This was going to take, in polite terms, fucking forever.

I was swirling below the entrance to the Underlake, the wide tunnel that led out to the farther cove. All my previous floors had been fed by the mountain river, though given some amount of salt so that my mangroves would keep their resistance and I could welcome ocean creatures within. They still tended to die, but when I remade them, I was able to nudge their abilities here and there until they could survive.

But this coral reef would be purely saltwater, fresh from the source, and that meant I needed to pull water from a different place.

And. Ah.

I was also somewhat concerned about draining the mountain river; I did my best to have an overflow, excess water going back into the river so I never flooded, using my mana to keep it fresh and aerated rather than rely on a constant cycle. But this coral reef floor was utterly massive, much larger than my previous aquatic floors by several orders of magnitude, as I didn't want to rely on only a river.

Maybe in the future I could find a way to easily purify saltwater and feed my future freshwater floors by the cove as well; I was a little less concerned about the ocean running out of water.

But in order to fill my sixth floor, that meant I needed to open a further hole in my floor.

I had bored a tunnel up around my other two floors, strengthening its walls with quartz and iron so they wouldn't erode, and guided it on a twisting path up to the cove. Technically, I had secured my cove entrance so that I blocked all water from coming in, avoiding the salt for my more delicate creatures.

But I could bore in that tiny gap between openings and bring the water down to my sixth. I'd kept the tunnel only about a foot in diameter, because I was absolutely not risking anything larger than a fish managing to make its way to my undefended floor, but that would also mean that it would take nigh-on centuries to fill.

Alas. The struggles I must make for safety.

My sixth floor was as finished as I was going to make it—there were only so many walls to smooth and sandbeds to adjust before I knew I was just being pedantic, wasting time with minute details. I wasn't sure why I was wasting time, really; wasn't I excited to finally have another aquatic floor?

I was, truly. But I was also rather concerned about failing to live up to the unrealistic expectations I'd built up in my mind. When it was only stone, it was much easier to just imagine.

I bared intangible fangs and flared my wings. No. I was no little hatchling still teething at the eggshell, hesitant to escape into the wider world; this was my floor, in my dungeon, and I would construct it as I liked.

And with that, I bored the final stretch of tunnel free.

Saltwater splashed down, making an odd sort of gurgle as the air bubbled outward; I raced alongside it with many points of awareness, very unwilling to let anything go wrong. I'd even littered several pockets of rubies throughout the tunnel, feeding them a breath of mana so that they heated the water that rushed over them. Coral reefs tended to have warm water, being so shallow and in direct sunlight, and since mine was deeper I doubted my quartz-lights could light it to the level I wanted. Thus, rubies.

Although it was irritating to have to actively feed the rubies. I'd gotten quite used to letting jewels just sit in my halls, filling themselves with my ambient mana to be used as batteries for later, rather than actually using any of the mana they were surrounded by.

Warm water came first. I'd find a more mana-efficient method later.

But for now, I watched greedily as the first stream of water splashed into my sixth floor.

Quartz-white sand stirred as crystalline blue waters poured through the first room, splashing over the various plateaus I'd scattered throughout the first room; barely a trickle, hardly evening stirring the sand. It had fifty feet to rise in this room alone, over two thousand feet long, and that was before the second room in all its enormity. Two hundred feet deep there, five hundred in the third room–

I watched the tiny trickle of water splash into the room. Hrm.

If it wasn't full in a week, safety be damned, I was widening the tunnel.

But for now I merely littered hundreds of points of awareness throughout the sixth floor, watching the progress so that it didn't disturb anything. Saltwater could be more corrosive and while I was relatively assured in the strength of my granite, I was not going to risk it boring through one of the bases of my barrier reef as it poured through.

In the end, however, I just had to wait for it to fill.

I hated waiting.

So upward I flew, darting back throughout my various floors; Nicau continued taking care of the kobolds alongside the healer who was steadily climbing her way towards evolution. It seemed like suddenly losing all previous healers as they evolved into shamans put quite the power on her shoulders, though she was still stepping up to the task. Nicau had found a new use for his blessing; by commanding injured kobolds to sleep, they would pass out nearly immediately as long as they weren't fighting him. It looked like he could only command them to do things they could already do, such as stop, sleep, or move; not like he could just yell heal! at them and have their wounds magically disappear.

Maybe one day. I had hope that his and Seros' blessings would only improve over time.

The rest of my creatures continued to evolve, some so close I could practically taste it; the kobolds in particular, glints of scales visible under the glow of mana. I was deeply excited to see where they ended up. The midnight cave bear as well was close, even the new horned serpent beneath starting to solidify; but not yet, unfortunately.

Ah well. It wasn't like I wasn't waiting for all other sorts of things.

