Dungeon Core Chat Room.

Sewermaster: Annie.

[Mana Channels] have been laid from the outer edge of whatever they are calling this town nowadays to the proposed end point. I used my [Shape Dungeon] skill to set off the entrance transformation and it appears to have worked – the entrance accepted the end point and closed itself off. That was the skill that had the lowest chance of success so I’m glad to see it worked – I would have had to send channels down manually if it didn't and use more time consuming secure pipes and I hate having to do that.

Periodic maintenance must be done to both the condensers and channels but that could be theoretically done by a low-level sewer master.

Now that the official statement has been complete, I’m tacking on a personal note – just between you and me Jay I’m going to drop the formal sewage it doesn’t agree with me.

Basically, I was planning on moving back to Trell after this job finished, but the town has kind of grown on me. If you’ll have me, I’m willing to settle down here somewhat permentantly…I know I sent several complaint forms, but I really do like this town. I like you. I like the sparkly roof's and I like feeling like I'm contributing to something greater.

If you’re not willing to fund a sewermaster at my level in a more permanent compacity, I’ll need at least three weeks training my replacement. I’m also planning on throwing a small party to celebrate the sewer’s completion if you want to drop by fouthday this week.

I await your response.

Excerpt obtained from the “Mana Sewer completion form. Project Sparkle” written in 2002AS.

There was something very important to do as soon as Innearth advanced.

The most important thing.

No, not use his shiny brand new [decent] gift, but to check the friend group and see if he was the first to reach tier 7.

Abe: …bro how.

Fated Eternal Design: Oh? You’ve managed to surpass me.

Amy: Congrats! I’m connected to the network now! Queen you’re the only one not here yet.

Brutality Queen: Oh? I’m invited to this “network”?

Innearth: …of course you are. By being in this group its implied you can join the network we are making. You just have to ask :3 - Doc hook her up.

ZeMadDoctor: …alright then. First you need to make a proper suppression endpoint as low down in your dungeon as possible. I have increased the stability of my gates tremendously. But you’ll still need to contain the few that get through anyways with how far we’ve set this up.

Brutality Queen: Oh I know, I’m not scared of some cosmic horrors. Gotta face those slag-buckets head on.

Innearth: …Do you want me to help you with some mind and kinetic defenses? FED might be better at mind and Doc better at kinetic, but I have my cheaty cheat cheat dwarves to help close the gap!

Brutality Queen: If you wish to help feel free~ I’m not going beg however. I’m sure I can handle it.

Knowing Queen would never ask for help – and somewhat worried for her chances – Innearth made several suppression pillars. Each pillar was comprised of mind-silver and kinetic-lead giving his dwarves a break from creating loot and traps.

Innearth: Alright, Here you go~ Sent a dozen of each – try alternating them around the portal and then accept any changes Doc gives you. Good luck!

Content with being a good friend Innearth started feeling generous enough to share his corrupted crystal filtration system.

Innearth: Hey guys. So here’s the setup I have, Let me create a screen real quick and I’ll show it off. I’m feeling good so if anyone wants me to help set it up in your dungeon feel free to ask. Just don’t share it around too much I want to keep this bonus for friends okay?

…

Innearth began walking through his whole setup – showing off the root-like passages that split again and again creating various slightly less offensive polluted outputs. He could have kept his advantage because making the system increased his level by a huge amount…but at the end of the day he wanted to stick with his friends. Tier 8 was still quite a ways away but he didn’t want to advance without his friends by his side.

After discussing his setup Doc nearly begged for a chance to use it as well and FED and Amy gave interested if more subdued requests to share his success.

Abe and Brutality Queen didn’t yet have mana sewers, so there wasn’t much use in setting the system up in their dungeons. Brutality Queen was situated in a tropical area and while she did have semi-frequent delvers the delvers she did have were…slightly savage. Her two main delvers were a tribe of humans who lived in the trees near her dungeon – they appeared to be worshiping her in a more subdued way than FED’s cult (by periodically sacrificing wild animals to “appease” her any time they gained particularly good loot) – and a clan of goblins who snuck in looking for “shinies”. The humans delved daily in a rotating bracket while the goblins appeared every few weeks and barreled in – dodging spears and bolts of magic from the humans above.

