The First Floor

So much had just happened, that I spent a brief moment spinning in circles about what to focus on first. Before anything, I decided to continue focusing on the newly created, Infantile Kraken-ling. She had apparently decided on something similar, as she was just then drifting in the same dead end tunnel she'd trapped and killed her last two competitors.

I watched with interest as she controlled her nine tentacles to both propel herself through open water at a surprising rate, as well as to grappel and hurl herself forward using rocks and surrounding terrain. It seemed she could control whether or not her hooked suckers exerted suction as well as whether or not the hooks were extended. Allowing her to slingshot herself through the water with surprising speed. It was still only a little faster than when she was a Lamprey, but for her new body it was surprising.

Remembering what I had promised the victor, I shared with her a message to find where she wanted her personal nest made. I also added on the feeling of a temporary home, as even just looking at her I could feel the potential for growth to enormous sizes, so I was sure I'd eventually be moving her down to a much larger floor at some point.

In response, I received another surprise in a rough and fumbling, but still clear, acknowledgement. I was so surprised by it, that I just sat still for a long moment, not really doing anything as I thought. Is she really already smart enough to respond in that way? And since I can tell that her new species has a similar growth to intelligence aspect... After a long time, for me at least, I remembered that I'd compared her to Kyr intelligence wise.

With that on my mind, I turned my attention back to him. I'd noticed my serpentine friend waking just a short time before. He'd begun to move about in his nest so as to loosen his sore body after so much rest and healing. As much as I'd wanted to investigate that at the time, the events transpiring with the evolution into Infantile Kraken-ling had required all of my attention.

Now with her searching for a place she liked, I could turn my attention back to Kyr once more. Now that I knew what to look and feel for, I could feel the same.. odd sense in him that I had in the female lamprey before her evolution. While he wasn't close like she had been, I was happy to be able to tell that he would at some point evolve as well. I just hoped it would be as impressive as hers had been. Surprisingly myself a little, I didn't want my oldest creature to be surpassed, not so quickly at least.

As Kyr felt my attention on him once more, he spiraled in and raised his body into the air for a moment, looking in the direction of my core. I spent a long moment reassuring myself that the healing had taken well, before telling Kyr he could move as he wished. A short hiss replied to that, before he began to slither his way towards the first floor.

With the Kraken-ling searching for her nest, and Kyr back in commission, I only had three things left to do. One, I could finish right there and then, so I did.

Obsidian Dungeon Core - Sybas

Names

Mana

Mana Regeneration

2 / 2

64 / 150

+3.0 / Hour

Titles

Awakener,

Looking over the actual number behind my abilities was always enlightening. While my newly gained title hadn't affected my ability to Name at all, since I had a new candidate for a Name in the Kraken-ling, it had certainly affected my other two drastically. For the first time, I could actually tell what the effects of a title, and a Name was, for me at least.

My original mana had been 50, with a regeneration of 1. Then my name had increased both by 50% to 75 and 1.5 each. So I knew my Name gave me a 50% boost. And it looked like my title had just doubled my base of 50 and 1, to 100 and 2. And then the 50% boost raised it again to 150 and 3. Either that, or my title simply added 50 and 1, and it just so happened to double it.

Either way, knowing how it worked, was massive. My biggest limitation in forming and controlling the dungeon had been amount of mana to work with, and how quickly I could gain it in turn.And while my regeneration rate was bolstered by my getting a small toll of mana from the deaths of exterior creatures within, my actual pool of usable mana was still limiting. A dungeon was a living thing, and entire system of creatures living together. And while that was incredibly powerful in many aspects, it also prevented me from doing changes step by step and as I had the mana. If I didn't affect a change quickly and at once, then the creatures and ecosystem would expand into what had changed and any further change would disrupt it massively.

That was why the only changes I'd made to the overall shape of the first floor were made either before the population of it, or were small and limited after the population. I knew that I could still do it, but it was also somewhat a matter of pride for me. I didn't want to need to disrupt my creatures lives in order to effect large changes over My dungeon. I was determined to reach a point where I had no limits on what I could do within my own grounds. That's why the information I'd gathered was so important. Titles were the way to more mana, and I could feel that it was also a potential way to more Names.

