Three are one and one is three,
Maiden dances, full of youth,
Mother tends, warm and gentle,
Crone speaks, age and truth,
Twining fate by decree.
- Children’s rhyme from the kingdom of Asmia.
<hr>
By the next day, my area of influence had reached Tamyris’ hearth. From there, I could finally take in the whole extent of my new home.
The temple was just as grand from the outside. The main building was built of a blue-grey stone. The dome was capped in colossal bronze tiles, and they caught the light and made the whole building shine as if being set on fire by the sun. A portico, with four huge columns, guarded the entrance, with a carved frieze which depicted the two serpents in battle once more. The walls, in contrast, were simple and unadorned, broken only by the small windows that allowed light into the temple.
The landscape around the temple was mostly low shrubs, but in the distance a dense jungle seemed to be slowly encroaching, reclaiming the land that had been cleared when the temple had been a site of pilgrimage.
I turned my attention to the hearth. My influence seemed to have naturally parted around it, and when I pressed my influence up against the edge of the structure, I received a notification.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Do you wish to claim structure: Hearth of Tamyris? Y/N
If you claim this building, you will be designated as Hearthkeeper. Hearthkeepers receive some of the Soul Power used by mortals to reincarnate at hearths under their care.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
I selected Yes and my influence flooded inwards, covering the entire building. The flames at the center of the hearth briefly flared higher.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
New boon gained
Hearthkeeper: You receive 50% of the Soul Power spent to reincarnate at hearths under your care. You may restrict who can reincarnate at your hearths.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
The new message answered part of my question about acquiring Soul Power. I would have to investigate that further, but I could see the logical path. Adventurers could presumably acquire Soul Power by killing my minions, and then when I killed them in turn, I received part of that Soul Power back. The ability to restrict who could reincarnate also made sense. No point killing someone who actively meant me harm if they’d just respawn right at my front door.
With what I’d learned, it became even more imperative to build a functioning dungeon. I needed Soul Power to grow, so I could protect myself. However, as much as I loved my Bleeding Blooms, they seemed rather limited. I couldn’t imagine a party of adventurers being bested by one, or even a whole room full of them.
The jungle offered a potential solution though.
I spent my precious mana to extend my influence in a shaft towards the edge of the jungle, and then set to exploring in search of something… anything that looked dangerous.
The undergrowth was thick and anyone with a physical body would’ve found it hard to pass through. Which was nice, because it meant no one could sneak up on my temple without a lot of effort. However, as a disembodied consciousness projecting itself from inside a rock, it didn’t impede me. I simply phased through the tangles of vines, ferns and probably scratchy bushes.
As I searched, I absorbed a range of smaller, harmless plants that looked like they’d make suitable set dressing. A plan for my dungeon had started to grow. Maybe it was vain to care about aesthetics in a dungeon meant to kill, but I had spent so long admiring the things mortals built, and now I had the chance to build things myself. I just needed the tools.
I found a few plants that looked potentially dangerous. A vine that was a vivid electric blue and when broken oozed a sticky sap, and a plant that grew long feathery leaves out from a hard shelled core. I had watched as a small mammal brushed against one of the leaves, and the plant had immediately tangled around the unfortunate creature, before dragging it inside the hard shell. Carnivorous plants - now that I appreciated.
I checked my plants list to see what it had to say about them.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Plant Name
</td>
<td>
Climate
</td>
<td>
Properties
</td>
<td>
Growing Time
</td>
<td>
Mana Cost
</td>
<td>
Damage Type
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Strangling Fern (Plumigera testudinaria)
</td>
<td>
Subtropical
</td>
<td>
Tangles prey within its strong, filament-like leaves and attempts to drag them within its armoured shell to digest.
</td>
<td>
5 hrs
</td>
<td>
2
</td>
<td>
Mundane
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Magebane Vine (Reptans caerulescens)
</td>
<td>
Subtropical
</td>
<td>
Secrets a thick, sticky sap that utilises metabolised mana to burn painfully.
</td>
<td>
5 hrs
</td>
<td>
2
</td>
<td>
Magic
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
It seemed since I’d observed them in the wild, I had skipped over needing to discover their properties manually. Most interestingly, the Magebane Vine had a new damage type. I hadn’t encountered that yet. They were both more expensive than the Bleeding Bloom, which I hoped meant they could pose more of a challenge to adventurers.
I returned to my temple, my plan finally solidifying. It was time to start work on a dungeon.
