As Corvis drew in energy, he felt the cracks taking their tole and leaving him gaining less than he should have. While it irked him to take more time to regenerate his mana and vitae, he knew the benefits later down the line would far outweigh the negatives. Quickly, he found himself falling into a state of torpor. As time kept ticking by, Corvis felt like almost no time had passed. The only thing he could feel was his mana pool filling, and as soon as it struck half he roused himself. With his vitae still just below half, Corvis decided to look around the dungeon as he absorbed the last bit.

When he moved his vision to the second room, he saw the snails still eating glowing fruit, leaving piles of pits on the ground beneath them. As he watched the snails, Corvis felt the familiar prickling sensation. Looking at the entrance, he saw a few of the strange wisp things floating around, the same ones he had seen outside a while ago. "Those are animals? I thought they were some sort of seed," he mumbled to himself.

After a moment of thought, he decided on his course of action. First, Corvis ordered the currently resting rockroach to prepare to detain the wisps. With a wiggle of its antennae, it stood up and skittered to the entrance to the second room, where it waited. Next, he ordered the snails to prepare themselves to attack the disabled wisps. A few moments later, the wisps leisurely floated in. As soon as it saw them, the roach clicked its mandibles, and a chill filled the air around it. It taped its ice-covered leg onto the ground, summoning a wave of cold energy which shot from it and slammed into the wisps. The gentle, rhythmic movement keeping them aloft stopped as they fell to the ground. They twitched a little, but it was to no avail. Quickly the roach skittered over to them and touched all three of them with its icy leg, covering them in a layer of frost.

Slowly, the snails made their way to their quarry. As soon as they reached them, the snails began eating away at the soft membrane-like outer flesh layer. The snails tore away bits of soft flesh at a snail's pace, leaving small bites that bleed a clear liquid. After a while, the snail's perseverance finally bore deep enough into the body that they reached a more solid structure. The deep blue orb sat directly in the middle of the wisps bodies. As the snail's radula bored into them, blue blood seeped out. Almost as soon as that happened, a pulse of energy was released, and Corvis felt it absorb into him. After realizing they were dead, he commanded the snails to leave the corpses and let him have them.

As soon as the command was uttered, they stopped, and Corvis absorbed the strange wisps. As he slowly absorbed them one by one, he felt the information seep into him. From the information he got right off the bat, he knew they were very simple creatures. More simple than the snails even. When he absorbed the second one, he felt all the information click together as he felt his tome resonate.

 

 

"That is definitely more… interesting than I expected"

Corvis looked at the remains of the one left before giving the snails permission to eat it.

"Did you kill something?" Starlid asked.

"Ah, your awake?"

"Felt some strong surges of mana, so I assumed you killed something, but I knew you were concentrating, so waited till you were done"

"To answer your question, yes, I did. I killed three of those wisps that float around outside. You should come back to my core and look at this. It's strange."

"Sure thing!" Starlid said as it leapt to its feet and walked to the core room. As the elemental touched the core, it felt the information slowly enter its mind. Once the information finally stopped, Starlid looked at the core. "Your right. This thing is a lot more menacing than its appearance would dictate. I'll be honest, I love it!" Starlid said with an ominous chuckle while it rubbed its hands together.

"I can see many uses for it if they do what I think. But I must admit I'm curious."

"Oh? What about?"

"How is something from Oracados here? Why does it mention a planet hating something? What even is it?"

"Give me a moment to think," Starlid said before going silent. Then, after several minutes of absolute stillness, the elemental finally stirred, moving its hand from its chin and looking at Corvis's core. "A powerful being that hated magic and sought to destroy it, but was killed by someone named Malik."

"How do you know anything about this. I appreciate it, but it seems strange for you to know anything about it." Corvis stated curiously.

"His corpse became a celestial body. As a matter of fact, this 'Starfall' is probably a piece of him. After all, where else would his spawn have come from but the only thing not from this planet."

"What exactly is a celestial body?"

"As it said, his body was a planet. So I just said celestial body instead."

"Okay, so how did a piece get here?"

"The planet was destroyed."

"By what?"

 "The inhabitants. That's all I know, sadly. I haven't the slightest idea about the details."

"How much power would that take?

"On a cosmic scale? Not much. On an individual scale? I'm not sure, but a lot. Someone would have to be powerful enough to blow their planet to bits with enough force that it spread apart after its destruction. I doubt anyone on your planet has even close to that kind of power."

"That begs the question, how did a world devoid of mana have someone so strong?"

