Chapter 73: The Rage and Rest of a Dungeon (Patreon)

There were a few times in Aby’s admittedly short life where it ever strongly felt something. Times where invaders got too close to its core, or posed a significant threat to Sela, were just about the only times those feelings were negative, and even then, it was mostly visceral fear or primal disgust at someone threatening it or its partner. But every time it had felt such violent loathing, it had always kept some level of rationality with it, some amount of logical processing from the portion of it that wasn’t quite so lively yet.

This time, there was none of that. From the instant the other core was exposed to its senses, any semblance of higher thought was immediately taken over by primal hatred. Some deep rooted instinct, the same that told it to dig and eat and grow its very first few days, the same that puts a hard, if arbitrary, limit on how many bosses it can have, how quickly it can dig deeper, how big its rooms can be, had a new message.

Aby needed to shatter that core, and there could be no other outcome for that which tainted its waters, and it no doubt was feeling the same urge towards the aquamarine. Every single living creature in the dungeon also felt their creator’s blind rage, the mana itself reflected the enmity towards this stain on Aby’s domain, and with singular purpose, all of it was directed at the green-blue sphere in that monster’s hand.

The tenth floor redoubled their efforts to see this man reduced to nothing, but their real animosity was directed towards the core, which he had curled into a ball to shield and to keep pumping mana into in a pitiful attempt to stay Aby’s hand. All it succeeded in doing was making Aby’s own stores of power that much more difficult to wrangle and to direct, but it was slowly, painstakingly gathering every shred of mana in its halls to the floor, turning the energy so crushingly dense as to see the water riot as well. In fact, with the water mana so dense, one type of creature was being forced to evolve just to cope, while the mana coral were all either dying or adapting in their own ways.

The man saw none of this, of course, locked away in the shell of ice and frost that even now Arctuross and the knucker tried growing into him, but not yet to any success. The wyrm, too, contributed, her blighted venom staining the waters yellow, being drawn into the ice in an effort to punch through his defenses.

More creatures arrived, any animal in Aby’s charge was making a mad dash to the tenth floor, as Aby tried and failed to leverage the mana in its grasp to assault the foreign gem. An invader was shielding it, and the core’s mana simply refused to be controlled near the man, meaning the pitifully weak trickle the disgusting thing was producing was enough to protect it from Aby’s flood of mana, but only for as long as it lasted, as long as the man or his mana lasted.

As it grew ever more enraged, it felt something tickle at the edge of its awareness, but it was in no mood to spare even the slightest attention to it. When that tiny nagging disappeared another moment later, it would have felt even more justified in its utter lack of care, if it could have. The man’s protective coffin cracked, then, an impact strong enough to crush the meters of ice that had built up around him heralded the arrival of one blindingly angry near-dragon, the wyvern’s body boiling even in the magically cold waters.

Arctuross and the knucker still seemed intent on crushing him, though, but the wyvern’s maniacal assault ensured that only a thin film was constricting him at any time. That seemed to be the answer, though, apparently the artifacts he was extending his final moments with could only handle so much abuse, and with the wyvern’s assault, that limit was sheared away in seconds. 

The light flickered, then died, and the effects were as immediate as they were visible. Impaled, eviscerated, blighted so thoroughly as to rot his body away before he’d even perished, there was no question as to the man’s fate, but him being so close to the other core meant that his corpse could not be claimed by Aby, instead reduced to little more than scraps or compost before what little shreds were left were too far from the miniscule ‘neutral territory’ between cores could be deconstructed. 

Whatever Aby might have gotten from this death would have to wait, though, as without an invading protector, that core was left exposed, and while Aby’s monsters would rush for the chance to end it themselves, Aby needed to do this on its own. With the monumental amount of energy it had gathered, now able to wield it with no issues, it turned it all onto the other core. There was no struggle, nor any ceremony.

