Chapter 6

Claiming four more Burrowers was easier than Tom had been expecting. There was only one in the first room, and between Klein and the gray Burrower, his animal companions swiftly subdued it. Unlike the Scout, the sentry continued to fight and squirm right up until Tom touched it’s scaly black underside and activated his ability to Claim it. Once he had, it stopped struggling and allowed him to customize it. This one he turned a dark red to distinguish it from the other.

The next room was more complicated, as there were three burrowers together. But working together with Sevin, Tom and Klein were able to separate one out from the pack long enough for Tom to claim it. They repeated the process with a second one, although this one left deep scratches on Tom’s forearm. When the final one was confronted, it tried to flee deeper into the Dungeon, but Gray cut it off long enough for Klein to wrestle it to the ground, allowing Tom to claim the last of them.

He bandaged his forearm before customizing them, turning one green, one dark blue, and the last one a dusky yellow before collapsing to the ground with only twelve mana remaining.

“You okay?” Sevin asked him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tom answered. “It’s just being low on mana. It gives me the shakes or something. It will go away in a few minutes, just let me get used to it.”

“Right. So did you get experience for capturing all of them?”

“Yeah, but not very much. My clunky system says I’ve gained twelve percent of the Experience I need for level two,” Tom answered. “So that’s, what, less than three percent for Claiming each of these buggers?”

“That’s not actually all that bad,” Sevin pointed out. “I was expecting to clear out a hundred of these things and only get to level five or six today. They’re only like level two, so they’re not worth a lot of experience. It’s only when they swarm that they’re dangerous, or if they somehow reach level ten. That’s why we cull this place twice a year, after all. There’s certainly no other reason to come here, except that it’s the closest dungeon to Tilluth Village.”

“It’s the only dungeon in the Valley,” Tom agreed. He stood and turned to his animal entourage. “Alright, your job is to make certain that Sevin here doesn’t get swarmed while he’s clearing out the dungeon,” Tom instructed. “Stay by his side and keep things from getting behind him.”

“You sure they understand you?” Sevin asked. Burrowers didn’t have a reputation for intelligence. “And for that matter, are you certain they’ll help against the rest of their nest?”

“I’m pretty certain they won’t attack either of us, or Klein. Aside from that I’m not really certain of anything, to be honest. It’s not like I’m controlling them with my mind or anything,” Tom answered.

“Right. Well, if it’s alright with you, I’m not going to rely on them overly much,” Sevin said, twirling his spear. “It would be nice if they could fight with me, but I’ve seen inside their skulls, and their brains are the size of peas. It’s not that I don’t think your ability to tame them is awesome, but they’re still a nuisance to the village and the rest of them have to die.”

“I’m certainly not going to stop you,” Tom assured him. “In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do. Come on, let’s go into the next room.”

The boys made steady progress through the dungeon. With his new class, Sevin was more than capable of slaughtering the Burrowers as long as there were less than five of them in a room. The few times that there were more than that, the colored burrowers proved their worth, diving into the fray and distracting their brethren long enough for Sevin to Dash between the mindless beasts and slaughter them in the confusion.

Klein, however, didn’t bother taking part in the melee, preferring to rest upon Tom’s shoulder as Sevin did most of the fighting. Tom, likewise, was not suited for direct combat. He did try stabbing one Burrower that Sevin immobilized for him, but received no experience for killing it. He was getting experience as they delved deeper into the dungeon, he noticed, but he wasn’t certain from what. Directly killing beasts seemed to be a bust for his new class, however, which was quite strange. Even his father, as a Weaver, would receive some experience for killing dungeon spawn. Not much, but not nothing.

In all, it took Sevin a little over two hours to completely clear the dungeon with Tom and his menagerie’s help. Tom had never been inside the dungeon before, but Sevin knew the way after having participated in the previous dungeon purge. The walls were lit by glittering stones. The stones themselves were useless, as they stopped shining the moment they were dug out of the walls, but they lit the way enough for the pair to navigate, and enough that the Burrowers had no shadows to hide in. When Sevin killed what he pronounced was the last Burrower, he took out a cloth and began cleaning the gore from his spear.

