First things first, don't touch anything.

Zenya goes through her companion logs, noting the coherence of the dungeon upon first meeting, the stipulations of the contract, how the binding is attached to the core, not to another tether, and initial impressions. While they do they get a message that the core has gone to the store.

Get back here! What did I just say?

Zenya sends a retrieve command to bring the core's sentience back into its shell.

A wave of righteous indignation and Zenya has an epiphany.

I'm not trying to restrict you. There are things that need to be done to ensure you don't harm yourself the way you did before. There's a way for you to know how much energy you have, how to augment it, your current status, how close you are to evolving, access to the outside, your insides, a count and status of all of the things you've summoned, created, or unlocked. So much that you didn't have and you killed yourself for lack of information.

Killed myself?

Kimlxik did you no favors. But there are things you should have been given. For one...

Zenya knows Henla can hear their surface thoughts but Henla should be able to access them the way they can access her. They approve the connection. The restrictions are different but they are linked. Companion and core are linked until death or extenuating circumstances. What Kimlxik did was concerning on so many levels. The fact that they managed to distance themselves. How did they manage to bypass the system to access the core on such a deep level where they could command and harm the very soul of the core. Without consequence.

Punishment. There are consequences. I hope the punishments match what they've done. The system's in place are supposed to connect our spirits together so that you don't get a free pass to terrorize someone for the rest of your life.

If he didn't believe you/I had a soul, why didn't he do the binding?

So that he could reset me/you.

We hurt.

Add-ons?

Let me show you.

Zenya gives an energy spend limit, 50 below Henla's max energy count, so that she doesn't burn herself out. Warnings when she's at 100 energy. She's limited to Rank D and lower item unlocks until she levels up. Henla can request add-ons. Henla can contact Zenya directly. At any time. Zenya will be staying in the dungeon most of the time and would like a residence, no, it doesn't have to float in the sky.

Henla giggles but still wants Zenya to make a note of either a hanging home or a tree home. Zenya wonders where Henla got the idea then feels something grab the back of her head. Not maliciously, playfully. And then remembers that Henla has access to her memories. And does remember a time when they wanted to visit an air village. Mayhaps they can learn --

--and invite--

--some architects to visit.

Hey!

Request!

Fine.

Shop now?

Not yet.

Zenya sets up an internal clock that is synced to the time of the area the portal will be at. If that portal goes offline or online, they'll receive a notification. If the portal is not available, the default will be synced to --

--Companion College--

Stop that.

Zenya fights a smile.

Okay, this is handy.

Henla starts digging through Zenya's memories since they don't have direct access. Zenya doesn't feel anything and then feels phantom hands pressing down on their head. Zenya snorts and double checks Henla's current point count.

Why do you have 5000 --

Pain. Hate. Pain. Death. Pain. Hate. Death.

-- got it.

So... Change min to 200 points. How big are you right now?

Dunno.

Okay. Wait. How did you find the store?

Dunno.

Zenya sees that they haven't set permissions and access yet and the store Henla had accessed wasn't the dungeon store called Core Haven. The Log isn't showing that it was the companion add-on store. Into the Log... World Builder? Zenya's contrast grows and they feel a wordless dread.

Spatial access is restricted but I think they're leaving me in a separate area. We're not starting another dungeon. We're starting a new world. A haven. That was my request, it was granted, then taken. We have it back. Do infrastructure-y things.

Zenya blinks. This is not what they understand. They know environments. They were best at integrating and restructuring dungeons to match their surroundings. Crafting a city took way more information to do it properly.

Then let's craft an environment. I attempted to create a sustainable habitat after choosing my inhabitants. Let's not do that.

Sighing Zenya knows that they still have to go through all of the previous logs. They won't hear back on their request to gain access to the reports Kimlxik sent for some time, but they have plenty of work to do while they wait. So environments. They'll want to avoid stagnant water, they will need a moving body of water, and any large bodies of water they create will need to feed out and be fed into. There's a portal glyph that they can use. The best builds are built on a solid foundation. Is there bedrock or a matrix below all of this?

Sedimentary rock and a matrix and void?

We'll need bedrock. Then we can sculpt varying layers of igneous rock on top of that. Depending on how big you get we can branch out and simulate pockets of crusts from various worlds, but lets start with a basic carbon world setup, as a starter. So how deep can you go?

