Aby finished dealing with its most recent invader, a simple greater reef shark that wandered into its first floor. This was done with minimal flair, simply sending a group of sea-boars to deal with it, to decent effect. The tusks they sported along with their ability to charge at a rather high speed allowed them to deal with the beast in short order.

It was digesting the events that had transpired, looking for anything it could have done differently to make it quicker and more effective. This was something it had begun to do after its introduction to true tactics, and it helped determine what roles it’s various creatures filled, as well as how to further influence their evolutions as it went on, should it have that option.

These musings were interrupted by Sela, telling it that she had good news, something it would always welcome. Aby quickly asked Sela to tell it more, and Sela told it that there had been a natural evolution. This happened every now and then, similar to how the common moray naturally evolved to a snowflake moray. Aby didn’t receive any notifications about these natural evolutions, something that it didn’t totally understand. They were still its creatures, and it could easily find out what it became afterwards, but it still irked the gem that it may never know if it obtains something amazing only to not be notified. These naturally evolved creatures were also just as exempt from having their template made known to Aby as the Dungeon-evolutions, but depending on the species, it would be easy enough to breed them.

It found out from Sela that it had been a pistol shrimp this time around, and with a bit of intention, it found out that the shrimp was now known as a “Rifle Shrimp”. Aby honed in on the newest addition to its arsenal, finding it to be little changed in body shape, though it was now an ashen grey with its firing claw remaining unchanged in its bright red shade. If anything, it only served to emphasize the danger that it could pose.

While the shape of its body didn’t change, it did grow marginally bigger, now seven centimeters in length. Its legs too, grew proportionally longer, sharp tips at their endings to dig into or latch onto ground to reduce the kickback it would experience. However, the most striking change really was its claw. The pincer had changed shape, much thicker with an appearance and even size to match that of a lobster claw. It was nearly comical, watching a shrimp wave around a claw of such prodigious size.

Furthermore, Aby had found it capable of using rudimentary mana control to both enhance the power that it could shut its claw with, and also to make the resultant pressure and force higher and more concentrated. This satisfied it, and the demonstration the thing had provided only served to further this. It was loud, obscenely loud, and even managed to keep the pressure travelling in a straight line, rather than dispersing, allowing a small bullet of water to travel for a few meters. Still, Aby could not get over that noise, it made the pistol shrimp seem like the lapping of waves on its walls in comparison.

It immediately set about unlocking its template, and with the marginally increased speed at which Abys inhabitants hatched, it fully intended to give its current firing squad a major overhaul within days.

It sent the thing back into the hole from whence it came, now increased in size to help allow its ridiculous appendage to even fit to begin with. Satisfied with yet another marginal increase in strength, it returns its attention to the dungeon at large, the majority of its focus on the entrance, just in time to see its next hapless would-be-invader, a rather large brown grouper.

~~~~~

The coastal kobolds had been summoned to the first floor, something they did swiftly and with an apparent practice that showed. The warrior took the lead, directly in front of the shaman, and with the chief-mother to his side and ever so slightly behind him. They were excited, it wasn’t often anymore that they had the opportunity to fight anything besides themselves, and they wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.

Upon reaching the first floor, they saw an immense beast, almost three meters in length, and about half that in girth, it didn’t seem anything but big. The fact they arrived at that decision was in part due to arriving just in time to witness it open its mouth, wide enough to create a considerable amount of suction from that simple action. The sea-boar in front of it stood little chance, having already begun a charge directly at it, it was caught off guard and was devoured with little effort on the invaders part. It continued leisurely swimming forward, seemingly very content with the quality and quantity of mana being generated by Aby.

The fish noticed the rapidly approaching reptiles, though thought little of them. The beast seemed unafraid, it was larger than all of them, after all. Two made their approach, the third stayed behind them, one running at it quickly from the side and the other approaching at a brisk pace holding a large, round object. It tried to devour that one, but found that it didn’t create enough suction to knock it off of its feet, much to its surprise.

It was at this time that it felt something sharp and painful at its side, and tried to turn to devour whatever had done that, though just as it started to turn to the side in pain, it was hit in the head by that big object. That hurt a fair bit, and it started thrashing, trying to not only throw off the pesky thing at its side, but also throw the offending creature off balance.

The kobold Chief-Mother was shaken loose by this monumental thrashing, the beast amounted to a pile of muscle far larger than her. She was thrown away, stumbling slightly before resuming with a redoubled intensity, the stabbed at the creature multiple times, the layer of scales doing little to deter her Dungeon-Dropped dagger, something she did her best to regularly maintain.

The beast only thrashed harder, having barreled forward into the Warrior, pushing him down and further knocking the air out of his lungs. His instincts betrayed him and he sucked in a huge breath while still submerged, the stinging he felt in his chest once again reminding him that he was not aquatic, to his chagrin. He struggled to his knees, coughing up the seawater that tried to settle in his lungs.

He picked his shield back up, the entire exchange from start to now lasting but a moment, and the shaman had finally done something. The waters surrounding the behemoth seemed to part, causing it to flop to the ground with a resounding thump.

The fight had ended by this point, the many new holes that lined one side of the thing proved to be poorly conducive to an animal’s ability to live. Furthermore, having been dazed by the warrior venting a bit of his frustration, namely with shields and skulls getting along just swell, it didn’t even make the effort to thrash, instead just lying there limply, before fading away into the surroundings, each of them feeling a little stronger for the exchange.

