The Core crept forward. Through the fog, its attention entirely narrowed in on the prey before it. It was a predator who needed to kill. It would hunt these intruders and consume them to grow. With every breath, the mana circulated and pushed the fog closer to the stone walls that kept it out. It was the crawling goliath.
In the dead of night, there was a silent war over who owned this land. Clouded by emotions, the fog rammed against the uncaring walls with a goal to topple them. Absolute in their stance, the enchanted stone withstood the onslaught of barbaric emotions.
With every push, the mana between them felt the effect of both sides. Purpose and ownership mixed at the edge of both territories, and new life grew on this neutral land that lacked ownership. The chaos led to entropy, a soft heat that melted the snow. It gave additional space for moss to feed on the mana, as it grew under the moonlight and mutated. Without a defined leader to guide it, the moss mutated randomly and violently.
The Core watched the world around him changed, but gave no thought to it. He was so single-minded in his goal that nothing could distract him until the wall toppled and he consumed its inhabitants. He was so dedicated as a hunter-
> Moss adaptation available… Please selected from-
> Error: Adaptation already selected.
> Error: no evolution paths exists for environment it is adapting to.
> Patching….
> New species created: Reaper’s Petals - Within the fog white flowers bloom, with their crimson pollen they steal the life of everything they touch.
The Core thought to himself that perhaps, just maybe, he could spare a little time to be distracted.
The new weapon- species- clung to the wall he wanted to destroy. It was a blanket of green, broken up by little white pedals that cut through the fog they fed on. With each breath of the Core- each wave of the fog- caused the flowers to pulse with life. The moss was breathing in time with the dungeon.
The soft pulses of glowing flowers made the Core curious about what it was capable of. With a large exhale, the flowers fluttered in the wind as the pollen spread. The dust blanketed a nearby tree as it filled the air with the smell of iron. A crimson splotch that mixed with the moisture to become a liquid as it dripped down the tree and onto the roots. All the while, everything the ‘blood’ touched withered and died.
It killed the tree. More moss grew in its place, as it then consumed what remained.
The Core had found a new weapon to use, as he could feel this Reaper’s Petals used his knowledge of mushrooms to turn the dead log into a bountiful feast. On it more flowers bloomed, and the Core felt something change in the dungeon.
“New species detected: Flowers” he parroted the tone of words he had heard his entire life.
“Retrieving knowledge of species: Lupine…”
“Closed off evolution now available in ants and slimes. Honey Hive, and Flower Crown Slimes.”
It could feel the mana twist in ways that allowed for the changes to take place, new knowledge and a new environment gave the monsters new things to adapt to. In the past it had flowers go extinct as the moss took over, and trees choked them out, but now they were back.
But why was the System silent? Was it trying to hide power from the Core? Maybe the monsters just weren’t ready to evolve at the moment, but if so, why did the dungeon know it was possible?
He couldn’t trust the system anymore. He had to strike the skeletons before they allied themselves with the double agent that was System.
With all distractions set aside, he crept closer, the war of mana and property ignored as the Core reached the edge of his domain. Inside, he could hear whispers of mutiny. Faint and buried, but unmistakably his own monsters. They were trapped- or they were here willingly to hide from the Core. He had to get closer to find out.
The walls kept him out, so seeing inside was impossible, but he could see the walls themselves. He could see the runes carved into them, and the enchantments that lined every brick, as it broke the flow of mana to twist ownership. The Core didn’t know how to fight back against mana himself, but he knew how to learn. He just needed to lean in closer, to find the secrets contained within to regain control of what they had taken from him.
He pushed his presence and awareness closer. Every part of the dungeon fell away as he touched the cold stone, his attention absolute. He felt the pulsing of mana as it moved through the latticework of runes, each one like a stone that guided the stream in a new direction.
The runes weren’t a net that caught mana, but a knot that trapped it. This section of his domain was not taken from him, but just locked away until he could get it back. All he had to do was find a single frayed string in the mess, and it would unravel. It would take hours, but he would be done before daybreak.
Only the work was too easy. The mana unraveled after only a few minutes. His first thought was of his own magnificence, until he found the mana had re-knit itself, this time closer to the edge of the wall. The second attempt took longer, but the moment he was done it reknit again, this time at the edge of the wall.
With each attempt, he fished the increasingly complex knot further away from its home. If he could pull the enchantment outside of the walls, he could sever and consume the spell in its entirety. Only it never dawned on him that was the point.
Slurping up the mana like pasta, he stuck his consciousness into the center of the knot to unravel it for good. Only it floated there, half untied, before it moved on its own once again. With some exertion, he tried to destroy the knot like he had previously, but it was too stubborn. It didn’t untie.
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No, it only tightened.
With his focus so absolute on what was in front of him, he failed to notice the strings behind him as it wove a cage around him and tightened. He struggled and pulled at the strings, panic surged as waves of mana slammed against the stone walls that chained him. He tried to destroy it, to shake anything loose, to fray a single string to exploit…
But it didn’t budge. Nothing moved. The harder he pushed, the tighter it became.
It was a trap that let him be ensnared in his own efforts and greed.
He tried to move, to see beyond the walls, but there was nothing. He was confined to a space no larger than a tree.
He could not move, could not see. The only thing in front of him was moss as it fed off of his struggles.
He was a child once again. The feeling of confinement and isolation of his youth.
They had outsmarted him and sent him back to his early days of weakness.
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Three horses traveled along the snow-covered hills. A girl with bright blue hair rode at the front. Behind her trailed faceless goons, she never found the care to look at. They were soldiers who had yet to experience combat first hand, and despite their intense training, it did little to ease their minds.
