"Let's hope you meet again then," Starlid said before it laid down and looked up at the rocky ceiling. "I hope I get to experience that at some point."
"You mean having people you care about?" Corvis asked.
Starlid was silent for a moment, thoughts racing before it answered, "No, I already have you and Squib. I was more referring to the worldly experience, the greater aspirations, things like that. It sounds so amazing! Create a spell to prove yourself! Amazing!"
"I'm sure you will. It'll probably just take a while." Corvis said sagely.
"Maybe I will. That is, if the strings of fate are kind." Starlid said, repeating Corvis's statement as it gave its equivalent of a smile.
"Let's hope fate is kind to the both of us then!" Corvis exclaimed, hoping that both of their wishes were answered.
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About 30 minutes after their conversation, Corvis looked at the fairy tree sitting in a jar next to his body. The tree seemed all too happy with its lot in life, simply pulsing with the red light. I better get this planted, he thought. "Hey, Starlid, do you mind moving that jar over to the right wall and opening it?"
"Nope," Starlid said as it leaped to its feet and grabbed the jar, putting it where Corvis asked and opening it.
"What are you going to do with it?" Starlid asked.
"That depends. I want it in my core room. Can I move it easily if I plant it?"
"Not really, but you could just move the whole room itself," Starlid stated.
"Okay, how do I do that?"
Starlid tapped its chin for a moment before sitting up, "Should be the equivalent of moving a limb was for you when you were human."
"Interesting. I'll try it when I expand."
With a shrug, Starlid responded, "Fair enough."
"Since I can move the room, can you plant it there for me?"
Starlid broke the glass with a nod, patted the dirt onto the stone floor, then went back to its spot and laid down.
"Thank you," Corvis said
"No problem," Starlid said back from its spot on the ground.
Now on to the next problem, he thought.
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Corvis looked over his snails, thinking about what to do next. He planned to have them breed, but he knew nothing about how that would work. Let's not overthink this. I'll just order them to breed, he thought. Then, with a mental command, he ordered creatures to reproduce, not wanting to stall the process. As soon as they heard their orders, all the snails started to climb onto any close vegetation. Grouping up next to each other all the while. I have other things to do. I'd prefer not to watch this, Corvis thought as he pulled his vision into himself. I'll just focus on restoring my mana to peak levels.
Once again, Corvis pulled his consciousness into himself and began to absorb mana at a heightened rate. Slowly, as the hours ticked by, he could feel his mana pool filling. He stayed in that state for almost a day, sucking in mana.
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The figure watched from the void that he called home, tossing what looked to be a crystal up in the air and catching it. Out of nowhere, Malik reappeared, holding what looked like an egg. "Hello there"
"Finally, we can get this party started. Let me change the weather real quick and--- there we go. Go place it outside the dungeon." said the figure before remembering something. "Wait, let me see it for a moment."
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Almost out of nowhere, a thunderstorm burst into existence. Rain poured once more onto the stony ground before draining into the low points and puddling into pools.
Corvis remained focused on his task of drawing in mana when he felt something strange. Almost like something was sucking the mana away from him before he could absorb it all. The amount he was absorbing went down to nearly nothing. Curious, he exited his meditative state and looked around his dungeon, noticing nothing out of the ordinary, when a massive burst of lightning outside drew his attention. Looking to the dungeon entrance, he saw a humanoid figure outside seemingly disappear. Looking at where they were standing, he noticed what appeared to be an egg, which seemed to be the culprit of his displaced mana. From his entrance, he examined the human torso-sized egg. The slimy orange egg was like a vortex, sucking in mana faster than anything he had ever seen before. If that wasn't strange enough, it appeared to be absorbing bolts of lightning as they crashed into the egg. It began to pulse as sparks of electricity shot out and crashed into the ground. The pulsing quickened as lighting rained down on it, and cracks appeared on the egg's shell. Suddenly the egg burst, revealing a large orange worm with white bony protrusions jutting from its body and teeth-like structures in its gaping maw. It moved around, squirming on the ground as its eyes began to glow blue before it started to look around. Finally, the newborn worm's eyes focused on the dungeon entrance. Slowly, it crawled toward it, only stopping in front of the opening for a moment before its eyes flashed with blue light, and it practically jumped into the dungeon.
