No Need For A Core?

Svetlana’s mind bounced to all sorts of scenarios in the mere moments it took for the Azeria cores to feel and respond to her panic, ranging from the improbable to the impossible, many of them involving the Puritasi, though there were some scenarios where the northern witch was to blame. Deidre had seen her close to Svetlana’s nexus shortly after Svetlana had been freed.

As she reflexively shifted her avatar to where her core rested, she felt the other three cores focus on the monstrous something that had moved. Knowing that they were they to support her helped Svetlana calm down and realize how outlandish her fearful imagination had been.

It was also ridiculous in another way. She still had five more zones than the Azeria nexus did; her strongest zone bosses were more powerful than Azeria’s raid bosses at this point and she shouldn’t feel so dependent on them for protection. Though she didn’t have any new raid bosses yet — she didn’t know who or what she wanted for those roles.

But those were thoughts for another time; for now, she needed to focus on the thing breaching across part of her territory.

Whatever the creature was, it was truly massive. The initial analysis quickly determined that the slightly curved, wall-like mass was just a small portion of the actual creature. Larger than even the northern witch could order about. At least she was pretty sure. The only part that was inside Svetlana’s territory was the dense, rock-like carapace, wrapped around the living creature, which was why Svetlana had not noticed it before it moved.

Mordecai’s attention quickly moved off once they verified the creature was not going to move further into the nexus, so that he could look into his stored memories to see if he could find a match. Kazue’s attention remained long enough to check in on Svetlana before she too moved her attention. This time to search the information they’d gathered in their library.

Moriko’s core remained with her so that they could gain additional clues that they could pass on to Mordecai and Kazue.

The curve jutting out of her wall suggested a barrel shape, whereas the curve maintained the same shape and width along its length. It seemed to be more of a cylinder since it didn’t seem to jut out into a fat center. Assuming a perfectly circular cross-section, they estimated it to be over a mile in diameter. The length couldn’t be estimated, but even a stubby body would have to be several miles long to have that kind of diameter.

The segmented carapace appeared to not be just rock-like; it was made of a mix of minerals and rock that had been compressed into a material denser than lead, nearly as hard as diamond, and far tougher than any normal rock. And that was before taking into account that it was infused with condensed mana that rendered it even stronger, much like how mana particles altered the base substances of mithril and adamantine.

This same material coated and infused the surrounding rock — the creature was slowly secreting a thick, liquid version of it, which reinforced the tunnel it was moving through and presumably making. When they passed that information on, to Mordecai, he thought that this seemed like an adaptation meant for moving through much deeper ground, and he used that to narrow down his search even more.

The creature had no draconic aspect to its aura, but it was strongly infused with elemental earth energy, which explained how it could manipulate the rock and minerals to such an extreme degree. This information caused Kazue’s core to mutter with frustration and complain that all this wasn’t helping her search any, but she still continued to look though there information, and her concern was clear.

It wasn’t too much longer when Mordecai found the answer, and everyone relaxed with his announcement, ‘I know what it is, and it is very passive. The only danger is if you stand directly in front of it, or are touching it at the wrong time. Its size suggests that it is very old and at this late stage of its life, it only moves in surges, and it takes a while to gather itself for each surge. What Svetlana had sensed was the ripple of its movement along its length.’

That made sense to Svetlana once she thought about it. She had grown her territory into a sphere very suddenly in the heat of battle, and hadn’t really considered it after. Since then, she’d been so busy reconstructing her early zones that she hadn’t explored the huge amount of territory that she’d claimed when she’d expanded her zones into spheres. The bottom of her outermost zone was twice as deep as her core was, for now. So it was not that the creature had invaded her territory, but that she had invaded its tunnel.

She felt like she had only just come to grips with this information when Mordecai was already declaring that he wanted to bring family, near-family, and close friends of near-family on a day-trip to see and learn about the creature. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to jump so quickly from battle-ready to learning holiday, nor include so many people as her nearest and dearest. It was experiences like this that had divided her from Deidre.

Speaking of, Deidre would be one of the people visiting along with Fuyuko, Amrydor, and Satsuki. And with them would be Carmilla, Mavialeko, Galan, Derek, and Gemeti, all of whom she’d be meeting for the first time, though she had Deidre’s memories of most of them. Svet would be amongst them as well, so she could speak to and learn more about them. She wasn’t sure if the creature or the people would be more interesting and strange.

Mordecai also had some directions to prepare for this field trip. ‘Svetlana, would you create a cavern as close as you can to the tunnel? I’ll send Enki and Cimbu to help dig out the rest, but we’ll need your light-zone dragon as well, and any others whom you think will be useful. Breaking through the concretion of the tunnel wall is going to take a lot of work.’

