Chapter Seven: Little Miracles

Elena lurched forwards, a grating sigh rattling through her chest. She shook her head before stumbling back into her chair, reaching up to daub her forehead with the sleeve of her shirt a steady trickle of sweat drenching her from head to toe. The dungeon had been burried in complete silence, even Origin was devoid of the gentle bubbling concepts and images that she had been training herself to tune out for the past six months. She had used everything, every last drop of mana and life force available to deal with that knock-off! One hundred mana to reshape the room and carve out a tunnel leading to the surface, fifty mana to establish the dungeon itself filling all nearby rooms and corridors with Origin’s aura dissolving any living creatures caught within that had drained Origins supply of energy pretty handily. Then the faux core had made a break for the exit and she’d been forced to use ten points of her own mana to create a barrier to prevent it escaping, not to mention the fact she did this while she was flipping through an endless sea of blue prints. Once she had established the dungeon it took a while for the system to implement all of the neccessary changes and part of that change was deciding what kind of blueprints the dungeon would have available based on the creatures it dissolves shortly after forming and the dungeons own traits. Needless to say even with the addition of nature a damp cave full of every category of vermin did not make for excellent material. She'd just selected the cheapest option possible and even that had cost fifty life force to pump out the pair of [Woodland Star gazer Rats], and then she’d had to watch the [Sunless Moss Horror] practically rip them apart. Now that she had access to an actual dungeon the number of records she could access would increase, hopefully she could find out some more information on the creature, it wasn't especially strong though it did appear quite versatile. It could prove a useful addition to their dungeon.

In the end she had been backed into a corner, they had no life force, no monsters and Origin had run out of mana. So she had done the only thing she could – she opened a hole in the floor dropping them down into the massive cavern which rested below the newly formed dungeon.

Things would have gone so much easier if the fake core had just melted like everything else but she supposed dungeon born monsters must possess some king of immunity to the corrosive effects of dungeon auras. Of course that was just a guess, this wasn't exactly a normal situation so she was doing the best with what she had. The dark green glow of Origins aura was already beginning to fade, it was still their marking the current borders of the dungeon invisible to mundane eyes, but clearly visible to Elena's sight. If the battle had continued much longer, the aura’s potency would have dropped so far that it would have been little more than a minor irritant for the opposing dungeon core, that would have left them defenceless to the moss horror. It would just be a matter of shattering Origin and it would establish its' own dungeon in their place.

She had yet to see Gimble's dungeon fairy, it was beginning to grate against the back of her head, Gimble's aura should have penetrated everything in the vicinty going so far as to sink into the stone itself, yet she had no notification about absorbing a dungeon fiary. She could see dozens of fish, rats and snakes, with hundreds of insects added in for good measure but not one fairy. There was no point worrying now, she groaned slumping deeper into her chair as mana fatigue begam to set in.

For now she’d take a break, but as soon as she recovered there would be work to do. They had founded a dungeon and that meant soon enough adventurers would come knocking in search of treasure and glory. Currently the [Nature's Origin Dungeon] was just a long tunnel and an empty room and that would have to change. Winding corridors filled with traps, hordes of roving monsters - nothing overly complex. It was best to keep things simple on the first few floors. She sighed, her gaze turning towards the hole she had formed in the corner of the room, leading down into a dark abyss. She'd found it during her initial survey of the cave, an open expanse stretching beneath the earth, she wasn't sure what lay below them or exactly how far down the tunnel went, what she did know was that the passage had been formed when the volcano was still active and that the hole was deep. If she were lucky the fake core would shatter on reaching the bottom, that or melt in a pool of lava but after recent events, well she just didn’t trust her luck. Lately things had just kept going wrong.

She'd need to start preparing precautions.

Thud!

A sharp jab of pain lanced upwards through Gimble’s core followed by a nasty crack! He remained silent for a moment, mind going blank, as it took a moment for the pain to register and he let out a screeching howl. Moments later several other dull thuds! crashed to the ground around him.

Falling had been a strange experience for him, his little bubble of awareness had remained floating in the room above for several seconds watching as the ground continued to fall away tumbling down into the hole, before he felt the sphere reach the outer limits of his gaze. His bubble had snapped back into his body moments later as he continued to plummet down and down falling ever further into the earth surrounded by darkness on all sides before landing across a barren outcrop of stone. He wasn't sure how long he'd been falling for, he'd forgotten to count, but it was certainty long enough for him to reach his terminal velocity before making impact

He let out a long internal groan his attention flickering to the gauges hanging at the periphery of his vision.

[Dungeon Core] - Gimble

DURABILITY - [36%]

MANA - [0/40]

LIFE FORCE - [25/50]

His life force had made a significant recovery, probably from splatting the pair of wood rats in the battle above. Still he was completely out of mana and his durability was starting to peter out. It would probably take him weeks or maybe months to regain his lost durability, going by how long it had taken for him to recover from his initial arrival. Gimble hissed, a dull pain filling his core though his outward expression remained as stony as ever...

