"Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Tom Lehrer

“Skills make all the difference. Prospectors will find gold in the same stream where all others find only mud."

An Adventurer's Guide to Prosperity

Quest Complete

Route: Freedom

Method: Deception

Initial Difficulty Assessment: Severe

Deception Bonuses:

+ Quick Completion

+ Initial Escape Unnoticed

- Damaged (Deduction Removed: Damage Integral to Escape)

+ Evaded Active Detection

+ Difficulty Level Escalated During Escape

+ No Escape Specific Skills Purchased

+ Low Level

+ Escaped on First Attempt

Rewards: Severe, Upgraded to Titanic with Bonuses

Hidden (Reward Deferred)

All Skills Start at Level II

Current Skills Below II Raised to Level II

Skills and Abilities Returned

Destructive Assimilation II

Matter Fabrication II

Found Dungeon

Some formerly disabled abilities are now available for purchase.

Title Gained

Escape Artist IV (Deception)

You are a master of stealth and misdirection. No one notices your escape until you are long gone.

+750 AP (50, 100, 200, 400)

Learn abilities focused on deception much faster, or purchase them much cheaper. (-20% cost)

Your Aura cannot be traced back to your core by anyone without a stronger detection title.

Destructive Assimilation II

Disintegrate an object, plant, creature, etc... to gain knowledge of its component parts. More complicated materials and enchanted items may require analyzing more than one sample.

Matter Fabrication II

Use mana to reconstruct items analyzed with Destructive Assimilation. Creating materials without an associated skill will be far more mana intensive. Some creations will require more than raw mana.

Current Associated Skills: Earth Manipulation

Found Dungeon

Instantly create a dedicated dungeon space to attract adventurers. Subsections may be used to create separate areas with different properties. Dungeon areas are inherently easier for you to control. Only one dungeon may currently exist at a time, your previous one must be removed to found a new one. Founding a dungeon heals a damaged core.

My mind reeled under the assault of this sudden barrage of information. My aura billowed outwards, no doubt a consequence of my new Aura Mobility II. Despite my momentary disorientation I was quite pleased with my new abilities. There had definitely been things lacking from my abilities before, and it looked like I had the proper tools to make a dungeon now. My musings were promptly cut short by the next notification.

Warning - Core Unstable!

You have received massive damage to your core. You have 2 hours to found a dungeon to heal in or you will receive further damage.

Shit. There was absolutely no way that I wanted to build a dungeon right next to Tam. I had a hard time escaping the first time. If he found me again… yeah, going to avoid that. Thinking about Tam felt odd. Huh, almost no pulse of anger from Exsan.

Was he quiescent because I was free now? Or was that a side effect of the core being damaged? Ha, maybe it damaged our connection. Talk about silver linings…

For the moment I considered what new options were available for purchase. With a new level in learning everything was even cheaper to purchase, an additional 5% removed from the costs. And as promised, there were new purchases showing up. They were mostly variations on each other, actually. For the first time there were a few one time use purchase options. All of them were related to teleportation. I could do a random teleportation, teleport to a generic place suitable for a dungeon, teleport somewhere that I already knew, or…

I stopped, carefully reading over the last option that was available for purchase. It was expensive, at least by my current standards, and that was for a single use. I could barely afford it, and only because I gained an extra 750 ability points and Learning II.

I brought up my status and a little timer was ticking down in it. I had a little less than two hours to decide, and I needed to make the most of this time, so I started to move upwards.

I decided to test my new abilities along the way. I would check any skill changes later, though I could already tell one thing had changed. My passive mana generation had doubled. Presumably that was from Soul Mana II.

I found my journey stopping abruptly, despite my original intention when I reached out and used Destructive Assimilation on the stone around me.

Taste. Texture. Joy.

I hadn’t eaten anything other than mana for weeks, but it now became clear that I was supposed to have more. A tiny bit of stone dissolved and I could actually taste it. It tasted… actually about how I thought stone should taste. Mineral and metallic, and I could feel the texture of it crunching as it dissolved, like a piece of hard candy cracking between my teeth.

