Every time they stopped and peeked back, Stone copied them, trying to blend into the surroundings. Needless to say that he was very successful at that.

Shortly, they arrived at a massive cavern. A massive gate sculpted from the white marble towered before them, illuminated by two balls of white light on the matching pedestals. Before the gate was a platform with a small stairs.

The dwarfs came to a stop before the gate, saying something again. They searched around, sometimes outside, sometimes inside Stone’s sphere. After a few minutes, they again gathered before the gates.

Meanwhile, Stone ignored them, admiring the beautiful white stone. Yes, he understood it was sculpted; that meant, someone had broken the stone. Nevertheless, the exquisite shapes hypnotized him entirely. It was even more beautiful than his stone tablet. He even forgot the feeling of Partner not answering his calls.

“Maybe not all breakers of stone are bad,” Stone uttered with his high-pitched voice.

The dwarfs froze and searched for Stone. While they were searching, one of them went over a tile with a rune on it. He squatted and studied it for a moment. He shouted something and the two dwarfs walked to the remaining runes.

Four runes glowed in four primary elemental colours. Stone was already on the brown earth rune, so the Dwarves, after many loud noises, stood to their own tiles; Breadbeard on red fire rune, Eriv on translucent air, and Dafur on light blue water.

The marble gate began to slowly open.

Stone watched as the rune under him lighted up and the gate opened. He put on a stony face that could mean something like a frown and ordered ants to leave the tile engraved with a rune.

The gate started to close. He ordered the ants to return and the gate opened.

"Hehe," he mischievously chuckled and did it a few times, hypnotized by the moving exquisitely sculpted gate.

However, he noticed something strange; many of the ants suddenly died, collapsing on the ground. Even he himself did not feel too good. He realized, he remembered the sensation. "Lifeforce," he willed it, and with a soft 'thud' the tablet appeared.

It was quite confusing as he did not understand why he was damaged even though there was no battle but decided to stop playing and let the gate fully open.

Something clicked and the runes stopped glowing. The gate opened permanently.

Stone listened to their conversation with interest and slowly stalked them by the noise.

Dafur was confused at first. He discerned that greed had taken over him. He focused on the innate greed, so common in the dwarven race, and subdued it.

"Why woulda the gate act like that?" Eriv asked, bewildered. Dafur surveyed around and saw the pebble surrounded by ants' corpses.

"Did it move?" Dafur murmured under his beard.

"What was that?" Eriv turned to him.

"Nothin'," he replied, still peering at the pebble. Something was strange, however, he could not say what. He put it behind and instead said, "wait here. I'll check the room for traps."

"Nae! We're goin together this time, assprentice," Breadbeard proclaimed with a greedy shimmer in his eyes.

"Yar funeral," Dafur shrugged but still advanced inside first.

They slowly walked towards the tomb, gold, jewels, and marble were surrounding them, showing the . Dafur examined around the black coffin, but there were no writings nor runes. While he wanted to examine the surroundings more in detail to be extra careful, Breadbeard impatiently pushed the lid to the ground.

A heavy thud echoed as it fell to the ground. They slowly gazed at the exposed insides.

It was empty.

"Are ya insane?!" Dafur shouted at him.

"Nothin' inside…" Breadbeard was visibly disappointed. Still, soon enough, his eyes regained the greedy glint as he ogled the ‘ornamental’ treasure around. "The gems and gold are plenty! Too bad we don't have some bags…" he said pensively. After a moment an idea came to him, "Oh! Eriv, get naked! We’ll use dur clothes as bags! Ya too, Dafur!" Breadbeard excitedly undressed first. "Not only have I found a fuckin mana crystals deposit and not caught blight. I even found such a treasure!" He madly laughed, not grasping how he was acting.

"Breadbeard? Are ya fine?" Eriv glanced at him, eyes filled with worry.

Meanwhile, as Dafur carefully sought for traps in the room, he found a stairway leading upward.

"Found a way out!" Dafur shouted, but nobody replied to him. He rapidly turned as he heard gasps. Eriv was retreating backwards from the naked Breadbeard. The manic dwarf held a small, glowing-red mana crystal in his hand.

