Chapter 4: Evolutions, worms and Rat adventurers

  Status! NOW!

  Dammit! Ok, let’s calm down, first of all, I can pay the upkeep for at least another 2 days without getting in the negatives. If the stupid rat gets back here soon, we could work something out, until then my resources are one puppet who can’t get out of here and two worms wolfing down earth and… Did they reproduce? I can see a white cocoon sort of thing half buried in the soil.

  I can feel around 20 little lives forming in there, at that speed they are gonna hatch in another 5 weeks, a time I can’t afford to wait out. A minute ago the blue window told me I was getting 0.02 essence from the life forms in my dungeon, and since it’s only two worms, I guess each of them gives me 0.01 essence a day. If I were to hatch the ones in the cocoon now I’d get at least 0.4 essences more a day!

  Let’s see what do I have that might help them hatch earlier? [soul overpower]? No thanks, it’s because of that skill if I’m in this situation where I need essence quickly! Wait, does [mana feed] only works on plants? I used it on the earth and even if it hasn’t changed much it's now a mana-rich soil, especially loved by worms. Oh well, what could go wrong?

  Did I just have a dejavu? Must be my imagination.

  I activate my ability and I can see the mana infiltrating in the cocoon, it flows inside like a river mixing with whatever fluid is in there and, in a matter of seconds I can see the changes. The cocoon swells up and glows, not sure if that’s a good sign. From inside the light, I can see little shadows growing inside. Another few minutes and the first shadow strikes at the cocoon, tired of being in there, its head punctures a hole and just like a dam all the liquid flows out with all the little worms.

  They look…

  Skill points! And five of them! An earthquake goes through my dungeon as I shake from joy, the new hatchling worms burrow in fear but I already got a good look at them, unlike their grey parents they are silvery white and glowing.

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  I turn my eye to the parents, and a Cheshire smile spreads across my face, let me see how well you evolve. Mana starts to flow into them and I start to actually understand the changes, maybe thanks to the Evolver trait, and that’s why I immediately notice something is going wrong. They grow, but not uniformly, it’s like watching a grape grow, and then blam! They explode, Noooo my Essence!

  I… I didn’t mean for this to happen… my new guests pop their heads out of the ground and stare at their dead parents, I’m sure they must be devastated to lose their parents right after being born... No, they are not, the little ones following their leader, the one that broke out first from the cocoon, reach their parents and without many pleasantries begins to eat them. Damn nature, you are scary!

  I leave that awful scene and spend my time monitoring my love in her coffin, right beside her, my dried up corpse, at least in death we already are one. It’s kinda funny how she has been dead for years and it’s still so beautiful while I’ve been dead for days and I’m already a skeleton… Wait, do human bodies decay that fast? Mole! Go tap on my right hand!

  The Mole scuttled to my corpse and touched my wrist where one of my many magic tools rested in the dust. This, in particular, was an automatic watch that tells you the hour everytime you touch it makes it usable for non-mages too, even power is no problem as it works on absorbing mana from the atmosphere. A set of numbers appeared on the air, 26:20, 1:10:218. Our calendar works with a year made of 10 months, each month with 30 days. I had tried my experiment around the 30:8:202… I have been dead for more 16 years?!

  That’s… not really that important at this point. I mean, it’s not like I miss my friends, everyone shunned me when I started my journey to resurrect my dead girlfriend. My parents might still be alive though, I could send rat with my greetings, but I don’t think they would appreciate it that much…

  I wonder how the world has changed, are people still afraid of venturing into the monster territories? I let time pass by as I wonder about what could have changed in all those years, empires’ rise and fall, natural disasters, wars. Then I realize that only so many things can happen in 16 years.

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  Tales of a Rat linked with a Dungeon:

  I move through the low foliage, my powerful 4 legs pushing forward my body in a full sprint, I can’t afford to waste time. I can feel my lord urgency through the link he has bestowed upon me out of mercy, the same links that gave me strength above what I have never even dared dream about.

  I ran fast, faster than whatever was running after me, I could smell the rancid stench of dried off blood of my kins all over his black fur and exhaling from his long snout. He has been chasing after me for the past hour, probably unaware of how superior I am to my own kin, unfortunately not superior enough to hunt down this beast.

  Looking for a place to hide I notice a hole in the mountain wall right in front of me, it looks small enough to thwart my chaser but not me. Here lay two choices in front of me, try my luck against whatever is inside there or face my chaser. I turn around for a second and his reddened yellow eyes convince me that the hole is the better choice.

  I run a few more seconds and finally dive inside, I can hear the stupid beast hit its head against the wall and drop to the ground, Chance! I turn around and lunge at his neck ripping it with my teeth, fresh blood washes away my fatigue and the shame of fleeing the battle. It barely whimpers before going still.

  I blinked at the blue window, the way of my lord to give me rewards, saw it only once before and it made me stronger and faster than ever.

  I turn back and stare at the bottom of the hole, I can smell faint traces of mana, maybe there I’ll find the “precious seeds” my master sent me to find.