Magic is Programming

B2 Chapter 16: Dungeon Ecology

Amber stared ahead and gulped. She'd been eagerly anticipating having her own chance at leading the discussion with a new dungeon core, but now that the moment was here, she was suddenly acutely aware that rather significant potential stakes were depending on her ability to be persuasive in a conversation. Well, for a rather loose interpretation of the word "conversation," anyway.

She firmed her resolve and stepped forward. Carlos believes in me, and I should too. Besides, if I fail, we can still make do. The egg-shaped large emerald crystal that was the dungeon core reacted to her approach, reaching out with a delicate thin tendril of essence, mana, and aether all mixed together. Little stubby protrusions branched off from the tendril like leaf stems, and one larger branch reached over to Carlos behind Amber. She reached out her hand and a little mana to actively accept contact, and an image of an idyllic peaceful forest bathed in green light overlaid her physical surroundings.

The dungeon's emotions gently brushed against Amber's mind. Wariness. Caution. More than a hint of fear. Alongside those feelings, however, she also felt strokes of more positive emotions. Gratitude for not having their powerful escorts simply obliterate everything in their path. Curiosity about why they had shown such restraint. Hope that their request would be reasonable.

Amber sent back a tentatively hopeful offer of friendship. Cooperation. Mutual assistance.

The dungeon responded with a confused wordless query. Why can't their requests just be done as normal wishes, and what could they possibly offer? It already gets plenty of delvers, and most of them never reach the core to cost it the expense of a wish.

Amber built a visual image, piece by piece, to try to explain. She started with the dungeon core itself, but in another place far away, a place where the aether in the air was dense and powerful. She envisioned the emerald core growing larger, more powerful, able to wield such dense high-level aether with ease. To answer the question that began forming in response, she imagined herself and Carlos carrying the core as they traveled. She added an impression of a series of lessons, the two of them teaching the dungeon core, giving it knowledge that would enable it to grow even more powerful. Amber finished with a vision of a vast forest surrounding the core, its territory filled with defenders and protections so strong as to be almost unassailable.

The forest of the mental space she was immersed in fell silent, bird calls and even the wind quieting as a sense of contemplation filled the air. After a long breath, the forest's mood turned to questions, tinged with hints of suspicion and distrust. After the dungeon gained so much, what next? Why would they do so much for it? Why should it trust them enough to make itself so vulnerable, and to leave everything that it already had?

Amber projected her desire for friendship and cooperation, but the dungeon core rebuffed her. It reflected her feelings back at her, but with focus drawn to a kernel of desire for personal gain. It was relatively small and almost buried under the rest, but it was there nonetheless. A bird with brilliant green feathers and a sharp beak flew to a branch a few feet in front of her and cawed at her accusingly. Impressions of distrust flew at her in a flurry. Distrust that she might be hiding more greed than she'd shown. Distrust that they'd follow through on their offer rather than exploiting it when it's most vulnerable. Distrust that the knowledge they would teach would be as useful as she'd envisioned. Deep skepticism at the very idea of abandoning its current place.

Amber sighed and dismissed the imagined vision she'd built. Dungeon cores are loners by nature, it doesn't know me enough for meaningful trust, and it's comfortable with what it already has. We knew that recruiting it was a long shot, but it's still disappointing. She shook her head. Moving on to the fallback idea.

With a firm mental switch, she started building context for her wish. She started with the dungeon core once more, but this time in the past, a time when it was smaller and weaker than it is now. Back when it was young, its domain had been small, simple, and plain, holding little else of interest. She envisioned the core filling its domain with obstacles, challenges, and dangers to protect itself. In her imagination, the dungeon's domain expanded and developed, and the core grew with it.

Amber imagined adventurers discovering the dungeon and delving it. More came after them, a rising tide of delvers. Some reached the core and demanded wishes, but many failed, whether at the claws of its great tiger guardian, or by not even finding the path to get that far. Even those who triumphed had to fight hard to gain their prizes, and all the while, the dungeon grew, up to its present power.

With that context set, she focused her attention on the various parts that she had left vague and largely unformed. The obstacles, challenges, and dangers were all little more than impressions of being effective and difficult to beat. The means by which the dungeon's domain developed, becoming more sophisticated and capable in ways other than simple power, was nebulous and unknown. The connection between the amount of delvers and the dungeon's growth rate was just the bare concept of them being somehow related. Amber highlighted all of those unknowns and focused on her desire to know them.

A confused and questioning chorus of chirps sounded from all around her as the dungeon core's confusion touched her mind. Not about what she wanted, but about why she wanted it. If she had knowledge to teach it to grow even beyond what it already was, why did she want knowledge of how to grow merely to reach its current point? How could she not already have that knowledge?

Amber hesitated, uncertain how to explain in concept-thoughts instead of words. Then she remembered that Carlos had talked with words to Purple back when he was the only one with a comprehension aid, and Purple had known only concept-thoughts back then. It was imperfect; the relative precision and discrete logic of words and language often did not map cleanly to the free-form imagery of concept-thoughts. Even so, it worked, and she had her own comprehension aid to use. [The ways to grow in power that we would teach you do not depend on how you have grown. We have used them without growing in the ways that you have. But the two ways can be combined.]

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The chirping from the surrounding forest grew slower and more uncertain. The bird in front of her tilted its head completely sideways, first one way, then the other. Impressions of movement and of stillness clashed and broke apart into puzzlement. Why would she, a creature that moves, want to know ways to grow that require staying put? The dungeon seemed to pause for a while, then set its puzzlement aside. Whatever doubts it might have about going with her, it was certain that she had no intent to harm it with this knowledge, and giving knowledge that it already had was a remarkably cheap wish to grant, especially for a group as powerful as hers.