"Oh! Fuck! Eriv run! He's blighted!" Dafur’s fears fulfilled. Unfortunately, he did not have time to ponder over it as Eriv dropped to her knees and sobbed while repeatedly muttering, "not again, not again."

"Dornus dammit!" Dafur swore. He attempted to conjure his last rune, constructed for disabling opponents. The mana gathered to the shape of a rune with dust surrounding it, but in the middle of materializing, it fizzled. He quickly glanced at his status screen and saw his mana reserves gone.

"Dornus fuckin' dammit!" He cursed again and leapt towards Breadbeard, who was nearing the still sobbing Eriv. However, as an apprentice and town-boy, Breadbeard easily picked him up and threw him away. Dafur flew into the black marble casket and hit his head on the edge, losing consciousness. A pool of blood flowing from the wound slowly gathered under him.

Breadbeard turned to Eriv and said to her with insanity in eyes, "come on, Eriv! We're rich! Get naked! Take everythin!" He tore her clothes off without a speck of resistance and collected every single gem he could find, including the tiles with golden runes.

"Come on! Move yar cute ass!" Breadbeard grabbed Eriv’s arm, pulling her up. Eriv looked at him with teary eyes. The trauma from three years ago washed over her again and she meekly listened to the insane Breadbeard.

Eriv glanced over her shoulder at the still Dafur with blood flowing out of his head. "Poor boy. I liked him…", she silently sobbed and followed the erratic Breadbeard. As Eriv walked behind him with the makeshift bags on her back, she recognized a handful of crystals in his greaves.

"Loud!" A high-pitched voice echoed after they left, but he could hear the Breadbeard's gruff 'singing'. He wished to have ears so he could plug them. "Loud, stupid meatbags… Always hurting and taking stone away," he thought to himself. He would love to punish them, but he knew they could easily destroy him. "I will punish them later…" He inwardly nodded.

The dwarfs left while making very loud noises. Stone decided that it wasn't worth follow them and only audibly protested with "Loud!".

He became interested in the last dwarf who stayed behind, slumped in the strange casket. He made the ants to push him up, but they lacked the numbers.

He got a new idea! He felt proud of himself, which was quite a new strange feeling for him and as he revelled in it... He forgot what he wanted to do.

So, he pondered hard for a few minutes again. Soon another idea came to him; he created a pillar of mana under himself. He began materializing it and made the ants to stand near him on the small platform. He pumped mana through <Ambient Mana Refinement> into it and inflated it up until he was on the same level as the casket’s edge.

The mana pillar flickered and some ants dropped down. When Stone saw that they could scale it up by themselves, he put on his classical stony face that could mean pouting.

Meanwhile, the pillar slowly cracked. He quickly ordered the ants to push him down the casket. They picked him up again and sat him on the dwarf's chest.

Stone notice blood pouring out of the dwarf’s head with his sphere.

"Hmm, that is not right. Blood should stay inside, if I remember Partner's lectures correctly," Stone mumbled and created a thin mana cover over the dwarf's wound.

"Better?" he asked as he watched the blood stop leaking, but the dwarf was still not moving.

"… " Stone patiently waited for a few hours. A day. Two days…

While waiting, he wanted to heal, but there was no talc to use. Even ants could not find the need material. So he sat there, thinking about what happened these last few days.

Stone finally processed his loneliness after Partner went to sleep and decided that it was not for him; the anger, loneliness, happiness… all of those loud emotions that screamed in his mind. He did not like them and slowly mastered how to ignore them.

He felt like a proper stone yet again.

"This feels right," he internally nodded to himself. Still, one persistent feeling still annoyed him; the need to help the Partner. He did not know how, but he would ask the dwarf. The peace he felt put him back in his memories when he was a stupid pebble near the anthill. That made him remember Queen Ant, which irritated him. So he focused again and the bad feelings went away once more.

The third day, when Stone was still sitting there, thinking his stony thoughts, the dwarf finally stirred.

