Something kept flashing on the edges of my vision. It wasn’t so much that it disappeared and came back entirely, like a lightswitch being flipped on and off, but more like it was constantly fluctuating. A dull throbbing, or at least what felt like a throbbing, pulsed through my everything as I forced my consciousness to kick start its engines.

Ignoring the discomfort I felt I opened my metaphorical eyelids and took in my surroundings. The packed dirt beneath my pedestal, the roughly hewn walls that surrounded me made of a mixture of rocks and more dirt. I seemed to be in a small room relatively close to the surface, if the presence of various roots and dangling fibrous tendrils was any indicator. My limited knowledge in relation to plants told me absolutely nothing about exactly how deep that was, but it couldn’t have been too far down.

Based on my current existence, lacking as I was in the arms and legs department, and the enclosed nature of the room meant I was, for lack of a better phrase, up shit creek. Even if I had a paddle I had no arms to use it with anyway, so I would be screwed either way.

Perhaps this was Hell? An eternal torment of knowing I was physically incapable of escaping an incredibly boring room even if I had the tools with which to do so? That didn’t feel quite right.

Also, how did I know what Hell was? I could picture a fiery hellscape filled with winged demons with pitchforks endlessly poking bigwig CEO’s who’d embezzled millions of dollars into freely handing out cash to small orphaned children. It was incredibly surreal, but I had no frame of reference for why I knew what Hell was. Yes, it was a part of a major religion called Christianity, which also had a heaven where all the doggos were sent, but why did I know that?

To add to that, I realized I had no idea where any of my knowledge came from. Like, I knew what a dog looked like, I knew what they evolved from, I knew what evolution was, and I knew a whole bunch of other things that just kind of… existed in my head.

After plundering the depths of my head multiple times I learned absolutely nothing new.

Which was great and all, but I was really hoping for a hint that would help me figure out where I was and how I’d gotten here. I also had the vague sense that I wasn't supposed to see in a full 360 degree radius around me at the same time and perceive every inch of the walls surrounding me simultaneously.

Perhaps it had something to do with this memory of a thing called eyes? They were supposed to focus in one direction and on one thing at a time… Maybe I once had eyes? Who knows, because I certainly don’t. Oh, speaking of noses, I didn’t smell anything. Which seemed odd, I expected to be able to smell the rich scent of earth surrounding me, but instead I got… Not nothing, but certainly not what I expected.

There was an undercurrent of something, but whatever it was my senses weren’t good enough to tell me what it was. Whatever it might be it also definitely didn’t fit into my definition of a smell. It was like… If feelings could be smelled! Like when you go on a school field trip to a cave and after a few minutes inside you realize the many, many tons of rocks that are suspended above your head by seemingly nothing that could potentially fall and crush your rather squishy head into paste?

Like that, except I smelled it! Which meant it didn’t really smell like anything at all, but nonetheless I perceived it drifting on invisibile currents as it drifted throughout my room.

Not that specific feeling I mentioned either, though that could possibly be the case (though I somewhat doubted that) but something other. Something my spotty memories had no frame of reference for.

Something new, how exciting!

[System Initialized.]

…

[Final Setup Complete.]

…

[Dungeon Core System Loaded.]

…

[Bootup Sequence Initialized.]

…

…

…

[Please Wait For Starting Options.]

Something else I had no idea about! So many new things to discover. How thrilling! And apparently I got to use some sort of system? And a Dungeon core? What's that?

I suppose if it's referring to me then I’m the dungeon core… I certainly look like the core of something. From my perspective granted to me from the walls of my prison I could see what I intrinsically knew was me, I could examine myself.

I floated above a basic stone pedestal, with a distinct lack of ornamentation or decoration, something I would strive to fix at a later date. I was, apparently, a decently sized gem of what looked like Quartz. I wasn’t exactly see-through, but I wasn’t entirely opaque either, a warm light gently pulsing inside of me. I realized this is what I had seen earlier - my own inner light refracting and diffusing into the room as it was filtered through my body.

How quaint, I was a fancy glowstick.

