That thing had to go.
I needed to work out how best to do it. Keeping an eye on the room I moved all of my monsters into positions and tried to work out my best options. There were only three of the basic vitapygmy left along with the Variant with the staff. They were checking over the fallen and every so often would do something to the body and then place down one of those little cooing lumps. A lumpy looking vitapygmy made its way near to the fortification my monsters were hiding behind.
It was now or never. With a force of will I ordered two of my monsters to leap over the makeshift wall and with a judicious application of dash pull them back into the dark tunnel where It was set upon by five sets of jaws and kicking feet before it could raise an alarm. This fight went a lot different then the first, being outnumbered five to one, It had dropped its weapon in its confusion and I had my hare keep up the pressure before its regeneration could become a factor. My domain indicated that this one had only been level one which may have been a factor but in short order it was over and there were only three vitapygmy left in the dungeon.
Then the Remains moved. My heart jumped into my throat for a moment but it didn't jump up and start fighting again. On closer inspection with my Domain there was something underneath the body. One hare moved the body while the others prepared to strike if the need arose but instead all of us just stared down perplexed at what we saw. Then it cooed.
Dominion - Tier 0 Monster species Fleshborn Progenitor Level 0 Mana Type Life Skills -
One of the lumps that had been a prominent feature of the vitapygmy that had just been killed had torn free during the fight. Now it was sitting there on its own wiggling and full of life slowly turning a deep green color. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the life cycle of these creatures but at least in this state they were seemingly harmless and actually kind of cute. At least if you didn't think to hard about how it was born.
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Leaving one on watch I pulled the other four back to my Core. I needed to find a way to gain some little bit of advantage over the coming fight. The Delvers had seemed competent but ran at the mere sight of the big green vitapygmy. So I committed myself to upgrading my Core chamber.
I had three options to chose from but none of them seemed ideal fits for what I wanted. The Sand Pit though combat related struck me as a defensive option and not something that would provide any real benefits when attacking something else. Another Habitation room might help but without any way to feed them might result in future problems. Which left me with Trove. Maybe there would be some sort of art piece weapon or armor I could use.
It consumed another Cloud Mana Pearl and the storm began to swirl and shift then raise off the ground. I felt the stone of the chamber shift much as it had when setting up the habitation room pulling pillars of stone up from the back of the room and incorporating the semi-random pit field from the front.
I couldn't 'see' what was happening on account of the density of all the clouds but I could 'feel' it. The pits and channels smoothed out and interconnected with each other wrapping around the little hillocks and miniature mountains and plateaus made from the discarded scrap stone. At the rear of the chamber the shifting stone formed pillars that then connected to each other with arches the highest and farthest back growing straight out of the back wall. The cloud bank then collapsed once the changes came to a stop. The swirling storm had become threadbare revealing the ground beneath.
The chamber had undergone a dramatic remodeling. The ground looked like a breathtaking vista of the Scottish highlands spotted with lakes and rivers most of it coated in a thin layer of gray-green moss. All that was missing was a model train or maybe miniature figurines of absurdly over armored knights. At the rear of the room stood a model castle made in the motte and bailey style whose walls were a cascade of interconnected aqueducts. At its highest point and source stood a dramatic square keep overlooking a courtyard that ensconced a stone statue of a seated highlander, in his left hand he held a bowl filled with clouds and across his knees sat a claymore. On occasion the aqueducts would branch out into open air letting their little rivulets dribble out as tiny water falls. As a punctuation to the reveal the last of the founding mana was consumed generating ten silver coins and one simple silver ring in the keep which spilled out onto the aqueducts and rolled down the various tracks in a tantalizing display of kinetic art. Some of the coins found paths that tossed them outside of the castle while one coin and the ring wound up in the courtyard at the statues feet.
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That was interesting and beautiful but it didn't really help with the task at hand. I grabbed the Variant monster window and set to work on what was now my only immediate recourse to increasing my military power. I set up a normal dire hare variant and grabbed the mote of Mana mana in hopes of getting a spellcaster and... it didn't fit. I wiggled the knobs and tried again to the same effect. I thought about using cloud mana but I really felt like even with the boosts to leadership it wouldn't be enough to take down the Behemoth.
