Chapter Two: The Gift of Life

Gimble lay on a small patch of thick grey moss a wave, the air damp overhead, a steady trickle of condensation forming over his surface. The dungeon core was surrounded on all sides by the poking and prodding of dozens of different insects currently munching on said pathc of grey moss. Most of the cave floor seemed to be covered in the same greasy plantlife, or at least a variety of it some stretches of moss were a pale red in colour, others a faintish blue; but of course Gimble of all dungeon cores was stick with plain old grey. The only areas of the cave that the moss hadn't conquered were the grimy puddles that had formed in between the stalagmites rising from the floor but it was these puddles and pools of brackish water which formed the basis of the cave’s complex internal ecosystem.

At the bottom of the food chain sat the humble baby mudfish (an improvised name care of one slightly deranged dungeon core) that lived half submerged, a myriad of frills jutting from their gills filtering for food amidst the mud, a single small hole in the middle of their faces allowing them to eat anything larger than dust mites that they might come across within the water. Then there were the cricket like creatures which made up the bulk of most of the insects int he cave; large bugs, with powerful legs covered in spikes and a jagged horn jutting from the top of their forehead, Gimble dubbed these creatures spiny-hoppers. The spiny-hoppers ate the grey moss and swarmed over the leftovers of any other wayward predator and standing above the cricket and all others insects in the cave on the strange ecological ladder was a species of eyeless, hairless rat with six legs which ate both the spiny-hoppers and the baby mudfish. Of course the wonders of this strange and magical cave did not end there no, the interesting thing about the rats was that in order to kill their prey they first spat small plumes of fire from roughly a foot away lightly toasting, blinding and otherwise discomobulating their prey before launching an all out assault. Of course it took a rare breed of beast to even be willing to eat such disturbing prey as the rats as matter of fact it took a breed slender snakes with scales as white as snow and a penchant for ambushing their prey, and coiling around them, but rather than constrict there meals these snakes chose to freeze activate their trap card emitting a wave of cold which froze their prey solid before the snakes swallowed them whole - which did make just about as much sense as fire breathing rats. But not even the snakes would dare to challenge the might of an adult Mudfish, the elder variants of the little brown filter feeders were a good foot long and simply inhaled anything that approached them which very few creatures did, so in their down time they instead spent their days nibbling on the edges of the moss and then excreting their left overs into their home puddles where the younger mudfish filtered out anything of ‘nutritional value’.

Ah the circle of life could truly be a wonderful thing.

Of course this abundance of life meant an abundance of the strange swirly blue energy that seemed to staurate every living creature, to the point it overflowed spilling into the air. Each one of the cave’s inhabitants was practically swimming in a small vortex of the stuff, exactly what the strange blue mist was he couldn't say, it could have been ki, or ether or magic, or possibly even fragments of the little animals souls. Of course after pondering that particularly horrifying image Gimble just decided he was going to call it mana for now, because he was a very simple dungeon core at heart, and too many years of playing videogames, had rotted his mind long before he'd lost any of his memories.

Of course he was rather skeptical of the whole 'floating soul mist' hipothesis, after all it seemed like every creature had a slightly different variety of mana cloud, the hoppers were swathed in a thick black smoke, where the mud fish were doused in a swirl of muddy brown, the rats were a dark red and the snakes a pale blue, almost white. Going by the colour schemes he was assuming there was some kind of elemental relationship. In any case once the excess mana surrounding the creatures had vented off into the air it formed the pale blue mist which was slowly being hoovered up by Origin – greedy green mana loving bastard.

Gimble continued to glare at the green gem inlaid safe in the wall high above. He gave a quick snort and turned his attention back to his current goal, his modus operandi, his raison detre; he was going to steal all of said mana for himself!

The young dungeon core released a wave of internal maniacle laughter, his surface bursting with small pinpricks of light. Now all he needed to do was figure out how to absorb mana and he could dethrone that glowing green moron.

Hmm...

Hm...

He had no idea what he was supposed to do, he gave out a long low sigh, staring wistfully down at his cold damp bed of moss. Even the moss was giving off plumes of energy he just needed to find a way to get at it. If he had been a fairy tale princess this would have been the point where he started singing about wanting to steel of the shiny blue energy for himself, but being no kind of princess he let out a frustrated grunt his inability to move slowly beginning to grate on his nerves. He just wanted some of the magic juice, was that really so wrong?

It was roughly around that time that he noticed that a tiny portion of the mana mist from the mos was slowly being absorbed into his body, a gentle trickle of that energy fueling the tiny pinpricks of light illuminating his otherwise obsidian black body. He could feel it a trickle of energy slowly drawing itself up into his body soaking in through his surface, like water through a rag. It was a truly insignficant portion of mana, so small as to be barely noticeable, but it was a start. Gimble reached down, metaphorically, and tried to tug on the cloud of energy seeping into his gem an attempt to illicit some kind of response, and in accordance with his wishes, a moment later he felt a strange sensation pass through his new body almost like he had taken a deep breath, just without the part where he needed lungs. As the sensation of breathing grew filling the entirety of his body the tiny stream of mana practically doubled in size, which all things considered still wasn’t a lot; Origin had to be guzzling down a few thousand times more mana than he was getting with his piddly little mana sucking skills, but it was progress none the less.

Gimble frowned pulling on the thread of mana once more the influx of energy spasming briefly before expanding once again a few milimiitres wider, from there he just kept pushing. Soon his entire surface was a gigantic plug hole for the dark green mana of the moss and even some fragments of the pale blue mana began streaming down from above to meet him snatched from the lascivious grasp of the green eyes dungeon core.

