> Intelligence has reached 25: Sapience Unlocked
> Racial Understanding increased: Mana theory - The lifeblood of an esoteric universe. To most, it is food, fuel, or a tool, but to a dungeon, it is their will.
> Mana manipulation increased by 5
The dungeon feels… different. Mana fills the territory and swirls with color. Bright color that entangles everything. The dungeon can see the mana inside its domain. It can see the food that is life.
The mana it has eaten swirls around, a part of the dungeon and its core. It flows through the world and pools around each monster. The food sustains them. It makes them strong. It’s important to eat and be strong. Dungeon should eat more.
But there is no more food to eat. It already ate all the dead mana it could reach. To grow, dungeon will need to find a new source of mana… like all the dungeon mana around it. Can’t just eat mana in dungeon, because that’s its mana. But monster mana is different. Not a part of dungeon core, so it can be eaten. Not filling like dead mana, but more than not.
Mana that flows through monsters tastes weird. Dungeon mana is simple and gives life, but then monsters change it. They tint mana with their lives and make it complex. Different. New. Flavorful. Bird mana is acidic. Slime mana is gooey. Ant mana is bitter. Each monster refines mana to grow and live. Complex mana is much better to eat than nothing.
But if mana passing through monsters makes it tastier, can it be even better? Can dungeon change flow of mana to loop back? Easy to do. Mana that flow through slime goes back to enter slime again. Double slime mana, must be even better than once slime mana. More mana in slime makes it stronger and tastier, which is good. Slime grow, and glow from mana. This was good idea.
> Spell Slime has exploded: Too much mana
Hmm… that… not tasty.
Slime exploded, but not dead. It can pick itself up. Only weak die to explosions, and slime is strong. When slime reforms can just retry until success.
Could find new slime, but dungeon needs break. Refined mana makes dungeon crystal hurt. Core aches from dense mana. But dungeon cant be weak, must ignore and get stronger. Strong dungeons get to eat.
Strong dungeon [consume] to [grow].
They [kill] to [expand].
We [hunt] to [conquer]. Conquer to hunt. Grow to kill.
Dungeon is smart, but bigger dungeons better at thinking. They are better at killing too. This dungeon needs to eat more so it can be bigger. But dungeon needs food. Dungeon needs delvers to become food.
Delvers don’t want to be food. Delvers need bait to come to dungeon. Delvers like ‘reward’ for bait, but dungeon doesn’t have any rewards. Maybe smart dungeon can think of rewards to be bait!
Dungeon thinking….
Thinking very hard….
Ok, dungeon has no idea.
Delvers are like ants. Ants also weak when alone. Ants like digging, so maybe delvers also like digging? Last delver jumped into hole, so must like dirt. Can dungeon put people in hole as reward? Yes, perfect bait!
> Understanding Increased: traps - a broad term that has evolved from the days of digging pits. Or in this case, digging pits.
Dungeon learn and expand on its own. Bigger brain makes dungeon stronger. Now that dungeon knows what a trap is, it can make more. Just need ants to dig in ground and make holes. They good at digging their home which has lots of holes. Before dungeon can tell ants to work, moth-ant-queen thing tells them to.
“The consciousness of the Crown has grown. Its territory, our home, has expanded. It is our job to protect the land blessed by its existence. We shall lay the silk strands our children will climb upon. A string that will not snap. It is by the will of the dungeon we live, and that we grow! We must use all the knowledge we have access to so that we may live to see our children enter tomorrow!”
Her words seem to inspire. Dungeon doesn’t have to worry about trap locations, because ants put them everywhere! They lay silk and leaves above pit as more bait. Ants are smart like that, and make dungeon stronger.
> Trap Discovered: Spell Syphon Funnel - A pit trap layered with runes and wards to direct the flow of its victims’s mana away from the owner.
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Dungeon is on a roll with discovery and being smart. It invents new types of rewards to give delvers that uses mana to attract them. The mana of funnel spins slowly and downward, giving it a new flavor. Dungeon really wants something to fall into it so it can see what it tastes like.
Idea, spell slime! Come towards funnel. Very important smart stuff happening.
> Spell Slime has Condensed: mana depleted
Trap mana tastes even better than other mana… but ouch. It hurts to eat… maybe dungeon just needs to cycle it into other monsters? Painful mana is bigger and takes more to eat, so this is good idea.
> Spell Slime has exploded: Too much mana
> (Unbiased) Inquiry: Why are you like this?
Dungeon just needs to keep trying.
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Shimmer had given up.
She had searched high and low, and everywhere else she could think of. She looked everywhere light touched, but found nothing! Now, out of energy, she couldn’t even remember what she was searching for.
Whatever it was, it was still missing. The investigation had become even harder because she couldn’t remember why it was so important that she found whatever she needed to find. In her befuddlement, the Creator of the dungeon ‘asked’ for help.