Back to this whole dungeon business, aren’t dungeons supposed to be filled with loot and monsters? I don’t remember anything about a core in reference to one though… My thoughts were briefly interrupted as I remembered something called a sigil stone, but I cast that aside as it was a fictional thing and certainly not something real, like I clearly was. Granted, dungeons were also never something that was supposed to be real, so maybe I should color my memories with a grain of salt, since obviously something had changed from wherever I'd gained them from.

[Initial Options]

[Please Choose a Starting Perk.]

To make sure the beginning of your Dungeon is successful you will be offered a choice of 3 random perks.

Choose one that best suits you.

Monster Hive:

The swarm of monsters shall never end and never be vanquished. Whether they be a horde of goblins or a veritable tide of killer ants, your monsters will consume all who set foot inside the Dungeon.

Gives a boost to Monster strength, numbers, and reduces promotion cost.

***

Trap Hell:

While you won’t boast the numbers or strength of the Monster Hive, the Trap Hell will bring wary adventurers to an early grave through trickery and deceit as the floor caves in below them, they are pulped by boulders, they break tripwires and learn what terror truly means. For the meticulous Dungeon Designer.

Gives a boost to trap amounts, strength, and lethality.

***

Life, Death, and Everything Between (RARE):

This rare perk grants small bonuses to Life and Death alignments, and you are more likely to receive perks based around them, both random bonuses and random choice. Because of the nature of both alignments and their relation to mana, you also receive increased mana generation.

Gives a boost to Life Mana Alignment, Death Mana Alignment, and Mana Regeneration.

There is a chance these options will appear later, and choosing one does not lock you out from picking another at a later date should it appear again.

…

So I’m definitely a Dungeon, capital ‘D’. And, if I’m reading these right, I get to… kill adventurers? That doesn’t sound good… In fact, that sounds like a great way to get myself killed. While I have some oddly disconnected memories that offer me no specific advice in regards to choosing one of the options, they do tell me that humans don’t exactly just let themselves die. Based on the descriptions, I’d have to set up something that would actively try to kill them, pitting my smarts and monsters against their wit and equipment.

But why would I want to do that?

[Adventurers that fight in your Dungeon offer you Experience, which can be used to further increase the power of your Dungeon. A much larger influx is provided upon an Adventurer’s death and fuels faster growth.]

Thank you… weird message box? I’m not sure what to call it, so I’ll just refer to him as Box. Also, while it didn’t explicitly state it, Box indicated I don’t have to kill anyone. I get the experience… No, that felt like a big ‘E’ Experience. I get the Experience from fighting with and killing adventurers.

The first two perks would leave me with very few options if I wanted to try and do something nice for humans. The Minion Hive might have some kind of option, possibly if I could get a high value monster to spawn in large numbers, but… I doubted that would be the case. Plus, high value often meant highly dangerous. Which would be even more so in a swarm variant.

Trap Hell I really saw no way in which I could do anything but murderize the living crap out of anything that walked into the dungeon. Even if the monsters were weaker, being worn down (or potentially much worse) by a metric boatload of traps was potentially even worse. Plus, who wants to come back to such a dungeon? Which meant I’d really need to kill them

Then there was the last option… The rare perk.

Life-Aligned mana sounded good. Even Death-Aligned Mana didn’t necessarily have to be bad per se, it could depend on how it was used. Like, if it was solely used to prevent food from rotting. Maybe keeping the Death Mana away would do something like that. The problem was, I simply didn’t know enough to do anything but guess at the possible outcomes of that, but even then I really only saw one real choice unless I wanted to fully commit to being a murder Dungeon.

Guess I’m going with Life, Death, and Everything Between.

Actually, regardless of whether I want to kill anyone or not, how the hell do I actually do this? I’m just a weird crystal sitting on a pedestal in a small room. How do I go from here to there? In answer to my silent question, Box provided an answer.

[First perk chosen. Activating full Dungeon Capabilities.]

