<What happened?> I prodded her. That was a bad idea, she woke up angry.
“You nearly killed us both is what happened!!” Her glow flashing to a deep crimson with fury. “You altered your basic structure until completion - without even stopping to recover! I had to close our connection just to stop from draining the last bits of Essence from you and nearly starved to death myself before you gained enough energy for me to safely take some! Do you have any idea how horrible of a death dying from lack of Essence is?!”
I tried to defend my actions, <But I was only doing what you told me to do?>
“I told you not to rush!” Her anger fading, her body slowly returned to her regular coloration. “Are you ok? Did you hurt yourself?”
<I’m fine.> I cautiously stated. <Hungry but fine.> I amended.
“Good.” She blew out a breath. “Cal, you really need to have some self-preservation skills.”
<I’ll do better. I’m sorry.> I was ashamed.
“Don’t be sorry, be smart! If you die, so do I! We need you to be the smartest dungeon that exists, because we need each other!” She exploded, obviously still mad for some reason.
<I said I am sorry. I’ll do better!> I promised her vigorously.
“Good. You’d better. Well, let’s take a look at you.” She flew closer to me examining me for any flaw or defect. After a short time, she pronounced her assessment, “Cal you are the most perfect diamond I have ever seen.”
<I’m not a diamond. I’m a dungeon Core.> I reminded her. Was she still groggy from sleep?
“Well, you look like a flawless diamond. When you get full of energy, it’ll be nearly impossible to break you I bet.” Her abrupt reversal of attitude threw me off, but her words were really nice. A pink glow joined my normal blue as I “blushed” from her praise. Interesting, it seemed my emotions can alter my coloration for a moment or two.
<You think I did a good job?> I tried for another compliment.
She granted my desire, “A very good job.” Then my new favorite thing to hear, “Well, let’s get some food shall we?”
<I would love to, but I think I took everything I could from the moss over there, it started dying.> I felt a bit embarrassed about killing off my only good source of food.
She examined the withered moss and nodded, “True, but why didn’t you finish the rest of it off?”
She never ceased to surprise me. <Then I wouldn't be able to get more from it when it recovered.> I explained carefully.
“Well! I thought you were just a glutton, but you keep throwing me for a loop!” She flew to me and tested the energy flows I was emitting. “I think I was wrong earlier, you must have been a G-rank three Core, just with so many flaws your energy came out scattered and weak. You have the cultivation base of a G-rank four now, and this allows you to have forethought. It’s ok Cal, try and finish off the moss there and take in its life energy. It is the remaining cultivation base of the moss, the densest concentration, so it will give slightly more energy than it does normally.”
<But then the moss will be gone.> I forlornly reminded her.
“We will grow more, just eat it already.” Yikes! I didn’t want to make her angry again.
<Ok then.> I waited a moment. <Be nicer.> I grumbled at Dani, then I started pulling in the Essence, this time watching what happened to the moss. As I took more energy, it started wilting and becoming desiccated, like it had gone too long without water. I could tell the moment each strand died, as I was assaulted with a burst of condensed Essence each time it happened. As each strand died I grew more satiated, but when the last bit had crumbled I was still not even a quarter full, and this was before I purified it and got rid of the waste, which was usually a sizable portion of the energy. When I finished cultivating and refining, removing the waste, I was about one eighth full.
<I can’t believe how much more energy I can take! This is amazing!> I felt incredible, strong, and powerful. That is not how I responded to her next question though.
“How do you feel?” She was testing the waters, looking at my cultivation.
I responded as honestly as possible. <Hungry.>
“Why am I not surprised, ya hog.” She admonished flatly. “I think it is time for you to try and use your Essence, I want you to move the entire stalagmite you are on as far toward that cave as you can go. You are too exposed here, your Core should be insanely difficult to get to. Right now anything could swoop in and grab you.”
<How do I move?> I was excited, ready to learn a new skill.
“You reach into the area around you, and tell it to move. Only you can really know what it will take, so if I can do anything for you, let me know.” Well. That was rather unhelpful advice.
<I’ll try.> I reached into the stone around me and eventually found what I needed in order to make it move. With horribly loud screeching, the entire stone area that was filled with my influence tore itself out of the ground and began jerkily moving toward the hole in the wall.
<Whoa!> I shouted, stopping my momentum.
“That’s normal! If you left this area behind you would lose a lot of your power. Everything filled with your Essence is in reality your body, and you are the heart, the soul. You can never willingly move your heart from your body, but you can reposition it. That is how dungeons grow and evolve.” Dani explained courteously, then told me to hurry up.
Moving my form through the opening in the rock wall, I yanked my whole mass as far through the cave as I could, after hours I finally reached a wall and could go no further. I settled to the floor with great relief.
“How is your Essence doing? Did you use too much?” Queried Dani, fluttering about the cave, exploring its depths.
<Pretty good, that really didn’t take too much Essence. How far did we go? A mile? Two?> I was so ready for a nap. Too bad I couldn’t sleep.
“Close!” She sounded off brightly, “We got about forty feet or so before you hit a wall.”
<What?! But my body- But that took hours!> I whined at her.
“I forgot that you can just barely see past your influence. How big do you think your body is?” She was leading the conversation somewhere.
<Thirty yards or so?> I pleaded to her, joking weakly.
She dashed my hopes immediately. “Your stalagmite is about two feet tall and the ground you have at the base is about five feet in diameter. A bit lopsided where the moss was, because I helped you grow there.”
I was flabbergasted. <And... Me?>
“Well you were a bit larger when you were a flawed gem…” She paused, dangling the information just out of reach, “but now you are the size of a one carat diamond. Soooo about six and a half millimeters.”
<That’s it?! Is that small? What unit of measurement is that?> I had so many questions!
“Yup, that’s it. Stop being a narcissist! You can’t worry about things you can’t control, you have too much work to do if you want to become a big strong dungeon, and you can start by spreading your influence.” She was ignoring my questions again!
<I’m not a narcissist! I think. What’s a narcissist? How do I spread influence?>
“Remember how I made all that Essence turn into a mist and spread it around?” She reminded me, “I need you to do the same thing, but with your accumulated Essence. Concentrate hard on making the surroundings… you.” Dani finished lamely.
Sure. Why not. <How much Essence should I use?>
“Keep going until I tell you to stop or until you reach those mushrooms.” She directed, settling onto a grey stone outcropping to watch my progress.
Why was she being so unhelpful? <What’s a mushroom?>
“You’ll know it when you find it.” She sing-sang in a know-it-all voice.