“Honestly, little one,” started the strange thing violating Aby’s halls as he approached the entrance to the twelfth floor, “you are truly weird.” Another pang of annoyance surfaced amidst the core’s desperation, fear, and confusion; being insulted would upset even the most patient of gemstones, and the fact that this was all he had said after blitzing through the floor, deconstructing and then reconstructing the kobolds’ village with laughable ease made it worse. The core could only be relieved that the remaining clutch of eggs weren’t destroyed, and the guardians spared from the intense curiosity he’d held towards the original kobolds.

Then, as if reading the Aby’s mind, he continued. “Of course, I mean this in the best of ways, but your layouts, your speed at progressing, your sheer ruthlessness, all of it makes me wonder about you. Could it be that you are lacking a patron? Perhaps it’s that you have bonded to one of the more… experimental Fae, or something similar?” It spoke, as if expecting Aby to respond, not that it would humor him even if it could. All that greeted his question was the gentle lapping and splashing of water as he took the plunge into Aby’s arena.

He’d hardly even had the time to blink away the water in his eyes, before he was sent stumbling backwards by a clawed hand over twice his size, attached to a beast that he simply couldn’t compare to. Aby was elated, this was the first time its invasive visitor had reacted to something, and the drake certainly wasn’t playing around with that strike. Unfortunately, that elation vanished a moment later, after realizing that it was merely poor footing and loose sand that sent him backwards, and while he was surprised and had his fur ruffled, the target of the attack was otherwise unharmed.

“Well then, I certainly wasn’t expecting that, my dear host. Has nobody ever told you that it’s in poor taste to give such an advantage to your more outstanding beasts?” No, they had not, nor would Aby take that to heart. Instead, it watched as the new and improved drake was backing up. Since the ambush failed him, he would retreat from the waterlogged areas of the floor, onto open, dry space, needing any and all the advantages hey could get.

The intruder seemed to have no qualms with that arrangement, leisurely walking out of the small lake after him. “That said, who am I to complain when such a beautiful creature is presented to me?” The fuzzy menace punctuated that statement with a pointed look in the drakes direction. Aby was worried that it was all for nothing, and that its drake, too, would find himself grabbed by some unseen hand and subjected to the whims of the man before him.

Instead, the drake stiffened for a moment, before his eyes focused and he reared back with a snarl. His lips peeled themselves back, exposing even more of the cruel daggers he called teeth, along with the myriad crystals imbedded in the left side of his mouth, sandy spears to compliment the white knives they mingled with. He dropped back to all fours, kicking up a spray of damp sand as he stared down the impudent thing which barely stood eye level with his knees.

And the intruder did very little at this display. His ratty eyes had widened and grown and even momentarily unfocused, seeing the drake simply shrug off his spell, but that fanatical gleam that was ever present in his gaze had only strengthened. Finally bringing his hands up from either side of him for the first time since removing the harpoon, he went to straighten his lightly ruffled clothes.

“I see, so this won’t be quite as peaceful as I’d thought after all.” Despite saying such, Aby could still see the excitement in the way he gazed at the drake, and the drake could too, for that matter. Not wanting to simply stare at the miniscule man and risk losing the initiative, he launched into action once more, yet again underestimating the influx of strength he’d gained from his crystal induced coma.

Still, as he was moving in a straight line, this wasn’t quite so unwelcome, and he hurtled through the air to close the short few meters between them even faster than he’d anticipated. Then, his movement slowed, once again he was hit by that weird attack and it caused him to miss his target by a hair’s breadth, his blow whistling by the mousy intruder and slamming into the sandy rock. He was quick to whip his head around, though, and he was already snapping his powerful jaws shut, aiming to cleave the thing clean in half.

A mighty clack sounded out as his mouth slammed shut, finding nothing apart from air and a small handful of sand in his teeth. Already he was growing annoyed with the cheap tricks employed by his foe, unused to being so effortlessly avoided. Even worse, it took him a moment to even spot the man's pristine white fur against the creamy yellow sand, although that was mainly thanks to his foe already taking advantage of his newfound visual impairment and standing to his left.

Unable to clearly see through the translucent yellow crystals in his field of view and accurately launch another strike, he instead whipped his tail that way, the three plus meter rope of muscle shrieking as it cut through the air. Finally, he’d collided with something, a deafening boom sounding out as his tail impacted the intruder, or rather, something just in front of the intruder. A shimmering wall, erected from nothing; a spell shield was something the drake was quite familiar with from past experience, but this was the first time he’d hit one so sturdy.

It was solid, moreso than even the strengthened limestone walls around him, and he had to shake the numbness out of his tail while he wound up for another bite. But before he even had the chance to snap his jaws shut, the man before him pointed with both hands, and he was hit by yet another wave of that strange outside force.

Only this time, it was focused on one specific part of him, and instead of a momentary, full body torpor, he instead heard a small clink, and saw a shard of sandy yellow get dislodged from his face, quite literally right before his eyes. His now improved vision couldn’t see anything after that, however, as he was assaulted by a nearly physical burst of searing agony, struggling to even stay conscious. Like a warhammer directly to his mind, he staggered back, and collapsed onto his side, only dimly aware of the thunderous roars and baleful glare he was directing at his tormentor.

