Danger.

While collecting clams along the eastern coast an unknown mana-taste permeated the water. Powerful and strangely still. Inviting and friendly like an anglerwhale.

Caution.

Powerful predator? Stay in groups in case it comes by. Keep your wits about you our group heard strange vibrations. Strong taste. New mana types in water.

Information.

Local prey has been observed running from the previously mentioned danger-place. Good chance it’s a deep monster. More caution.

Excerpt obtained from a box posted in the merfolk village of “Elentris”.

Queen was excited.

She had been digging relatively normally and had come across something exciting by chance.

Queen immediately wanted to show it off.

Right before she messaged everyone with this “exciting news” she stopped. Just telling everyone would be a waste. I can show this off better than that can’t I?

Queen paused and began planning this unveiling. She badgered her friend Innearth until he parted with the goods – some perception circuits stuffed in cosmic void tubes – then laid them about her surprise.

She fixed a few minor things and then as soon as she was finished setting everything up, decisively cut all her influence off. Mentally wincing at retreating she waited out the influence’s dissipation waiting for the dull ache to disappear before calling everyone.

Brutality Queen: Alright! Everyone gather round, gather round. I have something fun for us all, please expand through the portals in this room for a good time.

In a closed-off room in the facility she began waving a leaf about trying to get everyone’s attention. Bursts of earth mana, a spiral of plant mana…slowly her friends noticed the portal chamber outsourced from Doc and began expanding through into reality.

As they entered her cavern, Each dungeon felt the unknown distance around them and felt exposed quickly expanding all the way to the edges in slight panic – bunching up against each other in a squished sliced pie shape.

They filled out the entire room and then paused – attempting to really look at what they had expanded over.

Before they finished getting their bearings, Queen urged everyone to finish.

Brutality Queen: Quick! Next expand through the cosmic void pipe Innearth was so kind as to provide. I want everyone to see the area properly.

Abe: Whats happening? Where is this? Is this at your dungeon? Why are we here?

Innearth: So that’s why you wanted those pipes!

Amy: Oh wow…somehow the idea that this is all natural makes it more amazing.

Each of her friends quieted and paused to expand through the pipes. Cosmic void was weird…it let them all bunch up in the same area – just as if they were in the void proper.

One by one they found themselves able to see just what Queen had found at the edge of her dungeon.

A large cavern shaped slightly like a bean was half filled with rough sand sloping inwards towards salt water. Rimming the cavern was a web of vines and covering the ground was a large number of sharp rocks poking up out of the sand. Tiny crabs scuttled about and in a few pools of water more advanced life thrived.

Strangely glowing barnacles with darkness tendrils digging deep in and throughout the stone. Bulbous sea kelp tinted a dark reddish green. Tiny hermit crabs with sparking shells that electrocuted small fish of various shapes and sizes. A slow-moving starfish clumping up protectively around a clam open and displaying a radiant glowing pearl.

Weak monsters were metabolizing the mana-drenched sea water in various ways and had evolved to push it out into pearls or scales that fell off constantly littering the seabed with twisted shapes.

At the very middle of this “moon-shaped beach” – directly in the center of the water – a squished low cave entrance that almost touched the water let a faint glow of sunlight into the room.

Abe: huh…is this the ocean?

ZeMadDoctor: Huh indeed. There’s a lot more environmental mana in the water than in the surroundings. I’m going test some things out. Don’t mind me.

Brutality Queen: What do you say. First time you’ve seen the ocean right?

Amy: It’s pretty. I’m going make a few pets to play in the water if that’s alright.

Innearth: So what’s the plan? We doing anything specific?

Brutality Queen: Yes! I was thinking we could play some games. I got one lined up right away been searching for beach games all day.

Queen began building a large net in the center of the beach as she talked. Two Yggdrasil heartwood poles with looping plant mana webs that weaved together, back and forth.

Amy had created a blobby tentacled creature with kelp for hair and two slug-like eyes on sticks – the resulting “pet” was happily slaughtering the fish in a tide pool by picking them up and piling them on the sand nearby.

Over to the side Doc had created a simple earth mana basin full of salt water and was filling silicone balloons with the water one by one creating saltwater slimes with light madness properties.

FED was consuming all the rocks in his area and scraping the sand about to “make it look better” while mixing magical sand in with the natural to help fluff it up.

