It was a good thing I accidentally made a wonky first room, since it hadn't been much longer than an hour before I hit an underground water deposit, which promptly flooded it. Thankfully not enough to get to my core, but enough to need a swim to reach it.

While I waited for it to drain fully, I did some experiments to answer some questions I'd been thinking of while going up that I didn't want to slow my progress with.

I found I could put the rock I had tunnelled through back down anywhere I had already claimed. This included being able to seal my core from the rest of the tunnel, though if I did that I lost a lot of awareness of the other side of it, and I could see the mana flow stagnate over there.

I also tunnelled a space around my core and found it floated in mid-air. I could also move it slowly by pushing it around with freshly-constructed rock, though that felt very weird, something covered in my own mana directly touching my core. I pointedly did NOT check if I floated in water. That didn't sound like it would tell me anything apart from exactly how unpleasant water pressure combined with mana pressure would feel. I did take in some of the water as it fell down though, partially out of curiosity about if I could and how tricky it would be, partially because I wasn't sure exactly how much was coming down and if I had the room for it all. It wasn't too hard, especially with the amount of Null Mana I'd been passively taking in as I burrowed up. I did have to push the mana a bit more forcefully though, as slowly adding it would allow the water I was trying to take to move away. I could've tried pushing enough mana in to take the whole reservoir, but that seemed excessive for the time being.

Once the water had fully drained and I felt assured that I wasn't about to learn what being a wet dungeon core feels like, the next question was how best to claim the cavern I'd dug into. I could wrap the entire thing in a small veneer of the rock I'd already dug out, but something told me there had to be a better way. As I didn't yet have so much spare mana I could just throw it all at a test, I first walled off part of the cavern. Then, I pushed a large amount of my own mana into the unclaimed space, about twice the amount that was already flowing through. As I'd hoped, my mana displaced the natural flows, permeating the space and the exposed cavern wall, with my constructed walls acting as a channel for the flow. It wasn't long before the cavern wall began to feel like any other area I'd dug out or placed personally. Encouraged by this, I removed some of my temporary walls and began to pour Null Mana into the cavern. It took a while - mostly due to consuming most of the ambient mana near my core - but eventually I managed to take the entire thing.

I got to bask in my successful expansion for an entire minute before my more annoying half piped up, albeit with some good news.

Rank UP

Rank UP Criteria met! Rank is now 2! Select Rank Bonus:

Mana Extraction I Mana becomes a little easier to absorb Mana Conversion I Giving Null mana a Quiddity becomes a little easier Dungeon Expansion I Absorbing physical material becomes a little easier

I was pretty sure the reason I increased my rank was from claiming space, which would be made easier by absorbing ambient mana more effectively, but considering that even at my current rate the ambient mana around my core was beginning to get thin, I decided to go with [Dungeon Expansion I] to extend my overall reach, and hopefully tunnel more quickly. I also noted that the description was "physical material", and tested the broadness of that definition

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Mana Botany set to 1

Material Discovered: Dimworl Moss

I should've probably guessed that would work, but it definitely didn't feel as difficult as I'd expected absorbing something that was technically alive. Absorbing water was more work. Or at least it WAS... I took a little more from my new pond and found that it required way less conscious effort than before. If this was what "a little easier" felt like, I couldn't imagine what "a lot" would be.

Thinking about my pond, and the possibility of hitting another, I put some time into digging out a separate reservoir room next to the current one. It had a lower ceiling but was much deeper. I added several passageways connecting the two rooms, just above the water level. This way, if I hit any more water it would flow into the next room before it had a chance to flood my core chamber, and I still got to hide my core through an underwater passage. I put some of the moss from the cave around the entrance to the passage to try make it look a little more organic, literally.

As I put the finishing touches on this arrangement (a dead-end tunnel at the bottom of the lake I could easily open to the reservoir as an emergency drain) I felt a sudden jolt of pain.

Dungeon boundaries under attack!

Something was trying to get in.

Fighting through the pain I focused on the source, the upper regions of the cave, and used some of the stone reserves I'd gained from excavating so far to build a tunnel where they'd be breaking in that would lead them to another wall back out of my domain. I made the tunnel wall a little thicker than my usual boundaries, but ran narrow holes through the base to allow my mana to circulate back to me - I wanted to see what was so determined to get in.

I didn't have to wait long.

As the wall broke it revealed several short creatures which stood upright with large claws. Their nostrils flared as they poked their heads into the passageway I had made for them.

"Ey, you feel that?" the one in front asked. Asked? I wasn't sure if I should be more surprised that they spoke or that I could understand their language.

"Aye, ground's wrong" one of the three in the rear replied, to the enthused nodding of the other two.

"Ground's wrong? Ground weren't even here 'til we got to it!" the front one called back, scratching against the floor and sending more sharp pain through my being. "Doesn' look like spellrock. Smells like it though" they continued, sniffing at the place they'd just carved up.

I might've been excited at the idea that they knew of something that resembled me if not for their apparent intent to gouge a hole through my domain, and possibly through my core. I needed to find a way to communicate.

Pouring mana into the passage I etched an image of them based on what I could see so far. My mana wasn't terribly dense in the area between my efforts to keep from moving freely reducing the flow and the amount of ambient mana trickling out through the tunnel they'd dug, so I didn't have a full idea of them. I probably would've missed the nose if not for the way it seemed to take in mana, and I had no idea how good their sight was. Once I had put in as much detail as I had, I waited.

"...'sides, iffin I'm right then there's enough spellrock somewhere around 'ere to really put our burg on t'map!" finished the leader. Apparently while I was distracted there was some debate over whether or not to keep going. It might've been easier for me if they had decided not to.

I kept an eye on them as they continued down my passageway to the engraving.

[http://warpedpoint.co.uk/gambit/images/gambit-groundchildren.jpg]

"T'sh! S'thing knows us!"

Well, at least I knew I'd not messed up the detail too badly. Now for the long shot... I etched "HELLO" above the picture.

I could hear the lead muttering, sounding out my addition to the engraving. I had no idea if they could understand it but if I understood them, then they might just understand me too.

"S'guff!"

Or not. I was all out of ideas for polite resolution.