They were getting closer to the Core. The plant-based tunneler had popped out into a benign room, and Garth took the opportunity to take a break for the day. His body didn’t strictly need rest, but his mind did. That seemed to be the currency that this dungeon dealt in, Effort of Will.

“Just because it didn’t kill us right away or make us try to kill ourselves doesn’t mean it’s benign. I’d like to know what it does before I’m willing to sleep in it.” Alicia said, glancing around the room. “Otherwise we can just sleep in the tunnel.”

“Right you are,” Garth said from where he was once again triangulating the position of the Core. It was a good idea to get as many readings as possible. The location of the core had done a couple suspicious shifts in direction that Garth attributed to warped space on a grand scale, rather than the core moving around on them.

If it was moving around, they were probably going to be here a while.

The room they were in was a wide stone cavern, rounded with high ceilings and a smooth stone floor. Jutting out of the walls and ceiling were laminar crystals that resembled some kind of cross between fiber optic cable and quartz.

Light that shone on them faintly emerged from the tops, redirected by the crystal into a single flow.

If the Facet Moonstone had a physical manifestation that hinted at its function, what does this redirection of light tell us?

It was all too abstract to guess just from looking at them, anyway. Garth turned back to his project, setting up two radar plants and using them to calculate the exact distance to the Core.

Garth allowed the plants to zero in on the core, and took measurements of their angles, working a quick mental calculation to find the distance. High school math for the win.

“About a mile and a half to the core.” He said, getting up and turning around to see Alicia poking at one of the crystals, a pale green looking quartz.

“Have you noticed any changes in your thoughts or behavior?” Garth asked, prompting her to glance up at him, brows raised.

“no.” she said.

“Are you compelled to lie compulsively?”

“No.” she said again frowning at him with her full lips.

“Just what someone compelled to lie would say,” Garth said, manifesting a sheet of paper in his hand and taking faux notes.

Alicia snorted.

“Do you feel compelled to be an ass?”

Garth shrugged. “No more than usual.” He turned his gaze toward the dozen or so crystals littering the ground. On a more critical look, there were some interesting facts that weren’t obvious at first glance,

Chief among them were the empty sockets where crystals had been taken from the room. That implied something or someone found enough value in these crystals to take them from where they emerged from the ground.

Garth took a second look at the placement of the crystals and noticed that none of them were particularly crowding each other out, spread quite evenly through the room.

Evenness was not natural.

Hmm…wild tribe of the descendants of adventurers who managed to make it this far? Farming this particular room for its crystals with uniquely beneficial effects?

Off the top of Garth’s head, it was either that, an animal that ate the crystal, or an effect of the crystal itself.

“It doesn’t seem to have any effect on our bodies or minds,” Alicia said, bending over to touch one of the crystals.

“Can you-eep!” Her question was cut off by a swat across her rounded booty.

“What was that for!?” she demanded, glaring at him and rubbing her bottom.

“Testing to see if it activated with heightened emotions. How do you feel?” Garth said with a straight face. Trying to stop himself from spanking her when she bent over was more difficult than managing a burgeoning empire, and usually ended in failure.

She kept her eyes on his face for a moment, studying him suspiciously, and Garth managed to avoid breaking by a hair’s breadth.

“Fine,” she said, turning back to the crystals. “Can you create some kind of plant that can indicate if something has changed?”

“Like a weird-o-meter?” Garth asked. It was a good idea, probably gleaned from hanging out with Caitlyn, or Garth himself. If your eyes or ears weren’t up to the task of measuring a change, make a tool to measure the change instead. Thus far, the rooms had created dramatic and obvious Laws, so they hadn’t needed anything like that. They needed to get a read.

“Yeah, whatever that is,” she responded.

“It’s a good idea, but there’s one problem.”

“And that is?”

“The Laws of the rooms are literally changing reality, not causing effects. The meter we made would exist inside that reality, and thus be unable to tell us if anything was out of the ordinary. The only reason we know anything is different is because we’re subjective viewers.”

“That’s…shitty.” She finally said, frowning.

“I agree.” Garth said, glancing at the entrances of which there were no less than six. Another reason to take the straight line rather than wander the maze-like web of tunnels.

Alright, which one shows the most signs of wear?

“What are you looking for?” Alicia asked.

“Aboriginals.”

“What?” Alicia asked.

“Pygmies.” Garth said absentmindedly, studying the south west entrance. Direction being somewhat subjective, Garth had decided to call the Core the North pole, and the entrance the South.

The southwest entrance was the flattest, but it didn’t show any kind of groove he would expect from hundreds of years of foot traffic, none of them did.

“Are you still speaking Human?” Alicia asked.

