The Survivor Becomes a Dungeon

Vitmori POV

Nights last forever, though I'm thankful that I'm able to keep myself busy. Even if I don't feel the same urges I did when I was alive, boredom still creeps into my mind. Overnight I've been carving an array of interconnected chambers into my mountain, going as low as my influence will allow me, which is still around the middle of the mountain.

In the end, I managed to find a pace and rhythm that allowed me to use and recover mana with a zero-sum. The rooms themselves are rough and barely developed, but details can be left for later once I decide how to use them.

My sphere of influence also grew overnight with all the excess mana I had coursing in my core. It wasn't too much in the grand scale of things, but it's another 20ft all around. With this, I've actually managed to crest the top of my mountain, which I genuinely consider a feat in itself. I can't help but wonder if I'll keep going up and up into the sky; it just feels… So wasteful. Not to mention the untapped potential of my mountain; there's so much I don't have access to, and it's frustrating not to even know what's in my basement.

As for my core chamber and the core itself, I've made some changes since I was essentially home alone for the first time since Basti came into my life. Sure… Oururu was here with me, but he's off resting in his newly expanded burrow.

Speaking of which, Frisby has moved in with him. After the initial surprise of her being smitten with him, Oururu seemed to accept her feelings for him at least. As for what they are between the two of them, I don't know, and I didn't pry all too much. I know that Frisby is at least respecting Oururu's personal space and was content with me carving out her own little room within Oururu's burrow, essentially making them burrow mates.

Back to the topic at hand, my core room has had a few more changes. I've gotten rid of the parkour cubbies for now since the cubs have gotten too big for them as they were; instead, I've expanded their sleeping areas. Each cub has gotten their own bed, but I made sure each one was big enough for at least two cubs on the off chance they don't want to sleep alone just yet. For Basti's bed, I've doubled the original size and added the skins from the white-furred deer she's hunted these last couple of weeks. Laying them over the dried grass bedding, fur side up, for the added comfort. All in all, she can sleep there by herself, and any or all the cubs can join her if they feel the need to do so.

I briefly considered making a sleeping area for Jack while I'm at it, but he's more of a free spirit from what I've seen so far, preferring to sleep out in the woods for the time being. Instead, I made him a perch from one of the trees I had left over after building the longhouse. I cut out one of the thicker branches and try to use minute amounts of mana to try and shape it since the wood itself is still fresh and living. Surprisingly enough, the adjustments take, the branch twisting around into a bend at the end, forming a perch while I buried the branch's end down into the stone. The branch seemed to find its place, roots growing from the end of where I had buried it as the branch anchored itself rather securely.

With the sun starting to rise, I finished up the last of the little tasks I set for myself, which was creating some more training weapons for Dread, Zasutir, and my sinners. Once again, using one of the leftover tree wood, I essentially print out some more weapons. I'm not sure how else to phrase it, but for something as simple and crude as these weapons, I didn't have to focus nearly as hard when preparing these things. I made ten simple staffs, five wooden daggers, ten wooden swords, five wooden greatswords, five wooden axes, five wooden shields, and five wooden warhammers. Atop of all that, I've made a bunch of stone armor weights in a similar design that Dread had improvised for himself. I would prepare more, but for now, I just want them to develop their foundations before branching off into their own styles. At that point, I'll custom tailor their equipment and pass all this stuff down to the people at the Haven to standardize their training to ensure everyone knows some kind of self-defense, but that won't be anytime soon. Finally, I quietly transport all this stuff down into the training room, drawing out more racks and equipment storage from the very stone itself and quietly setting everything up. At the same time, Dread and the Sinners finish out their meditation for the night.

Overall, I feel tonight was a productive use of my focus and mana. I sense that Jack and his team are starting to fly back home; however, I still can't tell how far he's out. Hopefully, he'll bring me some good stuff, though now that I think about it, I should bring in some local goods from the forest and see what I can do with it as well. Not to mention I've got a quarry's worth of stone, dirt, and all sorts of ores and minerals to work with. If I'm not wrong, I think I've even found limestone, gypsum, silver, and gold, amongst other metal ores I don't recognize. Now I'm not entirely sure if I'm supposed to be finding all these materials in one place, but I'm not about to question it when I am a strange living rock that also came from this mountain. I've got lots to experiment with, and that's considering what possible applications magic can do with all of this as well.

For now, it's time to greet the new day and see what it brings.

Zasutir POV

The community was abuzz with activity before the sun was even up. Remi and Luna were hard at work with meal prep, managing to bake some simple flatbreads with a blend of wild grains, served alongside meats from some rabbits and wild birds.

Zasutir was quietly getting worried, he could sense the change in the air, and he knew winter would be here in only a few months. They had so much to prepare, and a lot needed to be done sooner rather than later before the southern snow buried them. Winter in the Theocracy was rough as it is, even for people from the capital like his group. Now here they were, outside of the safety and relative security of the Theocracy despite everything else that was happening there.

Reviewing the list that he, Woody, Silvia, and Luna had put together, the most important thing they needed to secure was tools. From there, they could split their attention between a couple of things. For one, they definitely needed storage space for materials and especially their foodstuffs to keep it safe and organized. Woody and Luna devised an excellent idea for a smokehouse to preserve their meats, especially considering their lack of salt and other traditional preservatives. The only thing about that is that the smoke would undoubtedly call some kind of attention to them, but they would need to trust Vitmori to protect them as he had promised.

All in all, they had a plan now, and they just needed to act on it, though Zasutir couldn't help but be worried that they asked Vitmori to step back too soon. However, what he said was ultimately the voice of his people; they needed to rely on themselves now if they were to ever thrive in this untouched land between two nations.