"That it does." Starlid said while tapping its chin."

As their conversation lulled, Corvis's mind wandered to his dungeon. I need to expand soon. This small cave won't be enough when I get my creatures.

"Something bothering you, Corvis?" Starlid asked from his position below.

"Huh? How did you know?"

"I can feel your mind swirling."

"Well, I was planning on expanding. Got any suggestions?"

"Follow your metaphorical heart. It won't lead you astray… probably."

"I plan on it. I was just curious if you had any input."

Starlid tapped its chin, "Just don't expand too fast. You might destabilize the cavern if you don't let the stone get reinforced by absorbing mana."

"Good to know."

Corvis quickly went back to meditation, trying to gain as much mana as possible to create Squib and expand his dungeon.

-----------------

Forward they marched or skittered or slithered, the mass of bodies pushing up through dark caverns. The echo of the mass moving echoed through dead caverns. They moved forward, ceaseless on their march forward. Upward they marched, cold stone surrounding their force as they pushed closer and closer to the surface.

----------------

Corvis felt nearly full of mana, about as much as he could have while he slowly leaked, at least. He looked deep inside himself to his vitae and saw it was, while not as full, much more filled than he expected. "I guess those wisps had a lot more vitae than I thought they would. I hope more come in soon." Corvis thought aloud. "Looks like I can make Squib's body and start to expand."

Corvis pushed energy into the template for Squib's body, feeling the mana and vitae drain away. In an instant, the body appeared, completely the same as it was before, plants and all. After his body was formed, Corvis checked both pools and noticed something strange. Almost none was drained, although comparatively much more vitae was used. Something must have gone wrong. "Starlid, for some reason, Squib's body used barely any mana or vitae."

"I can see that being the case. Think about it. Squib isn't the most imposing or dangerous creature. He may be better than your snail, but he is slow and only gets power from the plants around him. Generally, more powerful or specialized creatures use up more mana and vitae. Squib has a more advanced body, so hence the more vitae. He can use mana to control plants, but it isn't powerful, at least at this stage. Hence, he is not very resource-intensive." Starlid said after a few moments of silence.

"And you knew this?"

"Nope, but since you told me, I just guessed what was most likely, namely, what I just said being the most likely."

"Ah, I see. I suppose that's good. I could create him very easily."

"I agree"

Corvis felt Squib's presence resurface. "Great! I must say, while I enjoyed learning from your sumptuous banks of knowledge, I found myself dearly missing my body. No amount of knowledge beats access to the tactile feelings only those with a body can enjoy!" Squib said as Corvis felt his presence enter his body. His eyestalks and scent stalks both moved in all directions. "Having a body is much better than being a disembodied soul. From soul to snail, I stand again!"

"It's good to have you back around Squib. I feel safer already," Corvis said.

"Thank you, dear Creator. But I must inquire. Now, if I may, would you allow me to" he paused "leave your domain to explore again? I wish to explore the world beyond to accrue knowledge and explore!"

"I suppose so, but don't be gone too long. You're instrumental to our defense."

"Of course. I will be back shortly. I simply wish to survey the lands near the pool I discovered."

"Fine with me."

Quickly, at least for a snail, Squib made his way out of the dungeon, back to the outside world again.

After Squib had made a reasonable amount of distance, Corvis turned his vision to his elemental companion. "Why is he talking like that?"

"Hah! That's what I was thinking! He was talking like he… actually I don't know, but it was strange. So you think he's compensating for something?" Starlid said with a laugh.

"Probably. He is Squib, the scholar, but no scholar I know speaks like that. Well, except for Casdurn, but he was an ass. Squib probably feels bad for his lack of both knowledge and fighting power, or maybe he just likes using big words and archaic sentence structure. Not that I mind, he can do what he wants."

"Oh! I almost forgot! Where you aware Squib is both male and female? 'He' is a hermaphrodite like the rest of the snails."

"I quite honestly didn't think about it. When we communicate, Squib always speaks in a masculine voice, so I assumed he was male."

"I think he only does that because you have a masculine voice. He seems to like you a lot."

"Isn't that normal? I did make him the way he is, in a sense."

"I don't think they are like that. Squib seems strange when he interacts with you. He composes himself differently. When we talk, it's less formal. It's like he sees you as a god or something. It's kind of creepy, honestly."

"I don't really mind. As long as he doesn't try and steal fragments of me for some weird collection, I don't see why Squib can't have his" Corvis paused "faith, I suppose?"

