Seeing the shadow descending into its domain, Aby had to turn its attention to monitoring and relaying information throughout its halls, making sure its creatures could react to and fight invaders to the best of their ability. For the most part, this was an easy task for the core, with its consciousness spread throughout its halls there was nothing which could escape detection, and the core was sure that any creatures which were even potentially in the paths of an invading group were well aware of anything the core knew about them.
Of course, feeling the core spread out its awareness was all the signal that most creatures needed to be on edge, readying themselves for fighting or fleeing should something unannounced come their way. Many smaller, weaker critters even retreated into the corals, crevices, and caves which lined the walls of most of their floors. It took but a moment for the halls previously overflowing with life and color to become still, the playful atmosphere to turn tense.
Larger fish, more predatory groups, and stronger creatures in general began to stir when they felt the core’s shift in attitude, and it did not take long after the halls were cleared of weak creatures that the more powerful began to roam. One example of such would be the giant swine grouper and his pack, the dozens strong group of brown, bulky fish beginning to patrol the third floor, heading upwards.
Many of the members were scarred and wounded, their tendency to recklessly charge into battle already put them in danger, and their need to do so while grunting and squealing made sure to remove any surprise they might have on a distracted group. Still, they were a hardy bunch, and though this strategy resulted in many lost fish over the months the group had never seen much worse than being forced to make a full retreat or receive help from another.
As they were travelling through the winding tunnels of the third floor, they once more receive a notice from their creator; considering that it hadn’t even been five minutes since something had invaded it meant that they were rushing through. They were given a bit more information about the group of four, mainly what the creator could guess about them based on what they wore and wielded.
Already the boars were riled up, their occasional snorts turning to grunts as they hurried forwards. The grouper was particularly hasty, barely restraining himself from charging ahead and leaving the rest of the boars to catch up. As he rounded a long, lazy turn he and the rest of his team came upon the group they’d been warned of. He let loose a shrill squeal before charging at the group, and the rest of his team quickly echoed his cry before doing the same.
Aby watched as the first of many scenes like this began to play out in its halls, already directing some of the sea boar on how better to act and react with the rest of them. It continued to monitor this group of invaders, especially after they routed the team of swine, but once again was left with little else to do besides this.
It wasn’t long after the second group of the day invaded, and even less time before they were met with a danger they couldn’t overcome. As it began digesting their memories into knowledge and information, it found that they weren’t very useful in that regard, a problem it had been experiencing with a growing number of invaders. Unfortunately, despite having outgrown the need for most anything a weak invader could provide, it didn’t seem that they felt the same towards it.
Unfortunately, the core hadn’t come up with any way to prevent someone or something from invading, not yet anyhow. And so, it was only able to watch on as many of the people rushing into its halls were woefully lacking in knowledge, all of them seemingly drawn by the crystals it was so pleased with otherwise.
As it considered this, the small portion of its mind it had dedicated to monitoring the newest floors found something interesting on the twentieth, the doppelgänger. More specifically, it watched as one of the wandering serpents set its sights on the shoal of lantern fish the creature had seamlessly blended in with. As the glittering blue bands began flashing a peculiar green, a few of the lantern fish broke off from the rest, swimming towards the strange source of light in a daze.
The mimic was one of those to leave the group, seemingly intent on copying the behaviors and mannerisms of the rest of the species before it noticed what it was swimming towards. It wasted no time after sensing the novel creature, speeding up to outpace the rest of the fish and make it there first.
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Aby was fascinated as it neared the snake, which had already begun opening its mouth in anticipation for the strangely eager meal, only for the doppelgänger to apparently shimmer, then ripple, as it crashed into the much larger serpent with a surprisingly visceral noise. As the snake began struggling, realizing it had gotten more than it had bargained for, the ‘fish’ began ripping and tearing pieces of the helpless reptile with a set of teeth far sharper than the rest of its species.
