Life mana felt like the right pick for the Sand Pit. This had several benefits not least of which was to keep up the ruse that Luciantisss was the one still calling the shots. I also didn't want to front load my defenses with cloud themed ambushes to avoid them specifically planning against it. In both these senses I was going to try and convince the vitapygmy to be directly involved in the first line of defense so I had invited them to the unveiling ceremony.
The Priestess had brought with her a number of things which she proceeded to place around the room. A roll of moss was broken into small plugs and placed throughout the chamber and lengths of vine were looped into broad rings at various places and across entry points. A pair of vitapygmy game out and dug a small pit at the exact center of the chamber and they filled it with Enriched Water from my storage room and some dark soil from their gardens. The Priestess then approached and set a long slender green seed to float on the surface of the water. She then raised her hand over the seed and began a prayer.
"The soil holds the water so the Tree may drink. The Tree drinks the water so its trunk may grow strong. The Trunk grows strong so that it may weather the storm. The Tree weathers the storm to shine the light of Luciantisss through its boughs." The conclusion was responded to with a droning hum from all the vitapygmy present that was not dissimilar from the constant drone that emanated from Luciantisss broken Core.
A pulse of Life affinity spellwork surged out of the priestess and settled on every living thing in the room and then the vitapygmy stepped back to the edge of the room keeping the droning hum going. It was kind of impressive and they were clearly using some kind of circular breathing to keep the chant going but it appeared that they were done with what they were going to do.
Not to be outdone I prompted my Mist-walker dire hare to perform their own demonstration. They ringed the room and began a rhythmic drumming on the stone with their powerful hind legs and my volpertinger spread their wings wide and with a flare of could affinity spellwork built a swirling storm over their heads. I was a little embarrassed feeling like I had to compete with the mostly orphaned vitapygmy but what's done is done and there was no reason to drag this out any further. I grabbed the mote of squirming green power from one of the Life Mana Pearls and slotted it into the core of the new chamber and the floor shifted.
It was an odd sensation as the solid stone slid to the side then the floors and walls smoothed out much like it had for the map room. The ceiling pushed up into a more even dome structure and started to bristle with twisting root like structures. The sudden shift in the rooms dimensions broke the swirling artificial storm pulling its clouds up into the empty space and a ripple of reconstruction converted the bare smooth walls into an intricate frieze depicting hare frolicking in the clouds and then running along aqueducts as it progressed down the wall. In the six alcoves that dotted the outer edge the aqueducts converged on bowls that gathered to themselves the rooms arrant clouds and held a large verdant green Mana Crystal and a number of smaller pale blue ones that illuminated the room.
The two alcoves closest to the entrance filled with empty weapon and armor racks while the other four gained platforms that looked like they were formed from pillow basalt upon which stood four statues. One was of a woman that held a clutch of heather in her arms and cross wise from her stood another woman wielding a spear and a shield with a dire hare at her feet. The other two were men, one that looked vaguely like me before I was an orb except in much better shape then I remembered being in a kilt with a claymore resting on his shoulder and in the other, well, it was Sean Connery from Highlander with his Katana. At least he was wearing the tartan so there wasn't any pretending that he was a Spaniard but I did hope no one noticed.
Stolen novel; please report.
Along the lower edge of the wall near the floor were depictions of humans, vitapygmy, and the occasional fleshborn behemoth doing battle. It didn't seem to suggest that the two types of warriors were specifically arrayed against each other sometimes humans would fight humans and sometimes vitapygmy would fight other vitapygmy. The center of the room also had a clearly defined ring marked by moss covered cobble stones held in place with vines and the stone in the center shifted with a snap into fine pea gravel.
As the sculptures filled in so did the various plants and vines giving the room an aged and abandoned appearance. The vines grew thick over the openings to the tunnels that sat at the backs of the alcoves with the statues. They also rooted themselves at the entrance and exit securing the doorways in a thick twisted woody frame. At the center of the room the mangrove seed sprouted into a slender twisted tree that bent off to one side of the room with Its roots sprawling out through the gravel as the room began to flood.
The moisture generated by the abundance of cloud mana began to condense on the walls and pour down the embossed aqueducts and spilling out and over the embossed warriors and across the floor giving it an appearance of a shallow river ford. The water spilled over the mangroves roots across the room and through the legs of a roaring fleshborn behemoth and into the wall where it was then converted back into mist that gathered at the tops of the alcoves to condense into the bowls hanging there to start the journey again. The final touch was an embossed depiction of a castle in the clouds held up by pillars embellished to look like massive vines and the same embellishments spread to all of the aqueduct supports throughout the room.
Chambers Bonus Sand Pit(Life) Damage done in the Pit is converted into life mana. (Ex bonus: Life Mangrove siphons room mana to generate healing fruit)
Sand Pit [https://i.imgur.com/SLb2IU3.png]
"Nice, very nice. you could have don't this far easier if you had just become." The blue man was here.
The vitapygmy and my own monsters didn't react to his presence so they apparently couldn't see him but this was worrying since as he wandered around the new room he kept looking right at me. I wasn't really here but where ever I shifted my point of reference his faceless head would follow.
"I just, I don't understand why you wont just clear out the chaff. Lucian is stuck and is getting in my way. Just clear him out and I can get back to work." as if to punctuate that last statement he split into three identical versions of himself. "Instead you take the hard path and play with his defective toys."
At this the Priestess seems to notice that something is off but doesn't seem to know expressly about our guest but simply darts looks back into the depths of the dungeon. The veteran vitapygmy takes a step closer to her noting change in demeanor and directs the others to be ready to retreat back to their home territory.
One of the blue men inspects one of the warrior statues "This does at least give me hope that you aren't another Lucian but your touch is just to light for my..." Suddenly all three blue men converge into a single entity snapping its attention to outside the dungeons entrance. "I've stood still for too long. Look if you would jus-"
And just like before he was gone and in the gravel where he had stood sat another Mana Mana Pearl.