Ugh, why did I keep doing this to myself? Passing out was the absolute worst. Sure, it was convenient at the time for making sure I would have extra mana later, but the next time I made another kobold I needed to make sure that I had enough mana to actually stay awake after. I felt absolutely miserable.

Clearly my body, and by that I meant the invisible parts of me that lived inside the walls of the dungeon, did not appreciate me passing out, and especially not so often. There was actual pain as I stretched myself back out. While I was asleep it seemed as if I had recoiled slightly, my consciousness retreating back to the core that made up my main body. There was a brief moment where I was unaware of nothing around me, and then I was slowly filling the dungeon back out with myself and regaining my awareness of my world.

The badgers were still gone, which was extremely lucky as far as getting my new rooms dug out, but so were both of my kobolds. They had, however, clearly been back while I was asleep.

On the floor beneath my core there was a pile of things that I could only assume were meant for me, and by the new entrance there was a small stack of wood. The wood was likely meant for the traps that Cobble wanted to build, and the rest in front of me was probably the food that I had asked for. Still, I was a little wary to just devour it all in one go. Didn’t the kobolds need to eat as well? I should probably only eat a little, just in case. If it really was all meant for me then I could just eat it all when they got back. Besides, rationing it out would be better for digging my new tunnel.

Before I ate, however, I needed to put [Appraisal] to work. Not only would it help me level the skill up, and hopefully make it slightly less useless, but if there was anything in the pile that had more mana than the others it would help to know what it was. If I knew the names of my favourite foods then I could actually ask for them later.

[Grapes] Lvl. 10

HP: ??/??

MP: ??/??

Status: Severed

[Birch Bolete] Lvl. 100

HP: ????/????

SP: ????/????

MP: ????/????

[Morel] Lvl. ???

HP: ????/????

SP: ????/????

MP: ????/????

[Blackberries] Lvl. 5

HP: ??/??

MP: ??/??

Status: Severed

I had [Appraised] everything, but those turned out to be my favourite foods from the pile. The berries were both sweet and full of mana, with the blackberries causing my tendrils to feel somewhat tingly. The birch boletes were bitter, but they were still surprisingly tasty, and they paired perfectly with the grapes since the former left me feeling dry and the latter was refreshing. My absolute favourite, however, were the morels. Rich in flavour and mana both they went down easy but left me feeling absolutely satisfied.

Most everything had similar setups as those as far as stats went, with just a bunch of question marks where numbers should have been, the sound that the question marks made to me being an odd kind of buzz that felt as if it was radiating off of the walls and through my tendrils. While at first it had seemed as if [Appraisal] hadn’t gotten much more useful than its previous form I was starting to see that it was actually a skill that grew slowly. Sure it wasn’t a huge improvement, but it was actually telling me names of some things now. It wasn’t just a berry or a fruit, it was a raspberry. It wasn’t just a mushroom, it was a Fly Agaric. Slugs were still just slugs of course but I was beginning to get an idea on how [Appraisal] had improved.

Even though it was still mostly useless as it was, I could almost imagine how useful it would be later if I just put in the effort to help it grow. Okay then, [Appraisal], I’ll do my best to raise you up to be big and strong! I’m counting on you to be worth the effort!

As I ate I kept track of my own stats with [Appraisal], just to see what I was working with. I had started at thirty mana again after my nap, of course, but I wanted to see how things changed as I ate.

Mushrooms and berries had much more mana than other kinds of plants, it seemed, and so did the bugs that had been clinging to the plants. Everytime I ate something new it seemed as if I got a point for it, which was absolutely fantastic. Thanks to the wide variety that had been brought back for me to eat, I was finally able to form a bit of a theory on how exactly points worked, and why it was I didn’t get a point every time I ate something.

I noticed it with the grapes. I was eating them one by one because of how much mana they were giving since I didn’t want to overflow my mana storage. With one grape I got a point, I got another point at five grapes, and then again at ten. It seemed as if consuming a certain amount of things gave me more points for doing so, and the theory was consistent across multiple things I ate.

All the while I snacked away I put [Tunneling] to work, using up my mana almost as fast as I was regaining it from eating. The things that Cobble and Cobalt had brought home were delicious, both full of mana and pleasant to swallow down, other than the slugs of course. Those things still felt sticky and awful, but I wasn’t about to pass food by.

It wasn’t long before I was actually able to reach the length I wanted my new tunnel to be, which meant I only needed to figure out the size I wanted my new room to be. I could easily form the new room with [Room Building] if I ate more of the food, but I was still wary to do so. What if this was meant to be for all three of us? There were my monsters, yes, but if I wanted them to happily do what I asked then I needed to avoid causing them trouble.

