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Complete darkness. Bone crushing pressure. The immensity of the intangible presence around her. The ever increasing urgency to escape.
She often compared it to being seated at the bottom of the ocean. Whether you were a merchant, a beggar, a soldier, or a king, the spirit world reminded you that you were nothing. Insignificant. Blind. Perhaps that explained while so few people ever reached the upper stages of meditation. The terror of their own irrelevance was too much to handle, the endless cold too much to bear. And even those who could had to back away after some time or risk being swallowed by the abyss. The compulsive need to leave was akin to the burning lungs of a man keeping his breath underwater : a ticking clock, a reminder that she didn’t belong here, and that the consequences of staying could be dire.
She took a metaphorical breath, and slowly let it out, outward. The darkness around her waned with each passing instant, until finally the ghostly shape of the dungeon core appeared in front of her. It looked like a stone, but seemed to contain an entire world within itself, and pulse with a flash of life every now an then.
Tightly knotted around it was a pearly white chain. Her anchor. In some places, it had sunk into the core and merged with it, which was highly atypical as well as somewhat expected. She was indeed very much aware of the fact that she had partially merged with the core and Tim had confirmed that she felt like the dungeon to him. She was only here to finish the job.
She formed phantom hands, and started pushing the chain into the core as fast as possible. As soon as her will made contact with the core and the chain, she felt the faint presence of the Watcher, and another subtle kind of pressure set on her. The gods had forbidden soul manipulation, after all, therefore it was evident that they kept an eye on it. She had waited until sunset for this, the instant at which the divine laws momentarily relaxed, but she had still assumed she would be noticed, as even the most seasoned heretics wouldn’t have dared to manipulate souls without the assistance of a spell.
However the only spell she could perform in her state would make her a Liche, if it worked at all, given her circumstances, whereas she fully intended to become a freaking dungeon. It was reckless, and she loved it. It reminded her of the good old days : no war, no politics, no betrayal !
Just the elation of pushing back the frontiers of magic.
Just a struggle of wills ! Entities pitting their utmost against each other !
Her against the souls, the divine against her, and the ocean trying to crush their alien presence.
Fortunately, she hadn’t drawn the full attention of the gods, merely triggered an instinctive response from them. She pushed for a few more second before the chain seemed to collapse into the outline of the dungeon core. She felt a sharp stab of pain and hastily left her meditative state.
She was greeted by the floating window of her brand new status screen.
Status (Identity) Name : Neira no-name Titles : Heretic Species : Dungeon [error] Spirit : Tiremiod, [error] Status (Ability) Rank : 0 Affinities : Earth, Fire Floors : 3 Mana : 10 Mana regen (/h) : 1 Mana density : E Skill : create monster, make floor
Immediately followed by a notification.
Welcome to life, Neira no-name ! You are a dungeon ! Grow fast, grow strong and vast, conquer the depths of the Earth or the heights of the Heaven ! The limit is your will ! Be careful to listen to the spirit next to you, he will aid you in your path.
Before we begin, you have three tasks to accomplish (rewards depend on completion) :
* Know yourself ! Explore your starting floor, and make them yours !
* Begin your family ! Populate your floors with at least three living defenders.
* [hidden] (optional)
She waved them away and investigated the changes brought to her. She now felt a small connexion between herself and the two ethereal spirits. But more importantly, the dungeon core had become part of her. And merely thinking about it expanded her world drastically.
Where she had previously struggled to even reach Tim, she could now effortlessly visualize every inch of her dungeon through mage-sight. It had previously been saturated with the unusable dungeon’s mana, now it was all hers ! All three floors were imbued with power she could call hers !
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It was glorious. Of course, it looked like nothing compared to her former fortress, the keep of Oaklehime. Merely three rough levels of a narrow maze of humid caves.
It didn’t matter. It was hers. She could behold all of it, in a way she had never seen anything before, and-
Wait, was that the Divine ?
What was it doing here ! In her dungeon ! She roared in rage and defiance, and she strained against it. It felt like stopping a river with her bare hands, and she didn’t care. How did it dare ! Showing itself before her ! Taunting her ?!
It had always hindered her before. Because of it, she had been branded a heretic. Because of it, she had never uncovered the mysteries that haunted her. Yet, it had never been so open with its influence.
Warning ! You are killing yourself ! Stop immediately, for your sake !
