I watched a formation of three interlocking runic circles within my core.

They were slowly drifting apart, the outermost of the triad starting to distort. One by one they burst into their component characters, the tiny golden runes wavering like reflections on the surface of water as they scattered apart, before fading to nothing.

I had purged the poison, but the damage was already done. The Attunement of Disguise was breaking apart, shattering into scatterings of faded gold. It looked beautiful, from a distance, the outermost ring of my five expanding into a spray of golden letters that drifted out into the dark. Little sparks breaking away from the phantasmagorical colors of the rift.

That tiny fracture in the fabric of space-time condensed a thick, spherical cloud of many-colored Mana around it; it looked like a gaseous planet, a bright marble of swirling, colorful storms. Within the rift itself strange lightnings flickered.

Gas planets. Medusas. Jellyfish. Sometimes I knew things without understanding how I knew, as if the memories were coming unconscious from a time before I could recall.

But I didn’t like to dwell on my creation. Always within the thought of how I came into existence there was the sickening possibility that, someday, I might cease to be.

In fact, it was possible I already had. Or at least this body had.

According to what Strix had told me, Olin Framp believed he had killed the soul within my core when he bound it to his will. Maybe he was mistaken. Or possibly, he was precisely right. It was possible I wasn’t the first inhabitant of this core, that I had undergone the same soul migration that Cabochon had.

Certainly, I recognized nothing of myself in the description he’d given. Living on a farm, the pet of some human family? It was an image of ludicrous idyll that stirred nothing but contempt in me.

Humans were greedy, savage, and most of all, unsightly. Living in harmony with them was a dream at best and dangerously naive at worst.

Although I had considered farming them. My need for souls was only increasing, and so finding a source beyond hoping adventurers continue throwing themselves into my waiting teeth would be ideal. Sadly, they were pitifully slow breeders, but it would still be a steady influx.

But- I was distracting myself, trying to think of anything but the steady dissolution of my Attunement. Worse, there was the possibility the rot wouldn’t stop here.

The somber thought pulled me back to the present. A lattice of intricate, geometric shapes were pulling apart, the ends fraying like rope unwinding into a twine of gold dust. At least it was beautiful.

For a moment, I stared down the beast that was death and considered my legacy. It was glorious, yes, in one month I had accomplished so much, but it was all so fragile. Argent, Aurum, Cabochon. They were my children. I needed them stronger. If nothing else, they had to survive.

And the humans would have to pay. That, I hope, went without saying. There would need to be a price of fire and blood for doing this to me.

With that thought, I rose from the myopic contemplation of my own inner workings. My attention returned to the Dungeon, to Aurum and the kobold crowding around me in concern, to the black orchid I had created.

It was not visibly threatening. Its most vicious feature were long, purple-tipped thorns. Yet I had an uneasy sense about that flower. To me it was a clock ticking towards disaster.

Destroying it risked dispersing poisoned Mana back into my domain, and so I pondered.

While I did, I examined the kobolds I had created. While they were not the prettiest of my creations, they weren’t as horrific as the rat-hound, and they evidenced no aggressive behavior beyond wrestling and snapping at each other as they vied to become the Alpha of their little pack. Besides the little bard with his makeshift flute wearing on my nerves, there was no reason to suspect they were a threat.

The worms- I didn’t like them at all, but again, they were harmless. I felt maybe a twinge of the unease the rat-hound and the orchid inspired in me, but it was far less severe; whatever I sensed was present in only minute quantities.

Poisoned Mana…

I didn’t know enough about these things. My rats were spreading throughout the city, but I still lacked the fundamental knowledge needed to direct them; the net was only catching random, lucky scraps of information, because I didn’t know where to place them, which directions they should watch for threats.

I would summon Vaulder.

“How did that work!?” Umi howled, as they both ran, ran, ran; they pelted down the endless identical hallways, legs aching and lungs burning. Their panting, ragged breath couldn’t cover up the sound of claws scraping as the beast chased after them, letting a high-pitched hiss of anger.

“Always works!” Trivelin huffed, struggling to keep up with the slim, athletic island-woman’s long legs. He was naturally gifted with cunning and guile, but oh, his legs were rather short and his belly rather broad. If it came down to who was first on the menu and who got away, he was flat fucked.