Aby’s tide of mana simply tore through the unnamed core’s in an instant, before rampaging through the core itself. A weak snap sounded, unable to be heard through the sheer amount of activity happening around, and then the rich blue beryl split down the center, crumbling apart as it settled. With the shards whisked away by the artificial current, Aby’s halls were once again free from outsiders, but this did little to ease the utter loathing Aby was feeling in that moment. For that matter, neither did the stream of alerts that had been popping up following the core’s demise.

Congratulations! For successfully slaying your first foreign Dungeon Core, you have earned the title “Budding Usurper”

As you have slain the Core through your own power, you are awarded the following:

All (1) Templates unlocked by the slain Core

All stored knowledge within the slain Core

-

There were more notifications that rang out after that, but Aby stopped paying attention, putting it all aside as it released its hold on its mana and its domain. The tenth floor was a catastrophe, and many spawn had been slain in the carnage, but all of it was hardly registering to the young core. Aby instead just felt aggrieved and some portion of it wanted to lash out at someone or something but had no one to point these lingering emotions at. 

But another feeling was making itself known, slowly overwhelming Aby’s frustrations. The sheer torrent of raw emotion that the other core had brought forth though its very existing was, in its own way, utterly exhausting, and with the rest of the dungeon returning to some semblance of equilibrium Aby felt drained, on top of the lingering feelings of outrage and hate. 

From the other core’s reveal to its demise, less than a minute passed, probably less than thirty seconds even, but Aby had never before strained itself as much as it had just then. Between having every fiber of its own being rampaging, forcing as much of that information and that anger into every single sentient being in its care, and especially taking conscious control over the sheer volume of mana that it had, Aby was tired.

And so, it slept, or did the closest thing a dungeon core could do, simply releasing its own awareness of its domain, letting its mind drift and wander with no focus. As it did, it vaguely caught the tail end of something going on right beside its core, but it had already let too much of its mind fade into the background to make it out. It would review everything after a short rest.

“Aby?” A tiny voice sounded from beside the sphere of aquamarine. “Aby, what’s going on?”

Sela was concerned, downright scared, even. The core had summoned her back earlier than normal, warning her that there’d been a fresh wave of invaders breaking schedule, but she simply figured that it was just an early wave. Those thoughts were quickly tossed out when something about Aby changed. She had no idea why it happened, no doubt another invader, but she had no idea what they could be doing to get her companion to feel so mind-boilingly angry.

It wasn’t just the core, either. Sela could tell from the way her creatures were acting that everything in Aby’s dungeon was hit by that same, visceral hatred. It was different than the dread she’d felt from the Mapper, even throughout that ordeal Aby was, in some fashion, still looking out for her well-being, and that of all of its creations. She looked down at the tiny frost spirit in her arms, the only one she had been able to hold back while the others all rushed off.

She had never seen a spirit angry like that, before. She hadn’t even known they could get that angry, and if a small bundle of barely aware mana felt so angry they rushed off to fling themselves into a fight they had no hope of winning, she didn’t want to think about what the rest of Aby’s creatures had been feeling. She didn’t know whether to be thankful or even more concerned when hardly twenty seconds passed and that overwhelming rage started to ebb out, replaced with an equally heavy feeling of exhaustion, something she’d never experienced even a sliver from through Aby before.

Once more, everything within the dungeon’s halls reacted, but where rampage and fury had been their initial outburst, Sela could see the lethargy practically rolling off of any creature still on their floor, which wasn’t all that much. While most didn’t outright sleep, Sela could see them losing much of their dungeon-boosted faculties, becoming little more than tired animals.

“Aby, I’m getting scared, what happened?” Sela tried again, but for the first time since she’d met the core, she was alone in her head. The isolation was crippling, Sela simply hadn’t realized how much she’d come to accept Aby’s watchful presence until it no longer watched. The Nereid waited, hopeful, for a few minutes longer, but nothing much changed aside from a few creatures losing some of their earlier sluggishness. 