“You both should be happy, you know? Your abilities are the most refined versions I have made yet,” The leader yelled from the front of the group, too self-aggrandizing to turn around and speak to them directly.
“Your predecessors did quite the number,” she continued. “The previous chemical berserker managed to turn a tree to sawdust with her bare hands, so I have high hopes for what you can accomplish. Actually, their success is the reason we reached this stage so smoothly.”
The other two didn’t speak, as they remained quiet as the dead. Avice took this as encouragement to continue.
“So now that my army has set up a forward operating base, they will now thin the numbers of monsters lurking in the dungeon. After that, it’s your job to go in and poison the spawners. We can’t disable them outright, but we can delay the mana reaching them so nothing new spawns for about a day.”
At the back of the pack, a large man with red hair spoke up. “My queen, I thank you for the gift of your family, but how could I possibly use fire to disable the mana of the dungeon?”
“You just need to place some mana crystals inside each one. They will absorb the mana and starve the spawners. The only issue is paragons, as they take such priority in eating mana, that we will have to capture them and otherwise disable them physically without killing them. That part is your job, I need you to burn them within an inch of their life.”
“Yeah, but umm…” he hesitated to question it, but he had to push the question since it was the only time she would ever acknowledge him. “The slime and bird will probably be immune, and the tree might go up too easily. I’m not sure how I could do it.”
“Then figure it out.” Her tone was as cold as the wind.
“Shouldn’t that be the job of Dekrin, since he likes to lead when it’s a dangerous situation? Especially since he did so well last time? Where is he anyway?”
“Last time he failed. This time he is checking in on my old home to make sure my idiot brother hasn’t gotten any pathetic ideas. So, as I said, figure it out yourselves.”
He hesitated, clearly weighing his life, before asking, “Do you really think you can win against a dungeon that has territory fifteen miles wide? If every section is teeming with wildlife, it must take more than just an army to subjugate an entire ecosystem.”
“Perhaps you don’t realize the lifetime of preparations we did to reach this point. We aren’t fighting the dungeon, we are letting it fight itself. After the demon grub we introduced to the ecosystem, every upgrade since has drifted towards a corrupted version of each species, until eventually the dungeon itself becomes corrupted.”
“Ok, but-” his endless questions were cut off as Avice turned around to stare through the replaceable goon.
“I need you to understand your position in all this. I manipulated your very soul to give you far more power than your original ability could have ever reached, so rest assured, I can do it again with something much bigger. The dungeon just needs to become a necromancer, and I just need to be there when it happens. That is all that is left, and endlessly prattling on won’t change the outcome.”
They continued on, their silence only broken by the clopping of horse hooves against the dirt road they traveled down. The others shrunk into themselves, but Avice stared forward. A malevolent grin crept across her face. She was so close to getting a new puppet to control, one that was stronger than the bones of any mortal. All she had to do was be there when they dug it up.
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Shimmer frolicked through the mushrooms with glee. They had gotten a lot bigger lately, so she sped around as she pushed her light as far as it would reach through the dense foliage. She wanted to see how big they could go.
Her zooms ended when she sped past a group of delvers. Full of curiosity and as a good friend, she needed to check in on them. They looked a little different from the normal people she met, as they were pretty thin and bald, but she has never been one to judge on appearances.
They were nice when they picked her up and gingerly set her in a box full of holes. She vaguely knew what a cage was, so slipped between the bars to show them it was faulty and wasn’t very good at being a cage. Expecting a bunch of praise, she turned to the new people, since she did just show them they had a bad cage.
Then Shimmer heard the screams.
She actually looked at the surrounding delvers to find they were not humans, but white skulls in armor. The skeletons picked her up and placed in a tea kettle they scrounged from nearby. It had solid walls that held her, but suddenly she didn’t want to be held.
She just wanted to run.
The screams got louder, as more slimes cried out in pain as they were butchered. Through the spout she saw glimpses of the skeletons army as it marched through the fields and killed everything they found.
Her kin were pierced with spears and left to bleed out, the slime paragon was beaten back with clubs as they pushed into a pit. All the while, Shimmer’s entourage escorted her past the carnage and out of the field she called home.
Through the tiny hole, she glimpsed where they were heading. Tall walls of stone choked out by a thick fog, but as they passed through the gate, she saw it was a camp devoid of foliage and love.
The grass that grew here originally had been trampled, as the skeletons worked the mines. A fortress with a center of mud for a heart, as it lacked the love that plants needed to survive. Towers of stacked stones littered the area, and small buildings were being constructed from the excess material they had collected. She tried to see everything they were upto, but could only take in so much before someone placed the kettle that imprisoned her into its own prison of its own: a box.
She sat in the box, her soft glow the only reason she didn’t feel alone, when she heard a new sound.
It was her Creator, as he called out in distress. The sound was muffled, and hard to hear as her own thoughts grew faint. The mana here was very thin, and lacked the dungeon’s usual command that helped her think.
She strained to listen, but could only make out a few words.
“Help…” he called.
“I’m trapped” the Creator screamed, but it only came through as a whisper.
Shimmer wasn’t the only one stuck in a cage. Could she help?
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> Corruption of Core: 22%
> Error, Consciousness of Core unable to access domain…
> Dungeon in need of leader…
> Debating raising “Shimmer” to the role of temporary leader due to populatity….
> Debate conclusion - will wait longer for return of Core, to avoid traumatizing Shimmer with administration paperwork.
> Silently: Although it’s not like the Core ever did the paperwork….