…Innearth was pretty sure the tourists from the central continent would be a culture shock for her and hers…he recommended she set up some sort of trial to prevent excessive immigration like he had.

Brutality Queen: Hah, My monsters know to go after weak links. I go extra hard on weaklings and living mud is a great way of killing off the unwary…

Innearth: Well glad you have that covered. Just thought I would mention it.

While all of his daily socializing was being taken care of, Innearth descended down almost as far as he could. As his core was pulled downwards, he suddenly started panicking as he passed through the nightmare crystal caverns. He didn’t know what would happen if the first or second generation crystal attached to his core….but he didn’t want to find out – best case it made him stronger, better at manipulating mana… or even upgrade his core into something that could move – worse case he would be overcome and corrupted… not something he planned on doing.

Dragging his core back and forth slightly as he descended, Innearth dodged the major corrupted zones feeling a burning sense of hindsight smashing him over and over again with how stupid he had been.

Finally after smashing through the whole zone, Innearth settled down at the very bottom of his dungeon.

His descent was broken exactly 500m below the surface – purposefully stopped right before he ended because he liked seeing the round number on his status.

Closing up the path he had dragged through space behind him, Innearth began moving his defences about to hide his newest core room. This process took up most of his free mana and attention before someone’s message stopped him.

Brutality Queen: You explored through your gate yet? Tell me you have! Or are you nothing but a cowardly pebble?

Innearth: Sorry, what?

Brutality Queen: You explored the void on the other side of the portal doc gave you yet? I’m trying to make sense of this place…

Brutality Queen: I thought you were experimental? I also kind of figured you could better make sense of this place with your void affinity and all. Carry on.

Innearth: I haven’t explored yet no. But I’m definitely not cowardly. I just didn’t know it was an option?

Brutality Queen: That’s a lie :3, Doc told us he has to go in there to set the gate up the first time around hasn’t he? You’re just soft little sedimentary Core. :3

Innearth: Do you really think I’d fall for your provocation? I’m not that hot tempered…I’m going to explore because I want to. Not because of your weak pokes :3<

Brutality Queen: <3

Innearth focused on his gate for a moment then send a message to doc,

Innearth: Hey, the gate you set up. Quick questions. Safe to explore the other side? Also how do I open it without adventurers. Its kind of automatic right now.

ZeMadDoctor: I gave you the tokens for adventurers to open it right? Just use those. It’s pretty straightforward. Anyways. In regards to safety. I haven’t been badly hurt by it…but I make no promises to its safety. Told you I think a demon ate some of my influence in there once?…that was frightening. Didn’t hurt me much more than cutting influence off myself. But it was definitely unnerving. Other than that standard portal rules apply.

Innearth: Alright then. Noted and thanks.

Innearth focused on the main gate that had a safety net in terms of the suppression array behind it.

He gathered some courage, rifled about his loot drops and triggered one of them to fall on a fake event. Innearth then brought the token near the gate – mentally accepting the offered “open” command to complete the setup.

Innearth then began expanding into the portal that formed – pushing forward into the swirling darkness before he changed his mind.

Expansion felt like dipping a pair of metaphorical feet into a slightly thick pool of liquid. His influence spread past the gate and he was suddenly in the Void.

Not a vacuum in the universe but a true Void. For while the void was empty, it felt full in a way that Innearth couldn’t fully understand. It was…strange.

The Void was simple and not simple – a nonsensical description but one that rang true to Innearth.

From a simple point of view, Innearth was now in an endless expanse of incredibly dark purple…nothing. Inside the universe, Innearth couldn't see very far outside of his influence – his "sight" wasn't linked to light so much as an “Arcane touch of anything inside his influence”.

In this void however, his perception appeared to radiate outwards in strange threadlike ways –giving him a choppy view of a huge area around the gate.

Between him and “the other gate” there was a net of kinetic threads forming a sort of tube where mana flickered and flowed.

