Aby had been doing well, making things go back to running as they were before. It helped that the two new floors were largely independent of the remaining, and the creatures were mostly removed from the Reef floors. In essence, Aby just came up with various strategies for the new floors, and how to have the creatures at their best for all of them.

It was excited to see the specs of some of its newest critters, the sailfish for instance was able to clock in at high speeds, over one hundred kilometers-per-hour, with just the power of its body alone. It was anticipating these creature’s evolutions, it fully anticipated that they’d be at least on par with its wyvern, or at least in straight-line capability. It even gave the wyvern two of its own to act in a similar manner to the groupers the wyrmling had gotten.

Other than the sailfish, it was actually most excited for the man-o-war, the dangling tentacles burned skin they contacted in small quantities, but the moderately large numbers of them that had inexplicably clumped together near the center of the room had more than just small quantities of tentacles. Someone would have to be blind or less than capable in the intelligence department to walk into them accidentally or purposefully, but the dozens, even hundreds of stinging tendrils that hung down to the bottom of the floor essentially acted as a large “off-limits” sign.

Anything deciding to brave it anyways and get caught in these tentacles would find every bit of exposed flesh stinging and burning, then to paralysis and the enormous numbers of tendrils starting to contract, pulling the ensnared upwards. If they were really unfortunate, and small, this would lead to them being digested.

Of course, nothing on the floor was truly useless, and even the baitfish could serve as an excellent distraction should the need arise. Beyond fighting whatever invaders may reach here, the various creatures of this floor were much more wild than on the upper floors. Everything was continually in motion, and the smaller baitfish were continually breeding and being preyed upon.

Surprisingly, they weren’t being depleted. Rather, it seemed that the larger predators on the floor treated them as a luxury, and as a status symbol, each community of predators fighting amongst themselves for dominance, before eating a share of the fish. How much was eaten seemed arbitrarily decided, but this made Aby wonder just how much more intelligent its creatures were than an average example of their kind.

It was happy to have its creatures being smarter, though. That meant they were able to improve themselves, however small that improvement may be. And since the ecosystem of the ninth floor was successful, without need of being replenished, it decided to allow this.

Of course, the ninth floor wasn’t what currently held its attention, and that was probably part of the reason why it let the floor run wild. Despite it being its largest floor, it was fascinated by the tenth. What the notifications had titled a Personal Biome was just that. It felt a greater connection to the tenth floor, nothing major, but everything within felt more specific. Information was slightly more in depth, creatures felt slightly more under its control, and a slight bit more ease making any adjustments to it that it felt were necessary.

This comfort wasn’t so great that it would remodel its other floors to match, nor would make a great deal more in the future. It simply enjoyed the novelty of it. The floor itself had the makings of becoming a menace, with the frigid temperatures making it a huge shock from the temperate warmth that pervaded the dungeon until this point. Anything trying to take it slow would have to contend with the cold waters, as what ice had formed on the surface wasn’t thick enough for any who seek refuge above the surface. Any trying to go through too quickly would have their own problems, too.

Most all of the creatures introduced to the blistering cold had by this point adapted, though only a few had evolved further. It was expected, but unfortunate nonetheless. The bright, warm colors of the reef creatures had become muted and soft, appearing clouded over by a layer of frost. The silver scales on many fish had also changed, now an equally shiny light blue. Any fish one would come across on this floor seemed slightly ethereal in nature, something aided by the corals casting a glow around the floor that gently illuminated all of this.

The light became dimmer towards the center, the lack of coral and few in this area instead made it seem like a forbidden grounds, and the fact that one could make out the glimmer of stark white scales on the large humanoid that resided in this area drove this perception home.

The dragonkin was truly menacing on this floor, it matched the whites and blues perfectly, though his own form appeared brutal and threatening in contrast to the peace of his surroundings. The frosty blue moray eel that was coiled around his waist only served to add to the threat he could surely be, and one would need to be very assured, or very foolish, to try and combat them alone.

The other creatures too, presented their own various shapes of beauty and danger. The icicle barracudas for instance, would be a collector’s fantasy, though coming to own one would be nothing short of a nightmare. Even discounting the trip one would need to take to the tenth floor, the fish were nigh invisible, and moved quickly enough that they might as well be anyways. They were still present, and could be sensed in other ways, but to those reliant on sight, they would not come to have an easy time at all.

The mustard-scaled snappers were some of the few which had managed to evolve in the frosty water, and the name they took fit well with their new color pallet. Known as the “Snowflake Snapper”, their silvery bodies took on the aforementioned ice-like blue, but the yellow scales that lined their sides and fins lost all pigmentation, a pure, glittering white that made them seem like they should be melting away into the waters rather than swimming through them. Of course, these white scales still retained the ability to completely render an area uninhabitable, but in a different way than before. The shards of scales it released into the waters truly lived up to their namesake, fluttering through the waters, gently carried along the waters. And each shard was able to lower the surrounding temperature drastically.

Every creature Aby had seen this happen to tended to react poorly to being suddenly flash-frozen in the blizzard that followed, and even now a few frozen fish floated forlornly on the surface, some of these even being the snappers themselves, immune to the cold but not the cold waters that were turned to ice around them. Aby liked them just as much, if not more than their yellow predecessors, and enjoyed coming up with various means to utilize the fish in the future.

