I'm awoken by the chirping of birds, and for just a moment, I believe that I'm safe in bed at home. Then I stand and phase right through the table I was sleeping under, quickly ripping me from the thought.

Beams of sunlight filter through the forest canopy above as I look around, remembering yesterday's events. I decide that if there's nothing else to do, I'll just make the most of my situation, and have some fun. My stomach growls loudly despite the fact that I don't currently have a stomach, so I guess I still have to eat. I don't want to wrestle another deer, though, for a variety of reasons, so I decide to see if I can get that energy some other way.

Firstly, I try to see if any plants have it, and to my great joy, they do! However, to my disappointment, it takes more energy to pick grass than the energy I get back from it. Eventually, after some searching, I found what used to be a garden plot, and right in the middle is a pretty large carrot. I can tell because, in this form, I can stick my head right through the ground and see it. So I expend some energy to pull it up and then easily pull the energy out of it. It doesn't put up any kind of resistance like the deer, but it also only gives about five percent of the energy as it shrinks and melts as the energy is sapped from it. I guess that's what happened to the deer.

I pull my mind to a new thought as I decide to push what this energy can do. I use about half my remaining energy to form a little rabbit out of a brick, and then I push more energy into it to get it to move. Suddenly, all my remaining energy is sucked into the rabbit, and it jumps away toward the garden. It's still stone, but it bends and moves like a real rabbit as it starts pulling up veggies and grass, which are immediately turned into energy. And exactly as I hoped, it isn't using any energy at all. The rabbit is pretty slow, however, so after about an hour of watching my adorable creation eat grass and veggies as well as the occasional worm which, while gross, does give a bit more energy than even the big carrot. I decide to make another with the energy that's been collected. This time, though. I have some more energy so I pour it all into another stone rabbit, which upon receiving about double the energy as the first, loses its stone, replaced by fur! The new real rabbit also moves twice as fast so after only a few minutes I have enough to turn the first one real as well.

Now that I have a pretty steady source of energy, I'm no longer nearly as hungry. I let it build up a bit and take another lap around the cottage. In the sun, it's quite pretty. I certainly could have been stuck in a worse place, like a cave or something, so all in all id say I'm pretty happy. On the left side of the door is the most intact wall. Probably due to the chimney in its center. There's a pile of firewood next to it and a large cauldron inside the fireplace. Lining the wall are the many shelves of spices, stones, and dried specimens that I saw before.

Directly across from the front door is a wall that's mostly fallen outward with what I now see used to be a bed of some kind. Though I wouldn't want to sleep on it now given the rot. Though the moss does make it seem a little comfortable. At the foot of the bed in what was the corner of the room is a very large tree. I'm not sure what kind it is but I don't think I've seen this ovular yellow fruit before that hangs low from it on vine-like branches. I pick one and they provide a surprising amount of energy so I pluck a few more that seem ripe and leave the rest for now.

The right wall is all but gone as all that remains is a single line of bricks at the base. It seems that when it fell, it crushed a wooden structure of some kind since there's a patch of splintered boards beneath the fallen bricks.

Finally for the interior is a hat rack and wooden chest to the right of the door. There's a faded felt sun hat on the rack and some bottles and books inside the chest. Then I see something that doesn't make sense. My staff. The one that Evan made for me, right in the corner, covered in dust and webs as if it had always been here, but it's clearly mine. I reach out for it and the moment I make contact it disappears, dirt and webs falling suddenly to the floor. I step back and look at my hands and the staff reappears, now transparent like myself. The staff feels like an extension of my arm as I wave it about. I point it at the ground and my energy flows eagerly through it, and I easily shape it into the form of a toad that hops happily away to catch flies.

I really wish I had found this to begin with, it took the same amount of energy to completely form the toad as it took to shape the rabbits from stone, and took considerably less time. I dismiss and recall the staff a few times as I accept that this is my new normal and move on to inspecting the exterior of the cottage.

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To the left side of the cottage is the garden. A small area of overgrown bushes and brambles fenced in with a loose stick fence about two feet tall. Behind the cottage is a small storage shed full of firewood, as well as some herbs and a barrel of those strange fruits that grow on that tree. It seems that none of them have even begun to spoil which is astounding considering the age that everything is. I wonder if it's a property of the barrel or of the fruit itself but I leave that for later as I pull the energy from the fruits, the substantial amount easily pulled out piece by piece with the staff. It's unfortunate that I can't get them all at once but whatever.

