Valterra’s Dungeon thrummed with the new life present on his Floors and as if sensing this his creatures began to struggle all the harder to evolve. On the First Floor, the battleground under the deck, there raged a never-ending war for the right to climb higher. Those that did so quickly found themselves in a realm where the easy dens had been taken over by their fellow creatures and further battle ensued.

It was the climb to the Third Floor that saw the most casualties. Many of the creatures, driven to impatience or simply lacking the capacity, attempted the climb but were struck down or picked off by an entirely different kind of invader. Birds had discovered Valterra’s Dungeon and while many came for the higher Aether content, still others had come for the creatures that now struggled to climb the vast chains of Wind-Blown Moss.

Some of the invading birds had even laid claim to some of the higher dens below the Third Floor roof, building their nests there and defending them against all comers. It had been a stalemate for days as the birds successfully pecked and scratched potential creatures until they fell from the chains of moss to their deaths below. What they did not expect was death to come from above in the form of a certain Mouse Captain and his cohort.

POV Wenigo, First Among Many

Wenigo had been tasked to create an army for his Lord and yet the flood of creatures he had expected was but a trickle. It took a few days to figure out what was wrong and then he spent further time gathering what troops he had, mostly drawing from the ranks of the Mouse Guard that had either made it to the top or had already been there when the Third Floor had been transformed and reestablished.

Now though, he had everything in place, and with a flick of his tail, he signalled his kin to begin. Not only would they gain new Schema for his Lord but they would obtain Aether from the slain birds, birds that were fat themselves from the Aether of the fallen. Wenigo, at the head of his little troop of four along with five or so other Mouse Guards, decided to forgo his usual bass squeak of challenge in favor of a silent attack. They stormed the first den they saw and Wenigo fell upon the bird there with his sword already swinging.

Leaving the corpse he motioned for the others to hurry and they continued on their way. All across the higher dens, the little crusade to rid the Dungeon of the feathered pests continued with squads of Mouse Guards falling on the birds with their needles flashing in the sun. When it was all said and done, more than twenty birds had been slain with only a few casualties on the side of the mice. Wenigo let his kin take care of the aftermath as he retreated back to the Aether-rich throne room. He was higher in rarity than his kin and the fight had drained him of much of his Aether, Aether he wasn’t able to recover this high in the Dungeon.

It didn’t take long after he had gotten back for his Lord to arrive and begin claiming Schemas. With the pests taken care of Wenigo believed that more creatures would be successful in making it higher. None of the mice had begun to glow with the light that would bring transformation but Wenigo could sense they were close. He was close for that matter but knew that his Lord’s orders came first. He would make sure his Lord had the army he had requested.

Wenigo’s predictions were true. The dens once claimed by birds became a battleground as beasts of all kinds attempted the climb to the Third Floor. What he didn’t expect was for the various Danian colonies to become more involved, conducting their own battles with the climbing creatures. What he had no way of knowing was that the birds had proven to be an apt bane of the Danians beyond simply denying other beasts access to the Third Floor. They had tried to fight them off but any Danian ant that strayed too far from the colony was gobbled up by the flying pests.

Now the Danians were marching to recover the strength they had lost and to claim territory and food for any upcoming trials. Protected as they were by their pillars and with direct bridges to the Third Floor, the colonies were quickly establishing themselves as a power in the Dungeon. That shifted with the return of the birds. Though fewer in number and far less entrenched than before, the feathered pests began to return and hunt the climbing creatures.

Wenigo was at a loss for what to do considering these birds didn’t make new nests or come to the ground in order to be slain by his mice. Instead, they stayed high, hunted for a few hours, and then left. Not all of them survived their attacks on the Dungeon but their persistence yielded its own results. At least, that was until the Dungeon Lord got involved. Wenigo was present when his Lord made the first deterrent. It was one of the beasts that ruled the floating islands, the ones with jaws of teeth and bristly scales. The ones for whom Aether sang.

There was only one but its undulating call had an immediate effect as did its flight from the Third Floor. It fell upon the birds with a vengeance even as they scattered. Even more surprising than the large creature’s appearance was the creation of dozens of birds from the Dungeon’s Aether. The Dungeon Lord had apparently decided that the only way to deal with the feathered pests was to create ones of his own. Wenigo watched as they took to the skies, driving the other birds off with chirps and cries.