"Hey!" Stone greeted him.

Dafur's eyes twitched and slowly opened. He was incredibly thirsty, hungry, and had a headache stronger than after drinking Dwarven Fire-gland Brandy, fabled for its ability to intoxicate even young wyverns. He tried to move, but could not and panicked, fearing he was paralyzed.

"Hey!" His hazy thoughts and swirling emotions were disrupted by a high-pitched voice.

He squinted his eyes as he scrutinized the surroundings. He noticed a familiar smooth, white stone on his chest surrounded by ants.

"…"

"… huh…," Dafur's eyes gradually focused on the pebble.

"…"

"Hello!" Stone said again per Partner's lectures about greetings.

Dafur blinked a few times, his face blank. First, he thought it was the ants' Queen, but the voice came from the stone.

"Talkin stone… ah, deep craziness. I caught the deep craziness!"

"What is deep craziness?"

"…" Dafur disregarded him and stirred again. This time his arms and legs twitched and he sighed, relieved.

"I am Stone," Stone introduced himself. He did not know why the dwarf was doing what he was doing, but the loud, intrusive feelings found their way back into his mind again. He really missed Partner. He resented being lonely. "What a strange thing for a stone," flashed through his mind.

"Ya. I'm as crazy as Breadbeard."

"I am Stone! And I saved your life."

"… Saved mae life… uhuh. Talkin' piece of rock tells mea it saved mae life."

"… Yes?" Stone was confused. Why was the stupid dwarf stating already established facts?

"Hahahahehehaha! Cough, cough!" Dafur laughed loudly, making him cough.

"Loud," Stone complained but was ignored.

"Hehe, and how did ya saved mae life?" Dafur still laughs at this absurdity.

"Blood poured out of your head. I put a cover out of mana over it."

"Talkin' pebble who saved mae life can use mana… Hahahah! Now tell mea that ya have joined Universum!" Dafur laughed even more maniacally while he occasionally coughed.

"Loud! I don't like loud," if Stone could, he would frown, annoyed.

"… Hahahahaha!" That put Dafur over the edge and he began to hysterically laugh. Even tears were coming from his eyes.

"LOUD!" Stone got irritated over this idiotic, loud dwarf and created a <Mana Bubble> from refined mana into the hole from where the noises came from.

"HMP!" Dafur eyes bulged at the bubble of refined mana and very quickly calmed himself down. Well, when someone put something that could explode in your mouth, the instinct would kind of kick in.

"Aaaah, better. Yes, I joined Universum. At least that was the loud voice said. Partner was happy."

"Partner? Don't tell me… and that refined mana!" Dafur recalled the refined mana he saw when he first arrived before those fighting rats and ants. His irises enlarged to the maximum and when the thought settled, he gazed at the pebble in fear and with a hint of reverence.

“I. Hmpf!” ("I'm naet insan'?") Dafur mumbled under his thick beard and the bubble.

"Now, I will remove that bubble. Don't be loud. I genuinely dislike it."

Dafur slowly nodded in agreement. The blueish <Mana Bubble> fizzled into nothingness. However, blues strikes of the refined mana entered the casket.

"That's strange, I did not cancel it," Stone said, slightly curious.

"I'm-" As soon as Dafur started to talk, he was interrupted.

The refined mana spread through the casket and activated golden runes that were not visible before. They slowly lit up, one after another all around the casket’s wall.

Dafur attempted to get out but still couldn't budge.

"We need to get out of here!"

The ancient runes released a flash of golden light, which intensified as it enveloped Dafur's body.

"That's naet a tomb!" Was the last thing that Dafur shouted before losing consciousness again.

A mechanical voice resounds over the hall.

“New specimens added to containment. Refined mana registered. Experiment number 20569 activated."

"Specimen number 1. Race, dwarf. Class, first rank runemaster. Evolution possible. Limits reached."

"Specimen number 2 to 38. Race, ants. Class, none. Evolution impossible."

"Specimen number 39. Race, talc. Class, none. Evolution possible. Limits not reached. Irregularities detected."

