No Need for a Core?

Mordecai was simply giving into temptation with this second boss. He had wanted to save it for later development, but he also wanted to play with this idea now. And he felt that it would be a nice surprise. So for the first time Mordecai turned his attention towards the technically hostile organisms occupying a part of the dungeon.

“Wait, really? You’re going there? Ewww.” Came Kazue’s mental voice when she realized where his focus was shifting. Mordecai smiled at her response, but kept his attention on his search. He was being picky in a way, but he didn’t want to create something completely mindless. His small constructs might have very simple minds, but they did have minds.

Most of the auras he encountered were far too weak to even consider, despite the size of some of the creatures. There was a certain amount of strength developed from the mind; physical vitality alone could create large amounts of spirit but it took a mind and will to focus it and make it strong.

Of the auras that had a little something more to them, most of them tasted of little other than basic hunger. Those were not what he wanted. No, what he wanted was … there. It wasn’t much, not yet, but there was the slightest hint of curiosity, of hunger turned beyond physical satiation. That would do quite nicely. He could make an offer to a creature like that, a promise to help fulfill this new sensation. He didn’t offer safety or food, he offered stimulation and experience.

There was a sense of confusion at first, and Mordecai couldn’t be happier. If it could be confused, it could learn. The primitive proto-mind briefly stilled, then hesitantly reached back towards the connection to accept. Mordecai’s sense of the creature sharpened and solidified as it became one of his inhabitants, and he mentally grasped it to draw it to the boss room where his avatar awaited, and he opened his eyes to examine what was to become his newest boss.

A gelatinous mass of fluorescent colors shimmered in front of him. If the child-sized ooze didn’t glow slightly, he’d have considered it iridescent instead with the way its colors flowed and shifted. The surface of the creature had a texture that was constantly changing between smooth and crinkled, with occasional bits briefly becoming solid. And floating in the very center was a nearly invisible tiny sphere of crystal. “Oh, you are beautiful.” He murmured to it as he walked around and examined it. “You have the best integration of living crystal and slime I’ve seen yet. I would like to see something.” He stepped up close to it and raised his hand over its surface. “Just a quick poke. Relax and let your reflexes happen, I won’t hurt you and you can’t do any real harm to me.”

Once it acknowledged him, Mordecai used his middle finger to jab at it swiftly. The surface gave slightly before rapidly hardening against the impact and it reflexively built pressure behind that point, then as his finger retreated and the surface tension released the pressure behind that part of the surface automatically flung acid-coated shards of crystal at his hand.

Mordecai spun to the side to avoid most of it, but a few flecks still hit him. They did more damage to his sleeve than to his flesh, but a normal person wouldn’t have taken it quite so well. “Oh, I am going to be happy with you little one. I think we need to start with a name however, and then move on to enhancing you. What do you think of Klastoria?” It pulsed with a pleased-looking flash of color, and Mordecai smiled. “Then it is a pleasure to meet you Klastoria. I am Mordecai.”

“And I’m Kazue!” Announced his wife as she manifested her avatar. “Oh goddess, you are too cute, Klastoria!” She practically danced in place as she squeed over the slime. “Mordecai, I want to hug her so badly! How did you find something so cute in that place?”

“Heh, I don’t recommend that just yet love, she needs to learn a bit of restraint first.” Wait a moment. “Um? Her?” He’d initially followed the gender identification before he realized what Kazue had said.

“Yep! Someone this shiny and cute has got to be a girl!” the little kitsune said, and Mordecai couldn’t help but shake his head with a smile.

“I think Zushi might have something to say about boys not being allowed to be cute.”

“Nah, he’s fluffy-cute, that’s different. Klastoria is shiny-cute and pretty like a girl.”

Mordecai decided to translate that into ‘I want her to be a girl’ more than being any sort of rule Kazue was truly serious about. He’d attribute it to youthful whim if it weren’t for the fact that he was pretty certain that a hundred years from now she’d be inclined to do the same sort of thing. He had met her mother after all. “Not a good idea just yet, love. Your avatar isn’t acid-resistant, and your clothes certainly aren’t.”

While they’d been talking, the little bits of crystal and acid that had hit the ground had melted together and flowed back to rejoin Klastoria. “And I have a spell that can help with that, but let me finish getting Klastoria ready first, alright?”

“Fine fine, hurry up, I want to hug her!”

It was hard to not laugh at Kazue’s eagerness as he turned his attention back to their newest boss-to-be. “Alright, looks like Kazue has decided you are going to be a girl. If you ever decide that’s not right for you, let us know. Now, we want to make you stronger and smarter, though the smarter might be a little slower to come.” Klastoria wouldn’t be able to fully understand what they were saying yet, but she would be able to remember.

He mentally grasped the available boss node and began feeding it the concept of the crystal core in the center gradually growing in size and its paths becoming smaller and more intricate. “We are going to want you to become much bigger …” he paused as a new idea came to him. “Oh wait, how dense can your crystal get?” He had already noticed that the fluid had been compressed when it turned into crystal. Oh, that should work.

