Stonefins lay ‘neath tidal swells

  Deep woods litter with beetle shells

  With darks and depths, scattered round,

  Always, anywhere, life abounds

  -Ubak Judartha, poet.

  ==Caden==

  Apparently, my best laid plans, like those of mice or men, lasted all of few moments in the face of reality. Of course, this was really my own fault… Whatever.

  While I intended to start with just the life around me, I got distracted gathering samples of everything new that I could find. At least partially, fine mainly, because it all tasted so good.

  Crunchy crackling obsidian, grainy basalt, dusty and semi-organic tasting limestone, a thousand flavors just from all the variations in the stone. I even found traces of crystal broken off from my core, down in the waters beneath me, scattered a surprisingly far way down twisting tunnels and pulled along currents. Doubt I managed to get them all. Nothing special happened when I absorbed them, and even the flavor was just… nothing, so I moved on.

  Probably for the best I don’t taste good to myself.

  The water was rich with the flavors of life, making an organic soup. Each slurping absorption slightly different in flavor, as the mixture continuously changed.

  Tiny organisms, so small I wouldn’t even know they existed without absorbing them, were everywhere. The most interesting ones were definitely in the sulfurous caves found far below. Water and mud, both boiling, teemed with life. And the hot moist caves created by the steam hosted even more.

  One particular cave had a grey moss growing on the ceiling, bathing in the steam from various vents converging. A tiny insect scrambled upside down along the moss, it feet solidly clamping on with each frantic step, grooming, trimming and eating tiny sections of moss that were brown and withered from extending too far outside the life giving steam. And, below that, an entire ecosystem comprised of a dozen insects thrived off the leavings: groomer scat and moltings, bits of fallen moss, and the occasional whole fallen groomer, assuming they didn’t manage to fight back through and scramble back up the tunnel wall.

  As on Earth, the most common insect among all the caves seemed to be beetles. Probably just an efficient shape. Hard to go wrong with a fat armored body and wings, when you are small.

  I was no entomologist, so odds were that many of these insects were not actually beetles. Actually, most of what I’m seeing probably don’t qualify as insects either. It I hadn’t seen humans around, plus magic and the system, I would say the chances were essentially zero. However, they looked like insects and that was good enough for me. If a taxonomist gets reborn here, they can call them whatever the hell they like. Among the various creatures, were many legged arthropods like the millipede and centipede. The waters, themselves, also had tiny insects, darting alongside tiny transparent fish.

  That was actually a fairly common trait. Many of the various creatures were transparent. It was both beautiful and eerie.

  As well as a multitude of more common varieties that would fit right in on Earth, were the reminders that I was on a more fantastical world now.

  Should just start doing all my survey in David Attenborough’s voice. “Here, in the natural splendor of these subterranean caves, lies magic…”

  Along narrow shelves in a twisting elongated tunnel, above steaming streams of water, was an insect that reminded me of a cricket. Mainly because it had large legs it used to jump. However, after it jumped, it would craft temporary translucent wings of mana, using them to ride the thermals of the stream, their back legs clicking together with ultrasonic speed. Sonar? They would jump for a number of reasons, and I saw them both escape predators, and seek out more food after they had finished eating. When they landed, the wings would be reabsorbed back into the cricket, with no apparent waste.

  Another insect used magic more subtly. It was long, thin, and ate into the stone to make a burrow for itself. From there, it extended tiny strands of mana out of the entrance. When a thread was disturbed, it would spring out and attack, retreating immediately afterwards with either prey, or to escape a now annoyed superior combatant.

  The caves were rich with mana. And they allowed me to finally answer a question I had wondered about Tam. Life did, in fact, produce mana, and the excess wafted off them, or dispersed when it was used. There were far greater concentrations of mana welling up from far below, but the caves that sustained life still had denser quantities of mana than their surroundings.

  Eventually, I finished absorbing all the life I could get to. I had been far more careful here than I had in the sewer, using only surgical destruction to catalog the species, when needed. Admittedly, there were enough things killing each other that I could steal samples here and there without any great issue. Presumably, my new skill was making it easier to learn everything with less, but I had only used it in the sewer before, so it was hard to tell.