As the two struggled against one another, the fish slowly began bloating, sagging out and losing the luster its scales had until then, along with the vivid blue glow. Before long, the meter and a half serpent was no more, and the rest of the hypnotized lantern fish were stumped when the light which drew their attention in the first place simply vanished.
Once again, the grey blob began bubbling and roiling, the blubbery texture of its entire body churning as something developed within. Aby wasn’t forced to wait very long, though, and just as it had last time, the grey flesh simply fell away, sinking to the bottom of the floor for Aby to remove, a much more trying task now that it was impeded by its invaders.
It managed it quickly enough, turning its split mind back towards the now-snake only to find it doing almost exactly the same as its predecessor, albeit with a lot less practice and skill. It seemed to do the job, though, and a few new fish were drawn towards the flashing colors, only to meet a much quicker end than the last victims.
Losing interest in the creature’s apparent practice of the ability, Aby turned to check out the statuses of its two other new floors, hoping to find something of interest to help pass the time, despite using far less of its mind to do this than to monitor its invaders. It first decided to check out the roiling reef, although it hadn’t yet received any new evolutions it was pleased to see that many of the creatures present had begun taking on a red tint, and some of those were even flitting about through the pillars of searing hot water rising from many of the corals.
Still, the jellies remained the most at home in these pink waters, having taken to reproducing almost immediately after their evolution they had already swiftly conquered the floor, all without a single creature being spawned from a template. It was surprising, too, normally these creatures took a decent amount of time to even begin spawning, and it had taken nearly two months for some of the lesser jellies to fully mature, and that was considering the increased speed of maturation the dungeon’s creations had.
The jellies seemed different even beyond their mind bogglingly quick reproduction, and instead of drifting or slowly swimming, they were instead propelling themselves along at deceptively high speeds until they crashed into a wall or they tangled with some corals, gems, or others of their own kind. The very first molten box jelly to come about had even started to hunt some of the fish by utilizing this tactic, rocketing towards the critters before running into and engulfing the smaller ones, letting the force of the impact wrap its enhanced tendrils around the victim before they were cooked alive.
Still, despite being quite a bit more interesting than a typical jellyfish, the fact remained that they were still jellyfish, and Aby very quickly grew bored of their antics, turning to the last of its new floors, and hoping that it, too, didn’t need any major revisions in the hour or two the core had left it largely unattended.
The floor was largely similar to the last time it left it, though the barracudas seemed to be growing even more frantic in their competitions with one another. The flashes of light had become downright blinding in some of the more densely forested areas, and even the sharks had grown afraid to approach these clusters of roots. It was interesting to watch how the icicle barracudas had behaved in this more temperate floor, they were even more aggressive than their relatives and would hound to death any silver-streaked variant that dared approach.
Aside from the domineering barracuda, little else was of note on this floor, though the core was still quite happy watching the trees light up the way they had been doing so. It gave one final look over, still dismayed it couldn’t figure out how to make the floor ‘better’, before it turned its attention elsewhere in the lower bounds of its domain. And unfortunately, there was very little of note, the lack of invaders on these lower floors meant that the creatures were stuck going through the same routines as they had done before, much the same as their creator.
The twelfth floor continued to be a mystery, the Undines were still going through their ritual and the core had no idea what they were doing aside from raising the level of the water. The eleventh floor, too, had its own share of excitement. With all of the coastal variants of the kobold hatchlings having imprinted on the various tribe members, everyone now had to deal with raising one or two of them when they managed to escape the warrior and high kobolds. Despite being quite young, the core was impressed with how quickly they were learning, and the high kobold hatchlings were even beginning to try and use weapons, despite being comically oversized for them.
The core was dismayed at how little it had to do, though it was finally given a surprise when it received a huge sum of information, and a short review let it to determine that another scholar had fallen within its halls. It wasn’t sure how it happened, but the large amount of knowledge he had on mana and elemental crystals had piqued the core’s interest enough to warrant a more thorough review.