Zack tried to keep busy during Archie's absence, but it was surprisingly difficult. Normally he would just attend to one of his many unfinished projects and hope that would be enough to distract him. This time, though, he couldn't help but feel the piece of him missing in Archie's absence.
It was like a hole in his very being, a gap where something used to be. After mulling it over for a bit, watching the meadow bunnies play with Thumper, Zack likened the absence to missing a leg. He could still function without it, but not having it was detrimental. Sighing, Zack decided that it was probably long overdue for him to go through the burrow and see what he could do to polish it up.
He had given Archie full creative control over the burrow's development, but that was weeks ago now. Zack was itching to open up the new floor and offer a harder challenge to people who would be willing to brave it.
Archie's boss room was more or less unchanged from the last time he visited, with one small exception: there were now lanterns hanging from the ceiling, in addition to the candles on the wall. That gave the adventurers another light to navigate by, but it also gave Archie another light to extinguish mid-fight. Zack considered adding a teddy bear to Archie's bedroom loft—just above the boss room—but decided it might be rude. He normally wouldn't care about such things, but Archie wasn't just some average rabbit. Besides, if Zack pissed off Archie, Chandra would surely come to his aid.
Assuming she ever came back.
"Stupid Chandra. Stupid Archie," Zack muttered voicelessly to himself. He hadn't bothered conjuring a wisp, since nobody was around for him to talk to. That didn't stop him from habitually talking to himself, though. "Alright, what else have you built down here, Archie?"
Leaving the boss room, Zack passed the communal bath area, the underground hotspring that he had filled earlier. He decided that this room needed some people to manage it, and set to work spawning a pair of Medibolds to do just that. He ordered them to hand out towels to anyone who came by, and to dry the towels when they left.
"Except, there's nobody to come by to use the hotspring. These Medibolds are just going to stand here passively…" Zack mumbled. That factor considered, he decided it was time to start populating the burrow with mobs.
The first thing he needed to consider when designing mobs was their function and role within the dungeon. Up above, in the meadow, he had chosen the dire rabbits and carnage carnations because they had a borderline symbiotic relationship with one another: the carnations offered protection to the bunnies, and the bunnies kept the carnations' roots clean and trim. Due to the nature of the burrow, the creatures within didn't specifically need to have those roles.
Zack perused his existing patterns, looking for animals that might suit the burrow's needs. He absolutely avoided any and all mention of spiders, though. The spider warren was still far too populated with traitors for him to do anything with them, and it had soured him on the species all together.
As he passed the stooltoad pattern, an idea crossed his mind. Zack conjured a three dimensional model of the stooltoad into the air before him. He spun it around as he gazed at it. They looked dark and damp places, and though the meadow had a few spots that met those criteria, the burrow was a far more suitable place for them.
At the same time, though, Zack wasn't interested in completely reusing a mob from the first floor. He wanted to spice things up, make them exciting and different. He set to work adjusting the stooltoad pattern, shifting its bones until it was standing in an upright posture. A few more tweaks allowed it to hold its arms at its side and walk upright, instead of exclusively hopping around.
Zack gave the toad thumbs and some clothes, impressed with his work. He was wracking his brain trying to come up with a name for this new critter, when he felt an immense pressure pressing against his influence. "Screw it. I'll call you a toadman and call it day," he muttered, quickly saving the pattern under the new name. He spun up a few spawners to handle the toadmen, spawning a half dozen throughout the burrow, as he flung the majority of his awareness up to the ground level.
He could still feel that pressure on his influence. It was different from the pressure he felt when Salazar or Snow entered his dungeon. When they came, it felt like gravity itself was bending to obey their magic. Zack was still puzzling out the strange feeling, when he realized why this pressure felt different.
Despite being functionally omniscient within his dungeon, Zack was effectively blind beyond the boundaries of his dungeon. He could only see so far, and had therefore grown less dependent on vision as a sense. He tended to fall back on what he had started to dub his dungeon sense—essentially his instinctive understanding of the space he occupied. The pressure existed outside his dungeon, though, and so he had to fall back on sight in order to see it.
