Worthy Core

After a bit of a break, Xenia, Lollyp, and Guy were once again at work in the new chamber attached to Xenia's bedroom they'd taken to calling 'The Garden'. It was something of a temporary facility, a Floor Three room expressly for the purpose of growing plants, re-absorbing them, and then seeing what they'd actually unlocked. For the past day Xenia had been running through the hundreds of 'spellsongs' that had been ingrained within her several lives previously, but found that fortunately she didn't actually need to use all of them. She had a song in her arsenal for every kind of plant that had grown in the Eternal Forest, and some of them had variations in their verses that could guide their growth more specifically, but the dungeon system didn't actually care about all that. Every type of tree simply added into the 'Temperate' tree schemas, every bush was simply a Temperate Bush, and so on.

With a bit of help from Guy Xenia was able to collapse the entire biome into a single 'FOREST, TEMPERATE (LOW QUALITY)' entry in her menus once she'd done enough kinds of flora. 'Low Quality' in this case seemed to mean that the resulting plantlife was either lively but young and small, or large but dying or dead when she attempted to resummon them. Which would perhaps be useful for a spooky forest if she wanted to go in that direction, but for now it seemed as if just the matter of pushing an entire biome schema to High Quality would consume entire days if not weeks of mana recharge, despite the small refunds she got back on every plant. In the meanwhile though, there was one smaller subset of songs that Xenia finally wanted to try.

Hands at the ready, Lollyp stops to confirm what the next step is. "Okay, so: bugs. What are our options, again?"

Eyes closed, Xenia does her best to recall her previous career as a gardener. "I didn't need to use em real often, but as I recall there's only a few kinds of bugs I could sing up. Basically, just the ones that were key to plant lifecycles, I think. Bees and butterflies to pollinate, worms to help break down the soil, that kind of thing. Whatcha want me to call up?"

Lollyp grunts. "I think smashing butterflies would make me feel bad, so how about some...bees? Gods, I feel so weird asking someone for bees. Whatever, I'm good, go for it."

Taking in a deep breath, Xenia starts her song.

"Buzz, defrinz stolk,
Oen'sz hanch er teln lon laev,
Seach freed comint lon tradairsz,
Ailn daiy er comint nevt abd ta vaev.

Swate er monn vensh wings,
Ailn lon pollnan nevt linim swate,
Yevin linm ven'll derst vensh honey,
Ailn esell lek comint seva roy er fwate."

With that, fifteen small honeybees form not far away, already buzzing in the air in a small clump. Before they have time to scatter, Lollyp's somewhat-inflated hands smash the insects together. "Gotcha! Sorry, little buddies...wait. Hold on...oh! Ugh! This is bad!" Pulling back her hands, Lollyp realizes that most of the bees are still alive, only trapped within her slimy palms and unable to escape - not they're not trying, buzzing and squirming as best as they can. "Dammit! Get them out, get them out!"

Xenia looks on, grimacing. "What the hell, Lollyp! Haven't you ever smashed a bug before?"

"We don't get a lot of flying bugs back at the Cavern! And usually I'd only be trying to focus on one at a time! C'mon already, this is gross!"

Considering her options, Xenia eventually pulls a short axe out of her loot inventory, one with a flattened side opposite the blade. Carefully approaching Lollyp's outstretched hands, she gingerly scrapes the bugs off onto the floor alongside a bit of the slime's outer membrane. Eventually the insects are left still trapped within a slimy goo, but at least now they're no longer squirming around within Lollyp's own body. "There, ya crybaby. Can't believe you've got trouble with bees. You've taken on dudes like three times your size!"

"I just wasn't ready for that, alright? Now, gimme that." Taking the axe from her boss, Lollyp repositions herself and uses the flat side to hammer the bugs into submission with a few short swings. "...Okay, that's all of em. Guy?"

The hovering screen glides forward. "Yes, one moment...here we are."

Xenia cheers. "Alright, new mob class! Separate from the spiders, I guess, but at least we don't need to make every kind of bug for that one. ...Crap, no mana refund at all, though. Maxing it out's gonna take ages, even if we hold off on the plants and don't start a new floor anytime soon."

Guy injects some positivity. "Still, a remarkable way forward! We'll never again need to worry about ending a day with wasted mana, and while F-tier insects are mostly, how should I put it...available for thematic purposes, I probably don't need to tell you of all the options they'll eventually unlock."

The dungeon master grins. "Oh yeah, I can imagine it. Giant shit, venomous shit, creepy shit. Honestly, I feel bad for whoever we end up springing them on." Thinking for a moment, she prods Guy with a question. "Hey Guy, at higher tiers, are there like...bug-people?"

The screen bobs affirmatively. "Indeed. For arachnids, actually, I believe there's monsters not much unlike the mortal driders. For insects, there's options for, say, soldier ants and wasps, or queens for bosses. ...I seem to recall the common fairy is a form of insect crossbreed, although I'm uncertain what the other schemas involved might be."

"...Fairies are part bug, here? ...Okay, yeah, actually I can kind of see that. Still, damn, this is gonna keep us busy for a while. You up for more bug-smashing, Lollyp? I should be able to do like twenty more sets of those today."

Lollyp squeezes the handle of the axe tighter. "Yeah, yeah, I'm ready this time. At least we don't need to worry about the cleanup, still, kinda wishing I coulda gone with Beatrice's team right now. Bet she's having way more fun."