As the beast entered the dungeon, it looked around the dark cavernous room before rushing forward, mouth to the ground as it ate a path through the vegetation.
Corvis gathered some mana in preparation to dominate it before pushing it into the creature's mind. Instead of the slightly resistant feeling he had felt from the snails, he felt nothing. He felt no mind, no resistance, and in return, no control. The creature appeared unphased as if it didn't even realize he had attempted to do something.
"Some kind of worm just entered the dungeon. I think I'll need you to deal with it, Squib." Corvis warned. Before Squib could react, the worm appeared in the second room, where the snails and Squib now resided in the trees. As the strange worm entered the room, it stopped and raised its upper body before releasing a pulse of some sort of energy, similar but altogether different to mana, out into the room. All the snails, including Squib, began to glow, while the snake didn't seem to react. The worm let out a screech like bones being ground together before it disappeared into the floor.
"Did the worm just disappear into the floor?" asked Squib, mirroring all of their thoughts while clearly confused. Before Corvis could respond, the worm burst from the ground with such force that it flew up to the leaves of one of the trees, where it snatched one of the snails and ripped it apart with sharp teeth-like bones that filled its gore-covered jaws. Then, even as it ate the snail, it looked up into the same tree before vanishing beneath the ground just like before. This time Corvis was ready and attempted to look into the floor where his influence was spread. As he quickly searched, he realized it wasn't there.
For several more moments, there was no action, no appearance of the worm, before it burst from the ceiling and snatched another snail. The beast crashed through branches and leaves but landed safely on a thick moss mat, almost as if by design. Quickly, the worm devoured the snail in almost one bite. Before it could attempt to phase again, moss rose from the floor and covered the worm, wrapping around it like a blanket. Once again, it released its strange call before it began to struggle, the bony spikes along its upper half ripping through the moss as the worm thrashed viciously.
While the worm thrashed, Squib was not idle. He commanded the plant life around the room to crawl its way towards the worm, and with more speed than seemed possible, the vines wrapped around the worm tightening to their limit. With the vines holding it still, the worms thrashing was almost completely stopped. Even the bony spikes on its upper body couldn't rip through the vines easily. It's thrashing quickly turned to simply shaking its body, which proved useless. After thinking for a moment, Squib commanded some of the vampiric vines toward the worm. As he restrained the worm, Corvis wasn't idle. Quickly, he used some mana, dominated the snake, and then commanded it to go in for a quick attack. His experience with dominating creatures proved crucial as his conversion of it was near-instant.
Listening to the command, the snake burst from its hiding place and dashed across the distance, quickly lashing out with its fangs. A bright flash of light burst through the cave as it struck the worm, blinding anything looking at it except, of course, for the dungeon and Starlid. The worm made its strange shriek again, this time with much more vigor and thrashed with a renewed strength, as what looked like glowing blue venom coursed through its veins. Just as quickly as it appeared, the snake retreated, but not before it received what could only be the worms equivalent of a hateful glare. Almost out of nowhere, the bone spikes began to flare with energy as electricity arced from spike to spike. Quickly the vines nearest them began to burn, but it wasn't done. Corvis felt star energy swell as its body began to glow, and frost began to form on its skin. The moss visibly withered as the cold started to kill it, and once again, the worm began to thrash. Just in time, the vampiric vines grabbed the worm, and as they pulsed with ominous red light, the worm lessened its struggling. As the vines lashed on the worm, its powers stopped, and its thrashing weakened while the vampire vines clearly began to strengthen. Almost as if to prove this, small roots sprouted from the vines and began to anchor themselves into the worm. As the vampiric vines started to suck up blood and mana, the worm's eyes seemed to flash. Quickly, Its eyes searched the trees before finding its target. Mana began to collect in its gut before, with a glow, a beam shot forth from its body. Before anyone could react, Squib was blasted with full force. His shell afforded him no protection as he burst apart in a super-hot blaze, his scorched flesh covering the trees, floor, and walls. Without his guidance, the vines and moss fell away, freeing the worm. "No!" yelled Corvis. Starlid looked at what had happened with shock.
"That's not good" was all it said before the slaughter began anew.
