Genesis Locorum

A week later, As Emily’s avatara rests, she is directed to look at a certain structure in her core room. Elizabeth shows her a flat circle on one of its walls. Attached to the circle are four jewel spheres: magenta, yellow, orange, and green.

“Those are the Elementalist’s spheres we have?” Emily says. The dungeon’s “eyes” stare at the spheres. Entranced by their crystalline beauty. She notices that there are six other slots in the circle, with the magenta Electrosphere, resting at its north, flanked by two of them. Adjacent to the empty slot on its left is the orange Geosphere, itself with another slot next to it. The yellow Photonsphere and Green Aerosphere stand adjacent to each other, with two more empty slots between them and the Electrosphere. At the structure’s center is one more void.

“Correct!” Elizabeth says. “Isn’t it exciting? In just a short amount of time, you’ve gained power over four elements.”

“Would’ve gone by a lot sooner if you told me I could use—“ Emily’s sentence is interrupted by involuntary giggling. “That tickles!”

“It wasn’t me,” Elizabeth says, her wings fluttering in midair.

Emily checks around her dungeon body searching for the source of the ticklish sensations, and finds several of her new residents burring between her floors.

“Hello?” Emily calls to one of the Arachne presents.

“Oh?” the Arachne woman searched around but couldn't find the source of the voice.

“I’m over,” Emily says. “Actually you’re inside me right now.”

“So you’re the dungeon we now live in?” the Arachne says. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Lydia Sezsee! I’ll be the broodmother of our humble community. Thank you for taking us on.”

“Broodmother?” Emily asks.

“We help take care of the local youngins y’see? They say it takes a village to raise a child, so we help take care of the young spiderlings. I provide, nursing, preschooling, mass babysitting, and pediatrics! I’m just setting up a place for the kids to sleep.”

Emily looks around the room. The floor contains several small tunnels beneath it, being dug by some Lycosidae and Atypidae Arachne. She then sees several Araneidae Arachne weaving their webs on the walls.

“You don’t use beds?” Emily asks innocently.

“The types with mattresses? Some of us do,” Lydia says. “But most of us prefer to sleep on the walls attached by cocoon blankets made of one hundred percent natural silk. Others, mostly the Lycosidae, prefer to sleep nearly buried in the ground.”

“I see,” Emily says.

Lydia realizes that Emily doesn’t know much about Arachne. “Where’s Minerva? She should’ve told you all about us.”

“I think she went to the guild to get some people inducted.”

“Ah right,” Lydia says. “She did mention come Ctenidae wanted to become adventurers.”

They suddenly hear a loud noise. Emily looks at the next room and sees little Nina on the ground. In her small arms is a sword.

“Nina,” Lydia says. “Didn’t we tell you not to play with a dungeon’s weapons? They’re dangerous.”

“But I wanted to be an adventurer too,” Nina says.

“Like she’d survive in that lifestyle.” An Arachne boy mockingly says to Nina. “She couldn’t even break herself out of a cocoon.”

“Like you’re any better!” Nina says to the lad. “Why didn’t you go with mommy?”

“Heh, got better things to do than risk my life out there,” the lad says. “Besides, everyone knows adventurers and Sentinels are lame.”

“They not lame!” Nina says. “You’re lame!”

“Am not.”

“Am too!”

“Am not.”

“Am too,” Nina repeats.

“Alight, break it up,” Lydia says. “You two shouldn’t be arguing.

The contrarian Arachne tries to argue with her but she notices Lydia is staring intently at him, he backs down before uttering a word.

“It’s getting late,” Lydia says. “We’ve finished setting up the boudoir.”

The two Arachne children leave the room and prepare for a night’s sleep.

“Are they always like this?” Emily says.

“Ah don’t mind them,” Lydia says. “He always bickers with the rest of the kids. Be seeing you.” Lydia returns to the boudoir.

✦✦✦

The next day. Emily sees Richard and Sarah getting used to their new lodgings in her. “How did the dress go?” Emily says.