Two hundred meters down then you hit void.

That's a lot to work with. How high up do you go?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Two hundred meters up then you hit void.

Zenya smiles at the playful tone of the response. Why so high up?

Floating house?

Later. So from 200 down to 100-199 up we'll have bedrock. We'll split that in alternating zones between igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. There's no knowing which will be favored by your inhabitants and the various adventures, so they'll be spread and swirled out across the entirety of the zone. We'll have dips and levels. We can set up an aquifer, a lake and a river, and have the river cycling across the area, terminating in a portal that feeds back into the lake. We'll put the aquifer in porous rock to help filter anything going in and out, then we'll feed that into the river.

Zenya feels Henla wondering when they'll get around to building cities and realizes that Henla was pushing itself far too hard due a misunderstanding. We're not a city. We're not a kingdom or a country. We're a world. The inhabitants will build their geopolitical zones with some influence from they way we lay the land. But that's all we're doing. Laying out the land. Feelings of dread and underlying regret that Zenya dismisses with a wave. We'll still be able to punish and reward. Crops, trinkets, fertility, barrenness, natural treasures, springs, and boogeys. You can still give them a reason to fear and reward them appropriately. Pushing out a sense of calm Zenya continues preplanning.

Are we still going with pushing for a magical rainforest setting? If so we're going to need some bigger trees and an environment that will sustain them and any inhabitants. Zenya checks and sees that from 200m to 190m is all packed soil before loosening up into topsoil. Instead of just destroying that they could do a hot swap and replace it with bedrock and keep all that soil for converting and other projects. Would it be cheaper to convert the soil itself, adding filler as necessary, or just buy the needed bedrock? Straight conversion would heavily deplete the available aether but so would a controlled conversion with materials generated to make up the mass... Swapping cubic meters would be cheaper than attempting to convert one material to another or taking out the previous material and filling the space with a created different material.

The soil is dense and very rich, converting cubic meters would result in a net gain of credits. For every cubic meter they downgrade to basic bedrock they'll be able to purchase two cubic meters of bedrock, scoop out two cubic meters of fertile soil and use the purchased bedrock to fill the space. There are many types of world trees and if they deplete the aether too deeply in one area they can use a different world tree type.

World trees?

Not "base of a world" world tree, more like large tree people can live in world tree. We can go with sentient world trees. They'll be able to manipulate the environment, there will be a range of minds and personalities, and they can choose who lives or bonds with them. Zenya tempers the surging excitement with practicalities. They'll be expensive. We can maybe afford one and have it propagate the area, or we can purchase saplings, but then we'll have to nurture them.

That expensive?

They're world sentients. Similar to tower dungeons. Whereas you're a broad and tall world dungeon you were previously a tower dungeon. A delve variety. We'll be able to afford one because the rest of your credits will have to go towards rebuilding this world. We'll make a profit on swapping and replacing soil for bedrock, but we'll still need to create food sources, water sources, weather patterns, day night cycles, abnormal cycles and patterns, resource nodes, emergency countermeasures in case any of the systems fail...

But first soil for bedrock, purchase more bedrock, take as much soil as you have bedrock and fill the space with purchased bedrock. Repeat that evenly for the bottom most 100 meters. If you have any questions let me know. I'll begin work on water and microbes while you're doing that. Got it.

Starting now.

Henla, instead of going through the tedious and laborious process of removing purchasing two square meters of sedimentary rock, igneous rock, or metamorphic rock, downgrading a square meter of rich, fertile soil then digging out and refilling two square meters of rich fertile soil opts to dig out 200 meters wide and 100 meters high of fertile soil, gaining herself 6283 points at 3 points for every 20 units. Instead of the world collapsing on the hollow it is instead filled with void. Some emergency alert Zenya set up lets her know that the void will eat more energy than she has to sustain it for every minute it exists. She promptly sells 1/3 of the soil she's dug up, 41887 units for 20 credits per unit of rich fertile soil, and gains a credit of 837,740 that she pushes to buy 41877 units each of metamorphic rock for 9 credits each unit totalling 376,983 credits, igneous rock for 5 credits per unit for 209,435 credits, and sedimentary rock for 3 credits per unit totalling 125,661 credits each. She alternates dumping 1396 units of each in random segments, piled in or around each other in ribbons and layers, some vertical, some horizontal, creating a mishmash of rock layers that clear up the void.

