Interlude: Vysala

Vysala made it all the way back to the tower before the shakes started. She paused and took a deep breath, willing her hands to stillness. It didn’t work at first. It took a few more breaths to still them.

Tame demons.

That thought ricocheted through her head like a poorly aimed arrow. She’d barely taken the time to finish the Copper advancement before running back to the tower, but Zaria had insisted - and been right to do so. There was no reason to believe anything would go immediately wrong, but just in case, Vysala needed every bit of strength she could have. She took a moment to organize her thoughts and get the initial reaction under control.

The antechamber of the Tower was an imposing place. It had been built that way - back in the days when the Coven had been hunted, the rooms on either side of the great oak door behind her would be filled with Bronzes, ready to unleash on any fool who tried to walk through the door uninvited. Now, Cestmir would spot any threat to the Coven miles before it arrived and security was not as omnipresent - instead, people just worked near enough they could arrive if needed.

That didn’t change that Vysala was keenly aware she was standing in what was a fancy killbox. Probably not the best place to try to wrangle her emotions. She pulled herself together and went further in, her mind racing.

There had been an uneasy truce between the Coven and Reclaimers for some time now. Individual members could and would come to blows, but the groups as a whole wouldn’t engage in large-scale actions. That was entirely because neither side had a clear path to a quick victory - and a prolonged campaign would have left the edgelands to be overrun by demons. But if the Reclaimers could bind the demons - that changed everything.

It wasn’t until she was on the soft moss in the next room that she felt some measure of calmness. The smell was like coming home. The first three floors of the tower were all like this, floors covered by a moss the Coven carefully cultivated to serve as a natural carpet. The walls here were not lit by torched, but by a different species of moss that let off an ethereal blue glow that Vysala had always loved. Both these mosses were critical for Wyrdcores who dabbled in alchemy and potions to make their concoctions, and their abundance was both practical and comforting.

A few novices cast Vysala sideways glances and stepped around her, their conversation dying down until they were well past her. She’d been gone for quite some time, so the reaction couldn’t have been based on who she was. They wouldn’t know her. But yet… the tension was there. Vysala had noted it earlier, during her debrief, but now it was nearly palpable.

With that, she headed to Rahana’s office. Befitting her station, Rahana had an office near the top of the Tower. There was a dedicated lift to reach the Commander’s office, although it required Vysala pass through a checkpoint to confirm she had relevant information.

Lurbok was at the checkpoint right now. Good. He would listen to her. “I need to see the Commander,” Vysala said. “Zaria has obtained information that is of critical importance.”

“Vys?” He looked her up and down. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Worse,” Vysala said. “I have information that Rahana needs to hear.” She stressed the word. “It’s about the Reclaimers.”

Lurbok immediately went stiff. “Is there an imminent threat?”

Vysala shook her head. “Thankfully not that. But Zaria has seen…” A group of novices walked by the checkpoint. Vysala cut herself off before saying something they shouldn’t hear and waited for them to pass. Still, more would come at any moment. “Zaria has seen a possible change in the nature of the conflict with the Reclaimers. She was able to scry them.”

Lurbok chewed his lip for a moment. “Rahana gave me very specific instructions. Aren’t you supposed to be with the yaga right now, anyway?”

Vysala took a deep breath and bit back a swear. As much as she preferred to be direct, she had to at least acknowledge that she was a freshly minted Copper, and had no actual station yet. “I am. I came here because Zaria learned information. Penara is back in Wisphame.”

“And she didn’t send the information through Cestmir why?” Lurbok asked.

“Because I told her I’d bring it. Because it’s not an imminent threat.” Vysala took another deep breath. “Lurbok. It’s me. You know she’ll want to see me, and you know I wouldn’t be talking out of turn about this.”

“I do,” Lurbok said, his bureaucratic stiffness fading. “But Rahana didn’t give me an exception for you. Imminent threats only. And I hear you and her had quite the conversation.” Now there was a slight note to his voice that made Vysala pause. She needed to listen to everything he said. Lurbok stood up and glanced out into the hallway. “Didn’t she forbid you from bonding with the yaga?”

Vysala grimaced. “She told you that?”

“She did,” Lurbok said. “Any guesses why?”

“I… hesitate to say,” Vysala said.

Lurbok nodded. “And your information would - how did you put it? It would change the conflict with the Reclaimers, yes?”

Vysala’s forehead furrowed. This wasn’t like Lurbok at all. “Yes. Which is why it’s important that-”

Lurbok cut her off with a motion of his hand. This time, it wasn’t a novice passing by. A wizened old Bronze, someone who had come to their Wyrdcore later in life, one of the archivists. Lurbok watched him pass before continuing. “Vys. Whatever you saw, let me ask you - do you have more proof than the dungeon’s word?”

“I saw it myself. It’s complicated how.”

Lurbok pursed his lips. “So it’s still just words. What you and she saw.”

