Chapter 65: Creation Therapy (Patreon)

Meanwhile, the grey, porous walls of Aby’s limestone halls finally returned to some semblance of the activity they had had before their unwelcome guest. Whatever spells he had cast had worn off moments after he left, leaving the myriad creatures confused for just a moment before everything burst into furious motion. With Aby no longer marshalling its creatures into some semblance, instincts took over, and the law of the jungle reasserted itself as the dungeon’s governing force.

For some of the less simple-minded inhabitants, they were spared from this chaos, kobolds racing to their den and their children while the frozen dragonkin rushed to his partner. A wyrm rallied her serpents, and a wyvern raged impotently at the unfairness of it all. A drake slumbered, numb to his ailments while a muse wept over having someone so bold defile the sanctity of her art. All the while, four starfish blacker than pitch gathered around her, trying to soothe her grief, and an equally inky equine was standing utterly motionless, his rider failing to coax him into anything resembling motion. 

And as the duo stained Aby’s eleventh with their wordless argument, the final nightmare simply continued existing in its own confusing, headache-inducing fashion. Aby spread out its awareness as this happened, no longer needing to monitor every minutiae of a miniscule monster, Aby needed to quickly survey its domain as a whole, unsure of when its next visitors would arrive, and hopefully the next batch wouldn’t be quite so terrifying. It’d be better too if they also weren’t so nauseatingly jovial.

But, as the light of day waned above the core and its menagerie, and there were still no intrusions to pester it while it was still frazzled, Aby finally let go of the last bit of tension it had been holding onto, and Sela too went into her castle for some much needed rest, although she had a harder time putting the events behind her than her partner. Still, she wouldn’t complain about Aby’s simple mindset in times like this, not when it meant that it could work past a fear so primal and aggressive that Sela was convinced she, or anyone else, would dwell on it for, well, ever.

Instead, the eminently practical Aby filed it away somewhere, never forgetting the events of the day but not ruminating on them as anything more than just another series of events, albeit one it wanted never to repeat. It did this by, as always, expanding the floors and evolving the beasts, even if neither of those could be accomplished in any meaningful capacity tonight thanks to the complete stagnation its creations had been forced to endure the past day or so. Instead, it took the ‘Mapper’s’ criticisms to heart, and set to fleshing out the ecosystems it had been neglecting, out of necessity but neglecting no less. More specifically, four floors, each flawed in their own, crippling fashions. 

Thirteen, seventeen, and twenty; a crushing abyss that threatened to squeeze to death anything which dared enter, left barren of light but also of life and to Aby, that was no longer acceptable. And the sixteenth, a tepid oasis of sand and color inexplicably nestled between the worlds of red, raging eternally above and beneath. Two different problems, and Aby had two different solutions.

It decided to start with the latter observation, as it was just a single floor that it needed to alter. And so it began, and the masses outside of it were once more subjected to the seafloor itself giving way a slight few centimeters, in response to tonnes of material suddenly finding itself smashed by the heavy hand of an overly dramatic ruler. Aby remained firmly against the concept of ‘moderation’ and simply decided that the best way to solve a layer of normalcy between heat and anger would be to simply mix them. 

And mix them it did, as two floors suddenly gave out as one, coral, sand, water, and animals all plummeted down for a moment, before collapsing in some crude heap on the seventeenth floor. Very quickly, what remained of the sixteenth floor was subjected to the wrath of temperature, the vibrant rainbow of color turning a crimson red, or more commonly, a charred black. Fish simply evaporated in the temperamental waters, and as the rubble was reduced partially, beginning to settle, the waters continued to be kicked into a frenzy.

Yet again, the wyvern’s spirit coral found itself in the center of the room, only this time it was crooked and slightly crushed, resting in the very center of a pile of debris. The charred coral surrounding it were blasted outwards, giving the impression that the coral itself was a tyrant that refused to share its space. The wyvern was quite pleased with the new look. As with the fifth floor, the new combined layout was that of a very open maze, with hidden tunnels hidden by large growths or massive boulders, and an open ceiling that rioted thanks to the increased heat. The walls were lined with red, except for a specific patch near the top of the new combined floor witch kept its azure stain, and already, Aby was getting messages. Offering it new and exciting evolutions to grant the few fish which hadn’t been flattened by its heavy-handed sculpting, and managed to survive, somehow, being flash-cooked immediately after. It watched as the floor lit up even further, allowing a mass evolution to start.

One of the first it selected was the small remaining group of Common Reef Angelfish, watching in fascination as the many colors they had seemed to, in unison bubble away. Like watching someone burn meat over an open flame, their scales would curl slightly, the red flesh beneath hissing as it was cooked and then sloughed off, only for everything to regrow and start the cycle once again. Eventually, this gruesome process reached some sort of completion, with tattered, uneven scales having grown in place of their previous beauty, and each one of them was the matte black of charcoal. And thus, Aby’s first shoal of Fallen Angelfish had been tortured into existence.

