Chapter Four: Dungeon Life

What is Life? The simple preservation of matter or something more... potent? In any case it remains a fundamental force of the universe. A power that now rested in the palm of his nonexistent hand, ready to be moulded like clay!

Gimble let loose a rolling laugh, at long last his life force had been filled. He was ready.

Dungeon Core - Gimble

DURABILITY - [97%]

MANA - [8/40]

LIFE FORCE - [50/50]

He took a deep breath before expelling his life force an unnerving chill slowly beggining to spread from the centre of his core outwards. The life force left him in a flood of thick green mist slowly gathering above him in a flurry of motion forcing the energy into a tight knit ball before slamming it down into the carpet of moss beneath him. A sudden sense of unease shook his body as the orb of light vanished absorbed into the moss. This was going to work, it had to, he would create a monster, the why’s and the wherefores of his actions didn't matter, not here.

He craved success but more than that he needed companionship. The days had begun to grow together, marked only by silence and the steady rising of his stats. He couldn’t take it much longer the endless night of the cave. His body might have been that of a dungeon core but his mind was human, he was still a human and the isolation was beginning to take its tole.

The pale grey moss pulsed in an emerald light. Unlike his previous attempts to animate the moss there was no explosion of growth only a steady pulse of warm green light. It almost reminded him of Origins core but where his fellow dungeon core was a bright and cutting shade this was a deeper colour something far more raw and primal.

Pop!

CONGRATULATIONS! - [Monster Created] You have imbued a living being with your life force. Creature [Sunless Cave Moss] can now be edited in the monster menu.

Monster menu? Gimble frowned at the term before a sharp pop! sounded at the edge of his consciouness as a new window burst to life.

MONSTER MENU [Sunless Cave Moss] x1

The menu had only one option, sunless cave moss' Gimble briefly turning his attention away from the screen to note the green glow flowing through the mossy carpet beneath him already beginning to fade. He let out a small huff, quite frankly he’d been expecting something a little bit more dramatic, when he'd considered making his first monster but no... No. He was stuck with a lump of glowing green moss. Well he might as well see what he could do with this monster. He mentally pushed the only available option. A moment later the menu began to tremble a small section of the splitting off from the main body before slowly beginning to expand forming a large diagram displaying the carpet of moss with an array of six buttons running down the right hand side; [Stats], [Skills], [Loot],[Create], [Edit], [Information]. Gimble’s attention wavered over the stats button mildly interested in what kind of stats a lump of moss could possibly possess before his curioisty landed on the edit button and he made his choice. The diagram warped briefly shifting to gain a new dimension forming a transparent blue cube with a small pile of grey moss sat at its' centre next to three faded blue silhouettes of what Gimble was going to assume were a human an elf and a dwarf. He was guessing about the races of the figures based on the fact one of them was inhumanly skinny, like a fashion model, and had pointed ears. The next was short with broad shoulders and the compulsory beard of a dwarf while the third was as bland as bland could be, just barely taller than the elf and maybe half the width of the dwarf.

Three buttons floated at the top of the display one of which was crossed out; [COMPLETE], [LIFE FORCE - [47/50] and [Blueprints]. Gimble briefly looked up to check his life force finding the metre resting at a steady zero before turning his attention back to the glowing mound of moss as a small smile cracked its’ way across his none-existent face.

it seemed like the diagram functioned just like every other window requiring him to mentally prod at it until it did something, of course editing a living organism wasn't quite as simple as smashing a button and the interface responded to even the smallest stray thought and it just so happened that Gimble's first thought was to give the creature some eyes and a mouth. The next moment he notice the cube flash red as his life force metre dipped into the negatives as an oddly human set of facial features suddenly grew out of the moss, and ti wasn't just one face either, it was a couple dozen, slowly breathing in and out, white pupilless eyes stared into the dark. The dungeon core recoiled in horror quickly erasing the travesty of life it had just created, before turning his attention to a design that was slightly less... harrowing. He was rather limited by the limit of his life force and it didn't help that his life force continued to count down as the minutes passed. In the end Gimble decided to base his design on one thing, the feature he would find most useful; mobility. After having the shaped the lump of glowing grey moss into his preferred design, his life force having dropped down to forty-five in the process, he completed his work and Gimble promptly slammed down the complete button, a gentle shiver passing through the carpet of plant life beneath.

The dull green glow vanished returning the plant to its' former death like pallour as the moss continued to quiver, GImble’s body sinking deeper into the plant as slowly several fronds began to rise around him, they snaked their way up around his crystal gripping tight to his surface. The changes didn't stop there though at the far edge of the mossy carpet another two dozen or so tentacles of slimy grey moss began to lift from the cave floor. This was the creature he had designed; something that a cursory examination of his [Monster Menu] had dubbed a [Sunless Moss Horror] the creature was still just a carpet of moss stretching roughly two square feet over the cave floor except now it had two rows of tentacles one set of tentacles on top of its’ body to hold onto Gimble’s core while the creature moved and another row of tentacles at the beasts edge to help it latch onto prey and drag its' hideous writhing grey mass across the floor. Gimble let out a cry of joy before opening the creatures' stats

NAME - [N/A]

AGE - [0]

RACE - [Sunless Moss Horror]

LEVEL - [1]

STRENGTH - [6]

AGILITY - [2]

SIZE - [8]

CONCENTRATION - [1]

SKILLS - [N/A]

TRAITS - [Overgrowth] TRAIT - [Overgrowth]

Having repeatedly experienced the life-giving force of life force you are capable of utilising this power yourself to slowly increase size and strength over time.

