POV Valterra
Valterra drifted more fully into his dungeon awareness, feeling for how his creatures fit into his floors. It had been a wild last week and a bit, full of directing creatures to their new homes or simply spawning more of the new creatures. He wasn’t even done now that the higher Ascensions were beginning to wake up. The work did nothing to diminish his excitement or joy at how much his dungeon was growing. By the time more invaders got here, he would be well-equipped to stop them.
The Mouse-At-Arms were a perfect fit for the fifth floor, perfectly matching his idea for the floor. A bastion of civilization, like his father’s memories, holding the savage monsters at bay. In fact, now that a number of his Frameworks had reached a proper rank, he could fill out the fifth a bit more. It would start with those who were waking up now.
Vibrant periwinkle eyes flickered open before the Other-Mage yawned and rose, stretching out before fully rising. Standing on its hind legs like the rest of its kin, the mage’s mind was entirely different. It was a racing and powerful thing, and Valterra watched as its eyes tracked the currents and eddies of Aether, getting a feel for how it moved.
The other two mages were quick to awaken and rise alongside the first; the three looked at each other with a fierce intellect, calculating and knowing. Valterra, remembering the rats and their use of Crystalized Aether, decided to give these mice something to commemorate their awakening and Ascension. He formed three small staves out of wood before setting a small shard of crystal into the top of each and wrapping the wood around them halfway. He put ten points of Potential into each one, just enough to make them artifacts, but of the lowest kind.
As the mice looked at their new tools with amazement and awe mixed with instinctive understanding, Valterra made a mental note to create a more impressive version for the twisted little rat if he succeeded in his mission. Regardless, these mages could use their tools to learn more about their new gifts, and he looked forward to seeing how they went about it. Then the dungeon core was off again as stirrings of another creature caught his attention.
As he left, he dismissed the notification of his ability to produce more mage mice. If he needed them, he would make more, but his mind was already running over the Framework to see just how much they had changed and if he might be able to create another kind of mage by using the Helpdesk. He had seen the power of magic multiple times now, and his father had been, by all accounts, a powerful Archmage. If he could tap into that legacy, then he would.
His next stop was in the hidden place in between the outer and inner walls of the house, where his Emergent Lord of the Red Tide was coming awake. As the light of Ascension faded, Valterra found that it was large for an insect, though not as gargantuan as his Belchers or Stalkers. It was roughly a foot long with powerful legs, sharp, wicked mandibles, and barbed raptorial forelimbs. Its carapace was no longer green but a multihued red that flickered with the energy of the same vibrant color. It was large and powerful and utterly bereft of a floor.
This was an actual problem, for he didn’t have any floor to offer to the Emergent Lord, and the remnants of its pack had scattered. Luckily, the latter issue could be quickly resolved, and the former simply required some patience. Even as the Emergent Lord woke completely and stretched its barbed raptorial forelimbs, Valterra was fashioning a basic horde where his Aether Funnel was.
Simultaneously directing his newly awakened creature to head in that direction, he created three Pack-Leader Mantises with around twelve or so members in each of their packs. The majority of the members were Pack-Mantises with a few Mantis Recluses hidden within the fold. He made no other creatures, aware of the fact that the System had warned him against too much artificial creation when it came to the horde. In the process of making them, he flexed his will, imbuing each with a fragment of the concept he had touched on. Wrath. By the time the Emergent Lord arrived, the small horde had changed.
Gone were the green-mottled carapaces, and in their place were red carapaces of a similar fashion to their new lord. Perhaps a little less vibrant, but they were similar enough. It didn’t take long for the larger insect to whip its horde into shape, and after it did so, it stood straighter and looked to where the dungeon core’s awareness hung in the air. Its mind was a burning thing, consumed by the concept that Valterra had given to it, and he could not find it in himself to be sorry for it.
For all that he had transformed it into an instrument of his will, it did not mean that his wrath had to be unjust. It was in this manner of thinking that he spoke to his newest semi-aware servant. “You are my Wrath personified, and you are my Wrath justified. Take no life out of cruelty or hatred. Take only what you need to grow.” He saw the tide of Wrath come under constraint, enough for the regal mantis to dip its head in acknowledgment.
It was his divine agent, but retained its agency. That would have to be enough. He had it wait in his funnel room for now, where the Aether was strong enough to sustain it. There would be a floor soon enough where his creature could have the outlet it craved. Until then, there were other creatures to see. His awareness darted up to the attic where his High Danian Ants were beginning to awaken. He wondered what the Queen had chosen to become. Of the three options available within the Framework for each subgroup, there was so much potential for this first colony.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
This colony had the greatest potential to drive the species forward as a whole, given the cumulative Potential it had gathered. Even if he made another group of High Danians, they would not experience the same level of growth. It might happen, but he had seen the signs all around him. Those who pioneered a new stage for their Path of Ascension contained more potential than those who followed. That had been true with his mice, his serpent, the Danians, and many other creatures. The Potential was a cumulative effect. It could be built upon.