As the last of the energy flows back to the sphere I move on to the last interesting thing in my small domain. A simple stone well with a bucket on a crank sits a few yards from the cottage. I lean over it and can't see the bottom. I'm about to leave it at that when I remember that I can just clip through the ground and have a look at what's down there.

The bottom of the well is a fifty feet from the surface. I've never dug a well but I think that's deeper than usual. What's more unusual is that there's no water at the bottom, and what's even more unusual than that is that there's a room there. The well room as I'll call it is a stone-walled room a bit smaller than the cottage, with an arched ceiling. In the center sits a large stone slab with a human-looking skeleton atop it. I say human looking because no human I've ever seen has had tusks like a boar. Lining the walls are shelves and bookcases full of more herbs and jars with strange creatures and tomes and scrolls. Almost everything just falls apart or turns to dust when I try to touch them though, so I doubt I'll be able to learn much from those books.

There's another cauldron here, but unlike the one in the cottage, this one has symbols and runes carved into every inch of it. As much as I love Halloween, this is all too spooky even for me, so I head to the entrance to get back to fixing up the cottage. As I walk back, however, I spot a large tome on the floor despite sitting in a puddle. It seems to be in almost pristine condition. I pick it up, solidifying my hands to do so and expending a small amount of energy in the process. I close the book, pressing its supple hide pages together, and I read the cover. 'Dungeon functions. A complete guide to the source of all Magick.'

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Well, I've learned a few things. One, the author of this book really had a thing for vague warnings. and two, I'm apparently a dungeon. That sphere is my core, it acts as a conduit for 'mana' which is that energy I've been absorbing. The book says that cores naturally occur in points of low mana and a dungeon will form around them. Dungeon cores are highly sought after because they enhance the mana of the surrounding area and can be used as effectively an infinite mana source for spells. I don't plan on being shoved in a wand any time soon so I'd better start fixing the cottage soon.

There don't seem to be any rules for how a dungeon develops, some will create a few small areas with animals to protect their cores while others will make massive subterranean complexes full of traps, puzzles, and monsters. I'm not sure what I'll do yet but a basement does sound nice, As long as it's not like the well room.

I leave the book open to the page I was on, and start fixing the cottage. It seems that the floor isn't actually dirt, it's just covered in a few inches, so I gesture my staff at a spot and fling a sheet of dirt through the ruined wall. Weirdly it seems to take the same amount of mana to move any different amount, up to about fifty pounds when I can't lift it at all. So I collect the dirt in pieces that size and after a few moments of throwing dirt into a pile by the shed, the floor is clean. It's actually a really pretty wood. It has an odd kind of iridescence to it as I walk around. The large tree in the corner seems to have been a potted plant once, as the shards of pottery surrounding it would imply. Luckily it doesn't seem to have damaged the floor too severely but I doubt ill be able to move it.

I move on to the broken walls. Using my mana, I move a few bricks back into place but it seems like this is the least efficient way to do it as well. Instead, I try pushing mana at all of them with the thought of them being fixed, and they all quickly float back to their proper areas! Even the wooden structure comes back together, forming an outhouse. That move did take a significant amount of mana but it was far less than if I tried to do every brick individually.

The roof is a different story. It seems it used to be made of wooden shingles, but most have completely rotted away. I try making some out of mana but it doesn't do anything at all. Instead, I try something a little more creative. Walking up to the dirt pile I formed, I point my staff at it and think of just clay being picked up, slowly a ball of clay starts forming above the pile, once I have a decent amount to start playing with. I form it into tiles and use my mana to heat them into ceramic, which works perfectly. I guess I'll find out later if these are totally waterproof but they're better than nothing. I spend some time harvesting more clay and making more tiles which I form the roof out of, laying them on top of the branches that the old tiles were attached to, after I strengthened them, obviously. Eventually, the roof is complete and I'm quite happy with it. The tree does stick out through the top, leaning away from the cottage with its fruit hanging off to the side.

The interior still needs some love so I let the last of my mana flow through the entire building, making rotten wood new, and clearing dirt and dust and moss. After a moment it's like a whole new cottage. I place the last of the old wooden roof tiles in the fireplace and light it with a flick of my staff, giving the room a warm, cozy ffeeling. With some mana the bed is now a soft mat, full of feathers, with two blankets and pillows. I lay down to give it a bit of a test, and in moments I'm asleep.