This hallway between him and the other end of the portal was roughly two and a half meters across. Enough that anything coming through one side could float across relatively quickly but not enough to be instantaneous.

Continuing to try and puzzle out the Void from this simple point of view – the atmosphere of the Void was full of a sort of liquid that pushed in on Innearth’s influence.

A thick substance that gave him an equal sense of being underground and safe… along with a sense of being exposed and vulnerable for not being solid enough. It was less dungeon instinct triggering than the surface – but Innearth still found the Void unnerving and uncomfortable like a weight at the back of his mind.

From a more complicated but “true” point of view there was no liquid.

It LOOKED like the “liquid” was pushing against the side of the gate – preventing gas from escaping through to this side of the doorframe… but two small points counted against this theory.

The first point was its “reality”. Attempting to capture some of the liquid in a ball and pushing it through his gate made a vacuumed ball that collapsed as soon as it entered the universe. Metal crunching in on itself because Innearth hadn’t reinforced it the first time and it was a full vacuum.

Attempting to use the void’s atmosphere as a material in a material creation spell next – Innearth began forming mana. The crystal mana floated around in the emptiness – pointlessly without anything to latch onto and rapidly appeared to dissipate when he let go…seeming to bleed out into threads that disappeared in all directions.

The second point against the theory that “this liquid was actually a liquid” was based on various Void mana conjectures.

It was the way the Void felt. It was a bunch of half-baked guesses Innearth had strung together that didn’t really prove anything but made him certain he was right. When he made void singularities, they pulled mass and energy towards them – appearing to destroy anything they touched as it was ripped from the universe and spread throughout the void.

It was the way his influence flowed forwards and –

Partway through his exploration and attempt to understand the world beyond the portal, Innearth suddenly noticed a fractalized squid-like creature suddenly inside of his influence.

It moved with purpose towards the gate and Innearth panicked – realizing this was a demon even as he commented on how strange it looked.

Flipping the switch to close the gate, Innearth realized the portion of his mind that was currently focused on the void appeared to be operating on a different time frame – From the void the door seemed to be closing in slow motion…while from outside it was blipping out in a single fluid pop.

As soon as Innearth focused on that disconnect of time he started getting shocked by the sense of his other split attentions being out of sync. They were almost communicating with him as they asked what was beyond the gate but because of how warped they were across the time barrier he didn’t notice until he focused on them.

With the split of time the split attentions felt like different cores and froze Innearth’s mind as they mixed – a wave of confusion covering his core as they mixed and sorted themselves out.

The gate shut quickly but even as it closed the squid-like thing pushed through – the boundary appearing to almost shatter as it did so.

On the universe side of the portal Innearth looked in horror at the demonic form sludging across his stone floor.

What in the madness-soaked skies is that! It was a squid!

A single eye that seemed flattened by a roller was surrounded by floating tentacles. These tendrils looked like cracks in the world that seemed to teleport around it and warp the ground below it.

As tendrils passed through the ground it was like someone cut the stone into little square blocks and rearranged them before letting them set in a new randomized order.

If it weren’t for the wave of disgust and fear that filled Innearth’s mind as he looked at the broken creature, he would have thought it was a cool effect. As far as demons went, this one was even almost cute. Like a little space crack beholder.

Sadly it was a demon and Innearth found himself wanting it gone and out of his dungeon thank you very much.

A sniping shot of black energy pierced the demon as Innearth’s Hydra mopped up the incursion – prompted by his thoughts.

Staring, Innearth watched in relief as a squelching nearly endless rope of tentacles covered in eyes was squished into existence.

He watched in satisfaction until it was completely eliminated then started trying to make sense of what had happened.

That's...not what the demon looked like in the void?

The most accurate description of the before and after shot of the demon was a creature Innearth had no knowledge of.

A blobfish.

One which looked relatively normal in its natural habitat and then became an ugly exploded thing when brought ashore.

Like that theoretical blobfish Innearth hadn't even felt much repulsion to the demon when it had been in the void – slight fear yes…but that had mostly been shock at being snuck up upon and being unable to shut the portal in time.

