[Master.]

The young man instinctively looked over his shoulder at the sound of that word searching for the bearer of the title master.

No sooner had his reflexes acted than he stopped and thought. ‘Who said that?’ there was no one else in the room, so unless he imagined it….. slowly turning back towards the glowing sphere.

“Uh. Can. You talk?” He said haltingly.

[Yes, Master.]

“…Why, are you…uh, calling me, master?”

[That’s because master has become the master.]

“Of what?”

[The Maze.]

With those two words his mind blanked for a second at the realization of what was just stated. Master of the Maze of Beasts, the thought of the vast hordes beasts and monsters from innumerable environments united under the authority of a single ruler was an inconceivably terrifying existence, and on top of that somehow he was that being. It sounded to good to be true, how did an escaped slave suddenly become the ruler of the Maze.

“How am I, the master of the Maze of Beasts.”

[When master laid his hands upon this Core, master imprinted himself onto the Maze’s core functions and thus ascended to the rank of Dungeon Master.]

He was still suspicious but at least he had an explanation. So he put all that aside and focused on what he had been told, that he was now this Dungeon Master.

Master. He had never been a master of anything before. He had always been the slave, sold into slavery by his own family when he was a child. Once the slave brand is placed on the body it could never be removed, thus he was meant to live and die as a slave, never to taste freedom. That was why once given an opportunity he took it even though it meant being trapped in the Maze, and would lead to his almost certain death. Just surviving should be a miracle, but now this sphere was telling him he was this dungeon master of the Maze of Beasts. He felt confused at all this but also excited and hopeful, he had never known what having power was like before and from the sound of it he had just been granted a tremendous amount.

But what exactly did it mean to be a dungeon master? What could he do? Where there any obligations attached?

Minutes past as he adjusted to this new reality, eventually he asked the core.

“What exactly is a dungeon master? How does all of this work?”

[The Dungeon Master is the supreme and rightful ruler of the Maze. Master has control over the flow of quintessence throughout this domain, once gathered it can be directed and concentrated within the maze, either for storage, creating new creatures to inhabit the maze or infusing it into various objects. There is a catalogue of creature templates that Master can choose from or you can design your own. With infusing, Master concentrates Quintessence into material objects to make them sturdier, more durable and to grant them with various properties. The amount of materials capable of being infused range from finished crafts such as tools and weapons to raw materials like the veins of metals in the Maze. Master can also infuse Quintessence into living creatures to empower them in various ways.]

“Quintessence? I’ve never heard of that before. I’ve heard the Maze should be filled with mana. People say that the Maze is sucking in all of the Divine Mana and corrupting it into Miasma. As far as I know that’s what everyone on the surface believes anyway.”

[Mana is a form of Quintessence. Quintessence is a very passive and static making it much harder to manipulate but once it has been achieved it’s more of a permanent effect. Mana is Quintessence in an active and excited state, it’s dynamic nature means it’s more easily manipulated and needs constant monitoring otherwise it will act in an erratic manner once concentration is broken. Conversely Miasma is the state for entropy and decomposition, the easiest to wield but the most dangerous to use as it’s liable to explode in one’s face or rot the wielder from the inside out. Both are different metaphysical states of the same substance.

This core suspects that those who reside on the surface aren’t even aware of Quintessence’s existence. The base nature of Mana and Miasma makes it easier to observe their effects than that of Quintessence. Thus those who have a lesser understanding of the world may conclude that the Maze has gathered Mana. It’s also a possibility that they don’t realize that both states are fundamentally the same base substance. With such incomplete information it’s likely that they have a number of misunderstandings and preconceptions.]

The young man felt a little overwhelmed by the bombardment of information and world altering revelations just casually being dumped on him. Given time he figured he could digest all of the offhanded epiphanies that were being dropped on him, but for now he needed to focus on more immediate concerns.

He can’t go back to the surface, if he did he’ll just be captured and returned to slavery. Being ‘owned’ by the Relentless Stalkers Guild collectively meant that all members had command authority over his slave brand. If just one member of the Relentless Stalkers Guild gets close to him they could give an order, even unintentionally, it’s possible even former members might be able to issue orders to the slave brand, and he would be compelled to follow such orders. Thus it was imperative that he kept the Maze’s intruders, all of them, as far away from himself so as to avoid any possibility of encountering anyone capable of forcing orders upon him, so he’ll have to make use of the Maze to keep the intruders far, far away.