Of course, these ideas could wait, for now, it had an invader to attend to. Its consciousness rushed to the first floor, where it saw a sapient slowly creep into the caves. It appeared to be a larger form of Sela, oddly enough, with a scaled tail attached to the upper body of a female. It appeared curious about the area, though in a slightly animalistic way. Aby was puzzled about this, it seemed much less intelligent than the other invaders. It moved forward at a brisk pace now, humming a tune in a melodious voice, similar enough to Sela.

It was curious how else the thing matched its partner, and felt it would learn more once it had dispatched the sapient. It wouldn’t be able to spawn her, sapients appeared off limits to the dungeon, or at least as far as it knew. Of course, its kobolds were rapidly approaching the threshold of being sapient, and its dragonkin could even be considered as such, despite its apparent lack of social ability.

The kobolds were dispatched to do the deed, and they were grateful for the change in “sparring partners”. They had fared poorly against the dragonkin when they tried to fight it, even when they had fought him entirely alone, and that meant that they were back to fighting one-another, something that quickly became stale.

They were before the invader in short order, and were readying themselves to attack her. For its part, it seemed surprised at seeing the formation of bipeds come up from below, and changed what it was humming slightly.

The kobolds, who were beginning their charge, all seemed to become dazed, and the warrior even tripped over his own feet. Aby was greatly confused, this was something that had never happened before. It hurriedly looked into their minds, and found that there was an unknown compulsion in there, one with a similar strength to the passive Dungeon order to kill the being. The core was unable to figure out what the compulsion was, it was almost formless, and it wouldn’t have been able to figure out it was even there if it wasn’t intimately familiar with the minds of all its inhabitants.

It quickly sent a true order, one to eliminate this being, and they seemed to snap out of their haze. The shaman especially was incensed, and started preparing a spell much quicker than before. When the invader noticed this it put a little more force into its voice, the tune taking a darker feeling to it, one that matched the apparent frustration on its face.

They fell right back into their stupor, and then turned their attentions onto each other, readying to attack each other as they were her. Meanwhile, she simply snickered happily at the sight, then swam by. Abys confusion had turned to annoyance now, and it sent another order. However, they struggled against the order, while they didn’t attack one another as they were meaning to, they clutched at their own heads, seemingly in pain, before slumping over, unconscious.

A quick look into their minds found that the foreign order was no longer simple, instead it seemed to be trying to work its way deeper into their thoughts, and this was the straw that changed Abys annoyance into ire. These were its creatures, its creations. Its mind screamed that what that thing was doing was wrong, that it was an insult to its very existence, and Aby would have none of it.

It had made its way to the second floor now, already in the branch that led deeper within. The humming persisted, and the fish around it all seemed to fall under this unknown spell readily. This only served to add fuel to Abys growing anger, this was a creature that would not leave these caves today, nor would it look upon the gem.

Aby removed any fish that had fallen under its thrall, having little issue at despawning the creations even with an invader present. The being seemed to recoil in pain at the sudden loss of so many mental connections being literally ripped from existence, something that pleased the gem. After it had finished gritting its teeth and looking around for whoever escaped its control and caused such pain, the thing continued forward, intent on turning this hole into a den, along with turning everything within to its thralls.

Aby knew not of these intentions, a good thing too, as this would have served only to make the visit worse. Aby ensured that as the invader got into the monotonous halls of the third level, any fish that it encountered would either try and attack, or willingly submit itself. In both cases, they still fell prey to its call, only to be ripped away immediately after. This made the invader truly incensed, leaving it stuck with its head was throbbing and magic reeling over the continued abuse by whatever seemed so intent on stealing this prospective den. Still, it couldn’t stop its call, though, as the fish would take that opportunity to attack ruthlessly. It was grumbling in a low tone in some incomprehensible language, visage becoming more and more twisted with a feral and animalistic look, as it reached yet another branch in the path.

Aby watched as the creature started swimming down the hall towards the dead end it didn’t know was present, and even though the core was frightfully upset, or perhaps because of this, it was still looking forward to the first test of its newly redesigned path. A test that didn’t last long, unfortunately, as the simultaneous snap of dozens of magically empowered claws rang out.

The noise resounded throughout the entire dungeon and the water within that hall literally boiled, so great was the force that was released upon the blight in its halls. The waters churned and steam hissed out, and by the time the waters were still enough to see in once more, there was already no trace of anything in there anymore, even the shrimps being cooked alive by their own percussive blasts.

You can now spawn “Morgen”

This message, however, was something that surprised the core. Sapients don’t give templates, so getting one meant that this “Morgen” was not one. And, as it went through the newfound information it had, it found this to be accurate.

Morgens were a distant relative of the Siren, something that is a rare relative of the Mermaid, though the Morgen is less intelligent than either of them. It finds places thick in mana concentration and forcibly takes them for itself, using them as a den. Its call allows them to enthrall anything weaker in mental strength than itself, so long as it can hear it. Thankfully shrimp don't "hear" in the same way that the fish did, something that meant they were immune to its call.

Still, it found the creature very similar to its kobolds, it was treated like a simple monster by the world, but was nearly to the point where it could be considered sapient, lacking only something that truly set it apart from the developed races. It pondered over what exactly that something was.