"Specimen number 40. Race, unknown... krpc, scrip, chrip," the mechanical voice broke into static.

Meanwhile, Stone and ants were enveloped by the golden light too. He sensed a little bit of pressure, but no pain or discomfort. Stone inspected the flashing messages he was in his little stone journal.

<You are forcefully evolved>
<You did not reach the requirements>

The mechanical voice echoed in the hall, "specimen thirty-nine did not reach limits. Forceful breakthrough needed. Process of forceful limits removal activated."

The golden glow condensed on Stone.

<Hardness increased to 2.999 points>
<Limits are being forcefully broken. Breaking of laws detected. Countermeasures activated>

Something similar to experience flowed into Stone's body from the casket.

<Countermeasures ineffective. Race unknown. Cannot determine the classification of the entity known as Stone. New race being calculated>
<Limits broken>
<New attribute limits raised to 15 points>
<Strength and dexterity unable to raise. Intelligence forcefully raised to 10.>
<New limits imposed>

"Excess energy redirected to specimens 2 to 38. Unable to evolve. Souls compatible with the title of specimen 39," the loud voice stated.

"Loud!" Stone complained yet again. "Why does everyone have to be so loud?"

The ants exploded into chunks, but their small souls remained. Dozens of tentacles of tiny golden runes enveloped and compressed the souls. They turned into streaks of light and entered the Stone.

<New spell is being transferred>

The mechanical voice continued, "needed limits reached in all specimens. Blightification activated."

The golden glow focused on Dafur. He spasmed. His clothes and even his hairs, beard included, disintegrated as an immense amount of mana forced its way into his body through skin and orifices. His eyes shot open and he screamed in pain as he got shorter by 10 centimetres. The golden glow condensed into lines of written celestian language all over his body. They merged with his body and faded.

"Blightification successful in specimens 1. Specimens 39 and 40 are immune."

"Krrch. Kreep. Crak." The mechanical voice broke again and became silent. The golden glow stopped and the whole casket fractured at several places.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

After an unknown amount of time, Partner woke up in an unknown, scary, dark place.

“Aaah, this is a weird feeling,” Partner stated. This was the first time something like this ever happened to him. Sleeping, or fainting, was unprecedented. At least for what he knew about Partners.

He anxiously examined the darkness surrounding him. There was nothing.

He floated around for what could be days… or minutes. He could not tell. “Well, with this pace, I even miss Stone,” he uttered, contemplating the irony of the situation. The idea struck him, “did I die?”.

“Nope. You did not die. But maan, what in the actual hell?! I was waiting for three fuking days until you woke up!” A voice echoed over the space. If Partner could jump, he would fly towards the sky with enough speed to break through the atmosphere.

“KYAAAAH!” He yelled as a Japanese girl watching a horror movie.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“So, have you calmed down?”

“…” Partner’s mind flushed red, “yes.”

“Good.”

“Where am I?”

“Hmm… this is an illusionary space that you and your first host created very long ago deep inside of your soul.”

“I am a Partner. I have no soul.”

“… Shit,” the voice cursed, “you had a soul, now as I look at it. It is ripped to mere scraps. What in the unholy hell happened to you?”

“And who are you?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“No, You.”

“But, I am me.”

“Idiot, my name is You.”

“Oh… my name is Partner.”

“No, it’s not,” the voice dropped the bomb.

“Eh?” A golden radiance coming out of nowhere enveloped Partner.

“It’s L…” The voice began to say, but Partner could not hear the rest as his mind got pulled out of the mindscape.

“WAIT!” Partner cried out, but to no avail. “Gods fucking dammit! STONE!” He screamed the moment he woke up.

"So… I go to sleep a little bit and look WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE, YOU MISERABLE STONE!" Partner cried out the moment he woke up.

"Oh, hello, Partner! I missed you!" Stone did not even protest about ‘loud’ as he was happy about the return of his friend.

“Don’t ‘hello’ me! What. Have. You. Done!” Partner hissed.

