Damn. Shits really hit the fan. It went from a happy go lucky “I’m a winner,” view to a ,”fuck me sideways with a screwdriver,” point of view.How did everything just get so awful so quickly. *sigh*. It doesn’t matter really. Come on Bismuth, positive point of view. I set a new record! Five hours straight before something went wrong. In those five hours I managed to clear out a big one hundred metre long, one hundred metre wide, twenty metre tall cavern, with reinforced roof and walls. No supports, no cave ins. I thought about growing the gems some houses, but, no. They can build their own homes. It will give the caverns a unique touch, filling it with diversity, and help the gems get better control over their mana. Yeah, that’s definitely it, not at all because I’m lazy. We found ten more gems in that time. That brings our total number of gems down to seventeen. Their evolution seem a lot rarer as opposed to the other evolutions. I used mana and my special dungeon powers to stop plants and animals from getting in here, but the minute you stepped outside, Damn, there was at least a hundred different types of plants in each room, and at least three of one animal type, so like, three foxes, or three centipedals. Yep, those became a thing. Jett was amazing at finding the new gems, and alexandrite at explaining their, lets say positions. The dungeon creatures didn’t attack them, so the biggest problem was just finding them, as some instinctively used there powers the moment they evolved. Scared and alone, I didn’t blame them. The issue is, is when there are gems like topaz, who immediately camouflaged.

After about an hour, however, things slowed down, so a lot of things just stopped working, almost. Like There were still normal wisps floating around, but none evolved, and all the plants and animals stopped to, now, we had a lot of tier one monsters. Let me explain the tiers.

The tiers function on the monster difficulty, and are quite simple. It starts at tier one, where they could kill an unsuspecting, unarmed, non-combatant sentient. Then it goes to tier two, where it can kill an armed, aware sentient, semi experienced in combat, and so on. Each tier is a massive improvement to the last. The tiers never really stop, and on tier one hundred, the monster can kill an army of one thousand people, all nearly masters in there trade. It’s not complicated.

Then you’ve got the evolutions, which start at step one, which is a monster that has never evolved, like a wisp, or a normal wolf, and step two, which has, such as a solid wisp or a iron fur wolf. That’s even more simple. A creatures step doesn’t depict its tier, however, as a step one dragon would kill a step one bunny every day. But a step one hundred bunny is on even ground with a step one dragon. It’s annoying, and stupid, because a tier three fire elemental will be beaten by a tier two solid water wisp. And then variations come into play, like my crystal-life creatures. *sigh*.

What I ended up doing was putting the wisps in the cavern, after alexandrite explained there situation,I talked to them. The rules me and diamond made were simple.

Do not lie to anyone You may not force someone to do something against their will You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to Grow your own houses If the cavern needs to be bigger, grow it Don’t be reckless. If you feel like something is wrong, it usually is Carry around the sashes at all times

The sashes were the invention that diamond eventually came up with to stop the mind control.it doesn’t always work, and only lets you know if it’s happening, but if you know it’s there, you can stop it yourself. That’s all she had time to make in five hours. She’s now working on a bracelet that should all together stop it, but it will take time before she can figure it out.

So your probably wandering what the issue was. Well, I got attacked. At first, I felt a tingling, then I heard diamond yell at me,

“SHIT! BISMUTH CALL BACK ALL GEMS! AN ATTACK STARTS IN ONE MINUTE! EXPECT MIND CONTROL IN ONE MINUTE!” I immediately pulled all gems back, explained what’s happening to alexandrite, who happened to be closest, and told her to explain the situation to everyone, and that no one is allowed to leave. Next I moved my core into the caverns.

“ you won’t be allowed to leave the core room.” Said diamond.

“Your currently the strongest creature in the dungeon, at tier three, capable of taking on five armed sentiments, new to combat. Until a stronger creature is created, this will continue.” I nod, and move my core back into the original position, and put an inconspicuous slab of stone in front of it. You can enter quite easily, but you need a key, which I created and put in the farthest room possible. Why make an entrance, you ask. Well, some stupid retard (the sages) decided that there has to be some way to access an area. If there isn’t, the doorways just opens up. That’s part of the reason hyacinth was so shocked, apparently there was a big slab of stone blocking her entrance.

