For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It's like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat.

– Alan Moore

==Zidaun==

Before we set a single foot upon the bridge, as it creaked in the omnipresent wind, we decided to reinforce it. There were a few blessings that Firi might have been able to add, but they should have negligible effect compared to Inda and I.

We started with Inda, she cast a spell on each of us. We would not press so firmly downward upon the bridge anymore. If we fell, we would also fall much slower. We weren’t sure what, if anything, was below the misty gap, but it was best to prepare.

My turn was next.

I started moving stone to reinforce the bridge.

The magic was torn from my grasp.

“Get back,” I said. “The bridge is doing something.”

Varnish and polish crawled in droplets and rivulets, upward. The varnish moved up against gravity, droplets pushing up and moving toward the sky. Eventually the whole bridge was covered in gleaming varnish, and the beads subsided back downward. and instantly settled to a perfect gloss. Not even a hint of varnish smell filled the air.

The beams of the bridge groaned as they firmed into place, the wood tightening around them. The bridge straightened slightly, its arch growing more pronounced. Green jade slithered out from each side of the bridge’s supports. The green stone grew as a living vine of stone, complete with stone leaves. The leaves were so thin they were translucent in the eternal daylight.

The vines spread, growing thicker and traveling farther along the bridge. The supports of the bridge soon grew completely covered. Jade buds formed which gave birth to small transparent crystal flowers. The flowers bloomed open; tiny transparent yellow stamens peaked out from the interior. The scent of flowers, sweet and light, filled the air. From the main branches vines twisted up around the main bridge and followed the banisters. From there they grew into the air, following an invisible framework. The framework could only be seen due to its absence, as vines curved up in multiple places over the bridge, and arches of stone vines formed. Like below, small buds of jade gave way to transparent flowers.

When the vines stopped growing, the bridge was transformed. From a creaky and aged structure, it had become an enchanted path. Its slightly sagging structure had given way to a perfect arch, lined in otherworldly living stone. New shadows from the leaves meshed with the gleaming deep brown varnish. The very slight movement of the bridge was enough to make the leaves glimmer and the shadows move gently. The new tunnel felt like it belonged in a secluded wood.

“Is the vine alive?” Gurek asked.

Inda and Firi shook their heads, unsure.

“It feels like just stone to me,” I said. “However, with what we saw… I wouldn’t say anything for sure.”

I reached out to touch the nearby vine. It was stone, as far as I could tell, though its texture mimicked the feel of a plant perfectly. There were faint striations on the vines; they were indistinguishable from the thin bark of a living vine. However, there were layers of different types of stone inside. I could feel the veins of crystal perfectly mimicking a living structure.

I didn’t think it was alive. There was no mana lingering around inside it, at least that I could feel in the main trunk. However, mana was hard to feel properly at times, even when borrowing the senses of a god. There were tiny flickers of mana around the flowers though.

I looked at the flowers more carefully. The petals were the least life-like part of the plant. However, it was done in a way that was obviously intentional. Countless facets lined the petals, spreading tiny rainbow lights around them. The stamens, on the other hand, were perfectly lifelike. Tiny granules of crystalline golden pollen were even scattered around the flower and gathered where they belonged.

“I cannot tell for sure,” I said. “I don’t sense any mana, except around the flowers. Even that is faint though. It might be alive, or… an exceptionally elaborate statue.”

“Why?” Firi said.

“Why what?” Inda said. One of her eyebrows rose at him.

“Why… make this?” Firi said. “We have seen the dungeon…” He gestured around us. “Make all of this. That makes sense. It has a purpose for training, and if it was effective it would attract people to the dungeon.” He pointed at me. “I know the Adar customize their dungeons, do they do things to this extent, usually?”

I hesitated for a moment. Best to tell the truth carefully here.

“No,” I said. “Not to this extent. This is the largest room I have been in that is meant to simulate a natural environment.”

“What about this?” he said, pointing to the bridge. “Could you make this, make a dungeon replicate it again, and do it like we saw?”

I thought for a moment. I… honestly wasn’t sure what we had just seen. This dungeon was strange. It… almost seemed like this dungeon liked art. Not for the sake of deception or some plan, but simply because of the art itself. It could be part of some plan. Show off works of art and never attack while doing so, and then suddenly attack later. It was possible… but it didn’t feel right. The amount of effort seemed utterly out of proportion to the reward. It could have just made the bridge become sturdy. An effect that could have been replicated through out the dungeon and that never drew an attack. Then it could have pulled off the same trick.