He let out a cry of triumph before he felt the threads of mana pouring into his core snap, severing him from the magical mist, his intake of mana tumbling back to where it had been before he began his efforts in grasping mana. He supposed there were limits as to how much mana he could draw at once, at least that seemed to be the case for now. Soon enough his mana gathering abilities would be able to suck the whole world dry. He smiled at the thought before taking in a deep breath of mana and continuing to suck ever more energy into his body.

Over the next few hours he continued increasing the power of his suction before waiting for it to inevitablysnap back or for a dense wave of fatigue to wash over him informing the young dungeon core it was time to stop. Eventually he settled on a moderate size that allowed him to indefinitely absorb a reasonable amount of mana, it still wasn't anything compared to Origin but everything started with baby steps. Now he could settle back and enjoy the pleasant sensation of draining the magical energy from the moss below him and the air above. It really did feel like breathing, well almost, it felt kind of like trying to breathe underwater, his body bloated and swelling just with energy.

Ding!

Gimble was startled from his rest by a sharp ringing sound, his mana vacuum briefly shutting back down as his concentration broke. He turned his sphere of vision around in search of the source of the sound finding the answer resting just at the edge of his awareness, in the form of a small text box gently bobbing up and down.

Dungeon Core - [Gimble]

DURABILITY - [92%]

MANA - [1/???]

LIFE FORCE - [2/???]

Huh, well that was convenient, still after all the effort he’d put in he had only just reached one measly point of mana, although he did already have two life force which was pretty good by comparison. He wasn’t entirely sure what the difference between the two was, but as far as he was concerned more was better. He turned his attention back to his mana vacuum widening the nozzle waiting to see any changes in his stats...

…

…

Time is a funny thing...

...

...

Gimble sighed, it was hard to tell how much time he had spent in the cave, in this new body, his recent experiences had served to warp his sense of time more than he cared to admit. How long had he been alive, how many days and weeks and months did his memory record? He couldn't remember all that much of his past life, at least no more than hazy images half forgotten; sun-bleached white. He had seen stars born and turn to dust, heard the roaring flow of time itself, and fallen deeper into the mire of his own insanity. It didn’t help that he had no access to the outside world, a sun to record the passing of his years, no he was subject just the comings and goings of the cave’s little inhabitants from which he was currently absorbing a stream of mana. This was his all, his life...

He was thinking about this too much, he knew that, honestly he felt more sane now than he ever had when he had been a regular human driving his truck into lampposts, but he suspected every crazy person felt that... One day he would find a way outside of the cave, one day, but for now he was just going to keep absorbing mana. If he kept training his suction it would grow more powerful and then all the mana would be his!

It was best to start with small goals

...

After what might well have been days or could easily have been months Gimble saw his life force count jump to three, though is mana remained stuck at the very bottom of the barrel.

He raised his none-existent eyebrows still unsure of what he was supposed to do with life force. He didn’t think that life force had anything to do with keeping him alive, he already had a metre for durability which seemed close to health in terms of purpose that it made life force kind of unneccessary. As a matter of fact his durability counter had been steadily ticking its' way up towards one-hundred percent healing the tiny hairline fractures caused by his fall from the wall above. Still that didn't provide him any clues as to what he was supposed to do with his life force. Gimble frowned, there had to be a way for him to use these resources, otherwise there would be no purpose in either Origin or himself gathering them, maybe if he...

A small shiver ran through his body, his surface reverberating momentarily, a physical movement that sent the spiny-hoppers scuttling away from his patch of moss. He felt the flow of his manner halt before reversing, a seamless cloud of energy slipping out through his hard exterior as his life force dropped down to zero. However unlike the pale blue of the mana cloud above this one was a deep hearty shade of green thrumming with life, not too dissimilar to the light pulsing away in Origins’ body up on the wall.

Gimble grinned, now what was he going to do with his newfound power?

Huh, hmm he watched as the pale green light wavered in front of him, first swaying right and then left, forwards and backwards. He had a rather limited control of the energy now that it was out of his body, but he did have some power over it, it kind of felt like trying to put out a candle by just by waving his hands at it, except instead of using his hands he was batting at it with his mind. Still he could encourage it to float up or down, or sending it twisting into ellaborate shapes, the young dungeon core slowly played with the glob of glowing light before the sensation of a growing headache forced him to stop.

It seemed like he had mentally overextended himself with his little game

Controlling energy with just his mind was more taxing than he had imagined, but at the same time it had been a good bit of entertainment. He sighed watching as the wave of green light sank down resting towards the grey moss slowly spreading out across its surface. The mass of vegetation quivered briefly as the free lifeforce sank deeper permeating into its body, its’ edges that had begun to recede from the feeding efforts of the hoppers quickly perking up the moss spreading outwards at an astounding pace, at least for a plant, gaining four or five centimetres in a matter of minutes. Of course that wasn’t what was drawing Gimble’s attention, no that honour was reserved for the new screen that had appeared in front of him flashing red

WARNING! - [Life Force Insufficient] You have insufficient life force to create a monster. Attempt to subsidies cost with: [Sunless Cave Moss] Failed.

It seemed like he'd dounf the true purpose of his life force; to build him an army of monsters! Gimble let loose a low chuckle which quickly rose to a bout of maniacal laughter.

The world would rue this day; for every parents knows there is a reason you don’t let children play with dynamite, let alone the fundamental driving power of life. In time countless terrors would be born from the sinister power wielded by this inane dungeon core - enough to fill the pages of legend and history - but it all began with an unassuming clump of grey moss.