The goblins went to collect rocks, sticks and shovels. In a gorilla warfare style effort, they were going to delay the approaching army by any means necessary. barricades, pitfall traps and landslides would collide against the armies before they saw their first goblin.

"That was a good speech." the bone-armoured goblin said, picking up his sword and shield.

"Thanks," Adil replied.

The goblin came over to Adil now a hand reached out for him to grab.

~"I am Aku. Great squire" He stated.

"Adil," Adil replied.

Adil grasped his hand and shook it firmly, pulling out for a fist bump which confused Aku until he eventually understood and accepted the odd gesture. Then Aku the giant bone-armoured blue-green goblin, walked away, his great two-handed sword held to the side.

Finally, Adil had grabbed the attention of Swift, as he came closer Swift appeared to walk away, he came to the entrance of the cave system and stood there still gazing into the crystals he held in his hands.

"How long until the crusade?" Swift asked.

"Wasn't sure you were listening. It should be about a day."

"Have you factored in the horses?" Swift asked.

Adil had a moment of panic "What do you mean horses?" He asked.

"The horses, a crusade should have at least a hundred horses. The church controls the army, according to the books I've read." He replied. Having clearly read it from one of the books.

"You're kidding," Adil asked out of desperation, but Swift only gave a solemn pained look in response. Swift reached out with the crystal to Adil in a sort of compensation for the soon to be army. As Adil touched it a notification emerged.

Crystal focus Options:

choose one:

Open crystal

A branch of crystal functions that centre around the development of hostile entities with the aim of increasing the development and progression of the crystal and increased essence collection. Also called a dungeon core, the crystal is able to enhance entities so that upon their death the essence absorbed is greater than what was put in.

Malleable crystal

A branch of crystal functions that are based around portable crystal functions. This can be used to augment items carried by the user and enhance productivity on travels. The crystal is called a worker crystal, due to its use as a tool of craft. It has also been called the "destroyer's crystal" for its enhancement of arms.

Hard crystal

A branch of crystal functions that centre around the development of a stationary environment of friendly entities. The crystal becomes increasingly attached to its surroundings and as such will be impractical to frequently move. This crystal function allows for increased control over the area and is commonly called the "Citadel crystal".

Adil and swift were both staring into the crystal as it was held within their hands.

"Have you chosen a focus for your crystal?" Adil asked.

"No, I only got the option now," he replied.

They both leant in and placed their mana into the crystal intuitively knowing what to do. As they focused on the crystal they both felt each other's decisions. Adil chose differently to Swift, he went for the hard crystal. He felt his desire to build the area into a great fortress citadel, to develop the maze into something amazing. Swift, however, was enamoured with the possibilities in the dungeon core, the idea of designing monsters, the wonder, danger and outlet of creativity was breathtaking. They both chose their selection and saw the crystals morph.

The crystals began to glow and morph next to each other, as it raised into the air it grew in size, the jagged orange crystal spikes began to separate from the mass and start moving around the solid hexagonal body of the other crystal. The energy grew within the central crystal and electricity began jetting out connecting to the other jagged spikes, the jagged spikes separated from the crystal body rotating around as if magnetized to the central core. the crystal was now above their heads with a meter long diameter.

A beam of energy shot off of the rotating crystals and into the ground, a wave of energy emanating from the location the beam hit. Each creature in the area now holding a silver glow within their eyes.

Adil looked to Swift and saw an intense focus, his eyes glowing deep silvery-orange. Adil looked as well to the crystal, trying to inspect its systems. He saw through the crystalline amalgamation, a sort of map. The crystal did not just extend to the cavern but loosely affected all of the lands inside the maze fading off into the distance. Adil felt a slight tug as he tried to see through the rest of the zone.

Hard crystal function:

Add hard crystal function: localized scrying?

yes/ no

Consumes 500 of crystalized essence reserve. (spawn crystal experience)

requires user ability: sense manna.

