I let out a hiss, flexing my coils. The Coreless had been making noises at each other for a while now, sounds flowing back and forth in a seemingly never ending torrent, a flurry of emotions running through their [Little Guardian’s Totem]s.
We had shoved ourselves into the rickety tower-nest, filling its rooms with far too many bodies. For a little while, my disciples and I had gone back outside, the Coreless jabbering back and forth at once another, but we had eventually returned and rejoined the crowd. Even for those without [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, I could tell that the severe closeness of the crowd was making the Coreless uncomfortable - especially the ones that ended up pressed up against my undead. They flinched every time a wisp of death essence passed from undead to living, making their teeth chatter and tiny bumps raise on their flesh.
I wasn’t sure that was healthy. It made me a little concerned about what I might be doing to the-female-who-was-not-Needle with my presence. But only a little. In the end, I figured that, even if it was a problem, it was something that should be easily fixed. My disciples had already come into close contact with death essence while trying to reach the Death Core, and that was significantly more…intense. Malevolent - and they were fine. As long as they eventually received healing, nothing should go wrong.
And I wasn’t planning on waiting much longer on that, anyway.
At the outer edges of the crowd around us, I could see the natives of the rickety tower-nest. Could feel their [relief] at my return through their [Little Guardian’s Totem]s. It wasn’t hard to notice that some of the Coreless were [nervous] about being near me right now; the few times that the-female-was-not-Needle pushed past them, bringing me close enough to them that they were touched by the small wisps of death essence that were being continually shed from my scale-flesh, they drew back. Got a little more hesitant to come close.
Another reason to bring myself back to life fairly soon. I didn’t enjoy the constant pangs of [hesitation].
I didn’t feel that same [nervousness] and [hesitation] from the Coreless that I had just saved, but that was probably only because I couldn’t. They didn’t have any [Little Guardian’s Totem]s. Something that would need to be fixed, and soon.
The-female-who-was-not-Needle must have had the same thought because, before I could even convey the need to her, she had found a small Coreless carving away at a block of darkwood. I could see the beginnings of something resembling a [Little Guardian’s Totem], still weak and powerless, forming behind his hands. She spoke to a larger Coreless that was standing beside him for a little while before she kneeled down and gestured towards the carving in the little Coreless’ hands, making noises at him.
“Hey, I’ve got a special job for you,” not-Needle not-hissed, the sound not particularly loud, given the din of the nearby crowd. The small Coreless’ eyes flicked towards me, and then back to my disciple, but he stayed quiet. I made sure not to lean towards him, not wanting any death essence to get too close. He wasn’t the tiniest Coreless that I’d seen - not even close - but he was small. He might be affected by it more than the larger Coreless, and without a [Little Guardian’s Focus] to fix any problems that caused, I wanted to be careful. “How’d you like to see some magic?” not-Needle asked.
The little Coreless’ mouth turned upwards, and his head moved up and down rapidly, a burgeoning [excitement] in his eyes and [Little Guardian’s Totem].
“Okay!” not-Needle said, her own mouth turning upwards in response to his. I leaned over a little to watch, though I was still being careful not to get too close to the small Coreless that she knelt in front of. She continued to make noises at him, sometimes pointing at the [Little Guardian’s Totem] hanging from his neck, sometimes pointing at the carving in his hands, and sometimes pointing at me.
Eventually, the small Coreless’ head moved up and down again. His hands continued to move, a tiny fang of ore-flesh carving lines into the darkwood between his fingers.
Even if I couldn’t understand the noises they made at each other - I had a feeling about what was being asked. I approved of her initiative.
Still, I decided to ask as well, joining the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s indecipherable words with a request of my own. Just in case. In a flash of light, a brief image of a [Little Guardian’s Totem] being sculpted by a crude, faceless Coreless appeared. The sight set the little Coreless’ eyes to sparkling, [awe] traveling across the connection to his own [Little Guardian’s Totem]. After a few more noises were passed between himself and not-Needle, the Coreless began to carve the block of darkwood in his hands with greatly increased fervor.
I hissed, satisfied with my success, and settled down to wait.
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It wasn’t long before I was presented with the first of the newest [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, the-female-who-was-not-Needle having pushed her way through the crowded tower-nest and recruited a large number of Coreless to begin creating them, most of them far older than the small Coreless that she had first spoken to.
