Valterra retreated to his inner sanctum, where he sensed his Mouse Captain resided. He hovered over the creature and considered what name he would give the loyal mouse. Diving into the primer of the old language that Maph’Ira had provided him, Valterra found a couple of possible root words he could use that would help to describe his first guardian. He could name him Belkor for strength, Vaknar for valor, or Wedin for courage. None of them really stuck.
So the young Core gave an approximation of a shrug and just went with something he thought fit. “I name you Wenigo, First Among Many.” He felt the last reserves of his potential dissipate, looking on as his first guardian underwent a change. The mouse’s fur turned coppery, shining in the light of Valterra’s Core. His guardian grew slightly, but the real change was internal as Valterra sensed the mouse’s musculature strengthen and bones harden. Satisfied, Valterra drew back and let his creature sleep, soothing him further with Aether. There would be time later to test his strength.
He immersed himself in his dungeon and felt his senses expand. All over, he felt his creatures trying to get back into a smooth rhythm despite heavy losses and destruction. He soaked in those sensations for a moment, attempting to understand where he could make adjustments without completely ruining his dungeon’s Aether flow. It was while he was in this state that he came to his answer. The house would need remodeling.
His vision also gave him a rough estimate of size, and Valterra could feel how disproportionate his floors were, not only in size but also in Aether flow. The Third Floor, the one just outside the holes where he breathed, barely got anything because of that fact. His First Floor got something because the Aether flowed through it, but it could barely be considered a proper floor. His Second Floor, where his one colony of Danian Ants resided, got almost nothing in comparison. He needed to change things, but it was hard to know where to start.
For one thing, it would take a massive amount of Aether, which would require him to be cautious. Secondly, he had no idea how his floors would respond. He knew he could change the floor layout to a certain extent, but he had never tried changing their order. Considering that they directly contributed to his personal Ascensions, he was concerned that moving them around might make his core unstable.
Feeling the devastation caused by the invaders rampaging through his dungeon, Valterra surrendered to the unknown. He would make his changes, and hopefully, his uncles and aunties would be able to save him if he bit off more than he could chew. After all, he also needed to look to the future. He still had the whole cabin-mansion to manipulate, with several rooms empty but within his influence.
But first, Valterra needed to fix his established Floors. To do that, he had to first decide on the new layout and then remodel the dungeon to fit his new model. He first looked at a way to do a top-down model of some kind, like a normal dungeon, but quickly put it out of his head. It wouldn’t work, but he had never been normal to begin with, and he wasn’t going to start now.
However, perhaps he could take some inspiration from the classics. No one said he couldn’t do something different at first before transitioning to being a proper dungeon. To that end, the Third Floor, the space underneath the porch, would become the First Floor, and it would be the first gauntlet invaders would have to go through. Nothing had to change to do it either, since it really was the first line of defense. That was the easy part. Now came the more complicated decisions.
His current First Floor would have to change, as would his Second. The First needed to change because it wasn’t first, and the Second was required to change because it was superfluous. It had barely seen action when the invaders attacked, although it had seen enough action to give them what they needed to Ascend. That was its problem, in a way. Now that they were going to be a higher Ascension, the High Danian Ants would need a way to travel deeper to get the Aether density they required for their cores to thrive.
A plan began to form in his head as he worked through his changes. What if his creatures, and any invaders, had to climb to get in? After all, the deck had a top section that could be used as a Floor, and it would be relatively easy to use his moss to fashion paths up to the roof. The problem was that there were two roofs. The main roof was big enough in size to be the third, but he felt as if he was missing something fundamental.
I could connect them, I suppose, Valterra mused to himself, before an idea clicked. I could artificially create the ant war again, couldn’t I? Perhaps one of those castle things for the main roof, and a long drawbridge to connect it to the lower roof. The ants could be placed on the lower roof, and they could siege the upper roof—a constant source of conflict and a test for those who want to get inside and go deeper. I could place mice on the walls to guard them, and that way, there would be defenders already in place!
He tried to contain his excitement, but it was so difficult. Still, he took the time to plan out his changes before implementing them. He started by opening additional breathing holes in the roof of the cabin, followed by further holes in the attic’s ceiling that allowed the Aether to travel further down into different parts of his Dungeon. The result of this was that the original Aether current that flowed through the third floor and the rest began to thin. Moving quickly, Valterra shifted the Aether flow that came down from the roof to fill the inside of the walls before entering the Fourth. That was a temporary fix, but he could feel the Aether balancing out for now.
