[Cave Kobold] Born in lightless depths, these little creatures still dream of flight. Name of the Nuisance - Songs played by this amateur bard bring chaos and disruption into the world, maddening all who listen.

By the time I had pieced things together, it was too late. The merchant was long gone to the winds, and with him went my kobold, Aurum’s kobold. Whatever trace of draconic heritage the little creature had was worth enough for the rakshasa to kidnap him.

Or maybe it wasn’t a kidnapping at all.

The kobolds relayed their side of the story, the naming of Break-Song and their fear of their eldest brother’s newfound power. The distance that had grown between them.

The fact that he hadn’t confessed to Aurum showed his fear.

Break-Song was trembling like a leaf, clutching his pipe. To confirm the matter, I reached out to name the leader of the stone-spinner spiders, granting him the title Goliath.

Nothing. Backlash swept over me, dizzying me.

The little runt had used up one of my names.

And the easiest way to get it back would be to cull the little bard. The depths had been haunted by his incessant music long enough, and I had every reason to disapparate him. The Name should go somewhere worthy. Even now, his brothers were inching away from him, perhaps fearing a rain of fire or a pillar of light would blot him from existence.

But.

I refused. This wasn’t how things were done. Without my creations and their liveliness, my underground world would narrow to a gloom-filled hall of death, a grave waiting to swallow adventurers, the greedy, the madly ambitious; I would go mad myself soon. There was a preciousness to the lives of my creations, and I refused to begin treating them callously.

A thing only has the value you give it.

Even if this one had managed to fray my nerves with his supposed music, I wasn’t going to kill him. He was, for better or worse, my creation.

I sent waves of reassurance to wrap around the shivering little creature, and sent him off to join his brothers.

Left strangely exhausted by the whole affair, I pondered. It would be almost impossible for me to get the kobold back now, not knowing how the merchant moved or where he went; he was interwoven with the nature of Dungeons in a way that seemed to give him rare powers.

Worse, I had been given a wake-up call. Other Dungeons that existed in this world were far beyond me. They all had their own way of growing, of prospering. I was rare in terms of skill and taste but far behind in developing unique adaptations.

The mountains I had before me were tall, perhaps never-ending, and I had been myopic to focus so much on mundane defense. I was eclipsed by the shadows of Dungeons past, who’d sought unique roads to power.

I considered that it might be time to allow one of the Fortune shards to be found. I had nurtured the first for more than a month now, and it was surely ripe for the picking.

There was also the Everforest. With my stone-spinners, it wouldn’t be impossible for me to expand out from the doorway and begin to consume the magic-rich world beyond. Yes, I could see quite a lot of potential that way; even the trees would be inundated with Mana after thousands of years of growth. The only risk was attracting the attention of the behemoths.

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And finally, there were the earth-geodes. The rich earthen Mana within had the power to mutate my creations, and who knows what use the stones themselves could be put towards.

Three avenues that all deserved my attention. A missing kobold. A disconsolate serpent.

The last, at least, I could solve now. Aurum was rising, up from his cave in the mouth of the enormous face, up through the feeding trough of silver fish and the muddy web of underwater tunnels that lurked beneath the glass Gardens. Up through the breach itself, into the hunting grounds. His green-gold scales and scuttling legs poured through the breach, curling upwards, head lifting as he let loose a furious howl that split his tripart mouth apart and rent the dense, damp jungle air.

I ordered the stone-spinner spiders to open the doorways we had prepared.

It was time to let the poor fools come to seek their fortune in.

Bit by bit, they carved an arch into the dome, an opening

And I, meanwhile, had a glimmering of an idea. I sent my kobolds - what kobolds I had left - to fetch the dark iron coins mingled into Aurum’s horde. In the rocks of the empty sixth island, I made a crude furnace, a crack in the earth where I grew a dense interweave of plant matter to serve as fuel, growing it without inner water that could stifle the burning. Instead I coated them with a waxy, oily substance to help the flame catch on. I sprinkled dusts of iron and other metals over the fire-bed.

And then I formed stones, filling the ‘furnace’ with stones rich in the base materials of quartz. I understood, in essence, that the same ingredients that made up quartz crystals were found in the rudest stone. It was simply a matter of formation and ratio that made them form into semi-precious gems.

As for how the circumstances arranged for such a jewel to be born, I knew only that it happened within the molten churn of the earth.

I had chosen quartz for my experiment because it was common, meaning the circumstances of its birth couldn’t be altogether rare.

The kobolds returned, emptying their hands to rain coins of dark iron into my smelter. I had accumulated enough that it took them three trips, carrying them in cast-off bits of rag to avoid scalding their hands against the cruel metal.

I fed Mana into the kindling, feeding as much latent energy as I could into that dense bed of flammable material. The scorpion-tailed kobold paused with flint and a silver dagger and struck a spark, running away as it slowly, slowly floated down.

There was a hissing HOOPH as the ignition lifted into the sky, a raw burst of dragon-flame spraying off sparks in a huge cascading ribbon of fire. White as winter. Red as dawn. Within, a shifting core of blue danced wildly, and I did my best to seal the hellish crater, working stone in from the edges, but it boiled away as fast as I could grow it.

The sparks began to settle, drifting like a thousand fireflies. The kobolds continued their retreat as little blazes sprung up, taking root among the thick fleshy vines that covered the island. I had thought they were too full of waters and saps to catch fire, but the sheer heat was withering them down to something dry and flammable.

But - it was working. Within the crater, the stones were beginning to melt, dissolving into a molten slurry of silica and other ingredients of quartz. The air within wavered and danced wildly. The walls crumbled inwards, filling in a trickle of other stoney materials, and the whole mixture began to sink, melting the earth away beneath. The sheer Mana poured into the plants was coming out as they burned, and strange things began to happen.

As the molten rock spread outwards, and the twisting thorny vines burnt to crisps of cinders, new sprouts began to rise. They were so pale they seemed like the ghosts of the dying plant matter below, but as they reached up they blossomed into blue flowers, flowers of flame, perfect cups of wavering azure with four petals each a teardrop of fire.

Something new came out of that pit, climbing up the pillar of spitting flame. Vines of white and flowers of blue. I sensed a life within. An elemental was forming, threading its body of living flame through the earth and lifting new blossoms skywards.

The sixth island had become a land of flame.

I waited hours for the stone to cool. Above, the first humans were stepping in to the jungle of the hunting grounds. They were the criminals I’d been promised, bound together with chains; one by one their wardens unshackled them, handed them a knife, and sent them forward into the undergrowth at spearpoint.

Lying in wait was Aurum, Cabochon, and my deadly beauties. I was caught between the desire to see the expressions of these first challengers as they beheld the zeroth floor and the need to see my project’s completion. I hovered between the two, nervous, agitated.

It was strange, since I intended the world I had created to become their grave, but I cared deeply what they thought of it. I wanted horror. I wanted wonder.

I wanted appreciation.