Nothing beforehand but the after shot was ugly and mind-breaking enough to shoot to his psyche and instantly provoke a primal disgust response.

Innearth: What, is that place?

Brutality Queen: Oh? You checked!

Innearth: Yeh, not ready to try and figure it out yet I got interrupted. Give me a bit.

I…I think that has been enough time. I’m going to try again I didn’t get a good enough look at the void in that attempt.

Re-opening the portal Innearth found himself momentarily confused by the flood of half degraded influence and then everything sorted itself out.

When Innearth cut off his influence with nullstone barriers it just felt muted and instantly became normal when re-attached.

...it appeared cutting himself off with a shutting portal was better able to separate his influence –operating closer to what he felt like when he abandoned claimed areas. Reconnecting was something he hadn’t felt before but was documented and “normal”.

This time when exploring, Innearth tried focusing on the "non-simple" version of what he was seeing. The squid demon had appeared to teleport directly into Innearth’s influence – bypassing all of the threads he felt spreading outwards...but…that was wrong.

There wasn’t really a nice little three-dimensional passage between the gates. The path in front of him wasn't a simple round tube – following the sides around there appeared to be more surface area than there should be.

To spin around the whole 360, Innearth needed to move around two or three times as much as he should have – a very strange feeling for someone who could look at the entire loop at once.

…

And this is where Innearth’s mind started to feel weird as his dungeon senses re-organized themselves and pulled more mental capacity to making sense of it. Of the reality of this plane of existence.

…

Everything made more sense when a few more dimensions were added to the mix but it was still hard for Innearth to wrap his core around.

Everything made sense to a being that filled all the available dimensions he was looking at – it's not like anything could hide from him here.

But also...Innearth lived in a three-dimensional world. His core kept wanting to think in three dimensions even as his influence fractaled into more and more dimensions. Dimensions that folded in on each other like roles of space fat pushed through a pasta roller – vast distances folded and ripped about.

As far as I can tell, my influence is the liquid in my influence? But also the liquid is simply what multiple overlapping three-dimensional spaces feels like? But also they aren’t overlapping they are squished beside each other in four dimensions? But also there aren’t 4 dimensions there are a dozen and most of them aren’t full dimensions but like…half dimensions?

And also movement is weird. Or maybe expansion is different from movement. I should push some stuff around…

Sorry, Refocusing on the liquid. The liquid is my influence but also a bunch of dimensions? Pushing through dimensions provided resistance leaching momentum and makes it seem like there is liquid but –

Another demon entered Innearth’s influence – this one a sleek eel that looked similar to the kinetic tube surrounding him.

Similar in that it had more surface area than a 3D tube should have.

This time Innearth was faster about shutting the portal – his flipping was made and shut on the demon partway through – sadly not cutting the flapping node-like representation that ended up on his other side.

The demon looked like a spring that had “holes” that moved about it and after being killed was ripped into melted cheese like shreds that floated about completely weightless.

I can't keep exploring if the portal keeps shutting. I feel like I almost understood it that last time… but I can't explore the void after dropping the gate behind me.

Innearth: Hey Doc, how do you have enough time to build that tunnel without demons breaking through? Do small portals work well? Can you make my gate super small?

ZeMadDoctor: Correct. I can control my own portals much easier than the equipment can. I usually hold them a crack's distances apart and go from there. Still get demons – but they are rarer and...smaller. I also build my portals close physically. And that means demons are even less likely to notice.

Innearth: ...how does that work. You make it like a bridge… but then you can move the separate ends and it doesn't fall apart?

ZeMadDoctor: ...yes in a sense. If you've checked the other side you know space works differently there right? Well its part of that. Moving the ends stretches and shrinks the space slightly. But as long as I make the tunnel elastic it can usually survive the distances when I send it to you all.

ZeMadDoctor: I've been opening them up once they get to you and quickly fixing any huge holes that appear…as well as pushing some space out to make it easier…that's about it. Oh! By making the passage. I usually give it some Space mana to help it have more direction. that might help as well.

Innearth: Can I have a short ranged pair that has a small opening? I realize it's a lot but I want to try exploring more without constantly having to shut it and don’t want to experiment with the portals that go upwards in my dungeon. I also want the ability to make it much bigger if I need but don’t know if that’s commissionable?

