Rule # 23 - Be wary of working with amateurs. They will, with the best of intentions, claim to be brave. And, if fortunate, they are. What they are not, however, is trained. In the moment of danger, they will instead do the first thing that enters their mind.

* 50 Rules for Dungeon Divers

==Caden==

I looked at the countdown, and then my available mana. I actually had a decent amount from, uh, cleansing this section. Yep, just a bit of very intense cleaning, nothing to see here. Assimilating the various bits of stone and organisms hadn’t seemed to cost much. No idea what kind of mana situation I will have after I found my dungeon. Assimilate the items in storage now, when I have access to plenty of mana.

I could kill more things to get more mana, if I needed it. Could level more, if I need too…? Eh, not worth the distraction, for the moment. My natural mana generation, now that I wasn’t constantly drained, would let me level again in less than two days, and my next level after that wouldn’t take much longer.

Focus on what I can get here, first.

I made a shelf in the now excavated portion of the ceiling. Waste not, want not. I put out all the items I had liberated when I left. There was a wooden tree, Tam’s chair, a scrap of velvet, a bone cup, iron, gold, silver, copper, the special gold coins that glittered internally with mana, a wooden box with metal hinges, and a simple wooden table.

I started with the wooden tree, absorbing it slowly. I already had replicas of it made in stone. I had replicas of them all in stone. I stopped halfway through the absorption. I could sense the intricate pattern that made up the tree it came from. With half of the material gone, I still had significantly less than half of the pattern completed. I could replicate the dead wood easily enough, but a living tree was not possible.

Guess I’m going to wait until I get better at absorbing things to do that one.

Hmm. I should try with something less complex than wood, I’ll leave the chair and table for later.

The gold, silver, and copper coins proved simple enough. I could easily replicate the shape and the metals. I could even tell that each had impurities, though the primary patterns were easy enough to separate out. The hinges on the box were easy too. They looked like some form of brass, since they were copper with other things added in. I tried the velvet, and there was only the tiniest hint of another pattern underneath it. I dissolved a small piece of it, leaving the rest, which was enough to understand the structure of the cloth and material. The structure of the individual strands of material proved to be unexpectedly complex, but still ridiculously simple compared to a living pattern. I tried the bone cup. Again, the structure of the material was easy, but I was only getting a tiny bit of the living pattern. I stored the cup again, leaving what remained.

I hesitated for a moment as I looked at one of the special gold coins; a pattern of mana ran through it. Eh, I might as well try.I tried to absorb a tiny section, but found the entire thing was absorbed. It was the easiest thing I had absorbed so far. I fully understood how to replicate the pattern of mana inside it, too.

Huh... That was odd.

I looked at the countdown. Less than an hour and a half left. For a moment I looked at the sewer water as it flowed, mostly over the giant block of stone, trying to decide which way to go. Idly, I stored the block of stone, allowing the normal flow to return.

I had two equally good options. If I followed the water downstream I could potentially find an entirely new ecosystem. Who know wheres all this water collects? Plus, I might find a place where random objects that entered settled in stiller waters; there might be all sorts of useful items and patterns. The other way was an equally good choice. Heavier objects would settle to the floor of the sewer near where they entered, and there might be grates, which would hold lighter objects. Upstream would also be richer in both nutrients and remnants from plants and animals from the surface. The nutrient density might also mean larger organisms. However, the closer I came to any entrance, the more likely I was to run into people.

Eh, not planning to be here long anyway, shouldn’t cause me any issues.

Ultimately, I decided to go upstream. I want more than just an underwater ecosystem or two. I missed the sun, the grass, trees waving in the breeze, and all the beautiful life from Earth. Water was beautiful, but I wanted more than that.

Decision made, I followed the water upstream. A few new interesting species caught my attention and they suffered tragic precision rock falls, only for the remnants to mysteriously dissolve away. So strange, yep, totally random accidents. I stored the bits of stone afterwards, each time. I might be leaving holes in the ceiling, but I would at least try not to obstruct the flow of the water. Bound to be some poor sap’s job to come down and fix this kind of thing. At each junction I followed the water upstream. The water gradually grew deeper, the junctions tending to divert the outflowing water into multiple streams, and so congregating as one went upstream. When the water had reached more than waist height, I encountered the first lifeform I would actually consider alien.

The mice-bugs had been odd, but wouldn’t have been out of place on Earth. Just an unusually large insect, more or less, or some kind of animal that developed protective plating.

This on the other hand…

It looked like a ball of transparent jelly, and moved with exquisite slowness on the bottom of the sewer. It left a clean path of stone behind it, scoured of anything organic, like someone had taken a giant spatula and scraped a foot wide path on the bottom of the sewer. Even as I watched, I could see the creatures inside it gradually dissolving.

