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[A Small Boat, Day 7, Just Before Sunrise]
Anya peered out over the open ocean, her eyes tracing the massive rivers of water mana running below their ship and off into the horizon, her sightless eyes unable to see the sun peeking over the waves as the day began. The journey to even get here was a long, boring process that she had never wanted any part in anyways. Confirming dungeon reports should be done by regular guilders, the ones who were more powerful than her and wouldn''t die when faced with a monster. But her grandmother had insisted that she go because of some stupid problems with the mana compass those merchants were using to get around.
Of course a dungeon''s mana stream would interfere with mana compasses, that was normal, but those sailors wouldn’t shut up about how the compass “just kept spinning, faster and faster”, as if that was something that could actually happen. They were probably just drunk and couldn''t keep a proper eye on the compass. Ugh. Despite all the advantages mana compasses held over regular ones, they were still useless if you brought them too close to someplace like a dungeon.
She huffed and turned away from the railing, heading back into the cabin to eat breakfast. The rest of the day was uneventful, but there was only a day left before they''d reach the coordinates the sailors had written in the report.
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[A Quiet Island, Day 7, Just Before Noon]
Well I''m pretty much done with everything on the surface, so I decide to carve out the loot room for the first floor, placing it right after the exit. Trouble is, I don''t exactly know what to make for loot. Well, I did just get a super strong fiber from the fungi. I should probably name it. Meh, Silkshroom works. The fibers are made up of individual cells, so they''re really fine, like silk, and it''s a fungus so shroom. I grow a large enough patch of Silkshroom that I can use it to weave cloth from the fibers. I start weaving, intending to have a full bolt of cloth by the end of the day.
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[A Quiet Island, Day 7, Sunset]
Alright. I''m done with the cloth. It''s extremely thin, but very strong. Even Alectryon wasn''t able to cut it with her jaws. I wrapped it around a dowel and placed it on a pedestal in the loot room. I haven''t figured out much else, but I''m sure the cloth will be enough. It has very high mana conductivity too. I just hope visitors come soon. I start working on digging out the second floor now. I have a good idea for this one. The second floor is deeper into the volcano, but still not close enough to the magma chamber to be in danger.
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[A Small Boat, Day 8, Just Before Sunrise]
Anya was out on deck early again today. She liked watching the ocean currents swirling around below the water. Although, there was a weird curve in most of the smaller ones she''d seen recently. They were all curved the same way and all flowing in the same direction. Weird. The captain was complaining about the mana compass acting up too, which meant that they must be getting close to the dungeon. She sighed and went to eat breakfast again. Anya hated the food on this boat. It was too salty and hard, and it never filled her up enough.
After eating, Anya went back out on deck. Today was the day they reached the coordinates they were going to. Hopefully those sailors had marked an area near the island. But as they got closer, Anya felt an increasing tension begin to build up, as if fate was telling her that she shouldn''t be here. It was after the tension had reached its peak that she finally saw IT. That horrible storm. It was as if the gods themselves had thrown a spear from the heavens to end some ancient battle. Swirling and circling, the eye of the storm was centered directly above a smoking volcano.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Anya lost balance, her legs becoming dead weight as she collapsed to the floor. “Anya? What''s wrong?” “Someone get the doctor!” “Anya? Anya!? Are you okay!?” Voices cried out around the ship as she fell to the deck, unable to tear her eyes away from the gargantuan cone of pure mana, all coming down on one point. It could be a dungeon, but dungeons are always found underground, hidden away from the world at the bottom of a maze. There isn''t a good way to channel that much mana through the earth and into a core without significant loss. Even weirder, as it got closer and closer to the peak, a gradient formed of purple colored mana, a color that she''d never seen before.
Eventually Anya was able to pull herself away from the storm, one of her party members, Freddy, dragging her back into the hold and blocking her view of the supernatural phenomenon. She quickly stood up, clinging to Freddy for support for a bit before standing up on her own. “I- I''m fine, Freddy. I just got a little lightheaded.” At this point, one of the other guilders, Eva, chimed in. “Fine!? You call collapsing so suddenly like that fine!?”