That Coreless, the small one that had been carving away while he watched the crowd, was also the first one to finish with his work. He had already been most of the way there by the time that not-Needle spoke to him. It had just needed a few finishing touches. The [Little Guardian’s Totem] I was presented with was a little crude, more poorly done than some of the others that I had seen, and hanging from thin threads of plant-flesh rather than threads of a many-legged bad-thing.
Crude, but - seeing how [proud] the Coreless was when he presented it to me - good enough. Even if it wasn’t the best looking carving that I’d seen, the Coreless’ pride in serving the Great Core was more than enough to make up for it.
I touched my head-scales to its surface, focusing inwards, drawing upon the familiar power of the [Little Guardian’s Totem]. It burst outwards in a rush, filling the carved lines of the nascent [Little Guardian’s Totem]. I barely noticed the toll that creating it took, having long grown practiced at this particular magic. More efficient. Now, with [Mana Blood] boosting my stores of mana far beyond what they had once been, it was even easier. A far cry from the first time that I had created one. I wasn’t even worried about having to create so many; now that I wasn’t constantly using up mana by fighting, even keeping up with the continual drain caused by keeping myself from dying through [Transient Reanimation] wasn’t very difficult. Sure, I had to pay some attention to it - it would be humiliating to suddenly die because I forgot that I needed mana to live - but it wasn’t anything more than I could handle. Not with all of the Blessings that the Great Core had given me.
The Coreless before me gasped, cradling the newly-created [Little Guardian’s Totem] in his hands for a moment, fingers slowly tracing their way down the glowing lines in its plant-flesh.
“Wow…” he said, more [proud] than ever. “It’s so pretty.”
“And you helped make it that way,” not-Needle replied, the noises leading to another spike of [pride] in the little Coreless - and an even bigger one in the larger female Coreless that was with him. A spike of [pride] that only became larger when the tiny Coreless spoke again, his fingers brushing over the [Little Guardian’s Totem] we had made together.
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“...I want Mama to have this one, though,” he said [hopefully].
The female Coreless moved in a blur, far faster than I would have thought she was capable of. Before I could even react, the new [Little Guardian’s Totem] was around her neck, replacing the one that she had already been wearing. Not-Needle was left with the older [Little Guardian’s Totem] in her hand, just as [surprised] as I was, while the other Coreless babbled [happy] noises and pinched concerningly hard at the tiny one’s cheeks.
He seemed [happy] too, though, so I just watched it happen.
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The following carvings were presented not long after, and each of them became [Little Guardian’s Totem]s in turn. I had more than enough time in between them to keep myself full of mana with [Mana Restoration], and even practiced walking as my Coreless-self every once in a while as I did so - and while I still didn’t enjoy having legs, it gave me something to occupy myself with while I waited for each new carving to be brought to me.
One by one, the Coreless that I had recently saved were given [Little Guardian’s Totem]s of their own, and I basked in the sensation of so many new connections. So much proof of the Great Core’s spreading glory.
But there were still things to be done.
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David stared down at the carving in his hands as he walked. It shone with magical light, and just touching the thing gave him a strange sense of comfort. Something that, according to what he had been hearing, was just a minor part of what the little thing could do.
Because it was incomplete, without its other half. A half that, apparently, could be easily found on the way to Orken - because the Seekers had left more than one of the things along the path to their city. A Guardian Statue. They had attempted to mark various spots on a map to show where the Guardian Statues could generally be found, but had assured David that they were obvious enough that they really wouldn’t be missed. If they followed the tunnels that led to Orken, they would find them.
And that was that.
Once enough [Little Guardian’s Totem]s had been created for the group of former prisoners and a proper tunnels map had been found and marked, they had quickly been sent on their way. Unfortunately, none of the Seekers came with them, though they claimed that - through their own [Little Guardian’s Totem]s, just like the one he had in his hands - they had sent a message ahead to inform Orken of their arrival. Another thing that the Guardian Statues apparently let [Little Guardian’s Totem]s do. And one of the least among them. Because, according to them, the little carving in his hands would be able to gain the power to increase a person’s energy as well as heal injuries and sickness once it linked with a Guardian Statue.
Because apparently the tiny Ascended that had wreaked havoc on the mines wasn’t only some sort of avatar of death. That was only due to the newest of its abilities. Abilities that David found far more interesting - and far, far less horrifying - than the power to turn the dead into a creepy facsimile of life.