With all of that out of the way and discovered, I could turn to the last two things I needed to do. Prepare for future floors, and find a way to fill the last slots in the first floor's aboveground ecosystem. I was rather satisfied that the underwater network had its apex predator in the Kraken-ling. And I was further sure that by the time I needed to move her from the first floor, another creature would have evolved to be able to take her place. Her evolution had opened my eyes to an entire new layer of the dungeon, now that I knew what to look for.

As much as I wanted to simply challenge some creatures I already had to a point they might evolve, I also had a plan slowly forming in my mind. If the entire first floor was populated by entirely natural looking creatures, then it should take quite some time for anything to realize that it was really my first floor. If I could make that work, then it would simply appear as an unusually life filled cavern. I might be able to buy myself more time to prepare for what my instincts told me were inevitable attacks on my dungeon and my creatures. Not to mention, I might be able to use it as a way to take mana from dying creatures without anything realizing it.

So instead, I decided to wait for the chance at new creatures to fill those natural predator roles on land. Even though I could feel that the first floor was close to completion and I would soon be able to Descend. So instead of focusing on that feeling, I began preparing for future floors. The first and most obvious preparation, was for my new Kraken-ling. She would need a floor eventually, one tailored for her. And it would need water, a lot of it. So much in fact, that I wouldn't be able to get away with simply letting the stream fall into it until its full and doing that all over again. No, I needed a different solution.

In fact, I didn't have one yet. But I did have an idea to work towards it while I looked for that solution. Using as miniscule an amount of mana as possible, I carved a thin hole out of the bottom of the Rock Pool, and then another four. Eventually, once I'd carved them out and way off to the side from the entire first floor, they joined into one much larger pipe. I'd made sure that no creature in my waters was small enough to enter these holes, that wasn't what they were for. After that, I made sure that the larger pipe now led even farther off to the side, and that it led below the first floor. And then I waited.

I would need a lot of mana for the next step, and so I decided to wait until I had a full one hundred and fifty. Since I had used two carving my pipes, I would need to wait for thirty hours. This would be... agonizing.

Twenty-three hours later, I was distracted from watching over my floor and its inhabitants by the slow, scuttling intrusion of a creature. Standing just within the entrance, was a creature I instantly recognized. On eight heavy, armored legs, was a Rock Skorpion. Its whole body was covered in thick, stone plating, making it the single most heavily armored creature I'd seen yet. Rising above its body, was a heavy, brutally hooked stinger. In front were two large, aggressive pinching claws. The whole thing I could tell would barely be able to be distuinguised from a stone itself if it curled up in the proper way. But as it was, moving about, it carried with it an air of hunting. I felt my attention sharpen on it, examining it over again.

A plan hatched in my mind, and a small smile curled across my mouth... If I had one. Ten or so hours ago, I'd introduced Kyr and the Kraken-ling to each other, and made it clear that they wouldn't be fighting each other. I'd gotten a short acknowledgement of one kind or another from both before releasing them back to what they wanted to do in the meantime. The Kraken-ling had been busy establishing dominance in the waters, and Kyr had taken a liking to the rock bridge.

But now, I called them both again, and my plan started. Kyr began slithering off of his spot on the bridge, moving towards one of the outcroppings near the entrance. All the while the Kraken-ling moved itself to the bottom of the rock pool. She was the back-up plan if Kyr couldn't kill the thing himself. I could feel her curiousity about the skorpion. She had found in Kyr the only creature she considered even a close competitor to her new form, and so she was curious about something that might be able to threaten him.

Nontheless, they both followed my instructions. As the skorpion began picking its way down the steep slope, Kyr was getting into position. Once it had reached the bottom, Kyr was ready for it. The four beady black eyes on the armored creature took everything in for a long, long moment before it began slowly scuttling forward. As it began to pass beneath Kyr's perch on the higher stones, Kyr quickly uncoiled as he lunged forward.

Unlike his previous fights, Kyr had apparently decided that his fangs were nowhere close to the threat posed by his tail's blade. As such, he used his momentum to catch the creature's tail. The skorpion wasn't a large creature, but neither was it small. It took Kyr an instant to cross the distance, and then a few seconds of fighting against the skorpion's sudden thrashing to really begin wrapping himself around the thing's stinger.