There was a man standing out in the darkness, holding a crystal aloft. They were just outside the range of Zack's influence, but the crystal was pulsing with orange light. Every time the light flashed, Zack felt it like a wave against his influence. Another core, he realized, with a sinking feeling.
Was this person working for Snow? Were they maybe Snow himself?
Unsure how best to handle this situation, Zack bided his time. He could have pushed back, shoving his own influence against that of the orange crystal, but he wasn't sure that was such a good idea. After a few minutes of discomfort as the pressure increased, Zack decided to finally try something.
"What are you doing?" He asked, projecting his thought at the core being wielded against him like a weapon.
The crystal didn't answer. As Zack's thoughts brushed up against it, he felt a sudden influx of sensations. Hunger, fatigue, and discomfort were the primary feelings. There was also rage and hatred, much of it directed at the man holding the strange core hostage. It longed to be free, but didn't know how to free itself. It couldn't even remember its own name.
"System, are you there?" Zack called out.
He waited until he felt the familiar touch of the Akashic System gazing upon him before he requested to view the strange core's status. It took a moment for the window to appear, and what he saw nearly shattered his own crystal heart in dismay.
[Status]
[Name: Ember]
[Core type: Forge]
[Level: 4]
[Integrity: 45%—43%—42%]
[Mana: 150/—155/—132/]
[Warning: This core's mana far exceeds maximum values. Core rupture imminent.]
[Forge Core perk: Forged in Fire]
[Aether this core absorbs exclusively becomes fire-aspected mana. If this core would rupture, it instead will attempt to dump all its mana.]
Zack wished he had eyes to bulge. This was a lesser core type, one that became the burning heart of a forge. Worse still, it was so overwhelmed with mana that it couldn't dump it all. Whoever was wielding this core, they were hurting it! And since the forge core was dumping mana, not aether, Zack couldn't absorb it. That was the source of pressure pressing up against him, another core's mana getting dumped out as fast as it could.
"I have to do something, I have to help them," Zack muttered, his mind racing. But what did he have that could contest someone capable of doing this? He quickly ran through his list of available mobs.
The meadow mobs were out of the question. They were too low level, and would be useless against such a foe. The spiders might be able to overwhelm them, but Zack couldn't fully control them. There was no way he would use them for something like this. The skeletons might be able to handle the task, but they weren't fireproof.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
The undead toys, though, were. It was a perk built into their fabric to be fireproof. They could handle the heat and flames that were pouring off the forge core.
"Okay, plan. You lot need to go rescue that core," Zack declared, quickly spinning up three Dead Aevis and three Deady Bears. The mobs leapt to obey him, with the undead teddies grabbing the dragons by the feet to be carried toward their foe. As they drew near the forge core, they abruptly stopped.
Zack waited patiently, mentally urging the undead toys forward. Before he had a chance to try and figure out why, the man holding the forge core stepped forward. As he moved, the pocket of blazing mana moved with him, the pressure shoving into Zack's influence and parting it like water.
It didn't hurt, but Zack was painfully aware of the hole in his influence that definitely wasn't there before. Worse, it was pushing his undead toys back. Unlike Archie, who had free will and thought, Zack's mobs were entirely bound to his mana. They couldn't enter a space where his mana—his influence—didn't exist.
"I need you to stop dumping mana!" Zack called, trying to project his thoughts once again to the forge core. "My mobs can't rescue you! Your influence is too thick, it's pushing mine aside!"
To his surprise, an agonized voice called out to him. "Can't. It hurts. Too much fire. TOO MUCH FIRE!" She had a feminine voice, and she screamed in agony as her captor shoved more mana into her fraying shell.