“We managed to finish it thanks to the silk the Arachne gave us!” Sarah said. “The client loved it!”

Richard looks over the items they relocated from their former home in Eastshire. All their tools, materials, and works. “Let’s see, the suit from last summer is intact. The leftover jade from the Necropolis is also here…”

“Brother’s been getting a little paranoid about missing items recently, “Sarah says with a teasing tone.

“I am not paranoid,” Richard said. “I just want to be certain there are no more missing objects, especially after what happened last time.”

“That reminds me,” Sarah says. “Can you make us sentinels? I can swing hammers with the best of them.” She branches her newly forged hammer around, nearly missing a mannequin donning a hat and dress combo.

“Sarah, be careful!” Richard says.

Emily giggles. “I understand you want to repay me for helping you, but—“

“But nothing,” Sarah says. “Fighting with you and helping you with how artisanal skills would be the least we can do after all you did.”

“Sarah,” Richard says. “Please don’t pressure Emily.”

“I’m not pressuring her,” Sarah says. “I’m surprised at you brother, you usually take debts seriously.”

“I do,” Richard says. “But we’ve already agreed to lend our expertise in the crafts towards refining the arms and armors Emily generates. That is already sufficient enough.”

“Are you sure?” Sarah says. “I saw you practicing your marksmanship. You sure you don’t want to go out and explore, to take risks?”

“I’m sure, Sarah,” Richard says. “Emily you agree with me right?”

“Umm,” Emily says. She is unsure which dwarf to side with her. She agrees with Richard that being a Sentinel is a risky role. But she also knows she only has Tim as her only sentinel. Before Richard could press her for a response, the three heard a clamor from outside the entire room.

The dwarves head outside and see several Arachne, as well as Elizabeth looking at an entity that resembled the Tarlantulapolis Core, except smaller and more metallic in texture. Emily looks at the construct. “What is that?” she says with a surprised tone.

“A construct, it looks like,” Elizabeth says.

“A what?” Emily says.

“They are like Cells,” Elizabeth says. “But instead of a generic form, they take one derived from the dungeon’s memories. Guess the dungeon left an impression on you, Emily.”

Richard is not amused at the sight of a replica of the monster that the ritualist cult nearly fed Sarah. “Can we get rid of that unsightly thing?”

“I’m afraid not,” Elizabeth said. “The process of creating Constructs is mostly involuntary. Only very powerful Dungeons can disintegrate their Constructs. But they can be used as Sentinels as well.”

“Does this always happen when I absorb a core?” Emily says.

“Of course not,” Elizabeth says. “Constructs are created from strong memories, regardless of the source. That does remind me. You noticed the new looms lately?”

“New looms?” Emily says.

“Guess not, oopsie,” Elizabeth says.

Meanwhile, Heathcliff looks over the various looms in a room. Seeing them automatically weave threads of what looks like nacreous silk.

“I’m not sure if the Arachne will like this,” Heathcliff says.

“I heard there were new looms here?” Emily says.

“Yep,” Heathcliff said.

“Did you get some beneath my notice?” Emily says.

“Mais non, cher. Why would I run down to a store or dungeon to get a bunch of random looms?” Heathcliff says.

Elizabeth flutters to Heathcliff. “Emily,” she says. “These looms seem to be created by you.”

“Huh,” Emily confusingly says.

“When you absorbed the core,” Elizabeth says. “You gain access to the ‘recettes’ it has. These recettes allow you to make new items and materials, and to synthesize them with the ones already native to you. It appears that these looms were a byproduct of that, creating a type of cloth from the nanotechnology you possess.”

“Have we verified it is nanotechnology?” Emily says. “Like I’d think I’d be able to like I dunno, turn my avatara’s arms into swords or something.”

“Shapeshifting is a different matter, dearie,” Elizabeth says.

“Emily’s right, though,” Heathcliff says. “The nanotech thing is still a hunch, we’re gonna need to get some experts on this soon.”

“The rumor at least is enough to get some people to me at least,” Emily says.