“Nothing. I used a little bit of refined mana, there was a kind of strange voice saying something about specimens and my journal went bonkers with messages.”

“I think I missed something here,” Partner mumbles.

“What?”

“… nothing.”

“…”

“What happened after I… fell asleep?” Partner carefully questioned, trying to avoid the word ‘fainted’. “Be ready. Prepare yourself. It will be something insane. Be ready!” Partner internally chanted.

“I have so many questions. When you went asleep, I even felt lonely, you know?”

“Lonely…”

“I followed the dwarfs.”

“Followed dwarfs…”

“They were doing something, but that gate was so beautiful. I decided that not every breaker of stone is bad.”

“Uhuh. Not bad.”

“They acted strangely. Well, they were odd even before, but they acted even weirder.”

“Strange. Odd. Weird. I get it.”

“One of those dwarfs picked up another and threw him inside of this strange bowl.”

“Threw inside…”

“He bled and I remember that one lecture when you said that blood should be inside of the body. So I put mana cover over his wound and it stopped flowing.”

“Yeah. Good Stone,” Partner praised him.

“Yes! I am amazing!”

“What did that strange voice say?” Partner perked up.

“Hmm, something about forceful evolution and breaking through limits. My journal said something about failed countermeasures and for a while, I felt a pressure. I feel like I have more mana now. Oh, and I gained a new spell after ants just exploded and turned all misty and entered inside of me.”

“…” Partner went quiet as his mind struggled to cope with the situation. “I knew it would be something insane. But this… Wait, specimens?” Then another insane thought occurs to him, “how many specimens there were?”

“Hmm… me, the dwarf, the rest of ants, and someone fourth.”

“... Status,” Partner said flatly. Nothing happened. He sighed in relief and a shade of exasperation. Maybe the universe was not demented. Yet.

But then he heard You inside of his mind, “your name is Lucifer!”. It was like something clicked in him. It was like a long, forgotten memory that suddenly emerged.

<Hiiii, it’s me again,> the same cheery voice from before resounds in the mind of Stone and Lucifer, <Holy Cow! What in the…! Hey! Architect! ARCHITECT! Drop that booze and come here. Like right now!>

"Loud!" Stone complained, but as always, everyone ignored him. Maybe they should not.

<What?> A new deep melodious, but vexed voice echoed inside the mind of Stone and Partner.

<Look at that! A freaking Partner got access to the Universum! He is a talent, you know!>

<So? Who cares? They are just mortals,> the deep voice, presumably belonging to the Architect, flatly replied.

<You know, it can have some strange and unprecedented consequences.> The voice went with another approach.

<HEY! Archi, are you coming? Conjurarum doing tricks again!> A brutal, crunchy voice shouted.

<What?! Already?! I am coming!> Architect, the high-god of Laws and Structures, replied hastily, <you do you!> He left, leaving the slightly perturbed Universum to deal with the mess.

<Well… you heard the man. Congrats, the entity, known as Lucifer, has joined Universum! Rejoice and praise the God of Structures and Laws, the mighty Architect!>

“Loud! Still too loud! I don’t like it!” Stone heavily protested during the conversation.

“… What?” Partner was confused, anxious and several new emotions, too complex to be put into words, or even understood by Humans, filled his head.

“I heard what it said.”

“Uhuh. And what it said again?”

“That you joined Universum too. Isn’t that good?”

“…”

After ten minutes of utter silence, which was uncomfortable even for Stone, he asked, “Partner? Oh, you are now Lucifer, right? I will call you Luci.”

“Uhuh,” too much information passed through Lucifer’s mind. In the end, his brain blanked out and restarted like a computer after an update.

“How? Why?! What, in the nine hells, happened!” Partner yelled after some of his thoughts finally settled.

“Luci! Are you sleeping again?” Stone asked with worry. He disliked being alone and those ants did not make good company. They were dead anyway.

“… Status,” Luci silently ordered. With a soft ‘thud’, a similar, translucent tablet, bearing resemblance to the Stone’s one appeared.