That would definitely be a start, Box, thanks for the assist. As I thought that, I felt something tickle the back of my brain - like a feather gently brushing against my actual brain, not just a figure of speech. It felt mildly uncomfortable, and suddenly I grew. My awareness, previously just being a rather literal variant of ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ exploded with choices - and the strange ‘scent’ I had detected earlier suddenly became clear to me as new knowledge was forcibly shoved into my head.

I was smelling mana. With faint hints of Earth-Aligned Mana, which for my sanity I’m just going to call Earth Mana. Even lighter hints of Water Mana and a couple others I can’t identify. Beyond that, I suddenly know why I can see out of the walls - my own mana, which I can also now detect, is thoroughly coating everything inside the room. It hangs there, dense and nearly visible to the naked eye, the thing floating on invisible currents I suspected was there but couldn’t perceive earlier.

With my newfound sense and control, I began to push and pull at my newfound ‘limbs’. For it was with my mana that I could reshape the world - once saturated, the rock and dirt walls of my surroundings became like playdough in my hands. My metaphorical hands, anyway.

Tunnels began to emerge around me as I expanded, pushing the dense cloud of mana that pervaded my room outwards, coating more and more material and granting me a larger area of control. I played like that for some time, rejoicing in my ability to suddenly affect the world. I made another room, larger in size than my own, though due to my concerns about being too close to the surface I tunneled down a ways first. I swiftly encountered rock of some kind, but it gave way before me just as swiftly as dirt did.

I began to recreate certain things I remembered just to test my ability for fine detail. First I tried to move the rock I wanted to manipulate into place, but it just disappeared rather than doing what I wanted. I refilled the hole I’d suddenly made, almost by accident. I hadn’t realized my power came with the ability to generate matter as well.

Some part of my memories screamed that that wasn’t possible, but I ignored it. After all, they said a lot of this wasn’t possible, but obviously it was so they were wrong.

Stone flowed from the ground, becoming a finely detailed statue of a dog. Some kind of husky, my memories told me. It had long, coarse fur and a bushy tail. The entire thing was gray, however, and rather dull as a result. On a whim, I attempted to make its fur black with some white, and it immediately recolored itself at my command.

Granted, it was literally half black and half white, separated by a perfectly straight line going down the center, and I laughed internally at the rather silly appearance.

Some mental focus went into making individual sections of ‘fur’ change color, while keeping others a different color. It turned out my ability to manipulate matter was incredibly fine, and after creating about 50 hair-width strands of stone, I was able to paint them a variety of different colors. Turned out not to be every color, however, as what I was doing was less ‘coloring’ and more, ‘manipulating the stone into a different material’.

As I had inspected my now significantly more accurate ‘dog’ Box politely informed me of another skill of mine.

[Ability Gained:]

[Observe: Gain basic information about a target.]

It was hardly anything special, and all it really told me was that I was using marble and some form of basalt to color my doggo.

I was still able to coax out a variety of colors ranging from black, gray, red, brown, and many shades of those. I could potentially create metals and other materials found in the earth, though through yet another newly intrinsic form of knowledge, I learned they would be more mana-intensive.

Messing around with rock and all the subcategories that fall under that were practically free, but as things increased in ‘value’ for a general sense of the word, the mana cost increased as well. My memories said this was hardly a one to one ratio, and certain things when I ‘projected’ the mana cost, were relatively low in comparison to what I would have thought they would be, while some were higher.

Thinking rationally, this made sense, because if so many of my memories said certain things were impossible, then I likely was somewhere other than where those memories were gained, meaning the things people valued and used regularly were likely somewhat different.

Without more knowledge I would have to stick to guesswork, but I felt I was likely accurate to some degree.

I dissolved my doggo statue for now, its task having been completed, though I promised to bring him back again someday. All good Dungeons should have a proper doggo statue.

I refocused myself back into exploration - I had new ‘menus’ to explore as well but I was putting that off in case my now dispersed mana cloud had a timer on it before it dissipated or something. It could be a starter bonus for young dungeons so they could quickly expand, and I didn’t want to risk losing it just in case, as my attempt to reabsorb it had failed.

[Status]

Name: N/A

Status: Undamaged.

