by Demi Harper
We all watched in horror – Ket and I from above, the newborn cave wanderer from beside her, and the other humans from down the passage – as Cassandria lost her battle for balance, tumbling off the ledge and into the great chasm.
Her scream echoed up around the Heart for several seconds, and then was abruptly cut off.
‘Corey, you killed her!’ accused Ket.
‘Oops,’ I said.
In the tunnel, Lila was still holding her bow in place, though the arrow was long flown. All four of the humans seemed frozen, unable or unwilling to move at all.
A mental nudge sent the now-seven-legged cave wanderer scuttling in their direction. The humans turned as one and fled back down the tunnel they’d come from. Meanwhile, I marveled at the five mana globes on the right side of my Augmentary – five full globes, where a moment before they’d been empty. They glowed softly, blue and cheerful.
‘What… what just happened?’ I asked, absent-mindedly calling back my spider. I felt full, contented.
Ket took a moment to reply. When she did, she sounded unsettled. ‘When a death occurs within your Sphere of Influence, Corey, you’ll instantly receive the victim’s equivalent in mana. This is known as the Circle of Life.’
‘So I get a mana boost every time something dies? Nice! Grim,’ I amended, ‘but nice.’
‘Most of the time, this gain is barely noticeable,’ continued Ket. ‘Non-intelligent creatures – insects and animals – absorb very little ambient mana within their lifetime. If, for instance, a hundred worms died within your Sphere at the same time, you wouldn’t even see a difference in terms of how full your mana globes are.’
‘Well, that seems rather pointless, then.’
‘Not quite. You see, with intelligent, powerful creatures – like very advanced kobolds, perhaps, or—’ She gestured toward the squabbling party below. ‘—humans, everything they experience and learn throughout their lifetime accrues passively in the form of mana.’
‘You’re saying knowledge really is power?’
‘Not only that, power is power. The older and stronger the creature, the more mana is released in the moment of its death. Some Cores – Dungeon Cores in particular – seek to constantly attract such advanced beings as their primary source of mana. As a God Core, however, your main mana source is worship.’
‘But if, say, a group of high-level humans happen to wander in and one of them were killed by mistake…’
Ket sighed. ‘You would gain immense benefits.’ She gestured at the mana globes. ‘As a benevolent God Core, it’s probably best if you don’t make a habit of murdering everyone who passes through your Sphere of Influence.’
‘It was an accident! I was just trying to frighten them away. It’s not my fault she fell in the pit,’ I protested.
‘Your priority is to defend your denizens, Corey. You did what you had to,’ Ket admitted grudgingly. ‘Just… be more careful next time?’
‘Yes, yes. The ends justify the means, etcetera.’
‘That’s not what I said. You should pay more attention, Corey.’
‘Oh, well. At least Binky got a brother.’
I admired my latest creation fondly. It stared back at me, giving nothing away. The massive eight-legged creature would be perfect for guarding this pit from now on.
Binky the Second – who I’d now decided to rename Septimus, because of his missing leg – wriggled his pedipalps in farewell as he dragged Cassandria’s body down into the pit. Her equipment lay on the ledge, having been delicately removed from her person by the cave wanderer’s palps and surprisingly dexterous forelimbs.
‘Why the looting?’ asked Ket when the spider was again out of sight.
Habit, I instinctively wanted to say. Instead, I answered, ‘You never know when you might need it.’
I summoned Ris’kin from the Grotto; a few minutes later, she darted out of the passage beneath us. The fox-like avatar gathered up the belt with its four sheathed daggers, along with Cassandria’s leather gloves, and began to haul it back down the tunnel to the Grotto.
Before I left the Heart, I took one last look at the passage down which the human adventurers had fled. My skelemanders had already indicated the humans had left my Sphere of Influence, which was something of a relief. I hoped they wouldn’t return, but suspected I hadn’t yet seen the last of them.