Not knowing what more she could do, Sela began moving upwards. She wanted to check each floor, but without the core’s guiding nudge she was stuck working off of memory in regard to what moved where. She decided to just pick one she knew would take her to the eleventh floor, near the tribe. She doubted the kobolds would have many answers, but aside from Carmine and Arctuross, Sela knew of few others who could tell her anything meaningful, and the tribe may well know more about what happened, if it really was invaders.

The limestone tunnel was rough and uneven, but clearly made for creatures such as her, and as she ascended, she became more and more aware of something unusual. She knew Aby had been handling a huge amount of mana, she felt a large amount simply whisked away from their core room in a manner unlike anything she’d felt. What she didn’t know, was where all of it was taken to, but if the sheer amount of the esoteric energy she was being blasted with was any indication, it was nearby.

It was dense enough to be practically visible, and Sela wasn’t entirely able to tell if what she was swimming through was even water any longer, instead of the core’s aqueous magic given form. Her head peaked out onto the eleventh, in a pond on the floor’s sands, and she was immediately taken aback. The pale, creamy yellow sand that the floor used to be covered with was missing outright, instead becoming tunnels full of deep, lustrous blue sand, and the water itself seemed to blur into and out of it.

The coral and the walls themselves were also a shimmering aqua, the rich blue that the floor had become was enough to shock Sela’s mind off her immediate concerns, for just a moment. But in that moment, she scooped up a handful of it, watching what should have been solid particles instead run through the cracks in her tiny fingers, simply dispersing like a dye into the water before pooling once more on the floor. A second attempt to grab a handful saw it behaving like it should, but as soon as she released the pressure in her fist, the grains once more allowed themselves to be dissolved into the soft, gentle current in the puddle she idled in.

She needed to snap herself out of her reverie, and she managed to do so once the gnawing loneliness reasserted itself, but even that wasn’t enough to fully draw her attention away from the new beauty. She did take off in the general direction she remembered the kobolds being, though, hoping that she was right, but still had to marvel at seeing these halls turned into something entirely new. Not only was the very sand more similar to water than any actual grains should have been, but the once earthen corals seemed to have been warped in a similar fashion, with deep blue sand dripping out of their sapphire polyps and a rich cerulean glow lighting them all. The undines seemed to be reveling in their new environment, as much as their lethargy would allow.

She turned one final corner, beholding the cave which had been turned into the kobold’s homes. It too had been warped by the reality-altering touch of overwhelming mana, sands of blue and coral altered, and the crystals clustered were marred and twisted by forcing water into their earthen structures. The kobolds, too, seemed affected, not quite so much in the adults, but many of the little ones, especially the newborns, were radically different than when she’d seen them not long before.

The young ones each seemed uniquely touched by the bountiful mana, each taking on new, deep blue patterns on their various colored scales. For some, that was all, just soon-after-birthmarks that the parenting kobolds were just beginning to examine. But there were some which seemed more deeply affected, for better or worse. One happy kobold seemed to be happily playing, the green-scales of the aquatic lineage had taken on splotches of blue, and they were tugging at the water, pulling and pushing with hardly any might, but able to command the sands around as if it were no different than the rest of the liquid. There was hardly any power in it, not yet, but it was still very different from another child.

This time, it was a drake-kin, freshly hatched, with yellow scales that would have once matched the shores around him constantly leaking what Sela hoped was simple water through vivid blue cracks. The child was scared and scarred, no doubt confused and possibly even hurt by the liquid that had cut through the new markings on him from the inside. His cries did little to help the rest of the tribe gather their bearings, and most of the children were starting to join in by the time Sela approached the matriarch of their spawn.

The young dragonkin chieftess turned to Sela with exasperation plain on her face, and for a long moment the young nereid couldn’t come up with words. It was hardly difficult to tell that she was tired, and Sela was completely aware that exhaustion wasn’t as much from the children as it was the wild, chaotic mess of sensations and orders that Aby had no doubt sent everything, coupled with a nearly physical wave of emotion. 