But for now, I darted through my higher floors, peering in at my other creatures. My five silver kraits had evolved over the past day and now not so much floundered but swam through the Underlake, curling around the bloodline kelp and peering out at prey now open for them to consume. I would be giving them the option of coming down to the sixth floor; while proper sea snakes or moray eels would be better for a coral reef, they would find plenty of brilliant opportunities in the twisting paths of that floor, if the richer mana wasn't reward enough.

Doubtless some would stay in the Underlake, which I was fine with. They were monsters there, and served as inspiration for luminous constrictors on higher floors. But I wanted at least a few down there.

I wasn't much interested in silverheads, though. They had their place, but they were lazy, straightforward creatures who preferred brutish tactics that simply couldn't be allowed in my delicate coral reef. Silvertooths maybe, when under the control of the royal silvertooth, but their base evolution wouldn't be allowed.

Besides, they were such a boring silver, and freshwater creatures to boot. This was a saltwater floor, thank you kindly.

But speaking of freshwater creatures—there was one that I wanted to try.

I was only partially a hypocrite.

For up on my second floor, deep in the canals of the Drowned Forest, some of my oldest creatures hadn't reached the point of evolution. They'd been trying, but while I had set them up as perfect traps, that didn't guarantee the sort of consistent combat that evolution required.

The lichenridge snapping turtles.

They sat on the towers I'd sculpted for them, only their broad, moss-covered backs emerging from the water, mixed in with other fake stepping stones. A perfect trap, one that many invaders had fallen to already, but ultimately a stagnant one. They only fed on what happened to swim by their mouths.

I wouldn't remove them entirely, because it was such a wonderful trap, but for the largest, I would offer them a way down to the sixth floor. Coral reefs often had enormous sea turtles, proud and intelligent, serving as guardians for the surrounding kelp and coral. Lesser fools might have mentioned that they weren't particularly combative creatures, built for defense and slower swimming, but anyone who had ever seen a proper sea turtle understood why I wanted them so badly. They were magnificent creatures, capable of growing older than stars, with a wisdom and mysticism beyond mortals.

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Presumably not with one simple evolution, but in the far future, I could see the great heights they could reach.

And I wanted it.

So yes, I would be offering to bring them down to the sixth floor. They could live in the lagoon in the beginning, still mostly relying on air to breathe, but just like I believed the kobolds would soon abandon their primitive fire-drake pasts, the time spent in the water would quickly aid their evolution.

Just as I imagined. Hopefully.

As I had learned being the core of a dungeon, it was hard to plan for anything.

But onward I flew through my dungeon, noting particular creatures that I would bring down; greater pigeons for the atoll, sturgeons if they wanted to venture below, mangroves to hold the sand together. All lovely creatures, truly; I darted through the Underlake once more, peering at the silverheads. Would I want them as bait, maybe? To feed the roughwater sharks?

Most of the schools were smaller now, fenced in by silvertooths, sharks, and greater crabs, but perhaps I could overlook their more plain, basic features in return for the food source they would provide. Even the coral would need to be fed, as soon as I figured out what capturing coral meant for its food supply, and silverheads were numerous beasts. Maybe–

That…

I paused.

That wasn't a silverhead.

It certainly wanted me to think so, tucked merrily within a silverhead school like it belonged. But where the silverheads were some half foot long and relatively bulky, built for ramming, this little fake was much sleeker, nearly a foot long with wider fins.

And it wasn't quite silver.

It was trying to be, and even as I watched, it cycled through several shades of grey-silver, its scales flickering through various colours. Confused by shadow, I thought; it kept trying to match the surrounding silverheads, but as the school swam through various rippled waves and algae-light, the little invader couldn't keep up.

There was a sort of intelligence in its eyes, though. Smart enough to know that its disguise wasn't perfect, cycling through as many minute changes as it could manage, and it had adopted the lazy, unbothered swimming pattern of the silverheads around it instead of the faster movements its fins were made for.

Still a fish, mind you, but certainly a step up above my other creatures.

Which was worrying.

I had no idea how long this thing had been in my dungeon; I had only noticed it because I was actively looking through my creatures for those I wanted to bring down a floor, so I was scanning everything on the third floor. If I had kept to my typical passive awareness, it might have been forever until I noticed it.

Rhoborh's boon was too blessedly useful for sensing invaders; and it wasn't like I could exactly train my Underlake to spot invaders with the same level of accuracy. So if this fish had been a little more intelligent, a little more ambitious, it could have eaten its way through my Underlake before I had noticed.

Which. Again.

Worrying.

I would be nipping this in the bud before I could promptly get even more worried.

At the summoning cry of my mana, the silverhead school spun on the invader; on the multiple invaders, holy shit. Hidden within the near hundred silverheads, there were nearly five of this strange new fish tucked in the bunch; but without being dungeonborn, they couldn't hear my commands, and thus didn't know what I was telling the school they were hiding in to do.

Which was to pummel them to death.

The silverheads, always up for a little wanton violence, obliged.