Eighteen
Waking Up
Outside on the surface, the sun had vanished, replaced by a low-hanging dark gray patchwork that Ket informed me was ‘rainclouds’. Before long, a downpour began, sending a constant and heavy shower through the hole in the ceiling to rain upon my gem and my altar. Finally, I was clean of all the dirt and filth that had clung to me since I’d emerged from the ground.
Binky huddled forlornly against the side of the ceiling hole. Droplets clung to his web and made it sparkle in the light of the green glowworms on the cavern’s ceiling. I wondered whether Binky’s new brother, Septimus, was any happier in his hole down in the Heart. The fervor with which the spider had claimed Cassandria’s body suggested he was indeed happy, at least for now.
Meanwhile, my two lumberjacks had long since woken up and returned to work. Faithful Elwood was proving more adept with practice, and had now managed to chop down a grand total of two shroomtrees. In contrast, the non-Faithful woodcutter – Jack, as I’d decided to name the incompetent little creature – was yet to finish felling his first, despite the exhortations of an increasingly exasperated Granny.
As if sensing my need for more Faithful gnomes, Ris’kin made a detour through the tent village on her way to my altar. She walked slowly, carrying Cassandria’s equipment, ensuring each of the apathetic villagers got a good look at these new, strange, shiny items.
A ripple of excitement went through the watching gnomes at the sight of my avatar – and for good reason. Standing head and shoulders higher than even the tallest gnome, with her glossy fox-like tail and teeth sharp as blades, Ris’kin must have seemed a majestic sight indeed.
Seeing the commotion, Granny abandoned the woodcutters and marched over to the tents, elbowing gnome and avatar alike out of the way as she pushed herself through the crowd. The wizened old she-gnome eyed Ris’kin’s loot, then snatched up the pair of leather gauntlets that sat on the top. She marched away with her prize.
Curious, I followed Granny back to the mushroom patch, where she eased herself to the ground and began tugging at the metal buckle on one glove. When the buckle came free, she set it carefully against a nearby rock with the prong at an angle. Then she took another rock and bashed it until the prong came loose.
Next, she began to slide a different rock repeatedly down one side of the buckle’s frame – sharpening it, I realized, as though with a whetstone. I marveled as Granny then picked up a shaft of wood and began lashing it to the blunt side of the buckle.
When the makeshift axe was finally ready, she took it over to the shroomtrees and handed it to Jack, who clearly needed it most.
I was gobsmacked by the old gnome’s innovation. In under an hour, she’d single-handedly used her initiative to provide a significant upgrade to one of her workers’ tools.
‘Why can’t more of them be like Granny?’ I asked Ket.
‘They will be,’ Ket promised. ‘Eventually.’
Somehow I doubted that, but I had more pressing concerns at the moment – namely, building the lumberyard. Jack and Elwood had felled two of the required six trees between them, and more would surely follow. That was enough to justify beginning construction on our first building.
Using the map and construction page in the Augmentary, Ket showed me how to select where I wanted the lumberyard to be placed. I decided on a convenient little spot between the shroomtree patch and the tent village, across the stream from my gem and altar; the lumberyard’s proximity to the shroomtrees it would be processing made it the most logical location.
A square, translucent, three-dimensional outline – like a blueprint – appeared in the a
rea where the lumberyard would eventually be.
Now to assign more woodcutters to help with production.
I looked around. The five latest worshipers were still prostrated before the altar. Dedicated little devils. As much as I wanted to assign one of these Faithful – and likely more competent – gnomes to this new task, I was reluctant to pull any of these new followers away from their worship lest they never returned to it again.
Best milk this little surge of devotion for all it’s worth.
‘Where did those other Faithful go? The earlier converts?’
‘Why not use your Augmentary to find out?’ Ket suggested patiently.
Oh. Right. I forgot about that.
I pulled up my map and, sure enough, different colored dots roamed around the Grotto. I tried to overlook the depressing fact that the majority of them were still gray in color, representing the masses of non-Faithful – and therefore mostly useless – denizens inhabiting the Grotto. By my count, there were sixty-nine gray dots, and only fifteen green. But as Ket had said, it was early days yet.