“English, actually, and yes. I’m looking for natives.” Garth said, wandering over to the other entrances and checked them, glancing over at the two radar flowers as he passed.

They were a couple fractions of a degree off their last reading.

Is the core really moving?

“Natives? People, living here?” She asked, giving him a disbelieving gaze.

“What? it worked for Journey to the Center of the Earth, Atlantis, The Time Machine, Alien from L.A., King Kong, umm….I’m sure there’s more I haven’t seen.”

Alicia raised a brow.

“There are crystals missing,” Garth said, pointing out the empty sockets, “They’re spaced evenly, and that hallway is suspiciously flat.”

She glanced around, her posture slowly becoming more guarded.

“I see it now.” she said. “Do you think they’d be hostile?”

Garth shrugged. “That really boils down to how much food these hypothetical natives have. If they have to scrounge for every scrap, they’ll begrudge newcomers or see them as a source of new food.”

Alicia looked around the room, straining her senses, and clearly a little spooked.

“On the other hand, if they have found some kind of paradise with more than enough space and food for everyone, similar to the ancient Hawaiians, they would gravitate more toward a friendly mindset.”

“Who are the Hawaiians?”

“Ancient people on one of the most lush island chains in the world, about two thousand four hundred and seventy-nine miles West South West of the Green Hell. Very cool people.”

The island was probably cut off from the rest of the world again when the Kipling came…

Maybe I can visit and see what became of it sometime.

“Don’t worry, though. In any case, the natives, if there are any, are unlikely to be nearly as strong, physically, as you or me, simply because there aren’t many Heartstones to consume.”

“Unless they took advantage of some kind of loophole in the Laws of the dungeon.” Alicia said.

“Unless that, yes.” Garth said, idly pondering what that might look like. Split livestock into dozens of different personalities and eat them all, right off the top of his head.

If there was a loophole, this particular patch likely had something to do with it…

“New Ancestors!” came a high pitched scream from a rock…no, a person dressed in drab cloth that mimicked the cave walls perfectly. It was a young Corio female, wearing a strange helmet decoratively carved from stone.

Garth’s Corio was dated, but his memory was perfect. The girl’s pronunciation was strange, but he was fairly sure he’d understood her correctly.

Alicia jumped in place, startled by the girl’s completely silent approach.

“Oh, whaddya know.” Garth said as the Corio turned and ran away. “Now we get to see if they’re hostile or not.”

Garth, as the more physically durable of the two, sat in front of the entrance cross-legged in an effort to appear as harmless as possible. If they came in with arrows and blowguns and turned him into a pincushion, they would have their answer.

Less than a minute later, half a dozen orcs and Corio crept around the corner, bows and clubs held at the ready.

Garth stared at them.

They stared at him.

Garth stared back.

“Hello,” Garth said in Corio, then Orc.

“Hello,” The well-muscled orc in the lead said, his posture relaxing somewhat, arrowhead inching toward the ground.

They didn’t look particularly skinny or malnourished, so hopefully they weren’t entertaining the idea of eating them or using them as mulch.

“Explain what you are doing in our Impeyaga.”

Garth blinked. Impeyaga wasn’t in his vocabulary, but it probably meant this crystal farm.

“This is impeyaga?” Garth asked pointing at the floor. The lead orc nodded.

“We came in this dungeon a while ago. Arriving here was an accident, we mean no disrespect, and wish to make amends, if necessary.”

The orc’s gaze flickered up to the laminated tunnel the tunneling plant had bored through the wall, then back to Garth.

“what is a dungeon? Did you come here through Ancestor Gate?

“A dungeon is where we are. What is the ancestor gate?” Garth asked.

“Many many Nifishya beyond here is a gate all ancestors came through. According to the elders, this gate only works one way, not letting the ancestors return to the spirit world.

Ni-fishya sounded like a slurring of Bad and Room from original corio, most likely representing rooms with dangerous Laws.

“I’m fairly certain we did come through the ancestor gate.” Garth said.

“You both should speak to the elder.” He said, glancing at Alicia and the tunnel farther back. “Perhaps you may be a good omen.”

“I’d be happy to.” Garth said, climbing to his feet, suddenly towering over the shorter people. They were a little taken aback at his height for a moment before their leader spoke again.

“This way.”

The leader nodded, and garth followed him into the hallway.

Under his bare feet, he could feel the stone of the floor become soft and bouncy, pushing back against him, making walking easier and quieter than it might have been otherwise.

That’s interesting, he thought before redirecting his attention to the halls themselves. Softly glowing crystals provided enough illumination to walk by, and study the natives of the Terrafell dungeon.

They seemed to all be wearing stone helms adorned with intricate patterns. When Garth looked closely he could see a bit of mana pulse along the surface of the carvings, moving like a heartbeat.

