Sela was exhausted, having to teach Aby could always turn into a tiring affair. The gem just failed to understand sometimes, and she could see no reason why. For example, Aby understood that three kobolds were better than one, understood that three kobolds were good at three different things, but didn’t understand to reinforce these strengths. The concept of battle formations that should be used had been all but lost on it.

Furthermore, even when Sela managed to get Aby to understand that, yes, letting creatures fight in a way that complemented their strength was a better idea than just throwing more at them, or “giving them to the star” it appeared to have the same issues being told that not everything should directly fight. While Aby could make use of ambush tactics very well, it couldn’t engineer a situation. It didn’t make areas specific to a single animal to hide in, nor did it view the seaweed as anything more than a place where small animals seemed to congregate. It seemed to want every one of its inhabitants to be an offensive player, drowning all comers in a tide of bodies, even if that tide wasn’t truly endless when its dungeon was invaded. Thankfully she was spared from its call to arms, but she wanted to get across that some creatures were unsuitable for attack, but very well suited for other purposes.

It thought back to the pistol shrimp, it was the example she’d used to get this very point across. Its damage to the beast-man was luck, and when Aby said that it could “break more ears”, she was able to illustrate that it could, but only under ideal circumstances, and that the core could make these circumstances much more likely to occur. This seemed to open the floodgates, she could feel the realization that Aby had just had. It seemed that something was hampering its ability to conceptualize true strategy, something that was no longer there. Or not in the same capacity, at least.

This meant that the entire day that she had spent coming up with various ideas along with Aby did not fall on deaf ears. Their new plans for the animals reflected this. No longer would everything blindly rush forward, there would be measured and refined strategies for the various creatures. She had also asked why the core hadn’t used any traps thus far, as some form of pitfall or falling rock traps would go well. She received a straightforward response. “Water is trap.”

It took her a moment to figure out exactly what that meant, Aby considered its entire caves and corridors to be one big trap. This likely meant that whatever process was preventing it from teaching its creatures strategy, whether it was its own lack of intelligent or something behind the scenes. By this point, though, Sela would refrain from getting it to accept essentially layering traps, the layout and varying elevations of the caves made them already similar to pitfall traps to begin with, so why put it through more teaching to teach it that it can use something that is in essence, exactly the same. Besides, some of the creatures ambushes were traps in their own right anyway.

Sela continued her musings. She found the mental barrier preventing certain actions, ones separate from those apparent ironclad instincts Aby had mentioned before, to be strange. The first seemingly covered up certain behaviors, while the latter outright banned them. She found it even odder that, in her implanted memories, there was a warning against breaking those instincts, one she had to deny knowledge of when Aby asked, whereas they seemed to entirely avoid the more simple ones. There was also no memories of dungeons who had comprehended these concepts, even when they had Fae to teach them.

Once she realized that, she was even more confused. Surely, surface Fae were aware of how using strategy would only serve to increase their homes efficacy. So why, then, didn’t they? Was there something different about surface Fae? Or was it the difference between Aby and surface Dungeons that was the cause. She felt she had thought of something important, her memories were only of the dungeons themselves, not their partners. The only time that other Fae had come up were when they directly pertained to the information of the dungeons.

She had seen, supposedly, the three most common dungeon Fae: sprites, faeries, and pixies. Supposedly because they all looked the same. The only difference that she could see was faeries having a different type of wings, instead of having two pairs of a thin material that resembled her fins slightly, they were a single pair of large, gaudy things with a color scheme offensive to her refined tastes.

She shook her head, there was no use being disparaging to an entire race, even if they were likely doing the same to hers. Still, it was very curious how she could very possibly have trained the first dungeon to use actual tactics. She wandered around, watching as Aby put this newfound knowledge to work in various ways.

She saw floors layouts changed, becoming more chaotic, or more orderly. She saw previously solitary fish like Sea-Boars form into small groups, and groups of fish like mustard-scaled snappers forming large shoals. New creatures were being spawned in bulk, like the ironbacked turtles, and wandered in certain areas. Specific areas that were previously bare were being filled out.

There was also training taking place, the coastal kobolds both sparring against each other and working as a group against the aquatic kobold and his moray.

The chief-mother was using her dagger, something she refused to let go of now, to hack and slash at the opposition. The shaman worked to change the water levels of the opponents as well, catching them off guard. They were both protected by the warrior. Instead of a weapon, Aby had managed to give the beast a shield, a rather large and bulky thing that was in essence, half of a turtle shell, dropped as loot from an unfortunate ironbacked turtle. It used this to block and cover any attacks from the opposing two, taking the opportunity to bash them with it should the chance arise.

The other two, however, weren’t fairing too poorly. The moray had switched strategies, rather than darting around as it normally did against a single opponent, it had settled into a single area, showing off the full might of its ice manipulation capabilities. It had turned the corridors around it within ten meters of its body to slush, and while the aquatic kobold had some experience fighting in these conditions, the other three had none. They were also more susceptible to the cold, the species living on the coast means that they are adapted to the tropical heat, not the arctic freeze.

As such, despite what was effectively two against one, with both groups having magical support, neither seemed to have an edge. Just as one side gained the advantage, their surroundings would suddenly alter, throwing off the group with a lead.

Sela watched them fight for a while, but when it appeared that neither side would lose, nor that either would tire, she took her leave. She continued on, taking one of the few passages installed by Aby between various floors to allow for easier access. She went to the fourth floor, watching how the wyrmling went about its own training regimen, though not much was going on.

Aby would spawn the occasional creature, and once they reached a certain distance to the snake, they’d be met either with a quick lash of its tail, a bite that would pierce their bodies, swiftly ending them, or in the case of one hapless creature, swallowed alive and whole. This continued, the snake hardly moved from its position, barely even sparing a glance at whatever Aby sent at it.

Instead, it turned to Sela, Puffing out its hood and tilting its head up with an expression of pride, even as a silver-streaked barracuda failed to out speed its tail. The action seemed to demand praise and recognition, something Sela fulfilled. She gave a quick giggle and a wave, before mouthing the words “great work” and flitting off.

The next floor of interest was the fifth, with the brittle star. Sela opted to skip past this floor, despite its cordial nature and the fact that it truly seemed to have changed for the better, something about it was still deeply wrong, and she did not enjoy interacting with it.

So, she went to the eighth, were she currently resided, and where the wyvern was training. While similar to the wyrmling in that Aby gave it creatures to test its mettle on, they differed in that they all swam away from him. The wyvern seemed to love this, darting back and forth at dizzying speeds and changing its direction without the slightest change in speeds. She was mesmerized, she had never seen a creature moving so quickly turn around almost one-hundred eighty degrees and suffer neither from a loss of speed, nor a loss of life.

Like the wyrmling, he seemed to notice her, and he quickly dispatched the poor turtle he was toying with. He darted over at an even greater speed, apparently showing off now that he knew he had an observer. Even more impressive, was that he stopped immediately before her, not slowing down in the slightest, and she felt nothing at all. Her hair wasn’t even swaying from that. She took a moment to make sure she hadn’t actually been swept away by an errant wave and hit her head, before turning to the wyvern, still with his smug look waiting for praise. She reached out and pat his head, the size difference only making it appear more comical than it already was.

The beast seemed appeased by this, a low rumbling purring indicated its contentment before it vanished back to its training. Sela giggled again. The wyrmling and the wyvern both really were young, and the way they acted amused her greatly. It reminded her of the way her siblings were, at each other’s throats, but begging for mother’s affection.

She wandered back to her home, the sounds of the wyvern continuing the hunt being the only audible noise on the floor. She settled in, wondering if she’d ever manage to have her own.