The clearer the energy, the better, as it showed high refinement and low corruption. When it was poorly processed, it would look more like the Essence it came from. While Craig's memory of his center, which came along from the memory stone, looked quite clear with only a tinge of coloration showing his affinity, Dale’s looked like a mixture of mud and feces. Cesspool of a Core indeed.
“Oh my.” Dale nearly gagged and tried to start the Chi spiral like he was supposed to, but the thick Essence in his center only bubbled and moved like mucus, refusing to do more than ooze in a circle. “What actually is this corruption?”
Craig was watching him, and nodded when he saw him try to move the corrupted Essence. “Good question. Listen up, I’ll only explain this now, and never again. Corruption is a side effect of the energy of the heavens and the earth being turned into the universal basic elements. Everything begins as purest energy, but the world creates things out of it, yes?”
Dale nodded. “So, rocks and stuff?”
“Pretty much. To do this, the item is formed, but then it's ‘identity’ seeps into the pure Essence, corrupting it. A rock, which at its basic form is this stored energy, adds it's ‘identity’ to the energy, which then becomes earthen Essence. Essence joins together in complex ways, to form combinations which form what we call higher Essences. Fire and water to form steam, water and earth to plant, and so forth. Those lucky enough to gain affinities in multiple elements can become higher level cultivators very quickly, if they have access to all of the elements they need. For instance, fire, water, and earth form a ‘soot’ affinity. The combinations are endless, allowing for any kind of material, or even life.” Craig lectured briefly. “Essence is endless, and the more of each type of basic Essence in an area, the more Essence is generated. If you somehow got all of them to coexist together, you would have a very powerful Essence generator.”
“Your job now is to try to purify all the Essence you can accumulate back to its cleanest state, within your center. Now you understand? Any more questions? No? Good. We’re going to take care the mess you have right now, don’t worry. After that, it is up to you, and your hard work.” Craig finished, ignoring the fact that Dale actually was trying to ask more questions.
They began their descent into the darkness below.
~Twelve~
<People are on the stairs, Dani. Get ready for an incursion! This is gonna be awe-soome.> I nearly sang, enthusiasm dancing in my mental voice.
The group approached my entrance, moved into formation and started their workday. Now that I had semi-intelligent creatures under my influence, I could move into my Mobs’ minds and directly control their movement. I was only good enough at this to do it one at a time, but was assured (by Dani of course) that with practice I could control a squad of monsters at the same time. The rabbits were hidden in the thick vegetation, so the room had no significant difference from the original mushroom-Mob appearance. This would be fun!
The men walked in and began slashing at the Shroomishes, quickly targeting the ranged Banes. When their attention was focused on a particularly thick grouping of mushrooms, I sent <Attack!> into the minds of the hidden rabbits. Taking direct control of the largest, I launched my new body at the back of someone's knee. A direct hit in the tender pressure point, and the man fell. The attacks on the other humans had varying degrees of success, with a few landing decent hits against legs, some bouncing off armor, and one even being knocked away by a shield that moved when the guy wasn’t even looking! He must be really aware of his surroundings.
The dozens of rabbits were almost entirely silent, but when they hit armor it sounded like metal being beaten, or as Dani told me, a ‘gong’ or hail falling on tin. The man who had fallen was being pummeled, but his thick armor allowed him to quickly regain his footing. One man stepped on a spike filled shroom, which had to hurt as he twisted his ankle, but even the underside of his boot was armored enough to stop the spike from entering his flesh.
The men had been taken by surprise, but were an efficient team and quickly turned the tides against me. A sword dropped down, slaying some Bashers, but most of my creatures were nimble enough to avoid it. A few of the fighters used weapons that required less skill, such as a staff, while another struck with his fists, and these quickly decimated my ranks. Sounding a retreat, I directed the Bashers into a bolt hole which made it impossible to attack them without magic.
“Did they just run away? I’ve never seen Mobs run away before.” One of the men sounded suspicious of my motives. Good.
An answering grunt came in reply, then resolved into words, “Ugh. Just keep an eye out, we don’t want to be ambushed again. These aren’t magical Beasts, right? Just weird looking mutated rabbits?”
“Looks that way.” A few answering grunts showed the other’s agreement.
They moved further in, ignoring the other plants. Entering my first tunnel, I really wanted to hit them from behind, but they were too wary. I didn’t want to lose more creatures, though I captured the energy they released upon death, which was enough for me to bring a new one back to roughly the same stage of life. If I made them young instead and let them grow unaided at an accelerated rate, I gained much more Essence than I had invested in their progenitors, actually a nice way to gain Essence quickly.
Skillfully avoiding traps, the group rested just before entering my second room. When they had finished catching their breath, and with looks of determination, they moved to attack the denizens of the second room. A similar situation developed, and by the time they had killed half of the prolific Bashers, their legs had to be in great pain. Take that! Minor inconveniences! Even with the armor, each hit was as strong as a decent mace blow landing, and must have been doing some damage. The only one I couldn’t seem to hit was wearing almost no armor whatsoever, just some kind of cloth, and I was nervous that he would be casting spells soon.
Sounding the retreat once more, I watched as they inspected the loot I dropped for each death, usually just a couple copper, but if they managed to take out the one I was inhabiting I gave them a bit extra. Nothing major, usually extra coins or a boot if I felt I could get away with it. So far they had found three left boots. Maybe I am evil.
I really was getting frustrated. Why did I have such high level groups? I studied them as they entered the next tunnel, and could see that most of them were C-ranked, but the one with the shield was F-ranked! I decided to focus on him as my most likely meal.
When they entered the third room, I waited until they had cleared about half the room before the Bashers attacked, and I had most of them charge at the shielded one. Right before they jumped, a Bane hiding on the ceiling fired a thorn directly at his head, and he blocked it! This did open him up for attack from the Bashers, and sensing victory they pounced as hard as they could, pummeling his shiny armor from multiple sides.
He dropped to the ground! Redoubling their efforts, they slammed against him, trying to crack his metal shell. He weakly counterattacked, but the Bashers easily dodged. They continued throwing themselves at him, then I realized I was down to only two in the room. I had gotten too focused and forgot to retreat, dang it. The group finished the remaining two off, and tried to gather their collective breaths.
“What the hell?” Gasped the one I had been beating on.
“They must have decided you were the weak link and gone for the kill. They seemed to frenzy a bit there, none of em ran this time.” The unarmored one verbalized. “You ok to continue?”