Adil focused on the power the crystal had accumulated, a feeling of overwhelming surge of energy rush over him, sweat trickled down his forehead. *well, its definitely over nine thousand* Adil thought to himself. The crystal had reached the level of ten with close to a hundred thousand experience. It was as though the majority of levels Swift would have earnt had transferred into it. He accepted the function and focused on the maze around. he could see how the effects of the leaking essence had spread outside the cavern. Grass and wildlife were spread across the once barren landscape. The red rocks and savannah landscape now seemed more like a rainforest. Adil saw further out and came across a sort of campsite. There were many men dressed in armour in a clearing, horses held in their own space to the side.

"Where did this all come from!?" said one of the men, as he tried to cut away some of the trees seeing a vine move back to replace it.

"Get the mages to burn it." chimed another, he was riding a horse and galloped back to the rest at the camp.

A large armoured man was sitting by a table, a knife in his hand as he talked with others around him.

"We will carve a path through here, and burn away any sign of this magical infestation we come across." He said. His aged complexion made him seem ill-fitting to be a frontline warrior.

A call echoed from the distance:

"Brace for attack!" They shouted. An orange wave of energy shot through the area, Coating all that was around, it was coming from the direction they appeared to be travelling, towards the cave.

"At ease." said the official. Noticing there was no incoming danger with this wave of energy.

A religious figure hovered over the high ranking old man "This is a sign of great power." he stated. The people gathered in this area appeared to be the ones in charge. They were building a tactic to move ahead.

"We must reach the location of the orange beacon before quickly, there is little chance this power will not develop itself further. " Added a large armoured man

"They said this was caused by goblins. That goblins could do any of this is ridiculous." Said one of the men, spitting to his side.

"Goblins, aye. Goblins would not have the power to take a city, they would not even have the brains to band together, but we all saw what happened to the town. How the buildings were crushed as if they were a child's sandcastle on the heel of my foot."

There was silence as he stopped talking.

"It be not normal for goblins to do this, but we are here for the goblins first and whatever else second.

I'll let ye fuckers in on a secret, when the elves heard about goblins banding together. They got this crusade before the rumours of man-eating darkness emerged. They was propa interested in crushing these goblins. There's something about these here goblins that they aren't telling us."

"hold your tongue major" The church official said,

"it's coming!" Shouted another soldier on the side. He ran out of a patch of bushes and trees before a giant goblin chased him down.

The goblin had scars over the side of his face, large silver eyes and a mace the size of a person's head. It stood at almost seven foot and bared its eyes at the crowd of armoured humans before letting out a fierce roar.

An unnecessarily large stream of arrows impaled its body and half of its face was blasted off from some sort of explosive magic, silencing the large goblin fighter.

The religious figure walked over to the area the goblin was in, staring down at the creature he said.

"These truly are dark times," he said looking down towards the creature.

"By the divine. Is that a goblin?!" cried out one of the soldiers.

Adil backed out from the area, looking over the path they had travelled. The obstacles of the maze and pathways had been blown open. What was originally a jagged mix of paths that gave the area its signature maze appearance, was now just an open landscape of destruction. It looked as though the army was only hours away. They were building a path directly to their base. Adil tried to exert some influence over the area feeding essence and mana into the plants around. It recovered a slight amount of the path. The expression of the soldiers grew stern and determined as they saw in the sky above them, black clouds began to appear. Mages seemed to emerge from tents and look towards the sky, a cover of white light covering a tent before lightning struck it. Soon mighty winds and torrential rain coated the area, a place that was just moments ago clear blue sky.

"Fuck" Adil stated, focused on the disaster that was awaiting them. Before he had a chance though another problem seemed to have taken hold with a commotion in the cavern.

He saw Swift's eyes shining a bright orange, his hair levitating around his head. "Stop him!" called out Aku. The goblin leader was shouting whilst pointing towards Swift. Another goblin tried to wrestle Swift down but was repelled by some sort of force field.

