<What is the matter Dani? What happened?>
She slowly answered, knowing she had my attention and I wouldn’t be distracted. “It’s… Right after I left there, the earthquake buried the whole area. The grove is gone.”
Another thing I had done wrong. <Oh. Sorry again.>
She rushed to defend me, “It’s ok, you didn’t know, how could you? Should we try growing it?”
<Go for it. All this talk is meaningless if we can’t even grow it right? Gimme.> I sent her an image of me growing hands and snapping my fingers at her.
Startling a laugh with that, she floated over to me, and let go of a shining teardrop I hadn’t noticed she had been holding in her body. It fell slower than I felt it should have, like gravity was a thing it deigned to obey only when it so chose, and entered my puddle with only a small ripple. I tried to push Essence into it, but could not get the energy to pass through the surface. With a disappointed sigh I tried to collect the purest, most dense energy I had into an orb around the seed. Then, turning back to the other matters at hand I quizzed Dani on how to go about making a Boss monster.
She hesitated, “Let’s move you to the last room, then we will talk.”
I remembered how hard it had been to move myself the first time, and mentally winced. I focused on my pillar, and tried to start the process. To my surprise, I moved smoothly and soundlessly.
<Why is this so easy?> I was having so much fun I started moving faster, zipping through the tunnels in an ecstatic blur. <This is so fun!>
“Ha-ha!” She laughed, flying along behind me, “It’s due to you being in your body this time! Last time you were going along uninfluenced ground outside, and you were dragging yourself along. Now, in your influence, you control all of this!”
<Awesome!> Disappointedly reaching the final room, I slowed and put myself near the back, and with Dani directing me, I raised a small hill of stone around my pillar, leaving a hole in the exact center leading down to me and my puddle. My Core better hidden and protected, I listened to Dani tell me how to make my Boss.
“Start by making the strongest monster you know how to.” Dani directed. Quickly forming a poisonous shroomish, I waited for further instructions. “Well, this process is pretty much the same as when you accidentally made your first monster. Basically you just feed it more and more Essence, until it reaches a point of evolution where it is as strong as you can make it. At your current rank, your Boss monster will become a G-rank nine if you give it everything it can take.”
Her instructions seemed… Lacking. <Got it. That’s it? Just pump it full of Essence? Seems a bit anticlimactic.>
“I know, I know.” She sighed at her lack of clear explanation, “Well, when you get stronger, or learn more about magic or enchantments, even powerful creatures or plants, you will be able to direct the growth how you want it to go.”
<Well, I’ll look forward to that, then.> I started pushing Essence into the shroomish, and watched as it was greedily absorbed. Watching carefully as it started changing, I continued putting in energy until I suddenly felt like a wall had popped up between my power and what had previously been a simple shroomish. It began growing at an exponential rate, the power funneling into different areas of the plant in ways I would have never expected. The process slowed down, but spiky thorns began protruding from the stalk. They dripped with poison, and the gill-like ridges under the cap were holding spores that would be released in clouds when it was fighting.
“Ok, that looks cool. Can I name it?” Dani excitedly pleaded.
<Sure, I’m glad actually, I was coming up with blanks. What do you have for me?> I cheerfully responded.
“How about ‘Dire Shroom: Bane’?” Dani offered.
<Awesome! How will people know what it is named though? Does it matter?> Even if it were just for us, I still liked the name.
“Well, cultivators can use analysis magic to study things, similar to how we can, to check a Mob’s information and what it can do. When they do so, it will show the name of the monster, and any abilities that they know about. If they were to analyze it before it was dead, all they see is a name and its cultivation rank.” Explained Dani.
That was a handy tidbit to know! <You are just a fount of knowledge, aren’t you! So I’m guessing that we just... leave him be?> I peered at the rustling form of Bane.
Dani puffed up with pride, “Yup, and he’ll only get stronger the longer he is alive, Bane is strong enough to cultivate on his own. By the way, the title ‘Dire’ is applied to a really strong version of a creature, I didn’t come up with that. Anyway. Let’s move on to the other Mobs, and then the traps, shall we?”
<Great!> moving as fast as we could, we evolved several new creatures. One of the mushrooms with healing benefits grew barbed spikes, but on the inside. They didn’t attack, but if stepped on they would send the spike right through the top of the plant, jamming into the foot. Once there, the healing properties would kick in, sealing the spike into healthy meat. If someone tried to pull it out, or step away, it would tear their flesh, creating a much larger wound.
Even the moss turned into tiny grasping vines, which would snag onto any objects moving by. The barbs on them would scratch and tear at whatever they connected to, hopefully dragging prey down. While not very dangerous by themselves, if someone were to fall into the other Mobs nearby, it could become very deadly. More of a support style Mob, I guess.
Switching to traps, we lined the tunnels with pitfalls, very thin stone that would crumble when stepped on. When fallen through, spikes at the bottom made from quartz would penetrate the flesh and shatter, dealing even more damage and causing wounds to become infected. I also put spikes in the wall, similar to the pitfalls. If someone leaned on the wall, they would fall through and into the spikes. Rock falls in the ceiling would be triggered when people stepped on certain areas that were pressure sensitive. On a whim, I made mushrooms grow around the base of the spikes in the pitfalls, hopefully adding a poison effect when people fell onto them.
Dani sounded tired when she finally called it a night for us. “Well, I think that will do for now. I don’t think there are many more things for us to do except, well, how about you do some decorating. Let’s add some inlay and embellish the entryway. We are still at the bottom of a crevasse, but I think that we should start to make ourselves look good before people find us.” Dani looked around with a critical eye. “Eventually, we will make stairs down to where we are, when we are really confident that you can protect yourself.”
<Works for me. How do you want it to look?> Making things ‘pretty’ didn’t matter to me so much. I’d help her decorate if she wanted though.
“However it is appealing you, maybe some geometric patterns, or loops or knots.” She trailed off into silence for a moment. “Whatever you like.”
We worked out a few basic ideas, and within an hour had some basic patterns surrounding the entrance. It looked nice and with the soft blue glow coming out the door, it would be hard to mistake the entryway for a regular cave.
~Five~
“Well something had to cause it!” broadcasted an angry bearded man. “I lost half my flock. Maybe some meteoric iron is laying around? The whole damn mountain nearly fell over.”
“Stop whining! We all lost part of our herd.” A swarthy man walking beside the bearded one firmly demanded. “You know the dangers of living in the Phantom Mountains. Death is everywhere.” This drew nods from the people around them.
A small group of sheepherders were walking along a sloping mountainside, sunshine streaming around them as they searched for the source of their sudden misfortune. The grass they were walking through was waist high, and while the day was beautiful and clear, the forest around the base of the mountain range visible from this lofty vantage, the mood was ruined by the incessant yammering of the bearded man named Tim.