“Ahhhhhhhhh!!” A piercing scream rang through the room. Waking with a start I heard laughing all around me.

“You need to wake up, we have thirty minutes until we have to leave.” Star managed to get out between laughs.

“What the hell was that!?” I asked. Aria was standing next to me looking a little guilty.

“A bit of air magic.” Said a smirking ning. I grinned a bit. Apparently I’m quite hard to wake up.

“Why’s you wake me up thirty minutes before we had to leave?” I asked as I was sitting up.

“Well I was thinking, and I realised we messed up,” Said diamond.

“Yeah, we forgot to explain some things and come up with a house name and flag.” Continued Metallica. I nodded and motioned for them to continue.

“Well you see, I realised when I was talking to star that she was scared t say kobold because it had earth mana usage, and hers is space. Well we forgot to explain that the mana you use is the mana they’ll use. So in the wild, kobolds use earth mana, but in stars dungeon, they’ll use space mana. We’re lucky we planned it now. So let’s go through this again.” And so we did.

I still took both wisps, because considering my mana source, I’d like to see what the wisps third stage is.

Star kept hers.

Annabelle changed to imp and an animal.

Aria is getting cherub and an animal.

Dusk is going for imp and cherub.

Terran is going for kobold and goblin.

Bell is going for plant wisp and goblin.

We were happy with this, and I couldn’t wait to see their dungeons.

“Now for our house names, let’s be fuck the purists!!!” Said Terran.  ning through her spear at him as soon as bell slapped him.

“What?” He Said with a pained sound. Bell pointed at aria. Terran muttered sorry.

“So let’s not go for that.” Star said. We all had a little giggle before I said.

“Why not the deviants. We’re all strangers, brought together by strange circumstances. I mean, Come on, there’s 7 of us and over 50 of them. We’re strange, We’re odd, we’re enigmas. Oh actually both deviants or enigma is good.” I say the last with a red face. Star laughs.

“I like it.” Said Annabelle. “I vote for House Enigma.” With a little giggle aria shouts,

“Yeah, House Enigma.” Slowly people start nodding their heads before we all had It. We were House Enigma.

“And our flag?” Asked Terran, directing the question to me. I look at them and started weaving a little sheet with my mana. Everyone had inputs, and eventually we had a flag. The flag had a hollow, clear circle in the centre it was then decided into fourteen equally sized pieces. In each piece there was an the element of the person. For people like blaze, Annabelle and Tyson, they were put together with one gigantic flame spanning the entire area. It wasn’t very beautiful, but it was amazing. With a bit of mana I was able to make one out of crystals and attached it to the entrance. All were going to know of House Enigma.

“Alright people, let’s set out.” Shouted blaze. After about fifteen minutes we got to the training area. There was tiki standing in the doorway. With a cheeky grin I said.

“Hey tiki, you must tell me your secret. How did you get uglier?” He laughed.

“Just as cheeky, I see. Well, let’s hope your humour survives. Through here is your training. Above each door is your dungeon. It is your job to dig out your rooms and spaw your monsters. You have a 1 hour advantage because of your lack of numbers. Do well, and remember, the more points you have. The better your prizes. Also a tip. You can attack and be attacked at any time of day. Purists always seem to forget this. And anarchists to.” With a grin he stepped aside and let us in.

“You guys heard what he said. If we want the best chance of winning we attack at night. Also, good luck.” With that Terran stepped inside his door.

“For House Enigma!” I Said. They all repeated and I stepped inside mine.

On the other side was a room, if it could be called that. Two meters by two meters, and a black portal on one side. In the centre was a pedestal with a gem on top.

“That gem means the room is the core room, and that portal means it’s the entrance room.” Said diamond.

“First we should summon ten crystal wisps and ten life wisps.” She continued.” Then we will dig out four rooms going across. We will then dig out side rooms, and collapse the tunnels so that there are no direct was towards the core. Afterwords we will summon more wisps. The reason we’re summoning ten of each now is so that we can have some solid wisps to attack the other dungeons at the beginning.” She explained. I nodded, and spawned the wisps. The life wisps were bright green balls of mist that just floated around. They seemed to give the air around them a vibrant feeling. Slowly they moved from space to space, changing the mana. The crystal wisps were even stranger. They were multi coloured, switching from red to blue to green. Any colour a gem was, they were. I started digging. The plan we had come up with was like this.

(Best I could do guys, when I figure it out I’ll add the actual pic, go to the top to find a link in my authors note.)

The green is the entrance.

The red is the core room.

The room before blue is a boss room.

