Chapter Three

Aggressive Takeover

“You’re not serious it’s been one day since we fought the rat…” Ember began but was cut off.

I’m naming him Gnarl, Wraith said only half listening to Ember’s ranting, he was busy and he was always talking to me, granted there was no one else to talk to and even if there was how could talk to them compare to talking to him?

“Whatever!” Ember exclaimed, “You weren’t even able to give me any upgrades after defeating him because you can’t understand how the magic affecting him works yet. These two we’ve beaten were maybe some of the weakest monsters in this cavern, how am I supposed to beat the rest of them?” He asked shouting.

I think you should take another look at Gnarl, his upgrades are what will allow you to keep challenging more monsters, Wraith said a bit smugly.

“What? How where you able to affect a rogue monster? Their aura should prevent you from affecting their bodies even if they are submitted to you,” Ember said and leaped into the air and circled around the stream where Gnarl was knowing on something he had pulled out of its depths. The rat was covered in iron plate armor and its tail had tight metal rings with spikes attached to enhance his tail attacks. “Your planning on having him fight with me? You know challenges are supposed to be one on one, right?” Ember asked.

The spider queen didn’t, Wraith pointed out.

“It was her territory we were invading, and they were only minions, this might work but other monsters might start to attack us if we start invading territories in” Ember cautioned me.

I care little for the opinion of monsters, Wraith replied.

“Let’s hope this doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass then,” Ember said with a sigh giving in reluctantly.

I am going to challenge the monster serpent that lives in the cave behind the waterfall, its territory has lots of interesting plants in it and it should give me new understanding to upgrade you, Wraith said and began invading the serpent’s territory with his mana.

The serpent’s response compared to the other monsters was, slow. He poked his head out of the curtain of water but didn’t charge my territory right away. The serpent was fifteen feet long and as thick around as a stalagmite with white shiny scales and black glistening eyes. Its tongue flicked in and out as it tasted the air. The serpent ghosted down into the water causing only a few ripples as it slipped beneath the surface. Gnarl and Ember stood back at the edge of the serpent’s territory looking at the water. There was an avalanche as the serpent landed down from the ceiling and wrapped around Gnarl the larger of the two. It struck at Ember with its fangs, but Ember managed to spin to the side and strike at it with his sword, he made a cut on its neck, but the serpent’s scales turned the blade of the sword preventing him from making a mortal wound.

The snake turned about and snapped at Ember again. Ember did a summersault over serpent’s head and landed on its neck; the serpent thrashed its neck try to shake him loose, but Ember mentally flicked out the obsidian blades it had used to cut the spider web binding in his first fight. The blades cut into the scales and stuck in like barbs. The serpent began thrashing its whole-body releasing Gnarls who leaped on the snake biting into its flank with his long incisors the snake tried to retreat slithering towards the stream but Gnarl bit into its tail and began dragging it back. The snake struck at him intending to kill it with its poison, but the iron armor prevented it from piercing the rat’s skin. Ember stabbed his sword down into the snake’s spine and the snake began rolling crushing Ember with its body weight. It began twitching violently even as it crushed the body Ember was in and his soul spark was pushed out of it. After a few minutes of twitching the serpent died giving Wraith a burst of dark, earth and water mana from its body, and my own dark mana flooded into the new territory.

Wraith began absorbing the serpent’s body leaving half of it for Gnarl to eat. The plants grew along the stream using the nutrient-rich soil. The plants he absorbed all had alchemical and magical properties and potential; they were probably what had caused Gnarl to mutate. There were six different types of plants all with dark mana suffused in them which was why they were able to grow underground. He began identifying them even though he had never heard of their names before the knowledge came from somewhere inside him but when he tried to identify that part of himself, he found a wall blocking him.

