“They may prove an inconvenience when I plant my roots here,” my mind relayed, quashing the uneasiness that suddenly flooded the sharp-edged container of my consciousness.
“Not at all, Master. Monsters enjoy living near dungeon cores since the residual magic slowly makes them stronger.”
All evidence was to the contrary. Every creature, with the exception of my two champions, had wanted to take my core and use it for their own ends. Or, at the very least, they’d sought to kill my avatar. Then again, all I seemed to run into were sentient creatures. It made sense to assume there were Infernal monsters with a more animalistic, instinctual intelligence, rather than the ability to think in sentient terms.
Planting Zagorath here would have long-lasting implications, if what I’d discovered so far remained consistent. The sentient monsters—Puck, for instance—still worshipped Lilith as a deity and had come to the sensible conclusion to side with her Viceroy. A more instinctual creature—the Chained Varidus seemed to be a case of this—would simply flock toward whatever made them stronger, helping them breed, feed, and flourish.
Besides the sound of the varidus’ wings beating against the air, I could hear little else. The mountain was obviously devoid of life and creatures, and the minimal number of monsters we encountered on the twelve-hour journey attested to that. The presence of my dungeon would bring abundance to Shadow Crag’s monster population. It would also bring with it dungeon divers, who’d pose a bit of a problem to the natives.
I didn’t know the extent of an adventurer’s powers, but surely there were some mages or priests who could harvest a monster’s Infernal Essence for their own ends? Or was it only dungeons and their avatars who could acquire this powerful substance? Even if that were the case, the monsters could still be used for their pelts, bones, and meats. This wasn’t Earth; this was a primitive world where an animal’s carcass was utilized right down to the last bone.
So, adventurers profited from monsters, but what did monsters have to gain from those who hunted them? I knew my dungeon could somehow grow stronger by brutalizing adventurers; Lilith had told me that much, but I didn’t know exactly how.
There was a whole lot of shit I’d have to figure out, and I felt I was only scratching the surface.
Done with musing, I returned to the task at hand.
“Place me in the center of the mountaintop,” I willed Bertha.
She carried me tenderly, as though I was just one small bump away from fracturing. We approached a wicked spike of obsidian, the half-troll placing me on a small shelf in the stone.
I recalled how my dungeon heart had started to eat the minerals inside Ma’s Grotto, so I extended my phantom tendrils of consciousness. Obsidian was a familiar composition of jagged, sharp, and brittle stone I hungrily feasted upon. I drew its essence toward myself, and the stone dissolved like a tablet in a glass of water.
The substance floated toward me and filled my gem’s center. My stone heart flickered with satisfaction, but I wanted yet more. I pulled at it again, discovering something else this time. Another mineral vein raced through the small spike of volcanic material. Its form was different from obsidian—harder, less crystalline, and firmer.
My consciousness swirled around the new material and examined it in more detail, all the way down to its molecular composition. Firmer and more rigid, sure, but once I found the smaller, thinner fault lines in the material, it fell to the pressure of my hunger and the power of my will. It was strangely pleasing, as if it was the food for my gem form. Volcanic rock had a spicy ash-ness to it, whereas the harder and more prevalent stone was more akin to freshly-baked bread.
I had no better name for it than bread-rock, so that’s what it became. The name was a little too similar to bedrock, but at that moment, I didn’t care. My hunger was too strong, and the more I consumed, the more I wanted.
I was almost lost in the ecstasy of this geo-feast, and I had to force myself to slow down. I figured all dungeon realms could consume earth in this manner to carve out their dungeons, but would they all have this insatiable hunger? My Tainted Elf had a preternatural thirst for chaos and blood; was my own dungeon the same? We were both created by the Infernal Goddess, so it made sense. Like the monsters of this realm I had met so far, we consumed, destroyed, and took what we wanted. We drove the dark tendrils of our power into others.
Damn, I loved being an Infernal Dungeon core.
By now, my dungeon had only extended about half a foot downward. The obsidian spire had already collapsed inside of itself and turned to pure physical essence. My core had absorbed every last speck, my many sides now glowing.
Zagorath Harvested Essence
+10 Physical Essence
The air stirred above my tiny dungeon and carried with it an aroma of delicious ash and a hint of sulfur or brimstone. I felt a vibration as my jewelled form fell into the hole I’d excavated.
Something had changed. Sensations lingered now; it wasn’t simply centered around my gem. Now, the feelings were where the stone had been a moment before, the square hole I’d excavated now coming to form a part of my consciousness. I could feel it, as if it were some kind of limb. Somehow, after making a decision to finally be placed somewhere—rather than just being thrown around on the whims of fate—I’d taken on something else. A new sense.
I had finally become a dungeon, rather than just a core.
I dug into the ground with gusto, mentally grinning to myself. This was the same as any kind of building