Only Abe and Innearth were paying full attention to her but that was fine. They were the most likely to like her competition anyways.

Brutality Queen: Okay so here’s how to play. We are each going to make a monster to knock a ball back and forth. They can’t hold onto the ball or let it fall onto the ground below. Two teams need to be made and we’ll figure out a punishment for losing later.

Abe: Oh! Team battle? Alright me and Innearth vs you and…who else is playing?

ZeMadDoctor: Hmm? This game looks trival. I can make a monster that will knock the ball back with a single look. How about we make the ball nullstone and make a “no kinetic mana” rule :3

Brutality Queen: The ball has to be bouncy. How else will the monsters smash it back and forth?

Amy: Oh! Queen You and me! There’s no need to make the ball bouncy if we make our monsters bouncy – look.

To demonstrate, she grew a small earth chunk and tossed it at her “pet”. The group watched as the ball squished down and then flew away before returning to the chat.

Brutality Queen: Figure we can just make a rule the monsters have to touch it physically to count.

Fated Eternal Design: I’ll be on the Bros team. Doc, you good with completing their team?

ZeMadDoctor: That’s fine. We need more rules before we start. Can projectiles hit the ball? What are the rules for interference? Are we allowed to attack the opposing team? What about mind control? If Abe explodes the ball does his team forfeit? Oh! Is there any size or mana costs? I feel like its too open right now. I also don’t understand this “hitting” requirement. If it bounces off your monster isn’t it being held for a moment? Whats to prevent your monster from just tossing it up and down really fast.

Brutality Queen: Minor interference allowed! No “Direct attacks” please use common sense. Kinetic mana is fine but making a monster with kinetic controlling skills is not. If it feels like cheating it probably is! No helping each other create your monsters this is a 3x3 battle.

Brutality Queen: Other than that…I guess don’t make your monster taller than the net when its created – it can obviously jump above the net to hit the ball – and we’ll give each monster a 4,000amu mana budget. And once a monster “hits” the ball a new monster has to be next to hit it either on your own team or the opposing. Oh! Also while I’m here “No unique materials”. Everything has to be done using your own mana and raw inventory. Any other questions?

Abe: Think that’s good enough to start? How much time do we have to make our team?

Brutality Queen: A few hours?

Fated Eternal Design: We have to design them from scratch! I don’t have something I can just print out and fill the slot! Lets use the same rules as the dungeon games. 24 hours till we start! Also everyone should clean up their section of the beach like I did – it will make the environment much more even and satisfying.

Innearth: Sure I’ll clean up some of the rubble.

Brutality Queen: 24 hours starting now!

Queen set up an event to fling a small stone after 24 hours and began coordinating with her team.

Amy: I like playing games as a group. We should do this more often.

Brutality Queen: Alright what’s the plan.

ZeMadDoctor: You came up with this game don’t you already have a plan?

Brutality Queen: Oh! No I just read up on beach games. I have no clue what we should do.

Amy: How about we focus on teamwork? I have my monsters cover each others weaknesses, we can do the same sort of thing here. Set up a sort of adventurers dynamic where we have one monster on defense one on…I guess long and close range doesn’t work how about one defending the field one in charge of landing devastating shots and a third to control the ball and toss it to the teammates to shoot.

Brutality Queen: I’ll be in charge of defense. My plan is to cover the entire bottom of our side of the field :3

Amy: That sounds like cheating!

Brutality Queen: Only size requirement I gave was not to reach above the net :P No cheating whatsoever.

ZeMadDoctor: Aiming and shooting the ball will be up to me I guess. Amy you’re set as support. I’m planning on making a mostly stationary ranged attacker. Spike from afar.

Amy: Done. Team name! We are the Living Legends! All of us have a life affinity after all.

ZeMadDoctor: …I have a kinetic affinity.

Amy: Oh! You play with demons and life mana so often I thought…You’re right sorry!

ZeMadDoctor: Queen and myself have an Earth affinity as well…but I’m not pushing for the “earth buddies” or similar.

Brutality Queen: Team DAQ! Doc, Amy, Queen. It looks cool too. I like how it reads.

ZeMadDoctor: Shouldn’t it be ZAB? ‘Ze’ and ‘Brutality’ comes first after all.