ZeMadDoctor: It’s what friends do. Of course I can set you up. You just gave me all these amazing transforming crystals after all. Did you know they make monsters stronger when you inject them into them?

Innearth: oh...yeah I knew that.

ZeMadDoctor: Does it sound like a bad idea to give a small demon some? I really want to test it out…but I know it's a bad idea...but I'm curious! I've already injected some into some non-dungeon Rats and they had about a 5% pass rate of non-statue’fied versions. Dungeon monsters got up to a 95% after I told them to stop accepting it and the regular rats raised to 10% after watching their fellows get crystalized. I really want to see how an adventurer deals with being corrupted but don’t know if that’s smart. It just seems like a logical step. What do you think?

Innearth: ...please don't kill yourself by making demons even stronger than they are. You're my portal dealer. :P

ZeMadDoctor: Yes yes...by the way, you want more affinities? I made a portal mana-flavoured crystal out of the one "pure" one you gave me. And I'm planning on making more.

Innearth: Bribes to get me to ignore your suicidal tendencies huh. Well I do want them. Anything I can use to improve my filter. Take care of yourself okay?

ZeMadDoctor: Of course.

Accepting the corrupted crystals and experimental portals, Innearth set everything up then sent a message to Amy and FED saying he'd appreciate any new crystal affinities they made.

After confirming the filter was functioning well with his additions and noticing it seemed even stronger than when he last checked, Innearth returned to focusing on portals.

Brutality Queen: sooooo...how's the other side?

Innearth: Oh right! I did say in a bit. It's fascinating. I don't know how safe it is so I'm taking it slow. Don't want to find out there's some giant demon that can slurp my whole influence out like a noodle do I?

Brutality Queen: ...think that's a danger? I've made a nice little floating island of mud in mine. Started to look like it was disappearing but then I shoved more material at it and it seemed to solidify right up. Even made the stuff around it more stable?

Innearth: I don't know! That’s just my current worst fear and from what I know about demons ( very little) it might just be a possibility. Doc mentioned something ate some of his influence once. I want to be safe.

Brutality Queen: …well that’s fun. Sorry for making your pride make you explore it. I knew I could convince you to do it if I got competitive and wanted someone to talk about it with.

Innearth: …no don’t worry. I considered all that before I did so. You didn’t trick me into exploring I did it because I wanted to. Going do it more with a close ranged portal doc just sent me. Talk to you later!

Brutality Queen: Ay. Alright. I’ll ask him for that as well – it sounds useful.

Innearth finished up his preparations and then pushed forward into the passage Doc had provided – two gates both located in the suppression array that he decided to leave permanently open.

This time he expanded all the way through the portal feeling himself reconnect on the other side before sitting there and really getting a feel for the Void.

…

As time passed Innearth was better able to get a feel for what exactly the void represented. Over this short closed-loop system, he was better off pretending it was a pocket dimension instead of a whole other existence – the area he had to work with was his sandbox and despite being only a meter apart in the “real world” his passage was easily twice that in the void.

Trying to shrink space in the void almost did the opposite – it was like the “singularity” he could make in the real world could be inverted and expanded in the “negative direction”.

…but the negative shrunk space that Innearth could make did not agree with the space mana that Doc had used to make the path initially – pushing it out and grinding against it as he experimented.

Shrinking or “growing” space in the void felt less like “shrinking or growing reality” and more like unravelling the roles of space fat that made up the void.

Instead of making something, he was simply playing with building blocks that were already there – when he tried to remove the magically shrunk space it stayed there unchanged even without his magic in place.

Anything he did do seemed to make the space more stable however. His void mana spaces felt more “3d”. They felt more comfortable and “normal”.

The problem came from continuously experimenting with materials and mana in this space. Despite all of Doc’s work to make the passage stable…the occasional demon started leaking through after a few weeks of doing magic in the passage – appearing to follow the mana and materials he used like blood in the “void water”.