There were still more fish subjected to the twisted ministrations of evolution, Mustard Scaled Snapper were seared into a boiling mirror to the tenth floor’s own Snowflake Snapper, with the very on-the-nose name of Ashen Shroud Snapper. They had the same horrible beauty that their two relatives did, always a simple motion away from releasing a cloud of their ashy grey scales into the surrounding waters. Rather than mincing or freezing, however, this shroud of ash would stick to anything like soot, and burn. Like the dying embers of a bonfire, they glowed a soft orange as they cooked flesh and stone alike, and Aby was very pleased with them.

Along with fish, Aby found itself creating a handful of Scorched Moray, Blistered Seahorse, even esoteric things like Coal Crabs and Charred Clams. None of them were very combat capable aside from a few outstanding individuals, but just witnessing the added diversity they brought was a satisfaction in its own right. No longer was the floor endless red, now there was black and grey to show that even surrounded by water, fire will still burn those who tempt fate.

Satisfied with the new single floor, it turned its attention to the Abyssal floors next. It was unfortunately lacking in anything that it could seed into the floors, cephalopods like octopodes and squid, the wyrm’s legion of serpents, crabs suited to the crushing pressures that Aby artificially strengthened further, and a very small selection of small, bioluminescent fish. It was aware that there was more in the abyss, though. The memories of fallen divers had shown a world of life and color, even if it was barren and dark. It also saw a few more creatures that something inside of it demanded.

The myriad things that crawl and slither out of the Trenches, it only has a sparse few memories but each one shows an animal unlike anything else it has, and one that it simply needs to bring into its fold. If only it had any way of doing that, beyond hoping for some sort of tribute. It didn’t dwell too much on this, however, aware that mulling over it would get it nowhere if it had nothing it could do. So instead, it turned to what it did have: a lack of diversity and a wealth of aggression, animals that seemed eternally hungry, and an idea. It had almost smashed through another two floors before it decided against it, instead merely widening the tunnel pointing straight down from the thirteenth, through the seventeenth, and into the far end of the twentieth. 

These passages were lined with the very sparse selection of dark coral it had. For whatever reason, next to no mana polyps flavored with darkness had ever been brought into its halls by the tides, nor clinging to any visitors like many others. The vast majority were lively, energetic, or even dull but ever-present. Darkness, decay, stagnation in any form seemed antithetical to what the Reef stood for, but not even nature can stop everything. For the second time, Aby willingly seeded the hungry black polyps into its walls, and for the first time encouraged their growth. They seemed right at home now, no longer rejecting and corrupting their surroundings but instead blending in eagerly, devouring and erasing what little light existed in these floors in the first place. Oddly enough, a few of them swiftly changed into a bleached white, though their nature remained the same, and once more they started feeding into newly sown crystals, already blossoming like weeds.

Along with the new, empowering coral, Aby created even more animals, determined to keep a constant stream of life since the life itself seemed determined to ravage it all. And, as a final measure, it decided to spawn a Trench Star, the first to be made separated from its kin. The wyrm kept a wary eye on it while Aby held it down, forcing it to undergo the same rapid, apparently uncontrolled evolution as the other four, this time winding up with a truly strange star, one that looked more like a disc than a fish. Looking down at the Abyssal Slime Star, Aby could indeed say it looked the part, moving in much the same lethargic way as the sunflower, only this time it appeared like someone spilt putty and it decided to escape because of the offense.

Aby wasn’t sure what to make of it, but none of the other stars had disappointed yet, so it would allow it to go about its business, while it set to work creating more urchins, sponges, and other more sedentary things. Aby enjoyed the image, it may not have a fraction of the diversity it new to be present in a proper ecosystem, but the couple dozen or so it did have more than made up for it in vigor. It painted a scene of carnage and struggle, hidden behind a veil of endless night, and Aby relished it. It found itself losing track of time shortly after, creating huge swaths of life in some floors, allowing others to mix and see what works. While it was very happy with its new molten crater of steam and scale, its true canvas for the night was the abyss, finally starting to demonstrate why it was named so.

Towards the end of the name, there was yet another jungle of coral, but where the rest was vibrant and boisterous, loud and angry, or radiant and reserved, the newest reef oozed a smothering, oppressive darkness. Tendrils of shadow reached out into other floors, fleeting and insubstantial but calling for anyone or anything brave and foolish enough to test their luck. It was not a Personal Biome, not yet, but Aby finally felt a little more complete.