Tom, however, felt something deeper in the Dungeon. It was that thing that had been singing to him ever since he’d gotten his class, and it seemed to be coming from just the other side of the wall. Tom touched the wall that was blocking him off from the source, and to his surprise, he felt one of his skills reacting to the touch. He pushed Mana into Claim, and suddenly he was aware of the room in a way that he hadn’t been a moment before.

It wasn’t on the other side of the wall at all; his destination was part of the wall itself. One of the dungeon lights that was brighter than the rest. He touched that one, and a menu appeared before his eyes.

Core Name

Unnamed

Controller Options:

Claim

Level

4

Level

HP

9/9

Expand

Mana

621/621

Reduce

Territory

1.2 km^2

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Evolve

Floors

1

Summon

Inhabitants

0

Spawn

Experience

7.8*10^7/4351

Customize

“I found it,” Tom said.

“Found what?” Sevin answered.

“What I’ve been looking for. It was right here, in the deepest room of the dungeon,” Tom answered, and he chose to claim it.

It took more mana than he was expecting, but he felt the skill pop into place. Abruptly he could feel the dungeon. Not like it was a part of him, but like it was a set of clothes that he was wearing. It felt so comfortable that he realized he had been feeling naked without it.

He also felt better. The mana exhaustion symptoms had vanished, and when he checked his personal status he saw that he was back at full mana, despite knowing that he should still be below eighty. Less than that, considering that claiming the dungeon had felt like it had taken quite a bit to accomplish.

When he checked the core’s status again, he saw the cause; he had somehow siphoned off mana from the core to fill his reserves. Further, he could feel the core resonating with his skills. Operating more on instinct than anything else, he activated Customize to pull the shining core out of the wall, holding the precious bauble in his hands.

“It’s still glowing,” Sevin said in surprise.

“It’s not like the other crystals,” Tom explained. “I think it’s like the Core Stone in the village. Except that it’s for this dungeon.”

“Dungeons have Cores? Who knew,” Sevin muttered. He’d certainly never heard of that.

“It’s more than that. I think that the Core is alive,” Tom said, his voice a whisper, “and I can use my Skills on it.”

Tom pulled up his Spawn menu, and was unsurprised to find that Burrower and Burrower Scouts were now an option, highlighted in red. He spawned one, just to see what would happen, and the fully grown creature appeared on the ground beneath them.

“Holy crap,” Sevin exclaimed, dropping the cloth he was cleaning his spear with and preparing to lunge.

“Wait, it Spawned pre-Claimed. I own it, the same as the others,” Tom said, certain of his words.

“Warn me before you do that again,” Sevin muttered, going back to caring for his weapon. “So, you’ve got a fancy bauble. What else can you do with it.”

“Nothing for a while,” Tom admitted. Between refilling his own reserves and summoning the new Burrower – bringing the number of Burrower Minions he controlled up to six – he had almost completely depleted the Core’s Mana. Except of course, there was one option which shouldn’t require mana.

He chose to level the core, and it sprang from level four to level forty eight in an instant. He grinned. The core’s HP was now 53/53, and it’s Mana was 121/100,783, with the latter value ticking upwards very rapidly. It would only be a few moments before he’d have enough to Spawn a new Burrower, if that’s what he chose to do with it. However, he already knew what that option did, and leveling the core didn’t give him any new Spawn options to choose from.

Instead, he waited until he had five hundred mana to play with, and then he chose to evolve the gray burrower. It was cocooned in red light for a long moment, growing rapidly in size until it was the size of a horse. The evolved creature followed the same basic body plan, but its claws were much longer and sharper, and where its eyes had been were now tympanic membranes. It began clicking at regular intervals, and Tom realized that was how it was seeing the world around it.

“Dammit Tom, I said warn me before doing something like that!” Sevin said, jumping to his feet again and pointing his spear at the beast.

“Sorry, just experimenting,” Tom said, brushing off the complaint as he wondered what else he could do with this marvelous core.