In the shroomtree patch were two green dots and a gray. One of the green Faithful dots had a tiny symbol of a whip beside it, while the other two dots had axes. Granny, Elwood and Jack, respectively.
Pinpointing the tatty tent village on my map and focusing on one of the unassigned green dots idling there among a sea of gray, I realized I did not need to locate its owner in person to be able to use Vocation.
Well, that’s handy.
I selected ‘lumberjack’, and a moment later a little axe appeared beside the gnome. Ket then showed me how to drag and drop the dot – representing my new worker – on to the outline of the lumberyard in order to assign him to it.
I looked away from the Augmentary and scanned the tent village, and sure enough, a gnome came marching out, heading directly toward the shroomtrees. However, rather than picking up an axe, this gnome headed straight toward the two trees Elwood had felled. He hefted one end and began a valiant attempt to haul it away.
After a few painful minutes of futile tugging, Granny handed the second buckle-axe she’d just crafted to Elwood, then headed over to help the new guy. The two of them together were able to lift the fallen tree; they carried it a good few feet away before setting it down on a flat, clear patch of ground beside the stream – the location I’d assigned for the new lumberyard.
After crafting two more buckle-axes, both Granny and the new worker began to chop at the fallen tree, eventually splitting it in half length-ways. Then they headed back to the mushroom farm, retrieved the next tree, and repeated the chopping process.
I soon got bored of watching gnomes whack wood with axes, and decided to check on the creatures I’d created to populate my tunnels.
They seemed happy enough. The six forrels stalked the shadows at the tunnels’ edges, baring their teeth at even the slightest sound. They also hunted passing insects, pouncing playfully upon unsuspecting beetles and spiders, but I couldn’t really blame them. Patrolling the mostly empty passages must have been mind-numbingly boring, and if making their own entertainment kept them vigilant, that was fine by me.
I found my four tiny, near-invisible skelemanders crouched on the ceilings, spread out along the outskirts of my Sphere of Influence – precisely where I’d commanded them to be. Either they were too small to become distracted like the squirrel-foxes, or they were just too professional – either way, I wasn’t about to complain.
Curious to see just how maneuverable the skelemanders were, I commanded one of them to find the shortest route to the Heart, then hitched a ride in the skeletal lizard’s wake as it slithered through gaps in the rock I hadn’t even noticed.
In a matter of minutes, we emerged above one of the tunnel entrances leading into the Heart, and it wasn’t without a touch of vertigo that I looked down into the pit gaping in the center. The skelemander scuttled away back to its post.
As I stared into the pit, Septimus the cave wanderer stared back from the darkness. I mentally waved at him. He did not wave back.
Perhaps he’s lonely.
I resolved to send my two gnomish scouts down here when they returned, perhaps with a nice juicy rat or rabbit or whatever would appease the Heart’s massive seven-legged guardian.
Finally, I took myself down to the cavern with the subterranean lake. The boulderskin was almost invisible in the shallows; to the naked eye, it looked like little more than a series of rocks breaking the water’s black surface.
However, I realized after a while that the boulderskin was moving, but in the most gradual of increments, so slowly it caused not a single ripple. It appeared to be stalking a fat, blind fish that had ventured from the deeper parts of the lake and was now circling in the shallows, seemingly oblivious to the overgrown amphibian nearby.
Just as the boulderskin was about to pounce, there was a soft ‘ding’ from my Augmentary. Uncertain what this might mean, I glanced at my map – and saw a square-ish shape flash into existence beside the mushroom farm.
The new lumberyard was finished!
I left the boulderskin to its own devices and returned to the Grotto.
In the hours I’d spent observing my god-born creatures, Jack and Elwood had felled their remaining trees. Granny and the new worker had then chopped them all into an assortment of long shafts and rough planks. Arranged in a U-shaped half-square, the wood had been used to build a canopy – presumably for the storage of raw timber on one side and planks on the other – on either side, with a wide workspace in between.
