The Tower in the Shadows

I had mana storage and even better, it would replenish itself! I travelled my Dungeon in an ecstatic mood.

Today was a good day!

I looked outside to find out the weather conditions only to realise from my limited view that it was night. Well, then, it was a good night!

Absorbing the lantern cage had only given me wood, glass and iron, which was no real letdown, as I already had these resources. I even got a little dump to Mana Manipulation. I got one other thing that left me perplexed- pixie dust. The lantern contained a few grams of the stuff and I discovered that I could absorb it but not replicate it. This was the first time I had encountered this and I had stopped leaving most of it behind. I gathered it and stored it in the hiding spot under one of the beds where I found the mana stone.

My CP got only a little bump from the absorbing and it was going to be a while before I fully regenerated it back to full. Plans to make!

I continued to travel around my Dungeon, noting little things and making the planned changes. Also, I re-hid my core. I cannot forget about that! Larry had returned to his favourite position in the rafters near the main doors and I let him be.

This took me until morning and another snowstorm rolled through the valley. I returned to the first floor and went back to work to change some more of my core.

## ## ## ## ##

I lost track of time as I worked. I realised this as it dawned on me that the snow covering my roof tiles had mainly melted.

"Bloody hell! How long have I been in my core?"

It took longer than I thought, but I had made progress! Sweet, sweet progress!

"Status screen. Bhaldor." I focus on two sections that matter at the moment.

Skills:

Mana Manipulation: 1 - 40%

Core Refining – 5%

Mana Sight: 4 – 15%

Aura Manipulation: 6 - 42%

Perks/Restrictions:

Godless

Affintyless (++ ERROR! ++)

Companionless

Limitless Monsters/Traps

Core Refinement max – 95%

My Core Refining levels increased and decreased as I created four more bubbles in my core and refined other parts. My most significant increase was that my CP regeneration was now up to one unit per hour. Yes, one unit per hour! I had hoped that the gains would be at 1.05, but no!

But, an unforeseen thing had occurred to my core.

I turned and looked at it. I was still the jet-black orb but with an addition. A tiny pinprick of soft pink light was present now within it. Because of my core colour, it was straightforward to spot. I had freaked out for a while over it but realised that this was the Illusion mana being stored within me. I had come to wonder what other colours would represent the types of mana out there as I knew that a light grey was Shadow mana.

Talking about Shadow Mana, I had yet to encounter any more, but I had been using my Mana Sight skill around my Dungeon and thought some might be forming soon. Essence was clumping or pooling in several locations and I hope one might become Shadow Mana.

I wanted to reopen my entry room window shutters and reset my wine bait trap to see if I could lure more creatures in. Instead, I had opened the main doors because I needed larger creatures to be attracted over the earlier smaller ones.

Larry was not amused. The room temperature dropped noticeably, forcing him to vacate his favourite spot for another deeper in my Dungeon.

"Come on, Larry. It won't be forever!" He ignored me to the best of his ability.

"I need new creatures to come in so I can kill them." He had rolled over to show me his back and I felt a strong sense of irritation from him. The wine trap bowl was in again. That simple bottle had done me right and I was not going to give up on it yet.

"I know nothing has come in yet, but we must be ready when something does." It had been a slow, dull day. I could have spent more time refining, but I had neglected the rest of my Dungeon when I was doing it earlier. So far, the wind has blown in a few dead leaves, sticks and snowflakes.

"I need the essence to level and so do you!" He still ignored me. I had realised that he had to level as well to be of any use in the long run.

"Fine, be that way!" I "stormed" off, looking for something to do. The Dungeon had required a few very minor repairs from the winter storms. That took all of two minutes to complete this morning. Since then, boredom central.

The weak sunlight coming through the open door was fading fast. Night would be here soon. Do I leave the door open?

"Open or closed? Open or closed? That is the question." I quickly came to a decision.

"Open. More chance of attracting predators."

I settled back and continued to wait. And wait. And wait.

"God! This is like watching paint dry."

"What to do?"

