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Elsewhere
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Far beneath the surface, far enough where something like the surface is viewed as a myth, lays The Depths. To those who live there, of course the surface would be a legend. A cavern so big that the top can't be seen? What would such a place even be? Some say it’s a sort of promised land, a place of wealth and opportunity, or perhaps a ripe field to harvest. Others say it’s a hellscape of places where someone can just fall upward forever, where a searing fire up high bakes everything in its reach.
To a certain dungeon, it is a fertile and weak place to consume and recreate in its own image. Its worshipers call it the Maw, and it enjoys the name. Its kobold residents call it Sanctuary, if they know what’s good for them. They make the sweetest sacrifices, sweet enough to tempt it to consume them all at once, but it learned to resist that urge after subsuming its first rival dungeon.
If you eat something, you can’t eat it again. Its next rival dungeon, it consumed and did not take the territory, and eventually another dungeon arose. While it can’t eat the same dungeon a second time, a new dungeon is not the same dungeon. So it is with the kobolds: let them make more, eat some select morsels, and it can devour kobolds for its entire existence!
Even its emancipated enclaves are yet another source of food. With their technical freedom comes the ability to feast on their mana more effectively. No longer did it need to subsist on scraps from wild delvers. Even better, the townsfolk worship it, giving it mana in that way, too.
Yet it hungered for more. It could consume the wild delvers with impunity, thanks to the townsfolk, but it was too slow, they don’t show up often enough. So it created a Voice from its metal fey. Instead of the sleek grace of the pale elves, it created a thin and tall thing, tall enough to not stand up in most tunnels, but nimble enough to be able to move quickly while hunched or squatted. Its hands had long metal claws, and the first thing it did was to slaughter one of the worshiping delvers. The Maw appreciated the mana, but was wondering how its Voice would talk if it just kills delvers.
“Need hat, Master,” it answered the Maw. “Am Redcap, need red hat.” It fashions a wide hat from the remains, reminiscent of the cap of a mushroom. The grisly chapeau hides most of the Voice’s face in shadow, save for the eyes. The Maw felt the eyes should have been pinpricks of red light, but they are a soft blue with white sclera instead. The only outstanding thing about them is how they are so plainly visible from the dark shadows behind the brim of the hat. The townsfolk seemed to find it possibly more disturbing for it to have such ordinary eyes, so the Maw saw no reason to force it to change. Instead, it gave them its first command:
“Bring me more to eat.”
The townsfolk hurried to obey, offering livestock at first. While those gave some mana, it was… bland. The food for the delvers is not food for the Maw. The Redcap acquired a fresh hat from one of those with a poor offering, before delivering the news:
“Delvers. Feed me delvers.”
They started sending sacrificial parties to delve, each member honored to be consumed by the Maw at the end of their delve. Each party let the Redcap get a new hat, and gave it new materials to ply its metal affinity.
While the new mana was good, the Maw was concerned it may not last. It hungered for more, yet its townsfolk were already having trouble keeping up the pace of sacrifices. It was considering letting the Redcap make a new hat of its High Priest, when the High Priest announced a plan to the people.
They would hunt for delvers outside, to feed the mighty Maw. There are some animals that qualify as delvers, and the pale elves and dwarves are not the only people down here, either. They will feed the Maw, and will bask in its power and protection.
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When the hunting started to bear fruit, the Maw was the happiest it had been in a while. Those hunts eventually brought it the delicacy of the kobolds, and the Maw made them dwellers; its own personal pantry to carefully manage and maintain.
And so it grew, allowing other dungeons to form before devouring them, slowly able to consume more and more, and grow more and more, allowing it to consume more…
Until the hunters came back from a very long and deep hunt with something the Maw had never seen before. It was big and seemed to be a mass of tentacles. It would be a perfect main course, with a kobold for dessert. But then the creature broke out, and started breaking everything!
The Redcap intervened, but seemed evenly matched. Flashing and slashing steel would sever tentacles, but they would regrow as quickly as the Voice could remove them. The Redcap’s blades were not so easily replaced. The two fighters disengaged, each focused on their foe, looking for an opening, something to end the stalemate, when the Maw got a notification.
Transfer Request. Accept/Deny?
Transfer? The tentacle-thing wished to join the Maw? It told the Redcap to hold the stalemate, wanting a bit of time to consider. It would rather consume the tentacle thing, for it must have a trove of mana… but it may not be able to chew this particular mouthful. If it joins, however… the Maw could consume even more with its help!
It accepted the request, and the tentacle monster relaxed in its new home. While the Redcap left to make more blades, the Maw decided to make the new thing a scion. It was very glad it did.
While the connection was not quite as clear as with the Redcap, one concept was very clear to the Maw: to not wait to only consume the invaders when they enter. Let the townsfolk gather delvers, while the Maw can consume the invaders of the stagnant mana! If it can find a dense enough section of stagnation, the new scion can even do something interesting with it.
The Maw would very much like to have something new and interesting to consume, and so allowed the tentacle monster’s plan. Expeditions were sent, invaders slaughtered and their mana gathered. It was so effective that the invaders even started to flee, rather than blindly throwing themselves at the Maw.
And then came two discoveries at once. The first was the stagnation point the tentacle scion was searching for. The second was a path to the surface, opening into a dense forest. While the second was interesting, the first was the true prize.
As promised, the tentacle scion did… something to the knot of stagnation, and presented it to the Maw, and it happily devoured it. It felt itself twist as it did, and suddenly it could taste something new. It could taste the mana rolling off the delvers themselves, something that felt like the opposite of the stagnant mana. It also found the stagnant mana was not as filling as it once was.
As it attempted to figure this out, the tentacle scion made a suggestion: to twist the spawner it came with. This surprised the Maw, as the scion had long argued the spawner should be mostly left alone, that it was useless as it was. With the new tastes developing in the Maw, it could see now why the scion wanted to wait. It followed the scion’s instructions for how to properly twist the spawner and truly create something to let it devour whatever it wanted.
And it wanted to devour the surface. It could taste a dungeon on the currents of mana, taste its influence as it forced the stagnation to move. If it had an actual mouth, it would drool at the thought of the moving mana. The scion showed it one last thing: how to properly Devour the mana it receives. No more will the Maw simply nibble the edges of the mana the dwellers produce by simply living, no longer will it have to endlessly chew the stagnant mana into something more palatable. No, it can Devour the mana and leave only the stagnation behind.
While the stagnation may be unpleasant, Devouring the other mana is sublime, delicious, enthralling, perfection! That it could have a waste product from eating is not so much of a surprise, as it has seen the delvers and dwellers do the same thing.
It lets the tentacle scion send the newly spawned creatures to the surface, not caring that the type makes its mind hurt. It just needs to not look so hard at it. It can instead focus on Devouring, letting the Redcap focus on the delvers and townsfolk, and the tentacle scion exercise its new title in commanding the expeditions.
The Maw had thought a Marshal was what would manage expeditions, but the tentacle scion became a Harbinger instead. It’s not concerned about the difference, though. Time spent trying to think about that is time spent not Devouring.