The message floated before Malcom's vision, waiting patiently for a response that was not forthcoming. How much time passed in his state of insensate disbelief at what was going on, he couldn't tell, but there was a light forming at the far end of his little tunnel. The gentle hues of natural light, of the sun rising and brightening the day. The narrow slice of view out the hallway connecting him to the opening showed tall, wild-grown grasses and not much more. 'Amanda. I'm going to find Amanda. She's the only reason I have to go forward. I'm going to find her, or I'm going to find whoever brought me here and make them take me to her.' His attention finally focused back on the screen obscuring the lower portion of his sight, as it had been following his wandering stare like a child begging for attention. There was only one name there could be, wasn't there?

Input accepted: Amanda

Error. Name incompatible. Adjusting.

Dungeon name: Tomb of Amanda

What, no! That was unacceptable! This squalid little hole in the wall couldn't be her tomb! He simply wanted to use her name to christen the place he had been brought to with her memory. Something that might lighten his spirits, to ease the pain of not yet finding the one light in his world. Now it would simply be a mockery, as if to tell him that he was doomed to merely cherish her memory, rather than ever find her again. Let him change it now, to something with a promise of hope. Amanda's Beacon, perhaps, to shine through this world and light her way to him? No matter how hard Malcom tried to scream his thoughts at the cold, unchanging screen... it refused to acknowledge his demands.

Please input a primary aspect.

Your primary aspect will suffuse through all future dungeon options and choices.

This choice is irrevocable.

So kind of this message to warn him of its permanence, while the last was just as uncaring to his desire to change it. Perhaps whatever was speaking to him found this choice to be of much greater importance, but he couldn't care less about it. This... thing... was toying with him. The world was toying with him. Everything was a mockery to his one desire, pulling him further away from the only thing that would bring him peace. He hated it. Not knowing what was going on, not knowing where he was, not knowing where she is- No, don't start ranting those thoughts over and over once again already. Yes. If there was one thing he could direct at a world that didn't have Amanda in it in abundance, it was hatred.

Primary aspect: Hate

Adjusting core state.

What that meant to him wasn't clear, but what followed made any attempt at contemplating the meaning impossible. Pain. So much pain. It was as if he had been shoved into a vat of boiling oil, while simultaneously having it forcibly pumped through his veins. It burned out thought, no, it burned out the very concept of thinking. All-encompassing agony was the only way to describe the sensation, and even that description fell short by an order of magnitude. In a completely insensate state, Malcom was unable to assess the slow changes forming through the room and upon his core. The bright, sunny blue hue of a peaceful summer day upon his core began to dim, to grey out. As if clouds loomed on the horizon, promising rain, no, promising thunderstorms to shake the foundations of everything. From that steel grey to darker, near-black roiling clouds as the shift in color flickered upon the orb's surface.

The cave itself wasn't immune to the changes, either, as the half-sphere dome of his room began to crack and shift, long crevasses forming in the walls as the smooth edges broke away to jarring, angular formations of stone. Splintering, jagged spurs of obsidian that shone with the faintest inner light pushed outward from these new openings, growing along the floor and ceiling like broken teeth. Those spurs began to spread the shift to the rest of the cave, turning it into a facsimile of some forgotten lava-tube in a dormant volcano. The very aura of the place promised terrible things to any who dared to trespass upon this domain. Not for the idea of punishing them for their transgressions, but merely because it could. To cause suffering for the very sake of suffering itself, without rhyme, reason, or compromise.

The now pitch-black core was still perfectly spherical, but it was now covered in ridges and slight hollows. The entire outer surface of the sphere was lined with razorblade-like sharpness at the tips of the ridges that followed some ethereal and arcane-looking patterning, while the indented hollows shone with the faintest silver, the only tint of lighter hue in the pitch-black redecoration of the cavern. The glow of that silver light grew brighter and brighter as the process drew to its conclusion, the light reflecting in a kaleidoscope of shimmering off all the jagged obsidian-like surfaces surrounding it. Slowly, Malcom's senses returned, such as they were. He could see everything in his domain with perfect clarity, but the moment he tried to view outward past the end of the tunnel where the obsidian stone halted, it was like he was trying to read without his glasses, blurred and indistinct. He could make out a slightly-rolling curvature to the land, and tall, waving seas of wild grasses. A taller blur of greenery in the moderate distance that was likely some form of woodland was the furthest landmark he could make out, with the occasional small copse of trees between him and there.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Aspect shift complete.

Tomb of Amanda has become Tomb of Amanda's Hatred.

The dungeon will now thrive on the energies of hatred.

Hatred directed at the dungeon will increase mana productivity in proportion to the strength and duration of the hatred.