"What's going on?" Asked Adil. before a stag-like creature popped up to the side of them and started changing, its eyes grew bright silver before its horns extended. Its eyes drew a trail of silver gas as it moved around. With the silver glow now encompassing its horns, a focus of energy appeared to form between them as it lowered its head. A goblin tackled the creature to the ground just before a beam shot out from the focused energy, taking a chunk out of the wall of the cavern.

"Another one!" cried out the goblin. he was now wrestling the large magical stag to the ground, an elemental stag which appeared to be able to charge and fire bursts of energy from between its horns.

Adil quickly extended his tendrils of mana onto Swift, he tried to break him away from the crystal but came to see him in a sort of crystal enhanced zone. Swift was looking around a field filled with both normal animals and ones which boggled the mind with their strangeness.

Swift was looking down at a small group of meerkats, a flame around his hand before he reached out and touched them. Suddenly the meercats eyes grew silver and their fur stuck out as if caressed by lightning. At unimaginable speeds, they ducked and dove from point to point chasing each other in this ethereal mindscape.

"Oh hi mark," Said Swift turning to face his new visitor.

"Stop that. What you're doing right now. Stop."

"I thought you liked bad movie references."

"No, I mean, yes I do. but no stop doing this to these things. Jesus Christ, what you are currently making, the creatures, they are attacking the goblins in the cavern."

"Oh.. shit," Swift replied.

"What do I do?" he added.

"This," Adil replied.

Adil focused for a moment and got out some sort of city builder interface. He tried to use his desires to orientate the interface combining the power of his crystal with Swifts. Connecting to the creatures he managed to stop their mutations, power them down and remove their ability to function properly in the main cavern. The mindscape warped and changed, it was no longer just an open blank space with the occasional creature, but a representation of the land around them.

He mentally traversed into the cave systems, there seemed to be connections between the empty wild caves and the goblin's new base. Adil began pushing mana into patches of rock and dirt, trying to expand areas and reinforce the walls, he felt that changing the shape of walls took too much time and power, it was as if his terraforming abilities were inhibited. He felt his job was a success though, the creatures no longer capable of using their new abilities were disappearing from the cavern, into these new areas seemingly attracted by the use of manna.

Adil with Swift's help, built a sort of space, capable of housing the animals. The animals had mostly left the base, a lot of them in the outside whilst many now in what seemed to be Swift's own private dungeon.

Now connected to the outer landscape Swift let out his full powers and began enhancing the area. New ores, gems and plant life now adorned the landscape. Swift now connected to the creatures, lead his new experiments into the area, building them a new home. if this worked as it had before, the essence he used to change them would come back greater as they grew and developed. It appeared as though Swift could change the creatures and surrounding landscape but not with direct control, increasing their power massively with minimal effort whilst Adil could only design with extreme control, it required a large amount of effort and power just to suppress the new abilities of these creatures in the land.

Adil wiped some etherial mindscape sweat from his brow. "Thanks," Swift replied giving a thumbs up.

"No problem," Adil said before he saw Swift draw in another badger-like creature towards him and start increasing it in size.

Adil then, instead of coming back to reality embraced the new mindscape and saw what he was able to do. It was base building time. He reached out his mind to try and feel the extent of his capabilities. It seemed as though there were preset schematics already present, able to be harnessed and embraced. He tried to look into these ideas to see the power he could unleash and give to the underground city he desired to create.

Construction options:

Portal hub

a base for teleportation between established locations. Can link to other spawn crystals.

Beacon

A light to show the central location of your base.

Basi forge

A focus for constructing and modifying armour with the help of the spawn crystal.

Golem

Animated creation of designated material.

Adil saw a plethora of options racing past. some seemed of great use whilst others appeared to strangely niche, from air filtration systems to rock spider swimming pools. Each element adding onto the next. It was easy and fluid to both use and understand. Seeing into the depths of the cavern he looked into the cave system where many of the child goblins had come from. traversing the cave system he came across the illusionary wall he had seen the last time he came here and with that, a notification appeared.