“Tom, whatever you did to it, that’s a beast I’m not certain I can beat at level four,” Sevin said, having gained several levels during the course of the dungeon.

“It’s fine. It’s still under my control,” Tom assured him.

“Are you sure? What if it breaks free?”

“It won’t. But I guess that if it does, and it starts attacking us, that we should probably run,” Tom admitted. “I think it’s pretty high level.”

“It is. It’s a level forty-seven Burrower Enforcer,” Sevin said, using his new Class Skill to Analyze the creature for the first time. “How in Boniface’s name did you level it from level three to level forty-seven in an instant?”

“I don’t think I did. The core did,” Tom answered. “And it can do that now because it’s level forty-eight. It was only level four before I Leveled it.”

Sevin turned to his friend, unused to being the voice of reason. “Tom, I think maybe we should stop playing around with your abilities for a while and get back to town. We don’t know if you’ll be in control of these beasts forever, or if it will wear off in a while. Having a level forty-seven beast in the valley is already scary enough, I don’t think we should change anything else.”

“It’s fine, Sevin,” Tom said. “Don’t worry, I won’t evolve any more of them. Or you or Klein either; I have a feeling that doing that to either of you with this core is a bad idea. Just let me mess around with it for a while longer and then you can head home.”

Sevin frowned, but didn’t think he could convince his friend to set down his new toy. He was regretting bringing Tom into the dungeon now, and doubly regretting doing so without telling anyone where they were going. If Tom did Spawn some sort of horrible monstrosity that killed them both, he’d like his parents to at least know where to find the bodies. If anyone was brave enough to recover their fool corpses.

And that was assuming that the Militia could put down whatever horror Tom Spawned next. If Tom managed to spawn a Dragon, that could chase everyone out of the valley until the king sent a subjugation force. And there were other monsters just as terrible and fiercesome. Sevin was suddenly regretting the life choices which had led him to this moment.

Yet something was preventing him from just snatching the Core out of Tom’s hands. Surely he could do that; as a Warrior, he was far stronger and faster than Tom. He could probably do it without even hurting the younger boy. Part of him just refused to accept how dangerous the forces that Tom was playing around with really were.

If Sevin was reluctant to grasp the reality of the situation, Tom was completely heedless of the gravity of his actions. The Burrower Enforcer he had just summoned was of a level that would take the entire Militia working together to put down, and even then there might be injuries and casualties. Without much concern, Tom continued experimenting with his other Skills.

Expand and Reduce were a paired set, and they were both equally boring. Expand increased the Core’s Territory while reducing its maximum Mana. Reduce did the exact opposite. However, as he played with them, he also noticed that increasing the Dungeon’s territory significantly also increased the rate at which mana regenerated, effectively offsetting the lowered ceiling. Once he reached the point where his Core was regenerating ten mana every second or so, he stopped expanding and simply waited. The core’s maximum mana was down from over one hundred thousand to around twelve thousand, but that was fine. Once it was about halfway full, he elected to Evolve the Dungeon Core, pouring the Core’s own mana back into it at a prodigious rate. When he reached a certain point, a pair of images flashed in his mind. One of a stone with an eye in the center of it, and another of a winged serpeant. Recognizing the latter as the Kertalcotxl, a very dangerous and poisonous flying preditor, he quickly selected the rock-eyeball.

Even he didn’t want flying snakes roaming his backyard.

Curious as to the nature of the rockbeasts, he promptly Spawned one, giving Sevin another start.

“That’s a damned level ten Rockspider,” Sevin announced, grabbing his spear again. “Let me guess, you’re Controlling it too.”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “I think this dungeon is going to start spawning them in the future.”

“Whatever you do, Tom, do not evolve that spider ! Those things are fast and tough as it is, I don’t want to imagine what a level fifty one would be like,” Sevin warned.

“I wasn’t going to,” Tom lied. He was growing a little annoyed with Sevin constantly jumping at shadows and yelping in his ears whenever Tom figured out a new aspect of his Skills. He was, after all, completely in Control of the situation.

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