New sensations settled over me like the dawn's light breaking the horizon to illuminate the world. A gentle influx of information followed by a surging of awareness that simply felt... right.

I was awake.

I cast my awareness about me to get a feeling as to where I was... as to what I was. My vision was limited in scope, though I somehow felt that this limitation would only be temporary with time. I thought for a moment about trying to follow that thread of discovery, but put it aside for now. Learning about myself was more important. I was more important. I now had a sense of urgency to discover this, as though the knowing was time sensitive. I returned to searching, and found what was calling. Nestled into a dark corner near the center of the ruins I found... me.

I have no words to describe just how I knew that the little green gem was me. It was simply the concentrated essence of... me. It wasn't something that could be questioned, any more than questioning that the Sun gave off light. It just was.

But now that I knew what I was, I was driven to seek out my immediate surroundings. Some intrinsic awareness guided my senses, something pushed for me to know. I needed to know.

I obeyed the instinct. I looked out and found that I was in some sort of ruins. Ruins that were practically vibrating with life, if one knew how to look for it. Living things covered nearly every inch of the expanse that my awareness could reach. Vague, colorful auras defined the various things that lived and breathed and grew there. They were connected by a shimmering, interconnected lattice of energy, a network of… Mana?

The prismatic web of energy ebbed and flowed with the ambience of the surroundings. I somehow knew that if I could sit and watch it, I would be able to see it surge, flow, change and whip about depending on the surrounding conditions and events. At the center of this web of mana… was me. My beautiful, shimmering gemstone body lay at the core of the web… No, that wasn’t quite right. I created the web of Mana!

The more I looked at it, the clearer its purpose became to me. The web stabilized the chaos of the surrounding mana, drawing it in calming it. The web would also funnel Mana to me from the things connected to it nearby. This I knew as surely as I was alive.

I could sense something else, too. Concentrations of these auras near me that I knew I could do something with. Concentrations that created knots in the Mana web. They weren’t creatures, or things… but they had auras that matched creatures and things nearby. One was located on a nearby ledge, and the other at the base of one of the outer walls. Curiously, I began to reach for them, but then the feeling of warning flared again.

My instincts screamed at me to ignore the distractions and focus!

I pushed everything out, ignored all the beautiful and wonderful things I was discovering and followed the thread of warning. My focus brought me to myself again.

No, not to myself, but near myself. Another aura, another creature… so close to me. Coming… closer to me.

This… thing. This… insect. This… Mantis? The name came to me as naturally as everything else I had been discovering. All I had to do was focus on it.

It came closer… and closer. Studying my body… my Core. I studied it in return, trying to learn why my instincts had been driving me to search it out. The answer came to me at the same time as the Mantis drew back and raised its bladed arms to strike… AT ME!

Invader!

I panicked. My sheer terror blasting outwards from me in a wave. I distantly noted that my psychic scream disrupted the web and auras of the things around me, but that was far from what was foremost in my mind.

“I am going to DIE!”

I watched, helplessly, as the Mantis began its strike; able to see everything but utterly unable to do anything to stop it. Just as I instinctively knew all the other things I had learned; I knew without any doubt that the Mantis would kill me. It would strike my core, grab it, and steal the Mana that was my life force.

I did not have enough of it to survive.

I…

I was dead… before my life had even begun.

The knowledge brought an eerie sense of calm serenity to me. I knew I should feel more than this, that I should fight… but I couldn’t. There were no options available for me. The last few moments of my unrealized existence slowed to a crawl as the Mantis jolted forward with the killing blow, and I took a mental “last breath” before the end.

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…

THUD

What happened next was so fast that I was almost completely unable to keep track of it all.

The Mantis crumpled to the ground under the weight of a falling thing. It rose up to fight back, driving its killing arms into the creature that had interrupted it, piercing its scaled skin and drawing blood.

It would be the last thing that it ever did.

The creature it grabbed twisted and rolled, trying to dislodge the killer bug from its tortured hide.

Then, more help arrived.

Anoles.

Little lizards matching the one that had jumped from above swarmed the mantis from all directions, tearing it apart and consuming it in a writhing mass of tails mouths.

Mana Gained!

I was too stunned to fully register the sudden influx of Mana from the death of the Invader.

