I was letting Trivelin distract me with tales of the God-Country, the homeland I’d forgotten, where Mana rained from the sky in storms of golden light and the earth was ruled by goliath Primordial Beasts. Of the untamed Shiftlands, where mountains disappeared overnight and forests grew from a single seed in the space of day. Of the lost city of Calainn which had vanished, swallowed up by the changing earth, and of the wide Saravasse Sea, where under the cool green waters you could see the civilizations of merfolk with their conch-shell towers and blue-skinned women.

And of course, stories about the Sapphire Phoenix, which lived in a dungeon that had burrowed itself into the caldera of a volcano and wrapped its core in magma. Stories about the diamonds that fell from the eyes of certain maidens when they cried, and how those maidens had struck a deal with a god to be hidden away from a world that would exploit them.

He had a way of making me almost drool with excitement when he went on about jewels.

In a way, it was a relief to hear about things outside my little sphere of influence. To be reminded that there was a bigger and wilder world. If I let myself sink into myopia I’d forget how powerful the possibilities of being a Dungeon were.

I left him still talking, unaware he had lost his audience. It was a struggle to pull myself away and return to my work.

And there was always work. I had been fed the majority of the Mana from Trivelin’s cohorts into the mangrove trees I’d planted around the breach in my walls, and that was finally bearing fruit. Crooked, thin branches were rising, forming a canopy that would hold in the ethereal cloud of Mana that defined my ‘territory’ and allowed me to manipulate the world. I only needed to tighten the seal.

For that purpose, I’d created a new kind of spider. Unlike the ambush predators lurking above my garden in their opulent little dens, these were web-spinners, patient hunters. Too big to live off flies, they would throw their webs into the waters like nets and drag up juicy fish.

I made six in total, six to start an entire species. They had emerald green carapaces with accents of bright, violent red where the plated segments of their armor met in rough-edged seams, and a pattern of white across their soft underbellies. They would fill the trees with their silk and form walls thick enough to hold in my Mana.

But I also knew this.

They would bring attention.

Mutant creatures were undeniably common, but a whole horde of them? In a mysterious forest that had sprung up nearly overnight?

I was playing with fire.

At the same time, my worst enemies already knew I was here. If I slowed my growth now I would be helpless when they decided to act against me. There was a perilously narrow line to walk and I was determined to walk it.

I needed to draw the right kind of attention.

The trees I had planted were no normal mangroves. Glistening in their branches were round green fruit distorted with bulging veins of gold, heavy with Mana. I knew both were precious to humans. Lured in by the promise of wealth, I hoped they would be so focused on the bounty before them they wouldn’t delve any deeper.

And if a few of them died in the pursuit, so much the better.

Since the fisherman spiders were slow, ponderous creatures, I gave them friends. Small, leaping spiders, as bright as jewels and in all different colors. Venomous as anything. The fisherman could at least defend themselves enough to distract the enemy, while the little ones ambushed them from every angle within the trees. It would be easy enough to pick the fruits on the outer edges of the grove, but venturing deeper would mean wading through waist-high waters, into a darkness where curtains of spiderwebs spanned every gap between the trees, where the branches gave them the chance to leap down from above. In the gloom, phantom enemies would lurk in every shadow.

To add to this, the water itself would be home to my vipers, to my lurking reelfish. Several of my snakes had now reached the dense state of Mana that said they were close to evolution, and pushing them into a more dangerous environment would accelerate the process.

This was something I’d realized. My creatures were slow to level because I had built a foodchain on a base of very ordinary creatures. Common vermin didn’t provide enough Mana to push their predators to the next stage of evolution.

So I had to make some uncommon ones.

After devouring two humans, even pushing most of their Mana into the mangroves to avoid overload, I had plenty to toy with. Altering a little brown-spotted mouse I gave it powerful hindlegs, allowing it to leap incredible distances, almost impossible to catch. A species of lizard from the sewer walls was introduced to the new grove, and, with the expertise I’d earned growing my garden, turned as translucent as glass, rewarding predators sharp-eyed enough to spot it. I even replicated a turtle I’d devoured a few days earlier and poured my remaining Mana into it, thinking of it as a prize for whoever could crack the beast’s reinforced shell and snapping jaws.

My goal was to build a foodchain that would reward many different kinds of creatures, many different paths of evolution.

By the time I had finished, thoroughly my Mana once again, Adamant had returned with Izzis and Argent clinging to his shoulders. With Aurum gone, there was nobody who could bring the prizes we’d won today to my lair, with Adamant too large to squeeze through the tunnels and the other two lacking the skill at swimming to navigate the underwater labyrinth.

Instead, I caused a crude earthen table to rise from the floor for Adamant to set the haul on. Two sparkling diamonds, the garnet statuette, and the knowledge that whatever Olin Frampt was up to, he was hiding it from his compatriots.

It was the statue that excited me most. While the actual gemstones used were of crude, flawed quality, it was so charged that it warped the flow of Mana nearby. By my count, the equivalent of twenty or more points of Mana had been imbued into the cloudy red stone.

Which meant my Mana flow had just improved by double. Turning my focus inwards, I confirmed it.

I could've shouted with joy. Not only was my biggest weakness, my low Mana income, partway to being solved, but I had learned something; the statuette contained far more Mana than I could have invested into such low quality gemstones. Which meant a superior method to mine existed.

And to top it all of, I was on the cusp of levelling once more. I still didn’t understand what Anima, Logos, and Arcana were, or how to raise them, but it was enough that I was nearing my fourth Attunement. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d been hoping that with the fifth I could select one of the higher ranked Attunements, the ones that were presently barred to me.

I knew which one I’d choose, too.

Turning back to the statuette, I examined it closely. The Mana within was intricately designed. Within the ruddy stone a set of runic diagrams turned constantly, interlocked so each rotated through the next like meshed gears. It was an art I couldn’t even begin to decipher from the outside.

For that matter, I had no idea what the statuette’s purpose was.

Reluctantly, I moved on to the diamonds. I had already settled on making them into Shards, to deputize more of my creations and expand the web of information I was able to trawl through Olin Frampt’s dealings.

His ‘experiments’ had been mentioned, and that made me fear for Aurum. Cautiously, afraid of what might happen, I reached out and tried to Name a simple viper.

A wave of dizziness washed over me, the feedback from attempting to exceed my limit of two Names. I was deeply glad even as the initial haziness gave way to a splitting mental pain. Glad, because it meant that somewhere out there Aurum was still alive.

Today, I’d learned plenty about Olin Frampt - that he needed skygrist, that he had dealings with the prince of the silent market, that there was distrust between them. It was the start of understanding what he was up to.

At the same time, the clock was ticking. Always, in the back of my mind, I was worried for my snake, for my noble and quiet friend.

I dismissed my creations to rest, but Argent simply turned back, scuttling up the tunnels and towards the surface to return to her vigil over the Institute.

She missed her brother.

I did too.