Aby was tending to its inhabitants as per usual, conversing with Sela on the various curiosities she’d found that escaped its notice, or informing her on some of the more peculiar attributes of creatures that she may be interested in, when its routine was interrupted.

Congratulations! Your creature “Common Reef Shrimp” has reached the threshold for evolution! Options available:

Greater Reef Shrimp

A greater variant of the reef shrimp, most are unable to tell the difference between the two, with both getting hauled out of the sea by the dozens and hundreds daily.

Pistol Shrimp

Similar to a large reef shrimp in size, the differences are immediately apparent. With a single claw vastly overdeveloped, upon snapping this claw shut a cavitation bubble is formed, followed immediately by a loud burst of pressure. This pressure is used to stun and even kill fish to feed on.

Congratulations! Due to your title “The Trench Dungeon” a hidden evolution has been unlocked!

Abyssal Krill

Moving in an endless tide of hunger, one could easily be mistaken for viewing the individually small bodies of these krill as a weakness. A mistake not easily forgiven by the krill.

Aby received the previous notification without any warning, Aby snapped its attention to the offending crustacean. Finding its newest specimen to be a shrimp barely six centimeters in length, it was briefly puzzled as to how this critter managed to reach this threshold. This confusion was short-lived, as briefly after it witnessed a handful of fish eggs wash into the caves proper, presumably having sunk due to some complications or another. While most of them dissolved into light, signifying the absence of life developing, a small few remained, only to be snapped up by the few creatures waiting by the entrance.

With the mystery of how solved, Aby started weighing out the different options, immediately discarding the greater shrimp as a possibility. After a short moment of contemplation, it decided against making an Ayssal Krill, as the description painted it to be more similar to a ravenous pack hunter with greatly reduced efficacy in both small numbers and tight spaces, both of these being the case in Abys dungeon.

As the shrimp began its lightshow of metamorphosis, very little changed initially. With only a change of coloration to its right pincer, becoming a deep red, Aby waited for it to begin growing before its morphological changes started. Except, the shrimp remained stubbornly at five centimeters. It was about to discount the species in its mind when the shrimp’s right claw began rapidly growing, thickening, and elongating. Reaching a length of four centimeters on its own, and ending with a pincer that looked more like something Aby had seen on its crabs, to say that the claw looked unwieldy would be doing it a disservice. Aby watched the shrimp raise its claw, and then snap its pincer shut. The noise was loud. A small flash of light even accompanied. The fish and shrimp that were by the exit alongside the shrimp darted away, equally shocked by the outburst.

After confirming its newest creations capabilities, Aby turned its attention to yet more notifications. It seemed that, for the weaker inhabitants of Abys dungeon, hope of evolution was not lost. Evolving two of its seahorses into greater variants out of lack of any other options, it had two fish that seemed to warrant a second glance.

Congratulations! Your creature “Common Yellowtail Snapper” has reached the threshold for evolution! Options available:

Greater Yellowtail Snapper.

A yellowtail snapper having enhanced attributes, slightly larger and faster. Without any notable merits or demerits, they are a common sight in many reefs.

Mustard-Scaled Snapper

A much more uncommon variant, these fish act and appear very similar to yellowtails. The exception to this is the scales that coat its tail and fins, which are exceptionally hard and brittle, designed to be flaked off at the slightest provocation, clouding the waters with tiny, irritating shards.

Aby selected the second option, watching as the fifty centimeter fish grew to seventy-five, the yellow scales on its body darkening, providing a contrast to the silver that primarily colored its body. Looking closer at these yellow scales, Aby found them to be raised slightly, as well as not entirely connected to the fish. This caused the scales to vaguely shimmer as it moved.

Congratulations! Your creature “Common Hogfish” has reached the threshold for evolution! Options Available:

Greater Hogfish

Named for its hog-like mouth that it uses to sift through the sand and silt in search of food, the greater hogfish also becomes much testier, known to charge at creatures it believes intruders upon its territory.

Sea-Boar

Undergoing a radical change, the hogfish not only becomes covered in a fine layer of a fur-like scale, it also grows and sprouts two tusks, and capable of severe damage should one be underestimated.