This, this is exactly the kind of thing that would be perfect for my dungeon.

Besides... I want to study it.

I took my time to carefully cut a three foot cube from the stone, exactly above it, which wasn’t particularly challenging, considering how slow it was. The cube smashed through the water and flattened the unsuspecting ball of slime. Bits of slime jetted out from under the cube, thrown away by the force of the sudden impact. The rest oozed out from under the cube. I quickly absorbed all the dead material.

Unfortunately, that didn’t include the slime.

What the hell?

Despite being crushed, the slime was utterly unharmed. Even the bits farthest away, disconnected from the rest, were unable to be absorbed.

Shit, really?

Bits of the slime began to slowly inch back together. Apparently it was immune to being crushed. And to having pieces of it torn off. Whatever it took to kill one of these, I just didn’t have it. Great, now I want one even more. I tried something I hadn’t done yet, but trying to put it in my storage did nothing. A quick test showed that nothing living could be stored either. Actually, not quite true. Fish eggs actually could be stored. Seems a little arbitrary, but sure, why not. With no idea how to kill or store the slime, and limited time, I grumbled to myself, but I moved on.

Following the main flow of the sewers farther upstream, my faith was finally rewarded. Seeds. I found the first tiny seed floating in the water. Absorbing it proved impossible, but it popped into my storage without issue. So eggs and seeds can be stored, but not absorbed directly. Potential living things appeared to operate under slightly different rules. Again, a rather arbitrary distinction, but I don’t make the rules. Guess it is a good thing that I don’t have to destroy the seeds to collect them. Continuing upstream, I passed slimes with increasing frequency, also seeing more seeds and other organic materials. The seeds were stored away, and the various sticks, twigs, and bits of bramble were dissolved if they were sufficiently dead. Otherwise they were stored too. Being more recently dead, the patterns for the living form showed up in my head fairly easily.

I treasured each new plant, as well as the eggs and seeds I acquired. Each one represented a living organism that I might never be able to acquire again in the future.

Who knows if I’ll ever be here again? Not likely.

As I continued forward, the fish and other life on the bottom got larger. I collected eggs where I could, but I was keeping an eye on my countdown as it got closer and closer to zero. With less than twenty minutes left I hurried along the rushing current, moving through the stone underneath the sewer as fast as possible.

Do a last stone collapse when the timer is almost at zero, get what I can.

I finally started to find corroded pieces of metal, which were welded to the stone beneath by rust, verdigris, and various corrosion. The slimes wither couldn’t destroy the metal as quickly, or perhaps simply failed to consider them food and so didn’t absorb them at all. The metal was absorbed like everything else, and I continued on. I even found another piece of the strange mana imbued gold. It had the same pattern, and had settled into a tiny dip in the stone floor. I stored it absentmindedly, moving on.

The clock counted inexorably downward. I started coming across small dead animals floating in the water. No doubt I confused the poor fish as their meals simply dissolved away. Many of the tiny corpses were the already familiar mice-bugs, or a very close relative. Maybe I should find a better name for those eventually… I also found a considerably larger variant. Rat-bugs?

I encountered plenty of more normally structured insects as well, both dead specimens and living ones feeding on various refuse or along the walls. It seems cockroaches are eternal. It figured the only animal, other than humans, I had come across in this world that I knew would be something I could do without entirely. Oh well, they are excellent survivors, maybe I can scale them up into some kind of dungeon monster? If not, something would enjoy eating them.

I could feel the clock ticking down. I decided to ignore, at least somewhat, my caution and rose up farther through the stone, so that my aura would extend out wider. I could see some additional tunnels off to the sides now. And people.

Shit!

I just kept moving for the moment. The two people I saw were in a side tunnel. That tunnel had small paths raised above the water for people to walk on. They wore leather boots that extended well above their knees. Sensible shoes for down here. They both seemed stopped moving, transitioning from calm to agitated. Their glances searched the tunnel by the torch that one held slightly behind and above his head, their heads turning this way and that.

Huh, it that the proper way to carry a torch? Never knew.

I wasn’t sure if they were agitated because they were in the sewers, they could sense me somehow, or something else. Think they can sense me, sadly. At least there are in a completely different tunnel. They were arguing now. Their voices raised, and gesticulating at each other. The one with the torch seemed to have a placating tone to their voice, his body language crouched and submissive.

