DD5 ~ Chapter 6!

“Cal, I’m so proud of your negotiation!” Dani was zipping around the Silverwood tree with Grace, playing a game of touch and go while talking. “Not only did you secure a huge supply of free Essence and Mana generators, but they are going to pay you for the privilege!”

<Mm. To be fair, they are getting out of being squished by the moon, so it’s not really a bad deal for them.> I was tinkering with various weapons and traps in the dungeon, and had just upgraded the final pitfall on the first floor. Now instead of thin stone, there was an illusion of the floor that matched the Essence type and density of the stone around it. <I set a course for the location Tom provided, has Navigator Bob said anything about that?>

“You alright? It isn’t like you to abstain from gloating.” Dani flew closer to me, putting her game on hold for a moment. “Are you sick? Can you get sick?”

<I want to say ‘no’?> I finished what I was doing and focused on her. <I’m… kind of having a crisis actually. I’m pretty sure that this is the first time in my existence where I am moving toward an end goal that I chose. Everything else was either an accident, the work of an outside party, or coercion. It feels strange that the first thing I really chose would be what amounts to a rescue mission.>

“That makes sense,” Dani bobbed in the air. “Your life has always been a series of things that happened to you. What you are feeling right now is yourself grabbing ahold of your future and actively working to make it happen. You are free, you are stable, and frankly there is likely very little danger to you from the upcoming crisis. You need time to get used to your new reality and feel comfortable in it. I’m told that happens to everyone when they reach a new stage in their life.”

I thought about her words. It was difficult to swallow, but I’m pretty sure she was right. I was just waiting for the moment it all fell apart, the spot where things were going well enough to really beat me down when it ended. But I couldn’t continue thinking that way! I needed to be comfortable with who I was, and where I was going. <Thanks, Dani. I needed that. Now I can focus on eating a few people.>

“There ya go!” Dani cheerfully went back to her game with Grace, laughing as the tiny Wisp escaped by dodging through the floor and created a spike as she exited.

Good stuff. I turned my attention inward, reaching for my soul space. As I entered, I felt the familiar thrill of simultaneously looking at everything at once, and knowing it on a deep and personal level. I had switched the Essence I was gathering over to making habitable land after meeting with Dale, and it was time to see how that was going. I inspected one of the sketched-out continents, pleased with the progress I was seeing. A layer of bedrock to support the framework, followed by multiple layers of various soils, mulch, loam, and then grasses and plants to hold it steady. 

I was cheating a tiny little bit. The bedrock was a tenth as thick as it should have been, but it was still fine as I was using corrupted stone to form the layer. Otherwise I would have needed to devote a truly massive amount of time to forming all that rock. The other place I was cheating? There weren't any bacteria, mold, or insects in the layers that I made. I would need to add those in, else nothing on the ground would be…  broken… down. Wait. Scratch that. I could treat this entire place as one, single, massive dungeon. It was me after all. I would be the one to take all of that stuff in! Once I had the configuration I wanted, I could keep it that way by absorbing, regrowing, and respawning all the flora and fauna!

Yes, yes. I liked that. The third and final way I was cheating? I didn’t yet have a heat and light source for the planet. That’s right, no sun. All the plants were sustained by the potent Essence in the air, and literally didn’t need anything else. I had an inkling that the people that were going to come here would want light, even if only to boost their mood. I’d have to figure something out, as it stood… I had nowhere near enough Essence or Mana to create something that could even act as a sun. 

Until I could figure that out, I created powerful lights that cost very little energy to create and maintain. I didn’t need these everywhere, since I currently had only a half-hour walk stretch of land formed. The light was pale and cast everything into high contrast; but it could be used to see, and that would have to do for now. I looked at the ground, noting that with my current Essence collection it was growing at the rate of about a square foot per second. Not as impressive what I could now do when making air and various gasses, but this was still pretty good in my opinion.

Looking at the average size of people that I had interacted with, if everyone that came here stood really closely together… I could fit nearly ten million people in a single square kilometer of land. Sadly, based on how territorial even humans are, I highly doubted they would be fine with only that much space. Then again… I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t get that many people joining me… No! No, keep building up land and area. Better to have it and not need it. I did need to create it anyway, so that may have made my decision for me. I set it up, and moved back to the real world as my internal instructions took hold.

<Ugh. I always get such nasty vertigo when I go from having fun playing with myself to looking at that screen.> I was feeling ill. Going from watching a whole world at once to a flat representation of area I had never seen and didn’t control… bleh. <Navigation Bob, how are we doing? How long until we reach the Northmen’s lands?>

“Great Spirit.” Navigation Bob nodded lightly, as always focused on his tasks. “We should arrive within a day. Having several Mages in the A and B ranks helping to push us along was an inspired idea. Our speed has increased by at least half.”

<I’m sorry, what now?> I looked out at the edges of my perception, and sure enough there was a cadre of Mages talking with each other, laughing, and pushing my dungeon! <Who did this? How? I mean… I see the benefit, but…>

“I’m fairly certain it was arranged by-”

<Minya.>

“-Minya. Oh, you did know?” Navigation Bob took his eyes from the screen and let them roam around the room.

<I didn’t know, but this has her fingerprints all over it.> I chuckled and shook the head of a statue. Didn’t have one of my own. <I really hope she isn’t promising them too much.>

I listened in on a conversation I could ‘hear’ from the Mages outside. “Wealth, land, and a path advancement once we go through the portal!”

“She’d better come through, she was pretty convincing but that seems a high price for a week of work.”

“She did swear to make it happen, so…”

I had no idea who was talking, but still I groaned. Typical Minya. I think I need a break, and I haven’t been watching the myriad battles going on in my dungeon. That’ll calm me down.