In order to do that he’ll need protectors and troops, entire armies even to keep the hunters at arm’s length. The Maze is filled with a multitude of beasts and monsters but most of those he was aware of were simple beasts operating under instinct. He remembered overhearing rumors that once there were intelligent monsters in the Maze, monsters given names such as Troll, Lizardmen and Gargoyle but they seem to no longer exist in the Maze, there were Goblins in the Maze in large numbers as well as a few others but they were all considered weak and easily dealt with. But now he has to repopulate the Maze, build up his forces and fortify the Maze’s defenses then he remembered something the Core said.

“You said that there was a catalogue and that monsters I created were controlled. How do I use this catalogue? And what about monsters that weren’t created with this catalogue? How do I control the monsters?”

[To access the catalogue simply touch this core and pull up the catalogue. Master should have no problem operating the it to craft new creatures. As for those created prior to masters ascension and those birthed naturally they, unfortunately, are not bound to masters will.]

With that he put he hand onto the core and then wondered how to pull up this catalogue. After that thought a tremendous amount of information flood his mind. Pandemonium ensued for painfully long moments as he sorted through it all, there must have been thousands of names with descriptions, preferences, costs, notes, lore, ecology and other bits of vague information. And there didn’t seem to be any order to it at all, he would think of a monster and the catalogue would pull of the beasts entry. It got confusing when entries would appear then quickly be replaced with a absent wayward thought, but luckily this catalogue became easier to navigate as he grew accustomed to how it operated.

Learning that he needed to focus on one thing at a time. He thought back to the spider that helped to free him and the catalogue pulled up multiple entries of spider related monsters.

Iron hide Spider, 700 units

Sentinel Spider, 800 units

Carnifex Spider, 1900 units

Arachne, 15,000 units

Arachnesaur, 8000 units

Cave Weaver, 1500 units

And the list went on but he realized that this list was missing quite a few spider like monsters that he knew to inhabit the Maze, on the other hand there were plenty that he never heard of. Then he switched his thoughts towards the goblins who where present at every corner of the Maze and so the catalogue pulled up new entries.

Cave Goblin, 100 units

Forest Goblin, 100 units

River Goblin, 100 units

Ashen Goblin, 200 units

Cinder Goblin, 400 units

He was now sure of it. The Catalogue reacts to his thoughts and there was several things of note. One he knew of the existence of Mountain Goblins but there was no mention of them earlier, which that it wasn’t a complete list of entries. Also the information was presented to him as words but he functionally illiterate and yet he could understand the words. Lastly did the numbers at the end represent the cost? If so how much did he have access to?

The Catalogue in response showed the number 32,000 units.

“Umm, I’m assuming that this number is the amount of Quintessence, but is 32,000 a lot?”

[….No, it’s not. The amount of floating Quintessence that is available to this core should be in the millions. Multiple ley lines intersect in this Maze, and Quintessence flows along these ley lines into the Maze, but this core cannot act without it’s masters approval and has lost feeling of huge swathes of the Maze. Also the intruders have been pilfering the existing supply of stored Quintessence, not to mention their very presence is soaking up the Quintessence around them.]

Okay so he was operating with limited resources and now has even more reason to expel his fellow man from the Maze. He needed to gain command of the Maze’s inhabitants, gather troops and start building defenses. Looking back at the catalogues selection of Goblins he continued to think of a course of action. It would be best to create new leaders and generals to take control of the already existing monsters first, then later create breeding populations of new monster types.

“Can I make custom monsters or a modified version of an existing monster type? Can I increase the amount of Quintessence that goes into a new monsters creation process?”

[Of course.]

He was still somewhat skeptical about all of this, though he was becoming excited at the thought of being the ruler of the Maze of Beasts. He decided to see if he could create a monster.

And so he selected the [Cave Goblin] then with a thought increased the amount from a 100 to 1000 units. Having made his decision the core then worked to complete it. Quintessence swirled into one of the adjacent rooms in the complex. The mass of energy taking the shape of an unusually large Goblin, where most goblins stand at best at three feet, this one stood at over 5 feet and had a more muscular built up frame.

Once the process was finished the newly created goblin came out of the room and approached the core and their new master before kneeling before them.

“So it’s true, good, good. I am Sigard, Dungeon Master of this Maze and you’ll be my goblin general.”