Comprehension slowly gleamed inside on my mind. Colors and jolts became sight and touch, the mind slowly becoming more aware. A momentary period of confusion settled over me as it always does before clarity and memories banished the waking lethargy of dormancy.
Taking a short moment to gather myself, not focusing on anything other than me and the room i reside in. A large room with uneven stone walls, as if something simply pulverized stone to remove it, and then subsequently forgot about it. The bareness and complete lack of light encouraging said theory.
A barren cave then. Well, if one were to ignore the giant pulsating rock covered organ, floating in mid air with tendrils of flesh connecting the sphere to the wall, with the rock marred with long dried blood.
Ah yes, the core.
Me.
A slab of meat with a rock covering dropped from the core to the ground, a splattering of dead blood momentarily flowing out from the wound before slowing it a mere trickle, snapped me out of my thoughts.
‘Well at-least the sensory suppressors work wonders.’, I thought with some amusement, ‘Let’s get back to keeping myself together.’
Swiftly grabbing a hold of the nearby loose rocks inside my room guided it towards the wound to cover it. The rock instantly became a slurry before moving according to my will, covering the wound, while also leaving minute cracks, holes and pathways to allow the blood to flow out if need be.
Quickly shifting my attention to my fallen flesh, i shifted the nearby sand to stone to create a bowl to make sure not to lose any blood, as old and dead as it might be.
I rather not waste the blood. It is after all good fertilizer for my scavengers.
Taking a deep mental breath and checking no other part of me is about to fall off, I shifted my sight through rock and smooth stone walls to the occasional metal encased room.
Looking inside the closest one, a moment of irrational fear solidified within my mind warning of the worst cast, i find it almost half filled with that precious substance.
Water.
Calm relief flowed through me as I felt safe once more. Making sure the rest of the numerous encased rooms also were of a similar level i could confirm that this period of dormancy were a short one. That or one of my numerous attempts to save waters actually managed to work, as unlikely as that was.
Finishing up internal checks I finally shifted my attention towards the outside. Creating a path upwards, solidifying a singular stone tunnel from the surrounding sand spiraling upwards with a staircase, I find what I always find.
Sand, noting but sand and sunlight.
Wishing once more of being able to see outside of my claimed area or at the very least be able to look to the sky I proceeded to start working on my simplest water harvesters. A simple box with metallic compounds capable of grabbing hold water in the air to later squeeze it out.
Idly grabbing some sand with a tendril in my room, after shifting a nearby stone wall and tossing the bowl containing the meat slab and blood out off the way, I start scooping up the sand into a mouth that split open from the shell and carefully siphoned my water ration, starting my meal for the day I silently chant my mantra.
‘I will survive. No matter what put me into this desert, no matter what happens to me. I. Will. Survive.’
If only to spite whomever is responsible for putting me here.
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After finally snapping out of the zen of making water harvesters, I reluctantly continued fixing my home. Placing the few water harvesters i had made on the surface, I started scanning the dungeon looking for any life-sign.
‘Alright, any recent life-sing.’ I thought exasperatedly as i found yet another room with skeletal remains aplenty.
‘It’s surprising how often i need to baby my defenders. I should at least have some of them survive more often, considering the modi-’ I froze as I took in one of the larger room ’Oh. I see...’
Resignation solidifying in myself, I discovered a room that looked like the remains of a fight, several dozens skeletons in various condition. Many of which had broken bones and shattered skulls. Of note was that the majority of said skeletons were that of a canine, ever so coinciding with the fact that my major modification project this time around were with a canine.
Joy.
‘I really should make something to be able to track whom started the conflict.’ grumbling quietly inside of my head as I continued to find more rooms with more of the same scene. ‘Then I might understand what I’m doing wrong. A head of skeletal remains won’t tell me if the modified ones were the aggressors. If they were there were probably some chemical reaction I managed to miss leading to a cascade failure.’
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Persisting in my search yet only find more and more skeletons, suddenly I grew suspicious. I haven’t found anything else but skeletons. No carcass, not even a skeleton with skin on it. Something must have stripped the the bones off everything.
Taking a moment to cross off creatures from my mental list I stumbled upon a possible answer. Swiftly skimming their usual feeding ground I found them.
A few scorpions feeding of the much diminished and old flesh growths. Scanning the surrounding area for burrows a few dozen more were found.
Proceeded to fix the feeding ground I was quite pleased, ‘At least I won’t be completely defenseless this time around. Always uncomfortable when that happens.’ Observing for a while I made sure to allow for different sizes of bulbs to more suit the bigger scorpions.
‘Good thing none of the modifications caused a total collapse this time’, observing a scorpion wide enough to require both hands to grab gleefully gunning for the largest of the rapidly growing flesh bulb. ’Hopefully they aren’t the only defenders that have survived.’ Focusing back in my room and deciding to send the lost part of the core over to the scorpions, relatively sure that at least some of them still had the scavenger modification, considering the skeletal remains that were seen. ’ Also...’, I wondered ’did they have some interesting mutation develop during this dormancy?’
Pondering for a moment, I decided against meticulously check the scorpions. That could wait until all the possible survivors have been found. Scorpions alone will have some trouble against heavily scaled or armored invaders.
Continuing flitting through the dungeon with my focus it was beginning to seem like there were grim odds against finding another surviving species. Nothing whatsoever. No creature, no intact feeding ground, no skeletal remains.