Add schematic: Illusionary wall

yes/no

He chose yes and was able to bend light in a way that appeared to blend in with the surroundings. He went back through the cave, creating false deadends and directing it towards Swift's newly forged dungeons. Then he went back to the secret path hidden by the illusionary wall.

Adil floating through the wall or maybe in the mindscape the wall floated through him. He eventually arrived at the ledge. This was the point he could see into the pit, the pit where he had once fought the dryad. This pit, Adil thought, is where the base would be built.

He tried to expand the area beyond the pit, make it larger, but felt too much of a push on the surrounding landscape.

Notification:

You are attempting to terraform too far from the spawn crystal. Spawn crystal manna cost is increased and effects are reduced.

Adil tried to focus on the spawn crystal and move it further down into the cave. He felt it move through the earth and a small while later end up in the ledge, the light pouring off it illuminating the cave space. he then focused on the nearby walls, pushing essence towards it but still, there was little effect. He focused on the schematics and found something that was painfully obvious to make.

construct:

Drone

Created from minor amounts of spawn crystal manna. Used for construction, able to build constructs from the spawn crystals schematics and users instruction. Will cost more mana to function further away from the spawn crystal.

Adil spawned a small army of drones, they appeared like cockroaches with long mandibles, seeming to be taken from what his mental idea of a drone was. They were two foot in height and five in length but appeared to be able to change size according to what was most useful. As they forged parts of rock shifted from around the spawn crystal until a strange ethereal construct of fluid silvery material was formed and a new drone was born. When he reached fifty-six a notification emerged stating the spawn crystals current mana.

87% mana remaining.

Adil was shocked, their spawn crystals power was vast.

Adil began laying out the directions for the drones. He could see clearly a blueprint in his mindscape, switching between the finished products and the current state. He created a forge under the spawn crystal according to the schematics. A silver glow resonated from the ground and a runic table started raising out of it. Suddenly a beam shot from the spawn crystal to it, before it faded leaving the runes glowing silver.

notification

forge linked to spawning crystal. Mana pushing items is now available.

Then drones began working around the sides of the area. One started pushing its mandibles into the wall, it worked as though when it touched the surface the mandible liquidated and coated the area of the wall it was working with. soon an anvil, hearth and many of the smithies tools appeared in the background. An entire smithy was created to combine with the spawn crystal. The focus appeared to be the strange enchanting table, something Adil was sure would not be in most Smithies.

Finally looking down into the pit Adil decided to let the drones loose. He gave them orders to clear the area out, reinforce the ceiling and expand. He looked to expand the area until it reached the size of several football stadia. Within it, Adil set out the blueprint for a river, feeling through the caves a nearby source of water, flowing it through a filtration system and winding it through the landscape. Lights on the side of the walls helped illuminate the area in the absence of sunlight and melded with the glowing insects and plant life.

The first buildings he decided on were small, scattered around the river, the mass of which was created by pushing essence into the surrounding landscape until the building took form. Then Adil forged a great castle in the centre, little of the space had been taken and Adil could not think of what to put inside. Accepting his blueprint he saw the drones delve towards the pit, some growing wings before they flew to the top of the cave. Satisfied Adil brought himself back to reality to see what he had accomplished.

He saw how the Goblins were pressed to the floor grabbing onto the grass as if to stay steady. Wiery and nervous looks across most of their faces whilst children held each other.

"What happened," Adil asked.

"Th, the meercats." exclaimed one of the goblins in both shock and horror.

"And then it wouldn't stop shaking, it kept shaking." He cried out.

"Ah" Adil recognized, realizing that he had just shifted hundreds of tonnes of rock.

~"well, I just finished making you a new home." Adil added with a sort of nervous smile.