When the mind-mage came across another dungeon, it very cautiously entered its dominion.
Unlike the one, it had woken up in this one was not buried in a cave-system. Instead, it spread across a sparsely vegetated piece of forest.
Slowly eating its way through the icy mustelids, the elemental never felt the same sense of connectedness it had felt while drawing close to the core of to the other one.
This low-threat environment prompted the elemental to experiment on how to deal with this kind of creature. Other than dislodging their mind from its socket and eating the condensed, quivering remains. The desire to do so came from a combination of knowing that dislodging the mind did not kill the prey and coming from a society where consuming live food was considered barbaric.
Showering them in projectiles of ice, seemed to have an adverse effect by strengthening them.
Showering them in projectiles of any other kind of element just lowered the overall energy of the being, effectively decreasing the elemental’s food.
Forcibly extracting their souls from their bodies left no food at all, as the bodies lost all cohesion and dispersed.
So, in the end, it arrived at the centre of the dungeon, having exhausted all its ideas without having found an answer.
The centre of the dungeon did not house a civilisation and was barely defended at all.
It did not take long until the elemental had eaten up all the icy creatures.
When there were no more defenders around, the elemental could feel fear coming from the pulsating, luminous piece of the forest floor.
Drawing closer to the dungeon's core the sensation got stronger. And the moment the element dug into the material with a continuous jet of water, a sensation of pain added itself to the fear-turned-terror emitted by the dungeon.
The elemental sucked out most of the energy within the floor, before being attacked by hundreds of ice-mustelids.
After turning four of the attacking creatures mindless and amorphous, it realised that the dungeon, as well as the mustelids, were sucking massive amounts of energy out of its rock-self.
Collecting the four quivering remains of what once were mustelid-formed pieces of ice, the elemental saw itself forced into retreat once more.
After having successfully retreated from the threat, the elemental ate. From a subjective point of view, the rock was pretty sure that this encounter resulted in negative net gains regarding energy, but positive gains in the information department.
The rock spent a few more days hunting within the realm of the dungeon.
In preparation of a renewed attack on the core, it wanted to thin out the creature population.
Exterminating these creatures was so easy, the rock almost became religious.
Within the rock's birth-cave-system, massive changes were happening.
As the pulsating, luminous wall became conscious for the first time in its life it was still unable to act. All it could do was observe. And all it could observe was the continuous flow of energy.
It could perceive energy being sucked into itself from below.
It could perceive energy leaving its centre of perception and running through a strange assortment of veins.
It could perceive energy coalescing and forming new blobs of energy.
It could perceive the blobs of energy running around.
It could perceive blobs of energy accumulating.
It could perceive blobs of energy bumping into each other, dancing around each other and becoming one.
It could perceive energy blobs losing its cohesion and returning to the wall.
Close to its centre of perception, there was a massive cluster of energy blobs. These in stark contrast to all the others did not fuse whenever meeting each other.
After some time the wall was visited by one of the moving blobs of energy. Upon arrival, it hunched up and began to report to the wall.
“Elder Krekaran, Master of Martials, greets the creator! The protector unified civilisation about 46 generations ago. It has been three generations since the rogue relative of the protector visited. We have since sealed off the avenue of attack, and never again have we been visited by anything similar. We currently have three paths to the surface and are trying to subjugate the savage wilderness out there. Your children longingly await your first command!” the mass of energy gave their periodic report. The report was mostly the same every time and had become a tradition whose only purpose was to try and get a reaction out of the creator. As the arachnid mass of energy turned to leave it was accorded the honour of being the first spidlon to perceive the creator’s intentions.
Surprised that it could understand what the energy was trying to convey, the wall was wondering if the thing was compelled to talk like that!
As the martial spidlon detected the creator's will, it was overcome with emotion, not even caring that the first thing the creator conveyed was a reprimand on itself. It stopped in its tracks and happily faced the wall.
“This servant is ready to listen to the creator’s orders!”
The wall was confused about everything. First of all, how did the blob of energy understand what it wanted? It wondered about the identity of the eight-legged ball of energy and its own relation to the thing. It wanted to know more about the different characters the thing had talked about. What kind of existence would the rogue and the protector be? Especially the existence of the creator was of interest for the wall. But it was also intrigued about the culture of these energy-animals, or rather energy-people. Sadly it had no way to convey its intentions.
“Oh?! The most esteemed Creator would be the one I am talking to, as she created us all! The Protector is the one who united all spidlon. It showed us ways to defend against our uncivilised siblings. It also told us about the possibility that one day another like it could run amok within these tunnels. And thus, the elders prepared. I myself had not been hatched at the time, so the elders could give better accounts of this period. Three generations ago The Rogue really did appear, and as it seems we were prepared. Should you like to know more about the protector, I shall summon one of the two elder members of the council. Concerning The Rogue, I have to admit that I should be the most knowledgeable one, as I have been in direct contact with it!” the spidlon proudly explained.