Mana: 15/25 (+12 per day)

I could quickly check my status whenever I wanted just by thinking about it. It was quite handy, and though I didn’t have a name I’d think of one later when I had a little more downtime. Also, I assumed my original starting mana per day was 10, but with the Life, Death, and Everything Between perk’s small bonus to regen I got two more. Whether it was a 20% bonus or a flat two I wasn’t sure, though it might be detailed in one of the menus I hadn’t looked at yet.

Continuing my expansion in the direction I’d arbitrarily chosen, as with the first room I’d made, I lowered my elevation slightly and constructed some supporting pillars of stone to ensure I didn’t cause a collapse of some sort. That would just be terrible.

I did spread my mana outwards much closer to the surface than I actually excavated, however, because it gave me a very good picture of what was there. I wanted to know if, due to the surface also changing in elevation, if I ever came too close to it.

In this process I accidentally uncovered a decent amount of insect life, namely worms. Apparently, I could, for lack of a better term, ‘eat’ certain things that were inside of myself. For clarification, I started referring to everything inside of my controlled mana as myself since I can see out of all of it like some sort of omniscient god. Just… a lot less powerful than a god. And there likely existed something that I wouldn’t be able to see, also rendering the omniscient title rather moot.

Anyway, the little bugs that wound up falling to the floor of my newly created rooms were rapidly hoovered up because apparently, that was how I got mana outside of my normal regeneration, which wasn’t particularly fast. The amount gained was small enough to mean I had to consume quite a few before I actually saw an actual mana point be awarded, but Box gave me a little more info.

[Information.]

[Should you gain mana in an amount less than a single point's worth, it will be recorded in a separate tally until that amount reaches at least one point and then will be discharged into your mana bank.]

Which was quite useful to know.

Also, as it turned out, mana was actually gained by the hour, but due to the small amount it simply recorded it as ‘per day’. I didn’t really get why, but it made it easier to see my initial mana bonus at work so I won’t complain too much. That means I currently generate a half a point of mana per hour. I imagine that’s not great, and I am actively holding myself back from looking at the windows I now have relating to monsters and traps so I don’t yet have to realize how painfully slow populating my dungeon will be.

Unless of course I get a regular source of mana to feed from? Like… Maybe if I find an underground river I could eat the wildlife from it? Try to keep their numbers regulated somewhat and use them as a source of regrowing mana? That might be an idea if I knew that underground rivers still existed (I assumed they did) and that any sort of fish or plant life existed in it (No assumptions from me there, this place could be populated by only weird monster-hybrids for all I know).

Things are gonna have to be taken on a case by case basis, but if I can, finding a regular source of mana would be good. Maybe once I find humans I can offer to trade with them? How I’ll do that, I don’t know. Could I communicate with them somehow? I probably won’t know until I meet one unfortunately.

Box also decided to helpfully chime in. He’s so smart.

[Information.]

[‘Rules’ are something Dungeons can use to increase the risk/rewards for adventurers. A ‘Rule’ is a guideline the adventurer must follow while inside the Dungeon. These can be anything, though it must be reasonably realistic. Extra rewards will be generated for those who follow the rules. Breaking them bars the violator from the Dungeon for a certain amount of time.]

Thanks Box, you’re the best.

That actually gave me a lot of ideas. After all, I assumed the Rule would be enforced on the dungeon too, which meant it was possible to enforce a ‘no killing’ rule though it might also do something like reducing rewards, since if ‘challenges’ were an option, ‘easy mode’ was possibly also an option.

So much potential…

I shook my metaphorical crystalline head. That was something to plan for later. I don’t even have a single monster, trap, or somehow lethal thing to defend myself with. What could I do currently, make a Rule forcing them to bring me bugs to eat in reward for viewing me in all my sparkly splendor? I guess that would technically work too and the adventurer would get something out of it, but I had no idea what… And I‘d rather be defensible than rely on the goodwill of others.

