Day 53

Damien had made a spectacular advance into the foreign lair, but the explosive evaporation of his mana had left him weak and exhausted. He needed to gather his power once more, and as he was forced to wait he compared his new territory with the home he had carved out of the hillside.

Damien's lair was enveloped in a stygian gloom. The light from the world above did not reach far into the first room, and after that there was only darkness. All of Damien's creatures were naturally familiar with the lightless world, and they all called the darkness their home. As for himself, Damien could see just fine. It wasn't true sight, but wherever his mana touched, he could feel and sense everything that existed. His critters and pets scurrying around supplemented his perception with their own view of the world, and his mind interpreted all of that information as if he was perceiving it with his own five senses. Everything in his lair thrived in the darkness, but now he saw another way. Damien had his first good look at the lair of his sapphire enemy, and it was an entirely different world.

Strange crystals nestled in the ceiling radiated brilliant sunlight upon the ground below, which was covered in grasses and weeds. 'Light!? Grass!?' Damien thought, 'How? How is this possible?'  As he stared at the impossibly warm and vibrant cavern, his mind slowly processed what was before him. The grass wasn't actually that strange, it was simply able to grow in the environment that it was provided. But the crystals, they were something far beyond his comprehension.

Many impossible and absurd things had happened in the last two months, but it had all followed rules, at least as best as he could fathom. Everything he had within his lair was alive. The insects, arachnids, lizard, and even the moss were all living creatures that had wandered into his domain. His power warped them and changed them, but they had all come to him as living beings who grew from his magic. When he filled in an unwanted tunnel, or those trenches he had removed to pave the way for his latest scheme, it was filled with the materials he had previously collected. The same dirt which he had carved out from the earth to form each cave and tunnel was stored within him, waiting to be used. But these crystals offered a chance of something more, a new set of rules. This seemed to be something created from nothing. If his enemy had used his own magic to create something like this, it meant he could too, probably. 

'Are we truly the same?'  he wondered, 'Are we all unique? Do we have different abilities and powers? What are the rules?' He racked his mind, searching for answers he didn't have. It was important. If he was to survive, he had to know what his limits were, and that of his enemies. He just didn't have enough information. Without meeting more of his own kind, he couldn't tell the difference between a lack of abilities and a lack of talent or knowledge. 'Where there is one there should be more, right?' Is this whole world covered in lairs like me?'

It was an interesting thought, but it was also terrifying. If this encounter was anything to go on, meeting other lairs wasn't going to be pleasant. 'Would they be stronger or weaker then us?'. It was another impossible question to answer. 'Would they all be human?' he wondered as he stared into the new threshold at the opening of a tunnel diving deeper into the enemy lair. 'Was it human once too?'  Damien's vengeful fury was touched by doubt, but it was nowhere near enough to stop him. Damien remembered that first, fateful day he had explored too far hunting for ants. He remembered the hunger his foe had felt as it saw a weaker lair wander into its path, that the enemy had come for his life, and that it had killed his beloved Sheila. Damien remembered the excitement it had felt as he panicked and mourned, enjoying every minute of his suffering before it was turned to fury. It had been so long ago, but that was only the beginning of this war, and that wound still festered in Damien's heart.  

Such a bloodthirsty, violent being couldn't be human. But was it truly bloodthirsty? His pets were weak, untested in battle. It was clear that he had avoided all conflict, focusing only on nurturing and sheltering his pets, but still he jumped at the first chance to absorb Damien. 'Why?'

Damien didn't care for his foe. Whatever its motivations were, it wouldn't change the outcome. However, he needed to know for his own sake. If his enemy had been twisted and corrupted, then the same might be happening to himself, and there were many signs that this could already be a reality. 

He controlled armies of insects, sent them to war, manipulated them to devour their foes from the inside, lay traps, and butchered rodents in the hundreds. He was never a violent man, but here it was natural, and necessary. He was fueled by their deaths, and took pleasure as the life slowly faded from their ravaged bodies. It didn't stop there. Damien was overcome with his rage, and he thirst for vengeance. He would not forgive the terrible, unprovoked attack, and the following assaults and losses, the sense of fear and grief he had endured, the shame of helplessness, the loss of Sheila's treasured gifts, it all added fuel to the fire. 'But why? Why am I doing this? This isn't me.'

This forced ceasefire had led his mind to a troubling place. Trying to find answers led him to new questions, and drove his mind to new and unpleasant topics he had been avoiding for a long time. The fact was that he had changed, and not in some small, insignificant way. He hadn't changed his favorite color, or decided he actually enjoyed the taste of mint. His very soul was changing.

'I used to be different.' Damien sighed, 'Before this, I'd never killed anything before except the occasional mouse that got caught in a trap. I got angry occasionally, maybe drank a little more than I should, but it never got violent. Not like this. I was painfully average. I had a blue collar job, and a decent life. I worked hard, hung out at the bar with my friends, and loved my wife. I did the best I-'

'What?'  Damien's introspection suddenly came to a screeching halt.