Hair-thin threads of essence began forming in a complex web, and a branch of it reached out toward her, then paused as the dungeon presented a question to her mind. Amber quickly amended her desire to include that Carlos should also gain this knowledge, but not the rest of the group. A second branch grew toward him as the web grew larger and thicker, but no other addition to the web appeared, and Amber raised an eyebrow at it. The deadly dungeon with all the swarms teleported us out as part of the wish. Is this one not going to do that? Mana started flowing into the web to fuel it, but the flows spread out far beyond that web as well. Amber shifted her gaze to take the rest in and did a double take. Oh. It has something permanent set up for that, and I didn't notice because it was dormant.

The familiar wrapping of a teleport formed around each person in the entire group, and Haftel raised a questioning eyebrow toward Carlos as the mana built up. Carlos nodded, and everyone relaxed and accepted the attachment of the teleport effect as it solidified to define the boundary between what would be teleported and what would not. The densely woven web of essence filaments poured into Carlos and Amber at the same moment as the teleporter's power flared in Amber's mana sense. Suddenly, their surroundings were different; a different forest, back outside, with an open sky above and no tiger or dungeon core.

Oh wait, there is a dungeon core here. Purple's right over there. Then the headache hit, and Amber groaned and staggered. She was dimly aware of Carlos stumbling next to her too, and Haftel and Esmorana took a half-step toward them with looks of concern on their faces. She shook her head and waved them back. "It's okay. We got what I asked for, it just comes with a headache as a side effect." She unsteadily turned toward Purple, some 30 or so feet away, and took hold of Carlos's hand to steady both of them before she started walking.

Carlos groaned and rubbed his forehead. "At least it hurts less than last time. Our increased power seems to be helping handle it better."

Amber nodded. "Yeah, and I'm already getting some bits and pieces of information. Let's see…" She cocked her head. "Dungeons can improve efficiency at specific things by dedicating small areas to specialize in them?"

"Kind of like permanent and self-maintaining spells, I think, though it works best when it takes advantage of the environment in some way?" Carlos paused. "Yes, that's right. Suitable environment is a major factor."

"Environment, and up front investment to make it operate on its own. Costs more to set up, but takes less mana and less attention to maintain."

Purple's mental voice chimed in their heads. [I considered that a few times, but never felt like I had enough to spare to afford the setup cost. I got found and delved early. Didn't have much of a chance to build defenses before I was already under seige.]

Amber nodded. "Makes sense. What else did we get… Ah, here's something: for more flexible, adaptable, and mobile defense, build essence into the form of a creature and imbue a moderate amount of independent initiative into it."

"Dungeon monsters. Of course." Carlos briefly switched to telepathy. [Purple, why didn't you use those?]

[I only tried making one once. The amount of essence I had to put into it seemed prohibitive, and the only idea I had for making it move on its own felt like giving up a part of myself. I deconstructed it and reclaimed everything almost immediately. How does this dungeon make it affordable?]

Amber prodded at the still-settling package of pain and knowledge in her head and pulled out an answer. "Apparently, the main answer is that most of it is inherently a one-time up-front cost. When an adventurer kills the monster, they take a small portion of its essence, but the rest returns to the dungeon core and only needs that small portion replaced to respawn it."

Chagrin cascaded down the bond from Purple. [I never had a monster actually fight anyone to discover that. Damn. That makes a huge difference. What about the independent action part?]

Carlos rubbed his chin in thought. "Independent action… The forest dungeon imbues its monsters with… just a set of instincts and behaviors, mostly, if I'm understanding this correctly. Only a very few of them have any actual ability to think."

Purple took a moment to process this information. [Oh.] Resigned embarrassment and regret surged. [The idea that anything less than the ability to think could even be possible as a way to make it move on its own never occurred to me.] He paused to let his thoughts settle. [I feel like a failure of a dungeon core for missing something so basic.]

Amber shook her head and replied mentally. [You are not a failure. If I've learned anything from what Carlos has taught me, it's that even the simplest and most painfully obvious of ideas, at least by how they seem in hindsight, can be startlingly elusive to think of in the first place.]

[I suppose.] Purple sent a mental shrug.

As they finally hobbled into close range of Purple, Noralt gave a jaunty salute while standing with her giant hammer held on her shoulder like it was nothing. "It's been real boring out here. Nothing's even dared show its face to me. Do I get to do anything more interesting soon?"

Carlos chuckled. "Maybe a little more interesting, at least. It's time to move on to our campsite for the night, in a Level 12 zone where Purple, there, can absorb as much as possible without getting hurt." He picked up the floating crystal and put it in his pocket without further ado, then nodded toward Esmorana.

Noralt shook her head wryly. "Don't know if I'll ever get used to seeing you do that. Those things are supposed to be impossible to move, and I still have no idea how you do it." She shrugged. "Whatever. I'll get the flying rig ready in a few moments."

The teleport ritual circle in Dramos flared, and a man wearing a black robe with dark orange lines and markings on it appeared in the center. The guard standing watch hastily scrambled to salute and bow, but Crown Mage Felton ignored him. He had much better ways to seek what he was here for than by speaking to a guard. He focused his will and cast a silent spell to connect the selective locator beacon he carried to any of its brethren that were nearby and inform him of their locations.

After a few seconds of silence, Felton frowned. Every royal guard has one of those beacons in their armor, but I detect none in all of Dramos. More sabotage? He shook his head. More likely they're just out in the Wilds somewhere. I could boost the spell's range, but they're not actually who I'm here for. He eyed the deeply-bowing guard just outside the circle and considered his options.

"Guard. I am Crown Mage Felton. I must speak with the mayor of Dramos. Guide me to him."