As the only other existence in her little world, Pebble and the few other attempts she’d made at creating golems were quite nice to have around. Although it had set her back a bit in accumulating the mana she’d need to expand, the protection they’d give her would probably be well worth it. Not to mention she’d finally been able to move out from under the incessant stream of water drops that had been leaking down onto her core by having Pebble nudge her a bit to the left.

Even at only around four feet tall, their steps unleashed loud thuds resounding throughout the cavern. For a test Lumi gave a few orders. “Patrol the cavern” and “protect me.” Lumi watched as the golems wattled around in random directions.

More specific. Got it.

With a sigh Lumi sent them more specific orders and watched as they walked around on the patrol routes she’d sent them on.

They haven’t attacked anything yet. Since its pretty much just us here I shouldn’t be surprised I suppose. Although I have no idea how effective they’ll be if something does appear.

The golems, with their limited joints and blocky bodies, looked stiff and unnatural with their movement. They moved more like children learning to walk than the fluid movements Avani’s golems had shown, which mimicked the creatures they’d been based on almost perfectly.

Take some practice swings.

The order didn’t stop their patrols. One of them simply started to attack the air with its club every once in a while.

This is gonna take some getting used to…

The awkward control was certainly a downside, but when one of the practice attacks inadvertently shattered one of the stalagmites Lumi brightened up. If they could connect with their weapons they had more than enough power to break bones.

Stop swinging your club.

Just thinking about what that would do to her core if it hit her accidentally got her to nudge the golem’s patrol routes farther away from her.

Better not to take the chance.

With nothing better to do than wait for the ambient mana, Lumi probed the edges of her control.

I should probably try and plan out how I want to build myself so I don’t run into trouble later.

Maybe other dungeon cores had instincts on how to build themselves but as Lumi saw with her attempts at creating golems, she didn’t have everything that others like her should.

What would best keep me safe?

A linear gauntlet would be easier to set up, but there was really no question as to what she wanted to end up as. Most of the fragments of her memory were tinged with admiration for Avani’s labyrinth.

Our home.

Set up like an underground umbrella shield, the massive labyrinth, not only thwarted tunneling attempts but also efforts to map out the pathways. Everyone that wandered down would have to be prepared to survive there for weeks or longer if they got lost with little effective help from those that traveled the dungeon before them.

That didn’t stop them in the end.

Flashes of the battle sparked along her shard. For an instant she was back in the Deepwood Labyrinth, alone and running for her life, all promises broken and everyone she’d been supposed to protect dead, except one. Her whole body went numb. She didn’t have time to feel anything. Avani needed her.

No.

Lumi didn’t deny the memory, for it certainly happened. No, she denied that it was her memory. Prickles of emotion, not her own, tinged the ambient mana surrounding her a fiery red briefly before settle back into its colorless glow as she finally calmed herself.

The labyrinth didn’t stop them, but they needed an army to force their way through and clear out the miles long network of tunnels.

The open space would also give ambient mana more space to generate. Other than that, Lumi wanted somewhere comfortable to reside.

This cave is great and all… but something more familiar to look at would be nice.

Furniture would be pointless for her, but at least it would fill make the cavern more homey. The instant Lumi had the thought, the last image of the figures surrounding Avani’s core at the end came to her.

I wish they were here.

Lumi wanted something more permanent to remember the hazy figures from Avani’s memory by.

Statues would be nice.

Lumi cast her attention over Pebble. The little guy ran against a stalagmite, stuck trying to force its way through the rock that had interrupted its patrol path.

Well its not like they have to move.

She had created a statue, perfect replica of a kobold in armor, by accident after all. It should be easy to do again.

As mana filled Lumi’s stomach to the brim, she let it flow outward and coalesce around her core. Little by little layers of mana were piled on one another and she grew. It seemed like the process would happen whether Lumi wanted it to or not if she let the mana build up enough.

Unlike last time, no vivid impression of Avani’s memory dragged her within to experience its contents first hand. Everything went still. The clumsy thunking golems stopped everything to stand there idly. In that moment, Lumi felt something disappear, like a wire dissolving into thin air.

Pebble?

Lumi grasped outward trying to reconnect to him but her intent got knocked back by the walls of her shard, which now glowed a brilliant white. She could still see and hear everything within her territory but everything had gone numb.

I’m stuck!?