What it had created here… I was fairly certain that our true masters could create something like this. Though it would take a great deal of time. And doing this… making the show of it. It had made a masterpiece appear in moments. And it hadn’t simply appeared, it had grown into place. Could we set things up so that a dungeon would be able to do this? No. I didn’t think we could. It would take the dungeon acting of its own accord and using its own abilities to the fullest to make it happen. And I didn’t understand what that meant at all.

“No,” I finally responded. “I don’t think we could. I don’t actually know what this means.”

I took steps until I was farther onto the bridge. The others followed me.

“Uh,” Gurek cleared his throat. “I should take a sample, right? I know it might not be a plant. And… it seems wrong to take a piece of this, honestly. However, we aren’t entirely sure why this happened. So… we should take a sample, right?”

I sighed.

“Yeah, that is protocol,” I said.

Gurek grabbed a hard leather case out of his backpack.

“Zidaun, can you use your stone shaping to grab a flower for me?” he said.

“Sure, I can do that,” I said.

I reached out to a flower, breaking it off with a simple manipulation of the stone. The cross-section of the vine left behind had visible vasculature.

I reached out to hand it to Gurek when the small flower changed. I let it drop out of my hands and it fell to the wooden boards below. The flower’s petals wilted, the shining crystal crumpling into tiny rainbow flecked nubs. In the center of the flower grew a seed. The seed was a faceted sphere of transparent brown crystal. The crystal contained a tiny fleck of solid jade. The jade moved and cracked through the brown crystal keeping it contained.

A tiny seedling of jade emerged, with two small leaves. Roots extended below it, they grew into a small bundle in the air, lifting the plant a few inches. It grew upwards, tiny leaves sprouting off of it. It stopped when it was no more than a foot tall. Tiny buds formed on the vine, and a bud at the very top of the vine blossomed open. It swiftly became a flower that was identical to the one I had just removed.

A shimmer of crystal surrounded the flower, until it was locked into a solid hexagonal block of perfectly transparent stone. This crystal was sufficiently different that the transparent petals were still easily visible within.

Gurek went to pick it up.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I identified it out of reflex and curiosity.

The Eternal Blossom

Artifact – Unique

Immune to Theft – Dungeon Bound – Indestructible – Transferable

A manifestation of the dungeon’s desire for beauty and perfection, and its desire to share it.

Benefits:

+Owner instinctively knows the benefits of Artifact

+Owner has a telepathic link with the dungeon, even when Artifact is elsewhere

+Owner can allow another individual telepathic contact with the dungeon while they touch Artifact

+Owner can establish a temporary telepathic link when another is touching the Artifact

+Owner can have the dungeon store Artifact, or recall it from anywhere inside the dungeon at will

+Owner may transfer ownership of Artifact to another, however, this fails under any form of persuasion, threat, etc… even indirect forms, like social pressure or preexisting contracts

+Dungeon may assign another owner upon death

Gurek touched it even as I started to react, and I felt the magic bind it to him.

Gurek’s eyes widened.

“What the fuck?” He said.

My heart froze.

==Caden==

I had to admit that I liked showing off. I could communicate with Zidaun, to an extent. I could talk to Exsan too. Usually, anyway, I wasn’t entirely sure why he was meditating for so long. Maybe dungeon cores did that all the time? It might be their form of sleep, something they did when they had nothing better to do. That felt wrong though… Oh well, I would figure that out later.

Zidaun started his manipulation of the stone, and my preparations took over. Even after designing it, I was enthralled by watching the stone grow over the bridge.

The varnish trick was easy. It wasn’t actually liquid. It was a sped up version of me creating the varnish on the wooden planks. The fake droplets were never liquid, they were hardened drops of varnish that I destroyed from one end while I added to the other end. It created the illusion of the drops moving against gravity.

The vines… were considerably harder.

There were ways to record processes inside the puzzle framework. That was how I recreated moving doors, and other pieces of work. I had been using that framework and pushing it to the limits. It was not designed for what I was using it for, but that didn’t matter to me.

I had painstakingly built the bridge in a stronger configuration. Getting the bridge to go from a looser state to one that was upright was easy. It was easy to reverse as well.

Once I had the bridge in place, I had planted vines on each side of it. I prevented it from growing off the bridge. I also carefully wove it into place around the supports as it grew. And, as it grew, I made perfect models of it in stone. My ability to absorb and perfectly recreate the vines proved helpful. Then I carefully trained the vines up the structure of the bridge and over arching trellises. I removed the trellises from the bridge later.