Aby was better able to watch, though even it had suffered a wave of intense, mindnumbing discomfort for a moment before it could heal its suffering child, unfortunately aware by now how little that would do to actually ease his pains. Instead, it could only refocus its attention onto the detestable thing. And for his part, the little thing actually seemed shocked, holding onto the shard of gem longer than his forearm that he had ripped out so cruelly.

“Oh, oh my Vol. I- I am so sorry, I didn’t realize…” He began, trying to fool both the core and the drake with his lies. “This is, this is new, and I hadn’t thought that this would feel any worse than pulling a scale, perhaps at worst breaking a bone? Not- not this.” He continued, not that his reptilian audience could hear him over the wails escaping from his clenched jaw. A picture of agony, the drake rolled, lashing out wildly at nothing in an attempt to end the pain. The man was committed to his act, though, a sorrowful look was plastered onto his features even as he had the audacity to walk up and place his hands onto the drake’s vastly larger snout, holding fast despite the frantic thrashing, then start speaking once more.

“I have harmed you, and for that, I am sorry. I just hope that the nap you are going to take will help you through the worst of it.” Aby thought him mad for a moment, madder than he already seemed anyways, for who would dare go up to something with teeth larger than their head, and then speak nonsense. Then, it actually happened. Aby sensed an enormous surge of mana, and its creation was still. In fact, it happened so fast that the sudden change from misery and pain to peace and calm was almost jarring to the core.

“I am surprised, little one. Surprised, fascinated, and even confused at just what happened to put your spawn in such a state,” The man began again, waving the crystal in his hands for emphasis. “Never before have I seen a mana crystal, much less an elemental mana crystal fused with a creature, not without destroying one or the other, and usually both. Now, with that precious child settled down, I see that it isn’t even the only one you’ve done this to, those crabs are beautiful, too. You are different, and it makes me very, very interested.” His tone was shockingly serious, and his words spoken slowly and deliberately. Rather than simply rambling to himself, or making offhanded remarks at some presumed listener, he was speaking to Aby, and Aby listened. Even the disgust and loathing it felt weren’t enough to stop it from paying attention to the message.

However, his speech ended there, before he shifted back to that gratingly happy persona, awed by every little thing as though his earlier mood was a simple mirage. He spent quite a bit of time inspecting the drake, and was disturbingly fond of accosting his decorator crabs, and their evolutions, the Crys-tations were even more. But in the end, his attention waned, and he descended to the fourteenth, sparking yet another long tirade and tiresome rant about everything he laid eyes on.

He didn’t linger too long in the frozen half, having “already had more than enough of this icy weather, thank you very much.” And instead effortlessly passed the raging waters of the partition from frigid to searing. Instead of dancing ice, he was greeted by the jellies in their own waltz, and the snow was replaced by steam in the ascent to the surface. Even he couldn’t help but quiet his endless spiel, taking a moment to take everything in before he spoke again, and even then, it wasn’t with the same vigor as he explored the floor.

Instead, he spoke, and acted more delicately. And it made sense, as it was quite a bit more delicate an ecosystem. Jellies, soft corals, small fish. An ecosystem where the danger came not from the animals, but the environment could be quite effective, but not against something seemingly immune to the environment. And so he took care not to injure the jellies, or to tear a coral, or to otherwise harm the angry red reef around him. His progress was slow from one end to the other, and Aby thought he would take the plunge into the fifteenth floor.

So imagine Aby’s surprise when, instead of leaping into the hole before him, he suddenly spun around, and with much more speed, went back to the tunnel he had just come out of. Paddling upward, the man continued to speak, only instead of retreating to the twelfth floor, he instead turned into the smaller tunnel which led to the thirteenth. The faint feelings of hope it felt that he was perhaps leaving were crushed, and instead he demonstrated a frightening level of awareness, already surveying the pitch black as though it was midday.

It didn’t take him long for him to take a more hands on approach with his observations. He kicked off the floor, once again acting far too at-home in the endless water than he had any right to as a terrestrial, and he moved with grace that even some of Aby’s own inhabitants couldn’t match. He had decided, for whatever reason, that his first point of interest should be the writhing mass of beaks, eyes, and most importantly, tentacles that was the squad of Humboldt squid.

The cephalopods in question had no qualms with this, however, Aby had been forcing them to abstain from a feeding frenzy for hours now, and despite needing no food at all, they were only too eager to eat. And so, they met his lazy floating towards them with their own crazed dash, biggest and fastest squid overtaking their smaller followers and already readying to attack. It was no surprise when they seemed to meet a solid wall, and just as little shock when, with a wave of his hand, the entire squad was forced into torpor.

“Now, now. It’s quite rude to expect a guest to feed their host, you know.” The man spoke with an even more impish tone than normal. “I can’t hold it against you, though. You all may not be the most interesting things on this floor,” he shot a glance towards the massive blue form, the one currently trying to murder him with her own amber-eyed glare. “but I can’t be biased, now can I?”