The gems were all in the caverns, still need to name that, and all animals and plants are ready. It’s a go. Suddenly I heard alexandrites voice behind me.

“So, how are we going to do this?”

“You are going to do nothing.” I responded, turning around and coming face to face with amethyst, jett and three others. THis included were topaz, the previously mentioned camouflager, it’s her only unlocked power right now, but she also has a spear for a weapon. She was quite normal looking, but was only four foot. She had her hair in an Afro, and had loose tracksuit pants, and a long sleeve shirt. She was quite pretty.

“Why?” Said jett. “ this as much our home as yours. Even more considering we can’t leave, and your deaths aren’t permanent. If you leave, we will have to defend it anyway. You may as well let us help you now.” I see the other four nod. Alexandrite decide to continue.

“All of here want to fight and accept the risk. We all understand that we can be controlled and we can die. We don’t care. We will protect our race. And don’t you dare think otherwise!” She said that last bit with a little scream. Topaz spoke up in a beautiful, smooth voice.

“We know that you are reluctant to let us fight on your own behalf, but we are not. We are fighting for our people, so that we can defend them, so that those who won’t, or can’t fight don’t have to...” I try to interrupt her.

“Ok, listen...” and here comes jett

“No, you listen. We have listened to you. You have grown us a home, brought us into being. We follow your rules, now let. Us. Fight.”

“I was trying to say that you can fight,” They all shouted in triumph,” on one condition.” They groaned.

“You can fight, but any who can’t resist the mind control won’t fight until they can, and after, should you still wish to fight, you have to train with diamond to control your mana.” They all agreed.

“If they are fighting to, you can designate one of them as the boss, as they have the same tier as you. Then you can move around with the rest of them. Quickly, we have less then twenty seconds. Also designate the village as the second floor.” I do all that. I make tanzanite, the only volunteer to stay. His weapon is a massive tower shield.

“Five.” Says diamond.

“Four.” We summon our weapons.

“Three” we start running towards the entrance room.

“Two.”we set up shop in the third room from the entrance.

“One.”

“Now.” Instantly I felt the need to protect my domain. MINE! How dare they come into my dungeon and try and fight me. ME! I feel a tap on my shoulder and glare at whoever did it. I saw diamond pointing at my sash. I looked down. It was glowing. I nod my thanks. Already I could feel my thoughts coming back under control. It was, disconcerting. I really needed to talk to tiki about this. Noticing the others about ready to jump the attackers I whisper screamed at them,

“Look at your sash, your under control. Calm down.” They look, and they to start to control themselves. Hearing whispers I decided to have topaz camouflage and check on what they’re doing. Nodding, she shot off into the garden of gems. The talking isn’t getting louder, but I do here a bit of rustling. Topaz appears out of the bushes and tells us.

“There are only two of them? A water fairy and a dungeon. They both have watery attributes, but they wouldn’t be able to tackle a centipedal tribe, never mind the entire dungeon.” It was then that diamond interrupted.

“Who was in control?”

“The fairy.”

“Shit. That means she’s an anarchist.” While the others look confused, diamond continued. “What she’s going to do is swarm tactics. The good thing about this is that she forces a permanent portal for the duration of the raid, so we can attack them, getting twenty points instead of ten. but it also means that she can continually send through monsters. Remember what dad said. Even a million ants...”

“...Can kill a lion.” I finish. Suddenly I grin.

“Luckily for us, we’re the best at swarms. Remember the hundreds of wisps being made. Hahaha. Here’s what we’ll do.” And so I explain my plan. It was slip shod, made at the last second, but it worked. The only way to stop a swarm raid is to destroy the one of the crystals. What we ended up with was leaving a tribe to each room, either centipedals (my only tier twos), fentinals ((the strange fox things)a mix of fox and sentinel),

Or the rabbits. We would then have a group of us, consisting of everyone but me and tanzanite. Diamond loaded me with all the necessary information, before they set off. Hematite, a squat giant, was leading them. His weapon was a massive war hammer, and honestly, he scared me. Once you got to know him, you saw his true side, and while he may be gruff, he was a gentle giant. His one ability was creating a mobile fortification. It was barely big enough to cover them, and just a wall, but with topaz they would sneak through. This was where an amazing thing happened.