'My wife? I had a wife!'  He hadn't had time to think, or he had been focused on other things. Ever since he had awoken he had been fighting, growing, planing or panicking. Damien's thoughts were sluggish, and his memories distant, but it was all there. 'I forgot. I forgot her...'  She had been there every day for the last thirteen years of his life. She had inspired him and driven him onwards. It was absurd that he had simply forgotten about her. 

This body, this life, it was stealing his past, his memories, his love, his kindness, and his compassion. His body reverberated with the need to satisfy his instincts, and each one fed the other. His core was fragile, so he needed to protect it. To protect it, he needed creatures. To house the creatures, he needed to expand, to fuel the expansion, he needed mana, to gather mana, he needed more creatures, and to gather more creatures, he had to expand even more. He had to steal the power from his enemies, capture new and stronger creatures, and retreat further and further from the dangerous world above. And should his safety ever be threatened, his lair come under attack, or his treasured guardians be killed, his heart cried out for vengeance. If he allowed his enemies to live, he would be destroyed. If he hadn't grown, hadn't fought, hadn't pushed his creatures he would never have survived his first encounter with the blue lair. These instincts kept him alive. All of it made perfect sense. It was natural. It was necessary. But he had lost so much.

'Is she still out there? Is she still alive? Is this really earth?'  Damien was torn, between his old life and what lay before him. He missed the people, his friends and his family, but not the life itself. It was a dull, purposeless existence. Compared to the power and potential he had now, it was truly pitiful. Here his hard work was rewarded. Every small action he took made him stronger, and everything he built was entirely his own. There were seemingly endless possibilities as his creatures mutated and evolved, and his menagerie continued to grow. He had only one big regret, and that was losing his wife. 

He remembered her warm, comforting embrace. He remembered the feeling of her soft, supple skin. He remembered her gentle, flowery smell. He remembered the delightful ruckus of her slightly too loud laugh. He remembered the taste and the passion of her kiss. It tore his heart out. He loved her, but she was gone. She had been his partner for so long. He had difficulty imagining a life without her, but as the last two months had proved, he was different now. 'I'm not human anymore.' He had been, but despite having a "body" his heart was a glittering gem. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't go back, and he couldn't stop or waste time trying to be something else.

He had seen the cost of complacency and weakness. He was in the middle of dealing the final deathblow to such a foe, and he knew that the others would be just as ruthless as he was, and likely they would be worse. How could a peaceful lair survive when their creatures only grew stronger through bloodshed? The weak would be weeded out in time, and he could either sit back and wait for death to come, or continue fighting to have the strength to survive. 'What choice do I have?'  Damien carefully examined his dying foe. The grief, depression, fear, and despair were in an endless, wild cycle. Each emotion flared out or crushed inwards as each swelled up and took control before being exhausted and overtaken by a more powerful emotion. Damien could tell it was trying to be satisfied, content with its end. It tried to accept its death and find peace, but life is not so fickle a thing that it would allow itself to go quietly, especially not if its new instincts were anything like his own.

'I can't end up like that. I won't.'  Even as he reflected on the changes that allowed this to happen, the wild emotions of his cornered foe rippling across the threshold confirmed the results of his arduous deliberation. 'This is the cost of failure, the cost of losing.'  

'This is my reality now.'  he sighed, and returned his focus to gathering his mana while he brooded on things lost, and things that would never be.

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Six hours of brooding had left Damien in a sour mood, and his only solace was that he had gathered enough energy to renew his assault, however he was left with a puzzling situation. There were two tunnels leaving from this entry cavern he had brought within his domain. The tunnel on the right ended at the threshold, his usual point of contact with the foe, but the tunnel on the left held a strange, new mystery. 

Over the last few hours, the barrier of this threshold began to slowly dissolve, and holes appeared in the threshold as it faded away into oblivion. His piece of the barrier remained intact, but now there was nothing blocking his advance. He could see a short way down the tunnel before it faded into darkness, but there was nothing special about what lay beyond that he could see. It reminded him of the entrance to his lair, the gateway into the world above or when he broke into a new ant colony. It was simply a normal tunnel, and yet there was still power lingering there. 

It reeked of the enemy, and he felt its presence, but there was no will behind it. It felt as if it was a hollow shell, simply a memory of his once great foe. This change gave Damien pause. All of this was foreign and new to him, and there was a chance that he was making a mistake. It could be a trap, somehow. But their battle had reached a point where there shouldn't be anything the foe could do to harm him. Despite the ferocious advance of his domain, Damien's heart was still bound in silk, and the deepest recess of his lair. If there was a weakness, it was best to use it to expedite this drawn out battle, and his rage would not be sated by further hesitation.