The intensity of the hatred of the dungeon at a target will increase the effectiveness of actions against a target.

Passive mana generation has now begun.

Build defenses, spawn creatures, survive.

If Malcom still had eyes, they would have jolted wide at the announcement. This was now the place where Amanda left her hatred to be buried? This was where he was bound! Was this... this... thing trying to imply that Amanda hated him? That he was the thing that was hated and needed to be hidden away? Amanda was a saint, the woman he loved never had any hatred to bury! She was perfection itself! This mockery merely served to bring him closer and closer to blind, frothing rage. If it wanted to drive him to hate whatever had created this prison he was now bound in, it was doing an excellent job. Giving vent to his anger took several minutes, during which the silver glow on his obsidian core pulsed with ebbs and flows akin to drawing and releasing breath. Brightening in intensity, holding briefly, dimming in intensity, and repeating over and over. A sense of slow-building energy suffused through Malcom's mind. The mana that it spoke of, he could only assume.

As he thought about the terms 'defenses' and 'creatures', appropriate displays appeared before him, attempting to list an assortment of changes he could make and what it would cost him in mana to do so. From growing more of the spikes that jutted out around the cave, clearing new ground to make for more space, moving things from one area to another. When he focused on creatures, it prompted him to choose an archetype, which he declined to do for the time being. He had an intrinsic sense of his mana, in the same way that he knew exactly how many fingers he had on each hand in the past, as if he couldn't bring himself to not be aware of this knowledge. It was ticking upward in fractional increments, the moments since generation began not enough to bring him up to even a single point of mana. Plenty of time to brood- no, to think about his options before having to come up with a choice. A shopping list was easy to manage when you were completely broke, after all.

He wanted- well, the only thing he truly wanted was well outside his reach. But failing that, what he felt he should do was assess his options, to think, to try and remain calm and perform as optimally with his decisions going forward as he could manage. The other part of him was screaming in the back of his mind, demanding that he start planning where he was going to look for Amanda first. But it was the smaller part of him, now. It was important to him, and he wouldn't ever bring himself to stop thinking about it entirely, but if there was one thing he had learned through his long life, it was to be patient. Knowing that he couldn't have what he wanted meant it was time to plan, plot, and scheme meticulously until he was able to manage it. In the end, nothing was going to stand in his way. Nothing.

Some distance away, in the midst of a field of tall wild grasses, huddled down by the base of a small cluster of three broad trees, two hunters shared a glance with each other. The first was a portly man who looked as if he was more accustomed to eating than hunting, his threadbare, home-stitched leathers seemingly strained over his figure, designed for someone of less considerable girth. He shielded his eyes with one hand, the other clenched tightly against a bow, "Are 'ya sure that you felt something, Tam?" The drawled words were half-wheezed out, scanning the grassland and seeing little cause for concern. The grass waved in the gentle wind, but naught else seemed to be moving. "I haven't seen hide nor hair of so much as a hare since we came out today. Are you sure you ain't just jumpy?"

The second man, Tam, shook his head with vigorous aggression to refute his companion. "I'm tellin' 'ya, somethin' was watching us! I felt it! I felt it in my bones! Somethin' dangerous. Mighty dangerous. It felt like it'd kill me just 'fer bein' near. That's a dangerous predator, that is, Vern. I got a skill for it, 'ya know that. I wouldn't yank down and make us hide like that if I wasn't sure!" He was almost a caricature of an opposite to Vern, being too-tall, too-lanky. The sleeves on his similarly poorly-stitched leathers several inches too short, the leggings suffering from the same ailment. Tam sucked at his teeth, a habit of his when he was trying his best to think about a thorny problem. "Like 'ya said, we ain't seein' any game around here... But just to be safe, let's head back the way we came. We can circle around the other side or somethan'."

Vern shook his head with a groan, "That's gonna mean we ain't getting back 'ta Kremston until well after sundown, 'ya know. It 'taint safe out in the Valdweald after dark, and we'll be hittin' those woods right at sunset as it is." The lanky man reached over and knocked a fist atop his companion's head, "Then sleep out here in the tall grass with Alderin-knows-what lurkin', I'm not stayin' here and I know you're too cowardly to stay alone. Get moving." Nocking an arrow and keeping his bow at the ready to be drawn, Tam stood up from his crouch and started backing himself away from the strangely malevolent stare he had felt trigger his dangersense. Grumbling under his breath, Vern hoisted himself up from his crouch with considerably more difficulty, following his companion. "I still think yer jumping at shadows..." He muttered, mostly under his breath, but acquiescing to the extra hours added to the hunting route just the same. "Just a big field full o' nothin'."