They had to wait for Gem’s mana to recover before they could build a Pylon, and while they did so, Gem rearranged some blocks on his island, since he was down so many. He also brought the cobblestone block up from underneath, in order to absorb it more easily.

As soon as he was ready, he followed Chesu’s instructions and absorbed the cobblestone block. The wisp described it as eating, but it felt more like drawing the block into himself. Immediately he learned many things about it, but the most important was that cobblestone was made by cooling down lava and then breaking the unusable stone. Lava could be cooled by many things, but the easiest way was to introduce it to water.

Generator Unlocked: Cobblestone

“Remember those buckets you got from the chest? Look at those.”

Iron Bucket - Water

This bucket is filled with one block of water.

Iron Bucket - Lava

This bucket is filled with one block of lava.

Gem sent Chesu an image of a gem that was laughing so hard it was crying.

“Never used to be. Remember: we’re out of time. As much fun as it would be to make you scrounge for materials up here, you’re needed at the end game.”

Chesu shook his head. “Some rules can’t be broken, kid. There’s local stuff, like how blocks are generated and what you can be given to make entry a little easier. But the rest is cosmic. You can’t skip ahead any sooner than you can strap rockets to your ass and go for a joy ride around the universe.”

Gem said, although he still felt sullen.

“Hate to say it, but this is the easier way.” Chesu laughed, a bitter-sounding thing. “You should have seen the first iteration of the system. No block generation, just spawning with mana. That was before the Ostrum could fly, though.”

If Gem had a body, his blood would have run cold and his flesh would have crawled. He could almost, faintly, remember the sensation. Instead, the surface of his crystalline enclosure seemed to gain a slight chill.

“Time and manpower. But in order to create one, you need to have space for it.” Chesu smiled knowingly. “If you had a bigger core room, you could make it here… but, well, your block conservation efforts made that a little difficult.”

Chesu laughed. “I keep forgetting you’re smarter than you look. Don’t even know why I’m here.”

The words were said with a playful tone, but Gem could feel the bitterness lurking under the surface. It didn’t feel malicious, just tired.

Chesu waved the words away with a flick of his wrist. “Focus, kid.”

Gem felt the urge to send the wisp an image of a frowning face on a gem, but decided against it. There was something there—some hurt that Chesu didn’t want to talk about. But now wasn’t the time, he could see that. There was too much else to do.

Moving his vision outside the dirt-walled hut of his Core Room, Gem surveyed his remaining blocks. There weren’t many. He started with 40 blocks across the multiple y-levels, and with 21 being used to construct his squat little Core Room, he was down to 19 total. Two were taken up by the saplings that he wouldn’t be able to relocate until they were grown, and nine hosted the floor to his core room. And he’d absorbed the cobblestone block, meaning it vanished from his available pool.

“That’s because it isn’t. You’ve got to work with what you have, and what you have is limited until you can make more.”

Gem followed the instructions in his mind, from when he absorbed the cobblestone block. First he moved three blocks of dirt and relocated them to the y-level below. At Chesu’s suggestion, he moved a temporary block into the center space of his trench, to keep the lava and water from spreading itself out too thin.

Chesu cackled. “I’m sure you’ve noticed so far, but let me just say it out loud: Sleyn’s physics are bullshit. They were bullshit before the Ostrum appeared, and they’ve become even more bullshit with the world’s response to their presence.” He tipped Gem a wink. “To answer your question: you’re fine. Liquid will only flow into a full open block on its y-level or the next one down. It will not spill on the diagonal even if it’s across y-levels.”

Gem stared at the generator.

“Yep. Just place your liquids and remove your middle block… Then watch the magic happen.”

With a silent prayer to no one and nothing, Gem selected the ‘Use’ command on his menu for the buckets. He poured the lava into the right side of his generator trench, and water into the left side. When both empty buckets were secured in his inventory, he removed the dirt.

Physics took over, and the water and lava both tried to flow into the empty space. Instead of one claiming dominance, however, there was a hiss and a blackened stone block appeared in the center space, once again separating the lava and water. He examined it immediately.

The block’s menu was slightly different than the one on the original cobblestone, or on the dirt Gem had dealt with so far.

View Description

Break

Destroy

Out of curiosity, he selected ‘View Description.’

Useless Stone Block

Break this for cobblestone.

he thought.

“What’s that, kid?”

Chesu nodded and motioned at the block. “Alright, well, do your stuff. Let’s get this generator, uh, generating.”

Selecting ‘Break’ destroyed the block. It immediately vacated the space between the lava and water, starting the whole cycle over again. Another hiss and a new block of useless stone filled the space. However, Gem was aware that there was now a block of cobblestone in his inventory.

he said, marveling at the efficiency.

“Do what?”

Gem hesitated.

He was expecting a lecture.

Not a laugh.

The wisp nearly bent over himself with the force of his guffaw. “Oh, kid, you are a breath of fresh air, you know that? Gods be good... “ He wiped a tear from his eyes. Or mimed doing so. Gem wasn’t really sure. “Oh, I needed that, thanks.”

Gem felt instantly uncomfortable, but tried to move on.

“You’re so… innocent. Unassuming. It’s great. I haven’t met such an unsuspecting soul in so long.” The wisp shook his head. “I mean that in the nicest way possible, by the way. Most people who become Dungeon Cores are recently dead, so they’re kind of cynical. You just take everything here at face value.”

Gem sent him an image of a gem with a frowning expression.

The wisp’s humor vanished. “When you’re as old as I am, and have seen as many angry or disillusioned cores as I have… Believe me, it’s a good thing.”

He smiled at Gem, a wide and almost cheerful smile. Almost. There was still something painful lurking just behind it.