“But you won’t always have to be that big. No, with a little enhancement, we can help you compact yourself into a completely crystal form. Yes, that’s going to be your focus, complete mastery of your form and the transition between fluid and solid states.” He had been thinking of focusing more on the acid attacks of a slime-type monster, enhanced with ranged attacks and crystal shards, along with Klastoria being better armored than a typical ooze-type, but this would be, hmm, not necessarily ‘better’ from an absolute sense, but more custom and unique.

Mordecai connected the boss node to Klastoria as he continued to feed in his concepts and took several steps back, motioning for Kazue to do the same. It took a moment for anything to change as all the mana began funneling in, but then Klastoria began to grow rapidly. In just a couple of minutes she grew into a sphere about 15 feet in diameter, jiggling excitedly at all the changes happening. Knowledge came as well as power and mass, and as soon as the connection was finalized she began experimenting.

The huge blob suddenly shrank, transforming into a hard, sharp-edged cube of crystal only about 5 feet across. Mordecai blinked as he ran the math, then double-checked what was happening. It took only a second to realize she’d evolved the concept into a limited version of Shape Change, allowing her to displace a portion of her mass the way many other shape-changing creatures could. But not all of it, she was still nine times as dense in this form, which was a rather intense compression, putting her somewhere in between iron and lead.

It also seemed uncomfortable based on the emotions coming from Klastoria, who then began moving through a rapid series of other form-changing experiments. Most of them were manipulating her ability to shift between fluid and solid phases at will with nearly unlimited amounts of discreteness, but she was also able to shift and recall any amount of mass she needed to within her ranges.

She could form long limbs able to swing as freely as any tentacle, but could instantly harden her surface and/or interior to act like exo- or endo-skeletons, and her limbs could have any sort of surface she desired, creating almost any shape of blade or point. The hydraulic pressure that powered her limbs and gave her the ability to fire projectiles of crystallized acid also combined with her size-changing abilities to allow her to leap, and even spin or slightly course-correct by altering her density in one or more spots mid-air.

Climbing was easy too. Any sort of tree-like structure could just be grabbed and used to haul her body up, but she could also flow up walls and crawl along the ceiling by letting her body flow into the tiniest imperfections and then harden into crystal to obtain a surface-wide grip. Mordecai even created a smooth glass surface for her to try on, and Klastoria was able to figure out how to flatten her body enough that simply air pressure could hold her onto it, though she was a bit slower this way.

She couldn’t go perfectly flat though, that sphere of crystal that was the seat of her very self could not be altered. But the ability to change her form so freely gave her lots of options that she was going to be experimenting with for days. Mordecai did point out one new thing for her to try later: With her abilities, there is no reason she shouldn’t be able to drop from almost any height. In her larger form she could increase her internal pressure to just high enough to create a collapsing cushion, while if she made herself a dense, sharp cone she could fall straight into the ground or another object and force it to take the shock of her impact, the rigidity and hardness of her body keeping her from being damaged.

Kazue slid up beside him and asked in an ever-so-sweet voice, “Are you two done playing yet?”

Mordecai chuckled, then swept her into his arms to give her a lingering kiss. “Alright love, you can go hug the squishy slime. She’s learned great control now and should be able to be just soft and pliable enough.” Which honestly would be another great exercise for Klastoria, but he made sure not to mention that thought out loud.

“Yes!” Kazue flung herself at Klastoria with reckless abandon and was quick to explore other play options as the slime could also be anything from a soft cushion to sink into, to a bouncy spring to jump high in the air. Mordecai amused himself by sending some images of what Kazue was doing to Moriko, and the half-elf’s envy was tangible across their link. He doubted she would be initially quite as carefree as Kazue about it, but he didn’t doubt she would enjoy herself.

While his wife played, Mordecai set about double-checking the level and inhabitants, making sure everything tied together and worked smoothly. It would take a few days to get everyone into their routines and roles, and weeks of practice to become well-trained for this mix of terrain and style, but it would be well worth the effort.

The final step was to sweep through again and set limiters. The creatures could simply feel his intent and hold back where needed, but all the more trap-like organisms needed to have a second layer of mana woven over them to reign them in. Things were less sticky, hit softer, and were easier to break. But in exchange, he was able to apply a soft layer of vitality absorption that would increase the fatigue of dealing with the various dangers, roughly approximating how they might feel after dealing with the trap’s full strength.

It increased his overall costs for growing them by about 50%, and if he’d been trying to make them more deadly the expenditure would have failed.

Mordecai snorted. Intent indeed. He’d not thought to layer things like this, he’d grown up just knowing what his limits were on how strong he could make something based on where in his dungeon it was. He’d never tried making something strong, and then ‘waste’ mana by placing a restriction on it. A restriction he could release as needed, but his sincere intent was to only do so if he felt it was needed.

Well, that would cost them a few days at least until they had enough to push down and start the sixth floor, but that was okay. He wanted to work over some ideas with Kazue first anyway. The organization of the first five floors was fine, but despite the theming, the layout was a touch repetitive, and they were deep enough already to make brute forcing a ‘second’ entrance infeasible for most.