I decided that Kyr had correctly decided that aside from the stinger, the skorpion didn't know how to fight something that wasn't directly in front of it. With its stinger held from striking by Kyr wrapping around it, and its pincers unable to reach back, the creature was effectively defenseless. I felt a burst of pride in Kyr's ability as I continued to watch. He drew back the short length of his body that was left after immobilizing the stinger, and began striking at thin points in the stone armor with his tail blade. Again and again, the sound rang out. Kyr was not getting anywhere however, he just couldn't break the armor. Finally, his scales lit up as mana coursed through him.

Small impacts could begin to be visible across the skorpions armor as the tail began striking again. Unlike before, when it had been slowly struggling, it now panicked. Feeling its armor begin to fail, it just threw itself, hoping to back Kyr against stone and knock him off. Unfortunately for it, Kyr's scales were strengthened by the mana as well, so he was completely unhurt, and the fall only did one thing. It knocked the skorpion onto its side, exposing its thin armor on the bottom. With vicious ruthlessness, Kyr immediately sank his blade into its underbelly, piercing through finally. Another three strikes later, and the skorpion was dead.

You have gained the schema for : Rock Skorpion

I dismissed the description of the creature once I realized it was identical to the one I could have gotten when selecting my first Guardian creature. I examined Kyr after his fight, finding only a small and weak bruising of his muscles in a few places. More importantly, was the large improvement towards his evolution. I was just beginning to think to myself about plans to help him reach it, when I felt another creatures intrusion into the dungeon. When my attention turned to the entrance, I hesitated for a moment, then... I don't... think, that I made that stalagmite...

A moment later, my mana-vision saw through the disguise. Just below that stone and rock exterior was a tough, impossibly powerful muscle. And within even that, was a creature. Odd, and barely recognizable as one, but still definitively a creature. A meter and a half tall, it looked exactly like the surrounding stone. I could see the way it had three long, powerful tendrils retracted back into its tough exterior shell-like surface. The end of those tendrils seemed to be genuine stone spikes, sharp and dangerously long. Interestingly, there didn't seem to be any eyes...

After a brief inspection of it, I found out how it had gotten into the dungeon. Beneath the center of its spike-like body, was a sticky muscle. I could guess that it used it to hold itself in place, or to 'hop' from one spot to the other. Realizing this, I discovered an issue. It was at the entrance, and I couldn't see how any hop it could make would get it to the floor. And there was no doubt, I wanted this thing. It would fit my visual of a normal cavern perfectly, and could catch unwary Delvers off guard.

Luckily, the Kraken-ling hadn't moved yet from the rock pool, so I still had my back up plan. I took a glance at Kyr, who was waiting patiently, having felt the sudden shift of my attention. Of all my creatures, he was the most able to tell if I was paying attention to him or not. While I couldn't see how he could kill this thing, there were other options. And besides, he'd managed to defeat things I couldn't see how before as well. Without further ado, I gave him the location. As he slighered off, I gave the Kraken-ling a warning to be ready. Getting back another fuzzy acknowledgement, I turned back to Kyr.

He made his way to the start of the slope, before slowly twisting and twining his way upwards. Eventually, he reached the long thin platform at the top of the slope. I watched as he coiled around himself, his length having grown to almost two and a half meters over time, as he absorbed the vast amounts of ambient mana present in the dungeon as well as the chunks of mana or soul that he took from the creatures he killed. In the end, they were roughly the same size. The creature had armor, and Kyr had speed. I had no real idea which would win.

The creature struck before I could decide which I thought it would be. Two of its thick tendrils struck forward, before it did something that shocked me. A moment before the tendrils would have connected, Kyr managed to slither to the side. Then I felt a pulse of mana come from the creature, and a sphere of inky blackness descended over the two of them. A moment of worry wormed through me as I realized Kyr had lost his sight while the creature apparently had never relied on it in the first place.

Looking for the origin of that mana, I found a small, black pearl at the creatures center. I could feel the way it swirling in a particular pattern of mana, constantly creating and spinning inky black darkness. Luckily it didn't affect my mana-vision, so I could still see as one of the tendrils managed to clip and bruise Kyr. My mana-vision!!!

Without a moments hesitation, I simply acted. I pressed down the connection I had with Kyr, filling it with the sight and sensation surrounding him and the creature. I saw him reel from the information. He saw himself reel from the information. A moment passed as he parsed the sudden flood of information.That moment was a moment too long, one of the spikes slashing across his body as he moved out of the way just the littlest bit too slow.

