“Now! Do it now!” Craig shouted. For a brief, shining moment, the pain abated again, as the gem looked for a new source of Essence to fill itself. Dale knew this relief was a lie, and began cultivating. Having never done it intentionally before, but knowing how, the energy stalled a bit but started to flow into him. The Core, which had almost latched onto its host's life energy, found a new and easily accessible meal. Returning the pull back to Dale’s center, where the Essence was beginning to accumulate, it was nearly drinking this fresh source when Dale’s body began to shudder from well-placed blows.
“Bleaeghght!” The huge amount of water ingested previously happily made a reappearance, cheerfully splattering across anyone who didn't move fast enough. Some well-digested jerky found a new home, and after a few waves finally a small gem appeared.
To those present, it was obvious that energy was trying to reach back into Dale from the gem, trying to re-establish the connection it had momentarily lost. Using the steel-shod end of a staff, one of the men crushed the gem, releasing a flash of brown light. Turning to look at Dale, the group waited as he scrambled to absorb Essence properly. Craig watched him carefully, nodding at the tiny spiral that was forming. He corrected Dale gently a few times, allowing the energy to be as pure as Dale could make it.
“This is as easy as it is going to get, Dale.” Craig promised him. “For some reason, the Essence in here has no affinity. You can pull the Essence from all around you, and it is nearly free of any taint. Personally I love it here, Mobs and all.” The other men nodded agreement, all settling in to cultivate. “We can only stay so long though, eventually the Essence in the air will lessen and we will need to leave in order for it to replenish. Once out of here, your spiral will be pure, but you will need to continue to cultivate. Make the threads as small as possible, and remember to purify it as much as possible before you absorb it.”
Dale was still pale, bruises showing and his body shaking. Never before had he been this tired, and he wanted to collapse. As he pulled more Essence into himself, he remembered how foul his center had been before, and vowed to have the purest Essence of any of his fellows.
Time passed as it always does, and the room's ambient Essence began to wane. Dale still pulled in more, until Craig gently made him stand and don his armor. “Remember to keep that spiral going. Soon it’ll continue even in your sleep, and become natural to you. Grab your weapon, we don’t know how many Mobs we are going to have to fight to get out of here.”
~Thirteen~
I was stunned at the actions of these men. Was this a normal occurrence? When they crushed the Beast Core, it released all of the man's accumulated Essence into me. I greedily took the gift, shunting the corruption into the stone around the room, making it stronger. Though the young man, who I now recognized as the one who had first escaped me, had taken off his armor, it never moved far enough away from the group to allow me to absorb it. Too bad, but what can you do?
The real shock came when the group sat and began to cultivate. I was carefully watching for any chance to attack them, when their auras allowed me to pass through for the first time ever! While they refined their Essence, I was able to direct some of it to myself. Not having to refine it on my own allowed me to add it directly to my own spiral. I was still considering the implications when the group stood and made their way to the entrance. In the last few hours, my spiral had significantly increased in size, which allowed it to spin much faster. When it spun faster, the fine threads also attached to my Chi spiral more rapidly. The stronger I became, the easier it was to gain Essence more quickly.
Also, as an added bonus there was a small pool of acid that I was able to study. It seemed like very strong acid, and as I absorbed it, it became apparent that the sulphuric acid could become a potent weapon if used properly. I also studied the broken Beast Core, and realized that it had a similar makeup to my own gem.
<Dani, am I a Beast Core?> I seemed to catch her off guard, and she scrambled for an answer.
“Mm, kind of. Sorry, I thought we went over this earlier. You were originally a soul gem, which is a Beast Core that has undergone strong refinement. It is pretty rare because it takes at a minimum a Mage with infernal capabilities to produce, and I’ve never heard of them using it for human souls, before you.” Dani expressed thoughtfully. “Most infernal users have to go into hiding if they want to get stronger, as most places frown upon demon summoning and Necromancy.”
<Can’t imagine why.> I dryly stated. <I think I can replicate the Beast Core, would that be at all useful?>
She perked up at this statement, “Seriously? Yeah that could come in really handy. You could use them to store excess Essence in, like really weak Mana accumulators, which could help you if you are getting too much at once to absorb.”
She gleefully continued, “Also, you could try and attach them to your Mobs. A Beast Core in a creature allows them to jump to the first level of sentience when they accumulate enough Essence, and have a Chi spiral. Then, your Mobs could become stronger than you, while you retain control of them. Since you gave it life, even if the Mob died, you would be able to re-absorb the energy contained in the Core, and re-make the Beast with the exact same ranking and spiral!”
<That sounds amazing! I’m going to see if I can make this work with their patterns!> I started trying to attach the pattern of the Core to my creatures. Sadly, no matter how much I tried, I couldn't merge them. Disappointed, I told Dani the news.
“Well, we will just need to make stronger monsters then, won’t we?” She pronounced, full of determination.
<I think we need to revamp the entire structure soon. The traps aren’t working, and I don’t have enough chances to attack. I’m thinking of adding more tunnels that go to dead ends, hopefully literally, and a couple rooms that have no monsters in them to make people nervous and slow down.> I’m becoming better at subtle puns.
“That’s a great idea! How are you doing on energy right now?” Dani queried, I am fairly certain she didn’t catch the ‘dead end’ pun or I’m sure she would be laughing right now.
<I’m about half full, but with the Chi spiral that is a lot more Essence than I’ve had at one time before. Oh, and something odd happened earlier. When those guys started cultivating, I was able to take a bit of the loose energy for myself, is that normal?> I wanted her to say ‘no, you are super amazing and special’ but...
“I… think so? That is one of the reasons you let the air get dense with the extra unrefined Essence, instead of focusing it all on a task, I believe. We are approaching the end of my knowledge of dungeon habits though. It should have taken you near fifty years to get to this point!” She stated almost accusingly.
<You’re welcome.> I replied haughtily. <What, you wanted to be saddled with a moron for fifty years? I think not!>
“Ha! He called my bluff.” Dani chortled ruefully, “What do you want to do first? Make the Beast Cores, or should I say Essence accumulators? Or, would you like to rearrange first?”
<What do you think? The moving and building is going to take a lot of energy, should I try to make the accumulators first?>
“Hm. When you put it like that, it does seem like the obvious choice.” She mused. “I think that may be a good idea.”
I decided with her where to put them, luckily they were small enough that it didn’t take a lot of space. I made three to start with, equidistant from me and each other, in a triangle around me, but below the stone of the hill I had made. I didn’t want people getting greedy, after all - that was my job. I settled in for the quickly approaching night, respawning my Mobs and increasing my influence. I decided that I would not make the changes incrementally, I would do them in one quick event when I was ready. Soon, people would get complacent with my setup, and I hoped the transition would deliver some much needed power to me.