“Oh. What a pretty stone tablet,” Stone appreciated his partner’s screen, “even though I like mine more. It’s more full. Has better colours. “

“You can see it,” Luci plainly stated.

“Why must everyone say the obvious facts?”

Luci took an imaginary deep breath. He peeped again at his translucent tablet and dismissed it. “Now, something more you want to say to me?” Luci asked with a calm voice; that kind of voice where you feel a storm approaching.

“Hmm… There was a word blightification, but it seems that we are immune,” Stone’s raised intelligence proved itself as his comprehension of situations was raised to another level. Not only did he grasp that Luci was the fourth specimen, but now he understood more from Luci’s lectures.

“You know, when I was still a young Partner, maybe not a good one, but an honest one, I didn’t go through so much shit,” Luci took an imaginary deep breath, “you wretched piece of shitty STONE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! I WANT TO GO HOME!”, he screamed half-sobbing, half-crazy-laughing. After a good ten minutes of profused cursing, swearing and crying, Lucifer calmed down, “that felt good.”

“Loud!” Stone reflexively said while ignoring the meaning and added, “anyway, the dwarf is up.”

Dafur’s eyes twitched and he rapidly sat up. Which, he realized, was a grave mistake as his head throbbed like if he drank the whole stockpile of Royal Brandy. He slumped down again in regret. Dafur distantly noted that he was entirely naked and recalled what happened; a talking stone, the mechanical voice, many messages in his journal and some golden light enveloping him. However, what horrified him the most was that his trimmed beard was entirely gone!

“MAE BEEEAAAAARD!” He cried out and tears freely flowed from his red eyes. The blight was always painful and detrimental. In one way or another.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Encyclopaedia Stonia

Eternal Party
After Woo left for his lovely holidays, The Core is taken care of, and everything runs almost on autopilot, Gods and gods decided to throw a party. A colossal one. As they are all-powerful and immortal, with full control over time and space, you could imagine the sheer magnitude.

Dwarven beard
It’s their pride. There were long wars about how to trim them, if at all, and in which shape and how big ponytails should be… There are three loves of dwarfs for females and males alike—beer, freedom, and beard.

the Dwarves' most loved ones are allowed to touch it (their beer, their beard nor their freedom).

So, never touch it if you don’t want to be pulverized to dust and used as a coating on a craphouse. You have been warned!

Runemaster
Dwarven class and their biggest secret. We will talk about history later as it's quite long and arduous. The single thing I will say for now; Dwarfs can use mana, but a long time ago, a first dwarf angered @#Hidden#@, and the whole race was forever forbidden to use spells.

Due to their tenacious nature, they created this class to spit on the Universum and… Anyway, runes are considered a skill by Universum. Luckily they can live as long as wizards through the ability to refine mana.

1-3 rank are apprentices tiers. To reach each stage, they must construct a certain amount of mind runes and be able to conjure them with mana, respectively 3, 9, and 27. Each rune represents some kind of element or their simplest combinations. These 27 runes also make up their alphabet.

4-6 rank are inaugurated runemasters. To reach that rank, they need to create words from those runes. Respectively 1, 3, and 5 words. Each word combines previous elements and can be very taxing for mana, mind, soul, and resources to create. It needs many years of experimenting. There are many hidden traps in these attempts, as every apprentice and runemaster needs to find their own style and combinations. Asking for a master’s words is considered taboo. A very few of them passed their legacies, mostly to direct disciples who have their complete trust. From 4th rank are also able to refine a miniscule amount of mana and store it. Of course, it's incredibly difficult, and any tool that can help them do it is considered a priceless treasure. Many guilds were annihilated in battles over these artefacts.

There is one rank 7 runemaster living on the whole Nameless continent and is considered a once-time genius. He goes by the title ‘Illustrious Runemaster’. Very little is known about him, but every dwarf considers him as protector of their race and reveres him. The only thing he told about reaching this rank is that runemasters need to combine words into sentences. Many tried and failed miserably, often creating terrifying consequences for surroundings.

Rank 8 and 9 are mysteries. Only one dwarf is known to ever reach these heights but about him another time.