Damien pressed his essence through the broken threshold, and into the cavern beyond. He advanced slowly, and cautiously, yet nothing happened. The cavern before him gave way to his might, offering only the slightest resistance. It was like the difference between walking on land, and then sloshing though a shallow stream. It slowed him down, but it was utterly inconsequential. Soon he emerged from the tunnel into a square chamber. He pressed in from the tunnel, on and on until he reached the far wall, but there was no exit. He then spread out to the southern wall, and once again, there was nothing. Finally, he reached the northern wall, and once more, there was nothing. He forced himself into every nook and cranny of this room, and forced the last remnants of energy to evaporate before him, but still, there was nothing. This room was a dead end.

The reason that this room gave way before him was that it was cut off from the core. Without its guidance and mana, the barrier quickly dissolves and the remnants of his presence simply falls apart at the slightest push. It reminded Damien of a game of go. If an enemy piece or group of pieces was surrounded, they immediately evaporated. It didn't matter how large the cluster was, as soon as it was encircled and cut off, it was over. But here, there were only a few tunnels. Cutting off access to this area was possible by controlling only a single room. Either way, his domain had grown, and this room was nearly identical to the first. 

It was the same size, about fifteen feet long, and just as wide. It was a square room, with smoothly rounded corners, and a domed ceiling. The sun crystals cast their radiant light down from above, and the grass below formed a peaceful, underground grotto. It would have been beautiful if not for the blood and bones.

Damien could tell what had happened. When his ant legions broke into the lair, the beasts would have fled to the nearest exit, desperate to escape the advancing horde. But those who came here, were met with an unyielding wall and a terrible end. The dirt wall at the west end of the cave was covered in gouges and claw marks. The packed dirt had been frantically scraped away, but they didn't have enough time. His insects had not wasted anything, and all the flesh had vanished. The fur and bones were piled up against that wall, and a great pool of blood stained the lush grass with the red of iron. 

Something deep within Damien said that he should be repulsed by the sight, but he felt only pride. His tiny little ants, and his insignificant flies, those who had desperately struggled to defeat these beasts before had grown strong enough to wreak such terrible vengeance upon their foe. Their growth was exemplary, and they would only continue to grow stronger. They would wage great wars, and stand leg to leg in defense of the lair. Damien saw everything he had wrought, and it was good.

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After the conquest of the side passage, he drove onwards towards his goal. He had expended far less mana than he expected forcing out the dead essence, and his foe grew only weaker with each passing moment. He began to swirl mana around himself into a whirlwind once more, and his enemy must have felt it. The broken foe flinched as it knew what was about to come, trying to brace itself for the howling storm, but it was all terribly futile. Damien released the tempest, and hurled it towards its target once more, and the violent eruption was just as painful as before. The pain of his soul tearing at that of his foe was a truly terrible pain, however he had prepared himself as best he could. It didn't overwhelm him, and he kept his composure as best he could. And he saw more, so much more.

If it had happened before, it had been lost with the pain, but Damien saw flashes of memory, of feelings. He saw a beautiful blond woman, kind and caring. He knew he loved her. There was a dog, a son, his close friend, a moonlit snowy night. It was beautiful, and then a man stabbed him. Darkness, fear, panic, relief, pets, grass, light, greed, fear, terror, despair. A thousand flashes of life flashed through his mind in an instant, memories of the past. But it was not his past.

'He was human.'  Damien pondered once more about the morality of what he was doing, but he had made his decision. His rage was no longer something that could be held back by reason and compassion.

He had cleared through a third room, and he felt that he was almost at his goal. The enemy continued to weaken as its mana was used to sustain itself and no new energy came forth. Now it was time to collect himself once more. This would be over soon.

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'Something is wrong. Very, very wrong.'  Damien thought as he felt his enemy shifting. It had been only an hour since Damien's last assault, he had not yet gathered enough energy for a fight. The foe's emotions had run wild circles, but he hadn't moved. It hadn't taken tried to fight back. But now, as Damien watched, sensing all he could through the threshold, it had started to writhe. The barrier between them convulsed, as if the being on the other side was in unbearable agony. The energy was directed in towards Damien, scratching against the surface. It wasn't a coordinated attack, but his foe seemed to be reaching for something. Damien froze, trying to understand what was unfolding before him, and he sensed something through the barrier. 

The other lair was... gasping? The undulating, scrambling force of the enemy grew more and more frantic as the strange sensation rippled across the barrier. Then the enemy unleashed a frantic assault. The reaching, grasping tendrils of energy suddenly slammed into the barrier, biting and clawing at Damien's domain. Damien was shocked at the ferocity of the attack, and he gave way before the onslaught. It took only seconds for him to lose the ground he had fiercely fought to gain, but the barrier between them still held. The threshold was pushed halfway into the next room, before all activity instantly ground to a halt.

Where just moments before the mana and emotions of his foe had been running wild, now there was only silence. As Damien watched and probed the uncompromising abyss that was the threshold, the nearly insurmountable barrier that had separated them this last month began to slowly weaken and dissolve, just like the side passage had. His own part of the barrier, his skin, remained intact. But in just a few short minutes, the staunch barrier had completely vanished, and all that remained was the empty tunnel before him.