The forge core's influence suddenly swelled, and two toys were caught in the blast. Despite their supposed fire-proof fabric, they were instantly incinerated and turned to ash. Zack's own mana was burned away beneath the swelling tide, and it was all he could do to resist the urge to scream in pain himself. The foreign mana was digging into his own, now. It burned away at his influence, until territory he had long since considered his own suddenly wasn't. He was quickly losing dominion the parking lot, and fear of what might happen if this forge core got to his dungeon spurred him to redouble his efforts.
He wouldn't be consumed, not here, not like this. He wasn't some simple lesser core, he was a freaking dungeon core! He was chosen by the Akashic System, and he wasn't about to give up ground this easily.
His mind once again drifted to the spider warren. "Chorus! I need your help!"
The spider-toad boss lifted her enormous head as Zack's words brushed against her mind. He could feel her curiosity and concern. "What do you desire?" She didn't speak the words directly, but he could feel the question in her mind. His earnest request piqued her interest.
"Someone is attacking the dungeon! I need you and your brood to fend them off!"
Chorus didn't immediately answer. Already Zack could sense that most of the dungeon-created spiders had died off, leaving only those born of them and their ilk behind. Most of those were lesser spider-toads—Chorus's own brood. Zack had no direct control over those mobs, as their natural birth gave them a level of separation from his mana. He could sense they were technically still part of his dungeon, but that small difference in creation allowed them to resist his control.
"Free us," she commanded. "We will protect our home."
That was all Zack needed to hear. It was a bad idea to open the spider warren, but it was the only thing he could think of. Chorus's brood weren't directly linked to Zack's mana, so they could theoretically handle being outside his influence. With a mental breath, Zack removed the enormous boulders sealing the warren shut.
Almost immediately, a torren of clicking legs echoed down the rocky cave. Spiders—thousands of them in all shapes and sizes—spilled out of the hole and surged across the dungeon floor. Bob and Jean-Claude leapt atop the prize counter for safety, though the spiders weren't interested in them. They had eyes for one thing only.
As the tidal wave of arachnids surged through the lobby, the man holding the forge core actually staggered back a step in surprise. He held the core up above his head like a talisman and shoved more power into it, once again causing the core's burning aura to swell. The smaller spiders burst like popcorn as they ran mindlessly into the heat, while their larger brethren were able to brave the incredible temperature and keep going.
The closer they drew to the man, the more intense the heat grew. Pop pop pop. More spiders errupted, burning away to cinders. Their ash was blown out of the forge's influence and back to Zack's, where he promptly absorbed it to make sure the way remained clear.
"We have to get that core away from him!" Zack commanded, issuing the order to Chorus as she lumbered slowly from the warren. "He's continuously pouring aether into her and that's what's causing her to dump so much mana! Once she's out of his hands, I can try to calm her down."
Chorus turned her six eyes up to Zack's disembodied consciousness. "My brood shall succeed where the lessers have failed," her thoughts seemed to say. She let out a musical croak, and suddenly the wave of regular spiders was replaced by a horde of arachnitoads. They were all significantly smaller than Chorus, but they shared the same features: toad-like body held upright by eight clicking spider legs, a large toad head crowned with six eyes. The smaller arachnitoads had thick chitinous bodies instead of the slimy flesh of their progenitor—likely a side effect of interbreeding with regular spiders.
As the spider toads filled in the gaps emptied by those sacrificed to the raging inferno, the man staggered back again. He thrust the core outward, attempting to shield himself from the monsters. That was the exact opening the toads needed to strike. The closest one lashed out with a long, sticky tongue. They snagged the core and yanked it back with enough force to rip it out of the man's hand. As the crystal soared through the air toward the dungeon, Zack felt his influence surge back into the gaps left behind.
He was finally able to see the man that had held the core hostage, but to his surprise he found that he didn't recognize him. It was neither Snow nor Salazar. He staggered in surprise as he realized he was no longer holding the forge core, and turned on his heels to flee.