"Gaaaaaahhg!" Sincere chokes and sputters as he suddenly revives, remnants of stamina potion flinging from his lips as he attempts to rise up. A failed attempt, as he only makes it a few inches before his head falls back to the bedroll beneath him. Still, his companion takes it as at least a minor victory.

"Sincere! Thank the gods, are you alright? I tried a healing potion first, but that didn't seem to do anything...you're alright, right?" Beatrice leans over the demon, fear still in her eyes, only slightly softened by the relief of seeing him move again.

Coughing a few more times to settle the potion mixture caught in his throat, Sincere eventually recovers enough to speak actual words. "Ah, aghem! Ah...I am...terribly sorry, for that. I genuinely mean this, but that...that's never happened to me before."

"Don't worry about it. No known medical conditions or anything? It kind of looked like a heart attack, not that I've ever seen one in the middle of...all that, before. I've got to be honest, Sincere, I've killed a lot of people in a lot of different ways in my time, but if I'd managed to actually fuck someone to death I think I'd probably consider retiring from the gig." The warrior smiles, attempting to bring some humor to the situation, and Sincere rewards her with a chuckle. "Are you alright, though? I can try and get Sely in here, though I uh, kinda think it might take her a few minutes."

Sincere shakes his head. "I do know some basic healing spells of my own, just...help me up, would you? I should at least be able to determine the cause myself. It didn't feel like a heart attack, not that I've ever had one to compare it to." Wrapping an arm around Sincere's shoulders, Beatrice half-lifts the man to a sitting position, and he begins to gesture at his chest with his right hand, a blue glow appearing as he activates his magic. After a few minutes of this though, he frowns.

"That's...odd. Healing spells tend to not work very well against long-term concerns, like heart disease or cancer, unless you have the right spell, but at least you should be able to feel something when they work. As far as I can tell, my body seems to be in perfect health. Not that demons are very prone to any of those sorts of concerns."

Beatrice tries to think. "How about...poisons? I've heard there's some weird mushrooms down here?"

"Had none of those, and my supplies should have been in good condition...oh no. Let me check something..." Making a slow blink, a green glow returns to Sincere's eyes similar to when he had analyzed Beatrice previously. Looking down over his chest, he slumps a little in Beatrice's arms. "...So that's it, then. That's how I die."

"What!? Sincere, what's wrong?" Trying to keep herself from shaking him, Beatrice settles for raising her voice instead.

"The damage is...metaphysical. When the floor core was destroyed, it returned fully to the metaphysical realm, but still had quite the, ah, explosive punch to it. Having been standing next to it at the time, it appears that I've been...somewhat riddled with core shrapnel. In my soul, that is. Hmm...I suppose that must be what triggered the attack. Even in a casual encounter, a moment of intimacy can't help but temporarily entangle souls together for a short time, and it would seem my soul was in no shape for it at the present moment."

Beatrice's face screws up a little, despite her best efforts. "Your...soul? Sincere, what are you talking about? How can a soul get injured?"

"In only extremely rare cases, as it happens. I suppose that's one highlight, at least I get an unusual death."

Closing her eyes, Beatrice takes a deep breath and consciously calms herself before continuing. "Sincere. Please stop writing your own obituary already, alright? What exactly is wrong, and what do we need to do to fix it? I can have Sely here in a few minutes, like I said."

Sadly, Sincere shakes his head. "Only a very few Cleric specialties go into soul manipulation, and generally only at a high tier at that. It's more of an arcane study, and I myself am only talented enough to see the damage, not to fix it. Remove some of the more lightly-embedded fragments, perhaps...enough to buy myself a few more days. The only true specialists are in the Dragonlord's Domain, and even if we could reach them in time from here, they'd have no reason to help me." Thinking for a moment, Sincere gives a bitter laugh. "The ironic thing is, it's the soul's natural healing that will kill me. Unable to remove the shrapnel, a soul will attempt to heal by removing itself from the damaging fragments instead, dissipating and reforming elsewhere. I'll be fine in the next life, but this one will have to end in the process."

Beatrice sighs. "Sincere, Gods, I am so sorry. This is my fault."

The demon chuckles. "Not at all. I was the one who leapt to conclusions when you came to talk. And you did at least give me a pleasant farewell to make up for it."

"Ass. There's gotta be...wait." Beatrice stares off into the distance for a moment, before returning to Sincere's gaze. "Okay, so first off, we will get a second opinion from Sely on this first, alright? It doesn't hurt to try. But if that doesn't work...can you hold out two or three days? Long enough to get back to the dungeon upstairs?"

Sincere cautiously nods. "I'm no expert, but based on the damage I can see, and what I should be able to do, I'd give myself a good four or five. Maybe longer, but it would be exceptionally unpleasant. Also, I'm afraid we would have to restrain our base lusts for the full period, or you might just finish me off." A slight grin finds its way to his lips, and Beatrice can't help but match it despite herself.

"Again, ass. I uh...I think there's another option for you, but there's a real good chance you're not going to like it."

Sincere chuckles once again. "As old as I am, I'm still in no rush to die. Tell me, what option could such a young dungeon possibly offer?"

"Sincere...how would you feel about living in a dungeon?"