It had been early afternoon when Svetlana had detected the movement — by the time the cavern was prepared, and Krystraeliv had directed some of her roots that deeply, it was well into the evening, and dinner had been delayed to focus on the project, though snacks had been made available lest the younger folk get too restless. Or Kazue, for that matter.

In the end, it had been Zushi who had proven key in breaking through the tunnel beyond Svetlana’s territory for a better view of the creature: he could simply press himself against the reinforced stone and focus on absorbing the material. It was much slower than with a normal object, but he was able to make steady progress.

When everything was ready, Krystraeliv transported the group to a ledge that had a good view of the wall-like stretch of segmented carapace.

Mordecai beamed in pleasure at seeing the gigantic creature. “Isn’t it magnificent? It’s called a shamir, but there are a few other names for them, depending on how you translate various species’ preferred terms. Deep tunneler, ground bearer, and world builder cover most translations, though that ignores some nuance of language and culture. Wait here a moment — it should be safe to approach, but I want to make sure first.”

He jumped down from the ledge instead of using the path Svetlana had made on one side and strode toward the enormous worm to place a hand on the carapace. After several seconds of silence as he felt for even the faintest vibration from the shamir, Mordecai nodded. “Alright, feel free to come check it out — there’s no hint of it moving.” Svetlana did notice, however, that he did not remove his hand from the shamir.

Fuyuko was the first to move, leaping off the ledge the same way Mordecai had. Moriko, however, could fly, so beat her daughter to the carapace to touch its cool side.

Svet shook her head as to how much alike their adopted daughter was to her parents. It obviously wasn’t trauma that had made her cleave so strongly to them. She just seemed to be lucky enough to find the right place at the right time.

Everybody else walked down the sloped path instead, with Mavi riding on Amrydor’s shoulders, chattering away with Gemeti, while Carmilla walked behind them looking like one of Svetlana’s faeries when they were making plans. The boy named Galan said something about someone named Shizo while poking Derek in the side, who instantly turned red. And at the back, Satsuki walked close beside Deidre, holding her arm as if in support.

Svet watched them all as she walked along an extension of the ledge that followed the wall, staying above where the rest of them were gathering — in order to get a good angle to walk up to the shamir, it had been necessary to dig beyond Svetlana’s borders, so the internal avatar couldn’t come all the way down. Just being so close to the edge pulled at her mana, threatening to unravel her.

“So what’s it do?” Mavi asked as she patted the creature. “Why’s it called a world builder? It doesn’t look like it builds anything other than itself.”

Mordecai smiled. “Well, that’s a matter of perspective. Remember the sort of people who gave it that name. They live deep underground, where there are large caverns and big tunnels that maintain their shape for a long time. Those tunnels were left behind by these creatures. So the shamir literally built the world those people live in.”

“It’s very old,” Amrydor said softly. “And I think it’s close to dying, but it’s so old that I don’t really know what ‘close to death’ means. It could be thousands of years away.” He sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t know I could feel the age of something like that.”

“You’re probably correct,” Mordecai replied in a somber tone. “This creature is the oldest mortal thing you will likely ever see, and one of the last of its kind on this world.”

Kazue glanced up at him. “On this world? And why are they so rare?”

“Allow me to answer this,” Satsuki said. “I have some information from my travels that I do not think Mordecai has, and it all comes down to their life cycle. Newly hatched shamir have an instinctive drive to move away from other shamir, and this instinct is stronger around larger shamir. If there is a sufficiently large shamir nearby, it becomes enough of a push that their affinity for earth allows them to, well, ‘earth step’, but to an entirely different world. One without much else other than rock for them to eat. They are very simple but very resilient and adaptable, and do not require air or liquid water. Whatever is bound inside of rock is enough for them. Their ability to find other worlds and move to them is impressive, and no one has been able to mimic that power using spells. Though I should note that they appear to lose that ability within a month of hatching, and none have ever been tracked as using it more than once.”

Mordecai gave her a skeptical look. “This doesn’t seem like the sort of information you would have memorized.”

“A lady must have a few secrets,” she replied demurely. “It would be awful of a man to strip away all of her mystery, don’t you think?”

Somehow, that sounded like a pointed invitation to search for her secrets by stripping her. Given the face that Fuyuko just made, Svetlana was pretty certain she and everyone else had gotten the same implication. In a teasing tone, Mordecai answered, “I think Kazue would appreciate knowing the secrets of her knight and lady-in-waiting, but that is a conversation for later.”

