Blue Core

Ansae was actually in a pretty good mood for once.

She had no idea who had decided to dig into her mountain, but had been pleasantly surprised to find that they hadn’t made a mess of rubble and haphazard enchantment.  Instead, they’d lit up the tunnels bright as day and filled the space with flowers! Whoever heard of rooms of flowers under a mountain?

Yes, it was irritating that some of her Emmoil thralls had been killed, but whoever had made this thing clearly was smart enough to not try and spend defenses against her.  And now she was reclining in a sunlit glade, when she frankly hadn’t seen the sky, even a false one, for centuries.  Yes, she had to use the lesser humanoid form, but it was a treat.

Also, she’d never seen this particular wood before, which made it a nice addition to her hoard.

The mana in this place was impressive, but oddly fragile and, frankly, a mess.  It wasn’t something a mage would do - anyone wielding this much power would melt themselves with the lack of control it showed.  It almost reminded her of the corrupted cores of the mage-kings but it clearly wasn’t one of those. There wasn’t a whiff of depletion anywhere.  Which was good because she had way too much of it.  It dragged at her soul, having lost so many levels of skills to it, because even she didn’t have actually infinite power.

Nor infinite patience, but honestly, waiting a few days or weeks for the owner of this place to come home was no great worry.  Maybe they’d grovel. She hadn’t seen a good grovel in ages.

She was chewing on a strip of raw meat from the apparently ever-full kitchen when things suddenly changed.  The lights flickered and dimmed, quite apart from the day-night cycle, and a walkway lit up leading away from the cottage.  A quick scan showed there were still no people in the entire complex, so this was...something else. She hadn’t felt anyone scrying in on her either, so it was quite a surprise.

But there was nothing here that was even remotely threatening to her, so she figured she might as well see what came of it.  She followed the illuminated path as it snaked down and into passages that did not exist the day before, she was sure. Curiouser and curiouser.

Then suddenly there were a pair of scale-inscribed stone doors, which definitely

hadn’t been there yesterday.  Nor had the enormous spatial magic construct sitting behind them.  That was a little disturbing; she would have noticed if someone had been casting that kind of spell.  But then the doors opened by themselves.

It was an enormous, domed, outdoor area.  Almost. It was clear it was the same enchantment that held the day-night cycle in the lake above, but this impossibly big room made that even more impressive.  At the center was a dragon-sized depression covered in something that looked like silver-white carpet, and the surroundings were edged with grass. Terraces bracketed three sides of the grassy island, climbing up the wall.  The far wall had water, the left was filled with ice, and the right with lava. Each of them had the mana-flowers scattered over the surface, and saplings of that strange tree grew in the grass.

The corners and remaining walls of the room were covered with empty shelves and basins, and pedestals rose among the terraces, waiting for whatever contents might seem appropriate.  Even as she watched, mana flows smoothed out the rough edges of stone and pressed decoration into the terraces. Which pointed to some intelligence controlling it all, but with just mana and no depletion she was at a loss for what it could be.

“Now...this is new.”  People had attempted to bribe her before, of course.  One of the easiest ways to get rid of a dragon, though rarely successful.  But nobody had tried to bribe her with a lair.

Really it wasn’t a difficult decision.  Since it was pure mana and ordinary matter, without a whiff of depletion or elemental energy, it was harmless enough for her.  Maybe not for others, but for her. And if someone actually tried something, it wouldn’t be all that much effort to dispel it all.  In the meantime, she had a nice place to nap! Or even work, if she felt like it.

Which she probably wouldn’t.

Ansae released the demi-human form with a sigh of relief, stretching her wings out beneath faux sunlight as she padded forward.