A bush with dark purple arrow-shaped leaves and tar colored bark was twilight wormwood. A plant with black leaves and a large petaled flower were black leaf rose which was filled with dark mana and a small bit of fire mana. Another flower with a black staked leaf and black cup-like blossoms made of petals was an abyss flower. A bed of black moss with white bell-like flowers growing from it was Frenn Moss was made of equal parts wind and dark mana. Another plant looked very ordinary from the top with green leaves and red flowers but its roots her slimy and black made completely of dark mana, this was Void-root. Another plant growing in the water had black silky stalks with glowing red spots on the stalks, the stalks were called Blood-herb made of water and dark mana.

Wraith cackled with glee causing Gnarl and Ember to look towards his core in concern since they could hear him through their magical link. These plants would nearly triple his passive mana accumulation and the other mana types would increase his options for enchanting and build monsters in the future. Wraith looked around at his dungeon territory and eyed it critically.

Ember, what can I do to make my territory more interesting and dangerous? Wraith asked.

Ember sat down on a mushroom and Wraith released Gnarl from all orders. The rat had begun to wander all over his territory which now as his monster was also its territory. The rat began foraging through mushrooms instinctually telling which were edible and which were poisonous, most were poisonous.

“Well now we come to the topic of themes. Dungeons, at least ones that have class, have themes. Sometimes the themes will change through floors but unless they are a trash dungeon the theme will remain mostly constant. If your dungeon mana was fire based, I would suggest a volcano theme, obsidian walls, lava for lights, fire elementals and fire-based monster. A mixer is a dungeon with no class, they have a fire room next to a graveyard and an icefield. While good at keeping adventurers on their toes and prevents them from being prepared for elemental attacks it kills the intimidation and awes a good theme will get you. No one talks about mixers because they aren’t impressive a dark ominous cave or an underwater maze is incredibly terrifying. But a castle partly submerged with lava coming out of its windows and icicles hanging from its parapets? Not trash dungeons, they are good for loot and power but nothing else and it will never attract adventurers regularly,” Ember said doing his best to explain. “Once you find a theme you work in traps to suit your theme, when you get more soul sparks you create monsters for the themes which is another reason you stick to one theme, if you have a fire room and a water room you’ll have to create separate monsters who can never leave the rooms which cut down on your defense and options.”

I see so my main mana is darkness, so I have to have a darkness-based theme? Wraith asked a little disappointed in the inflexibility of his options.

“Not necessarily, you could mix mana types for different effects. For example, fire and water mana for a steam dungeon, water, and earth for a mud or silt dungeon. I would suggest making your theme shadow in the future, light, and dark mana this is a rare type of dungeon theme, so it will be harder for adventurers to predict you. You don’t have any light mana right now, so I would just go with darkness mana right now,” Ember said. “since you have plants with lots of darkness mana in them, I would start planting them all over the dungeon. Alchemists will want them, so you can lure them here kill them and take part of their soul for new minions. Dark themes can use pretty much any type of traps as long as they aren’t light based on blinding traps or laser fields.”

Ok, I’ll start working on making the theme and your new body, tomorrow we challenge the snail monsters to the east of us! Wraith said. That sounded more impressive in my head.

“You don’t have a head,” Ember reminded Wraith dryly.

If you don’t keep quiet the next body, I make for you won’t have a head, he retorted only half-jokingly not having a body was something Wraith regretted although he didn’t know why.

Wraith got straight to work moving stone out of the floor he created a maze of ditches in his territory then opened a ditch into the stream filling the ditches with water so that movement across his dungeon floor would be restricted. The new swamp quickly filled with water and Gnarl swam through the swamp and up into the snake’s old cave where he began tossing out bits of bone and snakes skin to make his own nest in the former monster’s layer. Wraith began using his mana to create tiny sprouts of the herbs, plants, and flowers he had discovered. The bottom of the stream was filled with Blood Herb and the black water plant gave the swamp an eerie look as they lit up the underside with their red lights. The other plants Wraith set growing in the banks, the mana of the dungeon had the plants growing visibly before me as he turned from working on his theme to working on Ember’s boss body. He used the structure of the snake’s body to give Ember an elongated neck and added a tail and transferred the web gland from his hindquarters into cavity two feet up the tail, so Ember wouldn’t have to turn around to shoot webs anymore but only whip his tail forward or the side. Wraith looked at the giant snails in the new territory he planned on conquering tomorrow, their spiked shells would deflect Ember’s sword and spear and they could hide their vulnerable parts from by retracting themselves into their shells.