Something pulled at her, drawing mana from within. The warmth and reassuring presence it had given her rapidly vanishing. She inhaled deeply, reaching out for more mana only to have the bit she’d gathered to quickly flow outward encasing her core. Her gasps for mana only got quicker, the more mana left her. A hollow void slowly opened up in what felt like her stomach.

Lumi rammed her will against the thickening walls of mana surrounding her core building layer upon layer around her. She could only watch as the world became still once again.

Calm down. This is probably supposed to happen.

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Lumi repeated the words to herself until she was sure it was true. Once she calmed herself a bit, she tried pulling some of her mana away from the stream leaving her to form a golem. Finding non of the mana willing to listen to her, Lumi tried absorbing a tiny bit of the wall.

Maybe I can speed this up by getting more mana.

She looked at the wall and tried focusing on it to absorb a bit, but immediately ran into the wall.

Ow. Right… Well, I guess I have to wait.

Rubbing at her mental bruises her focus had suffered for colliding with the pure mana, Lumi winced.

I’m really going to have to get something other than golems if I can’t control them when I’m growing.

Finally, after a small puddle had started forming on the ground, it was time. Lumi’s senses expanded and once again the world grew out around her. Her little globe beneath the earth ballooned out around from the center of her being. After everything settled down, it seemed like she’d just about doubled in size again. Her ethereal form flew out and circled the cave, just glad to be able to move once more.

How close to the surface am I?

With no way to know, she’d just have to keep growing and hope it wasn’t too close. Once she broke through to the surface, the kingdoms Avani warned about would be able to find her.

Maybe I should try to see if I can control which way I expand. Well, that’s a problem for later.

Looking above, Lumi could barely feel the chill of flowing water. A few tendrils of which, snaked their way through the rock, carving minuscule pathways towards her. A few of those water-veins stopped just a few feet before breaking through the ceiling of the cavern, with a few droplets managing to leak through.

That’s not good.

Lumi wasted no time reinforcing the ceiling by injecting earth mana into the ceiling to fill the cracks. The water veins closed rapidly with the surge of mana growing the stone out to pinch them closed, until the entire ceiling became solid rock for at least a few feet.

Focusing on the water above, Lumi marveled at the cool liquid. The water glowed like the misty ambient mana. It sparkled to her mana sight, even with no light anywhere near it. She didn’t have a way to get the mana to her core at the moment but knowing there was a source of water mana nearby had her accidentally send her golems clunking around the room in their clumsy attempts at jumping around. Her shard glowed like a miniature sun at the though of another source of mana.

I’ll deal with that later.

Around her, mostly stone walls spread out to the edges of her vision, but unfamiliar blots marred their perfect solidity. She’d have to dig each one of them out to see if she should be concerned.

None of it seems to be moving.

Certainly not a perfect indicator of danger, but that’s what her golems were for. She focused on each blot on her senses but got nothing more specific.

I can still see the water and bits of the tunnel above even though the ceiling’s blocking it off from me, so why can’t I focus on the things in the rock?

After reestablishing her connection with all the golems, Lumi started digging towards the voids in her senses. They all varied in sizes. The soil around them, loose and more discernible as a pile of rocks separated by dirt than the solid earth surrounding her cavern, contained much less mana.

Strange. I wonder if the type of earth has anything to do with the amount of mana I get from absorbing it.

Floating her focus along the tunnels, Lumi eventually excavated the blots and let her senses seep into the pockets. The first alcove, a pocket of air shielded by a massive shell, showed no trace of the creature the shell had been attached to.

It’s not quite a turtle shell.

Lumi ran her ethereal hand along it. The almost perfectly hexagonal plates looked smooth, with a line running in a spiral towards the middle of each hex plate.

How’d this thing get stuck down here anyway? A landslide maybe?

After studying it a while longer and realizing she had no idea what kind of creature it could be from, Lumi gave up.

Well, it should give me some mana at least.

Absorbing the shell, took no more than a second but Lumi froze in place for a good minute as an image of the form of the shell rushed into her. Every little detail slowly engraved itself into her memory, including how to replicate it and the types of mana it would take.

Woah.

Along with the form, Lumi realized a small amount of murky purple dyed mana had made itself at home within her. It roiled around for a few minutes with an unfortunate familiarity to some of her memories before finally settling after she focused on controlling her mana.

Ugh. I really didn’t need to be reminded what nausea feels like.