Interesting. Fashion choice or necessity?

Their bows were also interesting. They were thin and short, seemingly too weak to be used as such. They looked more like child’s toys than anything Garth had seen before.

“Do you need those in here?” Garth asked, pointing at the bow.

“Occasionally a monster will wander through the nifishya and become more of a threat than it should be. It is better to be prepared for such a thing.”

“Huh.” Garth strung together some mana and waved it around. No response. He made it very thick and put it directly in front of their faces. Still no response.

So I guess they can’t see Mana.

Garth snaked a thread of mana through his foot, through the floor and along a side tunnel, sprouting an insta-baddie.

The plant monster bellowed and sauntered out of the side-tunnel, perfectly menacing. It looked like a larger, mutated version of one of the mouths-with-legs he’d easily squished earlier.

The lead orc let out a shout and lifted his bow, drawing and firing in an instant. Garth was forced to squint as an implosion of mana converged on the tiny bow and the arrow shot out at unbelievable speeds, accompanied by a sheath of pure white mana, annihilating Garth’s target.

To the untrained eye, the monster simply exploded when the arrow hit it, the projectile burying itself in the wall behind it.

“See?” the lead orc said, glancing back at Garth with a tusked grin. A nearby corio shook his head with a sigh.

“Whoah, did you see that?” Alicia asked, blinking stars out of her eyes.

“I did see.” Garth said, impressed.

“How much of that was you, and how much your fifth generation bow, Kurt?” another one said, jostling the orc’s ribs.

“Bah. Envy. That’s all I’m hearing.”

“That bow is the result of five generations of what?” Garth asked. “Engineering?”

“People,” Kurt said with a confused look as they continued on, “What else would it be?”

“So the bow is five generations old?”

“Yes?”

“How do you keep it from falling apart?” Garth asked. “Maintenance? Repair?”

“Hah! you are a funny...” He glanced up and down at Garth’s purple skin and green hair, lack of tusks and extreme height. “Whatever you are.”

Hmmm…. Garth’s gaze landed on the chunk of laminar crystal peeking out from beneath the thumb of one of the hunters, embedded in the very handle of the bow.

Color me intrigued.

The village was in the center of a massive, brightly lit cave with some kind of miniature sun at the center, beating down on them with the heat of noon.

Buried in the far wall was a sword with a chunk of the laminar crystal in its hilt, sloughing off enough water to create a river through the center of the village, sweeping away refuse to the lower levels.

Garth couldn’t see any enchantment that would cause it to do that.

There was a flower box full of ripe wheat that they passed by, overflowing with health and vitality. As they were walking through town, a matronly women walked out and gave them a unimpressed huff before she cut the wheat and headed back into her home.

In front of his eyes, the wheat regrew. This wouldn’t normally surprise Garth since he’d pulled tricks like that many a time. The thing was, it was the dusty, dirty, decidedly unenchanted flowerbox that was providing come kind of crude spellwork, along with something his Mana sight couldn’t quite make out.

Extra nutrients?

On the side of the box was a pale laminar crystal.

“interesting…” Garth said as they walked toward the chieftan’s hut, gaining a following of fascinated villagers who poked and prodded at the two of them in fascination.

Garth, for his part, spotted a rusty hoe that dripped with a nutrient rich moss growing at a visible rate, a pool of lightly steaming water children were playing in, and a weaving machine that seemed to create fine silk out of anything that was tossed into it.

Curiouser and curiouser. Garth’s instinct for profit was telling him there was a major untapped resource buried under the surface here.

White man comes in and steals native’s stuff. A tale as old as time. Well, I guess I’m not technically white anymore.

“Here it is,” Kurt said, pointing to the elder’s hut. Hut was a bit of a misnomer, as the supports seemed to be elegant ivory, and the panels of the wall were some kind of velvet/stone hybrid. Warm, comfy, and yet hard and unyielding at the same time.

Whatever it was made from didn’t exist outside this dungeon. Not easily anyway.

“Welcome, Welcome.” the elder, a wizened orc said, waving them in excitedly. He was sitting in front of a steaming bowl of soup filled with some unknowable substance. His bowl and spoon were made of a similar ivory substance. The soup smelled good.

“Welcome to the Safe Haven, outsiders,” he said with a toothless grin. “Excuse me if I eat. My bowels rebel if I don’t eat regular meals.”

“Totally understand.”

“So, what news from the outside world?” the orc asked.

“You believe in an outside world?” Garth asked. “It seemed like your men thought it was the spirit world.”

“That’s why I’m the elder, and they’re the hunters.” He said, blowing steam off his soup and taking a sip. “I’ve inherited the stories of each of the ancestors, including before they came to this place, and I can only assume our world is some kind of…prison for especially wicked people.”