Wraith added a spiked club of hardened bone to the end of the tail. Despite preferring his undead form, he had to admit the snake’s muscles had an advantage over Ember’s skeleton frame which only used dark mana to operate and for strength in place of mana this meant that Wraith had to put a lot of mana into his body for him to control it.

Ember had explained to him that as a dark mana-based dungeon, Wraith would want to find true undead, as a Lord Spark he could inhabit anybody Wraith made for him, but lesser sparks would need a mana pattern in a skeletal or corpse frame in order to operate it with any speed or effectiveness. Without this pattern, the undead would be slow and stupid since the soul spark would have to devote almost their entire focus to making the body move and would walk off cliffs and into traps because of their split attention. Wraith would either need to find undead and destroy on conquer them to learn these mana patterns or he would need to create situations where undead would naturally form, torturing people could cause their souls unrest so they would be unable to come back and would form as ghouls, if he could manipulate adventurers into betraying each other the betrayal could cause them to come back as vengeful spirits such as ghosts, drown victims in a particularly violent manner could give me will-o’-the-wisps. Creating undead was an art more than a science and relied on a great deal of luck. All of that was irrelevant however until he was strong enough to actually deal with adventurers.

Wraith covered Embers frame in thin muscle and covered in with the snake’s white scales; he left the eyes empty and sunken and added the snake’s fangs to Embers mouth, after absorbing the snake’s venom his understanding in poison had increased by several ranks. He now understood the differences in the effects the poisons would all have, the spores of the mushrooms would suffocate an opponent while the spider venom would paralyze an opponent and the snake’s venom would try to stop a living opponents heart. Embers new body was too heavy for his current wing size, so he was forced to double the size of them. The new body wouldn’t be able to use weapons as easily but would be able to take a hit much better than it had previously. Ember was now a little bigger than Gnarl and his strength was now on par with the rats, but his ability to dodge a hit had gone down due to his larger and bulkier frame.

Ember moved his spark back into the body and began moving it around smashing rocks with his new tail and practicing breathing his poison spray. Gnarl had spikes added to his armor with deep lines etched into them where Wraith added a thick slime of poison. Wraith pushed his mana into the snail’s territory and the snails turned and began sliding over the ground as they moved in closer. Their shells were grey and brown blending in with the rock very well and could be mistaken for boulders apart from their spikes which looked like haphazard stalagmites. The slimy bodies of the snails were a dark blue with light blue spots, they absorbed the plants in their path and their slimy bodies reared up their four spiked eyes stocks twitching as they opened their mouth filled with rows of teeth.

Hhissss, they chorused.

There were four snails that moved to attack while the other smaller snails stayed back. Ember leaped up onto the ceiling and breathed poison out over the snails, but the snails didn’t even react. One of them spat a glob of slime out at Ember and he let go of the stalagmite dropping down to avoid the projectile before snapping his wings out and gliding forward. He whipped his tail forward and smashed the shell of the snail in the lead. The shell cracked and began leaking blue ichor. The snail hissed in agony and turned its head around to look at the crack. It spat another glob of mucus on the crack and the mucus hardened sealed the crack.

Gnarl charged forward and jumped onto the back of the snail and began slamming his armored head into the shell sending small cracks throughout the shell. The snail turned to spit at him, but Ember flew around and attacked him with his sword. It was more awkward to swing since he couldn’t stand erect with his tail, but he opened up a deep cut in the snail before he abandoned the sword dropping it to the ground. It began retreating into its shell, but Gnarl broke off a huge chunk and blue ichor poured out. Gnarl hissed as the blood seared the flesh on his paws. The other two snails finally caught up and attacked in unison spitting at Gnarl. Gnarl rolled to the side and dove into a pool of water. One of the snails tried to follow him but the dirt wasn’t as firm a foundation as the stone floor had been and it tipped forward and landed upside-down in the pool the spikes in its shell sticking in the mud holding it in place.

