Hurry up and leave. I growled. Mostly to myself, but I really did need Abby and the rest of them to leave. Especially since this ‘Franz’ was around. I didn’t want him to see me collect on my deal with Owyn.
I didn’t like the deal. Trading eighteen cores for a potentially infinite source of mana seemed like a poor deal, but it wasn’t exactly like I had a good method to communicate with Owyn. Because apparently the status screens I’d imagined this world having were entirely of my own design. What sort of bullshit fantasy world was this? Where was the stat blocks and fancy text panels and such!? What do you mean my quest system was bullshit!
“Can I go on a quest?” Grant asks me. “That sounds cool!”
I ignore him for now.
“How am I supposed to get out of here?” Felecia asks. “Coming here was no problem, since nobody was watching, but we don’t know if anyone is standing watch now. What would they think about seeing me leave the dungeons alone and unarmed? I’m hardly wearing outing appropriate clothes.”
She was wearing a fancy looking dress that I suspected she wore to impress company. The only reason she and Abby and Owyn were here in the first place was because I gave her warning that her daughter was being tailed by the church's knights. And it was a good thing I did too. I probably saved a life by doing so.
I’d have to give that ratkin that tipped me off a bonus of somesort. Guess I’ll have to save a core for her.
Funny how I only ever knew the genders of my evolved creatures intuitively. Why was that? A mystery for another time, I supposed.
They left my dungeon.
I had Rab give one last screech before allowing him to take a break. He clicks his chest plates, wandering over to one of the bodies of the knights. With some difficulty, picks one up with his giant claw and hoists it into his giant mouth. The body neatly fits inside. His hinge closes with a whumph of air, and his crown clicks into place.
What’s the crown even for? I ask, directing the Baroness to collect my half of the trade.
Stop prey from escaping. Rab answers.
You eat your prey live?
Used to.
Mimi tugs at him, pulling him over to where he usually sits. Looks like she’s interested in having crab conversations with him, so I leave them alone. They both deserve the break.
Felecia collects my cores, peering inside the various pouches. “I’d almost forgotten what newborn cores look like. The ones I’d always get are at least a month old.”
Those are only a week old. I defend the honor of my kind. I think some of them may be older than me.
“Not by much.” She says, returning to my core room. “What are we going to do with them?”
I consider my potential course of action. On one hand, the enemy dungeon, which I think I’d call ‘Depths’, considering where it’s from, was getting more and more restless as time went on. Not exactly nervous or excited or any other specific emotion. Just restless. On the other hand, it seems like my church and adventurer problems would be solved for at least a little while. Also, adding these eighteen new cores to my collection, I had twenty five in my total collection. I probably would have more, but I did promise my army that they could eat their first core while bringing me the extras. Otherwise I’d have close to forty? That sounded about right, considering the strength of some of the life signatures I felt running amok outside my dungeon.
Regardless, twenty five cores was nothing to sneeze at.
I think it’s time we go on the offensive. I decide.
“What’re we fighting?” Grant asks.
Right, I keep forgetting he’s out of the know. There’s another dungeon trying to invade our territory. I can hold it back, but we’re at a rather impassable stalemate for now. I don’t have the mana to invade it, and it doesn’t have the monsters to invade me. So the first one to tip the scales will change the balance of the dynamic between us, for better or worse. I’d rather be the one in control.
“You dungeons seem to have that in common.” Felecia’s comment drips with an emotion I can’t quite place. I was back on my pedestal, meaning I wasn’t touching her, and therefore couldn’t intuit anything from a physical connection.
First thing’s first, information. I don’t know what I’m dealing with and my monsters are all a little too stupid to properly communicate things with me.
The hobgoblin bat raises its hands and screeches.
Yes, I’m looking at you.
It lowers its hands and grumble-screeches.
Felecia sighs. “Well what does this other dungeon look like? How many rooms?”
Good question.
“Can I see!?” Grant asks excitedly.
Are you afraid of blood? I chuckle privately at my own joke. Grant was supposed to be a vampire. What sort of vampire would be afraid of blood?
“Not at all! I bathe in the stuff!”
Perfect! I bark out an excited laugh. Go to the end of the dungeon! It’s more or less a straight shot!
