I learned today that I'm terrible at improvisation and that my processing abilities need a lot of upgrades now that I have such small mass to work with. I have halted my research into shapeshifting and redirected maximum power into researching atom sized bio-circuitry. I can feel the energy burning up my circuits due to the overload, even with the new lightning resistances, but I don’t care. I can regenerate later, right now I need to change our selves before it is too late. I have been improving all my new selves so much I have neglected that I am a mere shard of what I once was capable of. I even had to detach myself from chia since I was becoming increasingly hot while small arcs of electricity danced on my surfaces. Finally, when it was done, and I upgraded all of our selves with this improvement I felt far smarter. Still it doesn’t feel like it is enough. I must find a way to improve the abilities of my circuits themselves. Even if you multiply the number of circuits in a given space by 1 million, if you can’t increase the abilities of said circuits then you simply have 1,000,000x1. Only if you improve the abilities of the individual circuit do you see a truly massive increase.

Moving back in time a little. As soon as I understood the situation, I took over the rabbit and had it dramatically fake its death. My hope was to fool the hunter, this time a human male…. I think, and buy time for me to think. He had leather armor and a fair-sized dirk on his belt along with his bow and arrows. Sadly, this only resulted in the hunter staring dumbfoundedly at my rabbit self. He neither approached nor withdrew which resulted in a kinda stare down. ‘ok fine so my faking death was delayed due to the time it took for me to take over after understanding the situation. And maybe it’s not really believable with the damaged arrow sitting right beside me without a drop of blood but the least you could do is roll with it! You’re not helping things!’…. Crap…. In my panic I forgot I was fully controlling the rabbit self so while playing dead I had squeakingly berated the hunter in the language of bunnies. I don’t think he could understand the words but if the look I'm receiving is anything to go by the feeling transmitted well enough.

Well when all else fails, strategic retreat! I snatched the arrow to eliminate evidence and sped away faster than any normal bunny would dream of. While I was at it, I cleared the area of all my animal selves while subtly moving my bug selves to watch him and see if he tried to transmit anything via mana. I really screwed up this time. After staring at the location my rabbit self had been for a time, he left stalking through the woods. He seemed slightly paranoid as he made his way to a clearing where he had a companion. She was an elf dressed in studded leather with a short sword and a mid-sized shield. With a spare shield on her back as well as a chainmail coif protecting her head and neck, she looked kinda knight-ish. She also is the first person I've seen without a bow. Though to be fair that is only three people.

She had a small campfire going and a small bundle of branches on the side. When she saw him returning empty handed, she sent him a thinly veiled disdain that even I could interpret. He then tried to explain but that only made things worse as they sat and ate what appeared to be hard bread and dried meat of some animal. Even during the meal, the man kept looking around and occasionally getting up and doing a once around the camp looking pensive about something. The woman just scorned him for it every time he tried to explain himself. No mention was made about investigating my rabbit self so I might be in the clear. Hopefully anyone who he tells about this will react with the same level of belief as she did. They kept mentioning another woman. Things like “I'm sure she is ok” or that “she must be holed up somewhere for some reason and just couldn’t make it back”. It seems I need to be on guard from more parts in the area. Still though this was a terrible oversite, even if there are only a few people who come to this region it doesn’t make it safe to spread without caution. As they set up a fashioned overhang for them to take shifts sleeping, I belatedly realized it was nearly night. It seems that ever since I eliminated the need for sleep and given the best eyes for both dark and light to my various selves, I have mostly forgotten the concept of time. I wonder how many days I've been here now? I've been so caught up in everything that I haven’t been keeping track.

At any rate it may be necessary to step up my caution going forward and stay aware that even if I don’t see them there may be parts hiding nearby. As for the hunter and his companion the safest option is to find some way to silence them. But without knowing their fighting prowess nor if they can call for help that’s a hard call to make. I could blast them into submission with spells but if that gets reported while in progress, there is sure to be a number of parts investigating. Hmm well maybe Chia would have some input on this. After I asked, she shrugged saying “how would I know if I can’t see them?”. Quite while I share senses and knowledge with all of my selves as I wish my individual selves don’t see more than their own senses. Is it possible to share views between them? I tried it out and found that if I project magic like the status magic did, I can make a tv of sorts. Perhaps I could send it directly into their minds in the future, but I hesitate to do so on Chia without testing it first.

“ah its Tanya! Oh, and jeff too…”

It seems she knew these two parts, though she seems to have far differing feelings about the two of them. When I told her they were looking for someone she froze for a few seconds before asking how long she has been here. Ahhh… don’t know? Let me see here- it was 3 days for modifying Chia and the panther plus experimenting that carried over another day. Then my sense of time gets mega-fuzzy.

“hey, Corrina, how long have we been in this dungeon?” I asked through Chia.

“Umm do you mean me?” the confused little girl avatar of the dungeon replied

“oh yeah I decided to name you Corrina, I hope that’s alright. It means spear maiden, in one of the languages in my databanks, since you made most of the goblinas spear women as your defenders.”

“I got a name! Yay! The seniors said usually only nice dungeon masters give names! Corrina. Corrina. I like it.” Seemingly happier to just get a name than the name itself.

“Seniors? You can talk to seniors?”

“No, I can’t talk to them but when we dungeons first form apparently the nearby seniors are meant to send a one-way transmission to us with any advice, they think will help us survive. Apparently, it costs a huge amount of mana, so I won’t be responsible for doing so myself until I have at least 10 floors. Some dungeons ignore that request though.” I looked through that memory and sure enough there was a lot of helpful advice when she first formed like hiding her entrance. Though there were a few that just said things like “good luck” and never gave any advice. It makes me curious how they knew a new dungeon formed and how to send exactly to her.

“But umm you have been here for about 3 days now. You took 2 getting through my labyrinth and then it’s been around a full day kinda tinkering with me after you became my master.” She added after some thought

“I see, thank you Corrina.” So, the total would be around 7 days since I met Chia.

“I see so I've been gone for a full 10 days if not longer. No wonder they came out to look for me, I was only supposed to be out for 7 days maximum.” Chia muttered to herself. “How far away are they?”

Hmm at your previous pace I’d say a day of travel away. At your current ability with a few tweaks for speed and agility for forests I think you could make it in 5 hours. Ridding on the panther we could likely make it in 3. What did you have in mind?

“I’d like to meet with them. Peacefully if possible. I’ll find a way for them to join us, so please don’t send an army of monsters to shut them up.”

I have no issue with that, but I will prepare some insurances just in case. I can’t have any investigations before I'm confident that no one will be able to notice me. We bid goodbye to Corrina and headed to an area near their campsite. It would look shady as heck if we just popped into their campsite in the middle of the night, so we opted to make one of our own in the grassy plain just outside the woods. We made it light enough to be moved should they come out on a totally different side but unless they are hopelessly lost, they should be coming this way. Well according to Chia anyway and she knows them, so I had no reason to doubt her. While we waited, we made as many preparations as Chia thought would help her plan. But as added insurance I made all of the most powerful predator selves gather a short distance from us just in case things go south. Now we are finally ready for them.