DUNGEON OASIS

Entity Unknown, Location Unknown

Damp…

All I felt when I awoke was the cold damp stone floor I was laying on. I stretched my hands to touch the damp floor, to help me get up as I used to before but I felt nothing. Slightly panicking I turned my head to my left to look at my arm but it was gone.

“WHERE THE F*** IS MY ARM?” Looking to my right, hopeful that I may still have it but it was missing as well. ”WHERE IS THE OTHER ONE?” In full panic mode, I looked down where my legs were supposed to be, only to see nothing.

I turned over my head too quickly and my vision was meters away from what I thought were my body was located.

“what”

I felt numb and anxious when it dawned on me, still slightly panicking now. I wondered where my body was and a green light shined in the dim light in the cave when I thought of my body. A small green shard lay in the cold damp floor, it was obvious that’s where the light came from. I looked around again for my body and the same light shone in the dark cave, the light grabbed my attention and I was looking at the green shard.

“Is that my body? Is that me?”

I circled around the green shard with my disembodied “eyes”.

“Shit, I don't even have eyes!”. Yet I can still see for some reason. Subconsciously taking a deep breath to calm myself.

“Wait, I can breathe?” Confused, I took another one. Relieved that I can breathe somehow, I released a breath I didn't knew I been holding but no air came out

“Huh?!, I thought I could breathe. F*** I'm stupid. I don't have a body, let alone lungs!” I chastised myself for my idiocy but then it occurred to me

“Then what was I breathing?!” I thought hard for I minute then the realization came crashing down

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I'm dead, what am I now then? Where am I now? Heaven? Hell? The void? And what was I breathing in or… absorbing???”

“I clearly died, I remember… I remember being dragged, tied to a chair and falling unconscious then I woke up without my body… my human body. I was now the Shard on the floor.”

“Did I… reincarnate as a dungeon core?”

After thinking about it for a few hours, I accepted my circumstances.

“So I'm a core now, a dungeon core and the thing I was ‘breathing’ in might be mana. Hmmm… soooo what do I do now? What do dungeons even do?”

I Pondered for a moment, then the answer eventually came to me.

“Ok, I think I have a general idea from reading some dungeon stories that seem eerily like what I'm going through but thanks to that I have a vague idea on what to do.”

“Grow, Expand and defend. Sooo… how am I gonna do that?!” Remembering the numerous stories I read about dungeons that don't have systems expanding by throwing mana around on their surroundings. I quickly tried to replicate it but I altered it a bit to be more cost efficient.

Quickly moving my aetherial eyes to my core, I grabbed the mana that I ‘breathe in’ and quickly mold the mana into something what a 5 year old would make when tasked to create a net. Overly proud with my work I threw the net into nearby lands

“Huh, I think I need more mana to make my net larger and to throw it further but hey! Look at that, it worked!”

I smiled proudly, happy that my idea worked. My attention was quickly grabbed by the fact that I felt the stone that my mana net landed on became a part of me. Upon seeing that results of my actions, I repeatedly cast my mana nets to the surrounding stone floor and stone walls. Making them a part of me and expanding my sphere of influence. After Acquiring a large portion of the chamber i reside I looked around my territory satisfied, happy that I grew from only having 5 inches of territory surrounding my core to having 4 meters around my main body.

“That's one of the things I needed to know. Expand check! But I seem to ran out of mana”

Taking a few deep breaths, I could feel the mana rushing towards me. After absorbing the mana that rushed towards me, I could feel it

“Ok, Let's figure out how to grow first. I'm guessing all I have to do is expand? I mean expanding is technically growing, I think?”

Hours go by and I now encompass the large chamber where I was created. Looking around the vast chamber where I reside, I could see droplets dripping down from stalactites onto the floor. I tried to locate my core and found it near the middle. I looked at it closely to see it had grown a bit.

“Damn, i thought my core would grow bigger than that”

As I examine my core, I ponder how bigger it got because of this I failed to notice that it was approaching me. As I mused over how to make my core bigger I heard a hiss from behind. I focused my sight towards the upcoming threat, reacting quickly. I made a stalactite fall on its head, killing it instantly.

Sighing in relief over the fact that the threat is dead. I began to compose myself, I looked over the corpse of the lizard and I could see a faint blue light coming out of it. The light came from a light blue ball made off energy that floated just above the corpse

“Is that its soul or is it mana?”

Forming a better structural mana net near the dead body then Casting the net on the dead body, I managed to catch the ball of energy before it disappeared. A sudden thought occurred to me to drag the energy closer to my core, dragging the energy ball closer to me. I began to absorb the energy, I watched as my shard shook and I could feel the mana form a ring of mana around . Making my core grow.

“So that's how I can grow, neat”

Pondering for a few moments about the effects of absorbing the soul of a another being. "it seems that absorbing the ball of energy

“So I know how to grow now. Id count that as a check”