I had to be very careful about how I went about this. I didn’t want a repeat of Abby and Owyn running out on me after all. I kinda really did want their help here.
While the bloody evidence would indicate otherwise, I was sitting on a knife's edge here, with an ass cheek on either side. The instant I released tension I would find myself in a far more dangerous position than I was currently in. What was that saying? Something about being lucky every time, while the enemy only had to be lucky once?
Decorations and expansion took most of the mana the three humans gave me. I came into this fight with an albeit large handful of mana, but still a handful and not much more. Mimi and my giant rat worked in tandem with my commands, tossing my core back and forth, hitting and capturing the invaders while they attempted to kill my minions. By the time they killed my giant rat, I controlled three of theirs, and the scales turned from there. I would kill some of their minions, gain mana from the kills, and use that mana to convert other minions over to my side.
Not long after the initial attack, a larger group of more varied monsters came through the door to the other dungeon. The same scene replayed. They killed my new minions, I killed some of theirs, and converted the rest. I think the other dungeon suspected foul play after that, because it began sending in much more advanced monsters. Ones able to use tools like clubs or other non-direct means of contact in order to specifically target my core during battle.
Each battle became a fight for my life. I would be tossed around like a baseball, converting those that I came into contact with, and killing the ones I couldn’t afford to claim. A delicate balance was achieved, where I always seemed to have just enough mana to maintain about five new minions at a time. Considering I started the fight with eight new minions, I was slowly losing metaphorical ground. Or perhaps these new ones were simply more expensive to convert, and I was staying quite even? It was hard to tell.
The other dungeon was pissed though, so I counted that much as a win.
It wasn’t saying anything for some reason, though I’m sure that if I taught it some swears that would probably change. It could also probably try and claim my territory, but it didn’t seem inclined to do that either. No, all it wanted to do was send monsters through my doors to kill me directly. To its credit, that would definitely be more cost efficient. After killing me, it would be able to claim my old territory without resistance.
“Abby drop it!” Owyn reached over her shoulder to slap my core out of her hands.
“Do I look enthralled to you?” Abby raised a foot and pushed him away, balancing on one leg.
Owyn held onto her leg at his stomach and glared at her. The look reminded me of the stereotypical librarian. So much so that I imagined him with glasses. The look amused me, so I giggled.
Abby cringed slightly, bringing a hand up to her temple.
Sorry. I whispered. Is this better?
“... quieter.” She muttered.
I distanced my avatar from her, unsure if it would even help. Better? I asked as quietly as I possibly could for a thought.
“Better.” She agreed.
“What’s better?” Owyn asked.
“Lucid was shouting at me, so I asked him to be quieter.”
Owyn judged her for a second. “And it listened to you?”
Abby nodded, taking her outstretched leg back.
Owyn judged her for a second longer. Clearly, he didn’t believe her.
“Give me the core.”
“Why?” Abby asked.
Owyn plastered a I’m-trying-here grin on his face with great effort. I smirked, more amused than before.
“I just want to talk to it.”
As long as you don’t try to break me. I muse.
I really didn’t want humans touching my core any more. It made me feel icky. Putting my life in someone else's hands like that. It felt like giving my literal, beating heart to a stranger. But like Abby said, I ought to show a little faith. And for her and Owyn, I’m a little more willing to take that risk.
Abby held out the core to Owyn, but kept a hold on the bottom. Owyn placed his open palm on the top. I felt calm from him. Intelligence, and the rigidness of routine. I felt fear and protectiveness.
Fireball.
A relative tsunami of will crashed into me. It dreamt of fire and smelled of smoke. Images of burning houses came to mind, and great firestorms swirling through trees. Owyn’s will pounded into me, attempting to force my will to become his own.
I say relative and attempting because while his waves were by far the largest I’d seen thus far, they still only equated to knee deep waters for me. Fast moving ones, that would have taken me off my feet had I been surprised, but as it was, I really couldn’t blame him for trying.
Nice try. I tell him with an amused chuckle. Want to play nice now? I do actually need your help.
Owyn blinks, staring at my core with a new kind of surprise. His fear dissolves, replaced by pure curiosity. “Uh…”
What? You can’t possibly be that surprised to know that I can resist something like that. You’ll need to actually try if you want to do anything to me.
“Owyn, did you just try to convert the core?”
The five standing (well, the snake thing couldn’t really stand, but the sentiment applies) monsters I had in the room tensed, glaring at Owyn with renewed hatred. I calmed them with a thought.