Infuriated by the manner the spidlon talked in, the wall wanted to slap it halfway through the first sentence, but it held back its own thoughts and emotions until the explanation was finished.
From what the wall had gathered by observing the flow of energy, it was indeed its own energy that led to the coalescence of the creatures. Even beyond the arrangement of veins its energy constantly created new blobs of energy. But the wall had no control over this procedure.
“Meaning without the creator we would not exist! And that means our creation is a direct result of the creator!” the martial concluded.
Completely annoyed at the sound logic of the spidlon, the wall did not want to know any more about itself or the protector. Instead, it wanted to know about the parts of these creature's history and culture not directly influenced by outside forces.
“This one does not exactly comprehend the meaning of culture! But pertaining to our history, after the unification two spidlons ascended to the top of society. Elder Klak and Professor Teru. The elder organised the defence of our society, while the professor made sure that there was always enough food. Both have already passed on, whenever a Master of the Council died they were replaced by someone of equal qualification. An elder for an elder and a professor for a professor. But after we lost one of the corridors to the rogue, there was a sudden switch in priorities. The two masters decided to expand the Council of Masters. Now there are eight Masters. Three professors and five elders. The five elders cannot outvote the three professors on their own. The same is true for the three professors -” the little creature was talking non-stop.
As the wall grew ever more annoyed from the ranting little ball, annoyance slowly morphed into anger. And at one point the wall’s anger grew so apparent that the councillor stopped talking.
The wall was not at all interested in the political structure of their society! Not after it had been explained in the most nerve-wracking manner possible. What it was interested in was their reproduction and mating culture.
The spidlon grew embarrassed at the topic, but explained nonetheless, as it was the duty of the masters to inform the creator of everything it wanted to know.
“Every mating season the females choose their preferred suitor. Ehm, ... Uh ... Uh, and ... Uh, ... yeah after, you know, doing the deed, the males are supposed to feed the females for ten days. If they fail, ... Uh the female, you know, can decide to ... Erm, eat them instead. But that practice is pretty much outdated. Then it is time to oviposit. We have specially built structures for the maturing process. And of the 300 eggs, a female lays each generation about ten per cent make it to full maturity!” after having forced themselves to talk about the matter, the Master of Martials proudly presented the high survival rate the spidlon civilisation had achieved and was relieved when the torture was finally over.
The wall grew interested in the other being’s gender and in how many offspring it had created so far.
“... Uh? ... Female?! ... Every important member of society is!?“ confused and slightly embarrassed the spidlon answered the first part of the question as good as she could.
Before the wall realised that the second part of the question was not answered, it fell into musing about whether it had a gender at all. After failing to come to any kind of conclusion the wall came back to its initial thought about the spidlon's amount of offspring.
The spidlon just silently stared at the wall. Completely confused as her world was slowly crumbling. For the spidlon, it had always been obvious that the creator must surely be a female.
Getting no answer from its faithful servant the wall directed its concentration at itself.
Having found something else to spend its time on the wall wished the creature be gone.
“Shall I send someone else?” the person offered.
The wall mentally negated the notion.
What it had found within itself was a room full of amorphous hard-working blobs of existence. Most of them were steering energy or creating creatures. None of them reacted to the wall’s mind.
Exiting the room, there was a giant conglomerate of structures.
Strolling through the massive space, no matter what the mind did none of the blobs reacted.
And so, the wall spent its time talking with the eight councillors and exploring the space within itself.
For the most part, the wall did not give any orders! Only when something caught its interest would it demand that someone investigated this something.
In a turn of events, quite favourable for the luminous floor, the second attack never happened. Mainly because the rock was confronted by a whirling mass of gases, solids, and plasmas.
“Why are you killing your brethren?”
After a momentary confusion as to the origin of this message and the means of communication by which the message reached the rock, it decided to think about this later and instead deal with the threat in front of it.
The elemental in front of the rock was the most advanced one it had met since that fateful day, its last iteration had died on. It decided to be vigilant, not afraid but vigilant. The genocidal rock was quite sure of its victory. Because the one means of perception, at its disposal informed it that the other one had a lot less total energy than itself. Meaning that in a war of attrition the rock would be hard-pressed if it wanted to lose.
One mental ping later and the opponent, instead of losing control of its body, stripped its familicidal cousin of its mud-body. It then suppressed the rock’s sense. And carried it off.
When the rock awakened next, it found itself in a wasteland. Engaging its perception led to the realisation that it had lost a lot of energy but was otherwise unhurt.
As there was nothing but shrubberies around, the rock had time to think.
