No Need for a Core?

Kazue was feeling a touch giddy with excitement. Even with her book, she’d felt a little nervous about making too many decisions. It had been sorta good about telling her what her options were, but it had not been good about telling her what the consequences were. And while she wasn’t going to officially forgive Mordecai yet, mostly because it had been hers and he hadn’t really asked properly in his haste, she was looking forward to having a better tutor. “Okay, where do we start?”

Mordecai looked thoughtful for a moment before he responded. "Let's go over mana pools for a moment, to set your expectations. You are already well aware of the main mana pool we have to work with - the energy that was threatening to overflow earlier. We have two other pools of energy, and they work very differently. You might have noticed how there's a maximum number of dire rabbits you can make from normal rabbits?" Kazue nodded, and Mordecai continued. "That's not a numerical limit, that's an energy limit. More powerful, complicated creatures require more energy to manifest. The energy you have available for spawning your inhabitants is a resource that refills daily, minus any energy already tied up in manifested creatures. So if you are at your capacity, you can't make any more until your capacity grows or some are killed. You also can't recruit beyond this capacity. But small, normal animals take up very little energy to recruit or manifest, so they are easy to keep around. Plus guests, but that is something we'll get to later."

Kazue chewed on the tip of her tail a moment before she realized Mordecai was watching her with a smile. She hastily dropped it and cleared her throat. "Okay, I think I see that. Or feel? Kind of both? I guess sense." She frowned, "It's vague, but there doesn't seem to be a precise word for it."

Mordecai shrugged. "That's been true in every language I've found. Maybe if dungeons made up their own language, it would be different, but there doesn't seem to be much point in it. Anyway, the other pool to point out is our loot capacity. It works almost the same way, except the mana is more 'earmarked' than consumed until it is 'claimed' by an outsider, usually called a delver, explorer, or adventurer. The term doesn't really matter, the concept is the same. Except for 'invader', that means someone who is out to hurt the dungeon in some way. Also, while I can calculate the energy for manifesting creatures in a straightforward manner, the loot calculation gets complicated. That doesn't matter much right now, so we can look at that later if you want to move on to practical lessons."

Kazue perked up at that. "Yes please!" While she knew she wasn't dumb, math and such had never been her favorites. History, art, music, and reading; those were the sorts of things she loved. And tea. And sweets in general. She'd never really tried complicated cooking, maybe she should try that? Ack, her thoughts were wandering. With a slight shake of her head, she refocused on what Mordecai was saying.

“Well then, why don’t we set up a bed chamber for Moriko, and create more of a living space around our core? It’ll make hiding it easier too. Let’s see, wording can be important; how you think of the space shapes what you can do with it. Hmm.. living quarters is a bit too military, I think something based on suite or chambers would be better. Suite feels like it wants something along the lines of specific names though. How about Private Chambers? Sounds somewhat noble and impressive, and is definitely where someone lives.”

Ohh, she liked that. “Okay, how do I name it.. oh!” Mordecai had sent the instructions to her via impression, it was pretty simple really. She just had to think of this room, and focus on it being their Private Chambers, putting will and just a trickle of mana into it, and the dungeon took care of the rest. Visualizing it a bit like a labeled map could help, but wasn’t necessary... how did she know that? Oh, the link again. If it was so fast and easy, why weren’t they using it all the time?

“Because it can be a bit too fast, if you want to discuss ideas and possibilities. We don’t want to have you doing things before you have had a chance to consider all the options. So I figure it’s best to talk through options first, then give you instructions. Once you have some more practice, we can probably commune directly more, but for now,” Mordecai shrugged, “this seems best.”

Well, she couldn’t fault him there. “Alright, what’s next?” The room did feel a bit cozier now, though she couldn’t see any direct changes.

“How about we do a little future proofing? Why don’t we consider this the antechamber of your private chambers, and then we can create offshoots that will all benefit from being part of the private chambers, starting off with Moriko’s room.”

It took her a moment to properly visualize it, he wasn’t giving her the instructions this time since he’d given her the basic process when they named the room, but it didn’t take too long to get it. Mordecai gave her a few nudges as she reshaped the room, but only some basic concepts for her to tweak to her liking. She tiered the floor into three stages, then put a series of alcoves along the back wall, curtained to hide which were actually corridors and which held secrets, or even nothing at all. Which was most of them for now.

One of the alcoves hid the short corridor to Moriko’s room, furnished to the specifications she’d asked for before, and shaped with magic to provide water and lighting and comfort controls. Kazue started to consider what personal items she might be able to help with when a nudge from Mordecai made her pause. “Contractors can’t claim loot. Anything disposable or easily taken in and out of the dungeon, Moriko will need to source on her own. We can help store a lot if she brings a big shipment or something, but you don’t want to give her anything she might depend on, because it’ll disintegrate when she leaves.”

Whoops, that could be bad. “Oh, alright.” The stupid book probably wouldn’t have warned her about that unless she thought to ask. “Okay, well, I think it’s ready. Moriko!” While the half-elf had been eating, she'd also been eyeing the chamber shifting around her as Kazue had worked, looking a touch nervous. Kazue’s shout made her jump a little, nearly dropping an apple, and the kitsune had to repress a giggle at having accidentally made the normally calm and collected older woman start like that. “Um, I think your room is ready. Want to check it out?” She pointed to the proper curtain hiding the entrance.

“Yeah, I’ll do that.” It was obvious that she was trying to not stare at everything in case it started moving again as she swiftly moved to check out her new room. “Oh, this is nice. Hmm, how specific can you get? I think I see where it could be a touch better.” It took a few minutes to clarify the details, but before long Moriko’s room was about as perfect as they were going to get it for now. “Excellent. Alright, thank you both; I’ll get going and be back in a few.” The monk hesitated, then gave each of them a quick parting kiss, which left Kazue briefly dazed as she wasn’t expecting it.