  Pretty much just went for overkill there. I would have to fix any damage here, myself. Plus, no idea how fragile these ecosystems actually are, many of them are tiny.

  With that done, it was time to answer other questions. So, I started extending my aura, pushing mana into it, reaching both towards the surface and simultaneously into the depths, following the twisting paths where richer mana rose up with water and air.

  Extending out my aura also answered a question I hadn’t yet thought to ask.

  Now that I had founded a proper dungeon, nothing was different about extending my aura, at first, but shortly afterward I saw it start to change. Rippling outward, from where my aura was exceptionally dense, it converted the new aura into dungeon aura. That is a horrible name. Need to call it something else, for sure. The change was considerably slower than extending out aura, and only extended outward slowly from existing dungeon territory. Yep, that works, just call it territory. There was no additional cost, so it was probably just a natural process intended to extend my dungeon gradually.

  Well, this changes my plans slightly.

  Since the conversion from aura to territory was fairly slow, I didn’t want to waste time that my dungeon could be expanding. I created aura, very slowly, in all directions. There was no need to be swift, as I was still outpacing the conversion handily.

  And, with the amount of mana in the caves due to all the life, the geothermal mana wells, and my own regeneration, I was passively drawing in and producing mana slightly faster than I was spending it. I was still producing mana slower than I liked, but that might always be the case.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Always was a bad habit in games, hoarding a limited resource. Not comfortable unless it was a fully renewable resource.

  Huh. Tended to play more defensively, too, building up my resources… Maybe I’m better suited to be a dungeon than I thought.

  I continued pushing my aura a little faster up and down, but it was going to be a little while still, especially with me using much of my regen on the total expansion. Time for other tests then.

  Very carefully, I brought stone up to support my crystal, so it was no longer suspended in midair. I created a small cradle, with arms of stone extending out from it. Now, if my crystal fell from my testing, it would be caught immediately.

  I focused, willing my crystal to move. And it did. It lifted into the air, neatly above the cradle. I moved my core from side to side, carefully moving stone to keep my cradle just below it. My precautions appeared unnecessary, however. Here, in my dungeon, it appeared that I could move my crystal, even through the air, at will.

  Guess it is better than making me haul it around with bits of stone.

  My natural curiosity got the better of me. With one of my shards, I tried to see what was happening. As a pleasant surprise, the answer seemed to be fairly simple.

  Simple is not the same as easy, of course.

  Parts of my aura were taut with the pressure, holding me up, while others, below me, were bowed outward and upward, producing a push, and others pulled from the sides, to add stability. I moved the core, and I could see thousands of different strands flexing, the pressures changing to make it happen.

  Actually reminds me of trying to move stone before, just using my aura. All I had managed then was to embed hooks from my aura into the stone. It looked that was the correct idea, because hooks were holding and then releasing stone as I moved.

  Though it looks like some of them are actually pushing against the air and water, too…

  I hadn’t had any luck before, but maybe now?

  I hooked a piece of dust. Nothing. It even dragged my aura around, the framework distorting to follow it. Oh well, not expecting it to work right away. I would need to try and practice that again later. The only reason it worked for my core was probably the scale. There were countless threads that tied into it, and all of them were working together to let me move. I went to go check my mana, but instead a tiny mana icon appeared in my vision, showing my mana levels.

  Wait, what the hell?

  Wait, customized interfaced, right.

  The notification had mentioned those. Actually very convenient. I thought about my level requirements and that popped up for a moment, before fading away. I experimented with other items from my status screen, and they each popped up obligingly before fading away when my attention wandered.

  Nice! The system actually does really good customization.

  No doubt why I’ve been getting rather interesting messages, too.

  The system, it really was a strange thing. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  Does this whole universe just run this way?

  Honestly, it wasn’t impossible. If there were, truly, an infinite number of possible universes, then almost none of them would be anything like where I was from. An infinite number would be, but a much lesser infinity than the total infinity. Ah, calculus, have to love it. I was sure there were much better way, mathematical or otherwise, to express that thought. Ever since I had been brought here, I had periodically thought about what the system was, but I still had no answers.

