I wake up to find that I continue to exist. Hooray! I'm very hungry again, but the dim glow from the collected light specks has still been gathering in my center so it isn't as pressing as when I woke up the first time. My small sandy domain is basically the same as I remember, though it's not quite as cavernous now. Since I know now that the giant worms were actually tiny worms, then I was very small as well, and now I'm bigger. Eating all those worms must be responsible. Now I'm all big and empty and my vision goes so much further than before, I see more worms digging below me and reflexivley squash them with some rocks, pebbles actually. It's hard to believe I thought those were rocks before. My sudden growth gives me a bit more perspective on the world.
Right at the edge of my reach I can sense an area with air instead of sand, dirt, or rocks. The only air I've sensed before was what fills my hollow space when I push the walls away. Perhaps it's another thing like me making their own space over there? I feel like I would be able to sense their influence in the dirt if it was, but it's the best direction I can think to explore either way. I make an open space leading from my resting place in the sand pit through my area of influence to the open area before I realize a problem, I can't see through the tunnel from where I am. I try having the sand push me back up but even moving myself a bit starts to hurt, like a bunch of pressure on my facets is holding me in place. I push myself up a few inches on to a sandy pillar before deciding to try something else.
My sense of the area is like touching stuff at a distance, shouldn't I be able to see things like that too? As the concept occurs to me my viewpoint pops out of my center and flies through the ceiling so that I'm surrounded by darkness again. I think my way back to my body and try it slower. Untethered from my body I can get my first good look at myself. I'm a yellow-white crystal with six points and eight sides, a pyramid stuck to another pyramid by their bases. I can see the gathered light specks in my center which causes me to glow and light up the hollow I'm in. Not too shabby! I look good, very shiny, a lot prettier than any of the other rocks around here. But enough getting distracted, time to go see that other opening. My viewpoints zooms down my new tunnel and I only drift into a wall a few times.
On the other side I find a completely alien world, so very different from my birthplace. The walls and floor of the room are square instead of rounded like the spaces I've made, but the walls are rough and made from very tightly packed sand, subtly different from the sand walls I've pushed around. I realize that even though it's made of sand it's a different material somehow. I try absorbing it like when I ate the worms and find out it's called Sandstone, which is formed when sand is put under pressure for a long time, someone cut it into blocks and used it to make the walls. That seems like a lot of work to go through just to make a wall, but it looks interesting. The floor is hard packed dirt and sprouting out of the middle of the room is some kind of lined brown thing going up to a ceiling made of flat pieces of the same stuff. I draw back into the tunnel in fear as I see blindingly bright light through the gaps in the ceiling, there is something up there giving off way more light than me!
"Squeak!" Something screams next to my viewpoint. I panic and go spinning off into the wall.
Looking carefully with my special light-finding-through-solid-stuff-vision I check the entrance of my tunnel. There is something poking around the entrance, at least as big as fifty worms, but much denser with light! I'm a little scared of whatever bright person is above my new domain but she must be far enough away that I can't see her crystal from here, hopefully that means she can't see me either. She probably won't mind if gobble up the new thing. For some reason I'm sure that it's a She making that light, even though I'm not sure what the difference is. While I was thinking deep thoughts the new creature has already started sniffing through my tunnel towards me, how convenient! I quickly gather my biggest rocks and start moving them towards the tunnel, but run into a problem. I can't seem to move any of the dirt and sand near the rat out of the way, and the rocks get harder the move the closer I bring them. The creature pauses as the tunnel quivers under its' paws and then scurries back out to the other room. No no, come back! I just want to eat you! I remember that it took an extra effort to squash the worms, but this new thing is even harder to squash than they were. I couldn't even get the rocks to them. This whole discovery is very upsetting, I didn't know there was anything that could stop me from moving my materials except for hunger. I realize that I'm not all-powerful, I have limits, and rules. I don't like that, limits are scary.
No time for worrying about stuff I don't know, now is time for goals. I am definitely going to eat that thing next time, but I need to come up with a better plan. Luckily from when I first started moving stuff around I learned another rule about the world and the stuff in it. If there isn't anything holding it up, stuff falls. I might not be able to push a rock into the thing to kill it, but if I can put a big rock above it and then let it go then the problem of not being able to move stuff near the thing shouldn't matter. I don't have big rocks to use, but I have lots of sand and I know sand can become sandstone, which is basically the same thing. I push a bunch of sand into a small area and start compressing it. At first nothing seems to happen but then I clarify that I want it to become sandstone and suddenly the whole block transforms, also draining a portion of my light. I try not to think about how much light that just took, I'll get way more back from killing that thing anyway. Next I open a tunnel wider than my sandstone block going up from my other tunnel with the block at the top. I leave a bit of sand in the way so it won't fall yet. For good measure I smooth out my tunnel so it has a flat bottom and flat sides like the room I found. That way the block will squash the thing flat and it won't be able to go against either wall.