I ran through a checklist in my mind. Dungeon alterations. Done. Dungeon repairs. Done. Core Refining. Done. Checked for new sources of mana. Done. Make sure my core was hidden. Done.

Ok. What now.

New minions!

I opened up my menus and began to think. New sharoon or wasp? Those were my main choices at the moment. I could create a spider but was not feeling that now due to the wasps below me. Plus, I got the feeling they might not mix well with the illusion mana I had. Sharoon's needed shadow mana to be created and the wasps lived in an environment that was heavy in it.

I wanted to experiment but held myself back as thoughts ran through my mind, like enhancing the floor boss wasp with illusion abilities or…

"No! No! No!"

"Eye on the prize. Next objective levelling up."

That was the goal I had set for myself. I found that I was achieving more this way. Otherwise, my mind wandered too much and I made mistakes that could prove disastrous. I thought back to the media I had consumed on dungeon cores. Generally, by now, the plucky Dungeon would have several floors and adventures to deal with. Me, I have been screwed over and left in the middle of nowhere, it seems. I could quickly reveal my presence but was hesitant until I had another floor or two.

So, back to waiting.

With my core mind, I could work out how long I had been here in days at least, but I had decided against it. I did not want to depress myself as I knew it could be over a hundred days at least. Very least.

Night time now. Looking at the entry floor, I knew the sun had almost disappeared behind the mountains. Are there any wolves around here? I am sure there could be. Getting access to one would be nice.

Back to waiting.

…………..

…………..

………….

………….

"What is that?"

I noticed a soft glow from something just outside my visual range.

"Finally. Come on in; we don't bite…. Well, we do come to think about it."

I was still watching the doorway when the soft light source appeared in my vision. It was a ball of light with a halo around it. The light was not white but tinted with a very light grey and was not strong. Looking at it, my memories kicked in.

"Is that a Will- O'- the Wisp?"

The alert of an intruder and it being a creature quickly appeared when it crossed the doorway threshold. I was interested to see what it would do. I watched it enter the room. It drifted for a few seconds, then quickly zipped to another location. I wanted to watch it more, but I needed the essence.

Alert!

A Ghost-light Wisp has entered your Dungeon.

"Larry, get over here and kill this thing!"

I sensed him quickly moving from his location back to this room using the flaps I had installed earlier as the inner door was closed. He was positioning himself in the rafters above the Wisp.

"A Ghost-light Wisp? I wonder what it does?" New creature. New abilities.

Larry was moving from the rafters down a wall, using the darkness to enhance his camouflage pattern. He was looking for the moment to strike. As the Wisp moved, it came close enough and he attacked.

Leaping, he collided with it, slashing with his claws and biting. Three bars—red, blue and green — appeared above his head and I watched the green diminish fast. I reasoned that they represented health, mana, and stamina.

The ball of light vanished, leaving a few wisps of vapour.

Alert!

A Ghost-light Wisp has died in your Dungeon.

Essence Gained!

Creature Design Gained - Ghost-light Wisp.

"Well done, Larry!" I congratulated him.

He strutted away, savouring his victory, climbing the wall and returning to his temporary sleeping spot. I watched him go, laughing a little at his actions.

"Essence from a kill, please, be enough. Status screen. Bhaldor."

I looked at my sheet and noted the whole 1% increase. One per cent. One.

…………

The next few hours were filled with a lot of swearing and cursing at the usual god.

This only increased when I looked at the Wisp's stats and realised it was worse than my Wasps in almost all regards. Its only advantages were agility, a lure skill and a spell ability called Dazzle. It was like the legends from Earth, a creature that tricked the unwary into dangerous ground to kill them.

This continued the rest of the night and into the morning. It started raining, which I noted in my tirade. It was coming down heavily for at least a few hours. Then I heard it.

"Rrrippuutt."

"What?" That stopped me.

"Rrrippuutt." It came from just outside the door and my view was of something. I had a reasonable suspicion of what, but I had to wait a short time to see. The source of the sound entered my Dungeon and sight with a leap. It hit the ground with a loud slapping sound.