Curious to see what the sea-boar would be, Aby had gotten its answer. Where before the hogfish looked like a strange take of a normal reef fish, forty centimeters long with its signature snout-like skull, all that had swiftly changed. The body thickened greatly, becoming over a meter long and appearing almost cylindrical. As promised, the scales grew thinner, raising off and giving it a look akin to fuzz. Its pectoral fins grew longer, appearing more like the flippers of a turtle. The skull grew even more distinct, a snout becoming evident that two moderately sized tusks sprouted out of.

Aby approved of both of these changes, eager to see how they would change further with their next evolutions, should they reach them. With that done, it allowed its unevolved creatures to hang out by the entrance as they were, before realizing it had once again gotten the urge to add new floors.

Calling Sela and the Brittle Star to its chamber, it brought up various ideas for the next three floors. The first to be dug, Abys sixth, would be the standard of normal dungeons: moderately sized rooms, branching pathways that lead either further into the floor or to dead ends. As always, Aby decided to forgo the traps that litter the halls of its dryer cousins, having a widely varied water level. Some rooms, like the final, would be completely submerged, some with varying levels of water, and even two rooms with naught but a centimeter of liquid on their floors. These rooms would both have slick, smooth floors, allowing any water-bound creatures the option to propel themselves onto it, sliding back into the water at the other end. Aby placed coral in strategic spots, the radiant lights only a dim glow on this floor, with visibility ranging from a twilight glow, to the darkness one expects of an underwater cave.

Onto its next floor, the seventh, Aby went with a similar layout. There were differences, however, a three meter high roof, and water no higher than a single meter, nor lower than ninety centimeters. The path was lit by fire coral, the warm light they gave off illuminating the limestone floor and the sea anemones and shards of seashell scattered along. One of the two Greater Seahorses took to this floor, its orange coloration matching the light that dimly shone and making it appear as if it were flickering in and out of existence to the untrained eye.

The final planned floor turned out similar to the fourth, with a vast area, almost a kilometer and a half in diameter. The entrance to would deposit the visitor directly in the middle of the floor, at its deepest point. There were only a sparse few pockets of air, and the many coral on the floor would cast their many colored lights in a radiance unseen on the previous floors, even overpowering what the midday sun Sela had seen throughout her youth. Aby placed its core room in an offshoot of this space, having the intention to convert it to a descent onto the next floor once it had the inclination to make new floors.