Because the Void really did feel like it was underwater. Most of the demons Innearth saw swam and reminded him of sea creatures. The way stuff moved and felt made him think of water every time. It made more sense for him to pretend the void was underwater in three dimensions than to focus on its strange deeper reality.

To combat these demons Innearth began setting up turrets about his experimentation area – kinetic shots and mental mana blasts that worked to kill anything before it even reached the universe beyond his gates.

He asked Abe for help gaining several mental bombs that shot psychic shrapnel and made a few suppression pillars in the space to try and aggro demons away from destroying the turrets

…

Time passed quickly and Innearth’s small Bastion against the Void grew.

He made more and more use of the “negative shrunk space” to grow the space in the passage to a roundish size nearly 60 meters in diameter.

At this size Innearth’s shrunk space appeared to have completely “unrolled” the space fat and everything felt nice and three-dimensional. He made a platform of crystal to cover the whole bottom and filled it with gravity-sucking plates to make the space feel even more “natural”.

Innearth dumped oxygen and nitrogen from his inventory into the space – watching as the “water-like” feeling dissipated as the gas filled the space. He wasn’t planning on letting adventures into here anytime soon but it was a good practice for if he ever did want to.

Demons started to attack more frequently however – almost ripping holes in the kinetic webbing that Doc had laid about the tunnel.

Innearth slowly started to reach a point that his turrets were being overpowered and he decided he wanted to make a stronger defence – he was a dungeon and wanted to make a boss.

Monsters made in the void space were mostly fine – they turned out perfectly if printed and could be moved in and out from his dungeon to his pocket dimension just fine…but if Innearth tried to make them manually in the void they got twisted a bit.

Manual monsters in the void were almost pseudo demons. Even if made perfectly, when Innearth gave life to them, the magic that “fuzzed them over” and completed the spell thought extra dimensions were a practical addition – to help them acclimate to the environment?

Now, these pseudo demons were fine to use in the void – they acted pretty normally all things considered – but as soon as Innearth tried to bring them back into the real world they went mad – attacking as if they were a true demon while being minorly altered by the passage.

Not wanting to make a boss-level monster that could become a boss-level demon if it came back to him, Innearth designed his “bastion defender” inside his panel and whimsy floor before sending it into the space.

This boss was built around utility. There were no decorations and no additions that served a “visual” purpose. Humanoid shapes were out – even with the additions of beneficial traits humanoids just weren’t naturally streamlined or focused on combat.

What Innearth built was closer to a giant cockroach bus – larger than any of his monsters up until now. It was close to 50m long and 20m wide at its base – with an average height of 10m.

This used a huge amount of Innearth’s materials just to fill – and that was ignoring the mana cost!

It was an idea that had been floating around in his head for a while – not the cockroach shape but the methodology he was using – and the only thing preventing him from trying it up till now was cost. This boss was going to be a doozy even with Innearth’s huge mana budget.

First off Innearth made a shell of Void stone and layered alternating Void attuned armour about it. Void materials worked ever so slightly different in the void but it was subtle enough to be basically the same.

He commissioned the “anti-explosion” material from Abe and a couple Enthalpy cores to hopefully give it some time magic.

He commissioned the “kinetic distributing” material from Doc to increase this armour’s strength and asked Amy to give him a small amount of living water.

Massive tree pole-sized legs were placed along it and similarly sized “spears” with 50% kinetic propulsion and 50% closed-loop “pressure mana” pistons lined the sides – facing outwards like prehensile quills on an ugly hedgehog.

Thick Veins of a mana circuit were made – the channels between nodes being tier 4 and the nodes themselves being tier 4-12 on average with a single central core Innearth had made inside an oven that just tipped over the tier 16 threshold… Innearth made sure not to skimp on either quantity or quality pouring literally everything he had into this monster.

Between these veins, thinner circuits were placed in separate subsystems – regulating spears or healing glands…or simply being spun about as a spell matrix in the hope they made more skills for the boss.

Innearth packed all his materials as dense as he possibly could and worked on “Small” details despite how large it was, tempting him to just upscale everything – he added sinews of liquid crystal throughout and strands of various elements whose main purpose was to give the beast depth.