They fused. Like before, with the fentinals, or the rabbits, they started dancing. That’s all they did. Topaz had a flowing, ballet like style, while hematite just started grinding. They got closer and closer before topaz jumped into hematite, and a bright light was emitted. Once the faint silhouette of moving bodies stopped, Malaya was born. Made mostly from Malaya, you could also see faint lines of topaz and hematite. She wore a short skirt, and a pretty top. She was big, as big as hematite, who was seven foot. Her hair was styled like topaz, but had streaks of metallic hematite. She had two arms, but each arm was fitted with three joints and each hand had an extra thumb. She also had a long tail tipped in a hammer like head. .

“This feels amazing.” She said in a deep yet pleasant voice. By fusing, they were able to create a dome, and anything within it was invisible.

“Whaaa....?.???” Me and diamond both said.

“Beautiful, am I not? We will get the others in and out. Do not worry sir bismuth. Focus on the mission.” And with that, she gathered the others, shot out a dome, and ran forward. The only issue with it was the fact that any spare ability would last only five minutes, with the exception of the weapons.

Muttering, I set up all the rooms, before sitting in front of the rabbits. Lucky I did, as as soon as I did, the first wave shot through. A wave of goblins and solid wisps shot through the portal. The solid wisps were just balls of water. The goblins were short green things, perhaps four foot high. They had unnaturally long and awkward limbs, and had a mouth filled with sharp teeth. Instead of weapons, each of their three fingered hands was tipped in deadly, one inch claws.

They shot through, quickly entering the first room, while the fairy and dungeon stayed safe in the other room. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something felt, familiar about the fairy. The rabbits in the first room made short work of the goblins. There claws couldn’t pierce the crystal hide, and the rabbits horns found it easy to pierce the goblins thin skin. The wisps proved difficult, as the rabbits couldn’t easily kill them. It was balanced, however, with the water wisps unable to drown a creature that doesn’t breath. It was annoying that the enemies wouldn’t die, and so I called over one of the rabbits. I imprinted my drain mana spell into its gem, changing the gems colour slightly, but not by much. It ran back inside the room and stabbed a wisp. I watched as the wisp was slowly drained into the horn, while the rabbits crystal colour was slowly changed bluer and bluer. It ran to another rabbit that was in trouble and tapped there gems together. The other rabbit shot to a wisp, and drained it. So this succulent continued until all the wisps were dead. The downside, however, was the giving the goblins time. They learnt that by lifting a rabbit and throwing it into a wall, or clubbing it with a rock, they could break there body’s, proofing them. The one goblin tried to pick up a gem, but every rabbit looked at it and let loose a rumble, actually shaking the room. Slowly it put the gem down. Two of the rabbits started running around collecting the fallen gems. These two were smaller, more lithe rabbits. They seemed to be faster, and yet they didn’t have a horn. Instead, on there chest was a basket, which when filled with gems, was emptied into a warren. It seems specialisation has started, I should really check on my dungeon more.

With the goblins figuring how to fight the crystal creatures, we were in trouble. At least that’s what I thought. While new goblins were coming in and seeing how to fight, they weren’t telling others, so for every ten goblins entering, five died.

It was like an endless flood. Wisps entered only to die, and goblin bodies were crashing against rabbit. I was a bit disappointed when all the rabbits finally died, and the collectors ran into the warren, but there was nothing I could do. The only reason they survived so long was because they had an advantage in terrain and were in the middle of tier one, no where near upper edges, or the fentinols, and miles from the centipedals, but still better then the goblins, which only advantage was their ability to adapt. They were also variants or an incredibly rare mana, life, and a never before seen mana, crystal. Remember, even though a tier was important, and every tier was endlessly more powerful then the one before, it all depends on how you use this power.

The monsters carried on streaming in. It was like a never ending always encroaching tide. She must have spent every second making monsters, and then sent her entire dungeons worth in. What the actual fuck. Why is it so important to kill me? What’s the gain? Focus.