If I had been human I would have called the flavor disgusting. Apparently my sense of taste was altered with my change in form, because I found the rich complexity of the stones composition delicate and refreshing. And as I consumed other pieces of stone, the faint differences of flavor came in simultaneously with information on how to recreate the stone.

So I did.

It was easy. I replaced the small pieces that I had taken and the edges slotted into place naturally, creating a fully natural pattern. Earth manipulation slotted perfectly into Matter Fabrication and it was cheaper and easier than it had ever been. I could tell that these were a gestalt ability, the two halves doing far more together. I could only roughly sense the patterns that made the stone. I understood no molecular or atomic information, let alone anything deeper than that. However, I could tell that the pattern held more underneath. Perhaps one day I would be able to reach that far.

Eager to try new flavors I threw myself upwards through the stone. I tried the different strata of stone and savored all the subtle variations, with the occasional major differences of new types. In a gluttonous haze I rose upward for a good ten minutes until I felt something new.

I could feel flowing water. As I rose further I could tell it was more than that. I was obviously a sewer system. Faded brick walls, spotted with the occasional bright repair, held up against the solid stone of the ceiling. The stone beneath the water was solid and unmarked.

Was the floor made with magic, or just old enough that the water had removed any tool marks?

I couldn’t feel any light, though everything in my aura was crystal clear. The water was a haze of mana, though I could see insects and tiny fish outlined in the haze. Along the bottom of the sewer were small creatures that looked like they belonged in the ocean. They were small hardened cones attached to the stone under the water. From the top extended slightly fuzzy tentacles that would wave with the movement of the water and periodically curl back upward into the shell, only to extend again a moment later. They looked like a type of filter feeder to me. And there were others too. Fans and tubes, that grabbed at the water as it passed. Everywhere I examined the water became more and more alive. And when I focused on the water the haze resolved into countless tiny critters that looked like jellyfish, insects, and more.

This… this was a full ecosystem. A complete balanced biosphere. How long would a city need to exist for an ecology like this to evolve from a sewer? I could not even imagine. And it would need to stay in more or less constant use too, or the ecosystem would die out.

Many creatures adapted to human cities back home, but nothing on this scale. This system was like a cross between an ocean reef and a cave. It was beautiful and insane.

Somewhere along the line I had made a mistake. My experiences with Tam had exposed me to a whole two type of living creatures, other than dungeons: Mice-bugs and humans. Some part of me had looked at the game interface for the world and made the assumption that this world’s life was simplified. Nothing could be farther from the truth, this tiny system was as complex as any from Earth.

I looked at the water with wonder, though it was tinged with a certain dubious dread. There were some fantastic reasons for consuming some, but… it was sewer water, and I was going to taste it. If I didn’t taste what I dissolved then I wouldn’t have even bothered to hesitate. Still, water was essential to life. And some of the creatures might be very useful. There was a fully functional ecosystem here, not acquiring it was stupid and wasteful. Okay, I only have two hours, do it.

I sighed and started. To my relief it did not taste bad. It tasted organic in the same way that decomposing leaves smell of sweet cinnamon decay and new earth.

As I drank the water my mind opened. The water was simple. A clear signal that rang in my mind like a single pure note. However, it was surrounded by a symphony. Thousands, millions, of uncountable patterns swirled with unfathomable complexity. They were layered over each other and growing ever more complex as I consumed more. Overwhelmed it took a few moment before I came back to myself.

What was that?

I could see vague shapes in my mind. I was getting impressions of what the completed products would look like. A rod and a tail, others with wiggling… wait. I know what this is. Bacteria. They seemed to be even more complex than all rest of the biosphere. I couldn’t make out any particular separation between the various patterns of bacteria. If I was going to make them, they would all be made together. And there were other things in the water too. Complex molecular shapes perhaps, there was not enough information to say. I could see the various simple bits of stone and other things dissolved into the water as clearer signals.

Something was wrong though. All the living creatures I could see with my senses continued on undisturbed. None of them had been absorbed. I focused on a small tentacle cone and tried to absorb it. Nothing happened no matter how hard I tried. Were living organisms completely immune? Had I simply absorbed dead bacteria? There would be absolutely no shortage of that in the water. Or maybe it was a matter of size? I concentrated again, this time focusing on a tiny jellyfish, smaller than a mote of dust.

