Chapter 19: Twice Alike

Chapter 19: Twice Alike

Bullfrog, ironback toad, stone-tongue toad; I grabbed the remaining strands of consciousness from the mid-evolution toad and poked my way through them, absent-mindedly guiding him to stumble his way to a safe den for his rest. He was a brutish little creature, one of those that had come down from the first floor instead of being part of my seeding population; I could feel bits and strands of cave spider mana in his channels, something far above the normal flies and crickets most of his brethren fed on. Not a pacifist, then.

Despite how cowardly he'd acted when the greater crab had challenged him. Ah well.

No stone-tongue toad, then. As lovely as having creatures in my dungeon with more ranged options than the horned serpent would be, it didn't match with his particular style of hunting. Maybe for a later toad evolution. I tried to imagine an ironback toad, some sort of knightly amphibian strutting his way around and standing guard over the burrowing rats as they dug their nests through the stone of my walls; that would mesh well with my current floor set up, actually. Every time a burrowing rat got anywhere close to evolution it was quickly snatched up by a hungry kobold or luminous serpent, all the mana it'd gathered from nibbling down by whitecaps gone in a second. Such as with this current stone-backed toad, it took a massive, sudden influx of mana for my prey-ranked creatures to have a chance to evolve.

My attention strayed back to the first option.

The bullfrog. Losing his pebble-covered back protection in exchange for stone horns, turning in a prey's attitude for something that attacked at the slightest provocation; all well and good, especially in a dungeon where apparently my kobolds had to shake monsters to get them to attack, but one word kept drawing me back.

Frog.

I liked water, and I was plenty content with making sure my dungeon had it in excess. Already I was tracking the water levels of the underground river, planning out what my third floor would be; a massive, open room of nothing but water, greater crabs scuttling on the stony sand below, silverheads in spiraling baitfish schools, sturgeon casting sprawling shadows in their lazy swims overhead. I purred at the thought; I wanted water. I wanted Seros to have a territory he could truly claim as his own. And frogs were far more adept in water than toads.

But I had the crabs, didn't I?

Damned rational thoughts.

I couldn't predict how big the bullfrogs would get but I doubted it would be larger than the greater crabs, and even with earthen mana, their horns were comparable to claws. Another version of the predator I had just obtained.

My thoughts, as always, slipped back to the previous raid; where two adventurers, so proud and strong, had politely stomped their way through my first floor without so much as a problem. The only threat they had faced was handily defeated and currently running away deeper into the mountain.

Plan for now. I would have to let my dreams of a water-filled third floor rest until I had the strength to defend it; I grimaced and moaned but pressed ironback toad.

Another stone-backed toad would reach the evolution point eventually, and it had better have the bullfrog evolution option available.

The toad croaked once, a pale glow fully overtaking his warty skin as he slumped to a comfortable sprawl at the bottom of his den. Already I could see the earthen mana start to shift, taking on more and more metallic properties as he evolved; maybe with his new honour system, he could start defending other toads to help them evolve.

That was my current biggest problem, really. I had all these fantastic evolutions that I had seen, only a handful obtained; but of those I had obtained, very few were actually... increasing.

Sure, my silvertooths and electric silverheads were breeding—breeding a lot, actually, dozens of eggs already laid and growing—but for things like my horned serpent or armourback sturgeon? I couldn't make more until others of their species evolved, or they died.

The second was certainly not an option.

I pushed my way back up to the first floor, idly shifting through a half point of mana as I tended to my fungal gardens; the food chain up here was rather complete. Whitecap mushrooms and lacecaps at the very bottom, fed by the algae wall constantly dripping water over the ground. Dozens upon dozens of bugs I didn't care enough to focus on beyond keeping my populations of them steady fit the next layer, nibbling away at the mushrooms and growing fat and bloated with my mana, only to be promptly eaten by my cave spiders and stone-backed toads. The burrowing rats shifted between a diet of mushrooms and insects when they could snag them, and then they and the toads were in turn eaten by the luminous serpents.

And when the serpents had reached their peak, they grew confident enough to make the trip to the second floor, where they promptly left their position as apex predator and had to start fighting for their life again.

That was how a dungeon functioned. No creature was truly the strongest, as there was always a deeper floor to go to, one filled with both richer mana to satiate their hunger and stronger creatures to make them work for it. Every time a cave spider made the treacherous leap over the rock pond I celebrated alongside them, every time a burrowing rat successfully avoided a kobold's grasping claws and dined on more mana I cheered.

Seeing my creatures grow and thrive was what I wanted.

