Ally picks up one of the stone cubes. “Now there are a few things we could do with these things. Deconstruct them, move them around, or throw them at intruders. What we will do however is combine them with your current walls. Dungeons are known for their near impenetrable walls. In the older dungeons the walls can even heal faster than some gods can damage them. This doesn’t come from nowhere.”

“There are innumerable methods to store stuff from shrinking the item to some flavor of dimension magic. Dungeons, especially those who unlike you start in the ground, end up with immense amounts of rock. To store that through conventional methods is impractical. Instead, what every dungeon stumbles upon to where it is probably some deep instinct is to compress the walls.”

“Because you are out here in the void, you’re actually a bit at a disadvantage with this. Many dungeons will form new rooms by starting in the center and pushing material outward. This provides some basic toughness but afterwards most go farther. Some dungeons even go too far with it and collapse into a black hole. So yeah, don’t do that. It won’t come up for a while but something to keep in mind.”

“Honestly, you can just thicken the walls after a certain point, especially since all you have is space. Oh, and the healing thing is a dungeon rule. Get it high enough and low level adventurers won’t be able to fight their way out of a paper bag as it heals around them. But yeah, use your territory control skill to add to your core room. These few cubes won’t do much but it is a start. Now give it a try.”

Doyle had gotten the hang of using skills so it wasn’t hard to activate. Though once it was active, he was a bit stumped. To create the cubes was a matter of imagining it, same with deconstruction. Well, he activated territory control and was thinking real hard at the cubes. Ally floats, Doyle floats, the cubes sit.

A little time has passed, when Ally facepalms. “Right, didn’t tell you everything you need to know about the skill. All the skills up until now have been very imagination based. You want to make a cube of stone? Just imagine one. Need to remove some rock? Imagine it gone! Territory control falls more in line with another style of skill. They have a lot of different names. Hydrokinesis, earth bending, fire shaping, air control, and so on. What it comes down to though is you are taking a pre-existing object and moving it around.”

“Each of the skills have a pre-defined limit. Most are restricted to a material as their names make obvious. Yours is as obvious but the limit is everywhere you have spread your territory. So now that I have informed you of all the details give it another try.”

Doyle activates the skill no problem. Though now that he knows what to do he notices something else. When he focuses on his walls or any other feature a faint 3d grid appears. In fact, the more he focuses on the grid the more pronounced it becomes. Doyle looks at one cube and it has its own grid not connected from the walls.

He sighs, ‘upside is I won’t have to worry about everything snapping to some universal grid. Downside is of course everything won’t be snapping to some universal grid. I will have to twitch things back and forth to get it perfect. Though can I make the grid smaller?’ As smartphones had taught him, he poked two spots and then pinched his mental fingers.

Good news is he was able to use his skill. Bad news is this just deformed the cube and did not change the grid size. More pokes later only results in a messed up cube. Doyle figures it out soon after though. The grid worked on the same controls his previous skills, imagination. With that he can soon change it up with a triangle based grid and some wireframe sculptures. ‘This will be a great help with planning out stuff’.

Done playing with the grid he moves on to merging cubes into the floor. This shift from playing to work definitely had nothing to do with Ally’s scowl as she taps her foot on the floor. It seems being able to deform the cube tipped her off that he had figured out how to use the skill. Yes, best to ignore her so he can focus on the cubes.

First, he flattens one. It doesn’t merge with the floor so he stops when it has more in common with a pancake than a cube. A couple pokes at the plate just deforms the floor as well. This has the amusing affect where the plate gets raised up like a small table when the room fixes itself. Not merging though so he continues. To be a bit more cautious and not rupture his core room's wall he tries to put two cubes together.

Turns out the skill is still very intent based despite what Ally had said. Likely just a matter of either the system being used or some things being more instinctual for normal dungeons. After all, think of how hard it would be to explain breathing to someone who doesn’t even have lungs.

Once he has the right combination of the intent to combine and the desire to compress the process goes smoothly. One cube combines with another leaving the second cube looking almost the same but with twice the mass. The only visual difference was the grains of mineral in the stone had shrunk. This actually disappointed Doyle, he had liked the courser pattern. A few more combined cubes and he can’t seem to stop this change.

