Cipiteca396

I accidentally exited out of the tab without getting a chance to save...

I had a general idea of the strategies I wanted to employ against these invaders. Reading through the forums gave me more concrete ideas, and even surprised me with things I wouldn't have considered otherwise.

On the other hand, the magic threads made me think I might have had a talent for magic. So far, nobody who was posting mentioned being able to cast without the Interface, despite multiple attempts. Of course, just because I'd managed it once didn't mean I could explain it to others... The best I could do was say that it was sort of like a deep breathing exercise, and to suggest using the Gentle Clean spell or a spell that was even less complicated.

There were no real responses to my post about Nyx's answers yet, so I focused on my short term goals. Ah, those would be: carve out floor space with a minimum CP expense; examine the evolution menu; find and start creating combat capable creatures; discover how to get the most out of my 'Blessings of the Night'; and raise my CP regeneration.

The first one I already had an answer for - the Tunneling ability. Supposedly, creatures with this skill had special talents for digging. More so than just teaching them the Excavate spell, though that was still an option. Most of the forum users were caught up on sapient creatures like Kobolds and Dwarves. Likely because those creatures could be used as a fighting force as well. However, I wanted to use another suggestion I read...

No, not the ants. Actually, the Rockworms seemed like a solid creature to use. The person who suggested them talked them down in comparison to the ants, but they failed to mention one thing. The Rockworms, and their subraces, were listed as asexual. Not the LGBT type, but like, they literally repop without a partner. So you could create one and eventually have dozens of them. The only question was which one would be the best candidate.

Now, I could have sat down and carefully read through their stats and repop rates and made a considered decision. But really, the most expensive one was 24 CP and there were only six types... So I just decided to make one of each.

The Common Rockworm was about a meter long and... kind of cute? As a bonus, one CP was enough to create two of them. They were sort of like earthworms wearing granite sleeves. They had small marble-colored orbs embedded in their heads, just above the mouth. Toothless, thank - umm... Nyx? Anyways, the first weaved its head around at me curiously but otherwise stayed put, while the other just curled up patiently, like they were waiting for orders. Which made me realize that this could have gone very poorly.

I picked up the critters(they hung limply from my hands like a cat would) and walked over to the other room I made. I looked around curiously for a moment, but the place was just a stone cube with a single entryway, identical to the other except for the lack of furnishings. I set the Rockworms down, and then wondered how to give them orders. It would be nice if they could start digging and repop already.

No sooner had I thought it than the first worm turned with a gleeful little gurgling sound, and the orb on its head glowed as it burrowed into the stone. The other followed silently. Never to be seen again, question mark? Maybe I should have specified to come back when they were ready to repop. How was I supposed to know they would just read my mind or whatever?

I shook my head and created the next variant. The Greater Rockworm was... Greater. By about 9 meters. Holy crap I'm glad I moved into the other room for this. At six CP I was kind of expecting it to be two or three meters at most. Somehow the thing was curled up around itself when it spawned, so no clipping through the walls or whatever. It raised its giant, faceless head towards me and quietly waited. A single long, barbed tongue lolled out of its mouth. SO not cute.

I thought about it digging and laying eggs in this room, and it soundlessly turned its head towards the ground. The time it took to fully submerge itself was far longer than for the Common Rockworms, but I'm sure it consumed far more stone in the effort. I walked up to the huge hole it left behind and realized I was going to have to make sure they didn't dig completely at random or I would end up causing a cave in.

The next one was called an Oreworm. According to the description, it was actually worse at tunneling and double the price of the Greater Rockworm. But the neat thing about them was that, instead of just eating the stone, they would turn it into metal ore first. Hopefully I could use it to make weapons and armor later on. Or just sell it to someone else on the Global Market.

The creature itself was about 3 meters long, and instead of dull grey stone its armor shined a resplendent green with glossy black streaks in it. I ordered it to expand this room without touching my Core room, and it slowly began converting the stone into ore and slurping it up. Considering its size, the rate of conversion was about the same as the Common Rockworms, so it definitely wouldn't be my main tunneller.

I walked to the far side of the room and created an Elemental Rockworm. At fifteen CP, this one was nearly the same size as the Greater Rockworm, but it had a completely different vibe to it. Like the Oreworm, its armor wasn't plain stone, but instead it was a shining pale gold material that reminded me of the gems in the other worms' heads. The gem in this one's head was the same size as the Greater Rockworm's, but it glowed an odd greenish gold color. It turned to stare at me, and I could almost feel a sort of dumb joy emanating from it. It reminded me of a golden retriever?

I shook off that thought and instructed it to create another room on the far side of my Core room from this room. I didn't have a plan for that room, but it was better to be specific, I decided. The creature turned and made its way to the wall, before transmuting almost a third of the wall into mud and burrowing through quickly. Uh... Yeah. Definitely a contender for main tunneller. 

The next variant was... No wait. This Hellworm thing didn't sound like the others at all. Sure it burrowed through stone, but it did so by heating it with magma attuned mana. Worse, the description specifically mentioned a 'malicious nature'. For twenty CP, maybe it was a valid combat unit, but... maybe not my style.

The last was... Even worse. Abyssal Crawler. It didn't even have the Tunneling ability. It apparently just swam through the darkness in the stone eating shadow mana or something. Not my style, and completely not what I wanted. So, that was probably the end of the Rockworm line of creatures as far as I was concerned.

I had... Thirty-one CP left after all that. My max had gone up to sixty five at some point... Well, whatever. I went back to my computer and checked for new forum posts while I thought about how to get an elemental catalyst for my worms. That thought faded as I remembered the next thing on my list. The forum post the catgirl started was rather promising, especially because of the so called 'Refinement' pattern.

According to the posters, patterns were large scale changes to the creature that altered them at a fundamental level. Genetic engineering, I guess? The Refinement pattern was special, since it was a one time deal that would turn the user into a more ideal version of themselves. Physically, at least. It seemed like it only worked on things the database considered a flaw, and personalities weren't considered at all.

Honestly, it was rather exciting. Time to get to it, then?

Cipiteca396

There's still time to vote for the weird, unexplained poll on the last chapter. Funnily enough, I set it to be unviewable without voting, and I refuse to vote on it since I don't want to affect the results. So I can't actually tell which one's winning, lol.