Lies ! She spat. She could feel it here, cheating the System itself. Did it think its blatant deception would work ?
Suddenly, the earth quaked, the air seemed to scream and reached scorching temperatures for a single second. Then everything went quiet.
...
She checked that the spirits had survived the ordeal, then let out a sigh of satisfaction. Her dungeon was clean, now. She smirked, and confirmed she could not feel the divine in any of her caves. Only after a full minute of smug glee did she realize the enormity of what she had just done.
She stilled, and tentatively spread out her soul as she had done a few hours earlier. It effortlessly covered the entire area, only encountering resistance at the edges of the dungeon. That heretical magic had been performed with an ease she had only felt at the sunset during the winter solstice, where the gods’ dominion was at its weakest.
Realization set in : the divine had not been anymore visible than usual. She had only seen what usually was an invisible stress because of her transformation. That had also been the reason why she had managed to suppress it.
Had the gods noticed the newly formed blackspot in their influence ? She supposed she would have already been dead if that had been the case. Or at least the divine at the edge of her boundaries should have felt more hostile than usual.
Did she actually get away with that ?! She started chuckling. She had her own domain ! A place where the laws of the divine could not hamper her research ! The phantasm of every mage out there ! A domain of perpetual sunset.
Oh, the things she would do with that ! He he he !
What would she start with ? Space ? Time ? Death ? Souls ?
She let out a final, manic cackle, then try to calm herself down. First things first ! She had a quest to complete, a dungeon to improve, and an inner circle to resurrect and put to work !
One final of her hypothesis to check, though : status !
Status (Identity) Name : Neira Sundowner Titles : Spell crafter, High witch, Necromancer Species : Dungeon (chimera) Human Spirits : Tiremiod, Tireniade Status (Ability) Rank : 0 (~19) Affinities : Earth, Fire, Water (1%), Light (1%), Death (40%) Floors : 3 [hidden] Mana : 1 / 3 Mana regen (/h) : 0.5 Mana density : 0.05 Mana purity : 80 % (formerly 0.1%) Skills : create monster, make floor, manage domain
Oh, she was going to have So. Much. Fun ! The divine had indeed been obscuring some key information from the system. That was a huge relief to her, as it eliminated the possibility that it was at the origin of the system, hereby irrevocably chaining all mortals.
There was apparently one downside to her actions, however : her mana stats seemed to have shrunk. It was largely offset by the newfound purity of her mana though, probably brought on by her previous struggle. Obviously, that particular stat had been hidden before !
Although she had reached a high rank in the Guild and been privy to many secrets, she had never even heard of such a thing. Perhaps if it hadn’t been so carefully concealed, mages would have been outrage at the heavens undeniably stunting their potential. Perhaps then she might have had enough followers to win the war…
“It does no good to dwell on the past, sister.”
She shook her intangible head.
Still, she had assumed the gods shackled their growth, but she had never beheld such a firm confirmation of it ! Which ones of the dead ends she had encountered in her research had been actually caused by her own limitations ? She couldn’t wait to find out !
Now, how to fix that mana drop ? That she hadn’t really lost much over all was not the question here ! She knew she could do better, and she would !
She expanded her senses to encompass her entire domain. Hmmm, so that’s what it was ! The subtle pressure of the divine on her walls made the mana unstable. The strain went past the actual boundaries of the dungeon and into the floor themselves.
Perhaps shrinking them would work ? She would not lower herself to reducing the number of floors, obviously. Also, that seemed innately connected to the flow of mana she gathered. But making them overall narrower might allow her to better withstand the stress of the divine. That could help her mana stabilize and her reserves grow back somewhat. Even better, it was probably the same pressure that hindered her metabolism, easing it should therefore significantly boost her mana regeneration.
Probably.
However there was a huge downside to this ! Smaller floors made for an easier dungeon to conquer. Such a transformation would make her drastically more vulnerable ! If her friends had been present, they would have chided her for her reckless thoughts. Yes, all in all, that was a pretty bad idea.
…
meh…
She got to work
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“Noooo ! Seriously ?” Tim mourned internally, seeing the floors shrink, but not daring to say anything.
The terrifying core was but a newborn, after all. Perhaps it wasn’t aware ? Dungeons were supposed to grow ! Like, more floors, bigger floors ! How was it possible to get this wrong ?! He hadn't even known shuch a thing was possible !
“One way or another, I’m so going to die”, he lamented with a heavy sigh.