As I began to awaken, once again that same bizarre foreign feeling that came after my death where my body didn’t feel my own permeated through me, I tried to sense the pool of energy inside of me as I’d done before and was immediately blown away by a sudden torrent of information. Instead of only being able to sense a vague pressure from the outside and everything else being solely internal I could feel all around me for a total of 1 meter, a measurement I seemed to be aware of instinctively even without any frame of reference, and all of my surroundings where totally dominated by a bizarre, white, fibre. I’d be tempted to call it a web but it didn’t seem to have any of the ‘glue’ usually associated with such things and some of the strands where a staggering 10cm in diameter: the scale of this ‘nest’ was completely impossible to grasp with my small sphere of perception but somehow I could tell it was overwhelmingly large. I was held in a strange sort of woven hammock that stretched out to each side farther than I was able to track and holding me a couple of centimetres off the ‘floor’ which was also made out of the stuff though I could see through anything within my radius and I was able to notice the shale, dolomite, quartz and hematite; once again identified by a strange guiding hand of instinct that was beginning to get on my nerves. However, most significantly of all I suppose is what ‘me’ actually was; a small, semi-translucent white orb resting on the hammock and pulsing slightly every now and then, bringing a rush of vitality like when I first pulled in some of the external pressure in for the first time. Inside I’d experienced similarly extreme changes, the size of my pool doubling in radius while I slept and becoming fully encapsulated by crystalline walls that where a centimetre thick, my total diameter being 2 meters by now, and there was a pair of small sparks inside my centre: orbiting each other. As the sparks began to get closer and closer they picked up speed, thinking that they’re speed was important I started swirling the insides of my inner sphere to try and add on to their velocity making their orbit slightly elliptical due to imperfections in my control however they still slowly got closer and closer, faster and faster till finally they collided creating a burst of myriad lights and bringing up two messages like from before…

STATUS

SKILLS

SPELLS

CREATURES

TERRAINS

UTILITIES

EFFECTS

HELP

Name

Dane Kain

Race

Dungeon Core

Sub-Type

Tyx Swarm

Class

Dungeon Master

Sub-Class

Hive Lord

Level

0

Experience

0/10

Health

7,000/7,000 (7/s)

Mana

13,000/13,000 (16/s)

Essence

150/150 (13/hr)

Physical Statistics

Power (POW)

9

Endurance (END)

11

Durability (DUR)

7

Dexterity (DEX)

15

Speed (SPD)

8

Finesse (FIN)

13

Mental Statistics

Intelligence (INT)

13

Wisdom (WIS)

16

Genius (GEN)

9

Proficiency (PRO)

11

Impulse (IMP)

6

Charm (CHA)

5

NOTIFICATION! SELECT A FREE CREATURE!

NOTIFICATION! SELECT A FREE TERRAIN!

NOTIFICATION! SELECT A FREE EFFECT!

NOTIFICATION! STARTER PACKS AVAILABLE!

‘I… uhh what? Huh, It says I’m a dungeon core? I feel like I should be freaking out about this, yknow trying to say it’s a dream or something but it kinda makes sense all things considered… is this maybe related to how I was weirdly calm just before dying? Is that why I feel so accepting of this? It says I’m a ‘hive’ and ‘swarm’ so I guess that means I get to use bugs a lot; as for the stats I don’t really know what any of them mean but if I assume 10 is average it looks pretty good on the whole right? I seem to be skewed towards the mental stats but I could’ve predicted that on my own. Also the main three are pretty simple I’d say, health goes to 0; you die, mana does magic stuff and is probably the ‘energy’ I’ve been using, essence is a bit more confusing but if I just assume it does dungeon stuff then that’s whatever. I’d say this is probably reincarnation but it has the same name as before I died so it can’t be right? I’d have a new name if I was reborn, probably. The tabs up the top are pretty self explanatory as well, skills are stuff I can do; spells are magic I can do; creatures will be whatever monsters I make; terrain is my environment; utilities is probably just the miscellaneous tab and effects is….. okay less sure on that one. A help tab however, that seems special. I’ll mark that one as something to deal with later. Now, the notifications. These 4 are probably just to give me beginner stuff and help me get started, I feel like I shouldn’t use any of that while I’m still uninformed, maybe check the help function first.’

HELP

PREVIOUS QUESTIONS!

ASK A QUESTION!

TIP OF THE DAY!

‘Huh… let’s check this ‘tip of the day first’ see if it’s any help.’