***
I continued to plant more Mana Blooms as I had spare mana. By day three, I had 7 of the blooms and had reached 20 daily mana growth.
The next several days were occupied with the work of actually building a dungeon. The first thing I did was repair the hole I’d made in the dome, and then reinforce the entire structure. With Shape Matter, I could inspect the stone for imperfections and invisible cracks, and I closed them up until it was as perfect as the day it had been built. I also found I could recreate any basic matter I’d absorbed, which allowed me to restore the broken sections of the mosaic. I had to make some best guesses as to what animal I’d obliterated in my fall, and I ended up adding a dragon.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Once I was happy with the dome, I started building. My area of influence was expanding at about a hundred feet a day, without any mana expenditure, which meant I had plenty of space to work with. I disassembled part of the back wall and inserted a second door to make the temple symmetrical, made of the shimmering bronze used on the temple roof. Just for extra security, I replaced the rotten door at the temple’s front with the same type of door.
First, I would have adventurers step down from the back door, out onto a path flanked by an avenue of columns. On each side of the path, I cleared a ten foot square and paved it with smaller fragstones than the ones in the temple. In the middle of each, I shaped stone into a statue of a knight lifting a sword high, and then slowly chipped away at the statues, giving them the look of something that had been weathered for centuries. Around the statues, I laid out flower beds filled with a pale pink bush I’d found in the jungle, ornamented with masses of tiny white flowers. Around them, I placed stone benches so that adventurers could sit while they waited for the dungeon to open.
The true entrance of the dungeon was at the end of the avenue. I started with another colossal bronze door, and erected a grand portico held up by two stone columns. A vine with crescent shaped fruit wound its way up the columns. The frieze on the portico portrayed the two great serpents in battle again, but this time I inserted crystals in their eyes. It was an object called An Indicator Crystal I’d found while exploring my menus. When the dungeon was empty, it glowed green, and when it was busy, it glowed red, making the serpents look as if they had demonic fire in their eyes.
When the door opened, adventurers would be ushered into a rectangular room fifty feet wide. It was supposed to copy the foyer in a manor, to impress upon them the wealth of their hosts. If they looked up, they would see a colourful mosaic depicting a dragon strangled by a great vine. It was both impressive, and a hint towards the danger the room contained.
Two statues of roaring dragons were perched on pedestals at opposite ends of the room. At their feet, I planted Bleeding Blooms, and shaped the wooden floor as if the plants had burst out, invading the room. I surrounded the Bleeding Blooms with low ferns that would hide the bloom’s vines until they were ready to attack. The dragons I tangled in some of the harmless vines, but from the ceiling I hung three Magebane Vines, spaced out so that adventurers would have to navigate the safe path between the vines and the Bleeding Blooms to avoid being tangled hopelessly. Finally, I added two Strangling Ferns as the main room minions, each similarly bursting from the floor.
Finally, a grand staircase swept upwards, but for now it led only to a blank wall. It gave me potential for future expansion though.
At the eastern side of the room, I added a door leading to a corridor with large, arched windows that let in the daylight. From the corridor, adventurers would be able to access the second room. Long term, I hoped to be able to add a second door here so higher tier adventurers could bypass the lower levels and go straight to fighting the higher levels.
I took a moment to appreciate my creation. The effect was a mansion being overrun by invading plants. It had a spooky atmosphere I quite enjoyed. I hoped it would be a good challenge for adventurers. If someone was intent on barreling through to my core room, it would slow them down, while a party that took time and care could navigate the room without taking damage. Of course, if they did that they wouldn’t get SP from killing the minions, so it also encouraged strategically engaging the minions one by one. It was good, yet it still felt like something was missing. After a few minutes, I couldn’t figure out what, so I moved on, hoping I’d think of it later. I was about to start on my next room when a System message interrupted me.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Secret quest completed
Yes We Can!
Complete your first room.
Reward: Unlock (2) new minions, unlock boss creation.
Quests available
You Died!
Kill your first adventurer.
Reward: 50 SP
You Won!
Have a party clear your dungeon with no deaths.
Reward: 50 SP
Chest ahead!
Create your first loot table.
Reward: 5 SP
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
And there was my missing element. Loot. I should’ve known that. The fact that dungeons gave loot had been somewhere in the back of my memories, but I couldn’t access it until I’d been reminded. It itched when I pressed against the absence. The harder I tried to recall when I’d first learned about dungeon loot, the sharper it became until my whole core ached. I relented reluctantly. I’d suspected I’d encounter missing memories as time went by, thanks to the shards missing from my core, but it was frustrating whether I was expecting it or not.