“You’re not too far off,” Garth said with a shrug.

“Should I be worried about you?” the elder pointed his spoon, looking Garth up and down.

“No sir. My exile here was more…political in nature.”

“I see. And her?”

“I followed him.” Alicia said.

“I see.” The orc folded his gnarled hands over each other. “I hate to break this to you, but you’ll be spending the rest of your lives here, one way or another.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that feeling.” Garth said before glancing out the door. “Doesn’t seem too bad, all things considered.”

“Huh,” the elder chuckled. “Well, now that you’re here it the easiest way to have you be accepted by the community would be to contribute something to our way of life, So, do possibly have any fruits? Seeds of any kind? An animal on your person? A Technology we are unaware of? Be thorough. The first wheat came from a single grain trapped in one of the first Ancestor’s sock.”

“I am an encyclopedia of seeds.” Garth said.

The elder glanced over at Alicia, who shrugged.

“Explain.”

Garth grew a miniature apricot in his palm, conjured a wooden chair and sat down in front of the elder, maintaining hard eye contact while he ate the fruit.

The Elder stared at him until his spoon fell out of his hand and clattered to the ground.

“Here you go.” Garth said, sliding the pit across the table before making an apple and starting on that one.

“How did you do that?” the elder breathed.

“How about a trade?” Garth asked, ignoring the man’s question. “One seed of any kind you like, in exchange for each fact about the laminar crystal that grows in your village’s impeyaga.”

The elder’s expression became somewhat confused, like they’d asked a stupid question. “You wish to hear about the Shibeyaga?”

“Please.” Garth said, his hands folded.

****

“Isn’t that awesome!” Garth said, pointing at the fake sun and the sword creating the waterfall.”

“Awesome how?” Alicia asked.

“Okay, so according to the elder, the Shibeyaga, or Practice Stone, makes any object in contact with it become better at whatever it is being used for.”

“So, Kurt’s bow.”

“Exactly. It’s been around for a hundred years or longer, and It blows holes in things like nobody’s business.”

“So what’s the awesome?” Alicia asked. “It makes things better and last longer.”

“The key is sapience!” Garth said raising a finger in the air like a mad scientist. “The illusion of purpose!”

“Fifty years ago, that stream was much smaller, but now it’s almost a river.” Garth said, pointing to the sword. “According to the Elder, one particular cold night one of the ancestors saw water condensing on the sword and stuck it into the wall above a bucket, which would slowly fill up. Now it makes a creek!”

“And?”

“Nobody was using the damn thing.”

“They were using it to make water though?” Alicia said with a frown.

“It was the subjective perception of a purpose by a sapient creature remolding the sword’s physical and magical characteristics – from a distance! Isn’t that incredible!?”

Alicia frowned some more.

“The sun, for example.” Garth said, pointing up. “That started as a dim glowing crystal that helped make the cave slightly less…pitch black, but over hundreds of years of contact with a Practice Stone, it became…that!”

“So…It makes things better?”

“At the purpose we believe them to have.” Garth said with a manic grin. “And we don’t even have to touch them. Although I imagine touching probably improves the practice stone’s ability to read what you want from the object. Hence the crystals in the bows handle rather than anywhere else.”

“Those,” Garth said, pointing, at the individual flowerpots filled with ripe wheat. “Those flowerpots used to be made of stone, but now they’re some kind of like, indestructible plastic that absorbs nitrogen from the air and gives it to the plants. That’s the element of the spell I couldn’t see! It does it without mana!”

“It’s very cool, but I don’t see why you’re excited.”

“My dear,” Garth said, throwing his arm around Alicia’s shoulder. “Don’t ditch the clothes and settle yourself in for a lifetime eating wheat and moss with the natives, because we’re getting out of here.”

***

“You’re never getting out of here.” The elder said flatly, glaring at them from across his table.

“Really? After all the things I’ve done for your village? Those new trees I grew for you the last few weeks? Hollowing out more space for houses? Improving your water system? tricking Alicia into wearing nothing but a thong out of respect for your ways? That seems awfully final for someone who’s done so much for you.”

The elder sighed and scratched his head.

“We know a safe way to the Core, but it is a nifishya, very bad. Many many years ago, the core room became Nifishya, and its guardian along with it. We do not want to lose someone as valuable as you, and risk the wrath of the guardian in the process.”

“Exactly how nifishya are we talking here?” Garth asked.

“Only intruders can suffer any harm while within the bounds of the Core room, while the guardian and the core are immortal. It is the Law of the place. The beast that guards the room is also very powerful, very fast, and very deadly.”

“That sounds good to me.” Garth said with a grin, causing the elder to erupt with another aggravated sigh.