It is a giant toad. It is massive, truly massive. It was twice the size of Larry. It was brown/green in colour and its skin was very rough in texture; otherwise, it was a toad. It leapt into the doorway, landing heavy and looked around. As it breathed, a sac on its throat expanded and shrank.

Alert!

A Giant River Toad has entered your Dungeon.

"Damn! That's a big boy!" I exclaimed. "Larry got another one for you!"

I sensed Larry again coming back to the first room. I felt annoyance that he had been called again to fight. He once again went through the flap in the rafters. He quickly scampered to near the doorway rafter and looked down. The toad had not moved and was looking around.

"Go on then, Larry."

He was checking out the toad. I wondered why he was not engaging it. Then I realised he was outmassed by a factor of two.

"How are we going to do this?"

I knew I could not interfere and had no actual ability to either. This was all up to Larry. I decided that I had to remain quiet and let him handle this. The toad was still sitting just inside the room. Larry was moving around, looking for the best place to attack. He seemed to settle on a location and hunched up.

Then he leapt.

He sailed through the air and angled to land on the toad's back. He connected, landing almost dead centre. As soon as he landed, he began attacking. The toad was shocked by the surprise attack but seemed to rally. The bars appeared above Larry's head and the green began dropping.

The toad began jumping around, trying to dislodge Larry. It was not moving quickly, but it was moving. The toad collided with some of the chairs in the room, knocking them over. The toad's tongue lashed out, bending around to strike at Larry. The tongue has barbs that extend when it comes out of the mouth.

After several attempts, the tongue hits Larry, injuring him. I can see the injury and the red bar drops about ten percent. Larry, in turn, is doing damage. The green stamina bar is quickly exhausted. The toad is now slowing as blood runs freely from its back.

Suddenly, it stopped and collapsed. The notifications then followed with the essence rush.

Alert!

A Giant River Toad has died in your Dungeon.

Essence Gained!

Creature Design Gained - Giant River Toad.

Level Up!

Minion – Larry has levelled up.

Level Up!

Congratulations, you have levelled up. Do you wish to level up now?

Yes or No?

"Hell, yes. Please yes. Yes." I was so excited!

Larry started glowing gold and the main door suddenly slammed shut.

"What th……"

My vision twisted and was sucked back into my core. Then there was blackness.

## ## ## ## ##

"Eeerrrwww."

Coming back to awareness was like suffering the worst hangover ever. It took a good minute to get back to full functionality. When I did, the excitement quickly returned.

"Status screen. Bhaldor." Only one part of the screen changed, which interested me.

Name

Bhaldor

Essence

0%

Race

Dungeon Core

CP

179(200) /1.95 phr

Level

2

Corruption

0%

Floors

2

Health

100%

"New floor! More CP and more regeneration."

My ability to store illusion mana had also increased to 40 units and I generated 0.5 units on top of the initial 20. That means I had been "unconscious" for at least fifty hours!

I inspected my core, finding it had increased in size by around fifty percent. The pink speck of light was more pronounced.

So many new options. I was quickly thinking about what to do next. Before I started work, I forced myself to do everything else first. It turned out it was a lot and started with Larry with him glowing gold and all.

"Status screen. Larry."

His strength, endurance, and vitality both increased by one. This, in turn, improved his health; damage and stamina had all increased.

Name

Larry

Level/Class

2 - Dungeon Mini-Boss

Race

Greater Sharoon

Essence

0%

Health

80/80 (+10)

Mana

40/40

Stamina

40/40 (+10)

Corruption

0%

STR

4 (+1)

4 Damage Base (+1)

DEX

7

AGL

7

END

4 (+1)

VIT

8 (+1)

PER

18

+8% Danger Awareness

INT

5 (+1)

WIL

4

LUCK

4

His Claw Strike skill had also levelled up, reducing the stamina cost by 0.1 to 1.9 per activation. I found him still in his favourite spot in the rafters. He was healed from his injuries and was dozing. There were no other changes to him that I could see.

I reabsorbed the wine and plate from the table and went to create my new floor. I was going to have to think a lot about this one.