Since I had the time to do so for now, and since I was no longer feeling the time crunch, I decided to make sure the tunnel was the way I had wanted it to be. I carefully analyzed it from all angles, making sure that it started out at a slight incline downward and then continued onward the way I meant it to. As the tunnel stretched deeper into the soil it slowly leveled out a bit before beginning the same slight incline upwards, curving slowly towards the right and then back to the left all the while so that the tunnel didn’t run perfectly straight. I imagined those inclines and subtle twists would be a bit disorienting and would make it harder for a human to figure out what direction they were actually heading in.

Even I, the dungeon core that had built it, had a hard time forming a mental map that could show how the tunnel was made.

Once I finished the new room my next project would be a new tunnel in the current main room of the dungeon. I needed to move my core to the deepest room in the dungeon after all, and so my plan was to use that point to burrow as far back as I could, digging a tunnel that would go further back and much deeper than the other room so that I would have a new place to set my core. The more I moved it away from the entrance the safer it would be, after all. That, however, was a plan for future me to worry about. Current me still needed to get the new room set up before I could even begin to think about the second room I wanted.

What I wanted for the new room was for it to be lower than the tunnel that led to it, with a small drop-off, the very same way that the tunnel with the door connected to the badger family’s entrance dropped off. If the human walking into the room didn’t notice right away then it would be a great hazard for them to trip over, and if they did notice? Well, I was going to try to make it a little bit lower than would be comfortable for them to just step back up out of the room later. I wanted to force them to climb out.

In fact, when I got the layout down and I began my sprawling labyrinth plan, I was going to make that room something they would have to build a way out of.

Maybe a collapsable path to drop them into the room? Heavy blocks they would have to drag into place? If they had to work for it then they would spend more time in the dungeon feeding me mana, and they would be less likely to want to continue on in case they ran into more rooms like that. I had ideas, but I couldn’t really go and begin all of that right away. I wanted to make sure I had room for all of my ideas first before I went and began implementing them.

I would need an actual human to measure off of, of course, but I could probably get Cobble and Cobalt to stand in for me for the time being. There couldn’t be that much difference between the height of a kobold and the height of a human, right? At least, I hoped there wasn’t. It would be really annoying later if I had to change the sizes of all of my tunnels and rooms to accommodate humans. Thanks to the roots of the trees that hung down from most of the ceilings I would have to dig even further down if I wanted to expand in height, and then how were humans supposed to get in? It would be another straight drop off at the new entrance.

Sure that could be something fun for them to trip over and hopefully deter them from coming in, but then how were my kobolds supposed to go hunting for food for me? It would be difficult! It would be annoying! Humans just needed to be small!

Ugh, I hadn’t even met a human yet and I was already getting frustrated with them. I didn’t even know what they looked like and yet I was still absolutely sure they would ruin my plans and annoy me. Humans were the natural enemies of dungeon cores, right? It was only natural that somehow they would manage to ruin everything.

I was beginning to get bored now that I had to wait for the kobolds to come back. How much longer would they be? How much longer did I need to wait before I could build the new room? Waiting was awful, terrible, just the worst! I didn’t like being unable to do anything. Keeping busy was the best thing for me, since I was such a naturally hard worker, while obviously doing nothing at all was just terrible.

Come on, [Appraisal]. Show me how much longer I have left to wait before I can build a new room!

Kor, [Dungeon Core] Lvl. 1

Title: None

HP: 10/10

MP: 28/56

Size: 12.48 M

Points: 37

Mobs:

Kobold 2/5

Skills:

[Appraisal] Lvl. 2 [Tunneling] Lvl. 2 [Room Building] Lvl. 1

[Mana Absorption] [Door Building] Lvl.1

I had just enough mana if I wanted to build a room the same size as my previous room, but then I would pass right out on the spot, and I didn’t want to go and do that again. I had had enough of passing out. It seemed to hurt more and more every time, and even if it didn’t hurt I hated losing time like that. Sure I still regained mana at the same rate while asleep it seemed, but what if I missed something while I was out? I wouldn’t be able to react to it.

No, it was better to keep myself awake in the long run. Less pain, more ability to protect myself.

I gave the pile of foodstuffs a look. I had eaten well over half of it while I waited for the return of my kobolds, but one more berry couldn’t hurt, right? The extra mana would put me over the limit so that I could dig out my new room without passing out. Wouldn’t it be better to have that new room made sooner rather than later?