Mordecai smiled at the retreating figure, then looked back to Kazue. “She really is kind and sweet, but tries not to show it too much. She might be a touch awkward about minor displays of affection for a while, though maybe that will work to help make you more comfortable.” Kazue shifted a bit, trying to not think about it too much, and before she could ask, her husband continued. “So, now that we have things a bit cozier, let’s try hiding our core. I don’t want to reuse my old tricks, so let’s try something new. How about, up? The direction’s not new, but the method is.”

Kazue felt some information sliding into her portion of their core, and began processing it despite her initial confusion. How was knowing about different types of rocks and crystals going to help here? Okay, so a lot of them were pretty, but like this one he was pointing out was kind of weird. It was sort of whitish but clear in one pair of directions, but opaque in any other direction, and could make slightly distorted light and images travel in that line. Then he showed her a concept of a lot of veins of this material creating channels from the ceiling to a single chamber up above.

She frowned and glanced at him, but her husband just shook his head and pointed up, leaving it up to her to figure out exactly how to do it. It took more than an hour to get it right, parts of the roof starting to collapse if she made too many channels or made them too big, and if she made the stuff curve too much it cut the light off instead of channeling it properly. “OK, I think I have that part done, now what?”

“Good job. Now, we need to add a little bit of a light source in that chamber, and then raise our core into it. Oh, hmm, wait a sec.. ok, let’s also add a few small tunnels that connect to that chamber, heading out towards each potential room. For now, have one of them end in a trap door in Moriko’s ceiling, but make it disguised and hard to get into. Just not impossible, and not quite airtight.”

Kazue eyed Mordecai for a moment, but it looked like he wasn’t going to send her any further instructions. Well, the lights were easy, she just borrowed that bit of magic craft from Moriko’s room. The little crawl-ways weren’t too hard either, though it took her a few tries to get them arching in the right way to avoid her light-conducting rocks. Moving her - no, their - core the way he wanted though, that was weird. There was a sort of pressure making it not want to be hidden in too confined a space. In the end she had to create a few small rooms to connect more crawl-ways to, making those rooms hidden by secret doors for now, before that pressure would abate enough to let her tuck the core up in the ceiling like that. The end result was kind of nice though. The core's own soft glow combined with the other lights diffusing through it gave a slightly unusual hue to the final lighting results down here, but overall it was a warm, diffuse glow from the ceiling.

“Very good Kazue. And that’s the trick, there are rules, but you don’t have to make it straightforward. The core is accessible, but one has to be clever to find it. The color of the light is a clue, but the entrance is slightly removed. So access may be difficult, just not impossible.”

“That makes sense I guess. But, um, how do we move it when we make new floors? It was hard enough to move when I made more rooms before.” The memory still made her feel slightly nauseous, even if the concept shouldn’t really apply to her anymore.

“Ah, that’s one of the advantages of having made this your chambers. The core naturally belongs here, which makes it easier to have the room move, rather than trying to move just the core to a new location. As a matter of fact, let me show you how to do that. So, first let's make a small round room in about the center of the path between here and the next room. Mmm, about 6 meters across should work. Perfect, now start pushing the concept of ‘down’ at the room, while imagining the concept of spiral stairs. Try and keep this part of the corridor attached to it, and you should feel a sensation of ‘dragging’. Use that to guide you, and you should be able to lower our chambers with it. There should be sort of a snapping-into-place feeling when you’ve got the depth right. Practice will make it faster.”

Kazue focused on what he told her, and tried to follow his directions. It was a bit strange at first, trying to hold it all in her head at once. But she didn’t have just her own head, did she? Her core was her real center of being, and that had the capacity. Once she shifted her sense of self that way, it became a lot easier, and finally she had it done. He was right about that snapping sensation, and she suddenly felt sort of ‘bigger’, but that didn’t seem to be about the actual physical space her dungeon took up. “There!” she said, opening her eyes, which she didn’t even remember closing. And for some reason she was sitting on the ground, with Mordecai holding her from behind.

“Good job, but looks like you need a bit of practice using both aspects of yourself at the same time. Your avatar collapsed when you pushed that much of your consciousness into your core. Why don’t we pause in the dungeon crafting, and make, say, a cozy little couch back here. We can sit together and let you focus on the dungeon better.”

Gah, she was starting to blush again wasn’t she? Apparently having the title of ‘wife’ didn’t make this any easier, she still felt so readily flustered. But she did want to cuddle, and a couch sounded good, so she ignored her own flushed face and looked around, settling on one of the back corners to round out into a nook where they could be cozy. Oh, maybe she could make this into a book nook later too! Though she’d need some books first. Right, focus! Fortunately, it didn’t take too long to adjust her private chambers, and soon enough the two of them were settled down. She was tucked in next to him, but with her legs draped over his lap. Not quite sitting in his lap, but still close enough to make her feel a little over warm. Which was ridiculous, she knew this body was really just a mana construct, but still her head messed with her.

“Um, are we going to make our second floor bigger now?” She wasn’t sure what she should make now really. A lot of the options the book had been showing her just seemed so mean. Which was probably foolish of her. If an actually mean person showed up, she’d need a way to keep them at bay, but she also didn’t really want a bunch of scary monsters around.

“Actually, I had an idea for the first floor.” Mordecai said while lightly petting her ear. “It’ll be a bit trickier than what I originally did, but I could brute force it a bit back then since I was a much bigger dungeon by the time I thought to set up something like this. Once we establish the pattern, we can just copy it again as we need to.”

Kazue glanced up at him, trying to keep her ear from flicking too much under his teasing. But not telling him to stop either. “What did you have in mind?”