Satisfied with its new floors, it sent the brittle star back to its assigned post. In the spur of the moment, it decided to do something for Sela. Digging a small tunnel from near her home on the fourth floor, it brought that tunnel down to the eighth, connecting it to a patch of staghorn coral that resided near its core. Sela herself noticed this change as she made it back to her home. Curious, she explored the tunnel downwards, its length being dimly lit by small patches of polyps spaced at regular intervals. She seemed pleased with this arrangement, immediately setting to work in organizing and decorating. Once more she hummed that soft tune of her mothers, delicately pushing and pulling the different corals into a pattern only she knew at the time.

~~~~~

Remembering a creature it hadn’t inspected in a while, it turned its attention to its Scaled-Seahorse. The creature had grown remarkably, its body already grown from one meter, to two and a half from tip to tail. The scales covering its streamlined body had turned a vibrant emerald green, with the ones on its head starting to gain a subtle pink trim. The teeth peeking out of its gar-like mouth were uniform and orderly, each five centimeters in length, thin and serrated. Appearing to be designed to shear meat from bones and bones from bodies, it had a menacing visage. The pectoral fins had further grown, small bones becoming visible under the papery texture of them. Rounding off its appearance, the tail had seemingly regained its elastic properties, though the knife like ending and the many needle sharp spines that ran the length of its back, right down to the tip of its tail, made one ask the question of what it is that the tail was designed to wrap around. What before looked like an infantile predator now appeared to be a seasoned hunter. Despite still resembling a seahorse from a distance, one would have little issue identifying the danger that the creature could pose, should it decide to do so.

The critter roamed the second floor, needing the deeper water in order to stay fully submerged. As it did, it showed off its innately arrogant nature, looking down upon any fish crossing its path and using its weaponized tail to dispatch any of Abys creations which dared linger too long. Of course, Aby had long encouraged this sort of behavior, wanting only the best of its creations to get even the chance at evolution meant that when not fighting creatures intruding upon the dungeon, they instead would contend with each other, should they so choose.

Floating by as a group of three kobolds rushed by, their leader and shaman, along with one more it hadn’t seen before, appearing small and meek, it realized that this meant something important. Invaders. And if the creator had dispatched three of them, well, that could only mean one thing. It was strong. The seahorse felt its blood boil, it wanted to hunt. It quickly turned around, and with a thrust of its tail to push off the ground beneath, it rocketed forward. Passing by the kobolds in but a moment, it adjusted its swimming posture to bring the length of its body parallel to the cave-floor rather than perpendicular. This seemed to bring about a change in the creature, where before it swam with a slow and measured pride, its entire body now seemed to radiate a wild arrogance, a predatory urge.

The creature darted into the shaft to the floor above, using its tail once more to spring off the bottom. This proved effective, as the seahorse reached the top of the five meter shaft in less than a second and continued further still, breaking the surface of the water in that level with a shower of seawater to announce its arrival. During its expansion, Aby had increased the size of all previous floors marginally, the entrance to the dungeon now a conspicuously wide four meter hole rather than the single meter it was before. The water levels of this level had rose to be nearly two meters at its deepest, and a single meter at its shallowest. Whilst still too low to allow the seahorse to swim leisurely, it was more than sufficient for its purposes to hunt. While in the air, it spotted the offender, a gray fish nearly four meters long. It had two triangular pectoral fins, a matching dorsal fin, and a large nearly crescent shaped fin on its tail, a species the seahorse had yet to see.

The animal in question was currently accosting one of the newer creations, that ironback turtle. It had its mouth wrapped around the shell, trying to find purchase with those triangular teeth that lined it, even as it lost and regrew them the entire time. As the seahorse darted up to the creature it released its grasp on the turtle, swimming forward in a loose circle around the draconic fish. The two predators eyed eachother down for a moment before the horse darted at the intruder. It opened its maw to welcome the charge, apparently believing the seahorse to be rushing to its demise.

What it was met with wasn’t a tasty green morsel, however. It found its left eye to be disabled, the last thing it saw was the thing use its tail to push it off to the side suddenly, and then strike out with it as it rushed by. Along with the now bleeding cut to its eye, it felt this slash continue down its body, past its four gill-slits, ending at the rear of its pectoral fins. It whipped its body around, searching for the accursed creature with its sole remaining eye. All it was rewarded with, however was another impromptu opening on that same side. Much to its dismay, it still could not find the nimble creature, instead feeling that tail coil around its own, and the barbs that ran along its length digging into the flesh and piercing the cartilage that constituted its skeletal structure. As it felt the razor sharp teeth of its failed conquest begin shearing the flesh off of its body, the last thing it saw were three sandy yellow creatures approaching cautiously from the distance. After that, it was met with darkness.

Aby watched the performance of the seahorse with a gleeful emotion, beyond pleased with how it fared. It was met with two notifications, one of which served to heighten this approval.

You can now spawn “Greater Reef Shark”

Congratulations! Your creature “Greater Scaled Seahorse” has fulfilled a hidden condition(s), allowing it the options to undergo a special evolution.

Conditions fulfilled:

Reach full maturity with a weak draconic bloodline

Slay an example of an apex predator of the biome “Mana Reef”

Special evolution available:

Lesser Reef Wyvern

The wyvern is one of a few examples of what a moderately awakened draconic bloodline will manifest as, on land they take to the skies with their gigantic wings, and in the seas they embody speed, with powerful fins and a devilish tail.

Aby didn’t hesitate in the slightest with this choice, and the seahorse once more began growing longer and more streamlined. Its body grew another fifty centimeters longer, while its tail grew an additional meter. The barbs grew in number though not in size, while the knife-like end became curved, appearing similar to a scimitar. Its jaw thickened and its teeth grew to fit this, each now a curved point nearly ten centimeters long. Its fins became something similar to limbs, a single knife-like nail at the end of either large, triangular fin. This was attached to something akin to an arm, without the range of motion necessary to truly be called as such. Furthermore, its scales shifted into a deep emerald green, with the pink trim on its head thickening. This pink shifted into a regal rose-gold on the two newly sprouted horns over both eyes. Gone were the days it could ever be mistaken for a seahorse, now it truly looked reptilian and powerful.

As it swiftly acclimated to the changes of its new body, it opened its eyes, only to see the shamanic kobold erecting a thick barrier of water in front of it, no doubt to dampen the impact of the punch that the hulking figure in front of it. Swiftly being knocked back into unconsciousness, it felt its body being launched back towards the entrance to the next floor, an unknown kobold bringing it down with it.