One more blackberry couldn’t hurt anything… Right? I wasn’t doing it just to be selfish. I was doing it because it was what was best for the whole of the dungeon in the long run. The more rooms we had the better. I would be bigger, I could store more mana, and the layout would be more confusing. The kobolds could hide if anything stronger than them came in, and my core would be protected so that they wouldn’t die.

Right. I was absolutely doing this because it was best for everyone, and absolutely not because I was ravenously hungry and those berries were looking more and more delicious by the minute. It would be more selfish if I ate another morel! There were only two left, after all!

Feeling satisfied with my own justification of the situation I slurped up another blackberry, feeling the slight bitter tartness of it through the entire length of my tendrils as I let out a satisfied huff. Resisting the urge to eat another one, I instead turned my attention to where I wanted the new room to be. Making it the same size as the main room would be fine, after all, I wanted it to be a false main room, so it needed to be roughly the same size.

Okay, [Room Building]! It’s time to get to work!

[Room Building].

The tendrils closest to the new room all jerked suddenly, and my core rocked slightly in its little alcove as my body was forcibly stretched to fit into the new space. It wasn’t painful, in fact it felt almost good, like I had been shoved into a space too small for myself all this time and I was finally getting a chance to really stretch out to my real size.

One second there was no room, and then there was. A lot of things happened after that.

[Room Building] is now Level Two.

Not only had [Room Building] leveled up, but clearly some of those mana filled rocks had been in the space that I had eaten into. My mana was bursting painfully past its new storage limits, and I could almost feel my core cracking with the effort to contain it all. It felt like I just might eat in reverse, it hurt that much to try to hold onto all of that extra mana.

I turned my attention immediately to where I had wanted to start my next tunnel and threw myself into furiously digging.

The pressure building inside of me slowly began to ease off, but my tendrils felt almost cold, icy, and the urge to eject all the consumed material was still there. I [Tunneled] as fast as I could, my very core trembling with the effort.

[Tunneling] is now Level Three.

My core shook even harder. While normally [Tunneling] leveling up would be a good thing it was absolutely the worst in this case. Sure I was digging faster now, but it was consuming even less mana than before, and I needed to expend as much of it as I could before I burst and shattered.

I didn’t know what crying was, but I knew I felt like doing it. Anything to get the excess mana out of me. How was I supposed to hold all this extra energy? Why was this even a thing I was being put through?

There was something that was noise but also wasn’t, a vibration that I felt along all of my tendrils as I burrowed down at an angle into the earth. It took me a moment but I realized that the not quite noise was myself, screaming without words as I tried to expend as much mana as possible as quickly as I could.

Where was Cobble? Where was Cobalt? Inner Voice, why was this even happening? Why did this even have to be a thing? Automatically consuming everything in the space for [Room Building] seems like a good idea, but why can’t I just leave those rocks behind if it’s going to do this to me?

Inner Voice was silent, but then again, so was I.

My mana had finally hit the new storage threshold, one that had slowly ticked upwards as I had [Tunneled] down, making things slightly easier on me,

Even though I was filled to the brim with mana I felt weak somehow. I was still trembling, it seemed, my consciousness wavering slightly. I knew the dungeon wasn’t moving, but all the same I couldn’t keep things straight as I tried to look at my surroundings.

Next time I was going to build the room in pieces. Just in case.

I focused my attention on the tips of my tendrils, where the aura that radiated off of my core met the edges of the entrances, and I slowly worked my way back. I felt the stone wall in all of its roughness, then the hard packed earth, the roots that stretched down and dangled from the ceiling, the grasses that made up the badger’s bedding…

I felt it all, focusing on the sensations one by one until it felt like I was the dungeon again and not some separate thing from it.

Really, eating more mana than I could handle hurt much too much to do again. It made absolutely no sense that it was even a thing I could manage to do, but at the same time I could understand how it had happened. Just because I had a certain storage capacity it didn’t mean that I couldn’t try to cram in more than I could handle.

If I hadn’t thrown myself into [Tunneling] I probably would have ended up ejecting material again, like I had done before when I tried to eat but didn’t have the mana for it. I had gotten a lot done thanks to that, with my new tunnel being halfway done, but at the same time? Was it really worth all of the pain? I really didn’t think that it was. Even though I should be feeling energetic and excited to get my new room dug out for my core to rest in, I felt less enthusiastic and more queasy.

There was a tickling sensation at my entrance, and then both kobolds were walking through again, dragging something large and white behind them. “Kor, are you the awake again? Cobalt and I have been doing the hunting together! He much the strong! We’ve brought back lots of food!” Cobble’s squeaky voice called out and I felt my core tremble again at the thought of eating.

I really was going to eat in reverse if I had to eat one more thing.