The next blurred pocket she dug out was even larger than the first. An unmoving gigantic exoskeleton—of what she could only assume had to be some type of spider—held up the otherwise collapsed ceiling of the cave. The flesh underneath had long since deteriorated into nothingness and the carapace was cracked in many places, sending lightning like arcs across its surface. The breaks were only held together by thin webs the creature had wrapped around itself like armor. It had to be over twenty feet across and it looked harder than the rock surrounding it, which had to be why it was able to hold up the ceiling.

Beneath the dead giant spider lay a clutch of eggs, gently wrapped in mana soaked webs. To her surprise they pulsed when she ran her intent across them.

They’re alive!

Mentally jumping back, Lumi waited for the little beasts to pour out. She even called a few golems over to her just in case. However, they never hatched.

Huh. Maybe they need something.

Focusing on them, she could sense every little baby spider through the cradled eggs and as cute as they were now, by the look of the exoskeleton looming above, they’d grow up to be juggernauts if given enough time. Lumi watched as the ambient mana flowed towards them, seemingly sucked out of the air.

So they need mana to hatch. That’s an easy fix.

However something within Lumi told her it would take quite a bit more mana than she’d had store up, especially since she’d only had the bit from digging the tunnels here, the rest being siphoned off in her expansion.

Moving them into the main cavern will probably let them get more ambient mana and maybe if I’m the first thing they see when they hatch, they’ll imprint on me.

Then she remembered what Avani had told her. She could bond creatures to her. Well all dungeon core should be able to, but that had been the essence of what Avani left for her. Lumi reached deep within her core and drew a thread of mana from in into the bundle of spider eggs.

Will you let me be your home? A shelter to protect and be protected by?

She could have asked for anything but this seemed like the right thing to impress upon the little ones. Lumi had no idea if these spiders could understand her, but the idea of shelter should get through to them. After a few pulses of the eggs she felt something connect to the mana thread she’d offered them.

“Yes.”

The first voice, small and squeaky, she’d heard other than her own chittered through the link.

It can talk!

Absolutely beaming, Lumi flew a circuit of the cavern. It didn’t take long to figure out how to send her thoughts along the bond.

“Then let’s get you all settled in.”

Lumi carefully controlled Pebble to make a nest and transport the bundle of eggs to it so they had better access to mana. The small alcove she’d dug out in the main cavern would have to do. Along with the link to the baby spider, Lumi gained an imprint of their current form.

Nice. Can’t say no to free stuff.

Once they had been tucked in, blanketed by the webs, Lumi turned back to the giant exoskeleton.

I wonder if I can animate it like the golems.

After inspecting it more thoroughly, Lumi realized it was impossible at the moment. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it. It would simply take way more mana than she could accumulate in her core. Not to mention, she’d have to figure out how to thread to connections between the sections of carapace in order to get it to move properly. Although the baby forms might give her a hint. Hesitant to simply absorb the giant spider like creature to get its form and mana, Lumi decided to wait.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to get enough mana to create something like this. I really wanna animate it. Besides, I can always absorb it later.

The rest of the void pockets she dug out only had the bones of small creatures, which all looked to be various types of rodents.

Continuing to scan her surroundings, Lumi could sense a few massive pockets her senses couldn’t penetrate in the stone below her, with snaking tunnels leading upwards and out to the sides of her vision. While sensing within the chambers in the earth Lumi felt an itch, like something kept crawling across the skin she’d lost.

Something’s definitely in there.

Lumi dug her way downwards by absorbing the earth to create a pathway towards the first chamber. The loads of earth mana, that had filled her up in the process, went straight towards forming more golems. With Pebble at the head of the growing troop, Lumi moved them down the tunnel, which they luckily didn’t slip down. It didn’t take long before the last few feet of rock was all that separated the new chamber and her golems. After inhaling a bit of ambient mana, Lumi infused her will into the golems.

Protect me. Let nothing through the tunnel.

The golems readied their clubs and braced for battle. Lumi’s senses flooded in as she absorbed the last of the wall opening up the chamber. In an instant what had to be dozens of insect like creatures turned towards her. The six legged monstrosities skittered across every surface along with some gooey spheres that they’d seemed to be piling up in the far corner.

A shrill screech echoed throughout the tunnels and without missing a beat the mass of creatures started flowing towards her golems.

Shit.