by Alston Sleet
“Don’t worry, the next closest pantheon’s people are a long way away, it’s mostly why I’ve lasted so long. This plan is all about making that no longer a concern right? Right!”
It was times like these that I really wished I could take long calming breaths. Oddly enough I found the dungeon core equivalent to fidgeting at that very moment. Build a column of stone, absorb it, build a column of stone, absorb it. It was sort of zen in its simplicity.
Moving on I asked about the other gods who blessed me, what they looked like and what their domains were. At first she was hesitant to tell me, but when I explained that I was planning to make smaller portraits for them, she started to gush with the gossip.
The godly gossip calmed me down from my earlier worry and left me no longer fidgeting. Thanking the goddess for her assistance, I turned my focus to trying to figure out magic, or at least the bit of magic that a dungeon could do. My major concern was first that I would have to focus on all of my dungeon floors and micromanage everything. I’m sure that a normal dungeon core wasn’t doing things this way. While I could spread my awareness out and I could focus deeply on a few different things at once, I had nowhere near enough focus to run everything at once.
Focusing, I tried to gather my magic around the lightly supported stone of a collapsing pitfall trap. Once my magic had coated the entire stone I…well…wanted very hard that the stone would return to where it was after being moved.
Forming a large boulder from the ceiling I let it grow until it hung above the rock then I absorbed the stone support until the rock fell and collapsed the stone of the trap. Watching closely I waited. Soon enough the rocks below etched away and then reformed above. If I had a face it would have been stretched from ear to ear in a grin.
Using the same technique, I began the process of painting every surface with the needed ‘reset’ command of magic. I also realized that I need to do the same for the air above and within the pitfall traps as well. It wouldn’t help me to have pitfalls if someone could just fill them up with rocks and leave the way clear for those following. It would be tedious, but if there was a way to cheat, humans would do it.
I wasn’t sure how far my magical ‘commands’ could spread when trying to create triggers and traps, but I was using them everywhere it seemed appropriate. I only hope it would work and then try again if things didn’t work out. Not the best first impression to make with the humans if I failed, but I had little hope of doing anything else about it.
It wasn’t until I had worked out a complex ‘impression’ of a magic detection system with a set of triggers which released doors, all in the level six magical trial area, that miss blue box pitched a fit. It felt like my brains were leaking out of my ears after the horrible mental gear grinding and robotic sounds the latest skill up produced.
Ding!
Congratulations, you have reached the minimum level of competence in [Will of the World], Level 13.
[Will of the World] forces mana into functioning as a semi-intelligent mana spirit which will act out the set commands of the mana’s controller. [Will…Will…Will of the W…World]…
A ripping, grinding, mechanical noise tore through my mind, and I could feel my gem shift subtly as something was pressing down onto my gem before the pressure finally eased. I did everything I could to avoid poking at the blue box in my mind, since it was, so very broken. It was like the mental equivalent of a missing tooth, the need to stick my tongue in the new hole was almost unavoidable. It was like trying not to think about a pink elephant, only with this version, thinking of the pink elephant results in a sharp jab of pain between the ears. After trying, and failing, to avoid the pulsing box of concepts in the back of my mind, I felt my mind shift and slowly fade to black.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dwarves!
The world is terrible and I want it to go away.
It wasn’t that I felt like a horrible, horrible, elephant was dancing in my brain. It wasn’t that I was having difficulties focusing on any part of my domain. It wasn’t that miss blue box had finally calmed down and decided to stop beating my noggin with neon pain signed with comic sans.
It was that I felt like I needed to throw up, but as a gem, I had nothing to give.
This is something that people who have lived an upright and non-drunk life don’t know. Throwing up is awesome. Well, that’s not actually true. Throwing up sucks. But throwing up, when what is making your life miserable can get out of you, makes things so much better. For the last few months when I was feeling horrible, entirely because of my excess drinking, once I threw up, I would feel better. In my messed up broken mind, throwing up equaled better.
I could no longer throw up, and my brain was less than amused about this fact.
What eventually brought me back to full awareness was the feel of my domain. The way things had been shifted and moved around. It was twisted and warped, nothing was as I had designed it. [Will of the World] was everywhere and it was all viciously deadly. Traps, collapsing walls, just about every square inch of my dungeon was nasty in a way I had never intended. The walls had also been compressed and strengthened with all of it painted with the [Will of the World] to be self-repairing.
I felt like I had been violated. It was like falling unconscious and waking up to discover someone had tattooed your body. It didn’t matter if the tattoos were tasteful or even if the local ladies liked the designs, it just wasn’t right!
Reaching out I started touching the mana painted on to every surface trying to detect who had created it and what they had done. It was me. All me. Every last change was one that my [Mana Sense] felt like was mine.
A quick check of my status showed that I had to have done it.
True Name: Dale Erickson Ender.
Race: Dungeon Core (Variant: Sapient)
Class: [Spatial Hedge-Mage][Spatial Traveler][High Priest].