After some consideration Doyle decides he could figure out a way to prevent this. However he has also figured out a better option. Maybe later on when his skill levels slower he can come back to this but for now a simple facade will do. He shrinks one of the combined cubes by a smidge and creates a coating of stone over the outside. The test cube now restored to its original appearance.

The test cube does however tick him off and it takes some investigation to figure out why. Despite the cube appearing to be normal the inner and outer parts are still separate. On a human level this doesn’t bother Doyle that much but something about his dungeon core side can not stand this. It is easy enough to fix though as just a touch of territory control welds the two pieces together as if they had always been a single piece.

This annoyance spurs him to try something else with creation. It would annoy him if every time he made a facade he would have to go and fuse it afterwards. So Doyle takes a few moments to see if he can create material pre-fused. Though now that he actually intends for it to happen it does. This ease of use makes him question how much other control skills rely on intent without people realizing it but he doesn’t have a way to find out.

Plus at this point Ally figures he has practiced it enough and speaks up. “Okay, you figured out how to combine stuff so how about you work on doing so with the walls? It might not be any harder in theory but you have to make sure the material is dispersed. One section of wall be extra dense doesn’t do you much good if invaders can go a couple feet to the side and dig through there. So many young dungeon cores fall prey to the illusion that a strong door will keep anything out. Only for them to be disabused of this notion by a dwarf with a pick.”

“Not saying your doors and their frames shouldn’t be marginally tougher than the walls. Adventurers have the same hang-ups with trying to go through them first as well so a little investment isn’t bad. Just don’t make diamond doors while you make your walls of chalk or some other silly combo.” Ally now having said her piece goes back to using a few of the blocks to build things.

Doyle on the other hand is back to work. Once again not wanting to mess with the walls the test cubes come in handy again. It seemed like he had it down already but a quick test proves him wrong. Up till now he had used cubes of matching sizes so it seemed the mass was evenly spread. However when he compressed one cube down to half the volume and stuck it in another Doyle notices, he was wrong. The only part of the bigger cube that had a greater density was where the smaller cube would have ended up.

He tries to swirl the mass around but that doesn’t work. Well, it sort of works except it causes the same mental twinge that the un-melded facade did. Now though he knows what the twinge is and lets it guide him. The mixed up cube seems to be mixed but in reality his dungeon senses can tell otherwise. There are denser sections mixed with regular rock and on some level that just will not do.

Doyle figures since his dungeon side knows what is wrong it might also know how to fix it. He lets go and relaxes. In fact, as he does he realizes this is the first time since he has had his own territory that everything isn’t being held in place by his will. A sense of relief washes over him. As if he had been flexing his leg and a doctor had been attempting to get a response from him with that little rubber mallet.

Now that he has let go a few things all happen at once. First is that the facades he had done all melded on a deeper level. Instead of being welded each connection turns into a smooth density gradient. In fact, now that he has relaxed he can tell that those welds he had done were bothering him like the mixed up cube had, just not to such an extent. Speaking of the mixed up cube that was also fixed. Though instead of a gradient the density of the cube equalized.

The most important change however was the one that happened between him and Ally. Before he relaxed, there was a connection but it had felt like they being handcuffed together. Now though it is as if the link melded into his soul like how the facade combined to the cube. No longer is it him and Ally but rather they. Ally was still Ally just like the facade still kept the amazing patterns. Doyle was still Doyle, keeping his inner strength like the cube had stayed dense. Together though they were the dungeon and he had to wonder how some cores went without a companion.

To say that Ally noticed this change is an understatement. She knocks the block tower she was working on over as she sprawls out. She stares at the ceiling in a daze and asks, ‘What was that?’ Doyle absentmindedly combines one cube with the floor and answers that, ‘I relaxed for the first time.’ Ally snorts, ‘this is a bit more than relaxation, mister. In fact, it feels an awful lot like how a soulbond would. We were already companions so this really shouldn’t have happened.’ She lazily waves her hand in the air and calls up her status panel.

{Name: Ally Huxley

Race: Autumn Court Dungeon Fae

Soulbond: Doyle Huxley

Paths: Dungeon Companion I 10/10, Fae Magic I 10/10, Autumn’s Jester 3/100

Level: 10

S[12] A[9] C[12] I[15] W[7] P[9] D[7] K[18] L[10]

Skills: Tutor lv10, Fae Glamor lv10, Courtly Manners lv3}