The first charge is all power and no subtlety, Merlin and his mages unleash a wave of death as big as they can manage, right behind the wave Gorger and his hungry ghouls advance.

They run wild, swiping and biting at anything that is still alive after the death wave. With their ability to eat magic they tear out weakened chunks out of the Spectral Wolves, well most of them are doing that. Gorger is actually eating the pale rocks that dot out the cave, which my {Analyze} is telling me are Moon Opals.

Merlin sends out a second wave, and for a moment I see the Opals try to naturally combat the spreading wave of necromancy. The little opals have a very pure but small amount of moonlight mana, which is a type of positive mana, meaning it naturally opposes my necrotic energy.

Thankfully, the sheer amount and power of my mana is too much for the opals and the rest of the cave. The opals in contact with my mana slowly lose their silver radiance, becoming dimmer and dimmer until…their color shifts.

The ephemeral and enchanting silver light of the moon is corrupted by my dark mana, the colors dim before ressurging. This time the color is a bright unnatural green, the color warps and wanes before turning into a somewhat bright verdigris.

The opals, now called Bad Moon Opals, absorb my necrotic mana and shine. The light has a subtle but powerful necrotic effect, it radiates from the corrupted opals and starts to infect those nearby, like a radiant plague.

Merlin sends a third necrotic wave.

The wave hits the Bad Moon Opals and slows to crawl, the black mana being absorbed by the bad moon opals and repelled by the remaining Moon opals. Merlin changes his approach, he takes control of the new dark energy within the bad moon opals and causes them to vibrate. At the same time his mages begin to forcefully push the necrotic mana forwards, they take control of the wave and create small vortices around the opals, helping them absorb the mana.

The wolves begin their counter attack, but they do not dare approach my deadly field.

Instead they unleash the biggest barrage of moonlight projectiles yet. As they pass by the opals and silvery lines, which stand uncorrupted unlike the opals, on the walls they shine brighter and brighter.

The wolves jump, spin and pirouette in the air, as if it is water. I see a wave of moonlight coming from behind them and with it the will of this dungeon. It empowers the projectiles and the wolves even further.

Yet, as it clashes with my own will and undead, it falters and fades. The projectiles soon follow the nascent will of the dungeon and break within the eerie light of the bad moon opals.

Again I feel the wave of moonlight coming, this time I notice something.

The dungeon does not have the same level of control I do. I see the way it moves its own mana, it uses the opals and the silvery lines on the walls to boost itself.

Unlike mine however, I can tell that the wave coming towards me is too dependent on its environment.

Merlin sends a fourth wave, this time he controls it further. Instead of having its momentum sapped by the opals, it now is combined with them. A wave of green light and black mist surges forwards against the wolves.

The wolves move back, trying to escape the wave.

At this moment I unleash my second attack, my other strike team bursts through the wall. Grave elementals shooting their own bodies across and blocking the escape. The wolves ignore them and try to move through them, yet all we need is for them to be slowed for a second.

The wave hits the wolves, their pale bright spectral bodies change, the green light infecting them like a virulent disease. It takes less than a second, and about 10 wolves are transformed.

Their bodies shift into an eerie green color.

Moon Blight Specters

Specters made of tainted moonlight, capable of draining victims of life and mana.

I can feel my control over these specters and I tell them to attack. They swipe and bite the untainted wolves, their attacks creating splotches of greenlight on the bodies of the moonlight wolves.

With this I begin a final push, this time even more violent and straightforward.

My undead, my wave of death, the sudden change in the opals and wolves, all of it proves too much for this dungeon to handle, and soon I am at its core room.

The core room is just a corridor leading to the core itself, a house-sized conjunction of diamonds, opals and other crystals. Instead of just destroying it, I decided to try something a little different.

Together with Merlin I slowly and carefully fill all of the dungeon with my mana, then we begin to slowly push into the core itself. I see the option to turn it into another sub-core and ignore it.

I feel its domain, packed inside its core. I can feel its insides, the weird mixture of gems and crystals all fused into something more.

I can feel the parts where the fusion was not perfect. I focus fully on those parts first, slowly corrupting them with my own mana.

Slowly the whole core changes hues, going from a white transparent blob of crystal into a greenish one.

Subcore gained!

Subcore mutated into Blight Moon Core!

I take a look at my newest core. This blight moon seems to be a mixture of necrotic and light mana. I concentrate and shine a green light from it, the light passes through my undead and I see that the moon blight specters absorb it.

I concentrate a bit harder and the core responds. This time the light coming from the core is paler, as it passes my undead I can feel that it is not as easily absorbed.

“It is closer to what it was before.” Merlin says.

It seems if I force it I can change the element somewhat. This core and its light is a mixture of necrotic mana and light mana, I can increase or decrease how much of either is in it.

I can tell Merlin is already interested in it. I’m pretty sure one of his books had some chapters on light.

Time for some experimentation.