. Ignoring mana costs was certainly useful and would prevent a new Dungeon from accidentally permanently draining itself of mana but...that was all? No new abilities? A Dungeon rarely had the opportunity to claim territory, nevermind Named Locations, though the free upkeep would benefit it greatly if there were many to be claimed. In my circumstance it was possible it would become extraordinarily useful but it still seemed strange. Especially the admonition that I was lucky, not special. My ego roared at that, determined to prove the little green placard wrong.
I wrestled down the urge to act, to surge forth and prove my power and uniqueness by claiming the Warlord's cavern. The memory of caution was still in my mind, the careful and meticulousness of Leshalinod's gift, my determination to surpass myself. I forcibly reminded myself I still had not created a single minion or trap, I was in practice a single room. My floors and rooms outside my core were shattered and rent, empty and desolate. My time would come but it was not now.
I was young, immense pride and ego wounded and furious to be rebuked, to be not special. To have it said to me that I was simply lucky. It was right of course, I knew in some sullen recess of my mind which only stoked the flames of my anger higher. Outraged, I missed the trap.
Fuming and spiteful, I read the last trait.
Congratulations, you have gained the trait Dungeon Archivist!
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You gain the unique Location Tasglann Nilavarai, The Chronicle Vault.
Tasglann Nilavarai, The Chronicle Vault
Conditions: The Vault must contain the History of Dungeons.
The Vault must commemorate Dungeons.
The Vault must contain the Core Chamber.
Effect: The Vault will allow Conservator minions to chronicle Dungeons.
It was...surprisingly plain. No description of how I had earned it, no verbosity, no sense of the personal. A pair of simple notifications, no more or less. However understated it rocked me, my core literally wobbling on it's plinth. So shocking was the revelation that I almost didn't notice the discomfort of movement. The Vault will allow Conservator minions to chronicle Dungeons. Such unadorned words conveying so much. So long as I met the conditions, the Vault would allow me to assign minions to it and chronicle Dungeons. Myself and others. The History of Dungeons was clearly my Guide, though it's true Name eluded me, I had all I needed but minions to begin this task. Such effortless words, giving me everything I wanted.
It contrasted heavily with my Geas, a flowery and loquacious edict.
Dungeon Conservator
Chosen are you, O curious core, to a most puissant destiny.
To you is gifted a repository, Stolen from Time, of lost lore best forsaken.
Guard it well, you inquisitive stone,
Make whole the chronicle and derive it's fate.
A geas is a mystical force, a driving requirement, a prophecy of compulsion. It does not foretell a result so much as it foretells the actions that will be taken or forbidden. Yet I still found myself wondering, as I pondered the words, that if the geas had been written in the same manner as the paired trait if it would not simply read "You must protect, repair and evolve the History of Dungeons." Stolen from Time...now there lay interesting implications. How literal was this theft? Had I attracted as an enemy the very entropy of creation? Best left foresaken...by what metric?
I spent several seconds in thought, musing upon my geas, attempting to map out it's vagaries. There was a context beyond the simple instruction, context that I simply lacked. Still, it commanded me to do no different than I had already intended. I craved the secrets in that broken serpentine, I hungered for it, like prickling fingers of need within my mind. Fulfilling my destiny would be no onerous task for me, I held no delusions even in my youthful naivety that it would be fulfilled easily but I would never have dreamed of fighting against it.
Resolved, I turned at last to my Schema, to Goblins. I reveled in it's wealth of information, delved down branching paths of incarnation and evolution. This is what was lost to the mortal mind when it came to schema, these glorious manuals to a species. I did not simply have the ability to make a goblin, I had the choice of creating a Goblin. Think of a schema like a simple blueprint. From that blueprint the intelligent mind can choose either to simply reproduce or to develop the idea further.
I first focused on intellect. Thousands of sub-species and variants fell away at once, an infinite spectrum collapsed to an observable selection. Hundreds remained, bright gleaming roots expanding into long, forked branches of distant descendants. Those closest and most prominent in my mind's eye were closest, in Time and Space. Species native to this continent, at this time, further away were extinct forms, tribes from other continents. Intelligence though was not enough.
Next I demanded ambition. I needed driven subjects, neither craven beast or dull automaton. My minions must be worthy of not simply serving me but of my purpose, of this place I was born to. They must have their own desires, their own purposes, in order to benefit from my aura of innovation and inspiration. More branches and roots pruned away, those evolutionary trees existing as a mental afterimage for a moment before the light beneath shone through.
I was not simply a laboratory however, I was a Bastion of Artifice and a bastion needs a garrison. Fewer lights winked out this time, it is a rare sapient species with no predilection for violence after all. I refined my requirement, not simple capacity for bloodshed but for discipline, organisation, for soldiers rather than warriors. The most drastic reduction yet, every tree close to me tumbling into the darkness.
Now I demanded industry, pleased to see so few trees shorn. Mere affinity for tools would not suffice, my guards would need armed and armoured, my halls would need traps, my Vault protected by every method. Innovation would require more material than I could process alone, my minions must be capable of extracting and refining their own materials, of reproducing discoveries and repeating experiments. My choice lay in the dozens now, dim in their distance from me. A few more disappeared for I required writing, a tribe of librarians as well as soldiers and smiths.
I pulled those disparate elements towards me, examining each in turn. Some few were from distant lands and times. Most lay behind a veil - each different, peering behind them varied in difficulty and effort. These did not come from this world but from others, the Creation upon which they resided different to my own. I suspect if a mortal were to gain a Schema they would never discover this use but I am a Dungeon, composed of stone and I share my makeup with the most basic and immutable elements of all Creations with an intimacy the biological are simply too distant from. Through that base commonality I could perceive those distant creatures, the veil in truth the differences in composition between this Creation and That. Choosing from these extradimensional Goblins would require making changes to their makeup to adjust them to the atmosphere, gravity, diseases and other forces of this plane. I examined the remaining choices in turn, the selection reduced now to a point where further requirements were less efficient than simple inspection. I divided my focus between the eighty five remaining trees, examining each branch in turn. At this level of depth, I could intake not simply their physical makeup but their culture, the societal rules that became integral over generations.
I settled upon a branch of a tree from a Creation that tasted of conflict and balance, of knife edges and fulcrums. Fate ran heavy there but somehow freer than in my own. Dichotomy and juxtaposition...I took hold of the branch, the Rock Breaker tribe, examining it with my entire attention and comparing with the eighty four others until I was satisfied before forming a copy. I studied the veil, resolving each difference in turn, scrupulously studying my creation with every adaptation. I had chosen carefully and for specific reason, my changes must allow the chosen whole to exist in this Creation and no more, not combine to change that whole any more than utterly necessary. Satisfied at last, I inspected my design a final time, and gathered my mana to summon the first of my tribe.
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FUCK...FUCK...FUCK...
The word reverberated through the stone, carried far from where it was spoken. Antennae twitched, twin stalks divining a source, feet like needles skittering into motion.