Welcome!
Hello young dungeon core and welcome to the Aruta planetary system!
As a new core you will be expected to grow your dungeon, defeat invaders, reward champions, and cycle mana!
The blue box was the first thing he saw… He? She? They? Them? It? He, yes, he, he thought to himself, deciding on his gender, at least temporarily. He then looked back to the box and fully absorbed what it was saying.
He was a new dungeon core.
What’s a dungeon core, why does it need to be grown? Who’s invading it and why should they be rewarded. Also, what’s mana? he wondered.
Attention!
It appears your physical form is still in flux! In order to settle it you must choose two primary aspects to incorporate into your core!
Cold
Crystal
Electronics
Light
Metal
Mirror
Plasma
Space
Vacuum
Warp
Oh wow, it seems really irresponsible to leave this kind of choice in the hands of a newborn, he noted. I don’t even have a name! How am I supposed to choose core aspects of myself. I mean what if Mirror-
Attention!
You have chosen the “Mirror” primary aspect, please choose a second primary aspect from the list below.
Cold
Crystal
Electronics
Light
Metal
Mirror
Plasma
Space
Vacuum
Warp
He paused; shocked, appalled, and more than a little annoyed.
I think I hate you a little, he noted. Alright, this is fine, I can just make a spur of the moment life-changing decision right now without any knowledge of what this means. Okay, okay, what’s… uh… okay… maybe… no.. alright! I’m gonna go with Warp.
Attention!
You have chosen Mirrors and Warp as your primary aspects!
Your form has been finalized as a Twisted Mirror Core!
Your status has been updated!
Great! I have no idea what any of that means! he thought as he looked around. He seemed to be floating in a chamber full of… junk. Pieces of various electronics, glass, mirrors, even bits of organic matter of some kind. The room itself was pretty banged up, he could see a bank of consoles on one wall and some exposed machinery could be spied through a partially ripped open bulkhead. Everything seemed to be floating about, bouncing off each other, the walls, floor, and ceiling without rhyme or reason.
Am I floating because there’s no gravity? Or because dungeon cores float? he mused. I don’t suppose it matters.
Finished taking stock of his surroundings, he turned his musings on himself. It took but a moment of thought and a desire to view his own form. The sight that greeted him was not at all as he might have expected. Instead of the pristine jewel that he somehow innately knew was the state of most cores, his was an ever-shifting, twisting mass of mirror-like surfaces in a vaguely crystalline shape.
Turning his mind away from the reality-bending funhouse that was his core, he looked around once more, and tried to figure out exactly what he should be doing.
Alright, let’s see, the first thing we should do is stop all this stuff from floating, he thought to himself as his core contorted to avoid a flying shard of metal. Having made that decision, inborn instincts took over and his aura unfurled fully, pressing up against, and then into, the walls of the five by eight meter room. Suddenly he knew all about every single piece of flying debris; their mass, velocity, composition, even their relative positions to each other. For an organic being it would have been overwhelming, and as it was the newly born core struggled to encompass it all. Fortunately he didn’t have to endure for long.
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With a reflex born of instinct he wove his aura through all the disparate items and pulled. Without a sound the floating and bouncing debris simply came apart into glowing motes of light that dissipated almost instantly. At the same time the core found himself inundated with new understanding as all the different materials became known to him, down to their smallest particle; their makeup and designs stored not in his conscious mind, but somehow imprinted on his very being.
Great, now I can make little bits of circuit boards, some three different kinds of emergency rations, little chunks of human meat, and broken glass. Why the hell was there a mirror in here anyway? This looks like some kind of control room, not a bathroom or bedroom.
Congratulations!
By establishing your first room you have taken the necessary steps needed to begin building your dungeon!
In order to assist you, the Dungeon Keeper’s Association has been notified of your location and situation. Please prepare a suitable location with Aruta-like conditions for their arrival.
Oh great, the place is a mess and guests want to come over already. And how the hell am I supposed to make this livable? I’ve got holes in every wall, there’s no atmosphere, and while it’s not absolute zero out here it’s pretty damn close! he groused to himself.
Alright. First thing’s first, let’s take care of the holes.
Once more he reached out with his aura, however this time instead of destroying, he intended to create. Nothing happened, so he waited, and waited… and waited. After about three minutes of no activity he decided letting instinct guide him on this one wasn’t going to work.
Okay, okay, okay. This is easy, I just need to create matter from energy and build it into a suitable material for resurfacing a space vessel. Other cores do similar stuff all the time, right? I just need to do the opposite of what I did to absorb all that stuff; that was a sort of pull, so maybe if I… pushed?