Back to expanding. I continued my expedition through the dirt and rock at a rapid pace, or at least, what from a human standpoint would be a rapid pace. Especially for something that required no maintenance or cleanup, it was quite nice. By the numbers, I was capable of spreading at about a rate of nearly 10 feet per minute. My ability to consume dirt and stone easily outpaced that, so a tunnel was carved just as fast as I could expand.

I’d gone nearly 300 feet in my randomly chosen direction before I encountered something new - above me. Still in the ground, but not far from where I predicted the surface was. As my mana infused the area, on reflex I began to consume what I detected was something I could eat. I didn’t get much in the way of mana, and moments later, I realized I should have let my mana expand a little farther so I could actually tell what the thing was.

[Rotted Pine Wood Consumed!]

[Decayed Silk Consumed!]

[New Construction Options Available!]

That bit was fine. Especially since I was pretty sure I could make wood now. It turns out the rotted pine wood was a box. A coffin, to be precise. And my greedy ass had eaten everything I could detect without thinking.

[Human Bones Consumed!]

[New Monster Options Available!]

[PERK ACTIVATION: Life, Death, and Everything Between.]

[Due to consuming the bones of a dead adventurer early on in your Dungeon’s existence, you have been granted a perk!]

[Perk Acquired: Death Is Not The End.]

[Death Is Not The End:]

The most common fate of an adventurer that falls inside a Dungeon is to be consumed by the monsters they were slain by, or maybe left strung up by the trap that gave them a few new holes. To the great vehemence of those that enter your Dungeon, however, Death Is Not The End.

Death-Mana Alignment Boost!

Your ability to use Necromancy, as well as the abilities of minions raised by or falling under the banner of Necromancy, is increased.

Oh no.

What have I done?

As another screen appeared before my eyes, I noted that good ‘ol Boxy was a cruel and capricious god.

[SYNERGY DETECTED!]

[Life, Death, and Everything Between // Death Is Not The End.]

Additional Power Granted to Death Is Not The End!

The bodies of adventurers you raise from the dead shall retain a significant portion of the power they held while they were alive, and their power level will also boost any skills they gain as an undead.

Example: A level 10 adventurer swordsmen will be granted {Blighted Strike: Lvl 2} instead of {Blighted Strike: Lvl 1}.

Wow.

Box, I think we need to have a long talk about what I’m trying to do here. Remember I said I’m going to try and make some kind of synergistic relationship with the humans, preferably? Like, ‘Hey, give me some things to eat and I’ll make sure you don’t die in this place and grow stronger!’ and now I’m like ‘Please die in my Dungeon so I can raise you to kill your friends to feed my ever growing army of stronger and stronger adventurer zombies!’.

Do you see the difference Box? DO YOU SEE IT?

Ugh… And now I’m arguing with something I’m pretty sure isn’t even capable of thought. In fact, I’m pretty sure whatever is going around popping messages out at me is just trying to make sure I don’t utterly fail at this whole ‘being a Dungeon’ thing right off the bat. Rather, it's directed by my thoughts and actions rather than being self-aware.

And if it is, I'm gonna find them, give them a pair of kickable genitalia if they don’t possess any, then proceed to abuse them just like they did to me. Turnabout is fair play, after all, and that feels about even.

As a side note, I seem to possess the ability to multitask quite well, as I continued to expand my mana throughout the entirety of my entire freakout. I wasn’t making any more tunnels or eating anymore worms or… other things, but I was expanding my awareness.

It seems I’ve discovered a graveyard, which makes sense seeing as to how I was just gnawing on some random saps phalanges! Luckily for me, I’d only started to consume the guy’s coffin right as it appeared in range, so I did little more than remove one end of his coffin and chew off a couple toe bones. No, I’m not happy about it. Could it have been worse?

Well, I would say no, but Box says otherwise. In relation to physical damage to the body, could it have been worse? Very much so.

What do I do with it now though? Do I just leave my tomb desecration as is, or do I try and fix it? I can make wood now… I think.

A quick test revealed wood costs virtually nothing, just like rock, and I can indeed create it.

Being able to create wood won’t exactly fix the ‘missing toes’ situation however. I’m also torn for another reason - if the perk activation is to be believed, then this was the body of an adventurer. Based on the rather complete lack of flesh, he’s been buried for quite a while. I also am in desperate need of something to protect my core with.