Usually this was where he stabbed his partner in the back of the leg, made a run for it, and shouted an apology back as he went. But she had the key clutched in her hand, the octagonal key of lapis that was their only hope of escape.

They turned the corner without grace, feet slipping and skidding, Umi briefly dropping to all fours and moving like a cat; Trivel just slammed into the wall and rebounded after her.

And the beast came following.

Its long, long claws scraped the earth as it moved, not quite on all fours but bent over at its waist, half-running and half hopping with its claws spread out before it, feeling the way. It was blind as a bat. Its hands crawled over the walls like spiders as the two gaping slits of its nostrils flared.

Another turn and golden coins were rattling underfoot. The beast was right behind him. It was coming closer, closer, and Trivelin howled as he felt a claw swipe across his back, opening up oozing thin wounds. He grabbed ahold of the coins stacked high at the walls and cast them back behind him, an avalanche of heavy gold. It did nothing but cascade off the creature as it reached for the back of his leg.

A searing jolt of panic gave Trivelin the strength to burst forward, briefly outpacing Umi.

And that was when she kicked him in the leg.

He went down in a tumble, howling with outrage - the injustice of it all - as she vaulted over him, dashing towards the door. The octagonal key clicked into the lock, the handle twisted, a light shone from the edges-

And a clawed hand closed around his cheek, turning him onto his back as he tried to struggle away. He was face to face with that lipless grin, those eyes so wide and veined with tiny blood vessels. Confronted with the nostrils that sucked in his scent and flared out, staring at the little hills of yellow bone visible above seas of pinkish-red flesh.

“Let me-” He started, and the beast slashed him open from chest to belly, one quickly flash of its claws doing the job. They were so sharp he barely felt the pain until a second later when the first beads of blood came up.

And then he was gone. A golden light surrounded him.

Trivelin had just time enough to wonder if he was dying before he was cast out of the Tower’s doors, hurtled rudely onto the cobblestones. His hand fluttered over his chest checking that he was all whole. No terrible wound; just the familiar largesse of his gut.

Armored boots stepped into his view. Boots attached to armored men, all shiny in their uniforms, all grim in their faces.

Trivelin tried to shift form and scare them off. For a second, he wore the skinless thing’s visage, and two of the younger guards reeled back in shock and horror. He twisted onto his feet and lunged away, but a dwarf tackled him from the side, bringing him down and rolling atop him, striking him across the face and shoulders until he changed back.

“Are you a man or a monster? Man or a monster!” The dwarf demanded, a fist held over the bloody mess of Trivelin’s handsome mug.

“Man!” He cried, lifting his own hands to shield himself from the heavy, steel gauntlets that had already smashed his nose to a pulp.

“Not much of one.” The familiar voice made Trivelin’s blood run cold. Cathara Halfhand peered over him, her bony face looming into his little patch of sky as he lay on the hard earth, blood trickling from the searing pain of his nose. “A shapeshifter, now that’s interesting. Certainly explains how you got away from us.”

“Let me through, let me through.” At the edges of Trivelin’s vision, a scrawny nothing of a man in pitch dark robes was fighting his way through the guards, a heavy insignia of the Magi’s Institute swinging from his thin neck. “Damn you, I am the High Mage! I will be respected!”

“Let him.” Cathara hissed.

The mage stared at Trivelin, lifting a lens of blue glass over his eye. “Where did you get that Attunement?” He demanded, his voice almost shaking with excitement.

Trivelin opened his mouth- and froze. The Contract wouldn’t let him. His throat seized up, his lungs refusing to pump the breath that would let him speak.

Gods sight, it was a strange day. He let out a defeated sigh and just shrugged with an air of nonchalance. He was lying on the ground, and over him towered Cathara, the mage, the guard who had tackled him. Trivelin just lay there, defeated. Schemes and wind all knocked out of him.

“You won’t get anything out of him.” Cathara’s voice was as smug as a cat. “Take him away.”

As they dragged him to his feet, Trivelin winced. To top it all of - this whole shit day - there was something stuck in his boot.