Brutality Queen: But that looks dumb -> same with ZAQ and DAB.

Amy: DAQ! Is perfect.

The team settled down into silence as Queen began planning out her monster. A flat bed of mud was incredibly cheap to make. Her mana budget was only down 40 mana after designing something that would cover the entire 30m wide 70m long side of the cavern they were in charge of.

Across the whole bed queen set up vines for limbs – simply growing out thick green appendages every meter or so in every direction. These were more expensive especially as she gave each a small plant core for control and tied them slightly to each other inside the main mud body.

Slowly 2000 limbs cut her budget down to just over 300 mana which was shoved into a single master plant core to tie it all together. For the most part her design was simple – she let the plant mana run wild with exactly how the limbs were created – but some of the materials used held precise ratios of different elements.

Brutality Queen: Done my setup. I’m curious how do you go about making monsters? I know I tend to throw stuff together more than most.

Amy: hmm? I guess…That’s a good question. Let me think.

ZeMadDoctor: Degrees of motion. Each part of your monster that moves needs a reason why it moves in that direction. Constrained limbs are stronger than ones that can move in all directions and combining multiple joints is often better than a single one. Solid parts are stronger than ones that can bend even if they lose some freedom. Its important to decide the way you want your resulting creation to move and focus on the joints to achieve that.

Amy: I also focus on movement but…Mana has to flow. Body parts have to flow. Living creatures all have moving blood and organs. Life in general likes to move. If every single section of your monster can move, the whole monster is more…living if that makes sense. You’re mimicking real life when you create a dungeon monster so the more lifelike you make it the better it will be. I’ve found it tends to be stronger with internal parts that shift and pump even if you didn’t design those parts to do anything. I try to make sure all my monsters have circulatory systems “pumping” liquid about – I like mixing health liquid and a drop of ambrosia to really give the fluid system a kick…I don’t know I haven’t really thought about it in this much detail before.

Brutality Queen: Interesting…time will be up soon. You two ready yet?

ZeMadDoctor: Correct.

Amy: Soon queen! Just another 20 minutes and I’ll have the last bits finished.

Slowly Queen waited down the clock, brimming with excitement at the competition.

Doc had carved a heavy grey ball out of nullstone and his “batter” monster was currently holding it steady. His monster was more turret than living creature – except instead of shooting projectiles, its “head” would whip about and smash into the ball at precise angles. A slide then smack from either side, a spike from above. Just like his tastes had shown, its head was comprised of several joints a large one to “swing” and several smaller ones to provide minute corrections.

Its legs just barely had it qualify for monster status – the creature waddled poorly if it needed to move – but that was fine. Most of Doc’s effort had been spent in stability while standing still.

Amy had created a flat paper-like “trampoline” monster with tentacled legs that ran about and could bounce the ball in different directions.

On the other side of the field the opposition brought their team out one by one. Abe had modified an old gorilla shaped monster with squishy paddle like fists. FED had done something similar to Queen with a misty mask that covered a vast area and had thin bouncy plates floating about inside of it. Innearth on the other hand had brought out what queen first thought was a snake before it “stood up”.

While laying down in its resting position the monster was well under the height of the net. When they were finished setting up however mana spun and the monster slowly stood up – it had created a giant pole in the middle of their field close to the height of the room.

Brutality Queen: …is that a loophole or are you just cheating? I can’t tell.

Innearth: You said lower than the net at creation. Don’t think I don’t see you with your massive short monster over there :3

Abe: I was sure you’d have a problem with feds flying monster.

ZeMadDoctor: See this is why we needed more defined rules.

Amy: I think we should just play. Everyone is happy with the setup?

Innearth: Yeah I’m good.

Brutality Queen: We’ll start.

Directing their monsters Queen had a vine drop the ball onto Amy’s trampoline, bouncing it back towards the batting machine which swung with a sickening crunch. Something that Doc had done to the bat, made the first spike sound louder than it should… but it all worked out as the grey ball soared up into the air and smashed down towards the floor.

The gorilla took two cracking steps forward, small bursts of fire shooting its legs down and then up as it accelerated into position in the air almost teleporting with its speed. The gorilla appeared in space with the telltale signs of time mana before knocking the ball sideways towards Innearth’s totem – knocked with a surprisingly gentle put.