Level: 37
Mind: 5
Body: 1
Soul: 8
Blessings:
[Blessing of Secrets] (hidden)
[Blessing of Cunning] (hidden)
[Blessing of Wealth]
[Blessing of Fame]
[Blessing of Magic]
[Blessing of Travel]
Traits:
[Focus of the Divine]
[Soul Seal - Divine]
Skills:
[Far Seeing]: Level 1
[Directed Prayer]: Level 4
[Mana Sensing]: Level 22
[Spatial Manipulation]: Level 52
[Will of the World]: Level 44
[Conjuration]: Level 35
[Etheric Pattern Formation]: Level 13
“What the hell?” I asked in confusion.
“I know right? You were pretty out of it.”
My response was perfectly reasonable. I screamed like a little girl then wigged out trying to find who was going to destroy me or steal my core. My instincts were spazzing out badly until I noticed the floating Cheshire grin. Once I knew that it was Denda, my instincts calmed down entirely once again. For some reason, my dungeon core instincts had no issue with goddesses. It made no sense, but it was nice not to have my instincts screaming at me while trying to hold a conversation.
“What happened?”
Denda slowly faded into view, this time she wasn’t wearing a sundress but instead leather armor with odd straps and little metal loops and strips. When I was human it would have implied some kind of BDSM thing which was pretty creepy considering she looked young, but with my new senses I could see that it was some kind of armor with metal strips for reinforcement. It was disturbing in another sense. Why would she need to be armored and protected like that?
“Well, a couple days ago I did a check up on you and I found you mindlessly reinforcing everything and trapping every inch of your hallways. It was like you were a dungeon core who had instincts going out of control. You never responded to me even when I was standing right in front of you. You mister dungeon man, you were seriously out to lun
ch!”
The last sentence she said in a teasing voice, but the entire thing was no joking manner. I was unconscious but apparently, my dungeon instincts were running the show. This was seriously freaking me out. It would be like finding out that you are not only a sleepwalker but a murderous one!
Poking my gem gently with a dagger she produced from nowhere she continued, “I don’t know what you did, but whatever it was, don’t do it again. I have plans for you and your fate went dark there. Not cool man. Not cool.”
Before I could respond she rapped me a bit harder with the pommel of her dagger.
“Ok. Have everything set up and ready to go? You ready to visit your first city and get this show on the road?”
With a few careful passes, I removed all the dangerous additions to my dungeon, being methodical in checking that each layer of magic was just for reinforcement or repair and not some kind of hidden trap in disguise.
Looking around the full extent of my dungeon I noticed a small area enclosed from the rest where treasure had been stacked up nearly to the ceiling. Well, it seemed like treasure at least. It was a rather odd assortment; stacks of flat gold discs, pointy and sharp bits of metal, balls of quartz glass filled with a few different pure chemicals. It appeared to be what my dungeon instincts considered the best it could do I bet. Given my limited collection of patterns, this was probably what my dumb instincts considered treasures. What was interesting was that each pedestal I had set aside for prizes had one of these items linked to it, I could feel the magic of [Will of the World] binding into them. Touching the pedestal would move the item bound to it. It was interesting that my instincts were still aware of my intentions, something to think on at least.
“I don’t have any monsters so I can’t do any high-level arena battles, and my ‘Treasures’ need to be fiddled with.”
Giving out a loud “Hmmmm,” Denda continued staring at my gem before she plopped down in front of my gem.
“That’s ok, I can wait.”
With a shrug, an action much easier to do with shoulders, I turned to my ‘treasures’ and started fixing things up. First the coins. I put an image of my challenge door on the front of the coin. On the back, I put an image of Coldona’s smiling face. With that, I considered it for a bit then added ridges all around the edge. The ridges would stop someone from scrapping the edge off and claiming it was the same size and value. The last step was to put the words ‘Challenge Dungeon’ around the edge on the front and ‘Coldona’ on the back. It wasn’t until I finished engraving the words that I realized that it wasn’t even remotely English. The letters looked more like some kind of ancient cuniform or something.
“What the hell? How do I know this language?”
Giggling Denda answered my rhetorical question, “The Wizards were trying to create a magic item producing slave. It doesn’t help if the slave can’t understand the commands does it?”
“So they cast some kind of translation spell on me? Do I have to worry about it fading?”
Waving my concerns away she giggled again, “Nah, the older one cast a binding on your gem which would enslave the soul it had captured and he tied the translation spell to it. Lucky you, the paranoid fool made the enslavement spell to only tie you to him.”
So I was enslaved, but no one held the other end of the enslavement. Horrific, but I get why the old fart would do it. I might be politically inept, but even I would get what it would mean to control my kind of powers for a human being. Kingdoms would fall under that kind of economic and military might. They still could.
“Uh, right, so I’ll get back to focusing on my treasure. I’m mostly just rearranging the metal for most of this so it should go quickly.”
Denda just stayed sitting, nodding her head as she hummed to her self. I was kind of afraid to lose focus on her while she was sitting so close to my core, but truthfully there wasn’t much I could do if she actually wanted to hurt me.
Changing my coins was relatively easy, but I made an effort to create a set of different coins of different types. I made some copper, steel, even some of the perfectly clear quartz. I wasn’t sure how common or accepted some of these coins would be but I could use some of them as a bonus for impressive performance and then just listen to the response.