Halting for a second, I immediately sped up my search. While I didn’t have anything that could eat bones, there was that one curious little monster that could dispose of bones if it were to be starved.
Via pulverizing them, thoroughly.
Sending my focus spiraling through room after room looking for one particular sight I found it.
A innocuous pile of squared leather.
Excitedly I redirected nearby redundant safety tendrils inside of the rock to gather into a singular spot on the roof inside of the room. With a bit of focus, I transformed the bundle of tendrils into a singular large and elongated slab of meat. Holding the desire back of dropping it immediately i then focused on creating a bone inside of the slab and directed some of my blood to it.
After managing to creating a proper, if weak, bone I dropped the slab by severing a small layer of the stone it was anchored to.
Hitting the sand covered ground, a small quiver went through the pile. Before suddenly erupting in a furious charge towards the slab of meat. Lunging the pile of leather unfolded and swiftly engulfed the slab, bone breaking as soon as it was completely engulfed.
‘Ahh, yes. The engulfers. Or well whatever I shall call it when a proper name can be put to these strange creatures’, thinking as i joyfully watched the “leather“ proceed to tighten to dig the spontaneously appearing teeth dig into the flesh, then relax to pull away and shred flesh off the newly caught “prey” and subsuming it.
‘Still need to properly examine these things. It would be really helpful if I could spontaneously shift leather to teeth’, I joyously let my mind spiral. ’ Then again i would first need to shift from meat to leather. Eh, whatever. Let’s leave it to another time.’
Happy with the discovering of two surviving defenders and a tune automatically humming inside of my mind, I continued my search. Just because there usually only where one to none of my defenders that managed to survive my dormancy doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be more.
Coming across a second whit no living tendrils connected to it I reconnected it. Usually there were plenty of redundant tendrils to connect to sections, learned the hard way with those damned worms. Then again this time there wasn’t time to fully prepare this dormancy, could have just missed this section.
Another wandering question that flowed forth inside of my core was what exactly managed to rouse me from my sleep. Usually it was a lack of water, a invader or some sort of disturbance. Yet this time it seems like there was nothing.
Calmly growing some new tendrils to reconnect the section as soon as a connection were made I realized that why i had a connection to this section wasn’t something as mundane or simple as simple forgetful memory.
As soon as I got the first room into focus i realized that nearly the entire tendril system that was in place had been heavily damaged or destroyed by something. Focusing harder, I realized that most of the walls were either damaged with hundreds of stone splinters or simply collapsed fully.
The humming inside of the mind becoming instantly silent, I started replacing the area claiming tendrils as resourcefully as possible, preparing to get into a long period of attrition in case whatever did this still remained here.
After digging through multiple completely collapsed rooms my tendrils hit... glass.
Dedicating more resources to get a better picture faster of what this was I realized that it wasn’t just some smooth glass akin to a window. It was a uneven glass wall. Stretching wider than my home. Going all the way to the surface, and far below my dungeon.
A moment of hesitation dropped into my mind. Should I follow it down, spending water and possibly attracting worms to eat everything I invested into the investigation? Or should I assume that this was a meteorite and save it to after I have set up my full water production?
‘What an absurd notion’, contemptuously I scoffed at the hesitation. ‘If it’s a meteorite I can salvage most of the spent water by redirecting the tendrils used to explore to the totally damaged room and the worms are drawn to solid structures in the sand such as a giant glass wall. Some more tendrils will not make the problem worse then it already is.‘ Preparing for a great expenditure of water and effort I checked over my core once more.
Finding no immediate weaknesses in the rock covering and all organs inside fully operational, I proceeded to find the bottom of this glass wall.
‘Besides’, core heating up significantly as I started to claim and push through packed sand, rock and the occasional glass shard. ’If it isn’t a meteorite then i need to find out quickly. And deal, or at minimum prepare for it.’
A traitorous part of me chiming in to point out that it if any creature could do this then they could also simply vaporize my core.
Blood inside of the core being brought to a dangerous temperature as the scouting vein snaked its way ever deeper. I focused on it and pushed it as fast as I could, as if I could simply flee form the negative thoughts. Eventually I found it what i was looking for.
At nearly three times as deep as my lowest point of my home i finally found the bottom. Sending a message down to those depths at any kind of reasonable speed required plenty of energy, ever inching my blood and organs towards being cooked alive. Nevertheless the scouting vein did it’s job and I found what the disturbance was.
The good news was that it was a meteorite that made the tunnel. A sizeable one that could probably have smash all my defenses and my core in a single fell swoop. But it didn’t and it isn’t alive so no worries about being invaded due to it.
Yet.
Because the bad news was, as my core ever so helpfully and insistently informed me, that this meteorite is valuable.
Extremely valuable.
As in people will come from the other side of the globe to get a hold of a piece of this rock.
Every time I have gotten invaded by anything sapient they have been emaciated and used poorly maintained weapons and armor. Generally poor sods at the end of their rope as far as I could tell.
Now I’m about to receive well equipped and organized visitors with a want to stay a long period here. And look at that, a giant structure with meat, water and shelter with barely any defenders basically begging to utilized and exploited sitting right next to the giant rock.
‘Well then’, I thought slowly and dryly, plans forming on a bedrock of the grim determination, echoed by my mantra. ‘No matter what happens. I. Will. Survive.’