Eventually I had copies of the bridge in all of it various stages. And from there I grew the same ones out of stone. I could see inside the plants perfectly, so I didn’t just copy the outside, I emulated the interior vasculature and structure as perfectly as I could. I had to manually grow my stone vines, recording the process as I went from one snapshot until I matched the next. I created copies of the bridge with vines on it in each stage of growth, one at a time, each representing only minutes of the vines growth. This made the leaves move with their real motions in response to the wind and the accelerated growth that occurred in my dungeon.

Eventually I had recorded the entire artificial process. The only real change I made was to alter the properties of the petals. I wanted to show that I had more artistry than simply a perfect copy. My new abilities with art and calculation made the work easier. They helped me get things perfect as I shifted the stone from one state to the next. I wasn’t certain I could have done it without those skills.

However, I was able to get the entire process recorded. And then I was able to speed it up. And it created something truly amazing. I had actually watched the process several times on my own, before Zidaun and the others triggered it.

I loved seeing their eyes get wide.

The notification icon suddenly started blinking furiously.

Congratulations, you have unlocked an accomplishment!

Pulled the Wool Over Their Eyes

Accomplishments are hidden goals that can be achieved for varying rewards. Unlike quests, accomplishments have no followup accomplishment. Accomplishments are not noted in the status. The nature of accomplishments cannot be shared with another individual.

You have successfully fooled a group of moderate or above leveled individuals with a completely physical illusion.

Calculating additional factors…

+Multiple massive environments created with lifelike fidelity

Error... appropriate skill not found

Cause identified, reward deferred

+Entire dungeon section filled with lifelike statues

+Fooled experts of exploration, including an individual borrowing your own senses

+/- Existing Title for deception – positive bonus, due to existing title not assisting

+Low level

+Goal of deception (awe, beauty, mystification) accomplished

Title triggered...

Error… (awe, beauty, mystification) incompatible with dungeon…

Error assigned lower priority

+Success on first few attempts

+Individuals fooled are still uncertain how trick was accomplished

+Large scale deception completed within a day – invalidated due to dungeon nature

Rewards: Standard, Upgraded to Massive

* Hidden (Reward Deferred)

* Trigger Met (Future reward may activate with acquisition of additional titles, accomplishments, skills, etc...)

* Title: Escape Artist IV (Deception) upgraded to Illusion Specialist V (Light, Darkness, Sound)

* Skill Given

* Given Skill Upgraded

* Given Skill Leveled

* Artifact Created

Error Resolving…

You have gained a new title:

Art for Art’s Sake

Error

.

.

.

Title incompatible with species – title will be adapted.

.

.

.

Multiple errors of this type detected in history, adding subspecies (human)

Error, unique subspecies, unable to modify

Additional incompatibilities found

Seeking solution

.

.

.

Adding automatic handling for invalid species errors. Skills, Titles, etc... will be adjusted automatically. You will be informed when this occurs.

Error now resolved.

Title changed due to species adaptation, you have now gained:

Beauty in the Garden of Death (First)

You completed a work of art, a masterpiece. This is not the first time, and you have pushed yourself to make even more as your skills developed. You have created your art with no thought of reward, except the appreciation of yourself and others. That appreciation has been obtained, and your art has proven its own reward.

+1000 Ability Points

+Gain a large selection of flora and fauna that are harmless, but varied in color, size, shape, etc...

-Evolutions of forms given by this title will always remain relatively harmless unless you obtain a natural copy or pattern in another way

+(First) Can create a new type of subsection: Harmless Evolution

Your title: One Small Step for a Man I has become:

One Small Step for a Man II

You are the first of your species to gain multiple particular skills and or titles. Use your unique knowledge and gifts to further become what you desire; you are already on the way.

+3000 (2000 + Existing 1000) Ability Points

+4% Additive bonus to all other learning bonuses from titles and skills

Title Upgraded and advanced:

Escape Artist IV (Deception) upgraded to:

Illusion Specialist V (Light, Darkness, Sound)

You know that all deception is based in illusion. Having gained a greater understanding of deception, you now also have insight into the mechanics behind deception.

+3100 (2350 + Existing 750) Ability Points

+ 25% Faster learning for abilities focused on deception

+25% Discount on purchasing deception based skills

+ 12.5% Faster learning for abilities focused on light, darkness, and or sound

+12.5% Discount on purchasing light, darkness, and or sound based skills

+Your Aura cannot be traced back to your core by anyone without a title focused on tracking. That title must be at least one level higher than your own, and weaker titles may require more than one level more. Tracking titles one level or more weaker than your own will indicate any decoys are the real thing.

You have gained a new skill:

Environmental Immersion III (Light, Darkness, Sound)

Artificial environments you create are made more realistic, and blend together better. Conscious effort can make actual illusions overlay sufficiently complex camouflage.