Unfortunately the process isn't instant and she ends up wasting 5 minutes at 5000 credits a minute as a penalty to not deplete her aether, costing her 25000 credits. She's now at a total of 124,510 credits available to spend. Deciding to be forthcoming she gently taps at Zenya who expected more time to create a natural water table for the environment.

I messed up. I didn't know how much having excess void would cost. There are only 124,510 credits available at a loss of 25000.

What did you do? Alarms flare in Zenya's subconscious as they actively check the logs. They'd set up alerts for Henla, which Henla promptly ignored, and forgot to link the alarms to themselves so that they could keep an eye on their wayward core. Henla had done too much. Again. So quickly. Zenya is torn between dread, awe, and horror as they scroll through the log and it just keeps scrolling.

"I stopped watching you for less than ten minutes?!" Zenya shrieks, horrified at the implications. "Voids and Fractals, what have you done!"

Where is your Energy Counter, Zenya demands, digging through the Database. They're stunned to see that Henla has 2500 energy. That's B Tier energy point levels. What's the energy regen rate? One thousand energy per minute? That doesn't make sense? Why is the energy cost 1 energy for 100 points spent? Zenya goes into Henla's attributes and sees that she's got "Indomitable Spirit" as a trait. But that's for flesh and blood champions. Wait, is Henla a Champion Core? This is way out of their league. This is the kind of job you work up to. Oh, no. Zenya sinks to the ground, rolling onto their back, tentacles and spines shifting until they're supported on a natural network of braces as they try to calm themselves.

Giving up on any semblance of sanity Zenya idly flicks through the Database and Henla's recent logs. Points earned: 856589. From what? Digging: 3 points per unit for 125,663.71 units. When?! When she said starting? This is what she meant? Zenya groans, dismissing the Log and Database with a sigh. Nope. Gotta stay on top of this. Zenya groans louder while reopening the Log and Database. Fertile Soil[Rich], 41887 units sold at 20 credits per unit for 837,740 points. Okay... There's nothing about conversion. Where'd the bedrock come from? Energy conversion? The menace spent over 7559 energy in less than ten minutes to dig and fill an area of 125,664 meters. Zenya rolls onto their side, then onto their stomach before gently headbutting the ground over and over.

Zenya lies, face resting against the soil and detritus, head pounding although they sustained no physical damage and wonder whether this is a blessing or not. Coming to the conclusion that it's just out of their paygrade they dig back into the database to find out what Henla meant by a void penalty. It cost 5000 energy per minute to sustain a massive void. And Henla had dumped credits to purchase the energy needed to sustain themselves long enough to finish the work, direct Zenya's attention to it, and now she's just waiting.

For future reference this work tends to take months or years to do. Not minutes. Zenya closes their eyes, trying to curb their anger. They're angry at the pointless risks the core is taking but they also understand that the core doesn't know how these things work. Usually there's a bit of a learning period with their companion as they figure each other out and what options they have available to them. That's for sane cores that just wake up and look at their work as a job. Henla had gone mad. Repeatedly. Faced resets and setbacks. Over and over and over. Zenya understands why Henla is in a mad sprint to attempt to accomplish her goals but doesn't know how to get Henla to understand that that period of her life is over. She can work now. She has time. She has help.

Now they're at a deficit of 30k energy and down 25000 points and the only reason Henla isn't here to defend herself is because she's been down for the last 20 minutes Zenya has been reviewing logs and literally banging her head into the ground. There's a 5 minute emergency grace period, a final flare, where a core can send out a beacon with all of the information it has compiled for Watchers to review. Apparently Henla had just used that period to recover enough energy that she wasn't at 10x her max energy down. And why is her death set at 10x max energy?! Indomitable is not an S Tier skill. Leastwise it shouldn't be. Another note. Henla's Death Max is based on her Death Counter. At a max of 10 deaths. Zenya considers getting counseling after she finishes for the day.

A 30k energy deficit fixed in ten minutes mitigated by an Energy Regen Rate of 1000/min. Well, Zenya has less than five minutes now to set up new checks, balances, alerts and come up with an explanation Henla will understand about why she can't keep doing this and why she no longer has to. Zenya sighs. Better get started.