Sky was gone now, and I was alone. It has only been a few minutes ago when I was drifting in the void but now my world is so different. So foreign. But also filled with so much possibility.

I first began to explore my own domain in more detail, this new form still held so many secrets. My own core remained unmoving and yet I was able to focus my consciousness to sweep through the whole area around me. First, the floor below me, the rough cobbled surface known in great detail to me. Each crack, each stone, each valley and trough on its surface were immediately familiar to me. After a moment I chose a single stone that was loose atop the floor. It was smaller than the larger pieces making up structure of the walls. Focusing, i put my attention wholly on it.

With a mental nudge, I began to push on the stone. I didn't push with anything physical as I had no form other than my crystal floating in the center of the room, but somehow I knew I could move it. Harder and harder I concentrated, and then I began to feel something! Some sort of power started to slowly seep out from within my core, leaving its protective shell, and moved quickly to the rock. The power wrapped around its jagged surface, seeping deep through its material. And then the rock moved! First it wobbled, but soon It moved into the air entirely. With my will, it slowly floated just like my core was currently. The rock was flying!

My new found earth bending slowly yielded new fruits as I was not only able to move and interact with the world around me, but to actually shape it. More effort had to be put into it, but I was able to split the rock in two, shave down its sides into roughly flat layers, and produce a very lumpy cube of stone. Pulling the newly built stone cube closer to my core I found my power over it strengthened. The intense effort I put in a moment ago to shape it started dropping away and the stone began to deform like clay within my core's grasp. Pushing the rock to the edge of my domain I found the opposite, the stone might as well be pure steel with the way it refused to deformed for me at such a distance.

For a while longer I continued to explore my own powers, taking, shaping, and placing parts of the wall and floor in new and unique ways, learning how innately I seemed to be able to reform any of these stones if they were saturated with my energy.

My energy? What was the energy I was using even? It seemed to come from my code and permeate objects before allowing me to shape them. Instead of concentrating on the rocks, I shifted my focus to the energy itself which permeated a rock already under my control. What was this power?

After a few minutes observing the ways in which this power permeated both the air and deep into solid objects I was able to control its flow almost as well as I was able to control the shape of the rocks. And yet I came no closer to understanding what I was actually doing or how. The more I learn, the more questions I seem to have.

I finally shifted my attention back to the gift Sky left me which was sitting on the floor, the glowing, shaking, crystal. My domain did not penetrate it, leaving a small hole in my otherwise perfect vision. Even without understanding its depths, I was able to feel the slight outpouring of an aura around it.

Carefully, I reached out to it and started to draw the object towards myself. It acted just like the rocks previously, moving as I instructed. As it got closer to me, I felt my control over it strengthen, my will becoming more absolute. I knew I could break this open if I wanted to. Did I want to? What would happen if I did? I decided to hold off on that.

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Concentrating back onto it, I began to push more energy into it to try to see what it contained. Applying concentration evenly to all sides, I was aiming to force my domain directly into it. And yet it didn't seem to budge at all. Redoubling my efforts, and with my deeper understanding of my dungeon’s control over this domain energy, my power erupted from my core and began to mix with the already thick concentration around the other crystal, pushing harder into it.

image [https://i.imgur.com/MGMXKqZ.png]

Slowly, I was able to feel the hole in my domain that the crystal maintained begin to close. First only the tiniest amount, but then it got faster and faster and finally the entire hole slammed shut fully granting the crystal to my domain. I now knew exactly what this was! It was another dungeon core!

This other core no longer resisted my control. Just like the rocks previously, I felt I could move and shape it how I pleased. More than that though, the crystal was not just some rock. It felt alive?

I called out to it in the way I had previously called out to Sky.

> Hello?

. . .

I tried again after I got no response.

> Hello?

. . .

Then I felt something, like a suction force as some of my energy permeating the core was consumed by the core itself, feeding off my own energy. It kept going, more and more of my own essence pulled into it.

Soon the core of the dungeon no longer felt empty, it was as if a flame now existed there, flickering with power similar to my own. No, it was exactly my own power. It was like a mini me!

And then I felt it speak back to me. Softly, weakly, but speaking!

hello

Was I a father now?

> Hello there! I think i just resuscitated you, are you ok?

Its voice felt monotone, emotionless and cold, but after a moment i got a response.

War. Destroyed. Resurrected? Subservient. Master.

More feelings than words, each brought with it a wave of emotion. War? Subservient? I guess it doesn’t have its own domain anymore and now operates through my own. Scary, does that mean Sky could do this to me? Would she?

> War? What war?

A long pause. The core did not speak for a long time. And yet, it was a part of me, i could feel its core slowly rekindling itself, growing stronger and reawakening. The power flowing through it was my own and fully under my will. I could feel the core’s confusion, and also fear.

It did not respond.

And so instead I began to explain my highly eventful few hours of life so far to it, with the hope that it could give me something from them, not leaving out any details, not that there would be any to leave out.

I paused after repeating Sky’s words back to my fledgling child. She wanted me to grow, do you know how I can do that little one?

A feeling of determination came back over our shared connection.

Growth. Yes.