~~~~~

You can now spawn “Goliath Grouper”

This was the notification that Aby received, informing it of the newest member of its cast. The name was very apt, the beast was nothing if not large for an essentially common fish. It created a handful, already having an idea to have them act as bruisers in its corridors, and even created a group of three on the fourth floor, to hopefully act in tandem with the wyrmling.

It assured that the few new spawns were fitting in well, and making sure the command it had given them on the fourth floor was being followed. The fish were all rather mellow, though the wyrmling’s attempt at intimidating its new floormates went sub optimally.

The three grouper each went about swimming, and generally doing their own thing, while the wyrmling postured and hissed. The fish were initially curious of the strange snake, but after swimming circles around it a few times, they wandered off. Obviously, being so rudely ignored irked the beast, but even as it tried intimidating the trio of flesh, there was no response.

That is, no response that it wanted to get. The fish seemingly refused to be cowed, and even went so far as to puff themselves up in the face of it. They couldn’t match the serpent in actual size, but that was not to say they weren’t striking an image all their own.

Aby was pleased with the new fish, it hadn’t expected them to be so fearless, and it was a trait that was most certainly welcome to it. It settled back into the grind, overseeing training, adjusting groups of inhabitants and generally doing its best to make sure no problems arose. With a machine like efficiency, Aby turned its focus to its halls at large, its ability to multitask to such an extent that dungeons themselves are considered by some to be hive-minds, as those people insist a single consciousness is unable to split its mind to so into many portions.

~~~~~

Sela felt the connection to Aby in her mind shift, then seem to “flatten” the sign that it had gone back into management. She nodded, to no one in particular, knowing that the dungeon was growing well. She had been swimming about the floors, something she often did to pass the time. Despite the predatory intention that the entire cave system had been created for, there truly was a sense of wonder within them. And when nobody was around these caves felt far more alive.

Sela watched as fish formed shoals in the large caverns, going around and then dispersing to go to the caves. She saw shrimps bickering for spaces in the wall, a hierarchy being formed by how prime an ambush spot a shrimp could obtain. There were couples being formed, broken apart, countless lives living in a harmony she had never seen even in the ReefHeart. Stories were being told at every moment, in every level of these caves. Some of victories, some tragedies. Many of these creatures may be able to live their entire lives without getting the call to battle, and yet, they all were ready to lay down their lives for the caves Sela had come to call “home”.

Even the beasts that seemed specially handcrafted for slaughter had their own lives outside of fighting and sleeping. At one point she had to comfort the wyrmling who seemed to be pouting at not being feared by those fish. It seemed to perk up at her attention, coiling up a little tighter and raising its head a little higher.

She laid down on top of its head, resting her own between its eyes and simply enjoyed the scaly bed for a moment. The snake was deceptively comfortable, and she even found herself drifting off to sleep on the sleek bed of skin. She got herself up after that, not wanting to be asleep out in the open like that.

After giving the snake a few pats and receiving a short hiss of satisfaction, she swam off and made her way to the sixth and seventh floors. These were both floors she didn’t come to often, there was little to see. The aquatic kobold had made its residence on the sixth floor, the varying levels of water being perfect for its amphibious fighting style. They gave a curt nod as they passed one another, that interaction being enough for the both of them.

Sela continued down to the seventh, admiring the way that the floors seemed completely unlike the Reef above. Everything from the way Aby placed the coral, all the way to the fact it made sure there was a semblance of harmony between species that should by rights be killing each other, and it was stunning. She remembered growing up, the untamed splendor of the ReefHeart that she had seen. It was radically different from the caves and caverns of Abys dungeon, how everything was designed for a singular purpose and seemed to show that. Every coral gave an observer a sense that its very existence was an inviolable law, and each fish seemed to move with a sense of purpose and intelligence completely alien to their wild counterparts.

She witnessed a seahorse seemingly flicker into being right beside her, its own eyes displaying such an intelligence that it was astounding. They swam side by side like that through the maze, each contemplating something, before parting ways. Sela descended to the eight floor, to take a nap, whilst the seahorse backed into the ever-present fire coral, its shape fading swiftly into nothingness.