Lines of carbon and iron with no mana in them in the hope they changed slightly when it was given life. Pure mana and silicon in small thread-like connections. Small layers of Earth and Stone and Metal mana instead of just using crystal mana for everything.

Joints of interlocking bones and micro pistons to give explosive movement. Gravity materials to prevent it from collapsing from its own weight. All the secrets big and small that he had found.

Spears were tipped with Sword and Void mana – while a giant laser cannon was placed in the center of the cockroach. Bouncing crystal channels that light could spread through and a series of lenses to focus it to several cutting points.

He waffled about including corrupted crystals or not – worried about both this being the strongest monster he had used them on and not wanting to waste all the time and effort he had put into it…but also not wanting to weaken the potential this monster held by not including it?

Finally, he took the risk and added several different second-generation crystals that didn’t clash throughout the monster's body – Crystal, Fire, Lazer, Kinetic, Life, Void and Enthalpy from Abe who had been willing to infuse one for him in exchange for a full set of corrupted crystals.

Everything else went to physicality, for demons were naturally resistant to most mana types. Thick, incredibly dense bones that had enough mana to be considered cores…more kinetic materials and more connections.

Innearth spent weeks on this boss, building separate parts and printing them out before attaching them together afterwards – the act of constantly holding it as “undone” in his staging area a small but steady drain on his willpower.

Finally, after the last layer of mana and material was laid out – and Innearth had regenerated enough mana to finish – he worked on compressing his unseeded monster down to an even smaller form.

A shrinking field surrounded the massive creature and slowly, carefully compressed materials on the edge of impossibility even denser.

50x20x10 became 10x4x2 – Still a massive size but humbler.

Innearth then gave life to the pinnacle of his current skill with a huge amount of apprehension – nothing that had gone into it was irreplaceable but there was something about the amount of time and resources that had been put into the creature that made it more precious than a rare material.

A dip was seriously felt as Innearth gave life to the boss, a faint ache sounding out with how large a chunk of his soul was pulled off to fuel the transformation.

And it was a transformation. The time for his monster to wake was much longer than it had ever been – taking several minutes instead of being almost instantaneous.

Innearth could visibly see the line of “soul” spread across the creature from front to back as if its density was physically blocking the spell from working…but letting it pool and take more time on the parts it had access to.

Once more "Finally", the boss took a step forwards.

It wobbled in a single ungainly motion and then began skittering around as it tested out its new body.

Innearth had been worried it would be lacklustre, but he could feel that it was everything he had hoped for. He almost felt like he didn’t have to test its strength out…but the process was almost a tradition at this point.

The Hydra would do nicely.

Innearth had noticed the hydra had done something to make it regenerate lost minions and had been vaguely interested in trying to replicate it…but there was a strange sort of disconnect with non ascended dungeon monsters. It was almost just a curiosity that quickly left his attention when he decided it was unreplicable.

Sending the two into battle Innearth watched the hydra’s familiars begin group casting overlaying spells buffing them and becoming more than the sum of their parts.

…and then the bus overwhelmed all of it seeming to invalidate the effort that the hydra and its minions had put into getting to this point.

The cockroach mowed down minions like a semi hitting wildlife, each buffed and prepared monster nearly exploding when they were hit with sheer physical force.

The weight of this boss moving through Innearth’s influence felt like it was dragging him as well and he almost felt apprehensive as all of the hydra’s familiars were taken out one by one slightly shocked at how much strength this boss had.

I knew it would win but I didn’t expect it to be this one-sided…the hydra is pretty strong!

In less than a minute every familiar was dead and the hydra lay bleeding and broken upon the ground –cockroach standing on 3 of its 8 heads menacingly staring down at it.

I guess it's time to show you to your new home big guy. The hydra has learned its lesson. I don’t want to replace them okay?

Turning to face directly into his influence Innearth’s dungeon monster spoke directly into his mind.

Its eyeless mouthless face appeared to see Innearth watching him as he mentally rumbled his ascent.

U.n.d.e.r.s.t.o.o.d. M.y. L.i.e.g.e.