No Need For A Core? - 175: Going Batty

175: Going Batty

No Need For A Core? by Zagaroth

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Before she began working on Bella and Freya with the mana she'd thankfully set aside for evolving them, Kazue sent out a mental reminder to their inhabitants to be careful with the delvers, the amount of available power was going to increase for every zone other than the trading post.

Now it was time to potentially sow confusion for poor hunters. The two bats were going to have matching abilities and colors, but over the course of a full day, they might appear to be four bats. Their fur color was going to match the time of day: gold for daytime, and silver for nighttime. She restricted the color change to only occur when the boss had been unobserved by guests for at least ten minutes, she didn't want to give away the game by having someone see the change or catch a silver one leaving a tree hollow that a gold one had just darted into.

She also made them significantly larger, increasing their weight to almost fifty pounds and their wingspan to about nine feet across. Their physical weaponry Kazue mostly left alone outside of scaling them up and increasing the durability of their teeth and claws. They really weren't designed for stand-up fights.

Instead, she focused on amplifying their screeches, empowering them to let loose a conical blast of ultrasonic sound that could affect targets up to thirty feet away. This was going to be their primary attack, though it would take several seconds to recover the power to do so again. This was also designed to attract other creatures to the battle, but she would have to work on making those creatures later.

Their second special ability was to let loose a blinding flash of light and energy. The light could dazzle and disorient, or even temporarily blind someone who didn't shield their eyes in time. A bat in golden form would sear their foes with the heat of the sun, while the silver form would unleash moonlight that burned with cold.

Kazue had learned enough about how divine magic worked to imbue holy energy into these blasts of light, invoking Amirume and Mericume for the gold and silver forms respectively. Not that this would be obvious, as it would take a sort of deliberately heinous person to have imbued themselves with the sort of vile magics that would make them vulnerable. But a true demon or devil would be affected.

And that sort of limitation was what made it possible to imbue divine magic into Belle and Freya in the first place, along with requiring at least ten minutes to recharge the ncessary energy to unleash the blast of light again. She'd also traded off range for power with both forms of attack to better enable their escape should they get caught at close range; they were open-air skirmishers and they did not want to get into a pitched battle.

The blinding blast had another trick to it as well. The two of them would glow softly when fully charged, but releasing that energy caused them to stop glowing. This gave them a better chance at running away and hiding in a cave or in a hollow high up in a large enough tree. And the glow wasn't necessarily as much of a giveaway as it seemed, especially during the day. Belle and Freya were both smart enough to hide in the light of the sun when they knew they were being hunted. Hiding in the light of the moon was more difficult as it wasn't blinding to look at, but their own soft glow would keep them from being highlighted sharply. However, it did not prevent them from casting shadows on the ground for the sharp-eyed hunter.

Hiding instead of fighting might seem unfair, however, even a combat-oriented person didn't have to defeat them to progress. Hunting game was an option, an unspoken path that you had to choose. Running away and hiding was a fair tactic for hunted prey. Though Kazue did not doubt that they would be hunted, she'd made sure that the gold or silver luster of their fur came in part from traces of the relevant metal.

It had hurt to do that, she didn't want to think of her friends' bodies being turned into pelts, but this was how to achieve the proper level of reward for a successful hunt, especially while they were disguising how much territory they had.

She'd considered asking Mordecai to take care of this part after she'd come up with the initial idea, but this was her home and her people, she needed to hold herself responsible and not just hand off anything she found unpleasant to her husband.

Kazue ran into a different issue now. Normally, she'd start seeding the area with appropriately valuable plants and herbs, but even just moving stuff around cost mana. They were recovering their pool, and it was very little mana, but the idea of spending anything she didn't absolutely have to spend hurt. So she took a different, if slower, path to the same goal, and sent out a message to their inhabitants.

“So, the recent mana issue is also making it more difficult to prepare our new zone for visitors. Um, I was hoping some of you might be willing to do part of it manually. We kind of need some of our plants, mushrooms, and trees seeded throughout the zone, and maybe some other things you can think of that wouldn't give away that they are dungeon prizes. We'll eventually be able to add some small outcroppings of crystals or such, but we'll need to figure out what won't encourage too much digging first, in addition to recovering our mana. Oh, and you'll want to do it late at night, when no one is watching.”

This wasn't going to be as big of a project as the mining project Mordecai had come up with, but it was going to have to be even less obvious. But it would be a good way for some of their more druidic-inclined inhabitants to practice their skills. Gotta find the positives, right?