Out of the relatively smooth face of the totem, a single limb flipped out and spun forward. The limb aimed and then whipped out hitting the ball directly down towards the ground just over the other side of the volleyball net.

Vines shifted like grass in the wind clumping up underneath the spike and serving it back towards the batter again.

Wack.

Smash.

Squish.

Slowly the game progressed, its ball whirring back and forth longer and longer.

Fed’s mask was everywhere – small tips moving the ball in small shifts to better positions. Queen’s monster saved spike after spike from Innearth’s totem and Doc’s batter got steadily better at aiming for blind spots on the opponent’s field.

The stalemate lasted for hours, literally thousands of back and forth’s continuing…until finally Doc managed to hit it hard enough the nullstone broke through the mists gloves and sunk deep into the ground.

Abe: Finally!

Innearth: No! First point to your group I guess. What are we supposed to play to?

Brutality Queen: …best 2/3 I guess?

Abe: That seems fair.

On the field below Abe’s gorilla tossed the ball straight up in the air before accelerating straight up to meet with it and spiking the ball as hard as it could towards the opposing side.

As the ball hurtled towards their side the totum flickered and pulsed – a wave of subtle mana flying through the air and washing over the monsters present.

The pulse was equivalent to a flash of bright light to the monster's senses, their passive mana sight being confused for the second needed for the ball to slip past vines and smash into the ground – passing through the muddy floor to stop at the sand below.

Brutality Queen: So that’s how its going be huh.

Innearth: You said interference was allowed!

Brutality Queen: Oh it is. Guys ready to retaliate with our interference?

Amy: …what interference?

ZeMadDoctor: Was I supposed to make one?

Brutality Queen: Ready to beat them fair and square with zero interference?

Abe: Rip.

Fated Eternal Design: You said they were “bound to make something interferency” and “we had to make something to retaliate with”?

Innearth: …I don’t like how me following the rules as presented is making me out to be a cheater.

A third volley was set up at this time, the shots slowly ramping up once more as the ball racketed back and forth.

Amy: It’s a shame the room is getting smashed.

Brutality Queen: …the rooms fine I think? We can clean up when we are done if you want.

One half of the room was covered in mud its yellow sand, a wet brown while the other half had dozens of craters from the gorilla jumping off of walls or smashing into the ceiling.

None of the surroundings were dungeon built and the mundane materials weren’t nearly enough to contain the party.

Well fix it up after this game.

Queen quickly stopped caring for the surroundings and simply rooted her team on. I want to win!

A second mana pulse was made and defended against but 10 minutes later a 3rd pulse was done blinding the monsters at just the right time to make the ball slip.

Queen had lost.

She had somewhat expected that but it still stung.

Stuffing her vine bed through a portal and sprinkling sand mana onto her section of the field she found her self feeling better after the area had been dismantled.

Quite a bit of the initial cavern was no more – the tidepools were gone and most of the vines and rocks had been cleared away – but as the dungeons tidied up it started to shape it out once more.

Brutality Queen: So…anyone know what they want to do next?

Innearth: I mean…what else is there to do?

Amy: Fishing! Lets catch some sea creatures!

Abe: I feel like fishing for void whales is much more exciting…

Fated Eternal Design: Want to try cooking? I’ve been meaning to try it for a while. We can catch some wildlife and make it into food.

Innearth: Sure, why not. I’ll start making the oven.

ZeMadDoctor: I’m going to continue my experiments on seawater. I’ve already experimented with creating sustenance for adventurers in my own dungeon.

Brutality Queen: Lets make this a competition as well! We need a judge to taste all our meals. No backing out!

Innearth: I’ll ask a few dwarves if they want to come down and taste stuff.

Brutality Queen: Most of my ascended don’t have much of a taste…there’s one picky eater however I’ll ask the gourmet to judge as well.

Slowly the barbeque was formed. Innearth had created a simple grate suspended over a bucket of lava for a cooking setup. Surprisingly it took a while to catch any sea creatures – most having been scared away from the vibrations that had been sounding out all day.

The tide came in and out twice with no change before finally small crabs began to scuttle back into the cave.

Nabbing a relatively large one queen brought it over to the oven while thinking about how food was made.

This is already food is it not? Cooking it should make it better what else…I heard salt was used a lot in cooking lets get some of that.