TIP OF THE DAY!

Sometimes, you can create a monster for less essence by swapping out parts for weaker equivalents!

‘Right… completely worthless for beginners then, let’s try asking a question. Hmmm what would actually be helpful, maybe… I’m a dungeon right? That means I’m going to get raided by adventurers or something similar so a question related to them? Maybe what the average level for my area is, but that would be meaningless since I have no frame of reference for levels so it probably wouldn’t help much would it… asking something to do with stats then? But that’d have the same problem. Plus if there’s someone min maxing a stat in the area it’d break everything. Maybe I could just ask how long it would take them to get here from the nearest town? But that feels like it wouldn’t work either… oh right they probably don’t know I’m here yet do they! So ask about how long it will take for them to discover me AND how long it would take for them to arrive after that! Alright, first question; how long will it take for me to be discovered.’

Answer: it will be approx 605000 seconds till discovery. Next free question in 86400 seconds.

‘Oh so it’ll take about a week then, wait I need to wait a day for another question!?!? Wait how come I just worked that out so easily, it came to me so naturally… I guess I’m still not used to how odd my current self is, I remember thinking my mind was sharper before but I suppose this proves it. Anyway, one week till discovery, let’s assume that’s a hard deadline and I’ll be at risk immediately rather than being optimistic and hoping it would take another few days for any unwanted guests. It’s time to look at the monster tab I suppose’

The creatures tab was separated into parts and blueprints, each being blank with a large button at the bottom that said “FREE CREATURE” after ‘clicking’ it with my mind I was presented with 9 options 3 labelled as ‘Race Options’ and all having the name ‘Tyx’ as a prefix; 3 labelled as ‘Class Options’; 3 labelled as ‘Special Options’ and the specified as an ‘Environment Option’, ‘Personal Option’ and ‘Random Option’ specifically as-well as a prompt saying that I could pick three. The three Race Options where a swarm type monster that looked like a bizarre cross between a wood louse and a spider, having 12 long spindly legs holding it up at half a meter in height and a flat body that was covered in a flexible, segmented shell called a Tyx Swarmling; a large worm type monster that was a meter in diameter and had a gaping maw full of many layers of spiralling, serrated teeth called a Tyx Burrower; a monster that looked like an oversized tick 2 meters tall and fully engorged but instead of being filled with blood it was bursting with tiny eggs called a Tyx Spawner. The three Class Options where a small spider, only a centimetre tall but with very large eye clusters, that specialised in controlling other types of arachnid and commanding them to fight in its place as well as clever web use for traps called a Webling; a type of fly that was so small it could be mistaken for a speck of dust however they created large swarms to hound larger prey and would explode into a small burst of sparks if killed often causing a chain reaction that where known as Leaf Dust; and a gargantuan preying mantis that was nearly as large as the Tyx Spawner, had a dark grey chitin and an extra two limbs folded in by its sides that could spring out to pierce prey. The special options, well they lived up to their name at least, they where all certainly unique but… maybe a little too much so. There was a wisp that leeched mana to sustain itself meaning it had no essence cost and could use illusions to hide its existence from invaders as the personal option but wasn’t able to do literally anything else; a lindwurm which appeared to be a snake like dragon as the random option, which would be absolutely fantastic if it didn’t drain all of my essence in its entirety some 1,000 times over and a slate golem for the environmental option, a glass canon that was the only creature with a material requirement. All of these seemed alright on the surface, their problems not exactly overwhelming but my main problem with them is that they just don’t fit the theme at all. It might not be that big a deal yet I get the feeling synergy will be important with these kind of things, maybe I’ll have some skills for it? Actually I should probably check those.

Skills

General Skills

Robust

Change DUR:Health ratio to 1:1,000

Rapid Regeneration

Change Health regeneration into a per second measurement

Mana Crystallisation

Change INT:Mana ratio to 1:1,000

Mana Font

Change Mana regeneration into a per second measurement

Spell Craft

You can precisely shape the flow of your mana to achieve magical effects

Race Skills

World Essence

Generate essence at a rate of FIN/he to a cap of 10*DEX

Creature Creation

For an essence cost generate certain creatures within your dungeon

Terrain Manipulation

Spend mana to manipulate the area that is under your control

Utility Implementation

Create and maintain structures within your dungeon with mana

Special Effects

Using mana, create supernatural effects within your territory

Tyx Host

Tyx Hives are able to act without the restrictions on dungeon life

Tyx Assimilation

Tyx Hives can incorporate Tyx variants of compatible dungeon creatures

Class Skills

Cerebral Commander

You can order all of your creatures through mental commands in a manner similar to telepathy

Power of Names

You can bestow a number of names equal to your GEN to dungeon creatures, this allows them to advance in ways impossible for dungeon life

Manifest Weave

By weaving all mana in the dungeon into a central tapestry, You can source your spells from any position in the dungeon as if it where the casting location

Mana Link

By connecting the mana flow of the dungeon to your own, you can gain a portion of all mana gained and spent in the dungeon.