Her job was to stand very still. Mana twirled through the air in pretty loops as it passed through several other slimes, condensing as it went. Each slime in the chain started to grow and glow, before each one went ‘poof’ and disappeared with a pop.
The slimes were fine, which was nice, but they were scattered. Shimmer helped them get back together. As she worked the dungeon’s mana kept dancing behind her. The Creator was looping mana through Shimmer and wondering why she didn’t explode. She didn’t know, but thought it was because of whatever she was searching for. She could feel the mana drain as it went somewhere else, and the feeling made her feel very alone.
But working with the ants to put her gelatin family back together helped. She wasn’t alone, she had friends and family. The ants were so kind they even let her join their song, chant? “The cycle, the cycle. Repeating, repeating. Nectar of the immortal spell that imbues the world with life. A sacrifice to the cycle. The cycle, the cycle. Repeating, repeating.” Okay, maybe it was a chant?
Despite the song, Shimmer didn’t stay for long. She helped with what she could, but with a glance sun-ward she realized she had other responsibilities to take care of. Bidding the others a friendly goodbye, she dashed off, worried she might be late.
It took an entire hour to get to the other side of the dungeon, but she was early. That was good. It would be rude to be late. With time to kill she couldn’t help but to look out from the top of the hill and take in the grassy valley the dungeon, her home, and filled. It had been so much work to plant all that grass, and to expand to fill the valley, but they had done it. Her family had made it look quite nice.
Now, in her favorite napping spot, all she had to do was not fall asleep.
She tried. She failed. The sun was too warm.
She woke up with a shift in the air as it became fuzzy. Quickly Shimmer got up so she would look busy, and realized the friends she was waiting for were coming up the hill. No one else had noticed their approach, but Shimmer was a good friend and remember the signs of their approach.
The mage made the air all fuzzy, and the plants danced as he approached, while the elf he walked with smelled like fruit. It was easy to remember them. Oh, and there were two other friends with them, but they weren’t as interesting. Being very sure to greet them kindly, Shimmer’s efforts were rewarded as the fruit elf cooed and picked her up.
“Still dont know your name, but I’m happy to see you well,” the elf’s words were muffled as she buried her face into Shimmer’s body. Doing her best to mimic the elf’s ineligible way of speech, she did her best to vibrate with sound. It seemed to work.
“Her name is Shimmer,” the mage said flatly.
Shimmer didn’t understand their speech sounds, but was very interesting as their bodies also moved as they spoke. Mostly the elf that whipped around to stare at the mage, who only rolled the arm part of his body in response.
They were so good at talking. One day Shimmer would join them, but today was not that day, so she just kept practicing her vocal purring as the delvers carried her into the dungeon. It was nice to see the world from above slime-height. They talked about all the things as they walked until they stopped for a break. The shortest person pulled out some paper and made marks on it. Shimmer didn’t know what he was doing, but knew what paper was when they had left some last time they were here. It tasted like plants, which she liked…. Maybe they wouldn’t notice if she had a small bite?
“This grass is unlike anything I have ever seen before.” The paper man was talking to his paper. ”From the stems’ perfectly straight growth to the seeds covered in strange repeating geometry with hard angles. Its purpose is unknown, but not unknowable.”
“Gozric, I have a very important question.” That was the mage speaking. “The geometry, is it a pattern you recognize? Perhaps from the armaments we used to traverse the inert mana during our initial journey?”
“Why… wait, yeah, but how did you know?” Paper man was bobbing his head as he kept looking at notes and back at mage-friend, who hesitated and didn’t speak right away.
“Wait, hold on, I feel it too,” the tallest member of the group spoke up. “This place isn’t just growing huh, but learning? Do plants learn? Wait, do you think this means we can teach rocks to think? Think if I punch the ground it will punch back?” The tall man was clearly excited, bobbing like a slime chasing a leaf.
Somehow Shimmer hadn’t noticed the tall man at first, probably because he doesn’t smell very interesting. Well now tall person had her attention as he led the group around to take several samples of the grass Shimmer had personally planted. They had good taste in plants.
They kept using sounds to talk, all of which made no sense to Shimmer, so she gave up and just watched their movements. Every time the tall man picked up a plant, his hands turned a little green, and the mana in his body spiked. He must also be part plant. The others worked side by side as they collected the seeds and bundles of sage grass. Maybe next time Shimmer could plant a bunch of grass over here just for her friends when they come back?
It was a nice thought to chew on as the group worked, or well, most of the group. Three of the four delvers collected plants and took notes while the nice-smelling elf held Shimmer. It was the perfect arrangement. Unfortunately, it had to come to an end when the Creator noticed Shimmer was shirking her duties of being blown up by mana, and when it found her, it found her new friends.
The dungeon seemed happy. Happy and hungry.
That…. probably isn’t good.