As if the thought was the deed, power rolled out of him and the stark, gray metal plating he’d been imagining grew all along the rents, tears, and gaps in the walls, ceiling and floor. Soon the entire room was fully encased once more, and he was at least eighty percent certain it could hold atmosphere.
Okay, that’s one down, room enclosed! he celebrated.
ERROR!
Dungeon Cores must have a viable exit and entrance to their core room, mana regeneration suspended until the problem is rectified.
Really?! REALLY?! You couldn’t just let me have this?! Fine, fine, will a door work? I think that was a door I just sealed over, let’s see if we can make that function!
After an hour of testing out various door designs, he found that, yes, he could make a door, although he wasn’t certain it’d be able to open while the room was pressurized, as it swung inward. Hopefully that wouldn’t count as a non-viable entrance.
Alright, walls and door done. Please someone put me out of this misery. Atmosphere, where the hell am I going to get atmosphere?
His senses swept across the compartment and he paused as he noticed a small hatch in the wall. It was labeled ‘Emergency Supplies’. With a thought he dissolved the hatch, causing a small burst of frozen particles to spew out. Inside was a thoroughly ravaged compartment that once must have held medical supplies, rations, and emergency oxygen. Most of the contents were now just as wrecked as everything else, except for one singular canister which had, miraculously, remained intact.
An effort of will saw the new area cleaned out entirely, making it just one more hole to be pasted over. A few more moments and it was as if the aperture had never existed. Also, he had oxygen.
Which is great, if they can somehow breath pure oxygen for more than a few hours without developing issues. But let’s not worry about that now! Alright, heat. How the hell do I get heat? Heat is just the agitation of molecules right? So I just need to add motion at a molecular level to generate heat! No problem, I can do this!
Despite his confident self-assurance he wasn’t really sure he could do anything of the sort. However, he was going to give it his best shot.
With an effort of will he generated a sizable mass of oxygen. It was, predictably, frozen.
Okay, let’s not explode ourselves, because that would be horribad and I like being alive… well, I mean… I guess? I’ve only been alive for like, two hours, so what do I know? Maybe death is great!
To say he ‘reached out’ would be incorrect, as his aura was already there, permeating the sparkling field of frozen oxygen; however, the imagery that ‘reaching out’ conjured was definitely helping him visualize what he wanted. Slowly, but with increasing fervor, he used his aura to vibrate the miniscule solids.
Okay, so that doesn’t work, he admitted after a solid hour of vibrating. Why, oh why didn’t I choose plasma? Plasma would heat this place up no problem! I mean, it’d probably explode too given all we have is pure oxygen, but I’m sure I could figure something out!
Alright, he thought to himself after taking a moment to calm down. What do I have? A lot of things that don’t do anything, a couple of busted consoles, an mostly empty room. Mirror powers and Warp powers.
He paused. Mirror powers and Warp powers? What the hell are those and how do I know I have them? Okay, think about this, what do mirrors do. They reflect but invert front to back. So mirror powers would be… what? Inverting things? Okay, that’s interesting, not necessarily helpful, but interesting. What are Warp powers then? The ability to twist or pervert. So… I can twist, pervert and invert? So maybe if I…
With a thought the entire left wall became a perfectly mirrored surface. He then realized that, since he’d patched the holes, there was no longer light in the compartment, which made the mirror rather moot. Still, it set the stage and he was pretty sure it would work as a focus for his abilities.
Pushing his aura against the mirror, he felt it pass through, as if it were expanding into a second, equally sized but inverted space. This new room was warm, and physics behaved strangely. Heat made things solid and cold made them liquid.
This… is not how mirrors work, he thought to himself. Maybe it’s more a conceptual magic? Because people believe they invert things, all things within are inverted?
He pondered that for a solid minute, then pushed the thoughts aside. What he needed was the heat of this room, without the other overlaying changes to physics. So with an effort of will he brought his second aspect to bear and warped the reflection.
Just heat, only heat, and not even all of that, about.. Half? Half should do.
The mirror room bucked and twisted as he pressed his will against it, shifting it to be less than it was; pulling it in at the edges and crumpling up the center. He then thought a single word of power; INVERT.
The room was suddenly warm, well, warmer. The oxygen crystals sublimated almost instantly into gas, some of which bonded with the small bits of free-floating hydrogen so ubiquitous in space, generating little flakes of snow that drifted to the ground.
Alright! Let’s see. Room, check. Atmosphere? Little above sea level, but passible, so check! Heat? Well, zeroish Celsius is livable, with the right clothing, so check that off too. Am I missing something? Gravity I guess, but the mirror gravity is literally crushing, I couldn’t warp it enough to make that reasonable. I guess we just wait now.
It wasn’t until several hours later something finally happened.
WARNING!
You are about to enter the atmosphere of the planet Aruta!
Please brace for impact!