It’s a sound plan, and took me forty five minutes to dig it all out. What I ended up doing was imagining a hallway sized, square, crystal worm that just ate through the rock. I then imagined a dog sized crystal worm eating out all the rooms. It didn’t take long, according to diamond it was the quickest newborn dungeon dig time yet, but I did experience running out of mana. It wasn’t nice. It felt like the worst headache and dehydration ever. You couldn’t move, your head was pounding and it was just, horrible. Luckily the wisps increased my regeneration, so instead of a twenty minute rest, it was a five minute one, and then a further five minutes to get my mana back to full. After that I took regular breaks. When I had finished my first floor, I started spawning wisps like mad. By the end of ten minutes i had fifty of each, not including the originals. Speaking of the originals, the crystal ones all seemed to have settled on their own colours, and at the base were small balls of crystal. There was ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, moonstone, rose quartz, tanzanite, smoky quartz, alexandrite and jett. The life orbs had a much stronger field around them. They also had little, almost unnoticeable patterns of either plants or animals. I was interested to see how solid life looked, diamond didn’t know either, her moms starter races were kobold and cherub. We sat down for a five minute break when she asked.

“What next? We’ve done everything we needed, spawned our monsters, formed outer tunnels. There’s nothing left to do but wait.” Nodding I told her.

“I guess Now was good a time as ever. You know that gem in your chest? The diamond. It’s like my bismuth. I imbued them with so much power, and with the intent to do something magical. They have hidden powers, not even I know, but I think we try find some. Imagine what we could be? And anyways, worse case we waste fifteen minutes, which we were going to do anyway.” She looked at me, looked at the diamond in her chest with awe, before nodding.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“What will we try to discover.” She asked.

“Remember the fox things, and the rabbits. When i was watching them I had this feeling. The feeling of being able to do it. And while the, fusion, may be out of our reach right now, I think we can form weapons. It will be a bit, but let’s take it like mana. Make it mean something to you.” Looking at me she smiled.

“Let’s try.” With that I started trying to see it forming a weapon, or anything really. Nothing happened. I closed my eyes and remembered back when the rabbit did it. I remember the glow. I remember the shifting form. I remember the fox. the glow. The shifting forms. I felt like I was getting closer, and instead of trying to make a weapon, I tried to make it glow. I heard a gasp and opened my eyes. A glow suffused the room before it stopped.

“What did you do?” Diamond asked. I just shrugged. I was close to something, I could feel it.

“Get me out one minute before the hours up, I’ll need to get ready, and I want to watch the wisps evolve.” I saw her nod before I delved into my mana source.

It truly was beautiful. Nearly every crustal had some form or shape. From plants to animals. There weren’t any organic beings anymore. I looked out over my source, and just started walking. It didn’t matter where I went. I wasn’t even looking to further my study of my gem. I was just so frustrated, and stressed. I died, and now I’m forced to fight and kill. It ps not normal, it’s not nice. I wish people would just leave me alone. The only good thing are my crystals, and the fact that I could make anything I wanted. I now have a purpose, a family. Even back home, I didn’t feel like I belonged. People fought me, challenged me, bullied me. It’s hard you know. All I wanted was to live my life, to read, to walk my dogs and learn. Instead of all of these I was bullied, left out and made to feel as if I’m unwanted. I never liked school. People display it as some kind of haven, a safe place, but it’s not is it. Even movies give people friends, but I didn’t even have that. I just wanted to belong. That’s the good thing about this. I’ve got a family, a weird one granted, but one nonetheless. I don’t even know them that well, and yet we were still laughing all night long.

I leant down and scratched a chipmunk type creature that ran past. It gave out a chittering sound and continued its lengthy run.

Here at it’s simple, I guess. Fight, protect and create. It’s quite nice I guess. I don’t have to worry about hurting this ones feelings, or that someone’s going to try and pressure me into something. What’s even nicer is everyone is around my age. Even the strange dusk, and suspicious Terran were nice. And star, she’s especially nice. Crouching down I walked into a clearing where a bear thing and a group of five, centipedes, fought.

The bear was made from blue and black crystal, and had a beak instead of jaws. It had one elongated eye in the centre of its head. I say eye loosely. Inside it was almost like a ball bearing. There were white and black bands rotating ant incredible speeds before reversing. Instead of fur it had typical crystal growths shooting from its back. It’s tail was a long, panther type thing. At the base of its neck was a crystal. I’m calling it beartal

The centipedes, dubbed centipedals, are long, armour plated things. Each was about the length of my arm, and had ten, or twenty legs. At the end of its body was a small length of tail before a vicious pare of mandibles were attached. It’s actual head was a powerful beak with jagged pieces that looked like teeth. One of them let out a screech and I saw that there were a ton more teeth things inside of the beak. At the back of its beak, just as it ended was a gem. The entire thing was black and green.

The beartal roared before its gem shined, and armour surrounded its form. It started barreling towards a centipedal, but it jumped to the side, and shot a wad of acid from its gem. The acid landed on the beartal’s back, and started to melt through the armour. This continued for awhile. The beartal managed to clip one of the centipedals on one of its runs, and killed it straight on the spot. The centipedal exploded in a puff of mist, just like the fox, but know gem appeared. Now I was curious. The fight continued for a bit, but ultimately, the burnt and broken beartal vanished in a puff of mist. A shining gem fell to the ground.

The centipedals picked it up and left. I was curious now. Why did some creatures have gems and others don’t. I followed them for about ten minutes before they headed into a clearing.

