Yumalin stretched for a moment, blowing hair out of her face and boredly leaning back in her chair. Nothing new had happened in who knows how long, and since the endless problems of winter had finally been— mostly— wrapped up, there wasn’t much else to do.
When the giant had accepted a role as guild master for Nichtentown, she expected a lot more… field action. Yumalin had grown up with tales of heroes and beings of great power being birthed by this town, and had fancied herself to be one. Obviously, she was wrong in her assumptions.
A few soft taps on the great window behind her prompted Yumalin to sigh. Turning around merely proved her initial assumption, and she reached out a massive hand to unlatch the window and let in the Dungeon Inquisitor’s messenger bird. The small eagle stepped inside, twittering and offering a fancily tied scroll.
Knowing what was inside, Yumalin reluctantly unrolled the enchanted paper. Yup, exactly as she had feared. Yet another dungeon was birthed near Nichtentown, and the capitol would be sending out an inspector to ensure the safety of both the dungeon and townsfolk. If Yumalin was getting this letter, the poor newborn core probably has already been killed by the shatterkin.
Wretched people, those. Upset the balance of the world. The massive forest in which they purged was called Shatter forest, but it wasn’t named so for those monsters in the form of humans.Yet another story she was told growing up was of how Shatter Forest earned its name, along with Shatter Point in the very center of it.
Long ago, the demons ruled the land. They burned alive, fueled by hatred and stealing the souls of other sapients. If they didn’t, well… let's just say some sparks burn bright and quick. Despite the vile and disgusting nature of these beasts, they had a kind that led them. Maybe that’s how they ruled for so long, how they got into power in the first place.
The king had the largest manaheart that has ever and ever will exist. The man was able to both empower every single demon and demonman under him and force the other races into subservience. And he did. Violently and without remorse.
The sapient races endured 1000 years of suffering, slowly gathering the strength to bring down the demonman king. A hero rose, and with the help of hundreds of beastmen, elves, giants, dwarves, angelmen, orcs, goblins, etcetera etcetera…
The hero shattered the manaheart of the demonman king, creating a shockwave so intense that it broke the earth below as well. The entire forest had been imbued with demonic energy, which mutated both sapients and animals to become more powerful. Scary stuff.
Shaking her head, Yumalin waved off the bird and untied the ribbon, setting down the scroll on her desk. It unrolled itself and Yumalin cringed at what she knew was about to occur. The air trembled, nearly writhing, and then went still.
“TO GUILD MASTER YUMALIN ISSAC OF ISSAC, THE THIRD PRINCESS OF THE KINGDOM OF ISSAC AND FOURTH CHILD OF QUEEN TEROHLIN ISSAC OF ISSAC. FROM HEAD HOLY KNIGHT KURTHER REDSKIN OF THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF THE DEAD RIVER, FIRSTBORN SON OF FORMER HOLY KNIGHT GHERALT REDSKIN THE SECOND OF THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF THE DEAD RIVER.
“ANNOUNCING THE BIRTH OF A NEW DUNGEON, AMBER IN COLOR, AND LOCATED TO THE NORTHWEST OF THE SHATTER FOREST CAPITOL, NICHTEN. A DUNGEON INSPECTOR SHALL BE SENT TO INSPECT THE DUNGEON WITHIN THE MONTH, AND WILL RETURN WITH A RECORDING OF SAID INSPECTION.
“SIGNED, KURTHER REDSKIN.”
Yumalin rubbed her ringing ears, grimacing at both the unnecessary pain and the thought of yet another prissy, stuck up angelman coming through. Those bastards all thought so highly of themselves, despite their debilitating weakness to airborne anything. Hopefully this would be a different inspector than last time. A goblin would be nice. Despite their rarity, they were the kindest folk you could meet.
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Thick, dark hair, handsomely hooked noses… probably the most beautiful, too. With a shake of her head, Yumalin wiped the faint smile off her face. The inspector would arrive within the hour, much to her chagrin, so there most definitely wasn’t enough time to clean up at all before they arrived.
This was going to be yet another week of bureaucratic agony, wasn’t it?
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So, I finally figured out how to make my golem’s skin a different color. The only problem is that it’s purple, and not anything natural by any stretch of the imagination. I should really be working on the voice box, but I can’t get over the amount of gravellyness I have to get rid of. Now, unless I can change the skin in another half hour, I’m going to switch my focus to actual eyes that I could possibly see through. Rather than rely completely on my normal vision, I would probably look more natural if I give my golem senses and used those.
Purple skin… how am I supposed to fix that? Add red? Add white? Restart? No. I think I’m just giving up, this is too hard. Eyeball time. First, and probably easiest, the sclera. Either quartz, marble, or granite to mix things up. Hmmm… Marble with veins of ruby? I look through my inventory to see the most similar materials, and notice the fox corpse again. I know that marble is made of calcite and mica. I also know that bones are made of calcium.
Those two things seem similar enough to take very little mana, so… I make two perfect hollow spheres of marble. Eyes work by reflecting light at the back of the eye with a lens, but how to mimic that with what I have… I have sand, and part of sand, silicate, is used to make glass and lenses. Perfect! The tricky part will be making the lens the proper shape, but I think my dungeon instincts will take over for that. It made the rat's eyes after all.
For the iris… some precious gems? I have various minerals in storage, and I can probably switch things around for a prettier eye. What goes with purple skin? Purple is opposite yellow on the color wheel, but I don’t like the thought of yellow eyes. I want something a tad bit more natural, despite the skin tone. Green is right next to yellow, so green? That’s a relatively natural color.
What gems can I think of that are green? Emerald is obvious, so is jade, but I know I know more. Verdelite, chrome tourmaline, green garnets, more… Bloodstone is rather pretty, but the flecks of red within the green isn’t something I want. Emeralds are made of beryllium, aluminum, silicon, and oxygen. Jade is nephrite, a crystalline calcium magnesium silicate, and is colored due to impurities in the-
I’m cut off by a crack. Pain, agony, the feeling of mana rushing from my core like water into lungs. I remember something, something important! I need to go to the capitol of… of… Where?! I can remember familiar eyes, I can remember pointed ears and a tail- AAUGH! My core cracks again, and white hot pain floods every inch of my being. They did this, but who is ‘they’? The earth, I can feel it screaming as I do.
The out of place chime of the system burns me. The words implanted into my mind try to convince me that I am not doing what I should be. I need to know. I need to remember more! I crack again, and I feel I can truly see. Everything is made of matter and mana and the coexistence of eternal energies, and it all glows. It glows so brightly I am scorched, my core wants to burn along with it all, and my soul pulses with the power of the entire world.
I am like a- a phoenix! I burn ever so brightly, I am the sun as I turn to ash! This fire will forge my core to hard steel, and I will shatter not! As the world itself is immortal, so am I! This pain will become strength, my sword, and the chill of mana escaping my grasp will turn into my shield! I will not give in to the delirium, the fuzz consuming my sight and obscuring the beauty of the swirling energy all around me.
Darkness overwhelms.