The torchbearer turned, trying to run away. The other man pulled a knife from his belt, throwing it at the other. It looked like he was aiming for the heart, but the man’s running steps slipped for a moment, causing the knife to go lower and more toward the center as the man over corrected. The knife, now firmly embedded in the center of his back, stuck into the center of the spine. Blood seeped out around the wound, but it was less than I expected. There was a faint stirring of blood-lust from Exsan, but it was no more than a faint whisper.

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The man’s legs collapsed under him mid stride, severed the spine, and he hit his head on the wall, then bounced back into the water. The other man took a quick step toward the body as the torch quickly extinguished in the water. He grimaced at the fish that were already attracted to the blood in the water and pulled out a stone that shone with light and mana. He ran in the opposite direction and was quickly out of sight.

Why didn’t he use the light stone before, instead of using the torch? Maybe it required a charge or something. I shook off my thoughts. Shit! I could feel the man in the water, the blood as it seeped out, and countless fish coming to eat. A slime was slowly halting and turning around in response to the blood, too.

I hesitated. Should I just not interfere? That would be easy and I could just take the body… No. NO. That is not who I am, that is not who I want to be. It was sure as hell not who I was going to be either. Life might be cheap here on this new world, as I had fairly good evidence of right in front of me. But I’m not from here.

Heaven knows that life was still cheap plenty of places on Earth, but I knew better than that. I was raised better. If all I brought with me here was my memories and knowledge, then I will make those mean something. If I lose everything I was, the moment I’m away from Earth, just because it was easy… Then my dedication to being moral, to being a good person, was never more than surface deep. Anyone who thinks that morals should be abandoned when no one is there to enforce them… Well, they were no more and a monster hidden under a shallow skin.

Beside all that, it was possible, likely really, that they had sensed me, and the argument was related to that. The death would be my fault.

Not sure exactly what about me made one turn on the other, though… Hoping to distract me with their dying companion, so they could escape whatever monsters I might be sending?

I mean… the distraction worked, but not for the right reasons. Not that it was necessary at all.

I tried to take a steadying breath, bringing a jarring awareness of my own lack of a body for the first time in a while. Right, no lungs. It was funny how much the habit of taking deep breathes was ingrained, even after my body was left behind.

Okay, break the problem down:

First I needed to get him out of the water, and away from the fish, so he wouldn’t drown, be eaten, or both. The slime was slow enough that I didn’t need to worry about that. He would be dead of drowning long before it arrived. How the hell am I going to get him out of the water? The man was buoyant, at least, and floating on top of the water; unfortunately he was face down with the knife sticking up out of his back like a macabre fin.

Don’t eat him fish, can’t you see he is a brother?

Not that fish don’t each other all the time any way… What’s a little cannibalism between friends?

Well it looked like the timing on my humor was as inappropriate as ever.

I couldn’t actually do much, other than manipulate stone or dissolve things. Or use storage, but it isn’t like he would go inside before he died, even tissue that is too alive won’t go. I couldn’t move stone too near living things either, not without paying more mana than I had. Right… this is impossible. How can I prevent him from drowning, let alone the rest, if I cannot touch him? Wait… I had things in storage. Tam’s wooden chair... The wood should float, right? I really hoped so. And placing things into storage had been easy, even when living things were nearby.

Hopefully the reverse is just as easy.

With a faint ripple, the chair appeared in the water beneath the man, then floated up beneath him. Cost more than it should, but still no more than one mana. The chair didn’t do much, on its own, to lift the man up, but it was a start. Working as fast as I could, I extended a tendril of stone out of the wall, slightly down stream. As the man slowly floated by I clamped the stone onto the back of the chair where it protruded from the water, and lifted it up. I kept the man firmly centered, shifting slightly when he wobbled. Water and fish poured back into the sewer.

I quickly cut and stored a portion of the wall to make a hollow, though small bits of living fungus and insects fell to the ground as the bricks and mortar they clung to vanished, and drew the man into it. I eased him off the chair and onto the floor. Damn, wish I had time to make that scrap of cloth into a proper rug for him. Jarring him with the stone might make things worse… though honestly probably not any worse than everything I did to get him out of the sewer.

I placed the chair back into storage and simply looked at the man.

Now what?

I could feel his pulse as a vibration in the air and stone, but he was not breathing, and various bits of his flesh were nibbled away from the short time he had been in the water. Blood mixed with the water beneath him, growing to form a reddish pool.

Well, I should be able to replicate anything I absorb, right? And I had already absorbed things from right next to living objects. So… there were a few potential ways I might be able to help.

God, I hope this works, here goes nothing.

