Chapter 4. Mice

While Quint dearly missed his master and their daily routine of running around from one smoking experiment to another (maybe not so much, now that he thought about it), he wasted no time familiarizing himself with the basics of dungeon keeping over the next few days.

Every morning, he sat on a cushion and meditated next to the core on the fifth floor and circulated mana throughout the dungeon, which in turn helped the dungeon absorb the ambient mana from the surroundings. The core itself seemed to be constantly absorbing minute amounts of mana from the tower.

While disposing of the wreckage the binding had caused, he learned that his influence and mana extended to a radius of around 15 feet around the tower itself by experiencing something that felt like a heart attack when he left the area.

Through cautious self examination to make sure that he had not suddenly turned into a frail old man with a failing heart, he determined the cause as a severance from his connection to the pool of mana stored in the dungeon.

He supposed that the incredible density of the dungeon had had an effect on him even though he had grown used to it to the point of not noticing it after a few days.

The increased mana of the dungeon also had a pronounced effect on all of the creatures within the tower, he discovered while feeding the mice and rat a lunch of bread and cheese everyday as they cheered.

It seemed to greatly stimulate their minds and bodies, as they began absorbing more and more mana and noticeably growing larger and smarter by the hour.

The rodents even happily took to helping Quint clear out the building, carrying or dragging little pieces of burnt books or a splintered wood to the first floor then dump in the forest outside. They seemed to sense what he was doing instinctively.

In the evenings, he relaxed by reading the grimoire and amusing himself with building little structures for the rodents on the third and fourth floors to practice manipulating matter in the dungeon.

He built a clever little wheel of stone that turned in place while the rodents ran in it, and a small pool where they could swim and refresh themselves. They oohed and awed at his (from their perspective) utter power and mastery over reality itself while he worked.

These little additions seemed to further stimulate their physical and mental growth on top of the mana they were absorbing.

In fact, after a few days, a few of the mice entered a deep slumber lasting a few days while surrounded by small, ambient clouds of mana that presumably kept them supplied with energy.

These mice grew rapidly in size in their sleep until, upon waking up, they were the size of a small human child. They also followed him around like little children on their hindlegs, watching everything with large, curious eyes.

Soon enough, they were gesturing and squeaking with oddly human mannerisms that Quint found oddly endearing.

The smartest of them Quint named Pipsqueak, who quickly developed a system of chirps and squeaks amongst themselves that they seemed to use as a sort of primitive language amongst themselves, lacking the telepathic connection that Quint shared with them.

They reminded him of what the primitive ancestors of the beastkin might have been like, and indeed, his evening readings confirmed that the ancestry of many of the beastkin could be traced back to the first bound dungeons.

The grimoire also confirmed that young dungeon cores could only form this unique, symbiotic connection with a single species, or perhaps two or three similar ones, which explained the lack of such growths in the insects within the dungeon.

Quint realized that he, and by extension, the core, had chosen the rodents as their champions and guardians.

Interestingly, the remaining mice and rat remained more or less the same in terms of size. The grimoire described the difference as the result of individual creatures having different levels of ‘mana-metabolisms’, or their ability to absorb, digest, and process mana, even within species.

It explained why there were different types of professions amongst the humans that used mana. He supposed, the changes in the smaller mice would manifest differently, if at all.

The micemen also had a voracious appetite for food. It seemed that mana alone was not enough to fuel their explosive growth, and they were now playing catch up on the nutrients used during their hibernation.

Between the eight of the new micemen gulping down the food like growing teenagers, their supply of food quickly dwindled. With Arthur’s delivery of supplies still a week away and needing much more food than that anyway, Quint had been struck by a bout of inspiration while stressing about how he could meet this new demand.

He had been reading the grimoire when he had found it. A way to practice his mastery over mana and procure a self-sustainable, self-replicating food source. The very day after he had formulated his plan, Quint spent a few hours imbuing mana into every single insect crawling or flying around the dungeon, eventually picking out the most receptive ones.

Lacking the same affinity for the dungeon mana that the rodents had, most simply exploded with a small pop from his crude manipulations of mana.

A select few, however, managed to survive and enter a hibernative state similar to the one that the micemen had entered.

After a few days, he had ended up with large grubs that smelled and tasted (allegedly) like cheese, a chitinous beetle the size of a large coin abundant in protein, and a sticky, fibrous stick bug that produced a sweet juice when chewed on that was very popular amongst the micemen.

They had quickly reproduced to form a semi self-sustaining ecosystem, where the modified dungeon bugs preyed on the regular bugs that found their way into the tower and the mice on them.

It was still very barebones and in progress, but he figured he’d done all right for the youngest Dungeon Master in recorded history.

All in all, Quint thought as he lay exhausted but satisfied in bed, he was surprisingly happy and settling in well into a life as Dungeon Master.

—----

Somewhere not too far…

Flimbo paced his tower nervously as he waited for his familiars to get back.

He had sensed a disturbance of mana from the direction of Hamilton a few days ago, where the old coot Woggins the Wise had set up his tower a few years ago.

He had sent out his familiars to spy on his rival when he had heard rumors regarding a young dungeon core. As his worried mind flitted through all of the terrible reasons that Woggins becoming a dungeon master would be detrimental to him, a foreign mind brushed his own.

Flimbo exclaimed, and turned towards the direction just as he spotted a small dot in the sky.

Soon, a puff of feathers had landed on his shoulders.

Flimbo let the sparrow’s huffing chest calm down before sending a mental inquiry.

Jacques, why are you alone? Where is Pirip?

The bird, exhausted from its trip, sluggishly responded with a mental impression of a (majestic) ball of feathers dive-bombing into a window, followed by a massive explosion of mana, and sadness. Finally, his familiar sent Flimbo an impression of a tower surrounded by the unmistakable, unnaturally dense mana of a dungeon.

The large man gasped, making his jowls jiggle. Despite the brave sacrifice of Pirip, it seemed his rival had actually succeeded.

“Curse that old bastard!” Flimbo suddenly shouted as he slammed a fist into his meaty palm and startled the sparrow.

And if he wanted to remain on the same footing as his old rival… he had no choice but to undertake a dangerous operation.

It would be dangerous. It would be risky. He would close all the windows to make sure that nothing could interfere with the process.

Flimbo the Plump turned and walked into his research chamber, where a beautiful yellow orb the size of a man’s head lay on a pedestal…