The invaders saw that things were going a little south for them and darted away with speed even I found surprising; but they were buried in the center of large schools and thus could only get so far away. One of them was slammed into from above, the silverhead's plated skull making something cracked; two more came in from the sides, ganging up on every invader, and it wasn't long before they were slain.

Half a dozen silverheads also fell in the process, because they were uncoordinated bastards like that, but that was life in the dungeon.

And what was life, was also death. I consumed their corpses greedily.

Prismatic Dartfish (Common)

In massive schools, it changes colour to create dizzying, iridescent displays, scaring or confusing its predators. When that fails, it flees with speed granted by large fins.

Oho. I very much liked that first word; prismatic. That certainly matched my idea of an ever-changing paradise of psychedelic colours and sights. And for all they had disguised themselves with the silverheads, from poking through their schema I could tell that was more from a desire for a school, rather than some elaborate plan to trick me. They had found themselves without a school and just tried to join the first one they found.

Just good luck they hadn't found a silvertooth school first. That would have gotten them killed much quicker.

But their schema.

Saltwater, colourful, fast, schooling; everything I could have dreamed of, and it had fallen right into my dungeon without a care. I would still be sending Seros out to the wider cove to collect more creatures, because I didn't want to build a coral reef held together with only a scant few species, but this would be a blessing.

And oh, if I could train them to stay on certain colours, or create a rainbow effect flowing through the school…

Well. If any invaders made it to that floor, they'd simply find themselves mesmerized by my creatures and have no chance to fight back.

Or at least they should. Humans had no taste.

But for now, I curled happily around the schema and darted back to my sixth floor, over the water that was now several inches deep in the third room and steadily splashing upward. I would wait until it was full of water before adding creatures, the better to make a proper environment and check to make sure everything was working smoothly, but I could hardly wait.

Soon, this floor would come together, and it would be a paradise above all others.

-

In darkness, he awoke.

It was not a pleasant sort of waking; he shuddered to life with air that exploded through his lungs, mind jerking to life after what felt like days of being unconscious, limbs trembling under some unknown force. Everything ached and swelled and burned, both with fire and with light, even as his eyes snapped open and saw light fade away, drifting to settle within.

Or.

His eye.

For as Akkyst awoke, he saw through only one.

Memories came back slowly, hauntingly, unsure of themselves; he had been with the Magelords with the stone-wurm had come, led by the War Horde, one final attack against the shattered home of the goblins who had taken him in. He had fought alongside Bylk as stone crumbled and houses fell, had taken a hit that carved over his face, but had fought past that and dug his claws in. Had killed it.

Had won.

And now he had changed.

He remembered the question, echoing deep within himself, asking for shadow or power or knowledge; remembered choosing knowledge, knowing that was the only true choice for him, and then disappearing under a great light.

With a deep, pained rumble, he lifted his head and peered at his surroundings as best he could.

It was still dark, he knew that, but for some reason it didn't hide things from him like it once had, the world grey but still visible. He was surrounded by crumbled stone, looming out of shadows as twisted spires, mountains within mountains, high above and cloaked in rot. He could smell blood, dried and old, strong enough his nose stung. Something ached in his surroundings, old pain, and he felt something curl up within him as he looked over the ruins of the Magelord's home.

No one had been able to move him, it seemed, so he was still laying in the middle of the cavern; it let him see the houses broken apart, the hole bored through the wall, the corpse of the stone-wurn sprawled over the ground and rank with horrible stench. Bodies of goblins, both with the green skin of the War Horde and the blue with black stripes of the Magelords, littered throughout, though they had been dragged into two separate piles. No time for burial, cremation.

He wondered how many were left.

This had been his home too, for what short stint he had been here; he had protected the stone archways, had aided on hunting trips, had protected the stalking jaguar and bladehawk alike. Had worked with Bylk to protect the goblins from the encroaching patrols.

And now it was destroyed.

He hadn't run away, but he hadn't saved this home.

It reminded him, in the way that whitecap mushrooms and moss beds and every mention of the Growth did, of his original home. Of the home he had once had, and that he had lost.

The one he had not been to in a long time.

And now it was him that had changed. Knowledge, in a way he hadn't felt before; though he hadn't tested it he could feel like talking would come easier to him now, more connections making in his mind. Something had irrevocably changed about him.

Not everything, though. There had been no healing touch while he shifted, nothing to regrow his missing eye. Something had clearly tried, wiping blood from his fur and wrapping cloth over his gnarled ear, but it hadn't been enough. Half blind, half deaf.

But more.

With a rumble that shook the stone around him, Akkyst dragged himself upright, standing on paws that were larger than before but were also more dexterous, claws longer, more defined. Glancing down, he could see that instead of earthen brown, his fur was now a deep silver, some distant glimmers of light reflecting off the tips. There were more changes, he knew, things that had altered and shifted and evolved as he slept; but he would explore them later.

For now, he had to talk with Bylk, to understand what had happened, to know.

And then.

He had been away too long.

It was time to return home.