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With my block ready to fall I just need to get the thing underneath it. I like worms, maybe it also likes worms? I'm able to move rocks and dirt with worms in it without too much trouble, so I snag a few from the dirt and quickly drag them into my tunnel. Pebbles pressed into their sides keep them from wiggling away. I move my viewpoint back to the other room to look for the thing and find it sniffing at my entrance again. The grinding noises from my reconstruction must have kept it away but now it's interested again. I thin the supports of the block a little more. The thing crawls into my tunnel, sniffing at the floor with its' pink nose. It cautiously makes its way to my bait worms and grabs one with its' paws.
Got you! I crow happily as I release the block. The smooth sides of the upper tunnel and the block glide past one another easily yet somehow the thing hears it coming and quickly tries to scamper away. The block catches the creature's back legs and crushes them into the floor of the tunnel, pinning it in place. It starts squeaking and clawing with its' little paws, I feel hot liquid soaking into my sandstone along with a great deal of light specks contained in the fluid.
Oh no... oh no no... The light coming from the creature I know now to be a Rat is more potent and more plentiful than even the dozen worms I crushed before but I can't enjoy it with the horror playing out in my tunnel. I'm so sorry, I didn't know... oh no oh no oh no...
The rat starts to weaken, its' struggles slowing as it struggles to breath with half its' diaphragm crushed under the block. When I squashed the worms they just turned into mush, they didn't have all these fragile bits that break and tear when you hit them. They didn't feel all this pain, or if they did it was so small I couldn't feel it through them.I learn more and more about rats as its' lights flow into me and its' body goes dark in my special vision. It's the most delicious, most horrible thing I've ever felt. I'm so sorry Mr. Rat. I'm so, so sorry...
Hello little Dungeon core
MR. RAT! I'm so soooorry oh nooooo... A floating blue box appears in front of my viewpoint with words on it. I know from absorbing him that Mr. Rat was a living creature like me with a mind, I must have stolen his mind when I stole his life. Now he's stuck inside me and I'll have to apologize forever, this is horrible!
What? No I'm not a rat? What?
I'm so sorry I killed you Mr. Rat, you were so full of light I didn't knoooooow.
Please calm down, I am not a dead rat, I am your dungeon fairy.
If you killed a rat that must mean you have an interior. That makes this easier. I'll be down to see you immediately.
I'm too overcome with grief and regret to process this information properly, but I reel back in shock as the box collapses in on itself then opens into some other space. I've never seen a room come out of air like that, and it's not one of the rooms I've been to before. Through the hole in the air a small person enters my tunnel, I notice immediately that they are even more full of light than Mr. Rat or the worms and they have things on their body that my senses tell me aren't part of their body. A small shift of basic cloth covering their torso and bottom, and two tiny chips of clear stuff held with a very thin hard thing that puts them in front of their eyes.
"This isn't the core room." They glance around and grimace in distaste at the half crushed rat. "Mr. Rat I presume? Now where is my partner?" Her gaze snaps on to my viewpoint, which surprises me so much I jump back to my core. How could it see me without my body?
"I saw your mana in the air." They call out to me from the tunnel as they into the small gap between the block and the top of the tunnel.
They can hear my thoughts?!
They wince as they come into my sand pit home. "Only when you shout them like that. Please try to use your inside voice."
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
"Please calm down, I'm here to help you!" The stranger flutters over to my crystal, which is when I notice they have small translucent wings. They are clear and don't have as much light in them as their body so I didn't notice them before. They stroke the facets of my body a few times and I stop screaming. "It's okay, it's okay. I'm sorry for taking so long to get here. I knew which direction you were in but I thought you must be further north, closer to the Dead Kingdoms, and I wasted a lot of time traveling up the coast. I would have been here days ago otherwise."
They continue stroking my gem as I calm down.
"Before we go any further I need you to pick my name. You can call me either Hollen, or Holly. Which would you prefer?"
What's a name?
"A name is a proper term for telling apart individuals of the same species. For instance you called that rat you killed, Mr. Rat, in itself a bit odd as I wouldn't expect a newborn dungeon core to understand honorifics, but either way you gave that rat a name so that you could distinguish it as an individual from all other rats." The creature, wait they said dungeon fairy earlier, the dungeon fairy adjusts their little face thing as they explain so that it catches the light from my crystal and twinkles at me. "Additionally, as a Dungeon Fairy, I don't become a true adult and gain my gender until my bonded dungeon gives me my name."
Wow, names are important... Do I have a name?
"Traditionally Dungeons and Dungeon Fairies exchange names when they are first bonded, once you choose mine I'll choose one for you as well. So Hollen, or Holly, which will it be?" They stiffen their back and wait for me to answer. They continue to wait as I think it over. They fidget a bit as I watch them waiting for me to make a decision. "Really either will-"
Holly, I decide on a whim, I like the feel of that one better.
She, and I suddenly realize I've made her a she, sighs deeply and pinches her nose. "I should have expected this, not that there is anything wrong with the name, I just wonder what it is about dungeons and female dungeon fairies. Did you know over 80% of bonded dungeon fairies are selected as females? Mother warned me about the mating problems when dungeon fairies get together, she told me I should just introduce myself as Hollen, but it didn't seem right to go against tradition."
That's nice, do I get a name now?
"Oh yes, my apologies." She takes a deep breath and clears her throat. "Your name is... Pit. Strange, but that's what feels right for you.
Pit and Holly... I like it!