Flkarblik was not "nice" nor did he think that he had been nice in his time before accepting the bargain with the tentacle reaching down into oblivion. Nor did he think of himself as cruel, it was just the nature of his enterprise to cause suffering. Reality wept where he entered and like most of his kind he had learned to ignore the tears.
He could hear the pained and mournful wailing from the Dungeon that he had infested, but he didn't care. All he wanted was to feed and stay relatively stable, infesting the very foundations of the Dungeon served both of those needs quite nicely. He could offload his constant dysphoria and pain into the Dungeon and feed on the ambient magical energies it consumed while letting the refuse leak into it in place of the natural mana.
At first he had not paid much attention to the resulting...changes in the dungeon beasts, but Estiella had reminded him of the need to pay attention to resources.
"I can sense the purpose of this place my love, sapients go to through the grinder here and we gain even more nourishment from it."
Her rotting teeth glinted in the light as the malevolent pixie had smiled up at him.
"More fun can be had, but most importantly we might be able to complete ourselves if we absorb enough power in this dungeon. Finally, we can have a home of our very own."
That concept had spurred him on to take a more active part in managing the Dungeon. He had seen the myriads of interesting creatures and traps spawned when he pushed the refuse from his feast into shapes, and even interesting loot infused with his own nature along with the Dungeon's were dropped as the monsters were slain.
Flkarblik had only one limitation, he couldn't indirectly or directly harm the quailing family of sapients residing within the Dungeon. He could let them be infected with harmful diseases or contaminants, nor have something "accidentally" harm or kill them. Not that he particularly desired to do so, but it was intriguing how he seemed to be bound by the same oath that the Dungeon must have sworn.
"Focus on the now, love. The sprouted seed's forces are coming! And they are coming in hot!"
Estiella giggled and screamed in equal measure as the invading force smashed their way through the weak defenders of the outer layers and began moving deeper into their new home. Flkarblik felt and saw the carnage as the veritable army hit the corrupted creatures littering his corridors.
"The seed has played their card, and it is not an easy one to counter I will give them that. But...I think we can give it a good try before we scamper, don't you Estiella?"
Flkarblik practically hissed out the words before coming with a little chuckle and he felt her assent before he began focusing on laying a trap.
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Nasi stepped through the second layer of the Dungeon and where he went death soon followed. Not only did he personally demolish the various monsters coming his way, but behind him blasts of fire, heat, and even globules of magma along with superheated stones flew into the defenders of the Dungeon and the landscape alike.
Traps had a hard time being activated when covered in lava or when set on fire, so Nasi watched as the Dungeon burned with the passing of his forces.
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"We will win, we just have to be patient. Our will is supreme and this Dungeon is nothing compared to our might."
The Avatar was confident and while a confident leader could bolster regular armies from a metaphorical perspective, here it was literally the case. Nasi was created to fight and lead from the front and his presence along with the Adventurer-Collective serving as a psuedo-Mar left the army protected from the maddening shrieks and mental attacks of eldritch defenders. The mad shrieks and horrific sights which would normally have shattered the minds of Units and Subjects alike, were pushed back by the collective will of the Swarm and it's foremost champion.
He could sense that they were even nearing the end of this place, Nasi could "hear" heartbeats of power flowing through the orange veins in the soil and the "sky". Power was flowing towards a center and when that was reached he could destroy the Dungeon and claim it's carcass or tame it fully.
And yet, despite being close to victory and with seemingly no real opposition something about this place...worried him. Nasi sensed in this place a power similar to his own, or rather a power similar to the Swarm and what it boded was not comforting to him. The power was not...identical, if he were to compare it to anything it would be like a finished web compared to unwoven web fluid. The same substance but while the Swarm was refined and shaped, this power was...incomplete yet the same at the end of the day.
"Maybe that is what Mar sensed initially? The unshaped webbing"
Nasi wondered to his subordinate Collective who only shrugged as she busily directed the Units in the army to fight with perfect precision as they took down area after area.
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Bor and his love stood in the back of army working with the clay and monster parts that they had been able to salavage before the Dungeon reabsorbed them. Out of the intitial Subjects chosen to delve into the Dungeon the two of them had gone through the most profound changes out of all. Mariam and the Child had just become more of what they already were, and Zilla had been remarkably silent about what her new abilities were.
The two dwarves however had been able to unlock entirely new aspects of their crafts that they had never even dreamed of. Gear and powers alike which let them work wonders and that they knew they could advance even when not in the Dungeon. Bor had gotten a pen that truly was as mighty as a sword as it could grow in length to match a long blade. It could also absorb the life essence of monsters which he could then use while scribing.
In the short time he had been in the Dungeon he could scribe individual monster powers down on scrolls to be given out to other Subjects, and use the gathered power to help Lysander with his poetry.
Lysander on his end had gotten far more abilities, he could bake clay with a touch of his hands and make magical paintings and poems. He still fought with conventional weaponry, but the two were standing back working on a project combining their talents. Lysander shaped clay and painted glyphs while Bor dilligently scribed down a poem that Lysander had prepared in advance onto a scroll froom looted monster skins.
Let clay move with the power of the Swarm remade
Life stolen from the halls of death repurposed
A guardian made with love and care
To fight that which seeks to unmake it
Blood from tar and ink
Skin of paint and the earth
Life from sacred words
Named Waverly in accordance with the old ways
Bor could feel the life essence gathered in his marvelous pen flow out and on the page as he dilligently transcribed the poem while Lysander baked and shaped the clay with the bits of monsters added in. The two had agreed to hang back and attempt this experiment rather than be on the frontline as something in them told them that things could still go south even with all the forces arrayed against them.
"It would be nice to be wrong."
Lysander suddenly remarked as he began heating up the clay head he had shaped remarkbly quickly and Bor looked up from the improvised writing desk that he had turned a willing Worker into.
"For sure, but I doubt we'll be so lucky, love. However, I ain't wrong about these things in general."
Before the two could descend into bickering they welt a warble through their Fragments and the two turned to look ahead at once and they paled. The Dungeon had unleashed something worse than before. Things without shape and sense came out of a rift...and the two dwarves began hurrying up their project. Without noticing Zilla curious watching it while canting her head to the side...listening.