Grant swings his arms wide as he begins the journey. Felecia rolls her eyes, but joins him in the journey, leaving the pouches of cores behind. My avatar floats next to them, laying on its back. I just felt like enjoying the journey for once, rather than teleporting everywhere.
The process quickly became boring. I just teleported to the end.
Spider-crab, the mimic crab with the four extra long and sharp legs, stood guard with one of the small ratkin. Spider-crab hung itself from the ceiling, using its extra limbs like spears to secure itself within the stone ceiling. Humorously, it reminded me of a turret that you’d see in a cheesy spy film. Or a security camera.
I’m calling you Cam. I decided. So what do we got Cam?
Cam gave me an upside down shrug. Not much apparently. Well that wasn’t useful. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to ask Depths directly. Either they’d answer, or they wouldn’t. No skin off my back.
How goes your preparations?
Better than you. Depths responds. I more or less suspected that their statement was nothing more than empty boasting, but only time would tell, right?
What are you doing to prepare? Got a way of breaking through my defenses yet?
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Had one long ago. Depths says smugly. Something in its tone made me believe this statement.
I frown. Any hints?
Die. Depths says hollowly.
I stick my tongue out at them. Spoil sport. Well, it wasn’t like I’d divulge my own secrets to them either, but still. I teleport back to my human inhabitants. Well, singular human and one undead. Grant is attempting to twirl the bolt between his fingers, finally having removed it from his neck.
“Hey, does this mean I don’t have to wash my clothes anymore?” He asks Felecia.
“Please don’t dirty Lucid’s dungeon.”
I chuckle. Too late for that.
They enter the next room over, and are immediately washed with the stench of blood. Felecia reels, but Grant seems rather unaffected. They haven’t entered the corpse room yet, and I’m secretly really looking forward to it.
“Ha! You need to be tough to be an adventurer!” Grant brags.
“You can be tough and clean at the same time.” Felecia argues quietly. Still, the smell alone doesn’t stop her from following Grant through the room.
They stop cold in the doorway leading into the corpse room.
“Oh…” Grant says. If he could pale at the sight of so much carnage, I bet he would.
I thought you said you bathe in blood. I say smugly. Or is this too much for you?
Grant steels himself. “No way!”
His tone betrays him, but at least he manages the courage to walk through the least bloody parts of the room. Felecia follows at a rather sedate pace, holding a sleeve up to her mouth.
I sigh, returning to the fortification. Alright, enough fun. I need to know everything that I’m dealing with. Terrain, enemy numbers and types, whatever you can give me.
“You can’t extract that from reading the memories of your subordinates?” Felecia asks. “I was told you converted some of the other core’s monsters.”
I could, but that’s no fun. Especially with the lower intelligence beings. Even when I interrogated Faux for information about the surface, he never gave me anything really useful. Just general information that I wasn’t really interested in going into detail with. I think that my disinterest in your daily lives made him leave out details that would have eventually been interesting to me. So it’s important for me that you keep your own wits about you. Judge for yourselves what you think would be useful information to me.
“Does this have something to do with you not entirely taking over our personalities?” Felecia asks, walking calmly into the room with the fortifications. Cam gives her a wave.
More like an unintentional side effect. I admit. But it works out in my favor, so who cares.
She regards the inky veil beyond my territory. Without a direct physical connection, I can’t share what she sees, so everything beyond is more than just a little mysterious to me.
“Those bats are distracting.” She mentions offhand, referring to Depths’ swarm that has been constantly harassing my guards with their screeches.
“I got ‘em!” Grant offers, picking up a stone.
I’m sure you do.
He trots over to one of the arrow slits I have to peer out. Satisfied with whatever he sees, he takes a pitchers stance.
WAP!
The sound resulting from his throw sounds like a mix between a high five and a ball hitting a mattress. Both the stone he held as well as a singular bat vanish in an instant. I get a small amount of mana from the kill.
My eyes widen slightly at the speed at which the stone was thrown. If Grant noticed anything odd about it, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he happily goes to collect another stone and try again.
WAP!
The bats noticeably decrease in numbers. They’re retreating.
“Thank you Grant.” Felecia says, feeling more confident to approach the windows. She peers outwards. “Is there anything you can do to add more light to this? I can’t see much beyond your darkness.”
Come again?
“The darkness?” Felecia waves vaguely out of the stone fortifications. “I can see about five feet forward before the light dims.”