After another short moment however, Kyr struck back. His heavier and ever so slightly sharper tail blade slammed into the thick base of one of the tendrils. A horrific squealing noise came from the main body before that tendril began flopping weakly. The nerve in the center of the muscle damaged from the deep injury.

Another tendril swept forward and knocked Kyr back and away in a panicked move. He and I both watched as the muscle beneath it hopped it slightly closer towards the entrance. Kyr simply hissed before lunging past another thrust before his fangs sank into the base of that one. Another, more panicked shriek followed, even though the nerve wasn't damaged that time.

This time, when the creature hopped, Kyr attacked at the same time. As it was midway through the jump and still in the air, Kyr's scales flared with mana, brighter than they'd ever been. So much more mana than usual flowing through that it actually burned away the weak Dark-Attuned mana in the air. His tail swung through the air and collided with the top half of the creature. The extra strength from his blow enough to knock it from its planned fall into an uncontrolled sprawl. As the creature landed on its side, Kyr began stabbing as fast as he could, ripping away at the fleshy muscle it used to propel itself. More pained and panicked shrieks came from it, but Kyr didn't hesitate once. Finally, he managed to slam his tail blade in and hit something vital, the creature falling silent and the tendrils falling still.

Kyr slowly drew himself back, his body bruised and battered, more than one cut marring his otherwise radiant scales. Over the next few minutes, Kyr slithered away and the Dark-Attuned mana began to fade. Then a number of things happened all at once. First, I saw once more the small bits of.. something fly from the creature's body to me and to Kyr, marking the creature's actual death. Then, I got the schema from the creature.

You have gained the schema for : Stonecloak Lasher

Stonecloak Lasher

The Stonecloak lasher is a unique, and powerful ambush predator. It uses its appearance as a natural stalagmite to lure in victims, before lashing out with its spike-tipped tendrils. It also holds a Dark-Mana Pearl within itself, allowing it to summon a sphere of darkness to blind its prey as well.

Then, a recognizable dull white glow began to emanate from Kyr.

Your creature, Kyr, a Mana Serpent, has reached the threshold for evolution!

Please Select your desired evolution!

Hunter Serpent (Uncommon) : The Hunter Serpent is a powerful hunter and a dangerous predator. They use both ambush and chase tactics as needed, and often hunt unusual prey for the challenge. Beware the serpent that moves silently, for they are a hunter.

Giant Mana Serpent (Rare) : While a Mana Serpent is rare, the Giant Mana Serpent is even more rare. A Mana Serpent does not often find a location with enough mana to sustain itself comfortably, let alone allow it to grow to such a size. Should one be encountered, it means that you find yourself in a location of powerful magic.

Stone Wyrm (Rare) : The Stone Wyrm is the epitome of underground creatures. With its heavily armored form, and powerful crushing jaws, it does not often find an obstacle that cannot simply be ground into dust. Fantastic burrowers, they use their ability to sense movement and weight to emerge in a fountain of broken stone directly beneath their prey.

Awakener:

None

Looking over the options, I found them somewhat lackluster. It seemed like my title had added a section to within the evolution options, but for this evolution there didn't seem to be any effect. Looking over the options, I didn't find any I particularly liked. It looked like the Hunter Serpent option had come from the way he'd fought and helped me gather schemas. The giant option seemed like a default for any creature. And I could only assume that my dungeon's nature as being underground had influenced the last option.

I took a moment to examine the Kraken-ling, feeling down that connection. She paused for a moment in her swimming before I told her to continue on. I pulled back once I was satisfied. She still could evolve again, which meant Kyr probably would be able to as well. I still had hope in Kyr getting an evolution as good as the Kraken-lings,so I picked the best option for that possibility. Giant Mana Serpent.

The bright white light enveloped him, and once more, it became almost blinding. After a few minutes however, it began to dull and pull away. When it was fully faded, I examined Kyr's new form at the same time he did. Whereas he'd been near two and a half meters long before, he was now almost ten meters. The muscle beneath his scales rippled with new strength, even without being empowered. His scales kept their lustrous teal, and the thin golden stripe of mana generating scales. His blunted arrow-shaped head was much larger, to fit with the rest. His fangs were now the length of a Glowmouth all on their own. His tail blade was no longer nascent, it now shined with reflective light. The blade was as long as a whole Stone-Tailed Rat, and was as sharp as the Stonecloak Lasher's spikes had been.

Okay, that actually wasn't that bad.