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Genesis: A Dungeon Core Story
Chapter 11: Fresh Eyes

Chapter 11: Fresh Eyes

She sits amid dust and fallen rocks in a strange space, and her eyes take in everything. Faint glowing lines flicker in places along the wall, the green light enough to walk around without stumbling or falling. She runs her hand across the lights in the wall with barely a thought passing behind her eyes. Something in the air seems wrong to her as she moves towards the only opening within the circular room. The feeling of comfort fading as she moves away from that room. Each step is odd to her, like they aren't supposed to be happening. The passage opens into a large space with various shapes everywhere. Some are statues or plants, but most are the pieces of broken rock from the ceilings or walls. The lines of light don't continue into the room far, so it is a little harder to see. Yet, there are large holes in the smooth, gray-red walls that let in light from somewhere else. A feeling slowly passes through her, and knowledge of where everything is becomes clear. She passes easily through it all to the large space through the holes. An urge pulls her into the dim light and blue sky.

She stands upon a hill leading down into a forest of tall trees that look straight out of a book. The feeling happens again, and the knowledge of the story comes to her. A nod and she walks forward. The calf high, red-orange grass waves as she walks. It's tasseled tops causing a faint itching to her, and she tries to ignore it. The grass suddenly stops at the tree line, and she runs her hand across the white-black bark. It feels rough and doesn't tickle like the grass, and it's raised edges peel away satisfyingly. She continues her pace into the birch forest, the swirl of blue-silver leaves causing shadows to dance on the short green grass carpet of the ground. Another feeling passes into her, and she decides to spin around trying to step on each moving shadow. Muscles stretch and flex leaving behind a faint feeling of soreness as she comes to a stop before a large creature.

It looks like one of the trees, but with green leaves instead of the blue-silver, and is watching her. She raises her hands and moves them around, because it feels right to do so. The tree thing tilts it's body before raising it's hands to do the same. She continues her walk through the woods, and it begins to get darker as the trees get taller, closer, and begin to change. From time to time she shakes her hands at more of the tree things, and they tilt themselves before doing it back. She walks up to the trees as they change to press her hand into their bark. She likes the feelings from the trees, the bark changing from white-black to a deep red with streaks of purple. There are no sharp ridges to the bark, but soft fuzz like her hair. She spins around in the tinted light from above filtering through the now golden leaves. Then, she trips and falls onto a series of arranged black stones. The light being too dim to see them clearly, and now she feels pain from her knees. Tears appear in her eyes, and the sky seems to flicker suddenly, changing to green.

She looks up to the shifting light, and sees a tree thing reaching towards her. Even in pain she makes the hand shakes, and the creature freezes. Then, it stands up straight and shakes it's hands back at her before moving away. She quickly wipes away the tears and stands up, and even though it hurts she keeps walking. Her eyes follow the twisting path the black stones make as they weave their way through the twilight colored sky. Specks of white in the rocks make them look like stars, and she begins to jump from stone to stone. All the while the tree things follow her as she nears the base of the mountain. It's gray-blue stone stark against the surrounding colors of the woods and sky. Some of the creatures jump forward, arms outstretched until she waves her arms at them, and they freeze. She smiles without knowing why, just as she jumps from rock to rock without understanding the reason. That feeling of comfort she first felt is starting to get stronger now. Like it comes from within the large cave up ahead.

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Keeping her smile she races up to the large opening in the mountain. Many black stone paths converge at it, and within is a green-glowing path of stones and more of those glowing lines. The cave ceiling rose to the height of the trees outside, but quickly fell to only dozen feet. She continued her climb through the tunnels, some spreading out into large chambers filled with glowing water. These had a variety of long creatures that lived in the walls or the pools. Some would leap for her, only to be caught and spun around as she walked through. A smile still touching her face as she ran her hands on the water worn rocks of the earth. Some veins of metal or crystal or both would creep through the rock like roots of a tree. All the while the green glowing water would give just enough light as she walks.

Finally, she reaches the last room within the earth, and it stands out from all the tunnels and caves so far. Straight walls, a domed ceiling, and an overwhelming feeling of warmth and comfort. A realization that she was being drawn here this whole time fills her mind. A bit of the fog within it clearing as the detailed facets of the architecture draw the eye to the space just below the center of the dome. A solid white stone with opalescent light shimmering across it hangs from a thread of liquid mana, and below a pool of vibrant green light swirling with various colors like an oil spill. The oval stone pulses as she approaches and steps into the pool. The light crawls up her legs with patterns to esoteric to understand, and brown cloth is left behind. The course material feels odd against her skin, but she is transfixed by the stone above her. Within it she feels things, things she felt only briefly on her journey here. Quickly they overwhelm her and she begins to fall. The light shifts to gray and blue as stone shapes itself from the ground to let her rest.

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I awoke to her entering my chambers, my core on full display. When she entered the mana pool I grew concerned, but though my instincts nearly pushed me to destroy her then and there. I held back and worked to give her clothing. Like those on my guest upstairs, though he would need help soon. My period of unconsciousness seems to have cut off his room with a rock fall. For now I would need to keep a strong suppression on my instincts. She was perfect to me, my creation beyond the others. I knew she could leave the domain unlike those I altered or remained her too long. The fact that my instincts wanted her dead was the confirmation of that. Now, I would have to be quick and teach her what she needed to know, of what I knew. Perhaps the guest could see her out, because now that I had another "intruder" I understood that my will would only hold out so long. The urge to destroy and to kill was powerful, so I planned.