Possession

For a period of time equal to your PRO minutes you can assume direct control over any of your dungeon creatures.

Myriad Hive

All eligible dungeon life is interconnected into one, central, hive mind

Hive Master

For a number of minutes equal to your WIS each day, you can use skills within the hive mind equal to your GEN as if they where your own

‘Okayyyy so 1. Hive master seems to have insane potential for exploitation; 2. Apparently there are restrictions on dungeon life? And I have a couple ways to bypass that; 3. Definitely sticking with the theme is a good idea, I don’t know what makes something ‘eligible’ or ‘compatible’ but I assume more bugs can’t be a bad idea; 4. We finally know why my core 3 stats are completely busted compared to every other creature I’ve seen, skills are why. That seems to be al, the important stuff to take note off? Damn that’s a lot to process… checking tabs for more informed decisions = good idea, something to remember’

Hoping to preserve that same spirit I decided to next check the ‘spells’ tab, I doubt it’ll have anything relevant to dungeon creatures but I didn’t expect skills to come as such a big shock so it’s worth checking at least, upon opening the tab I was presented with another window this one containing 5 categories: conjuration, elemental, enchantment, divination and alteration and a notice saying I had ‘9 spell points’. Since that looked like another rabbit hole of choices I wasn’t ready for right now I instead moved along to the utilities tab, I felt like terrains was going to be another decision, however I only received a notice saying UTILITIES LOCKED TILL LEVEL 3 and moved into effects. In effects I was presented with an option to claim the free effects mentioned in the notification as-well as a currently empty list of effects that only had the message ‘Experiment and discover!’. I decided I could at least check my options and clicked ‘claim’. Thankfully my options where far less fatiguing this time as I only received three choices ‘Elemental effects’, ‘Mental Effects’ and ‘Restrictions’ all only containing a single option ‘Imbue element’, ‘Exhaustion’ and ‘Party Size’ respectively however I immediately selected ‘Party Size’ without even thinking about it. The idea of armies upon armies charging into my dungeon and spawn camping every mob, scouring every corner to try and destroy me, or enslave me, or just turn me into a fancy paperweight? Horrifying. I was told to specify a restriction size between 10 and 14 and simply picked 10, the lowest option, before moving on to the terrains tab. In ‘Terrains’ I was given a map of the 1 meter currently within my perception and was told that I was currently inhabiting a cave system and Tyx nest and should pick which one to theme my dungeon after, another easy choice, after picking Tyx not much changed externally but I got a very, very wonderful notification.

NOTIFICATION!

Terrain type chosen!

+200% to Tyx reproductive speeds, +1% chance of variant births, +3 Free Multi’s with every Tyx Mother.

This basically set me choosing the Tyx Spawner in stone however I had to wonder, what if it can only spawn monsters I have access to? Wouldn’t I be screwing myself by not selecting another Tyx unit at that point. So just to be safe that basically forces me to spend 2 of my 3 picks of the Tyx and the third one I’ll spend on a class option, the special options just aren’t worth it, so weblings;

Leaf Dusts or Reavers. Weblings are out because I don’t have other spiders… wait but what if their abilities can be used on Tyx due to Tyx Assimilation and Myriad Hives? Still… I don’t want to make gambles with this choice. So no weblings, dust leafs I feel could benefit extremely well from my skills and could maybe lead to flying Tyx later on but I feel like they overlap too much with the swarmlings so… I suppose I’ll have to pick Reavers.

Let's see if the starter packs have anything interesting then, my decisions are basically all made already but there might be something useful that maybe makes the Leaf Dust more useful, I open up the starter pack notifications and get the following message

DUNGEON STARTER PACKS

Creature packs

Humanoid / Beast / Vermin / Elemental / Construct / Undead

Spell packs

Elemental / Divination / Enchantment / Alteration / Conjuration

Utilities Packs

Livelihood / Magic / Hostile / Production