I look around the stones. I can’t find a light source. What light?
“Your light.” Felecia says. “I can see perfectly well in your dungeon, but not very well outside it.”
I smack a fist into an open palm. Oh! Of course you can see within my territory! So what, do you just have normal vision outside my dungeon?
“It would seem so.” Felecia says, turning back to the veil. While I couldn’t see beyond the veil, maybe she could. Just a little, with how limited her human vision worked in cave darkness. “I can see some dim lights at the bottom. Plants maybe. But that’s about it.”
I try to think of a solution. Since Felecia can’t use magic anymore, was there some other way for her to see in the dark?
What happens if you eat a dungeon core? I ask. Surely you evolve, right? And since I can direct your evolution, I could probably give you cat eyes. To help you see in the dark! What do you say, Felecia. Would you like cat eyes?
“I’d actually prefer to stay human, thank you.” She isn’t tempted in the slightest. “If my daughter ever manages to kill you, I’d prefer to be entirely me when I return to her.”
The silence that followed was almost deafening.
Are you hoping for my death? I ask plainly.
“No.” She says calmly. “But I have to plan for every eventuality.”
A reasonable explanation. I’d allow it. Life would be boring if I didn’t include a little suspense anyways. Maybe I should enthrall a member of the church for the same reason? Nah, that’d be too easy.
“Can I evolve?” Grant asks.
I’m planning on it. I tell him. It’d be a missed opportunity to call him a vampire and not have Grant do all the vampire things. But for now, I think I’ve gained myself some semblance of direction. Since you guys can’t see in the dark, I’ll have to resort to the brute force method of gathering information.
“And what method is that?” Felecia humored me.
Evolving as many bats as I have cores to spare.
I rubbed my hands greedily, teleporting back to my core room. Mentally, I commanded all the bats I had under my control to return to the core room. Hopefully some of them would already be evolved! There were still some things to consider though. Did I give one core per bat? Or should I go all in on one bat and make a super soldier? Maybe divide them so that I have a few, slightly less powerful super soldiers?
I notice a disturbance in the water close to where Felecia dropped off the pouches of cores. And due to that disturbance, I also noticed how deflated the pouches were.
I teleport directly above a large body in the water. It can’t see me, but it fearfully looks up at the sky, clearly feeling my presence. The fish crawled on four legs, with a long tail and a wide, flat head. This one was new. And so was that one. And that one had proper wings. And this other guy had a second snake-like head.
I felt an eyebrow twitch. A small, frustrated smirk grew without me knowing it.
At least they didn’t eat all of the cores. I still had the seven myself, plus whatever little fragments I was planning on saving as rewards for any adventurers who came through.
One by one, my army of bats filled the room, flying about. Rab and Mimi stuck together, watching the swarm grow to just under two dozen. One of them didn’t look like the others. It had a second pair of wings, as well as spindly arms poking out of its mass of fur.
You. My voice rumbled, directed at the evolved bat.
You’ll do.
It dove for the cores I’d been saving, prompting the smaller bats to follow it and do the same. The evolved bat consumed all of the largest cores, shoving the others away with its nearly human arms. At most, the regular bats were able to get the scraps and fragments of the cores.
And with a shiver, it absorbed my will.
----------------------------------------
A swarm of bats rushed out from the fortifications of Lucid’s dungeon. There were mostly regular bats in there, but some of them seemed a little different than the others. Wider eyes, reflecting whatever light they caught. Larger ears, larger noses, all things just ever so slightly outside the normal. But to the naked eye, that was all that was wrong with the swarm.
They flew around a certain area along the wall, centered on nothing. They moved as a swarm, obscuring a void crawling within. The void being the only evidence that something could possibly be hidden within in the first place.
Dark, spindly arms gripped the stone between too long, too gentle fingers. They moved with an unhurried pace, pulling along the black and gray body behind it. Arms transitioned to rough fur that captured sound, transforming again to four leathery wings so sleek they almost looked like a shell.
As dark as dark. Not brighter and not dimmer. Slow and unnervingly steady, to not draw the eyes. Rough fur to trap sonar, and four angular wings to redirect it. Invisible to both sight and sound. It belonged to the caves, and the caves belonged to it. Nothing could see it.
But it sees everything.