I absorbed the pool of blood and I was overwhelmed by patterns once again. I could tell that something was missing though. I had the shape of the man, but it was lacking detail. Maybe I need more than just DNA? Perhaps I needed the various types of cells. I had smashed my previous prey to bits, but there would have been plenty of mostly intact cells amidst the debris.

Right. I examined the body more closely. The top layer of skin was supposed to be dead, but the layer of mana around the body was clearly covering it. No wait… there. A small gobbet of flesh hung from the wound on the back. It was clearly not protected anymore. Cannibalism ho! I absorbed the flesh. Oh god, that should not taste so good!

More information flooded into me. It was not conscious knowledge now, but I could see the pattern and how it was supposed to go… mostly. The man’s pattern was still off, not that I found that greatly surprising.

The pulse was weakening. The mana barrier around the man wavered for a moment, before snapping back into place. Okay… there might be something that I can do with that. He is dying, for sure, without my help, so at least I cannot make things worse.

I wrapped a tendril of stone around the knife and prepared to extract it. For a brief moment, the mana barrier around the man faded to nothing again. With a flash, I pulled out the knife and stored it, while another part of my mind simultaneously absorbed a small cross section of the wound taking advantage of the momentary absence of the normal barrier. I would need the information on how the bone, nerve, and everything else worked if I was going to repair the wound, and what I absorbed would give it to me. At the same time, another shard absorbed the water straight from the man’s lungs, while one more absorbed anything else that didn’t belong in the blood. He had fallen with an open wound into the sewer; it would be foolish of me to repair the wound only for him to die of sepsis later.

As soon as the full pattern resolved in my mind, snapping together into a coherent whole, more parts of myself sprung into action. Several minds worked together on the wound, since it was the most serious issue and needed the most attention. Mana poured out of me as flesh knit to flesh, bone to bone, and nerve to nerve. Other parts of the man’s pattern felt off and were absorbed then repaired by other parts of myself. They might be old issues, but there was no sense in taking chances. Another mind repaired the bites from the fish, gouging away slightly more with absorption to insure the wounds were clean and then layering on new tissue. Another replicated some extra blood into his arteries, careful not to add more than a small amount. An instant later and it was done. I was almost dry of mana; everything I had gained by reaping life here in the sewer, and more, was gone.

I looked at my timer. Crap! I had less than a minute. I looked at the man. He had started to breathe again and the mana barrier around him was strong. He should be fine right? I looked at the slime, even as I realized that there was no light down here. Oh fuck me! I could imagine the slime rolling over top the man and extending down into his throat… Yep, no, not going there. Damn it! If I left him like this then he would probably still die. Okay, time to move as fast as possible.

I cut the slab of stone under the man, making it into a rectangular platform, and lifted him up into the air, even as my core approached through the stone. I had still been cautious when I encountered the two men, leaving my core inside a wall, but the time for caution was over. Need to be able to see light, I’ll see that farther than my aura can. My core came up, emerged from the stone, and a tendril of stone gripped me carefully, then I was moved and slotted into the front of the stone slab. Tendrils of stone came out of the walls, even as the slab was lifted up and out of the recessed hole into the tunnel. A tendril of stone reached from ahead even as others pushed from behind, catching the platform and moving me as swiftly as I could manage. Honestly it wasn’t that much. I was fairly sure I could have moved faster in my old body with a brisk jog.

For a piece of crystal, I’m moving pretty fast.

I followed the tunnel upstream, instantly feeling when my timer hit zero. A searing pain filled the world. I had no body, no place to ascribe the pain to, but that provided no relief. Very faintly, I could feel Exsan screaming in my head. For a brief moment I lost track of myself and the stone stopped moving. The man started to slide towards the front as he decelerated and I hurriedly started moving again. Wish I could go faster.

For a brief moment, I considered dropping him off in a quick alcove again. It’s just pain. I had dealt with migraines in my last life, the first coming at the age of five. I had rolled on the floor clutching my head at the pain. I had been highly resistant to novocain and had no idea until I was an adult. I had suffered exquisite agony at dentists for years, simply because I assumed that numbing was only supposed to take a tiny edge off the pain. The system message had said that forming a dungeon would heal me, completely. I couldn’t simply form a dungeon right here; I didn’t know how long I would need to keep a dungeon. And if I just leave now, he will almost certainly die. I just needed to endure for a little more, and then I would be fine.

The pain did not subside. It was growing. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. I repeated this to myself over and over again as a mantra, losing myself in the action. I let the pain wash over me, not allowing it to engage.

Mastered pain before, staying still in a dentist chair. I will overcome.

My reverie came to an end when I sensed light passing through my aura in a parallel tunnel. The sudden shock of awareness almost allowed the pain to overwhelm me. I immediately opened a passage between the two tunnels and hurried my unconscious passenger though.