I snuck backwards into the fentinals room, giving a silent chuckle at how the goblins went the long way, and the wisps the short. Those wisps are bothering me. I can’t just make all my creatures draw in mana, as that will destroy potential evolutions. How do I kill the annoyances. Hmm, maybe I don’t have to. The plants all emit a mixture of crystal and life mana, which makes the life and crystal wisps in the air. But these aren’t true wisps, as they can’t evolve. The plants also photosynthesise of the same mana from different plants. Can I use this? Im doing all this on the fly, with no diamond, and realising just how much I need her.

Seeing the first wisps enter the fentinols room, I back into the corridor, I don’t have to worry, considering how you can’t drown an elemental. Are they even elemental anymore?

Back to my problem. I can’t influence the other wisps with the mana if I can’t see it. Thinking on this, i here the loud sound of goblins approaching. I look up a bit to see the wisps changing tactics, make the floor slippery. While it doesn’t directly hurt my creatures, it does inhibit their ability to fight. Seeing the first goblin run in, slip and kill itself by hitting its head on the floor, I stop worrying again.

Wait! that’s it! The wisps. I can’t see the false wisps from the plants like I can see monster wisps. They’re not wisps! They’re blobs of mana, and while they theoretically can turn into wisps, they would need days to accumulate enough mana to form crystals. This is what make elemental so good. They accumulate enough mana in the air to make these mana clumps, and then essentially make more of themselves with the blobs. That’s their form of breeding. So why could I see the clumps then and not now. What was different. Back then I had diamond, but that can’t be it, because im the dungeon. But maybe it’s not the dungeon portion of me. I reach up and touch my gem. No, it’s not my gem because then I’d know what to do immediately, like everything else. I think? I’m not really sure on the damned thing yet. Let’s just hope it’s not to do with the gem.

So if that’s the case, what was it. I can’t rule anything out. I don’t know enough about my gem to say whether or not it is it, but neither do I know this dungeon thing. I want diamond. She makes things so much easier. And why am I struggling on such a thing. It’s to help me damnit.

What else was I doing on that day that I haven’t done now. It had to do with mana obviously? and common enough that diamond didn’t think it was important to tell me. Or maybe she forgot? BRAIN CRAMP!!

Looking into the room, I see a fentine running around gently slapping the fallen gems towards a hole in the wall. Guess they also needed a warren. Why haven’t they fused? The rabbits didn’t either. I called one over and asked it to. All I got in response was a tilt of the head. Guess they don’t know how. I let it go, deciding not to influence the creatures more then I should. It ran back out. Almost half of the 20 fentinals were killed, but they were still holding. They had gotten used to fighting on the slippery floor, and had harder bodies to smash. That and the fact that they usually group up two to one, they were winning. They had blocked both entrances, not allowing more then a few goblins in at a time. The wisps were another issue. They were slowing the fentinals down by surrounding them with water. The only good news were that their numbers were starting to drown the goblins, and that they cushioned blows against the fentinals.

What am I missing. It must be so obvious, otherwise everywhere would be over run with with wisps. Think, think, think!

...

...

...

MAGIC. I used magic that day. A long shot. But one I’m willing to take. Focusing on a wisp, I drain it, and like a flood, as soon as the I started to visualise the spell I could see. Well, I could see the mana clumps. But that can’t be it. If it’s to do with mana, let’s try this. I visualise a lens appearing in front of my face, showing even the smallest tendril of mana would be revealed. Suddenly an extreme amount of mana came through the link. So much light and colour and being. It was beautiful. And I saw It. A Being so vast, so magnificent that my eyes cracked upon seeing It.

I screamed. The pain running through me was immense. An agony reminiscent of one thousand experienced torturers focusing their trade upon one body, I couldn’t even blackout. It was a soul destroying torment. It affected not my body, but my soul. It destroyed me and yet never even touched me. And I felt that even on death wouldn’t release me from this torment. It would take a super eon of time to even lessen, an infinite number of deaths. I felt a minuscule piece of mana enter me. Smaller then evena particle. It came from the Being. I tried to put up a fight, but I couldn’t do anything, my mana was exhausted in the spell, my soul was collapsing, my body was unresponsive.

The mana entered me and the pain stopped. My soul regenerated. Even the psychological trauma of such an experience was lessened, it wasn’t gone, However. I blacked out before I could even help my dungeon. My last thought was of relief, and of sorrow.

I would never be the same.

Never.