I hissed, baring my fangs at the abominable thing before me. I had seen many disgusting sights in my travels through the World Dungeon’s tunnels; few of them could compare to...this.

“Oh, I think he likes this one!” Needle cried out.

“I really don’t think that he does, Kala. It’s another bust.” another voice replied, the muttered words lying at the very edge of my hearing.

“Yeah, but he didn’t try to bite this one - and he definitely didn’t try to set it on fire. That’s a huge improvement, if you ask me.”

Another voice - the newest Coreless to join our group, I realized - interjected. “Honestly, I’m with the snake on this one. That thing was an abomination only fit for destruction. I blame Doran. Not an artistic bone in his body.”

“Yes, because I was the one who couldn’t even cut in a straight line and was forced to give up.”

A gasp. “You gave up? You’ll never become a proper Artisan with a mindset like that, my boy!”

“I’m older than you, Rowan.”

I turned my head away from the abomination for the moment, content to wait for the Coreless to finish making their noises. The room of the nest that we had entered was surprisingly large; though it wasn’t nearly as tall as the giant towers that reached for the cavern ceiling in the ruined many-nest outside, it was wide. Gargantuan.

Fake-pedestals surrounded slabs of darkwood many slithers long, each covered in the tools and fangs of stone and darkwood carvers. I could imagine a great many Coreless filling it, each working on their own depictions of the Great Core’s power, scraping away at the massive piles of plant-flesh and stone-flesh in bits and pieces.

Like the first room of the nest, the walls of the carving-room were covered in depictions of fake-leaves and plant-flesh like much of the many-nest had been so far, though to a far greater degree. Fake-leaves and fake-roots wrapped themselves around the thick stone-spike pillars that stretched toward the ceiling of the nest. I didn’t like those carvings, with how they reminded me of the Lesser Core’s creatures, but I tried to ignore it.

The Coreless that had lived here didn’t know any better.

They had lived all of their lives in the darkness of the World Dungeon, too far away for the light of the Great Core to reach them.

They didn’t know better - unlike my own Coreless.

Nearby, the Coreless finally began to quiet down. I gave a new set of instructions through [Illusion Spark], hoping that they would manage to create something more acceptable this time. I approved of what they were doing; even without being able to understand them fully, it was clear that they were attempting to create another statue to honor the Great Core.

A second Focus, created in defiance of the Lesser Core that had tried to steal the Great Core’s Coreless for itself.

And oh, that thought burned. That the Lesser Core had tried to snatch one of the Great Core’s disciples out from under me? It was an unforgivable insult. Enraging.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle had been the most affected by the Lesser Core’s blasphemy, but her tumultuous emotions were beginning to settle, no longer jumping so rapidly between [GUILT] and [hope], or [GRIEF] and [cheer].

I was sure that being allowed to create a new Focus was helping her in that; being able to craft a physical sign of her devotion to the Great Core must have been reassuring.

Still, their attempts so far had been...ugly. Frightening. Their abilities were far from acceptable, but their devotion shone through in their willingness to persevere.

Their mana-lit fangs had sliced and shattered stone with surprising ease even after all this time, aided by the occasional ore-flesh tool that had been left abandoned within the nest by the missing Coreless. Time after time, I had seen the way that a misshapen replica of the [Little Guardian’s Focus] was pulled from the boulders in the room around me.

Time after time, I had made the need for something better known. My Coreless were having trouble with that. I doubted that they had been involved in carving the first [Little Guardian’s Focus], with how misshapen and disgusting each one had turned out so far.

The next attempt would be the sixth.

I ignored the tug at my senses that insisted a [Little Guardian’s Focus] could be made from the most recent abomination, just as I had for all the others before it. The Great Core deserved something better in a Focus.

My Coreless would understand. They went to work again, and the horrible excuse for a potential Focus was forgotten. It was for the best.

===

I hissed. It was done at last. It was beau - okay, it wasn’t great. It was better, though, and I had come to accept that my Coreless had reached their limit. The last two attempts had looked almost exactly the same despite my carefully hissed instruction. Any hope for something better would be a mistake.

If it weren’t for my burning need to create a second [Little Guardian’s Focus] in order to spite the nearby Lesser Core, I wouldn’t accept it - but for now, it would have to do.

“No more…” the newest of the Coreless moaned, laying on the ground beside the most recent creation. He had stopped for a while, watching the others work to bring the Focus to life, but had eventually been pulled back into the effort.

It had not been pretty. While he had managed to slice through stone just as easily as the others, the fang-tipped rod that he carried blazing with mana-light, he also managed to completely ruin more than one potential Focus. After nearly cutting one in half, he had been sent to practice on the various failed attempts, forced to smooth out the mistakes until he no longer made them himself.

The Coreless all turned to look at me as one, filled with a mix of [frustration] and [hope].

“He...hasn’t tried to bite this one.”

“Is this it? Are we done?”

“Please let us be done…”

I ignored the sounds of frustration at their own inadequacies and dismissed their words of praise both. They were the natural reaction. Expected. Unimportant.

I slithered forward, letting my scale-flesh rest against the cold stone of the statue. It was smoother than I had expected, after having seen the way that my Coreless had hacked and slashed to create it - yet at the same time, it was rough enough to climb with ease.

I pulled myself up, slither by slither. My mind fell still. I found the peace that would be needed.

My mana churned violently, directly opposing the peace of my mind.

In that conflict, the weave of mana and life essence that was [Little Guardian’s Focus] began to form. The Coreless began to gasp and cheer at the edge of my hearing, uttering their words of praise as the stone-snake began to glow.

Fake-scales shifted and changed as mana ripped itself from my core, imprinting parts of my own abilities into the giant snake of stone. [Illusion Spark] darkened the light around it, pulling it in closer to suffuse the newly formed reservoirs within its scales. The air warped.

Life essence moved next, forming the same mind-bendingly complex pattern that it had for the first Focus. Glimmering gold ran underneath the stone-snake’s scales.

The second Focus formed.

One by one, my Coreless moved closer. One by one, they reached for the [Little Guardian’s Totem] around their necks, placing them carefully into the illusory fire within the stone-snake’s jaws, binding their Totems to the newest Focus.

One by one, they bared their teeth at the result, little scrapes and scratches shifting to mended skin-flesh. Their shoulders lost a bit of their slump, and a new light seemed to enter their eyes.

There was a sniffle to my side, and a hand reached out to grab me. I allowed it, my own scale-flesh tired and weak after the strain of creating the second Focus.

Drops of fluid fell from the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s eyes in a never-ending stream. I flicked out my tongue, catching a few falling droplets. They were salty. I caught another one, and it was salty too. The-female-who-was-not-Needle giggled at the sensation, sounding like one of the tiny Coreless in her joy at the Focus’ creation.

Despite the salt-filled fluids that welled from her eyes, of all of my gathered Coreless, she bared her teeth the hardest.

I didn’t need to rake my fangs across our connection to interpret the noises that came next. I already had an idea of what they meant.

“Thank you,” she hissed softly. “They’ll have a chance now. Thank you.”

[GRATITUDE].