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Sand And Spite: A Dungeoncore Story
Taking Count and Plotting Paths.

Taking Count and Plotting Paths.

As the sun rose higher, Chase paced around and through the halls and rooms. The mine was running consistently now, so he wasn’t worried about his clay supply that much anymore. Leaning over the edge, he took in how the six-unit wide square was now, after perhaps two hours of digging, nearing a full ten units deep. The sides of the hole were marked with etched lines at one unit intervals. With any luck, he’d find a new type of stone sooner rather than later.

Of course, the mine wasn’t the sole thing Chase and the Core was excavating. Across the bottom of the pit he’d carved into the desert sand, golden lines slowly creeped out and washed out from the four outer rooms, slowly digging into the very surface of the clay that stretched out under the dunes. The energy was creeping out and ‘claiming’ the surface in all directions, one unit of distance at a time. Uneven clay surfaces smoothed out and were marked with unit sized squares, the same scaled up design from the battlemaps etching into the land around the dungeon.

The claiming of territory also was clearing away the sand that built around the walls from wind, keeping the area around the dungeon cleared away and the worst of the sand from creeping around the walls and columns of his rooms.

He stepped back from the mine, the distant gleam of golden energy continuing to bore its way into the earth. Heading back towards the core, he turned to the east, taking a look over the newly transferred maps. With the space being cleared and finished after dawn, he had moved the early designs of the dungeon away from the core room and into this one.

Stretching out from the room’s back wall to more than halfway to the doorway, a broad red shelf of clay filled the room. Across the surface, clearly shown in the light of the day, the battle map tiles were being transferred over. Rough designs of the current dungeon were etched bright and clear in the center of the red clay grid surface, the pattern repeating across the entire surface. With further expansion, the room would be set up as the de facto ‘Map’ of the dungeons' various sectors, and if he gained access to any form of scrying or communications, it would be added to this wing. References, research material, books… Anything he found interesting for reference would go in the east wing.

If the southern area would be the mine—and in the future, the passage and access to the depths of the foundations beneath anything—the eastern area would be his archives, his storage of strange and unusual objects.

As he passed back through the core room once more, he felt the quiet presence of the scorpion. It seemed to be slumbering for now, sleeping away the hours of the day… but even still, there was a faint sense of awareness that lingered in the core, as if the scorpion was still watching the surroundings even now. As a Boss Monster, that was perhaps not so far fetched.

It would be something to investigate down the line.

Heading to the northern passageway, Chase glanced around at the developing architecture and walked past it. There wasn’t anything there yet, not until he had stronger materials. Relying on clay as the main building material was annoying, but he was getting creative with it. It wasn’t great for high stress, but the considerably light and easy to shape material meant that meshes and smaller designs could be far more complicated then the packed sandstone he had been reliant on earlier. While establishing mesh walls and the colonnade had been easy enough, they wouldn’t stop anything that wanted to get in badly enough. Hard as the baked clay might be… it was still fragile.

If he could get some marble or granite then he could really get some height and reinforced bearings. In a way, that was the plan for the north section, eventually: a tower tall enough for him to actually get some sort of bearing in the desert.

Checking everything one last time, Chase headed towards the ‘west’ wing of the cross.

Mainly because there was nothing important over there, yet.

Stopping in the doorway, he opened up his menu, and with a button press and some minor menu manipulation, made a small circular platform rise, before sitting cross legged on it. His ghostly form didn’t need a pillow or anything, but the familiar pose and the idea of ‘sitting’ helped center him somewhat.

“Right. Menu management time.”

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Reaching out, he opened multiple instances of the Menu, wincing as he felt the connection to the dungeon core… flex slightly. The feeling settled, and Chase wasted no time sorting and changing each menu to what he wanted.