I returned to the room to fix my error. I could create basic pre-set items, or customise it with any material I could naturally produce. For now, bronze was the only precious material I had access to, and the pre-set loot tables already offered bronze coins, so I just used the pre-set for now. I’d customise it later. I was hoping that my plants could produce some interesting loot items in the long term.
***
By the time I’d finished the rough shape of three chambers for my first zone, my Goldfruit was ready. I quickly shifted my point of view to the garden, excited to view the new fruits of my labor.
The Goldfruit was a spindly tree, roughly eight feet tall. It had only a few branches, each long and thin, with pale bone coloured bark. The deep green leaves had a shine to them, like they were waxed or oiled, and they grew in irregular bunches. In clusters at the end of the branches, it had large oval fruit. It seemed to start green, darkening to yellow, and when ripe, turned an orange-yellow colour, which I guessed gave the tree its name. All my plants seemed to grow unnaturally fast, so it took only hours for a fruit to ripen, allowing me to watch the colour change in real time. When I absorbed one, it would regrow it a few hours later.
The inside of the fruit had a soft flesh, and the center was full of the small, pointed oval seeds that I had planted. I guessed it was edible, though I couldn’t test that myself. When I checked the menu again, the properties entry had been updated.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Plant Name
</td>
<td>
Climate
</td>
<td>
Properties
</td>
<td>
Growing Time
</td>
<td>
Mana Cost
</td>
<td>
Damage Type
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Goldfruit (Aureus edulis)
</td>
<td>
Temperate
</td>
<td>
Grows a delicious fruit, which satisfies mortal hunger and nutritional needs.
</td>
<td>
24 hrs
</td>
<td>
1
</td>
<td>
N/A
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Skythorn
</td>
<td>
All
</td>
<td>
Flight capable. Charges enemies with its massive forward facing thorn.
</td>
<td>
5hrs
</td>
<td>
2
</td>
<td>
Mundane
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Bulwark Blossom
</td>
<td>
All
</td>
<td>
Ambulant. Blocks attacks with a large shield-like flower.
</td>
<td>
5 hrs
</td>
<td>
3
</td>
<td>
Mundane
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
It was a useful ability, if I intended to play host to any mortals.
More interestingly, the two new minions I’d unlocked from the quest were there. Finally, I had plants that could move around the rooms. Now my encounters could be more dynamic. I still liked the first room forcing adventurers to edge around static enemies, but I was excited to try out these options.
My second room was a similar size to the first. Here, I carved vaulted ceilings out of the stone, and in regular intervals along the walls I recessed alcoves and filled them with empty pedestals as if statues or vases had once stood there. I covered the floor in coloured tiles like those from the dome, to create an interlocking pattern of yellow and white pyramids.
Then I shaped furniture. I only had wood and stone to work with right now, so there wasn’t much variety, but it worked for my needs. I placed ornate wooden chairs along the walls, between each alcove. The sort of chair that rich mortals have in their homes. Not to sit on, because they look horribly uncomfortable and are carved so delicately they’d break under the average mortal’s weight. The sort of chair that existed to be looked at, with swooping curved legs and arms carved in the shapes of dragons. In the middle of the room, I arranged two large ornate couches facing each other, with a table between them.
The final result was something resembling a grand parlour.
Then I proceeded to mess it up. I planted Bleeding Blooms at irregular spots in the floor, and again shaped the floor around their bases as if it had ruptured. I knocked over some of the chairs, and around the bases of some of the pedestals I scattered shards of tile like the vases they’d once held had shattered.
Right now I only had mana for two Bulwark Blossoms or three Skythorns. I was eager to see both, so I settled for planting one of each instead. I’d add more later to complete the room. The Bulwarks seed was the largest I’d seen yet, nearly the size of a human fist, and oblong. I gently nestled it into the soil. A few feet away, I planted the seed of the Skythorn. This one was tiny, with a long filament that ended in a puff of feathery material. I supposed it was meant to act as a sort of kite, to catch the air and let the seeds be carried on the breeze.
Once they were planted, I had time to kill, so I turned my attention to decorating the boss arena. I’d have to wait until I had more mana to summon a boss or the rest of the plants I needed for the second chamber.