Vysala opened her mouth to respond, then caught herself. “It is an extraordinary claim,” Vysala said, realization hitting.

“An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof,” Lurbok responded. He studied her face for a moment, then nodded. Then glanced back into the corridor once more, before returning to his desk. “Vys. You’ve been away for a while. There’s a lot going on. A great deal is precarious right now. A bombastic piece of news about our greatest adversary, dropped on her desk? Without proof, right now, it could tear the Tower apart. But with proof? It could unify us in ways we haven’t been since the first Fissure opened.”

Vysala nodded slowly. “Crawling balls of the Vermin King, how much am I missing?”

Some of the tension left Lurbok’s shoulder. “You mentioned divine genitalia. Good. You’re thinking again. To answer your question - a great deal,” Lurbok said. “And it’s best you don’t get involved. Right now? Most people remember you as a promising novice who went to serve a year as an Edgeguard at Tin - and returned alive, unlike almost everyone else who took that role.”

“It was a near thing,” Vysala said. “It would have been better if the Coven had sent any of the backup I requested to train some new defenders up - or accepted any of my requests to train up some new defenders in Cestmir.”

“It would have been.” Lurbok nodded. “But we weren’t able to. And as terrible as that was - it’s an asset to you now. No one thinks you’re involved in any of what’s going on. Because you’re not. And if compelled, you can truthfully say you’re not. You’re untainted by… the things that are happening here. So right now, you’re one of the few people every one would trust. Rahana’s greatest detractors will be suspicious - but if she’s rightfully furious at you for rejecting a direct order…”

Vysala rubbed her forehead. “Then it’s easier to convince people I am clear of this. Because this is. Shit on a grave, Lurb. This is why I left the Tower in the first place. You know that, right? I was sick to death of this bullshit.”

“Exactly,” Lurbok said. “And you’re not being entangled in it. Just do what you were going to do. Respond to what the dungeon saw as you wanted to. And when you have proof… then bring it here, and we’ll handle ‘this bullshit.’”

“Fine,” Vysala said.

Lurbok relaxed fully. “I do hope you find the proof, Vysala. We need to show that these ‘dirtworlders’ are playing both sides.”

“Of course,” Vysala said, shaking her head. Her annoyance at the stupid games of the Tower was so great, it took her a moment to register Lurbok’s words. “Lurb?” she asked, getting his attention back. “What the fuck is a dirtworlder?”

Chapter 23

It was a long walk to the tower and back, apparently. Long enough for two full groups to run the dungeon why Zaria waited. The groups today were much more cautious than the previous day. One of them cleared the dungeon pretty smoothly. The other had a near wipe when Rav popped up and caught them off guard in the second room. No one died, only because of the healer’s quick work, but their tank nearly lost a foot to Rav’s jaw, and they retreated.

Both of them were inside Zaria long enough to push her over the edge.

Congratulations! Advancement to Copper 1 Available. Select Capstone to Advance.

The words flashed in her vision. Zaria had hoped that Vysala would be back before this happened, but the Witch had said before she left that Zaria needed to advance the moment she could. Zaria had agreed. They needed to be ready to move without whatever force the Coven sent to back them up.

So, now that the option was there, Zaria took a quick moment to prepare. She slammed the doors to her dungeon shut, and quickly scrawled on the door. “Advancement in progress. Runs will be closed for the day.” The next group griped and moaned about it, but they had seen the last group to leave with their tank limping terribly even after being healed, so they didn’t fuss too much.

Zaria dissolved the crystal ball around her core, carefully dropping herself into the Babamorph’s hands, and placed her core on the table. Apparently, advancement would come with some increase in size, and she didn’t want to find out the hard way the crystal ball’s pressure could crush her.

Then she focused on the words Bigger On the Inside.

Warning! This action will cost 25% of your Core Stability. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N.

Zaria double checked. She was sitting at a comfortable 73%, with what she’d spent respawning mobs and various dungeon maintenance. Glad she could take the hit to her Stability - it would have been annoying as hell to be this close to advancement and then find out she couldn’t advance yet - Zaria selected yes.

Her core stability plummeted down to 48%, the lowest it had been so far. The sensation was horrific, something like being cracked in half and then reformed, and her entire dungeon trembled around her, rattling walls and shaking her to her core.

Then, a moment later, the sensation passed, and Zaria sat on the table. Her Babamorph looked down at her, and through those eyes, Zaria could see her core had nearly doubled in size. More notifications flashed in front of her eyes, but Zaria could only note them.

Bigger on the Inside was taking effect.

The sensation was borderline impossible to describe. Language hadn’t needed terms for it before. The best she could manage was the sensation of breathing out, compressing her chest, while at the same time something inside pushed her organs outwards - yet didn’t cause any tightness against the skin. It wasn’t painful, exactly. Just strange.

Zaria left the Babamorph and moved her vision into the dungeon as a whole. It was more important that she saw the changes.