Zack quickly took stock of his appearance. Average height and build, but with neon orange hair and tanned skin. A quick glance at his status revealed his name to be Edward Fenton, and he was level nineteen empowered human with a fire affinity. That was all the information Zack managed to glean before Edward leapt over the boundary of Zack's influence and disappeared from his senses again. A few stray spiders gave chase, but they were quickly dispatched with a fireball before they could reach the grassy field.
"Crap," Zack swore, turning his attention back to his horde of spiders.
Already many of the arachnitoads were popping as the extreme heat was overwhelming them. Ember the forge core was still screaming in pain as she continued to dump mana, leaving a burning hole in the middle of Zack's influence and floor alike. He quickly ushered his kobolds into the manor and redoubled his efforts in an attempt to keep the flames at bay, but it was like his very mana was aflame.
"Ember, can you hear me!?" Zack called, pressing up against her influence in an attempt to stymy the fire. "I need you to stop dumping mana!"
"I can't! It's too much, there's too much!" She screamed. Her voice was clearer now, more controlled than it was before. A quick check of her mana values confirmed that she was dropping fast, but was still well over double her maximum values. Worse, her integrity was dipping by the second.
Twenty-three percent. Twenty-two percent.
Ember was losing integrity faster than she was dumping mana.
Ignorant of the blaze currently devouring his lobby, Zack shoved with all his might at the fiery mana. He pressed and squeezed, until finally he was able to breach it with his awareness. It burned at his very being, as his mana attempted to repel her's. Sadly, he was a dungeon core. He couldn't absorb mana, only aether. This power was beyond his ability to control.
Nineteen percent. Eighteen percent.
"It hurts," Ember's voice was growing weaker. "Oh god it hurts so much."
There was a large crack in the middle of the orange crystal now. Zack was painfully aware of just how small she was compared to him. While his crystal was now larger than a fist with multiple structures growing from it, Ember's crystal was long and thin. A small strip of quartz that blazed with impossible heat.
"I can't hold it in," she whimpered. "I can't… I can't…"
Zack's heart bled. He had been planning to rescue his fellow core from Snow, but here was one such core in the midst of breaking down. What could he do? There had to be something!
"Akashic System, how can I save her?" He demanded, shouting his question to the heavens.
Ten percent. Nine percent.
[You can't. An entity capable of absorbing mana could syphon the energy off her, but you don't have that ability.]
The answer was sympathetic and sad. Zack could feel the sorrow from the Akashic System, like there was a living thing behind those words grieving alongside him. If Alex were there, he could help Ember by absorbing the excess mana and twisting it back into aether. Together, he and Zack could save her.
But he was out with Archie.
"Can I ease her suffering?" Zack asked. It was hard for him to watch his fellow core crack and decay. He could imagine such a fate awaiting him if Snow got his hands on him.
[Question: Can I ease her suffering?]
[Answer: Cores can be broken premptively.]
[Warning: A shattered core will release all stored mana upon shattering.]
Zack tightened his mana within Ember's blazing aura. Either he let her burn herself out, at which point she'd dump all her mana as she shattered. Or he could break her himself, and shatter her early.
It was a difference of a few points of mana, how bad could such a difference really be?
Zack steeled himself for what he was about to do, twisting his mana within Ember's influence until it formed a tight wedge. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "This is the only way I can think to save you."
Ember shuddered as her integrity dropped another percent. "Do it. Please. It hurts so much!"
Zack rammed the wedge into the crack in Ember's facet. The strike was quick and sudden, and more than enough to drop her down to zero percent integrity.
The ensuing explosion was enormous. Zack felt the mana surge out of Ember and swallow his entire front lobby. Bob and Jean-Claude were both incinerated instantly. The spiders that lingered behind exploded as their bodies were overwhelmed. Even Chorus screamed in pain as she was devoured by the flames.
Zack did everything he could to hold the raging mana steady, but there was just so much of it and he couldn't absorb it. Despite the pressing danger, he couldn't help but stare at Ember's shattered core, grief filling him.
Was this the fate that awaited all their kind?