I switched over the the coudborn and then the skvander variants. They felt to me a bit more magical but faced the same results. It was like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. To me they all looked like marbles so this was rather frustrating. In a moment of pique I broke the craftsman's cardinal rule, if it doesn't fit, don't force it. I pressed hard with my not-hand and suddenly it gave way and from the corner of my eye I could see my clock hit the turnover point and then I was gone.
Experiencing extreme vertigo I found myself in a swirling ocean of mana similar to the first time I had dove into myself only this time it was infinitely more chaotic. Instead of a swirl of lights falling into a single point it was a disordered maelstrom flowing from every direction in every direction. I had to take a moment to center myself and make sure I didn't lose my grip on the mote of Mana mana and look at my suroundings as a whole instead of trying to plot out its course or flail around trying to pull myself back. I relied on my Cloud Affinity to help differentiate at least that much from the madness around me and to make out what was what like an absurdist ascii art painting made with spaghetti and stars. I located to thick bands of cloud mana being filtered out into a single point nearby and a pair of streams of the stuff weaving itself together with a red brown network of other mana and it clicked. Those were my new dire hare forming and my new mana pearl. The Mana Mana Pearl I was holding was drawing in a similar construct of mana along with searing motes that welded and twisted the threads together.
Now properly oriented I was able to pull myself through back into my Core and even though the room was once again home to swirling storm it felt almost calm. I felt the addition of two more mist-walker dire hare join my ranks. Another silver ring and ten more silver coins bounced and rolled their way out of the castle in my Core chamber and then the Cloud Mana Pearl formed and dropped into my Mana Well. Instead of calming down however the storm picked up in intensity. Flashes of piercing blue light could be seen in the clouds and built to a fever pitch before arcing directly at my core.
After a moment of worry that I had been struck I let loose a sigh of relief. Sitting on top of my core was the dire skvader but it looked different. Its tail was flatter on top and it seemed more bulky with thicker wings more like an eagles then the model skvader which looked more like the wings of a large pheasant or a turkey. Also it was albino its skin pale and translucent run through with visible veins with eyes that were a piercing blue. Its mist-fur seemed to be struggling to properly form as the lightning strike that had heralded its arrival didn't seem to be done with it yet as it seemed to be roiling, trapped within the creature, looking for a way out. The energies eventually gathered at the creatures brow growing in intensity before bursting forth in a rather gruesome display as a pair of blue crystalline antlers similar to those of a roe deer burst from its skull.
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Tier 2 Monster species Mist-walker Dire Volpertinger Level 1 Mana Type Cloud, Mana, Animal Skills Stealth(mist), Cloud Affinity Spellwork, Dash, Leadership
Its formation complete it spread its wings wide which filled out with blade like feathers of mist. Its tale was still mostly the same floofy mist-fur thing except for a fan of broad tail feathers emerging across its top. At the base of its ears and between its antlers was a crest of small diamond shaped mist-feathers giving it the appearance of wearing so helmet made of white scales. Aside from this it was basically the same as the dire hare with mist-fur covering the rest of its body.
It leapt down from its perch and the sudden shift in the demeanor of my other mist-walker dire hare was like night and day. While they had worked diligently at any task I gave them they had always gone about it in a kind of lackadaisical manner. I had attributed this to them being more predator, like a pride of lions, then their diminutive prey species cousins. With the introduction of leadership they regained some of that prey like diligence almost like a compressed spring ready to bolt at an instant.
I was pretty sure I was ready.
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My dire hare set up on either side of the vitapygmy territory. They had been clearing the chamber with the altar and when the day ticked over it had released a pulse of Life Mana that seemed to partially heal the behemoth where it lay. It still had dark spots where it had been burned but they had been much reduced.
With my preparations complete, I waited for the vitapygmy to head deeper in before launching my attack. Flooding into the chamber my Domain clashed with the local Domain but it didn't seem to put up much resistance. The behemoth rose up and up close I could tell it was different from a vitapygmy now that I could look at it up close. Its body was entirely covered in skin. There were slight pits where eyes would be but there were no eyes, their mouth had no teeth giving it even more of a puppet like appearance. It was responding to my Mist-walker dire hares presence but it wasn't attacking. It watched my monsters surround it until my Domain had mostly filled the room washing away the Life Mana Domain and replacing it with my own.