All in all, the lumberyard was shoddy, but serviceable.
‘Well done, Corey,’ said Ket. ‘Your first building! How do you feel?’
‘Not exactly overwhelmed,’ I admitted. ‘Then again, it’s about what I was expecting, so I’m not underwhelmed either. So I suppose I’m feeling… whelmed?’
Ket sighed. ‘There’s no pleasing you sometimes.’
What did please me was watching Jack fall to his knees, having witnessed the results of his and the other woodcutters’ joint labor. A green aura of Faith began to glow from him, and tendrils of blue mana flowed from him toward my gem. I noted with pleasure that my triangle was now almost a third of the way to tier six, and my five mana globes were comfortably filled.
And that wasn’t all. Elwood was already heading back to the shroomtrees to resume his chopping, and Jack quickly got to his feet and followed him. But the new worker trooped over to the pile of equipment beside the altar.
Ket and I watched, perplexed, as using both hands, he tugged a dagger from its sheath, hefted it over his shoulder, and headed back to the newly built lumberyard, staggering a little beneath the weapon’s weight.
With Granny’s assistance, the gnome half-buried the blade horizontally in the dirt, then proceeded to bash at the iron edge with a rock. It wasn’t until numerous notches had appeared on the blade that I realized what he was doing.
‘He’s making a saw!’
‘So he is,’ Ket said wonderingly. ‘First Granny’s axes, now this. Corey – they’re innovating. This is brilliant!’
After blunting the dagger’s point and then wrapping it in twine and hide – so that it could be wielded by two gnomes at once, I realized, one holding each end – the new worker dusted his hands together, then returned to the altar for another dagger.
‘So… this isn’t normal behaviour, then?’ I asked Ket, somewhat confused.
‘Not exactly.’ She sounded excited. ‘I know you’d never even heard of gnomes until you came here, so this might surprise you, but historically their race is famous for their inventions.’
‘Inventions?’ Up until now, I’d never have thought these creatures capable of even touching their own toes, let alone creative thought.
‘Over the centuries, they’ve devolved into what’re now simply known as hill gnomes,’ Ket continued. ‘But their ancestors were tinkerers, inventors, artificers – even illusionists, if the tales are true.’
What?<
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‘But you told me they’re nearly extinct. That these are some of the last remaining gnomes on earth. What happened?’
‘No one knows. Some say there was a great destructive event – an earthquake, perhaps, or a plague. Others claim the ancient gnomes were simply hunted to extinction by whatever horrors lurked down there with them, far beneath the surface. Either way, they left their habitats – and their gods – in the deep places of the world, and ended up… here.
‘As time went on, their descendants lost their Faith, and with it that knack for innovation. They gradually became slow, simple. At first they scrabbled for survival; later, they barely even bothered to exist. But these gnomes… I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as though their new-found Faith in you is recalling those ancient skills, their ancestral instincts. It’s like they’re… waking up.’
Nineteen
Make a Gnome a Home
I mulled over Ket’s words while we watched my new woodcutter create gnome-sized saws from Cassandria’s daggers. By the time he’d made four functioning saw blades, the rain had eased, and shafts of pale sunlight had begun to penetrate the clouds. Far above the altar, Binky ventured out onto his web, sending droplets cascading down around my gem.
Bless him. So playful, I thought affectionately.
The new woodcutter, whom I’d decided to name Twain, was now pottering about the lumberyard, tightening the leather thongs on the saws’ handles, looping more twine around the joints of the new building, and generally preparing the place for proper use. The four dagger-saws were spaced neatly apart, one in each quadrant of the square-shaped workyard.
Ket’s voice held a new note of anticipation as she asked, ‘What shall we build next?’
‘I…’
Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it. The completion of the lumberyard had previously seemed so far away I’d barely contemplated further construction – and Ket’s revelations about the gnomes’ history had distracted me from the tasks at hand. I shook away wild thoughts of gnomes crafting flying contraptions and looked again at my options.
