With the dungeon itself secured and no noticeable activity from the vitapygmy. I didn't feel like under an immediate threat but I would have to take a bit more time to really feel out my surroundings before remodeling.
I did feel like there was enough time to take a gander at the Altars special features. It had a gauge that looked kind of like a pressure valve crossed with a gacha machine that appeared like it referenced the option I got through the Ecclesiast achievement that converted worship into mana. The rest of the features seemed to be locked except for one widget that measured a resource called Sacrifice which was directly connected to some sort of divine casting spell list. There was only one spell there though called Guardian which had a linked window that was full of strange text.
I had looked at this earlier and it had slowly started to translate itself and focusing on the block of text again it started to decode itself again. The speed of the translation seemed to be tied to how focused I was on trying to translate the letters. As I progressed the speed began to slow and it was clear the alphabet I was looking at didn't have a one to one correlation to english as it would sometimes clear multiple symbols for one letter or a different symbol would be replaced with a letter I had already uncovered. I even figured out that the little circle with the dots in it represented that the word was a plural noun and suddenly all the words with that letter got an 's' slapped on the end of them.
I actually started learning a bit of the Vitapygmy language if a bit broken as I worked out a few of the words before they were translated from their possession in the text and from the chanting I had overheard when preparing for the clash between the Delvers and the vitapygmy. I still didn't have a grasp on the syntax or really much beyond a few random words. I didn't even know any of the swears that everyone knew were the most important words to learn first when dipping your toe into a new language. and then it was complete and success came with a new achievement.
Congratulations Achievement become
Linguist [https://i.imgur.com/TYrCspC.png]
Linguist
Achievement Effect Linguist [https://i.imgur.com/TYrCspC.png] Option of knowledge related chambers and chamber upgrades
The options I gained were a Map Room (whose description was Maps) and a Library (whose description was Books). I would deal with them later, for now I had a new bit.
Prayer to Luciantsss
Luciantsss, The Spirit of Life wandered the cosmic void caring for all manner of living things. Plants, Animals and Peoples alike.
Sadly the cosmic void, just like the outside lands, was a dangerous place. Great spirits of a type as Luciantsss competed and fought laying low all who could not prove themselves with strength alone. Luciantsss being of gentle make and constitution could not challenge the other spirits and was slain along with those he cared for. His connection to Spring of Life saved him from a pitiable end and he was born again as the protector of the vitapygmy tribe.
In the early days it was a paradise. The vitapygmy grew and flourished and Luciantsss taught them many things. How to tend to the inside lands and to use life to encourage the growth of more even more life. The walls quickly changed from dark hard and dead stone to plush green-gray mosses and twisting fruit baring vines full of life. He taught us of the strata of living things and where they stood in the castes of life. How to take a part of a lower caste life to benefit a higher caste plucking berries and digging up tubers to sate our hunger, or trimming the vines to craft our tools. With those tools we carved at the walls and floors of our home to better suit our needs and to facilitate the growth of life.
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When the Intruders came from the outside we were full of fear. We struck at them to drive them from our home and they responded to us in kind laying painful bites and stings upon our flesh. We were stronger then the Intruders and crushed them with ease but the loss of life saddened the gentle Luciantsss. He wept for the dead Intruders and admonished us for our shortsightedness and sent our priestess on a quest to find the Intruders home to beg their forgiveness and to invite them to join us in our home. In time they stopped being Intruders and much like the berries and vines they became filled with the light of Luciantsss.
Luciantsss was happy and lived a simple existence beloved by the vitapygmy but as with all things it would not last. The outside eventually finds its way back in. The demon, Beluman, had come from the cosmic void to taunt Luciantsss. To drive him forth, and to kill, and to become something that he was not. With evil magics mighty Intruders were called to our home to strike us with mighty blows, ravage our Gardens, and pillaging Luciantsss' Mana Well. We were too small and not strong enough to keep them away.
Lusciantsss spoke to the priestess bestowing on her a terrible knowledge. Lusciantsss was a prisoner of Beluman. The Core of his light though beautiful to us was in fact Lusciantsss' chains. The priestess was tasked with freeing the great spirit and shattering his prison. She built with vine and stone a long hammer with a pearl of Lusciantsss' light at its heart. With a great cry she swung with all hear might cracking the glowing orb sending great shards of it flying through the air and Luciantsss' light went out.
For one hundred days the tribe lived in darkness. when Invaders came we did not feel the all encompassing urge to drive them out. The plants in our home began to wither and our own bodies weakened. We persevered taking up the terror from the outside which could kill us without taking our head and lit our home. The priestess did what she could to keep our moral up showing us through her spellwork that Lusciantsss was still with us crafting a staff whose head was a shard of Lusciantsss' chains and by channeling Lusciantsss' light through it produced the sticky sap like nectar of life. When we would be harmed the priestess would heal our hurt but it would produce lumps upon our flesh that when removed would continue living as a true embodiment of Lusciantsss' light.
Light returned to our home on the one hundred and first day and his voice could be heard from the the largest fragment of his shattered chains. In the form of a jagged edged crystal bowl it returned to where it once sat poised in mid air. Our priestess Feared that Beluman had ultimately won and trapped Luciantsss once again but her fear was unfounded as the nectar of life poured forth from the shattered chain to drip into Lusciantsss' Well.The Spring of Life had been stoppered and truly freed to spill forth into the world. Luciantsss would offer us no further clear and direct guidance because we already knew what we needed to do.
The large Intruders were merely a greater caste of life then us and we would give them of ourselves as the berry and the tuber and the vine. Just as the Small Intruders had once been an enemy to us they too would one day be filled with Luciantsss' light and serve the proliferation of life. But for now they take too much in their ignorance. When one takes to much then life is able to give there can be only death. For life to persevere a new balance must be met.
The Lowest caste of life will become the Highest. Grant onto us a guardian to protect the Fountain of Life. In Luciantsss' name we call!
Luciantsss! Luciantsss! Luciantsss!
That was a lot of information to take in. I needed some time to really work out what it all meant, it was clearly a vitapygmy history from their own perspective. I didn't quite know what to make of it. The one thing that was clear was the last part of the Prayer was the trigger phrase for the spell the Altar room provided and would turn a tier zero Fleshborn Progenitor into a tier three Fleshborn Behemoth with a substantial price of Sacrifice.
I wasn't sure quite how to get do it or what counted as sacrifice or if you could just shove it into the Grange along with the other fleshborn. The little guys seemed a lot calmer in the grange then they did over in the Altar. They did still seem to operate like fist sized spherical goats now that I had more time to monitor them and look past their unreasonable adorableness. I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to have a three meter tall one that could kill my dire hare hanging around.
Options were options I guess. Better to have the tool in the box then to not have it and wish it was there.