If Matthias could scowl, he would be. And that must have leaked through the bond, because in moments, Lucy was by his side. Chloe was napping, and frustration was becoming more common than panic for Matthias as of late.
"Are you all right?" Lucy asked, worry tinging her clarion voice.
"Technically, I'm fine," he responded with exasperation. "Elizabeth finally has a system for hunting turtles." He broadcast the image on the surface of his core for Lucy.
Elizabeth, the hydra, had conveniently found a bowl-shaped rock. Lucy and Matthias watched in grim fascination as Elizabeth flipped a massive turtle onto its back and into the bowl. With predatory delight flashing in her eyes, she then pulled herself just far enough out of the muck to place one large foot onto the underside of the turtle. With a loud snap and a cry from the pinned reptile, the undershell yielded to her bulk. It was just a matter of course that she would peel it open and feast.
"That is grisly, but I don't see the issue," Lucy confessed, her face pale.
"The problem is the time," Matthias confessed. "The turtles are breeding faster than she can eat them."
Lucy gave him a startled look. "What?"
"The leeches really are not a problem now that the turtles are too tough. And the goblin response of judicious use of fire is keeping them safe enough. But the turtles are just vitality incarnate." Matthias allowed exasperation to flow through the bond.
"You know most dungeons would not complain about a renewable source of mana," Lucy playfully chided him.
"I guess that is one upside," he admitted reluctantly. "But they make me worry. Soon more people will delve, and those turtles are just too much. If they were my monsters, I would take them down a floor or two to let the surface rebalance. Instead, I have a crucible."
"You do realize that you are many times stronger than most cores your age," Lucy reminded him. "Any dungeon could foster the unwashed masses. Few I have heard of could balance what amounts to a dungeon war without it spilling out."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"It's not really that bad, is it?" he asked while internally cringing. "I would call this more an infection than a war."
Lucy raised an eyebrow and looked like she was about to respond when, suddenly, there was a ping inside his mind.
[Achievement- My First Random Evolution- Awarding Passive Evolutionary Bias]
"That is an odd first achievement," Lucy noted curiously. "What monster evolved?"
"It looks like a beast goblin evolved into a swamp troll," Matthias noted dispassionately.
"What?" Lucy's face was deadpan as she stared into his core.
"Is something wrong?" Matthias asked cautiously.
"Most dungeons don't just randomly evolve trolls," Lucy responded calmly. "It requires a very narrow set of circumstances. First, a goblin has to get hurt and heal over and over. Eventually, it will get some form of regeneration or enhanced healing. Then, one of its kids has to be born with gigantism. In goblins, that is not all that rare. But that also means most dungeons get hobs or ogres well before they get trolls. Let alone a regional variant."
"So I was lucky?" Matthias asked to confirm.
"Probably only the second dungeon in existence to get trolls before hobs," she confirmed. "Swamp trolls are less sapient than even goblins. Their brains are probably waterlogged. They are also one of the few varieties of trolls resistant to fire. Sure, they gain a vulnerability to ice, but I don't see that being much of an issue in our swamp."
"So what is this passive?" he asked.
"As a Dungeon Core, you are technically a sapient or sentient object. So you have a rarity level. Right now, you are a common dungeon core. So you can equip three points worth of passives. Each tier you go up doubles the number of points you have for passives."
"Should I equip it since it is my only one? It costs two points and increases the chance of random evolution by 10%," he informed her.
"I suggest you wait," she cautioned. "You should earn more over time. And you can't remove them once equipped. You can only overwrite them with a bigger passive."
"Oh."
"The passives you take will define the kind of dungeon you are," she continued. "So when you do choose, be sure. It might be longer than you think before you can change your passives. And if you overwrite a passive, it is gone forever. Think of them as less equipment and more tattoos for your soul."
That information weighed heavily on Matthias' mind as he turned his attention back toward his dungeon. He had never had a tattoo before, and now he was basically about to start branding them onto his soul. Talk about things escalating quickly.