“It wasn''t because I''m injured! I was just startled.” Anya stated indignantly.
“Startled by what?”
“Well, there''s definitely something here, though I''m not sure it''s a dungeon. I''ve never seen mana do something like that.” She said, slowly gaining her confidence back. There''s a tone of unease in Anya’s voice, as though she isn''t as confident about her answer as she seems. Suddenly, a voice rings out from above, belonging to the ship’s navigator. The three guilders hurry up to the deck again, Anya making sure to ready herself for the sight of the storm again.
“Confound it all!” Yelled the navigator, frustrated by something as Anya rushed over. “There an issue here?”
“This damned compass won''t stop spinning! It''s never done this before, and no matter what I do it won''t stop! Should''ve listened to gramps and brought a magnetic one too…” he muttered under his breath as he turned back to the map. “Well, at least we can see the island. I should be able to pinpoint the location once we land.” the navigator rolls up his map and walks off towards the captain''s quarters.
Anya shudders at the thought of landing directly under that whirlwind of mana, but she can''t deny that burning curiosity it awakened. At least nobody seems upset by her news, but she decides to keep it to herself for now, just in case.
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[A Quiet Island, Day 8, Just After Sunrise]
The sight of white sails on the horizon makes me feel both excited and anxious. On one hand, it means that there''s a species out there intelligent enough to craft boats. On the other hand, intelligent species might not be the friendliest towards entities such as myself. Maybe I should fortify my platform a bit. I lower the bridges to be closer to the lava, raising a wall around the edge of the central platform. I carve it into more bricks, and the doorways leading to each bridge have symbols engraved into them in the same style as my doors, polished obsidian circles embedded in the keystone and fancy geometric lines circling the rest of the way.
Next I add a dome over the top, adding a few portholes to allow mana to flow into the room. With that, my new house is complete. Not much, but it''s better than being exposed and out in the open. I ask Alectryon to move into the boss room, not wanting her to die as soon as the people find my dungeon. I do a once over of the island to make sure everything is normal before the boat gets here. Odd. Everything is a bit bigger, and some of the animals are slightly different. Well, it shouldn''t be a problem. Probably.
Now I just need to sit and wait.
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[A Quiet Island, Day 8, Mid Morning]
The sailors landed just a few minutes ago, and I can already tell that I''m not on Earth anymore. They''re human, but the language they speak is very melodical. The closest analogue I can think of is Simlish, as ridiculous as it sounds. Honestly though, I''m a bit disappointed that they''re human. Like, I''m not as surprised, because of the similarity between the life on Earth and the life here, but I was still hoping for a non-human sapient species.
Notably, the boat and style of these people is reminiscent of fantasy Europe as it''s often portrayed in media. The most surprising thing though, is the amount of mana they store in their bodies. They only have a small amount of mana in their body, flowing through a point which looks like one of the little balls I see in more mana-saturated animals, but the human’s core is more angular and edged. I''m pretty sure that these points could be called cores, and there would definitely be something there if I cut them open. I haven''t, and won''t, of course. Every creature with a core seems to have some kind of heightened intelligence, though I''m not sure to what extent.
However, there is a group that''s different. They have more mana than the other humans, their cores are more defined, and what they''re wearing differentiates them even further. One of them, a unit of a man, is wearing a set of plate armor and carrying a longsword. Another one, a woman, is wearing light leather armor and form fitting clothing, carrying a set of daggers with her. The third, also a man, is regular sized and is wearing what looks like a set of scholar’s robes and because he''s vigorously scribbling away in a notebook with a piece of charcoal, I''d assume that he''s a scholar. He even has a pair of glasses.
The most interesting one, though, is a woman with pure white skin, wearing a fancy blue robe that''s suspiciously close to the shade of unclaimed mana and a black blindfold. She''s got a lot of jewelry too, and the hood of her robe is pulled up to shield her from the sun. That''s not the interesting part though. The interesting part is that she''s walking around normally despite wearing a blindfold. And, she keeps glancing up at my mana vortex. She looks like she''s trying not to worry, but I can tell that she feels uncomfortable being here. Maybe I''ll mess with her a bit.