Now to think about what else would be living here. She couldn't evolve anything, well, she could, but she didn't want to spend that mana either right now. That didn't mean she couldn't design a few things, and before that, she kind of wanted to get to know what new creatures had joined the dungeon.

The small things had been incorporated the same way they were when they expanded through the ground below them. But this zone had a lot of new animals, whether new as a species or just as individuals. Thankfully, their capacity for inhabitants was a separate thing from their main mana pool, and inviting most of the creatures was rather simple. While a lot of them accepted, a lot also rejected the idea of being bound to this strange 'herd' or whatever the concept in their mind was. The more intelligent of these began moving slowly toward the border of their territory, instinctively understanding that this area was claimed by a new entity. Some of the less intelligent, or more belligerent, animals stayed despite rejecting the offer to join the dungeon.

And for those who had accepted, well, as long as she didn't alter them in any way, they would 'only' be intelligent animals. She was stuck with that option, so there was no reason to fight it. Slowly 'mutating' the newcomers into different versions of themselves would want to be done gradually anyway, and they were going to need to not be obviously dungeon creatures. Until they were evolved, they didn't take up much of their capacity; a deer and a dire rabbit felt about the same, although a large buck was closer to a magical or flying dire rabbit.

The biggest advantage that the dungeon gained was an endless supply of 'game', though that made her uncomfortable to think of them that way. The new inhabitants didn't seem to mind the trade-off of becoming effectively immortal, knowing that they wouldn't actually die was a huge reduction in how stressful their lives could be. Not that they were exactly eager to become someone's dinner, but with their awakened minds they'd at least be better at noticing and escaping hunters looking to ambush them.

Two more problems arose from making all these new friends. The first was a small, personal tragedy as Kazue struck venison and various small game off the list of specific meats that could be generated to serve guests or themselves. At least beef was still available. It didn't matter to her directly right now, but it would impact Kazue when her avatar came back home.

The second problem was with one of their contracted celestials, as they hadn't directly given him a chance to offer his own form of awakening the animals. Mordecai was in a very polite argument with him right now.

“You are being unreasonable. The animals have been there this entire time, you could have approached them at any point. Our contract never stated that you had to be here all the time, short forays would have been fine as long as you let me know first.”

The celestial scowled, “I am not seeking to awaken every animal in the world, I simply wish to offer an alternative to those animals whom you seek to claim as part of your territory. That opportunity has been denied to me now.”

Mordecai sighed, “Well, we seem to have a disagreement over the spirit of the contract, as the letter did specify those animals brought to us and made no mention of animals that were already present when we expanded our territory or even those who happened to wander through the edges of our border. My understanding cleaves close that wording, that the point of it was to intercede on behalf of creatures being brought to us as gifts or for trade. These creatures were completely free of any binding and could simply leave if they wanted to. In fact, many did. But you now say that you believe that this should give you the right to try to intercede with every animal, no matter the circumstances. We can seek adjudication if you desire, but I would point out a couple of things before we consider that option.”

He waited until the celestial gestured for him to continue, “First, this would be an incredibly impractical endeavor on your behalf. Even though no animal would feel threatened by you, you would have to wander the newly claimed territory and seek out every single animal, just to be sure. Second, this would hamper our ability to function. We would have to delay the development of the zone while we waited on you to spend weeks or months wandering about, and we'd constantly have to delay accepting gifts or trades because we'd be waiting for you to return from a trip to make your offer to the animal. That seems a rather unreasonable interpretation of the contract to me. Now, if you want to insist that this is the way things should be done, we can use a ritual to contact someone in a position to judge the situation. But do you really think your position is reasonable?”

The expression on the celestial's face changed rapidly, but after several long moments of silence, he visibly relaxed with a defeated sigh. “You are right, it is unreasonable. I do not like it, I would greatly prefer to be able to offer a different option for every creature that might join you, but it is those whose options are more limited to begin with that I should focus on. I reacted poorly out of frustration.”

Mordecai nodded and then smiled. “Thank you. And if I had considered it, I would have let you know first, but it did not cross either of our minds,” he glanced briefly toward Kazue's focus when he said that. “If, during the remaining time you are here, we are about to claim another territory where we expect to find animals that you might be interested in, we'll let you know and discuss the situation before proceeding. Fair?”

Kazue felt guilty having been 'caught' eavesdropping despite there being no reason to not listen in on this conversation. And then she felt amusement at her expense coming from his core. “You know, there are times when I want my avatar back just so I can bite you. Maybe I should start making a list of how many times I need to bite you when my other self is back.”

“Mm, that sounds like a fun challenge. I wonder how many nips I can earn?”

“Grr, you are just impossible,” said the woman who would be blushing happily if she could.