Seros raised his head as I poked a point of awareness back into his den, curled up as he was on his comfortable bed of algae; a luminous serpent's mana diffused through his channels. Back from a hunt, then.

The canals were infinitely better for him than the miniscule rock pond of the first floor was, even past the fact that he was near thirteen feet long and it was roughly twenty in diameter. The presence of a current meant he could truly practice his hydrokinesis, fighting against the drag to bend the waters to his might; hells, with the point of awareness I had always locked to him, I had seen him kick up infant waves with a curl of his claws. Already he was living up to his name as a seabound monitor.

I couldn't wait to see where he went next.

Hello, I pressed through our connection, my thoughts spiraling down a sappy hatchling's path as his tail flicked happily with the attention. Walk with me?

He blinked but rose to his claws, shaking off the call of sleep; he needed to eat more than I had as a dragon, maybe once a week or so, but he also only had to sleep for a day after the kill. Significantly better than the months I'd dozed away after a large enough whale.

Seros pushed his way out of the den I'd carved for him, padding around my silver pillar with a brief glance to my core. He seemed content just to meander, choosing a direction at random and slipping into the canal to swim, heading to the left. I followed.

Mana: 13.1 / 25

Mana Regeneration: +0.9 per hour

Patrons: None

Titles: Resurrector

Enough to experiment, then; I chose a spot far away from Seros, nestled in a little nook near the entrance and started to weave together a greater crab, something to fill the current niche of apex predator and cull the rising population of luminous serpents. I doubted they would be there forever, considering the kobolds were already well on their way; well. Sort of? They had fully separated into two groups, the original off hunting to her heart's desire and strangely following Seros around, and the other two staying grouped up with coordinated hunting efforts that were bringing in more and more rats and toads. They hadn't yet figured out how to harvest the mangrove's wood for tools but they were working towards it, awkwardly holding slivers of rock and poking the trees to no success. Eventually they would, though. As for the first, I had no idea what she was up to. Maybe when I had created her, I had accidentally let my intentions for her to hunt down the turtle into the mana shaping her? That might explain why she was so determined to do... something.

I had gone off on quite a tangent when I realized that I was still weaving mana.

Mana that was quickly emptying itself from my stores.

Twelve godsdamn points later, a greater crab awoke, clicking its pincers together and peering out at its surroundings. Twelve.

Little bastard had even taken most of the Bronze-ranked mana I'd been saving.

That had to be because it was an evolution. Had to be; but that also spelled very worrying things about the future expansion of my dungeon. Twelve points for a single evolution of a—let's face it—rather unimpressive specimen?

An idle thought of how much it would cost to make another seabound monitor slipped across my mind, and I shuddered.

For my first evolution, I had the choice between expanding my mana storage or regeneration, and I'd easily picked the regeneration. Now I was becoming uncomfortably aware of how little twenty-five points really was.

I'd create another crab tomorrow and let those two breed. Not a chance I was going to actively manage their population like I did my smaller creatures.

It scuttled off towards the closest canal, dropping into the water with a splash—off to hunt, I guessed. It'd find a bountiful feast ahead of it.

Me, with one mere point to my name? Yeah. It'd be a bit of waiting until I could do all those lovely plans I had come up with.

-

He ran, bawling, crashing deeper and deeper into the mountain; his coat was crusted in dry blood, the cuts over his legs stinging and raw, bewildered by the dark and unfamiliar setting. It hurt, it hurt so bad–

He smashed his nose into a stony wall.

With a roar, he collapsed back, panting wildly. Everything hurt. He hated this, hated running, hated the two strange animals that had stabbed him; all he wanted was to go back to his safe little cave, full of mushrooms and water, where nothing was scary and he didn't have to worry–

"Oh?"

A voice crept out of the darkness.

It wasn't the deep, rumbling voice of the cave before, the one that had spoken into his mind rather than his ears, the one that had made the mushrooms grow and given him shelter and food; it was a raspy voice, dark and curious, and very, very close. He managed to swing his head to the side.

Two figures, shorter than him and scrawny, standing on their back legs with their front legs wrapped around strange, stone-tipped pieces of wood. Their skin was a pale green, hairless, with ears that extended away from their face like tree leaves. Bits of fabric wrapped around their chest and legs.

Their eyes were black.

"What do we have 'ere, boys?" One of them croaked, face twisting up like they were baring their teeth. "Little ol' cave bear, lost without its mommy?"

He didn't know much, not like the great lizard or the pointy serpent had; but something about them awoke something in the back of his mind. Something that wasn't him recognized them.

Goblins.