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That was good. He would need his Aether for this next bit. Flexing his Aetheric muscles, Valterra reclaimed the various strongholds his mice had been using after making sure there were no mice inside them first. He then shifted that stone en masse to the top of his house, setting it all on the roof. He then manipulated the stone to form one massive stronghold that ringed the oval rooftop. Roughly 96 feet in circumference, it was a truly impressive edifice.
He left a lip facing the lower roof and formed gates out of steel, a material he had stolen the composition of from some of the invaders. He then fashioned a keep over the new entrances that led into the attic, reinforcing the wooden structures underneath so the roof could hold the new weight. Next, he smoothed out the clay shingles that made up the roof and spread a light layer of soil over them, then tamped it down and seeded it with grass. That way, it would be nicer for his creatures to walk on, while also allowing for root growth to keep the earth in place.
This would be the main section of the new Third Floor and a fitting place for his mice, once they had Ascended at least once, though he would be repopulating it first with a core group of associated Frameworks. The first mice that he added were simple Mouse Guards. They would be able to protect the castle pretty well and the Third Floor didn’t need Mouse Soldiers, especially since their Aether Cores would suck up the available Aether pretty quickly.
Next, he added a few Mouse Guard Veterans, a Framework he wouldn’t have known he had without the extra System notifications. At the same time, he couldn’t afford to splurge on Mouse Soldiers, but that didn’t mean that the third floor should be without heavy hitters. The veterans would serve as a good last line of defense, should the worst happen, and they had no future growth anyway, so fighting to Ascend wouldn’t be as important to them as protecting the entrance leading deeper into the dungeon.
Satisfied for now, Valterra turned his attention to the second roof. Now. How do I go about doing this?
Valterra pondered the idea for a long moment. The Black Warden Ants were a unique creation of his Uncle Dorn, and while it didn’t expressly say that they made their homes in wood, they had been developed from Carpenter Ants just like his Danians. He had the territory for them to protect, but he wanted to provide the whole package. After all, they weren’t just there to provide conflict but to possibly grow themselves into more powerful defenders of his dungeon. He figured a proper home was the least he could do.
Which meant he would need to wait. He was on a time limit with these changes, and he wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to starve before getting a chance to see the coming conflict. To that end, he forced himself to move on to the next floor he needed to change. The new Second Floor was going to be on the porch right above the new First Floor. It would be a sprawling affair that mirrored the new First Floor. It would be a free-for-all, not only for the best dens, but for the right to climb higher.
All along the length of the porch, Valterra spread soil and seeded more grass. He then took his Wind-Blown Moss and created chains of it that climbed the sides of the building. At different places, he fashioned rough ledges with caves dug into the stonework of the outside walls. All around the building, he fashioned little caves and out-of-the-way dens so that his creatures had places to stay before climbing ever higher.
He had an idea on how to utilize his Empowered Danians, but he wanted to wait. If he was right, he would need time he didn’t have at the moment. The entirety of the new First and Second Floors was the same, owing to their mirrored states, and was like his own vast and terrifying jungle. Valterra found that he liked it but knew it was missing some things.
No matter. He would fix it when he had the time.
His floors now complete, he began moving all of his creatures, including some of his Ascended ones. He made sure to hide the ones currently Ascending, even going so far as to make burrows for them or situate them in ones already created. He hadn’t forgotten the dangers present in this outside world, but he hoped his creatures would soon be strong enough to take down such predators. They would make excellent additions to his vault of Frameworks.
Satisfied for the moment, he moved his Ascending High Danians up into the attic of the main roof, where they would be directly within the flow of his Aether. Looking everything over one more time, he finalized the changes and closed up his bottom entrances, leaving only the ones on the main roof. Immediately, he sensed where he had made errors, and the System screamed at him with notifications he didn’t have time to read.
The new First and Second Floors were suddenly bereft of new Aether as his Dungeon began to absorb it straight from the atmosphere above the house. To fix it, Valterra made Aether pools. He fashioned pillars similar to the ones in his Aether funnel, only smaller and more localized. He then placed a large Aether-holding rune on each one, which quickly began drawing in and condensing small pools of Aether. He replicated this process for the new Second Floor, placing others in various locations and dens, and positioned a particularly large one at the center of the Third Floor keep to ensure the Aether there had the proper density.
Slowly, as he worked, his Dungeon stabilized and accepted the changes. The System stopped blaring at him, and he breathed deeply in relief before looking at the notifications scrolling within his Core. He was sure he had succeeded, but now it was time to see if he truly had.