“To the left, ‘Inventory’ of materials…” The list of what materials he had sat next to the ‘Transmutation’ menu, the sole option of ‘Sand to Loose Sandstone’ at a cost of 1.1 units of sand for 1 of sandstone on the otherwise empty menu list. Under it, he also slid the ‘Excavation’ menu, showing the rough outline of the mine he had forming..

“To the right I want my ‘Building’ menu…” Several sub menus were pulled up, including the ‘Structures’ subtab, the list of various decorations and furniture, and one of all his wall and floor designs which included the pillars and clay mesh he had been using in most places.

“And in front—” Chase narrowed his eyes. “The wildcards.”

‘Minions’ and ‘Status’.

First off, time to check on how his first night had changed anything.

Status- Solis Crux

Divinity- Unknown

Dungeon Heath:

15/15

Size:

Floors: 1

Cores: 1

Rooms: 5

Domain: 221 units claimed

Core Alignment:

Unknown Aspect

Developing Aspect

Developing Aspect

Mana Reserve:

6/1550 (Mu: Magical Units)

Mana Recovery:

3 (per current Solar Cycle)

That was… good news?

As Chase sat back, he considered. Parts of this were worrying, the developing and unknown aspects in particular… but the increase of Health and his Mana Recovery rate were both good news. The fact that the size tracking was now showing rooms and floors was nice, but the fact that it showed cores was frightening. The core he was currently linked to was his old body, and making that had been an act of divine craftsmanship. He expected that was why his mana reserve was so damn huge: 1500, considering he was only getting 3 a day? The scaling was just… kind of intense.

“Hey, God?”

There was twitch as the dark void of His God, the white flame still muted in the bright light of day, materialized at his side. “Yes?”

“Do you get any insight on this?”

The deity took in his array of menus and nodded, arms crossing behind his waist as he began to speak.

“As shown, there are several metrics for a Dungeon Core’s growth in the system we implemented. Size is one, but both ‘claimed territory’ and ‘established structures’ both have different metaphysical weights. You could claim miles of desert unending, but sheer distance would provide little strength to the system. Establishing rooms and passages, crafting structures that stand in the physical plane and act as channels for your power strengthen you far more for the effort. The more interconnected and refined, the more potent the mana it can contain and filter.

“… So Domains versus Rooms is the same as quantity versus quality?”

“Indeed. A shack has more purpose than mere unworked earth.”

In a way, Chase could understand that. The metaphysics—both of Gods and perhaps the magic of this reality—relied and built upon intent, and by crafting passages, they gained some measure of it.

“And the aspects?”

The God nodded and looked back, staring at the golden crystal that sat a room away. “For all that the core was once your own flesh, time and craft have split you apart. While not living, the Core does grow and learn. What it consumes, what it crafts, what it experiences… Solis Crux shall change and grow. The Developing aspects are but potential threads that could be woven to greater heights. The Hidden… is my doing. The bond connecting the core to the Divine. For now, I shall leave it shrouded. The greater its use, the greater the risk of drawing unwanted sight.”

Chase nodded. That was most of the questions… but one major one was left.

“What about the recovery rate?”

The god glanced around and waved a hand to encompass the dungeon around them. “The core itself can only handle so much mana at once, this is true, but the structures you’ve developed act as catches in the flow. Mana catches and swirls in the structures and stones, filtering through it, to be reclaimed slowly by the Core once more. The grander the structure, the more mana is caught and held, filtering in.”

Right, from what he had learned, magic did make some level of sense if you considered it a physical energy, if only in how it moved and gathered. If the movement of the sun spread mana through the world, then making a place to catch it was much like putting a cooking pan in a hot sun. The thicker and heavier the metal, the more heat it would hold before bleeding off once removed.

For that matter, Chase couldn’t help but wonder how messing with conventional thermodynamics would change the mana interactions. Something to study down the line.

Moving status aside, he opened the Minion menu and stuttered to a stop.

At his side, the God glanced up, and Chase followed suit.

It was almost Solar Noon.

And the surge of Mana was beginning.

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