Hah... he felt better already, laughter truly was the best medicine - or at the very least it made his wounds hurt less by comparison. His gaze turned to the two windows that had appeared during his fight with the rats in hopes of distracting himself from his most recent shame.

CONGRATULATIONS! - [You Have Levelled Up]

[Level 2]

Intelligence +1 [+]

Concentration +1 [+]

Will +1 [+]

+2 free points

CONGRATULATIONS! - [You Have Discovered a New Spell]

[Delirium Bolt] - [mental magic – Insanity]

A small projectile sphere of solidified magic infused with the mental magic element insanity. Causes those hit by the spell suffer the hallucination debuff, chance of inflicting stun.

MANA COST: 5

RANGE: 15 ft

DAMAGE: 10 HP

DURATION: 1 sec (+1 sec for +3 mana)

Gimble groaned, normally this would have been good news; he had a new magic spell, and he’d gained a level. The Dungeon core sighed before slamming his two free points down into intelligence raising the stat up to seven points giving him a total of seventy mana and six life force. Yay, now he was slightly stronger than he was a moment ago, but that didn't do a thing for his headache.

Well headache really wasn’t the right word, it was something else, something less physical. He no longer had a head or any way to feel actual pain but over the last few minutes he had been subjected to a battery test of agony, the sharp acidic pain of being melted by magical gas, the grating blast of physical damage from the spines on the wood rats tongue, the blunt force trauma rattling around his consciousness like a toddler with their christmas present. His crystal had been cracked and unlike before these weren’t just hairline fractures; they were thick gashes running over his surface, burning brightly with white light. He had to wonder whether they would leave a scar.

He lay there for a long time drifting in an out of focus. He hadn’t slept, not once since he had arrived in this new world, his body simply didn’t need it. But now, now he needed it, he needed to rest. He began siphoning mana drawing it into his core, the action eliciting a small wave of prickling pain to rush over his surface. He ignored it continuing to hoover up the ambient mana watching his gauges began tick up as the minutes passed. He really hadn’t noticed before, just how much mana origin had been taking for itself, without the competition Gimble was able to fill his mana gauge in a matter of minutes although he was just guessing about the specifics, his measurement of time had been a little off ever since his little journey through the cosmos.

Slowly, over what Gimble guessed was probably a couple of hours, the grating pain inside his core began to abate, the glowing scars beginning to dim as he expanded his bubble of sight to its' upmost limits before sending it out to regard the features of his landing site

He couldn’t grasp the full scope of his current location no matter how he straned his sight, but it was large he knew that, he couldn't see a cieling, a wall or any other form of barrier. If he hadn't known better he would have assumed he was just resting on a normal hill in a normal field in the middle of the night, except for the pitch black stone beneath them and the waves of glowing red grass that spread beyond. George and the rats had come down just as hard as Gimble. The Dungeon core frowned his gaze focusing in on the unmoving lump of moss. Gimble reached out with his awareness and for lack of a better term mentally clicked on George a notification window popping up.

[Sunless Moss Horror] - George

HEALTH: 27/80

LIFE FORCE: 2/10

Huh, Gimble regarded the notification with George’s basic stats, the [Sunless Moss Horror] seemed more or less fine which only made sense now that he thought of it - the monster was a literal pile of moss; it had no bones to break - the fall hadn’t done a thing to harm the dashing young horror. Still it looked like George had taken quite a bit of damage in its fight with the two rats,several of its tentacles now mere stumps the rest heavily gnawed on. Gimble sighed looking on at his little friend. They must have been quite the sight. He let out a long sigh, they really needed to heal up quickly if they wanted to keep themselves from ending up in a worse siutation.

Gimble frowned, it wasn't like he knew any healing magic, no all of his spells seemed focus on making any situation actively worse, he'd have to put that on his to do list: find healing magic. Well there was one thing he thought might work.

He let out a long groan before sending George the mental order to crawl over to him as best it could before drawing eight life force out of his core, keeping a careful eye on his own gauges as he did in order not to waste any excess energy. Then taking a deep breath he sent the energy forwards drifting uneasily through empty space before crashing into prone monster. The pale green light of the life force sank down into the lump of grey moss, a pale green pulse burning through its body as its’ tentacles grew several centimetres longer. They didn’t heal or anything, they just grew...

Hah, well that was a complete waste of his time and effort.

Gimble grumbled to himself, he felt like someone had dropped him down a flight of stairs into an acid bath. He really needed that healing magic some time soon. Still at least his mana was full now; that meant he could found his own dungeon, that would probably come with a couple of benefits, maybe there'd be something that could help him heal himself or George. He was still alive, he had unparalleled access to mana (at least in comparison to his previous supply), he had gained a level and expanded his magical arsenal with a new spell, not to mention soon he'd have a dungeon of his own; Little miracles, it’s all about the little miracles.