Watching Satsuki twitch and glance nervously at Kazue was entertaining, and given that the nine-tail had sworn to be Kazue’s knight and lady-in-waiting, Svetlana suspected that it would be difficult for Satsuki to hide any secrets if Kazue pressed her for them.

Svetlana was also reminded of the distraction and confusion spell Kazue had used in battle. It had momentarily distracted Dimitri too, though the illusions had not had any magical effect on him.

This had made him even angrier when he realized he was staring at the images Kazue had created, but it had wonderfully entertained Svetlana. She had kept the memory of the lewd illusions, and her faeries now used versions of it to entrance her delvers.

Carmilla had ignored their byplay while she studied the shamir, and she now asked, “It’s not supposed to be this close to the surface, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Mordecai said. “This is incredibly shallow for a shamir, or at least, one this old, as smaller tunnels can sometimes be found closer to the surface. My guess is that it was going around an underground lake or a magma plume. Neither would be particularly harmful, but either one would be an unpleasant experience. Based on how level it is, we are probably at the upper end of its curve before it begins to dive back down to a more comfortable depth.”

“Wait,” Svet said from the ledge above. “Does that mean there may be a potential volcano beneath us?”

Mordecai shook his head. “While it might be possible, that is not something to worry about. Any magma entering your territory would become yours to claim and convert into mana if you needed to.”

Fuyuko rapped her knuckles on the shamir’s carapace. “Is this thing strong enough to fend off Gil?” Moriko looked pretty curious too, while Satsuki rolled her eyes with a disgusted expression.

Svet, on the other hand, wondered who this Gil was.

“Hmm.” Mordecai thought about it briefly, then shrugged. “Sort of. It wouldn’t be able to fight back, but it would twist and surge forward as much as it could until it exhausted itself. This would make it harder for Gil to keep attacking the same location. I am not sure how long it would take Gil to cut his way through the carapace, but it wouldn’t be easy. So, given enough time, yes, Gil could cut through. Not that this would necessarily kill the shamir — much like normal worms, it’s possible for both halves to survive.”

The idea of a single person being able to cut through such a massive creature was outlandish, but Mordecai seemed serious, so Svetlana sent, ‘Who is this Gil? How strong is he?’

Mordecai replied, ‘He’s an immortal older than Satsuki and myself combined, and at least as strong as that age implies. He escorted Fuyuko to Azeria after saving her from bleeding out. She’d killed a peryton by herself after it ambushed her, though it nearly had its revenge. Here’s Gil playing with me during his visit.’

The images Mordecai sent over of the ‘game’ that had played out in Azeria’s wetland zone were incredible, and Azeria had only seven zones at the time! There was also no way for Mordecai and Kazue to give detailed instructions that fast — all of that coordination had to have been from their inhabitants already knowing and understanding their roles, and just being told when to act.

Svetlana’s felt even more enlightened about how valuable the sort of training Azeria did with its inhabitants was. The way they had defeated her under-trained inhabitants was one thing, but for their inhabitants to put on such a display against a person as powerful as this Gil… she shook off her awe and wandering thoughts to focus on the rest of the conversation.

There were a few more questions, but as fascinating as it initially was to encounter such a creature, the shamir was also not doing anything, so interest soon began to fade. When everyone seemed ready to go back, Mordecai said, “Mavi, could you let Krystraeliv know that trusted guests and family are allowed to ask to be transported here? Let’s keep it to them and inhabitants for now, though we might want to allow some researchers or scholars eventually.”

Svet crossed her arms in thought. How would she create a space for researchers and scholars when much of what they would be here to study would be outside the reach of her nexus? Well, perhaps she could borrow more help from Enki and Cimbu to shape the rock nearby.

After that, it was time to head back home for a late dinner, to which they also invited Svet. With the shamir fresh in everyone’s mind, conversation readily turned to questions about other deep-dwelling species that were rarely heard of on the surface.

Mavi seemed to be thrilled about being ‘terrified’ by all the ‘scary’ creatures that lived in the world far beneath them, while Fuyuko and Moriko seemed more interested in which ones would make for interesting fights.

The conversation kept everyone up later than normal, but eventually Fuyuko and the others dragged themselves off to bed. Kazue had fallen asleep already, curled up in a large, comfy chair, and Mordecai scooped her up to carry her to their bedroom.

Moriko grumbled about him poaching the cute fox, and he just smirked. Svet laughed as she took her leave. What interesting people she had found her way amongst.

patreon .com /c/zagaroth (remove the spaces if you need to use this instead of the link)

Ko-Fi: https:// ko-fi .com/zagaroth

Early chapters, some excerpts and short stories, and more art!