Being practical just makes sense - no I don’t want to make it a regular thing, but if he was strong… Then it might give me the advantage I need to survive. Since exactly what I would need to do that was just a bunch of giant question marks, the better prepared I was the happier I would be.

Plus he would just be a skeleton decked out in whatever I could throw him in, right? It’s not like anybody would be able to recognize him! It would be totally safe and nobody would be any the wiser unless they decided to dig up his grave. That wasn’t supposed to happen normally, so hopefully that would be a non-issue.

Also, in a very small corner of my mind that I refused to acknowledge or think about, it would be nice to have someone to talk to. Granted, I didn’t know whether the monsters I spawned would be able to talk or not, but from what I knew most lesser creatures of the variety I would likely have were probably not very intelligent…

And conversation required two active participants. At least, a conversation worth having was.

Box, how would I even go about raising the dead? I mean, I guess manipulating stone and earth and wood is kinda like a spell, but it seems more like a ‘I can do this in my territory’ thing than like, an actual cast spell.

[Abilities:]

Dungeon Manipulation: Allows for complete control of the area the Dungeon owns

***

Spawn: Allows you to spawn monsters inside the Dungeon.

***

Observe: Gain basic information about a target.

***

Rule Creation: Allows you to create rules that must be followed, granting new or increased rewards, or decreasing rewards.

[Abilities granted from perks:]

{Life-Alignment} Enticing Aura:

To the living, a designated section of your Dungeon seems particularly appealing. Whether they seek it for respite or to taste a particularly juicy looking berry, their guards will be lower than usual, allowing you to strike with ease.

It seemed my only Life-Aligned abilities sole use was for attracting people to die. How quaint.

The Dark-Aligned ability appeared next.

{Dark-Alignment} Necromancy:

Due to the higher than average Death-Alignment, in addition to the way it was gained, you have gained the basic package of skills, summarized into one, called Necromancy. This allows you to raise the dead, channel mana into their bodies to heal them, and give them basic commands.

Normally able to raise common zombies and skeletons, your ability to use Necromancy has been boosted by Death Is Not The End, and granted an additional effect due to synergizing with Life, Death, and Everything Between.

All undead raised by this ability have their stats increased. Chance of undead raised by this ability to evolve into a higher tier of undead for free.

Due to synergizing two perks, any adventurer you raise will retain a significant portion of their original power. Any abilities the undead gains due to their new nature will in turn be increased by a factor correlated to the adventurer’s original level.

Beyond the obvious issues of the particular direction my strength was growing towards, I remember Box also mentioned that my monsters were updated (in direct relation to eating that poor man's phalange, I believe) which, based on recent experiences, likely means something undead related.

Ugh. What a mess.

Before I do anything to the adventurer’s body, I should really experiment a little bit first. Not with other human remains, either, but… Skeleton had a rather broad definition.

Focusing my ‘gaze’ and intentions, I was able to locate a large number of animal bones. My memories hardly contained a method of determining what creature a bone came from just by seeing its shape, so I could only assume it was the local variety of rats, mice, squirrels, and other smaller mammals, with maybe a bird or two thrown in for variety.

A flex of my will and a twist on my ability to perfectly manipulate my Dungeon dragged all the bones I’d found towards my Dungeon’s core. I’m sure I could technically do it anywhere, but if I was doing magic, I wanted to be there. Yes, technically everything in the Dungeon is my body, no, I don’t care. I am, ultimately, the core. Nothing more, nothing less. Everything else could be stripped away, and so long as my core remained, I could claw my way back from nothing.

Perhaps it was something carried over from my memories…

Either way, an assorted amount of incredibly random bones slowly grew into a pile before the pedestal holding my luminescent self. Once they were gathered, I stared at it expectantly.

Abracadabra!

…

Nothing.

…

Still nothing. How about… Shazam!

…

What’s wrong with me? Why would any of these phrases do something?

Box, please put me out of my misery.