“I think it’s making fun of me.” Owyn tells Abby.
The two priests are getting closer. Neither of them were particularly mobile in their fancy robes, so they took their time getting here. I had a few seconds of privacy left at most. Maybe I could convince one of these two to send them away.
I’m not making fun of you, I’m just saying you don’t have to be so gentle with me. Faux was a little more gentle than you, but he was trying to not damage my core. Is it a size thing? Do you use more will for bigger cores?
“I…” Owyn stammered a bit. “I was attacking as strong as I could. We- humans can’t break dungeon cores with just our will.”
… wait, really?
“Oh god, what’s that smell?” The dude priest said, coming into earshot.
“Over here!” Abby called. “It’s safe!”
The priest and priestess wandered into the doorway where Abby and Owyn held my core. I couldn’t see any black voids on the girl, but the priest with the tall hat had three somehow woven into his clothes. One at his sternum, and two on his shoulders. I obviously didn’t know their effects, but I presumed those were his light sources. Why so many? Or was only one active and I just couldn’t tell? No, no, all three were feeding me mana, so all three were being used. interesting.
“Lucid’s core.” The girl whispered.
I clicked my tongue. What’s their names? I’m already getting sick of calling them girl priest and dude priest.
Abby started, then gestured to the two priests. “Oh! Uh, Lucid, this is Franz and Tabitha. Tabitha, Franz, this is Lucid. Uh, he says hello?”
I do not.
Franz bows to my core. “A pleasure to meet you Lucid. I hope we get along splendidly.”
We can get along fine if you go away. I mutter in disgust. I had no use for people who groomed children into becoming dungeon sacrifices. Or brainwashed. I had to remind myself that magic was a thing in this world.
Owyn regards my core with a blank look on his face. “He wants you to leave.”
Franz stands up straighter. “Why?”
I stuck my tongue out at him, not really willing to tell Abby and Owyn. There was a time and place for things, and I needed them to be focused on what was happening here and now.
“He, uh, isn’t saying.” Abby translated my silence.
Just tell them to go to the next room and wait. I sighed. I’ll fill you in on what’s going on first, then we’ll talk strategy.
“Go to the next room.” Owyn tells them. “We’ll come get you once we’re done here.”
“I… see.” Franz says.
“Can I touch the core?” Tabitha asks, coming closer.
A bloody chunk of meat flies between Abby and Owyn, smacking her in the face. My tallest minion, the humanoid looking one that looked like it was wearing a torn up wingsuit, chuckled, juggling a second chunk of meat in its free hand.
I giggled along with him. Eat shit. I tell Tabitha.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Lucid says no.” Abby says politely.
“Very well.” Franz says. “But if I may? I have a spell that I would like to use on you two before we leave.”
“What spell?” Owyn asks.
Franz shows his hand, revealing three rings, each with inky voids set within their centers. He points to the one on his pinky. “This spell is able to detect enthrallment, even within a dungeon. The core will glow blue if you are enthralled.”
“Yes please!” Abby quickly offers him her hand. Owyn furrows his brow at the core, but does the same.
Franz touches both of their hands. I obviously can’t see what happens, but both Abby and Owyn relax a touch after it’s done.
“Neither of you are enthralled. That’s excellent! I will check you again after we leave. Is that alright?”
“Yes please!” Abby melts at the suggestion. “That’d actually be so helpful, right?”
“Right.” Owyn mutters, eyes drifting off to the side.
“Just call if you need anything.” Tabitha offers as the two priests take their leave.
Fuckers. I curse them. Then I sigh, grateful to have that over with. Alright, back to business. First things first, what’s the most urgent thing we need to deal with? Should I give you two the rundown on what happened here, or do you two think you can figure that out for yourselves.
“I think I get it?” Abby offers. “A bunch of these monsters were from the other dungeons you conquered, right? And now you want to expand into the other dungeon over there, and a bloodbath ensued?”
I click my tongue. I wish. All these monsters except for Mimi are from the other dungeon. They come in waves, and I’ve been having to pass my core around to convert them as they come in, but I don’t have the mana to convert them all. I’m worried that the dungeon’s going to smarten up here in a second and send something my way that I just can’t deal with outright. I’m thinking I need more information, which is where I was hoping you two would come in?
“What kind of information?” Abby asks apprehensively. “I don’t think we’re willing to go in there to find anything out.”
I just need to know what to expect. I don’t have questions that you can answer for me because I don’t know what I don’t know. You know?