He shook those thoughts away as the light faded from the High Danians. He watched as they gathered themselves, looking over their new forms with awe. Each had chosen from the available options forms that both called to them and served the greater need of the colony. The Queen herself, judging from her thoughts, had done the same. The new Battle-Monarch looked over her form with a distinct edge of satisfaction. She was larger than even her Champions in size and physical strength, and she would be able to manipulate Aether at a similar level to her Shapers and Magi.
However, it all came at a cost. Her future brood would be lower in number, which might affect the colony’s future. The core let that thought go. He respected his creatures’ right to choose, and if the Queen thought this was the way to go, then he would respect her choice. Valterra hovered over them, pleased with their awakening, and in the afterglow of their Ascension, he called for the Queen to gather her colony. They would have a new home.
At first, they were confused even as they followed his lead, but their confusion turned to awe as they beheld his eighth floor. The journey had been a somewhat lengthy one, and other creatures were waking up, but Valterra took the time he needed to see his first unique creations settled in their new home. He led them past the miniature forest to the desk with the cabinet underneath. It was into the cabinet that he directed his new High Danians, informing the Queen that this was to be her people’s new dwelling place.
He left them there, moving back to the fifth, where a buzzing could be heard. The sleeping Deeplight Swarmer was shaking off the last of its lethargy and taking to the skies, and Valterra wasted no time in spawning more and directing them up to the sixth floor. Around a dozen took off for higher places, and he wondered how his Wyvres would fare against the higher rank bugs. And there were still more creatures waking up on the second floor, though they would not be staying there long.
There were two of them, although they could not be more different. Valterra homed in on the Iron Scale Boa as it woke from its sleep. He watched as its coils twitched into wakefulness and unfurled. Bluish-grey scales gleamed in the sun as it began to leave its now cramped quarters, and Valterra watched in awe as length upon length slithered forth. The snake was massive in a way none of his other creatures would be unless they were natural Ascensions. It was almost eight feet long from head to tail, eight feet of muscle and sinew designed to crush and strangle.
Valterra had no doubt that it would be able to take some serious amounts of punishment before dying, and he honestly couldn’t think of much that would be able to challenge it with its sheer size, other than the whales, and he didn’t think they would be meeting anytime soon. As the snake slithered out, he directed it toward the front doors of the house. As he did so, he wondered where he would put it. Most of his floors were too small to support such a massive creature, but he supposed the fifth or sixth would do for now. It would certainly inspire a healthy amount of challenge for his mice.
As the reptile moved off, Valterra switched his attention to the final candidate waking up from a long slumber. The Glassvine Lizard was truly a beautiful creature, with scales of a pale green hue that seemed to shimmer translucently in the sunlight. Unlike most of the creatures that lived within his dungeon, the Glassvine seemed peaceful and delicate, paradoxical for a dungeon creature. It slithered out from its den slowly, scales clinking softly whenever it struck a small pebble or something similarly hard. That soft aura seemed to radiate from it in waves, seeping into the ground, the plants, and fellow creatures alike.
Valterra guided it softly away. It was too high a rank for this place, but he had a feeling that the garden would be a good fit, once he claimed it, of course. Until then, he directed it to one of the miniature forests on the second floor before making an Aether pylon there to sustain it until it was time for it to move on. He didn’t want to send it to the third floor, even though the Sugar Maple there would be perfect for its vine-like body.
The dungeon core hadn't been blind to the goings-on upstairs. He knew that invading birds had become a significant problem. He had a plan in mind for them, one that would hopefully see a few more Ascensions come his way. It would need to be planned out well and orchestrated to perfection, however, to make sure the feather-brains got the message. The amount of Frameworks he would get from it didn’t hurt either.
He pulled back and watched as the newest Ascensions settled in. He would need to address the issues on the fourth through sixth floors. With his creatures climbing up to the roof of the house that made up the third floor, it made more sense for them to descend straight down through the attic and into the foyer than to come in through the fourth and ascend to the sixth. He imagined his father had meant for him to use the basement and its many corridors and rooms as the basis for his dungeon, but he had claimed the whole house instead. He sighed mentally. He had a lot of work to do, mainly on the fifth.
He had noticed in the last week or so, since the invasion, that the Savage Minks and Deeplight Stalkers weren’t likely to engage in combat with each other. The few battles that occurred were quite entertaining to watch, but the creatures often retreated before sustaining too many injuries. That deep in the dungeon, Valterra’s Aether sustained them more fully, so they didn’t need to eat as often and didn’t feel the need to go forth and hunt.
Valterra wished to change this dynamic, as it reflected poorly on the purpose of his Dungeon. He wanted his creatures to grow stronger, and for that, they needed to desire it. Before he could elaborate on his ideas, however, the System began to vibrate. Something was happening, and it didn’t feel good.