Instead of Box actually showing me something in its usual, boxy format, the not-quite familiar sensation of knowledge flooded my mind. How to move the mana in my core to form a spell and achieve my goal, how to manipulate the energies of the world to bind a pseudo-soul (not a real one, just enough to give it a facsimile of life) into a pile of bones or a body, and to perform my first necromantic art.

Are those the paving stones of the road to Hell I feel betwixt my non-existent toes? Maybe.

But even so, I have to defend myself. It's a deeply rooted truth I feel to the depths of my core - pun intended.

So I did as I was taught - and I used my Necromancy to raise the dead.

A pillar of purple light coalesced over the pile of bones, slowly consolidating itself into a fuzzy symbol. It vaguely looked like a skull of some sort, but any fine details were lost in the flickering light.

I felt the drain on my mana, the actual casting of the spell feeling incredibly simple once I knew exactly what to do. Checking the numbers I saw I’d lost two whole mana. Whether that was a result of my boosts to necromancy or because I was literally trying to resurrect the bones of what was likely over 30 different animals into one creature, I probably won’t know till I try again.

The still fuzzy symbol solidified itself completely and lost any background shine before rapidly fading away, and the pile of bones began to shift ominously.

Box struck at the exact moment.

[Due to your dedication to the necromantic arts, and death in general, your first raising of the dead has been blessed.]

…

Blessed?

By who?

And dedication? I wasn’t dedicated! Stop telling me lies! I plugged my metaphorical ears as best I could and shouted ‘LALALALALALALA’.

Unfortunately for my attempted self-delusion, Box was merely informing me of what was already done. The bones all flew into the air, reorienting themselves in various patterns as they tried to form some kind of creature that made sense.

It looked like some kind of demented, horribly twisted hunting cat. The bones used the power of being numerous to form larger limbs, but ran into an issue because the only skulls they had available were not really able to be scaled to a larger body. Its head temporarily was a rat skull, which looked, being honest, incredibly funny, but instead of trying to make it work the body erupted into a bone-nado again.

It formed varying animals as the spell tried to make a shape of something that worked (and would actually be able to kill someone, probably) but failed to make something cohesive. The strangest looking bird I’d ever seen was there for a moment, then an uneven baby bear.

They flickered quicker and quicker, until they finally formed a relatively squat body, with four legs, each foot fairly wide to allow its mass to be firmly supported with a low center of gravity. This body was only slightly larger, ratio wise, than the skulls available, and I was curious what it was going to do.

Once the body was constructed, five different sprouts appeared from where I assumed its neck would be. Maybe I was looking at it backwards, and it would have five tails?

Bones rattled and clacked as they stacked on top of each other, until finally five of the skulls that were orbiting the construction settled upon the sprouts, which I now knew were all necks. One bird skull moved in, two skulls that looked like some kind of rodent, with a two larger teeth protruding from the front over two smaller ones, one… Was that a cat skull? Poor guy.

And last, but not least, was an actual snake skull. Which was fitting, after the knowledge of what exactly I’d just made flowed into me.

[Congratulations!]

[Born of a blessed Necromantic raising, you are now the proud owner of:]

Name: {Not Named Yet}

Species: Baby Bone Hydra

Abilities:

In place of a Hydra’s abilities to regrow every head it loses with two more, the Baby Bone Hydra instead can replace its bones with any you can acquire. Even if reduced to but one bone, the Baby Bone Hydra can return. In addition, its size is also impacted by bones it is composed of, allowing it to ‘grow’.

Stats:

STR: 10

END: 15

AGI: 20

INT: 3

WIS: 4

Well… This is certainly interesting. I can assume I won’t be able to repeat this process (won’t stop me from trying, I suppose) but the potential for something that grows in strength, at least I assume, and size based on the foes you defeat (and harvest the bones from) is insane.

Not only that, but its ability to come back from virtually anything, even in a reduced form, is absolutely broken. Either I’m incredibly lucky, undead in general are broken to Hell and back, or adventurers are going to kick my ass because they’re way stronger than I think they are.