  Not like I have any good way to test things, unless…

  For a moment I considered. Well it’s worth a try. I cast out my thoughts toward the cosmos:

  ‘Admin?… System administrator? … End Program … Log In … Root … Game Options … Difficulty Mode … Language Settings … Settings …’

  I tried a litany of commands. I tried everything that I could remotely think of as being related to computers, games, and even started calling on the names of all the deities I remembered.

  Nothing.

  Well it was worth a shot anyway. I lost nothing but a tiny amount of time, and even that was marginal, because I had only been focusing on this with a single shard. Whatever rules governed my new existence responded to a few things, such as spending AP, leveling up, etc… but it mostly seemed to just respond to what I did. Honestly, it felt pretty automatic. If there was some over-mind running all of this, I doubted it cared much about me.

  A little after my attempt to hack the universe, I felt something odd. While examining the temperature differentials in the volcanic basalt as my aura grew upward, I felt myself shiver.

  Wait… What exactly is that? I’m not cold or anything, not that that would make any sense, since I’m stone. And it didn’t feel like me, exactly, either.

  The sensation was over just as quickly as it began. A few minutes later it happened again, and then again. Each time, it was too brief for me to tell what was going on. Eventually it happened again, but this time it was more drawn out, and I could finally see what was actually happening.

  The entire dungeon flexed as the stone moved, settled back into place, and then it flexed again, over and over, coming very quickly in successive waves. If I didn’t cover such a large area, I doubt I would have even noticed, since the change was so subtle.

  Earthquakes, of course!

  Gah, now I feel like an idiot… So fucking obvious.

  With all the geothermal features, igneous rock, and lava tubes, I should have expected them. Volcanoes often had dozens, or more, of tiny earthquakes around them every single day. It wasn’t something that was really noticeable, without modern seismic technology, or… apparently, if your body was a truly massive hunk of stone that flexed when the rest of the stone moved. Having solved the mystery, I moved on, absently making a note to reinforce the whole dungeon against earthquakes, though that was for the future.

  My thoughts were scattered. It had been a few days since the last time I meditated, and while I hated to waste any time, I knew that meditation was important. Plus, if any events justify some meditation, the last few days qualify. Ultimately, I would lose more time due to being distracted and making mistakes than the time it took to meditate. And, even if I waited, it would still need to be done later.

  So, meditation it was.

  It felt different to meditate now. I wasn’t sure if I should attribute that to jumping up to Meditation II, the denser aura of the dungeon, my larger area, or not being connected with Exsan in the same way. Some mix and match, no doubt. Regardless, it felt different, but I needed to put that feeling aside with all the rest of my thoughts.

  Let the mana enter. Halt. Let the mana enter. Halt. Repeat.

  It took me longer than usual, but eventually, I felt myself fading into the quiet darkness within. I was aware, but mindful of nothing in particular. Every thought came, was acknowledged, then set aside.

  A flicker of something else, inside the deep stillness, drew my attention. And then I was out of meditation.

  I sighed. Right, start again.

  I resumed meditation until, again, I felt something, and my awareness jarred me out. This happened several times, until I managed to be aware of the presence without focusing on it.

  Resisting that focus was insanely difficult.

  As I continued my meditation, the flicker of something became more solid and present. It gradually drew closer, becoming more detailed. Despite my best efforts, a tiny part of my awareness reflexively focused on it, kicking me out of my meditative state several more times, that reflex more challenging to suppress as I grew closer and closer. I tried to resist even guessing what it was, but my curiosity was probably responsible for pushing me out of my trance more times than anything else.

  Eventually, I found the right balance. Without the improvement to my meditation skill, it was unlikely I would have managed it without much more practice. The presence gradually resolved until I could see a round object. I could only see the barest details, but as I continued it grew larger and larger before me.

  What I could see was a diaphanous mix of layers that seemed to be constantly shifting, though the interior was entirely hidden. It had a distinctly organic feeling to it. Momentary fractals, curls, tendrils, and roots appeared and disappeared. The longer I was next to it, the more familiar it felt. I grew increasingly certain that I ought to know what it was. Finally, when it had grown so large that it seemed like a wall stretched out to infinity in all directions, it touched me, and I it.

  The sudden awareness was enough to jar me out of meditation once again, but I wasn’t frustrated this time.

  That’s me. My soul…

  I was going to try meditating again, but I saw the tiny flashing light of a notification. With a thought it opened.