“But, uh, yeah. Answer to your question? Sleyn’s physics are bullshit. Liquid fills the space of a block. When it spreads and goes to a second block, the volume of liquid in each block is reduced by half. And so on and so on, until it either evaporates because there isn’t enough liquid left, or it finally becomes contained. But there are two exceptions to this: block creation and gravity. If the liquid in question—in this case, water and lava—meet and their meeting creates a block, neither liquid is reduced because the free space becomes a block. Likewise, liquid spilling over a y-level without it touching a block directly below for three z-levels allows it to become an infinite source. Not exactly something you can take advantage of for now, but something to keep in mind.”

Gem tried to file that for later, but kept finding himself mulling over it as he generated more cobblestone. The process was incredibly monotonous, so it made sense that his thoughts would wander.

Select. Break. Collect.

He didn’t ask it as a question, and Chesu didn’t answer.

“Right. And you’ll want mobs to run them, instead of doing it yourself.”

Gem let time pass in silence. He focused on collecting more cobblestone, and on allowing his mana to regenerate. By the time he was back up at fifty—with three stacks of cobblestone in his inventory—the sky around him was turning a fevered maroon. It was hauntingly beautiful, both unexpected and different in a way that told Gem he wasn’t a native to this planet.

The sight also made him feel odd. Like he expected to be exhausted, but found no fatigue lurking.

“Not in a traditional sense. Every once and a while it’d be a good idea to rest, just to declutter your mind. Some meditation or mindless tasks, like resource grinding. There are a couple of situations where you’ll be forced to sleep, but those are few and far between. Emergencies, if you will.”

Gem wanted to ask for details, but Chesu was already moving on.

“But alright. You should have a decent stack of blocks now, right?”

Chesu whistled. “Time flies, eh?” The wisp motioned to the island. “But alright. There’s a thing you may want to do, and then two things you have to do in order to continue. The first is to build up your Core Room. While you can function with being in a shoebox, even if you don’t like it, it isn’t exactly the most comfortable place for me. Nor will it be defensive. Additionally, you have no way of generating dirt blocks right now, and unless something changed, you can’t mana them into existence either?”

Gem checked his crafting menu.

“Right. So, the dirt you spawned with—all 39 of it—is all you’ll get for quite some time. And you’ll want every block of it for trees.”

Gem looked at his saplings. They still hadn’t grown, but Chesu said it would take time, and that was one resource he theoretically had in infinite amounts. Until the Ostrum came, at least.

“Not rebuild. Expand. See, if you took a block away from your Core Room right now, it would break. You’d lose access to a bunch of things and need to reclaim the room. Instead, you’re going to build a structure around it, and then remove those blocks.”

“But after that, the things you have to do are build a Pylon and start building your dungeon.”

“It’s um…” Chesu paused. “Damn. Not exactly a nice universal way to explain this. Think of it as an extension of your power. Right now, your influence is expanded through blocks. Two off the end, right? But there’s a limit to that. Your influence can only go so far. So, that means Pylons have two functions on Sleyn: increasing your command and increasing your area of influence. No dungeon building anywhere outside your influence, no matter how many blocks you have. And you can’t create mobs without access to command. Every mob takes a certain number of command to bring them into existence, and they’ll count against your total until you dismiss them.”

That explanation didn’t make sense to Gem, but he realized it didn’t currently have to. He’d get to see the Pylon in action as soon as he made one, but that wouldn’t be until after he fixed his Core Room.

Gem got to work.

Instead of starting with the Core Room, he started with the rest of his little island. He had plenty of blocks, and he decided he wanted to have all of his dirt accounted for in the end. At least, minus the two that were currently occupied by his saplings.

He started by carefully dismantling his cobblestone generator. The liquids were scooped back up into separate buckets, and then he was able to break the center block without creating a new one.

When that was finished, he created a platform of cobblestone blocks, five blocks wide by five blocks deep. He left the two sapling blocks untouched as well as four blocks—two on either side of each sapling—that had grass growing on them. Gem also didn’t replace the floor, walls, or ceiling of his Core Room. At least, not right away. When he was finished elsewhere, Gem started by building a layer of floor one y-level under his Core Room. He then removed the dirt floor, and replaced it with a new cobblestone floor.

Gem wasn’t surprised to see he couldn’t interact with the block his crystalline prison and it’s weirdly organic-shaped pedestal sat on.

Once the floor was replaced, Gem got started on the walls. Following Chesu’s instructions, Gem made the Core Room large enough to defend. He’d want to make it large enough to accommodate his mobs, eventually, but he wasn’t there yet.

He made the room three y-levels tall, five wide and five deep, with his core against the back wall. Chesu assured him that the average Ostrum couldn’t break his blocks, so he was safer farther from the entrance. The way he specified ‘average’ was disturbing, but Gem let it pass. Another worry for the future.

A total of 70 blocks went into the construction—45 for the walls and 25 for the roof—and with the 15 he used to create his 5-by-5 replacement island (minus the 2 blocks of dirt with their saplings and the 8 blocks of grass-covered dirt), he was left with a little over a stack of cobblestone blocks. Plenty to build whatever thing Chesu would prompt him to create next.

Before wrapping up his building escapades, Gem created two 4x1 pits just outside his Core Room and dropped his water and lava inside. The physics of the liquids meant they attempted to fill the first block, then the second, then the third, before filling all three at once. It was a bit disorienting to watch, but the end result was exactly what he needed. When Gem used his buckets to collect both liquids, the level of the liquid didn’t change. With his new infinite water and lava sources, Gem created two spots for cobblestone generation just outside his Core Room. While the two stations wouldn’t be important now, he knew it would come in handy as soon as he had a mob to help him.

When he was ready, he prompted Chesu to help him create his first Pylon.