At first I thought that nothing was happening. However, as continued my intense focus on it, its mana drew dimmer, brighter, and then dimmed again. The mana throbbed pulsing faster and faster. Finally the mana winked out and the jellyfish vanished like a soap bubble. Again, information flooded my mind and I knew the creature inside and out. It joined with disjointed information that was already present. Apparently tiny traces of the jellyfish had been absorbed from the water, but not nearly enough to do anything with. I knew that I could create it, now. Admittedly creating a tiny jellyfish smaller than people would even be able to see was not exactly going to inspire terror. It was a start though.

I took a look at my mana. Damn, are you kidding me? It had actually taken two mana to break the creature down. This was definitely not the most efficient way to harvest anything. I considered for a moment. It didn’t look like any defenses remained once they were dead, so I would just need to find a way to kill everything. I should presumably get all the patterns from the DNA and cellular residue that would be left behind. Well… no way to know until I tried it.

My thoughts turned to murder. What was the most efficient way to kill everything in a specific section of the sewer? When I tried to move the stone directly under the water I felt it resisting. It still worked, but the closer I tried to manipulate near the stone, the more it cost. The range restriction was not very far, but trying to manipulate anything within a few inches of the water quickly became prohibitively expensive.

Let’s see, I could create stone to cut off the water and “drown” them all with air. Or I could push stone in from the walls, though the restriction would make it expensive. No… it was probably best to simply overwhelm them with sheer force.

I lifted my crystal up farther, bringing the entirety of the stone walls and the ceiling several feet into my aura. There proved to be a small amount of resistance there, likely from the small insects and fungus I could feel on it, but it was much easier than near the water. With a quick destruction of the stone I formed a rectangle of stone. It was about a dozen feet long and smaller than the width of the sewers by several inches on each side. I started to cut the stone free from the top. I started from the inside and worked out. I stopped when I could feel the tension in the stone reach a peak. Several inches of stone remained attached to the ceiling all around the sides, forming a hollow rectangle. Then I used a trick I had learned from making sculptures and worked on all the remaining stone simultaneously. I hollowed it out until it was porous, making the connecting stone weaker and weaker. Finally, a sharp crack rang out and it came loose. A block of stone weighing multiple tons plummeted towards the water waiting below.

The intricate ecosystem waiting below didn’t have time to react before it was obliterated. The giant block of stone only fell a short distance, but gravity had already decided it was going to move and it could not be denied. Upon hitting the water a shock wave of pressure propagated outwards. It claimed the first victims as organisms ruptured under the pressure differential. The stone had lost some of its momentum, the water carrying it away in a thunderous rush, but it hit the bottom only moments later. Shells and living tissue alike ground down to a thin paste beneath the inexorable weight.

I was simultaneously delighted and mildly sickened by the gore. Mana poured into me as I focused on sucking it up from the deaths, and it was deeply appreciated, but I did slightly regret the loss of life. Well, no sense letting it go to waste. I absorbed the paste under the stone and where it had been extruded from the sides. For a timeless moment I was lost to sensation. The flavors were intoxicating. Obviously living things were the most satisfying meal for me. It tasted of umami, the bold savory flavor of flesh, and the vibrant mineral tastes of salt, marrow, and bone.

And information flowed.

Taste and a flood of information. All other thoughts were swept away. I tried my best to comprehend what I was learning even as I felt it slot into place and become something I could use. Even with many trains of thought simultaneously brought to bear, I could only catch tiny flash: A vast intricate assemblage, perhaps a protein, parts of cells that looked vaguely familiar, and dual helical strands of DNA that stretched to infinity in both directions, or DNA that was folded and folded again into intricate knots. Gradually, as I absorbed all that I could, I became aware of the creatures that I could create, but even the simplest of living things had unimaginable amounts of detail. For all my clumsy attempts to grasp and recreate what I absorbed, I remained like a man making a sculpture. Everything was only surface level.