My Domain washed over the Behemoth giving me a read on its abilities but telling me there was an Intruder rather then an Invader. I noticed that its Dominion line was oddly blank and wondered if that was why. That oddity was ultimately moot as it became completely enveloped in my Domain it flinched and let out a deep roar. while at the same time
Dominion - Tier 3 Monster species Fleshborn Behemoth Level 1 Mana Type Life Skills Overhealiing
I was then bombarded by achievement messages and the sound of a commotion down the moss coated tunnel that lead deeper into vitapygmy territory.
Congratulations Achievement become
Eclesium [https://i.imgur.com/B27jinu.png]
Ecclesiast
Congratulations Achievement become
Conquestor [https://i.imgur.com/mFFyFnX.png]
Conquestor
Achievements Effect Eclesium [https://i.imgur.com/B27jinu.png] Option of Faith based chamber upgrades to convert ensouled followers Will into Mana. Conqestor [https://i.imgur.com/mFFyFnX.png] Add conquered special features to available Options
There was no time to read that so I brushed it aside and activated my Fog of War spell. I could feel my monsters move through the mist mostly fainting attacks trying to draw the Fleashborn Behemoth into over extending itself. The Volpertinger was doing something interesting with the fog causing it to shift and swirl in spots where there weren't any dire hare to disturb it in effect multiplying the apparent number of enemies the large green monstrosity faced.
The first solid strike was delivered by my strongest hare as it dashed into the Behemoths shoulder attempting to overbalance the bipedal beast. It was met with a retaliatory slap from a misshapen extra arm that hadn't been their before and a third leg grew out of the beasts left thigh to keep it standing. It then fully abandoned the pretense that it was vitapygmy shaped at all extra limbs formed across its surface and extra mouths and eyepits yawned open seeking out its foes.
Even with this change I had the upper hand, like a pack of wolves bringing down a bear. It was certainly more difficult as the bear had half a dozen more paws then you would expect. I was extremely glad this thing didn't have the vitapygmys regeneration because that would have made this fight as it stood impossible. Even so every hit it did land was returned with half a dozen bites or kicks.
I lost a hare to a double fisted hammer blow and a second found its leg ensnared as a large sock-puppet mouth opened up just before its kick could land. It was pushed into the beast and swallowed alive but not killed outright. Inside the behemoth it was being slowly squeezed like by an all encompassing constrictor snake.
In response my Volpertinger began to circle the battle pulling my fog of war spell with it churning it into a swirling storm. The fog pulled away from the behemoth forming a thick walled eye. It watched the cloud spin and readied for the next attack to come but it was looking in the wrong direction. The swallowed dire hare kicked hard activating its dash skill causing the beast to stumble and gurgle while doubling down on its crushing internal force. Unbalanced and focused elsewhere the five remaining hare stuck in unison clamping down with their jaws then kicking away pulling the monster flat. The Volpertinger pounced, shooting strait up to the ceiling and planting its powerful hind legs against the hard stone and activated its own dash skill. Its wings held flat to its body it shot down like a diving falcon impaling the Fleshborn Behemoth with its crystal antlers causing the massive ball of flesh to come apart. Over by the tunnel the vitapygmy were staring into the swirling fog unsure of what to do. A slightly larger one wielding a hammer tugged at the back of the Variant ones dress and the five of them retreated back up their mossy tunnel, weapons at the ready.
I had won. The battle report came in and I had lost two mist-walker dire hare but all the survivors including my new Volpertinger had hit level two. I set most of them to guard the room while pulling back my oldest hare to my Core just in case. There were a number of fleshborn progenitors in the room that now that I had taken a moment were in fact attacking my monsters. They had no way of causing harm as they were, at their largest, three centimeters across with no claws or teeth. I didn't know what I should do with them but I decided to move them out of the room for now just in case they tried to somehow combine like they had before.
Now I had to prepare for the future. It didn't look like the Delvers were coming back right now so I had some time.