The hallway at the top of the stairs elongated outwards, nearly doubling almost instantly, yet the three doors attached to that hallway didn’t move at all - just added length. Those rooms underwent a more radical transformation - they grew in all four directions, in a way that should have caused them to overlap with each other, but instead created more space between them. Zaria had to pull her senses back from the walls, because if she pressed against them too hard, there was a disorienting feeling of being in two rooms at once - twice, then four times, then eight. Like standing between two mirrors and then looking at the endless echoes simultaneously.

As long as she didn’t press her vision against the walls, however, she could retain her omnipresent awareness of the dungeon. Which was good because the first floor was shifting as well. The expansion was most noteworthy in the Kitchen. Here, as the room expanded in all directions, new cabinets split off from the existing ones along the wall. She’d had four, and by the time the process was done, she now had eight. The table in the middle of the room looked almost pathetically small by comparison.

The changes to the living room and closet were less dramatic. Both rooms were just larger in all directions. But the stairs were something else. As before, they travelled upwards, stopping at the second floor, but then curved back up to a trapdoor. It should have led to the attic. But there was no corresponding spot for it. Instead, there was just a… hollow space. A void. The potential for expansion, but with no actual rooms built. Just an emptiness that begged to be filled.

A third floor, all ready to go.

Zaria shivered in excitement, and the rooms jostled about. Instinctively, she knew that if someone were to break the wall between rooms - an arduous task, to be sure - it would make a portal to the next room. As complex and strange as these empty and overlapping spaces felt from her overview perspective, to any mortal wandering her halls, it would look exactly like what it said - that she was just bigger on the inside.

For now. But that empty, formless space that was begging for a third floor - there was a potential there. She could do something with that. Already she decided to only mostly use it. But she’d keep a small space of that emptiness to experiment with. There was a sense of being able to do something with it. Use it.

She just didn’t know how yet.

Satisfied with how she’d changed, Zaria finally looked at the notifications and pulled up her stats:

Name: Zaria

Theme: Mimics

Maximum Mimic Size: Medium

Minimum Mimic Size: Small

Tier: Copper

Rank: One

Mana: 200 / 200 (50 devoted to Cauldron)

Regeneration: 20 / Hour (1 / Minute to Cauldron)

Regen Bonus for Upkeep: 0 / 0

Command: 40/40

Region Map: [View]

Rooms | Mobs | Upgrade | Core Stability Logs

Core Stability: 43%

UNLOCKS

Feature Unlocked: Safe Spawning. (For advancing to Copper, you may spawn 2 new base mimic types and one Boss mimic type without spending any of your Core Stability.)

Feature Unlocked: These Legs were Made for Running (Your base land speed is increased by 20%)

Feature Unlocked: Broader Talons (Your talon damage is increased 50%, and your feet have become wider, allowing you to support a more expansive dungeon.)

Bigger on the Inside: You have selected Bigger on the Inside. Influence held inside your dungeon was converted into extra space automatically, increasing your interior space by 97%. You may now expand internal Area of Influence. Current limitation: Interior space cannot exceed exterior by more than 200%. Select upgrades or advance to increase this threshold!

Zaria mentally whistled. She already had one new room to build - the space at the end of her hallway would get a room that was just for a few extra ovens, to find her command limits. She got to work on it immediately, excited for the possibilities, and eager to test out her new powers. She got to work, almost immediately losing track of the time.

“Zaria!” Vysala shouted from the porch. Zaria had just finished the third oven, increasing her total command to a nice round one hundred. “Glad to see you advanced. Let me in?”

Instead of opening the door, Zaria extended a ladder down from the attic for Vysala. She didn’t want the Witch to wander through a place with potential paths to empty, formless voids. Once Vysala was present, Zaria slid into the Babamorph. “I notice a distinct lack of backup.”

“We’re not getting any. They didn’t know about the demons and don’t want to know. Apparently, there’s also something called a fucking dirtworlder. All I know about them are they are humans, and they are definitely not demonic. They have strange devices, and that’s how we’ll know them.” Vysala grimaced. “Also, they have weapons called gums or gonnes or something that fire metal slugs faster than crossbow bolts. So that’s something fun to look forward to.” The witch ran her fingers through her hair. “I saw you advanced. That’s good. I can try to catch you up on the details. There’s weird politics happening in the Tower. Did you want to let a couple more groups through?”

Zaria shook her head. “I’m tired of waiting. There are mysteries. You and I? You have a spork and I have a bunch of angry boxes. We can solve mysteries by smashing through things and pick up the pieces. Let’s go. I can finish my preparations on the way - and we can catch each other up on everything that changed.”

Vysala looked relieved and nodded. “I’m ready to be done with the bullshit. Straight forward fight. Let’s go.”

Zaria stood up and shot a quick telepathic message to Cestmir. He wished her luck, and she turned back to Vysala. “Oh, and also?” she said. “Want to help me figure out what to make my new mimics?”

Vysala grinned. “I’d love to.”