In the clearing was a giant centipedal, easily twenty times the size of the others, and it had a big, grey swarth of crystal hair upon its head. The centipedals brought the gem to the big man, and dropped it at its feet. The big one looked at them, gave them an affectionate chatter, before eating the gem. It started to glow before it turned into a gem, as if it had poofed, but after about ten seconds the gem emitted a bright light, and like the rabbits fusion, I saw shifting shapes, and then the big one formed again, but this time, surrounding it were five more little ones. It was their mom, I realised. At that moment I heard a voice shouting for me to wake up. The next second I was in the dungeon core room. In front of me were all twenty original wisps, but that wasn’t what was on my mind. I stood up, and without realising it said out loud.

“I am the lost. I am the forgotten. I am an enigma, a deviant. I am unwanted and not needed. This was what I was, but now I am wanted, I am needed. I am proud of myself.” At this my gem started shining. ”I wish to create, and to create I will need to destroy. Life is a circle, and without death, there would be no life. I am not afraid of attacking, and I am not adverse to defending. What is needed is needed, and it is up to me to choose this need.” At this you could see a form shaping itself in the light.” I will defend my those that stand by me. I will attack those that stand against me. I am bismuth, and I am ME.” At this the form in the light solidified, and the light drained away. The thing that was left was a bō staff. A simple weapon really, focusing on blocking, slashing, and entrapping your enemies. It’s main power was in its ability to debilitate and control its opponent, and not in its ability to kill.

It was a long thing, at seven foot long, and three centimetres at its widest, in the centre, or two centimetres at the ends. The actual staff was made out of jet, which is incredibly light weight, with a density of 1.19 times the density of water. The 2 centimetres from the ends of the bō staff were three 2 centimetre thick bands of dark yellow cassiterite, which had a density of 7.1 times the density of water. Overall it was quite light, but would strike a nasty blow should it hit you.

These gems are weird. It took me forever to figure out how to create my weapon, but now I knew absolutely everything about it. I even knew a rudimentary fighting style. But this was the absolute basics, and were made to be improved upon, making them unique. It was a simple style of two sweeps, how to look out for openings, a jab and a footwork. I could summon my bō with but a thought, and knew I’d never be able to weird another weapon. Even if this broke, I could just summon another, no mana cost. I could even summon two of them, but just as I couldn’t wield another weapon, if someone tried to wield this one, it would burst into mist.

Diamond was awed. She looked at me in shock before shaking her head.

“I don’t know how you did that, but you have got to teach me. Now watch closely, the wisps are about to evolve.” We watched the wisps closely, and soon enough they started to change. A glow surrounded them and it happened. The life wisps all condensed into a single, floating ball. It looked almost solid. On this ball was an engraving. There were two trees, a fox, a rabbit, a badger, 2 humanoids, a flower and 2 bushes. The crystal wisps all condensed there mana into their crystals before they expanded into head sized pieces of floating crystal.

We were shocked, but the changes didn’t stop their.

The wisps started to float away before the life wisps charged the crystal wisps, I was about to shout stop, but diamond held me back. Looking closer, I saw the life wisps melt into the crystal wisps. It took about three seconds before more changes happened. The life wisps fully disappeared within the crystal wisps, and they started to change. Two crystal wisps, ruby and tanzanite, flew over to a corner of the room, before they planters themselves and formed into small, crystal saplings.

The rose quartz went to another corner of the room and turned into a pink flower.

The emerald and amethyst turned into bushes. One was covered in thorns, and the other was moving slightly.

Next the sapphire, smoky quartz and moonstone turned into a rabbit, fox and badger respectively.

Then alexandrite became a semi human crystal. It was normal, until you saw the six arms. One pair came out of her shoulders like another pair, but the next came out of her chest, just under the other pair, and was slightly smaller as well. The last pair came out of her waist, and was even smaller then The second. She had a semi normal face, with a pair of sunglasses type of thing covering her eyes, and a slightly pointed nose. However, under her chin was a second set of jaws that had long, sharp and powerful teeth, as well as a serpentine tongue.

The second humanoid was made from jet, and also had three sets of arms, one came out of the shoulders, the other came out just behind, and the third from the armpits of the first. He had three faces. The one at the front, a calm one, one on the side of his face, an angry one, and one on the other side of his face, a happy one.

“Umm.” I Said

“Yeah.” Copied diamond.

“So?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should we...”

“Probably.” And so we set to work. She moved the plants into different rooms, and i let the animals  roam around. I glanced at the humanoids, who were just standing there. Diamond came back, It seems the badgers taken up shop under one of the trees, the fox in the thorny bush, and the rabbits digging out a little warren. I restricted it to a single, small tunnel, enough to run from the standard sized human.

We had also put the flower near the wiggly bush. What I also noticed was a gem on each and every one of them. The trees had one in there trunks, the badger in the roof of its mouth, the fox on its tail, the rabbit on its head, the bushes at there centre, the flower at the centre of its petals, alexandrite on her forehead, jet on his hands.

“So, the other dungeons would have opened, by now, easy to gain points.” I Said.

Diamond shook off her shock and said “yeah, let’s go attack them now.” At that alexandrite and jet both turned towards us and asked,

“What, what are we?” Diamond and I looked at each other before responding,

“We don’t know?”