Starlid turned around, only to see Corvis's core crack. "Well shit, that can't be good."
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"That's not good," said the figure.
"What's the meaning of this!" Malik said, baring his fangs.
"I didn't know that would happen! How was I supposed to know Argak didn't make it so they could absorb alien material?"
"You have to deal with this yourself, fool! I will not be implicated!" Malik said, a venomous frown on his face before he disappeared.
"Damnit"
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Corvis took a breath as his consciousness returned, only to sputter as he breathed in water. Then, as fast as his limbs could take him, he pushed himself up and coughed out the water. As he opened his eyes, he realized something was wrong. First of all, he had eyes, and by extension, eyelids. He also realized that he had not just arms but legs and a body too.
Corvis stood up and gathered himself before he looked down at his body. What met his eyes was an ethereal, ghost-like form, with what looked like black cracks where his heart should be. "Where am I?" Corvis asked himself.
Corvis looked around to gain his bearings. He quickly realized that all around him, in every direction, a massive lake spanned for what appeared forever, with a thick layer of mist on the horizon. When he took a step, ripples traveled through the whole lake, disappearing into the distance.
He scanned along the lake, and it bore fruit. In the distance, just in sight before the mist, he saw what looked like a small cabin sitting on the surface of the shallow lake. On compulsion, he walked toward it, as it was the only thing he could see in the vast expanse. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, he felt a shift in the air and a sound like a tornado slowly drawing closer. Looking around, he discovered the source. Storm clouds in the distance hurtled in his direction from behind him. With all the motivation he needed, he dashed toward the cabin, stumbling a little as he ran forward through the ankle-high water.
Each splash sent ripples through the endless lake as he rushed toward the cabin. Corvis's mad dash forward allowed him to stay just ahead of the storm. The splashing of his feet quickly was replaced by the fast-growing drone of storm clouds and wind. Corvis felt the wind buffet against his naked, ethereal flesh, helping push him forward with greater speed. With the cabin close in front of him, he looked back at the storm for only a moment. It roiled like an angry wasp hive, vibrating the very air behind him as flashes of purplish-red lightning blasted through the clouds, lighting his face with that same purplish-red glow as he peered back.
Corvis felt a rush of release burst through his body as he ran up the stairs of the porch just in time. Quickly, he pulled the door open and rushed in, slamming the door behind. Then, with the ferocity of a rabid beast, the storm hit the cabin. Corvis felt the whole house shake; the sound of wind tearing at the log walls and wooden shingles resounded around him as the door behind his back pushed against him. He pushed back with as much strength as he could muster, bracing the door against the ferocious winds, trying to stop the door from breaking open. Quickly, he grabbed a board against the wall next to him and slammed it into the metal receivers. He waited, seeing if it would hold. The door and board shook, but to his great relief held. With a sigh, Corvis looked around the cabin. For some reason he couldn't place, the cabin felt safe and familiar, like a smell that brings one back to childhood memories. The first thing he noticed, it appeared larger on the inside, although not by too much. It was also clearly not maintained, made even more apparent by the generous amount of dust on everything. Still, he supposed it was a wonder that the whole thing wasn't water damaged. Two bookcases were separated by a fireplace in the back of the room, filled with books with many different covers, with varying stages of age and condition. The cabin's centerpiece, though, was that large fireplace between the bookcases. It was made of old mossy stones, not at all uniform in size or shape, although they were at the very least mostly squared. The stones themselves were also weathered and had clearly seen many days. Right in front of the fireplace were two cushioned chairs with a small table in the middle. He looked from old wall to old wall, each sporting a variety of landscape or architectural paintings. Intriguingly, each painting gave him a sense of nostalgia, but he could place none of them for the life of him.
Looking once more at the door, Corvis was satisfied that it would hold. He walked away from it and to the closest painting. His eyes scanned it, revealing a clearing in a heavily forested area with a large rotting hollowed-out log with mosses and fungus growing on its rotted bark and flesh. He felt a massive pain in his head as he looked at it, almost as if his skull was cracking. The pain was so intense he fell to the floor holding his head, crying out as pain lanced through his skull. Corvis tried to fight the pain, taking deep breaths and focusing, but the pain just intensified. Corvis sent a pulse of biomantic mana into his own head, trying to scan his own mind to determine what was happening. To his surprise, the pulse appeared in the world around him and slammed against the storm. As it hit the storm, it bounced back into him like it had hit a wall.
The pain continued to surge forth as the painting above him started to crack. The cracks made their way along the artwork, the image began to darken and disappear as if a fire was eating away at it. By instinct alone, Corvis stood up and pushed mana into the painting with all his might, trying to stop or halt the process. Something inside him desperately told him it was the right thing to do. As his mana entered the painting, the damage stopped, but only for a moment. Then, the whole painting was consumed, turning wholly black and cracked. The pain in his head subsided as the frame fell to pieces like a rotted piece of wood, littering the floor. He looked at the crumpled debris and tried to remember what it was, but for the life of him couldn't remember the painting, nor what it meant to him. His mind drew a blank. He looked around the cabin again, but this time the familiar feeling was gone. This place was utterly unfamiliar to him.
As Corvis looked around, he noticed that the sounds of the storm outside had subsided substantially.
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Starlid looked at Corvis's cracked core. It tapped its chin for a moment before shrugging. Then, with a sigh, Starlid spoke to itself, "I suppose it doesn't matter if I use some of the mana leaking out for this." Starlid floated up to Corvis's core before placing its hands on it, absorbing the mana leaking out. It grew in size, more than double what it was, before rapidly shrinking as it forces the mana into the core, slowly sealing the cracks with mana. It was only about as effective as putting a bandage on a severed limb and expecting it to regrow, but it was better than nothing. "Yeah, didn't think so," it said with a sigh before shrinking beyond its original size, coming to only about one-fourth before growing again, this time much more slowly. Finally, it reached around half its original size before shrinking again.
Starlid continued this process for hours before the cracks were finally sealed to the fullest extent possible. "This is great," it said with a sigh before laying down on the ground and entering a state of torpor.
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"I can fix this," the figure in the void-like darkness said as he looked down at the planet to the elemental sealing a cracked core. "Now that his core is damaged and he's out, for now at least, I can meddle," he said with a chuckle. He sent a projection of power into the core, searching for only a moment before finding his quarry. Then, with a thought, the incomplete alien template was replaced with one of his own design. A mix of creatures smashed together in an attempt to copy the dungeon worm as closely as possible. He decided last moment to add some improvements as his attempt at an apology.
"Take that as an apology. Not like you can hear me anyway," The figure said with a chuckle. "Best not to mess around again for a while. I would hate to do this again," he said before walking away from the planet, further into the darkness.