+The Concentration Stat

Gimble sighed regarding his new monster's information wincing slightly at the agility score, he hadn't been able to see the creatures stats when he was designing it but two agility seemed a little low. He supposed considering the creature the monster was based on was a plant that score wasn't too bad, it was infently better than his own agility score but seeing as he was a rock that wasn't all that impressive. He supposed tentacles just didn’t make for very good transportation, he'd probably have to design a new monster if he planned on getting from A to B any time in the next year. No, that wasn’t fair, this was his first monster and he was going to love it and care for it. Of course every sunless moss horror needed a name and Gimble felt he was going to go with George. Now he just needed to figure out how to steer this thing.

The young Dungeon core sighed giving his new monster the mental instruction to move forwards, several vine tentacles slamming down into the cave floor with a monstrous thud a moment later. George dragged itself onwards the nearby spiny-hoppers standing around in awe. The unwitting creatures of the cave bore witness to a sight that no mortal eyes had ever witnessed before; a dungeon core, riding to battle atop a pile of sentient moss tentacles. One of the insects promptly approached the sunless horror the spiny-hopper leaning forwards to bite down onto one of George's legs, the unfortunate creature probably under the assumtion that moss no matter what form it took was bound to be harmless - it was wrong.

George reacted with arboreal fury, his tentacle lashing out to batter the insect its' shell letting out a sickening crunch as the insect was beaten down into the ground. Gimble winced, before taking note of the fact his life force had just risen several points as the insect breathed its' last a small pulse of mana shooting into his core. George regarded the bug splatted against the cave floor with a certain level of disdain before reaching down to grab the creature and hurl it at a nearby wall. Gimble sighed directing George to turn in a large circle, he supposed he’d just gained access to a new method of harvesting life force, but it would probably be a bad idea to just bulldoze through the cave right now. Even if George could take on any other creature in the cave if everything was dead then he’d run out of mana and life force for good, it would also be best if he didn't fire off any more magic insanity bombs either. The dungeon core and the sunless horror slowly began to make their way towards one of the darker recesses of the cave, and at George's pace it would likely be an arduous journey. For now he'd just keep out of sight and try to puzzle out what he was supposed to do next as a dungeon.

He hadn’t known the monster menu existed until the system had told him that it was there, there were likely other menu's that he'd never seen or heard of simply because whatever was controlling the prompts had simply decided he didn't need them, he was assuming it was due to the part of his cosmic inspiration trait though he wasn't going to rule out the idea that the universe just hated his guts. He really needed a tutorial or something, because fumbling around in the dark for answers, both literally and metaphorically, was starting to get old; he just needed some kind of explanation, someone to help him understand whatever the hell was going on. Gimble frowned, if there really were other menus, then he needed to find them before a random alert just told him they existed... Okay so what kind of things did dungeons normally do? They made monsters yeah, they built traps, designed mazes and killed adventurers lots and lots of adventurers... Oh lot's of dungeons had puzzles as well, and loot; every good dungeon had loot, rewards, gold weapons, etcetera. Come on he needed a menu for that. If the system had any love for him, a wayward soul lost on their infinite journey through the cosmos, it could do him a favour an give him a menu. A deep smooth pop’s as a new menu burst intoexistence.

[DUNGEON MENU] [CREATE DUNGEON]

[MONSTER MENU]

[TRAP MENU]

[TREASURE MENU]

Gimble let out a cry of victory, a brash smile cracking across his face as his mind reached out promptly slamming into the [CREATE DUNGEON] option the instant he had read through the word. A sharp bark of sound crashed into the side of his head as a new warning appeared in front of him flashing a violent red, the warning grating against his mind as it warned him away from the action.

WARNING! - [Requirements Not Met]

In Order to found a dungeon you must first:

Reach Level 1

Have a route leading from Dungeon Core Room to Surface

Have At least 50 Mana

Gimble frowned at the new information. It seemed creating a dungeon wasn't quite as simple as he'd hoped. His maximum mana was forty not fifty and he didn't exactly have a method of carving through the stone up towards the surface. He was sure there was some kind of tunneling skill specially made for dungeons but he didn't have it and he doubted George would be very useful when it came to excavation. He didn't have the slightest clue hwo he was going to reach the surface... Well at least he'd already reached level one, so he supposed he had met at least one third of the requirements.

Well he supposed this was just another goal for him to work towards now that he'd created his first monster. A dungeon would come in time and when it did he would begin his rise to power, slowly but surely reaching out towards the very pinnacle of all creation. The world would bow before him! He let out a raucous laugh which only he could hear as a hellish quaking shook the cave.

At first Gimble had assumed that the shaking had all been in his head, however as the sound of his laughter faded the rumbling of stone sliding against stone only grow louder; his gaze was drawn upwards towards Origin, his elder dungeon core shinning with a vibrant green light. The large green gem began to shake in its' socket. The wall behind origin had begun to crumble falling to the earth as sand, seamlessly melding into the ground below leaving only a single pillar of stone standing proud at the rear of the cave brimming with bright green light cast by the dungeon core mounted at its top. But the shaking continued as a massive crack appeared in the opposite wall, a narrow passage slowly beginning to form, a dark red screen bursting into existance before Gimble, an uneasy energy filling his body.

Soon all people would come to know what transpired that day, as the mana around the Pourya mountains began to swell and burn, It would travel as rumour from the lips of kings and queens and spread far across the disparate lands of Yarl. A new dungeon had been born.