Elizabeth looks at the iridescent threads, she sees a spool of already-formed cloth and takes it to her hands. “Maybe Richard will find out what to do with it,” she says before flying away.

✦✦✦

The next day. Heathcliff gets some ideas on how to improve his traps. While looking for suitable ideas for placing venom dart traps he notices some tunnels that weren’t there before.

“Emily,” Heathcliff says.

“Yeah?” Emily says.

“Can you explain the new construction work, cher?” Heathcliff says.

“Oh,” Emily said. “Elizabeth told me that the mana I absorbed had caused me to expand. She says I now have an entrance close to Websdale now.”

“Fascinating,” Heathcliff says.

Tim soon arrives, seeing the tunnel as well. “Should we be concerned about biting off more than we can chew?”

Heathcliff laughs boisterously. “You don’t trust me to not keep raids at a minimum, cher?”

“You did nearly let some adventurers pass your new Arahcne-based defenses.”

“Growing pains are to be expected,” Heathcliff said. “’Sides, you made short work of them anyway.”

“We probably shouldn’t be relying on Tim all that much,” Emily says.

Tim recalls the loss he suffered at that party. As well as the time he got himself petrified saving Emily from the Tarantulapolis Core’s beam.

“Besides, the Arachne are still adapting to their new home. Give it time and they’ll be fending off adventurers left and right.”

Emily’s mind wonders about the necessity of fending off adventurers if she benefits from her items being spread throughout Titania.

In another room, she sees Elizabeth flying in the hallways. She had finished speaking with Minerva and Lydia about Arachne’s roles in the dungeon.

“Elizabeth?” Emily’s disembodied voice echoes through the halls.

“What is it, sweetie,” Elizabeth says.

“I’m wondering why we need to repel adventurers,” Emily says.

“Ah,” the kind fairy says. “It is known that the Forgemaster, Obsidian, wants his best works to be spread across the world. But he wants to make sure they are worthy of his more powerful gifts. It is commonly believed that Dungeons were created to these ends, to test worthy adventures for gear in addition to circulation of mana.”

“You lost me,” Emily says.

“A common belief stemming from that,” Elizabeth says. “If the treasures of a dungeon become denser in mana the longer it remains in the dungeon, and that dungeons should be as powerful as they could be to make the treasures more powerful and therefore spread mana when they are eventually claimed.”

Emily mulls on these words. “So the longer the treasure is unclaimed, the more mana it spreads?”

“Correct!” Elizabeth says.

“Hold on,” Emily says. “Who is Obsidian?”

“One of the Administrators,” Elizabeth said. “Gods that are said to have created Titania and the cosmos. Obsidian especially is said to be the creator of all arms and armor, the spirit of the volcanoes, and the core of the planet itself. He is joined by the Flood, Halcyon, and the Giver, Anesidora. These sisters, in turn, are respectively the spirits of the seas and land.”

“Spirits, of the land and seas?” Emily says.

“Yes,” Elizabeth says. “There are several Administrators. Hausos, Stratios, Stella, Tranquilitas, Elpis, but the most important, even more than the three that govern Titania, is Astra, believed to be the origin of everything and the spirit of everywhere. You recall the Astralite from the Blackbolt miens right? As I shall remind you they are named after that Administrator.”

“Wow,” Emily is surprised. “Can you tell me more about them?”

“Gladly, sweetie,” Elizabeth says. Throughout the next few hours, Elizabeth tells Emily about the myths and legends surrounding them, from the tales surrounding the childlike sun, Stella, to the songs of tricks pulled by Claudia, to the birth of Bardsong with the advent of Melodia, to the emergence of other forms of magic in the wake of her daughter’s fate. As the sun sets, Elizabeth yawns.

“Nighttime already?” Emily says, enraptured by the fairy’s myths and stories.

“Looks like,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll go prepare dinner. Good night Emily.”

“Night,” Emily says as Elizabeth flutters away. Emily’s dungeon body rests, awaiting a new day, and all the wonders that comes with it.