Someone is going to be very confused by all the changes I made in the sewer.

As I entered the tunnel I could see the light off in the distance. A faint shape of light in the darkness. As I neared it, I could see stairs that lead up into the daylight, but they were blocked by a gate at the top.

Really, another obstacle?

I hurried up the stairs, and the air grew freezing. The man’s breathes formed visible clouds of vapor in the air. As I got nearer to the light, much more entered into my aura. Dirt, leaves, grass, and sprouts of various plants were around me, all under a layer of snow. The bars of the sewer gate contained mana and extended far into the stone. For a normal person this would present quite the barrier. With a small thought I pushed the door through the stone until it popped out into open air, then I stored it.

The stone I left behind was smooth and unmarked. Wonder if there are mages that can do what I just did with stone? If not someone is going to be wondering how I did this soon…

What am I even thinking, Tam could make stone regrow or dissolve. Definitely others that can manipulate stone like me.

I emerged into the sunlight. The area was clear, with no foot prints I could see in the snow or even the soil beneath. Behind me was a stone cliff. Okay, just need to make sure the man is safe and I can leave. I kept myself attached to the cliff and moved to the side of the doorway.

Other parts of myself had been frantically scavenging everything that they could as soon as the dirt had entered into my reach. Dead branches, seeds of dozens of types, snow and ice, dead leaves, insect eggs and carcasses buried within the dirt. The dirt itself was also stored and absorbed in giant heaping handfuls.

One part of myself simply relished the feeling of being outside, starting to focus on all the various details. The beauty of the snow covered landscape and trees, the mountains visible all around, the sun…

What the hell is that?

There, in the sky, was a large red ring. It was faint, but at least triple the width of the sun. Admittedly the sun looks smaller than on Earth. I have no idea what that is, though. If it was the planetary rings of a nearby planet it ought to have a shadow passing over them, unless caught at an absurdly perfect angle, and the planet itself should be visible too, but I couldn’t think of anything else it might plausibly be in the moment. That part of my mind marveled even as the rest of me kept working.

My hurry increased as I felt my aura begin to diminish. At the edges, where my aura was in the open air, it was unraveling. The threads disconnected, unfurled, and vanished into the raw mana it had been made from.

Sure, one more thing, why not?

I found a quartz outcropping a short distance from the entrance. It will have to do. I cut a section loose in the shape of a door. Just before I entered, the quiet scream of Exsan, which had been continuing this entire time, abruptly went silent, even as I heard a distinct crack in my core. The world flickered and it seems like a wave of something distorted for a moment. I had no time to think about that. I quickly stored sections of stone as they were cut away, and I moved backward into the cliff as fast as I could. My aura stabilized again as it reentered the ground.

As I entered, I replaced the first section of stone, forming almost invisible hinges, barring the door from the inside. The quartz let in enough light to see dimly. Even from the short exposure outside, the man was shivering and his lips were turning blue. The man would freeze if I left him in wet clothes so close to the frigid landscape.

I went as far back into the stone as I dared, the pain growing beyond my ability to bear, and I lowered the stone platform. There should be enough air in here to last a long time.

I needed to get him warm. Cloth, I could do that. A part of my mind absently absorbed a loose thread hanging off the man as I started to work. I replicated the cloth and made it larger and thicker. I had replicated cloth in stone before, this was fairly simple. I could, however, feel the drain on my mana from creating even the single piece of cloth. I slid the man off the platform and onto thick rug of cloth. I replicated another, as a blanket, a couple feet above the man’s body and watched it drop onto him.

Well, that ought to be enough to hold off hypothermia. I looked at my mana, it was almost completely drained. There was nothing more I could do for the man, so I prepared to leave.

Even as I did, however, another part of my mind had already been working, leaving an apology gift behind before the cloth was even done being made.

Sorry for almost getting you killed… assuming its my fault, anyway. Maybe this will help.

All the coins I had in storage clattered to the ground clinking faintly, and then the blanket settle down over top of them.

Even as I released the coins, and the cloth settled over him, another part of my mind made the purchase and 1575 ability points drained away.

You have purchased:

Unclaimed High Resource Dungeon Location

You will now be teleported to a dungeon location that will have the resourced you need in relative abundance. Still, while it will provide everything you need, and is not currently claimed by another dungeon, it is unlikely to be perfect, and resources often attract the attention of others.

Teleportation Commencing!

Hope setting up that dungeon heals me like it promised.

In a brief moment Caden was elsewhere. Without even looking around, with a push of will, Caden immediately founded his dungeon.