Queen gathered a bunch of sea water in a stone tub and began evaporating it in her own fire.

Abe: What are you doing?

Brutality Queen: Secret sauce. I’m making something for my meal.

Innearth: …salt? Why don’t you just print it? system can help you make NaCl in no time at all.

Brutality Queen: …

Queen didn’t have an answer to that ready, her influence raced as she tried to commit to her course of action.

Brutality Queen: …flavour. Printed salt is just not the same.

Innearth: Makes sense carry on.

None of the dungeons really understood cooking. Technically with the way their dungeon “sight” worked they were constantly seeing touching tasting smelling and hearing the surroundings…but most of those senses were incredibly dull and they knew it. They could barely “see” sounds let alone tastes and weren’t able to figure out what a good taste was in comparison to a bad taste. Nothing they tasted was "bad for their body after all" even death mana just tasted like death mana neither good nor bad.

The closest thing Queen could think of in terms of “taste” was the flavours of mana so after heavily salting her charred crab meat – sprinkling slightly scungy sea salt across the unevenly cooked crab – she began to push life mana into the creation. Life mana was a nice flavour as far as Queen was concerned.

Smiling as the meat began twitching slightly – bacteria inside of it growing up and into a nice forest of greens – Queen was ready.

Amy: I messed up…tried to make soup but the disease making spell activated and made a crab killing virus instead of anything edible. Going to sit out of this one.

Abe: Alright! Bring out the judges!

Six dwarves and a green slug covered in ferns moved out of portals and settled down to try the dungeon's dishes.

One by one they came over and took small portions of queens “blue crab” wincing at the ripe smell and causing her core to drop.

Damn, should have researched food more shouldn’t I :/ I thought I was doing pretty well.

The dwarves carefully spat out her offering and gave her a “2/10 stars” rating before moving on.

The gourmet spent a much longer time munching on her offering – savouring the mana and smiling to itself before enthusiastically giving a 8/10 stars.

Next in line was Abe.

He had doused the whole chunk of crab meat in thick alcohol mana brine – boiling it in booze and turning it a white rubbery colour and texture.

Once again the dwarves took bites – this time enthusiastically giving high ratings despite their scrunched up faces. They averaged out to 9/10 stars sticking around to spoon alcoholic soup stock out of the pot.

In comparison, the “gourmet” took one sniff and recoiled – barely tasting the meat before giving a 1/10 “inedible” rating.

Moving on to Innearth the judges found a single crab roasted perfectly on both sides and sprinkled with a tiny bit of printed salt.

5/10 scores from the dwarves for the lack of accompanying beverage and 6/10 from the slug for their tastes.

Fed had barely cooked his meat and then spent the rest of the time arranging it on separate small plates. Small shells and a ring of roasted kelp along with a drizzle of red fluid he had gotten from some fruit.

The plating was incredible but as each judge tasted the meal they found themselves disappointed. 3/10 from the dwarves and 2/10 from the slug.

Finally moving onto Doc’s creation the judges paused.

Doc had cut the meat into long strips and transmuted different parts of them into different “edible” products with a bunch of demon based materials. Crab shifted to crab shaped kiwi-fruit. Crab shifted to grass. Crab shifted to a waxy cheese. Crab shifted to raw potato and then toasted on the barbeque once more.

The judges approached each stick separately finding themselves surprised by some and disgusted by others – the dwarves gave a 5/10 for lack of accompanying beverage and the slug gave a 9/10 stars for the grass mix then dropped it to 8/10 after tasting the rest of the offerings and finding some too weird.

Doc had also shown off by transmuting several rocks into simple foodstuffs but they had to admit his experience had given him an edge.

Queen was okay losing to experience. Next time she would do better.

Amy: What do you think of snookum’s outfit?

As the food competition slowed down Amy had begun making more monsters and giving them each swimsuit’s.

The “armour” was surprisingly impractical – most of it limiting tentacle movement and simply existing for no reason at all.

A ball of tentacles and eyes and teeth ran across the beach slowly – “impractical” clothing holding tentacles in cups and frills before getting ripped off as the horror tripped over a rock and flung its tentacles out to stop itself.

Innearth: …why.

Amy: You wouldn’t get it. Sometimes cute things just need cute clothing!

Innearth: …