"I don't know if it's that kind of an obsession. He just seems to want to make you proud. At least I don't think he's trying to steal any pieces of your body," Starlid murmured.

"Good," Corvis said as his mind wandered to other things.

With their conversation done, Starlid started to try and juggle some stones while Corvis went back to thinking. He pondered for hours, losing himself in thought. I want to make the cave more natural. So first, do away with the hallways and make each level a massive cavern chamber, then I'll dig deeper into the earth and make it larger. Corvis pondered his expansion for a while longer, weighing his options. Then, with a plan, he decided to jump right into it.

Corvis began the slow process of pushing deeper into the earth. Stone disappeared, creating a path forward further into the ground. To his surprise, he was able to eat away at the earth much faster than before. Stone disappeared, bit by bit, going deeper into the ground and further into the meteor. "Hey Starlid, any idea why it's so much easier to eat away at this stone?"

"Your mana and vitae have saturated the stone. This whole meteorite should be easy to absorb like that." Starlid said instantly before pausing and continuing, almost as an afterthought. "Would you mind giving me some privacy? When I was reinforcing my form before, I felt something… I want to investigate it."

"Of course, go ahead. I have much to do myself."

"Ah! And don't forget to make that corpse a zombie. Never hurts to be prepared."

"Of course! I had completely forgotten. Thank you for the reminder."

"Of course!"

-------------

Corvis dug deeper and deeper, making much better progress than his first time. However, his mana kept dropping steadily until he was left with only about a quarter of mana left in almost no time at all. "Time to raise the dead," he said with a sigh.

Using some of his remaining mana, he ate away at the stone beneath the corpse, slowly forming a complex symbol just beneath its shriveled frame. When the ritual formation finished, the mana in the air started to be sucked in like water to a sponge. More and more mana entered the formation, which then began to glow a sickly, inky green light. The now changed mana slowly absorbed into the corpse. While this happened, Corvis created some necromantic mana and pushed it into the formation as well. When he began the all too familiar task of infusing the corpse with energy, he noticed something strange. As the mana was made, he felt some of his vitae enter the mix, fusing with it before finding its way into the corpse. With a shrug, he continued the task at hand.

Like that, an hour passed. As the minutes passed, the mummified corpse slowly revitalized. Then, finally, its flesh started to unshrivel as its body began to reconstitute. When Corvis finally stopped inputting mana, the corpse looked like a fresh body instead of the mummy it was a mere hour ago. "Huh, worked much better than I thought possible from myself." Corvis mumbled, "That missing leg will be a problem, though."

With the process complete, Corvis changed his necromantic energy, making it stronger. It lost its green color and switched to a deep grey, though it still carried tiny flecks and streams of green. As the energy entered the formation beneath the corpse, the air around it appeared as if a fog had somehow sprung up. As the fog-like energy seeped into the corpse, it took a deep breath. Its empty veins seemed to fill, almost as if blood once again flowed through its body. Another breath of the energy entered its lungs, inciting the corpse to twitch, then seized. Its clawed fingers ripped at the stone beneath it harmlessly as its body bucked about, before suddenly, almost as if waking from sleep, it coughed. The sound of its dry throat made it evident that the thing was not simply waking up, though. After coughing for a moment, the zombie sat up and rubbed its empty eye sockets. Then, it looked around. Silence rained for a moment as it observed its surrounding before, out of nowhere, the corpse shrieked like it had been stabbed. The shriek was strange, though, as it quickly went from shrill to melodious. Corvis felt strange as he listened to the corpse sing with its shrieks. As he listened, he heard sadness and loss swell in his soul.

As abruptly as it had started it stopped, before laying down. After a few moments, it continued its sad song before the shriek slowly switched to one of rebirth and renewal. As it continued its strange song, Corvis was left to ponder the peculiar feelings they elicited.

Its shrieking song continued for a while before all at once, it was replaced with gagging. Corvis looked back at the singing corpse. It began to heave, seemingly gagging on something, then it retched, spewing out several small black worms. "What in the Void?" Corvis said as he looked at the strange black worms. The worms squirmed and thrashed as they tried to dig into the moss they landed on.

"Squib. Come here, there's a situation."

-----------------

With a collective sigh, the group burst into sunlight. A cacophony of noises erupted upon meeting the sun's shine. Many creatures let out their own equivalent of yelps as the sun burned their colorless skin. Against their better judgment, the creatures searched for any sign of their missing companion. Finally, a few of the beasts caught the scent of their quarry. As a unit, the group pushed forward, moving at a speed they all could keep up with.