A smile worms its way onto Abby’s face. “You have a very human way of talking. Hey Owyn? … Owyn?”
“Hm? Sure.”
“You didn’t hear a word that was said, did you?” She accuses.
“Distracted.” He says simply. “What’s going on?”
“Lucid needs information he says. Just wants to know what to expect, I guess.”
“Tough luck there. We’re not going down that cliff.”
I’m sorry, cliff? Is that a metaphor?
“How do you know what a metaphor is?” Abby asks quietly.
Owyn answers my question anyway. “You’re in the third last room before this system enters the depths. You should know by the maps Abby gave you that there’s four paths to get into the depths, and this is one of them. Two rooms further in is as far as we’re physically able to go before racing a sheer cliff face that drops into nothing below. We’d occasionally seen hints of dungeons below, but we figured they were all busy fighting each other to come climbing up here.”
Ah, and now that one has, all you would know is that it’s rather powerful and not much more. Fair enough. Fine, I won’t ask you to go into the other dungeon, but would you be able to tell me how these guys managed to climb up into here then? Maybe I can do something to prevent them from doing so again.
“In order to check, we’d have to go to the cliff face. Which is in the other dungeon.”
Yeah yeah, I’ll claim the territory necessary to get you to the end of the rooms for you to check safely, but I need mana for that. You humans existing within my territory feeds me mana over time, so you just have to wait for a bit is all.
“It consumes mana to expand your territory?” Owyn asks.
A little bit if it’s unclaimed by other dungeons, and a little bit more if it is claimed. I confirm.
“Why?” Abby asks Owyn.
“Because the textbooks say claiming territory is a matter of will for a dungeon. The larger the core is, the more will it has, therefore the more will it can expend expanding its territory.”
I get more will the bigger I get? That was news to me. Good news for once too! Excellent! All the more reason to grow! What else do the textbooks say about dungeons!?
Owyn glances around the room, mostly eyeing up my monsters. “They also say dungeons normally spend their mana feeding their monsters in order to make them evolve. You could also use dungeon cores, but I think you already knew that.”
I do. I nod solemnly. And also the further away from my core my monsters get, the weaker my control over them. I’ve been betting on that fact when converting these guys over to my side. Hey, is it harder to convert stronger monsters, or is it just a quantity thing?
Owyn narrowed his eyes. “Interesting… and yes, stronger monsters tend to have stronger will. Smarter monsters have stronger wills too, which is why mimic crabs are rather rare to see enthralled when a dungeon is young.”
Also good to know. Then if this dungeon is any smart, its next move is probably going to be to bring its core closer to this door in order to help aid whatever monster it sends through next. And it’s not going to just sit back and keep throwing small fires at me any more, it’s going to give me something much more evolved. Something with a strong enough will to stop my attempts at converting it. An all or nothing attempt, probably.
“This is weird.” Abby mentioned. “Witnessing first hand dungeon on dungeon combat? I bet you’re in your element here Owyn.”
“This certainly is fascinating,” Owyn admitted, but I could feel through our connection that he didn’t really feel it. His mind was elsewhere for some reason. “How long do we need to stay here before you’re strong enough to claim the next territory?”
You could speed it up by casting magic. That seems to help.
“That’s news to me!” Abby said.
“Actually I already knew that one.” Owyn dug in his bag, producing a black void from a small jar. I felt mana being produced from it, and water poured freely out of his outstretched hand. He also produced mana from his necklace core.
I gratefully took in the mana. Although I could probably take over the last two rooms by now, I wanted to stockpile some extra mana for if I needed it to convert whatever the dungeon was going to send at me next.
What does your necklace do? I asked Owyn. Obviously he had his light spell and this new water producing spell, but I still didn’t know exactly what his necklace did.
“Detects dungeon cores while within the dungeon.” Owyn said. “Technically, it points to the source of mana, and this one just happens to be tuned to dungeons.”
Cool. I left it at that. It was hard to continue the conversation from there.
“Can your hobgoblin speak?” Abby asked.
My wha-?
Abby gestured to the tall humanoid with the torn wingsuit.
That’s a hobgoblin? I judged it with part disgust and part interest. It looked nothing like the hobgoblin I was imagining.
“That’s what we call them.” Abby said. “Why, what do you call them?”
He doesn’t have a name yet. I said. What are these other creatures called then?