For the metal pointy things, I turned them into maces, swords, daggers, falchions and a whole host of other weapons. I had always been fascinated by fantasy art, it had been what had gotten me into art, to begin with, so I knew how to draw all kinds of weapons and making them with my powers was mostly the same. What can I say, I had been the typical ten-year-old engrossed in metal pointy things, it wasn’t until later that boobs gained a higher art appreciation from me.
I left most of my weapons very plain. I would wait till later to start upping the artistic quality and style.
The last change was to the orbs of quartz. I changed them all to have clear quartz stoppers instead of perfect spheres. Thinking about it for a moment I realized that making them with a flat base would also make it slightly easier when they appeared on the pedestals. Not the best impression if the prize instantly rolls off and shatters after they appeared.
Looking over my dungeon and treasures carefully I looked around and considered before I finally decided. Yes, I’m done, I’m ready, and oh my god I so don’t want to go near humans!
It’s not possible for a gem to hyperventilate, but I tried.
What brought me back to reality was Denda tapping my gem again with the pommel of her dagger. Her ability to move around and act within my dungeon domain without me being aware unless I’m focusing directly on her was seriously freaky. My dungeon instincts seemed fine with her but to me, it seemed like death just waiting to happen.
Once I calmed down Denda started talking to me, her tone indicated she thought I was an idiot. Which to be fair I felt like it but it was mostly my dungeon instincts, to them going towards humans was a no-no.
“Ok, before we move your entrance you need to do one more thing…”
Leaning towards me like she was told me clearly I should know what that thing was, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure it out. I slowly looked over every inch of my dungeon, considering every trap and challenge. It all looked fine.
“You need to add lights.”
Oh.
Looking around I realized that, yes indeed, I needed to add light. I had failed to think about it but it was obvious. I was viewing everything magically and apparently, goddesses didn’t need light, but humans would. So I used [Will of the World] and forced a low level of white light onto all my levels. Then on the magical side, I strategically placed sconces high on the wall then willed into being ever burning blue flames. On the melee side, I went with a reddish flame. It was a reference to the games I used to play when I was younger, but I liked it. This seemed to fit the ‘theme’ of my new world, even if blue wasn’t for magic and red for health here, I liked it.
Looking around, I focused on a blank area and put together the portraits of the other gods as Coldona had described them. I took much less time with these portraits than I did for ‘my’ goddess. I used a far simpler style with broad, simple shading. These were in an almost comic book like style rather than the realistic form I used for Coldona. I made one for each god which gave me a blessing, including Denda and Beld, even if my [Divine Seal] wouldn’t let me say that those two had blessed me, I could hint at it.
It took about thirty minutes, but finally, I was ready, and Denda seemed to agree.
“I like the work with the gods,” she smirked while looking over my work, “All right, the first group of people I want you to visit are north of here, past the mountains. They have a huge castle and you can plop down right in the greeting hall. We can make it part of your theme, plopping down right in the middle of a highly traveled area so people can’t block you off!”
The giant grin, and the fact that she was practically vibrating in place, told me this type of prank was right up her alley. It made me wonder
what she did when she wasn’t trying to set up her plans involving me. After the sly grin she threw my way after that thought, I decided I didn’t want to know.
Focusing on my unused till now skill [Far Seeing], I started to hopscotch my view northwards. Using [Far Seeing] was odd, but it probably would have been worse for a human. I was used to full spherical views, adding a second one barely caused me any disorientation at all. The moment I pushed beyond the edge of my domain things changed. I was no longer using a magical sense, it was purely visual, even if the sense was from a magical source. I also lost all feel of where I was looking. I still knew exactly how far I was from my new view, but the sense of the things and the sounds all snuffed out.
I cast and then recast my skill through the rock of my dungeon wall and up onto the surface with my instincts barely giving a peep when seeing the outside. With a little burst of magical will, I sent the skill up into a point in the sky and then up the mountains. The speed at which my magical vision could be cast from one point to another was staggering. I must have recast my viewpoint across hundreds of miles in seconds. I was obviously not physically interacting anywhere, it was purely a visual effect. I was able to quickly find the castle, with a tiny bit of direction shifting from Denda’s prodding. When I finally snapped my viewpoint down and entered through the grand entrance, I was momentarily stunned.
“Those are Dwarves. Denda, Dwarves. DWARVES!”
I might have gotten a tad excited. If there are dwarves…there are other races. Who knew what I was going to find? Elves? Mermaids? Dragons!? I was so excited, if I could have danced, I would have.
Denda tapped me, less gently this time, “You thought there were only humans? Sheesh! I’m a halfling you know. Didn’t you notice? You’re going to hurt a lady’s feelings like that.”
Huffing, I admitted to myself (and I guess her since she could hear my thoughts) that I just thought she had been short.
“Ok, I just need to figure out how to move my entrance and then we can start.”
“Quick hint, you aren’t moving the door, you are moving the space around the door to the space around where you want the door. Should be easier you know?”