Most of those creepy facsimiles had been sent along with them. The need for the undead escort had taken a while for them to explain to the snake, and had devolved into a particularly talented artist being recruited to draw scene after scene on the walls of the tower until they thought the snake had understood what was happening. Even after that, the Ascended had apparently chosen to keep the reanimated Overseer Leo and Sergeant Horik, having them stay behind with the Seekers and their tiny Ascended. David didn’t think that was a good idea, but two creepy corpse-people would be relatively easy to hide. Easier to hide than a giant group of former prisoners, at least. Even if one of those corpse-people was ridiculously, unnaturally large.
Between the undead accompanying them, the occasional enchanted armor and weapons that had been stripped from the bodies of dead guards, the guidance of a map to find the way, and the promise of Guardian Statues that would keep them even safer as they traveled, David was feeling good about their chances of getting where they needed to be. More than he had ever imagined he could have felt when walking through the dangerous tunnels outside of a protected city.
And, more than ever, David was looking forward to the things that he would see when he arrived at Orken. He imagined it was a utopia, at least compared to Erandur.
And even if it wasn’t, it was surely on its way there.
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I wriggled in anticipation as the Coreless chipped away at a large block of stone that the Unrepentant One - with the help of my new giant undead, one of the only two reanimated Coreless that I had decided to keep with me when the newest of the Great Core’s followers had left for the first of the Great Core’s converted many-nests - had finished hauling over towards the outside of the tower-nest, carving it out from a nearby wall. Only the effect of [Clinging Grasp] kept me from falling off of not-Needle’s shoulder at the sudden movement.
At the same time, I stood beside us as my Coreless-self. He - I - was only wobbling a little, now. An impressive improvement.
I had seen real Coreless with less ability to stand than I had! Only the tiny ones, but they had the advantage. They were born with legs. Did a Coreless need to learn how to stand, or walk? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t needed anyone to teach me how to slither. Either way, I was proud of my accomplishments, even if they were related to something that still disgusted me.
Pushing the thought aside, I had my Coreless-self reach over to my snake-self, giving it a small bite to renew a portion of its reserves of death essence. And then I reached further down, towards not-Needle’s side. She flinched a little, another brief spike of [fear] appearing as she stared at my Coreless-self’s death-touched flesh, but a quiet hiss and a reassuring flash of [Illusion Spark] was enough to help settle her back down.
A quick rooting in one of her skin-mouths let me find what I needed and, as my snake-self slithered off to accelerate the process of carving a new [Little Guardian’s Focus] for the followers within the many-nest, my Coreless-self began preparing the ground for what was to come. My disciples quickly realized what I was planning on doing, and began to make noises at the other Coreless, after which they began to help.
Though none of them were even close to as helpful as the reanimated giant was; his every blow cracked the ground far faster than multiple strikes from any of the others. As my Coreless-self spread seeds into each crack, I activated [Verdure Parasite] and forced them to grow.
It was slower than before; with my personal reserves of spores dead and unable to return while I remained undead, I had less sources of plant-flesh to draw from. Still, there were enough seeds - and enough spore-roots growing inside of them - that I could at least get things started, even if I had to focus on growing only a few of them at a time.
So, naturally, I focused on the most impressive of them all.
Another offspring of the Darkwood Guardian began to reach toward the cavern’s ceiling, sapling that stretched over and guarding the nascent [Little Guardian’s Focus] that I was sculpting right below it. It wasn’t particularly impressive yet, but I knew that it would be.
By the time that the [Little Guardian’s Focus]’s defender had reached two not-Needles in height, my snake-self was nearly done with sculpting the stone; a few more finishing touches here and there, [The Golem’s Fading Heart] making any errors easy to fix, and I was done.
And just like that, a [Little Guardian’s Focus] was born, a new light shining upon the many-nest. My disciples approached, each placing their [Little Guardian’s Totem] into the flaming maw of the new [Little Guardian’s Focus]. The other Coreless that had come to help create the [Little Guardian’s Focus] followed, and I watched with satisfaction as they placed the newly-attuned [Little Guardian’s Totem]s around their necks - and all but fell to their knees in surprise when its healing washed over them.
It was good to be appreciated.