And he certainly was not biased, subjecting the squad of squid to the same intense scrutiny he’d given everything else which had been unfortunate to come before him, although as he was reaching the smaller members of the pack, he grew much less invested. Instead, he cast his net once again, making sure to keep them all in a single cluster and taking a moment to watch them seethe in the dark, before returning to stand on the floor, and turning to face the target of his interest for this floor, and started walking.

Seeing his approach, the wyrm finally brought her hulking form out of her cave, sending an unspoken demand to all but her strongest serpents to retreat back to their own. She couldn’t help but feel a bit of pride as she watched her would be oppressor slow down, and even gawk, as she slowly uncoiled and revealed herself. She made sure to draw the reveal out, stretching out meter-by-meter, all seventeen of them, and flaring her hood to its fullest, all while reveling in the surprise he was showing, even if she was smart enough to realize that it would be fleeting.

So while she was disappointed when he started laughing, something she’d never had directed at her before, it wasn’t enough to shock her into her own surprised trance. Instead, she just listened to the madman ramble, not eager to chase him into an open area.

“I had heard there was a wyrmling here, and even rumors that it was a proper wyrm, now. Nothing quite prepared me for you, though. Honestly, just what exactly are you up to, to be so large already?” The wyrm simply flicked her tongue in response, not really understanding his words as anything more than either praise, or mockery, but silence had never been enough to stop him before, and thus, he continued. “Of course, my dear. A lady must have her secrets, forgive me. And, I hope you might one day forgive me for what I am about to do, too.”

He pointed at the wyrm as he finished saying that, sending a wave of force her way in much the same manner he had done everything else, and she froze up, for just a moment. The stranger could only smile wryly at seeing her shake his grasp off so easily and then launch herself his way immediately after. While not nearly as fast as the drake, the wyrm’s charges were still devastating in their own right. What she lacked in speed, she made up for in absolute, overwhelming bulk, and on top of that, the waters themselves went along with her, a tidal wave of force primed to impact anything that sat in her way.

Unfortunately, this pest proved far too nimble to stay in her way, dodging to the side and letting himself be swept up by the currents as the wyrm rocketed by. Seeing her first strike come up empty, she changed tactics, turning back around and making a lazy half-circle around the man, and opening her mouth wide. She was well aware that she stood no chance of getting him in her mouth, much less actually skewering him with her fangs, but she didn’t need to bite for her venom to take effect. Obviously, it would be far more effective if she could, but her venom was more than toxic enough to make even touching it a bad idea.

And, as the inky black waters around her became cloudy with a viscous and milky yellow soup, the risk of touching it was quite high. Her opponent also realized this, evidenced by the step backwards he took, and shook his head slightly. “You truly show no quarter, do you, little one? Not just a wyrm, no, must it really be a blightbringer?”

The question actually confused Aby, it had seen nothing in its wyrm’s description with the word blightbringer. But then, it still has yet to see anything regarding its drake’s crystallization, so it already knew its descriptions weren’t perfect. Just one more thing it would have to figure out, should it make it through this ordeal alive.

For her part, however, the wyrm was unconcerned with the nuisance’s words, taking his retreat as a sign of submission. She slithered around him a little more, aiming to fully encircle him, and doing just that. Now in a loose coil, the wyrm started to feel eager, looking down at this man who was just a fraction of her size, but also wary. It had made no attempt to stop her, or retreat, even as she continued pumping liquid death into the waters around them. She wanted to end this now, the necrotizing agent in her venom would be too slow for something her Lord had deemed such a threat, so she began to tighten her coils.

The mousey invader still seemed nonchalant, watching the walls of flesh around him begin closing in, and even walked towards her. A moment of confusion for the wyrm was quickly ended, when the man opened his mouth again.

“You really shouldn’t be trying so hard right now, should you? Not when you can barely even stay awake. Doesn’t sleeping sound like a much better option?” And there it was. Once again, a huge pulse of mana, where Vol itself seemed to be eagerly nodding its head to agree with whatever it was he said, and the wyrm stilled. Aby had no idea what he was doing, and that was frightening. It didn’t know the limits, nor the strengths, and had no countermeasures.

It could only watch as the man gave its wyrm the same casual, dismissive inspection that the rest of its creations had gained, before it moved on to the conscious, frozen serpents, and then the remainder of the floor’s barren population. He used that same nonchalance to drop through the entrance of the seventeenth, making a remark on his descent yet again how strange Aby’s layout was, not that Aby cared what he felt about its halls.

What the core did care about, was the ease he dismantled that floor, simply freezing the squad of squid in much the same way, sniffing out the mimic octopodes to do the same, and then turning his head to the entrance of the fifteenth floor. He wasted little time, leaving behind his immobilized victims in much the same way as every other floor, and Aby wasted little time itself in priming the fifteenth. The scarlet waters seemed to still in anticipation, a serpentine form coiling and readying for what would hopefully be enough. Even the navy blue corner of the flagship and their fleet seemed to be marshalling for battle, in their own way, all the way down to the coral itself in some single minded ambition.