“I… I’m alive? Are these… Friends? Protectors?”

I forced my stun locked mind into action, and focused on the Anoles.

Denizen: Anole

Denizen? I stew over the new information for a precious moment, trying to figure out what exactly it is about the lizards that has me squinting my metaphorical eyes in suspicious recognition.

I watch the little lizards spread out and start tracking down anything and everything in the area that isn’t them. Several more Mantises find themselves hunted down and consumed, along with grasshoppers and some beetles. Their demises provide me with surges of new Mana, each wave briefly overloading my senses. I received far more Mana than I could figure out what to do with at the moment. Somehow, I knew this wasn’t normal. I shouldn’t be getting assaulted by Mana in this way.

But I was, and I had to endure.

I recentered myself to gain control of my senses again, and with the clarity I achieved something clicked. I figured out what it is about the Anoles that seemed so familiar.

They have the same auras as one of the knots!

I turn my attention to the concentrated Mana that shares an aura with my little guardians, the one on the ledge. Now that I have the time to focus on it, I am able to recognize it as a spawner.

My attention causes a reaction in the web, and options for upgrading and spawning become available.

I trigger the upgrade, and watch as the small clutch of rubbery skinned eggs grows. I understand that the spawn rate has increased, allowing me more protectors in a shorter time frame.

The investment took a significant amount of the Mana I had gained from the bug massacre going on around my core. But I still had some to use and was gaining more as time went on, and I had another option to explore.

I checked the amount of Mana needed, and made a risky decision. This would bring me extremely low, but I desperately needed more friends and protectors. I fed Mana to the spawner again, this time pushing it to spawn another lizard.

It… wasn’t instant. I was disappointed and the trickle of fear began coming back. The very real chance of dying because I made a poor decision in my haste to secure my survival began to settle in my mind. I should have checked to see if there were any conditions associated with the choice. I quickly look around my core to see if there was anything approaching, anything that could get through to harm me… but there wasn’t. My little army of lizards were skittering to and fro, hunting down anything that moved or that would come close to fitting in their mouths. Several had even taken up a position near my core, heads darting about to catch sight of any Invader.

I watched the activity anxiously as I waited. I could feel an indication of when the spawning process would be completed. It felt like the mounting of sand falling through an hourglass, and when that sand finally pressed against the confines of the glass, the event would trigger.

Wait. What was happening!? Why do I feel… covered?

I turned my vision around, suddenly afraid that something had gotten past my guardians. Looking back at my core I found that the ivy had begun to creep down from the wall, covering the little hole where my core was.

The vines? How?

I tracked them backwards, following them up and then down the wall again.

No luck.

Then, I had a flash of inspiration. I adjusted my sight to see the web again, and followed the aura instead.

AHA!

I had forgotten about the other spawner. My investigation brought me straight to it, and left me fumbling in confusion.

I focused in on the Vine spawner, trying to figure out how exactly I could use them to best benefit, how I could use them to stop invaders.

Denizen: Ivy

I grumped in frustration at the lack of information. Upgrading was an option, as was forcibly spawning more. But I didn’t have the necessary Mana reserves to do so. Even with the Anoles hunting my immediate premises for threats, the Mana influx was slowing. They were clearing the area.

I also had no idea why I would want to spawn a random new vine. It couldn’t hunt and moved extremely slowly. Though that in itself was odd, it seemed their denizen status made them… semi-sentient? Autonomous?

It seemed my instinctual knowledge didn’t cover all areas.

Either way, they had responded to my panicked cry for help. Though they had been a bit late.

I decided not to hold it against them, they were plants after all.

Things were calming down for the moment. I felt the whole area start to go dark, much like how my core had felt the darkness descend from the encroaching ivy.

Night was falling.

I returned my senses to watch my core. The Ivy was nearly done covering it, knotting, braiding and wrapping itself into every anchor point nearby to create the best possible covering. I couldn’t even see the glow of my core from the outside at this point.

As I watched, I felt a change in the area around my core. Curious, I looked closer.

Sanctum

Securing my core had created a “Room”. My cozy little mossy nest had now become my official home, my Sanctum. This knowledge allowed me to finally relax.

I was protected.

I would live.

I had survived.

Something changed in the web, and a twang resounded through it.

Oh! Why hello there.