Either way, my Baby Bone Hydra deserves a name of some kind. I would say something mighty and honorable, but really I want to make him less threatening… He’s all sorts of cute and cuddly right now, but when he inevitably grows larger he’s going to be an absolute monster.

Hmmm…

I pondered long and hard about the absolute maximum potential, best name I could come up with. I scoured my extensive memory high and low, and came up with the best thing I could think up.

Name: Timothy

{Nickname: Timmy}

Species: Baby Bone Hydra

Sue me. Timmy the Baby Bone Hydra is the best boy ever and deserves all the loves and cuddles that I can’t give him because I have NO ARMS! Maybe I can summon something that has arms to pet Timmy?

Hmmm….

Gah, I’ve been distracted enough. I need to finish scouting out the graveyard, since they don’t tend to be separated from towns by much, depending on the size. If I can find the town… Well, I could spread under it and hopefully display my peaceful intentions. Somehow.

No clue how that’s gonna happen, but I’m gonna try. Timmy and I got this.

Speaking of, watching Timmy run around the various tunnels I’d made, miming sniffing because he definitely didn’t possess any olfactory senses but felt the need to do so anyway, and wagging his… really long tail. It must have been made of a snake’s skeleton before being repossessed by my spell, because if Timmy was just over a foot long in the body, then his tail was nearly three feet long and looked completely uniform, with many vertebra bumps visible.

Not only that, but several of what I’d equate to rib bones were still attached, and flapped in the air more like a loose hair than a rigid bone. The bone itself was still rigid, but whatever force attached it to the spine allowed it to move freely. It was quite disturbing, actually. When Timmy stopped, I saw the strange attachments still floating in an invisible breeze even when he ceased moving, and I decided to stop contemplating Timmy’s strange existence.

Time passed, and as I mapped out the edges of the graveyard I’d discovered, I reached a third corner, and assuming it was a rectangle, meant I’d covered nearly 4/5ths of the entire place. It turned out expansion was incredibly mana efficient, and though the dense mana cloud I’d started with was gone, I was keeping my rate of consumption to match what I was generating and still keeping to my original rate of growth.

Box chose that moment to strike yet again. We will not be able to be friends after this, Box.

[The safety period for your Dungeon has passed. Please make sure both an entrance, and a path to your core, is available within the next 15 minutes.]

Well shit.

Actually, I might be in a lot of danger because I’d never checked if I was truly close to the surface, and if it was more than 150 feet away, I would suffer whatever fate failing Box got me.

A quick shove of my mana allayed my fears, as I discovered the surface. It was odd, because it never fully ‘reached’ the surface, and in fact reinforced the ceiling to ensure it never collapsed, unless I approached it with the intent of ‘Making an entrance’. While interesting, however, it didn’t help me decide where to actually put it.

I figured graveyards weren’t too regularly visited, but if I put a hole smack dab in the main thoroughfare it wouldn’t really matter when someone could just fall in if they weren’t looking.

I continued to expand as fast as possible, trying to map out the surface area. If all else failed I would just pop up in a corner, as without more information I had no better ideas. Who visits the corner of a graveyard anyway?

Time began to run out, and my attempted scanning of the surface didn’t actually provide me any information on what was above me, so it looked like my corner plan was going to be my best bet.

Resigning myself, I shifted my attention to a corner, tactfully and carefully chosen with a game of catch the tiger, I enacted my will. A hole formed, nearly four feet in diameter, wider than I’d originally hoped. It was pretty hard to miss, actually.

Damn.

Timmy approached, a couple of his noses sniffing like mad while the rest examined their surroundings. He seemed extremely interested in the world outside the newly made entrance.

I hate to break it to you Timmy, but I’m pretty sure you’re stuck in here. I’d test it later, once I was more comfortable with some other defenses, seeing as to how I currently had a grand total of one Baby Bone Hydra.

As I began to divert my attention to look at what other monsters I could summon, some dirt crumbled into my room directly beneath the hole, and my metaphorical heart skipped a beat. Nothing happened for a few moments, so I looked away, examining the tunnels that lead to my core room when there was a brief scream and a sickening crunch.