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He shrugged and turned to find a strange creature staring at him. It was mouselike in appearance with small ears and large eyes, standing around a foot and a half tall with a tail half again its body length in size. Its dark eyes held a cruel cunning and the Mouse Captain knew immediately that there would be no allying with this creature. It blinked slowly before disappearing down into the space below, deeper into the Dungeon. It was just a feeling, but Wenigo knew in his bones that he would be seeing that creature again.

POV The Strangers

There was a flash of light by the barrier dome of the Archmage Calamvor before five figures stumbled their way through. Each roughly four or five inches tall they seemed to take a moment looking at each other before they looked across the great plains that separated them from their goal. Their eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment before one of them excitedly began speaking and gesticulating at the gargantuan house before them.

The others seemed to smile good-naturedly but there was a tension that sat on their frames, even more so when a presence seemed to collapse upon them with an undeniable weight. The excited one subsided at the feeling before motioning with their hands. At the motions, the group took off toward the house at speeds that would have seemed ridiculous to a normal human. It even seemed to take the strangers by surprise as they stumbled more than once as if unaccustomed to their speed.

This surprise seemed to increase as they tried to jump over obstacles hidden in the, to them, tall grass to find themselves jumping higher than normal. They stopped momentarily to gesture at each other, communicating, before once again heading off. Perhaps a dozen feet in front of the house they halted again as an aura blasted out from ahead of them. Cautiously, they made their way through the grass until they were staring up at a comparatively huge figure.

The Chieftain of the Risen was not happy.

POV The Great Tidal Whale Matriarch

The Matriarch swam through the bioluminescent chambers of her realm lost in thought. She was bored and so was her pod. The days of the invasion were over and though they had done their part the Aether the invaders had offered barely made a dent in the pod’s collective hunger. The grasses that grew helped increase the ambient Aether some but it just wasn’t enough. Over the weeks since, they had devastated the population of insectoid creatures that dwelled in the underwater caverns.

At the rate those creatures reproduced the rate of decline was negligible but the fact was that their population was declining. The Matriarch was sentient enough to feel an animalistic form of concern that drove her to keep her pod moving. The fleshy creatures still dove into the water but they were becoming hard to catch and the whales couldn’t remain in the area without tipping their prey off to their presence. It had become something of a game, to stave off boredom.

The pod would take turns among each other to try and catch one of the tasty morsels as they dove and swam amongst the grasses. They couldn’t do it too often or the beasts wouldn’t dive. There had to be a rhythm and current to it. The matriarch found it an interesting change of pace compared to her intrinsic memories of deep trenches and crushing pressures where the pod would have hunted even smaller creatures simply by gulping down massive amounts of them.

Instead, they waited like ambush predators and manipulated the currents into quick bursts of speed in order to claim a morsel before it escaped onto the shelf of rock and safety. Even as The Matriarch had these thoughts she felt The Deep Singer, the name she had given to her creator, come and hover nearby. He sang a peculiar song inviting her and her pod deeper into the labyrinthine depths. She obeyed, swiftly singing a song to call her pod to her. Eight strong they swam deeper to where he had called them. To their surprise, they found a new cavern where before there had been none.

It traveled in a gradual upward direction and they moved where the Singer directed them. It was a circuitous route that took them a while to traverse though with the air pockets the Singer left for them they weren’t starved for air. The real problem was the lack of Aether as they got further from the normal caverns. Eventually, the Singer gave them an order that seemed silly in the extreme. It wanted them to dig through the dead end in front of them with their powers.

Even if they were confused they couldn’t really disobey so they began by creating an artificial current and then speeding it up until it was cutting through the dirt in front of them at speed. The excess earth was carried away and back the way they had come before being deposited and then the water cycled back and the tide continued. The whales took turns so that their rapidly decreasing Aether would last longer and it was with a feeling of animilistic relief that the earth gave way before their powers, the whales sensing a new current full of rich Aether.

The Deep Singer sang a new song then. It commanded that the new area be claimed in its name. The Matriarch didn’t fully understand but the song carried a message of meaning. A place of power and Aether that was outside the Singer’s control. It desired to bring the place under the effects of its song and was commanding the pod to find the heart of this place. The heart would have its own song and its own current.

The Matriarch sang its response and the whole pod moved through into this new place. Immediately they felt the difference and The Matriarch felt its pulse quicken. Here was a new tide to learn and by the feel of it there was new life to discover and devour. The whales got to work.