That it so quickly transitioned from rage to fatigue probably left most of the creatures in the dungeon feeling that same weariness themselves, and Sela couldn’t help but feel pity for the poor critters. She swam up to the dragonkin, who was still busy trying to find her footing on the new, very unusual sand of the floor, being met with mixed results. This led to the conversation between them being hardly one at all, everything the chieftess said in reply to Sela was curt and frustrated, and the only information that Sela was able to get out of the scaled woman was that Aby’s enraged call was trying to pull them up a floor, to the tenth.

She left behind the weary kobolds, heading to the tenth floor cautiously. She doubted that Aby would simply rest if there remained any invaders, but nothing about this situation was normal, and as she prowled along the rich azure sand she made sure to always be as close as possible to any exit, something much harder to do without Aby’s omniscient guidance.

Her trek was interrupted, however, when she rounded a corner in the maze-like halls and almost ran head-on into something entirely unexpected. When she saw the small ball of light hugging onto a rich blue crystal ahead of her, she briefly thought it just another undine, and was about to call the precious little one to her side to help keep it safe. Her voice caught in her throat when she realized that light wasn’t flickering or shimmering like any spirit should be. 

It was with a start that she realized what she was looking at, and she felt a sort of awe and wonder that she hadn’t since bonding with Aby. The beryl light peeled itself off of the water-crystal, flowing lines of mana getting sucked out of the gem into the light as it congealed into a single, nearly solid mass of mana. The small eddies of power seemed to linger, though, like bright lights which seared their patterns into her eyes, as the lump of energy drew its surroundings toward it to give form to its heart. 

Both the strange blue sand and the decaying, empty shards of water crystal were swept up by the newly forming current, pulled by a living current to surround the center of the young water elemental. She remained speechless, as a fog of mana was ripped from the ambient supply of the floor to surround the young creature, coming to surround the sleek but featureless core like a veil. The amorphous being may have resembled a larger version of the water spirit it had descended from, but Sela knew that, despite it likely being less than a few minutes old, the elemental was very likely to turn into a true force of nature if given the time and mana to grow, could already be considered one in many ways, and it was gorgeous.

Without any prompting, the haze of mana stretched forward, a long tendril of it pulling towards Sela as the rest of the creature stretched with it, going from a lump to a long, serpentine mass that made a few lazy coils around the nereid, keeping a healthy distance as it curiously examined her. The creature didn’t seem to move at all, just an elongated bubble of blue light with a beam of aqua running through its center like a lazy lightning bolt that was flowed in circles around her like a ribbon caught in a current, and after a few seconds of ‘swimming’ around, the living water once more condensed itself into a ball, right in front of Sela, this time. 

Cautiously, she reached out, placing a hand onto what many would call the ocean given life, and she felt her hand pass right through its outer shell. The water that it used as its ‘body’ was thrumming with power, she could feel it buzzing, but it pulled back just before she could lay her hand on its heart. She brought her hand back to her side, after that, and motioned softly to the elemental to follow her as she once more started swimming to the tenth floor.

She was under no assumptions that the creature would be compelled to listen to her, especially if Aby wasn’t there to force the young one, if it even could. She had faith in her partner, but she was taught from a young age that elementals were beings to revere, incarnations of whatever element they represented, mana brought to life as a spirit and then, unlike the myriad other possibilities a spirit may become, given true, total power over their aspect.

Turning around and seeing that very power following behind her languidly did bring a bright smile to her face, though. As the two swam along it continued to reach out with portions of its veil to uproot the deepest blue crystals and drain them dry as they went along, adding more empty, fleeting dust to its maelstrom. She was still deeply worried about whatever had happened to Aby, and even more confused, but as she travelled to get some answers she couldn’t help but feel a little more safe with the company she had made.