Ember jumped forward and smacked one of the snails in its spiked eyestalk. The snail hissed and shrank back then lunged forward and took a bite out of Ember’s side. The slime of its body burned through the flesh as its teeth tore into the flesh. Ember pulled back bleeding heavily. The two snails moved in to flank him, but Gnarl plowed into the left one and heaved up tipping the snail onto its side. Then he slammed his tail into the soft underbelly cutting through the soft flesh with ease with his spiked tail. He pulled back as his tail burned but the snail hissed and cured up as it began bleeding out covering the ground with blue ichor. The final snail backed up and withdrew into its shell surrendering.

“Congratulations my lord you’re third…” Ember said sitting down in exhaustion.

A bunch of monster beetles just charged into our territory, Wraith interrupted noticing the new threat, they are headed straight for his core!

“What! Damn it they must have felt threatened by our aggressive takeovers. Order the other snails to fight, heal me and have Gnarl guard your core,” he said and then exited his body, so it could be worked on without his own magical aura interfering.

One of the beetles rushed down the path its head lowered, and small horns extended and that was when one of my first traps made a kill. The thin stone beneath the beetle gave way and it fell into a pit lined with iron stalagmites which pierced its unarmored belly. Seven more of the beetles rushed forward and around the pit trap. One of them stopping at the dead giant snail and lowering its mouth and slurping up the blue ichor appearing to suffer no damage.

“These snails must have been the beetle’s source of food and we took over an already conquered territory,” Ember said flitting above Wraith’s core.

What are you talking about? Wraith asked I thought a monster’s territory was protected by its mana?

“There are sub territories like yours, but they are usually not important because prey isn’t usually a threat. When you took over the spider queens and the giant snake’s territory you also gained a bunch of minor territories of things like small mice and rats and other things they preyed on, but since they were the predator when you took over their territory you automatically got their territory as well. I haven’t mentioned it before because I didn’t want you going after it yet but technically all the territories in this cavern are the minor territory of a powerful monster called an otyugh, it feeds on waste or other things that come down from the surface and fall into its pool when it gets hungry it will occasionally eat one of the other monsters down here, we don’t have nearly the power or numbers to kill it or subdue it yet though.” Ember said his body glowing a deeper and deeper red.

Finished, Wraith said making the last of the repairs to Ember’s body.

Ember flowed back into his body. His tail twitched, and he sprang up into the air unfurling his wings. The beetles were almost at my core and he quickly flicked his tail trapping three of them in a web of netting. The other tree beetles ducked beneath the umbrella-like covering of the giant mushrooms the suffocating poison not even slowing them. Ember landed down on the ground and a beetle rushed him. He breathed out his poison, but the beetle’s momentum carried it forward and Ember scrambled to the side to avoid being impaled but one of the beetle’s horns cut a deep gash in his flank. Ember bit into the beetle’s legs and he yanked ripping it off. The beetle turned and tried to split his stomach open, but Ember twisted in mid-air but was unable to avoid the horns coming back down and they pinned him to the ground. The second beetled turned back around at a sound from its comrade and barreled down on Ember.

At that moment Gnarl slammed into the beetle’s side and flipped it over into a trap and another pit trap opened up and the beetle fell in its shell protecting it from the brunt of the impact but it was trapped down at the bottom of the hole. The beetle pinning Ember spat a green mucus down and it began burning his flesh away. The body shuddered and died, and Ember floated out and back to my core. The third betel was only a few yards away and it slammed one of its horns into Wraith’s side and cracked his surface. Wraith screamed, and mana blasted out of his body and the beetle was struck by a dark miasma of magic that enveloped the beetle and its body dissolved in seconds leaving only its exoskeleton behind as its flesh rotted and was stripped away by the hungry phantasmal force.