Abby pointed to the two oversized giant rats, calling then ‘ratkin’, which made sense. She also added that they were on the verge of being called goblins, and when asked about the difference, she just said it was in their size and humanoid features. The hobgoblin was merely a larger goblin. Turns out, any creature could fit those criteria, so bat goblins, rat goblins, or snake goblins were all technically possible. The mimic crab was still a mimic crab, even with it’s four, long extra legs coming out from its shell, and apparently the flat snake thing was called a urik. Urik were snakes that were shaped like scarves. Flat bodied to the point where slithering wasn’t even a valid movement option. Instead, they rolled their edges like caterpillars or millipedes, crawling around like that. Typically, they were very difficult to find due to their natural camouflage, but among all these bodies, it almost stuck out just by the factor that it was still alive and moving.
The priests in the other room began talking to each other, watching Abby and Owyn from a distance.
“Do you think it’s going to try and convert them?” Tabitha asked Franz.
“I don’t know if it’ll be more interesting if it does, or more interesting if it doesn’t.” Franz admitted. “Either way, I do believe I’ve settled on a decision. This definitely isn’t something a mere bishop should handle. We need to get one of the twelve cardinals over here.”
“Will Lucid comply? Eventually?”
“It’s not a matter of if at all, it’ll simply be a matter of willingness. Because whether it’s willing or not, it will recognize the power of the church. What happens after that will be up to the cardinals and the pope to decide.”
I really didn’t like these two. Why speak so cryptically! Just tell me your plans so I can foil them! And who said anything about complying with anything? You’re obviously evil, and I need an antagonist. There’s no way I’d pass up the opportunity to create my own entertainment.
That’s enough. I said, immediately taking to the task of expanding my territory. Take those other two and get out of here. I’ll deal with this dungeon myself.
My will collided with the enemy dungeon. It didn’t seem surprised when I attacked, and certainly fought back. However, its will was no match for my own. My five upright monsters marched into the next room, trailing blood behind them.
“Uh, what do we do with… uh…” Abby held up my core.
Give it back to Mimi.
“Isn’t she-”
Mimi’s hand weakly raised up for my core, startling Abby and Owyn. I chuckled. They must have thought she was dead. Unfortunately for Mimi, after learning about exactly how valuable mimic crabs were as a creature with high willpower, she wasn’t allowed to die just yet. I was slowly feeding her mana in an effort to heal her.
I frowned. Had I known that high willpower individuals were hot commodities for dungeons, maybe I would have been more upset at Faux’s death. Oh well, the past is in the past. Lesson learned for next time.
Abby passed my core to Mimi, who curled her human half as much as she could so she could cradle my core against her stomach protectively. Abby and Owyn left me to my own devices, collecting the other two before heading out of my dungeon.
On the other hand, my struggle against the other dungeon had taken me into the next room over. The final room. My vision crawled forward, taking the largest room yet inch by inch until suddenly, I found the end. There was no third wall here, just an open expanse. My territory ballooned outwards slightly, capturing just a few feet above, below, and to the side of what appeared to be a hole in the wall.
See anything? I asked my creatures.
The humanoid- sorry, bat hobgoblin screeched out into the inky void, perking its massive ears. It shook its head, but kept its black eyes trained on the darkness. The two giant ratkin peered over the edge and pointed at something off to the side. Whatever it was, I couldn’t see it.
What is it? I asked Enemies?
They shook their heads. One made climbing motions.
Ah, that’s where you got up. Got it. Well then, let’s make sure they can’t ever do that again.
With an effort of will, imagination, and mana, I took hold of the stone around the open mouth of my cave. I gave it teeth and a jaw, expanding outwards slightly as I closed the teeth in front of my monsters like jail cell bars. The floor expanded past the edge of the cliff slightly, with slits for sight holes looking down on the inky blackness below.
You are now the border guards. I told the five. Take it in shifts, but don’t let a single creature pass by without you knowing it. If you see an enemy, kill it if you can, but alert me either way.
Once again, I was out of mana, saving scraps of it for healing Mimi. It was time to hunker down and gather my strength.
----------------------------------------
Abby and Owyn left the cave, leading the two priests out the whole way. Abby tried making conversation with them, but Owyn refused to participate for some reason. They eventually parted ways at one of the branching paths however, with Owyn even refusing for Tabitha to accompany them. Not wanting to argue in front of the two friendly priests, Abby apologized to her and followed Owyn deeper into the branch of the cave they were planning on clearing.
“Owyn, what the hell!? You were the one who wanted Tabitha to come with us and carry our bags!”
Owyn rounded on her, not in anger, but with blatant worry in his eyes. “Abby, I think the Baroness is enthralled.”