by Demi Harper
The next few hours yielded yet more god-born creatures to fill my tunnels. By the end of the night I had five more forrels: two to join their sibling just outside the entrance to the Grotto, and the other three split between each of the branches off the main tunnel.
In total I now had six forrels and one boulderskin, which meant my remaining Creation limit was now reduced to sixteen. It also meant that two of my four Pantheon slots were now filled, leaving me with two more possible species to play around with.
Having now properly reconnoitered my territory, it was clear I still had a long way to go when it came to populating it. Seeing the tunnels in person – as it were – had brought the place to life in a way the golden lines of the Augmentary could not.
For instance, a tangled group of overlapping lines on the map turned out to be an especially large cavern. The cavern had a huge pit in the center, with only a narrow ledge of stone leading around the edge of this pit, and the walls were honeycombed with passages leading in all directions.
I decided to name this particular place the Heart. The Insight ability had shown me the inner workings of the creatures I’d examined, so I knew that this cavern resembled that particular organ, shafts of all shapes and sizes allowing air to flow to and fro just like veins and arteries and capillaries carried blood around a living body.
Two of the three passages that branched off from the Grotto – those that did not lead to the underground lake – eventually both opened out into the Heart. This would be the place I would station my next batch of defenders.
For now, though, remembering what Ket had said about god-born creatures’ ability to alert me to intruders, I took the salamander and skeleton fish blueprints and spliced myself a skelemander – a near-invisible salamander that could patrol the outer edges of my Sphere of Influence without being seen. Then, finding that skelemanders only took up half a creation slot each, I made three more of them, bringing my Creation limit down to fourteen.
Tiny, slender, amphibious – the skelemanders looked to the casual eye like little more than translucent lizard-like skeletons, and could pass through the tiniest of cracks in the stone with ease. Like most of my new cave creatures, they were ugly, but they were also efficient.
After sending the four skelemanders off with instructions to keep vigil on the outskirts of my Sphere, I decided to call it a night. I still had one Pantheon slot remaining, and fourteen individual Creation slots, but for now I wanted to take stock of my base again.
I returned to the Grotto and glanced around at my gnomes. In my absence, things had… not been going great.
The two scouts I’d sent out were still absent, and despite Granny’s oversight, the two lumberjacks had yet to fell a single shroomtree between them. Even the Faithful one was beginning to tire. As I watched, Granny waved an arm at the pair of them, sending them off to their tents to rest.
I felt a twinge of anxiety. Still no timber. What if my incompetent denizens never managed to construct any of the buildings on the Augmentary list? I’d be stuck as a lowly tier-four god for eternity – or at least until the kobolds returned in force, after which I’d be nothing at all. Not even my new boulderskin would be able to stop an army.
Before my thoughts could turn fully maudlin, I became aware of several new arrivals at my altar.
Clearly having just woken up after a full night’s sleep, five gnomes stumbled up the hillock to my gem, rubbing their eyes with dirt-crusted fists. Five more potential worshipers, waiting for me to convince them to join the Church of Corey. Recalling how the forrel had (eventually) made my already-Faithful denizens fall to worshiping me, I suspected I knew just how to impress these new arrivals.
I had lots of shiny new blueprints to play with, and one Pantheon slot remaining. But what to create?
Far above my gem, the first feeble rays of sunlight broke through the cloudy dawn and crept lazily through the hole in the cavern ceiling. A chill went through me as I realized I’d have no way of defending myself should something attempt to enter the Grotto from up there.
Luckily, I had the perfect solution.
I flashed through the blueprints in the Augmentary until I found the two I wanted.
‘Spiders, Corey?’ Ket’s voice quavered with doubt. ‘Are you sure?’
‘They’re the obvious choices. The wandering spider has a deadly bite, and the cave spider builds strong webs – a perfect combination for plugging up this dirty great hole in the ceiling.’ I paused, conscious of the waiting gnome audience, some of whom had already begun to scuff their feet and look longingly back toward their shabby tents. ‘Why? What’s wrong with spiders?’
‘They just seem a little… evil, is all.’
‘What? Rubbish. They’re just misunderstood,’ I told her. ‘Look – I’ll show you.’
There was a flash of white light, and then the new gnomes were shrieking and shoving one another in their haste to get away. Meanwhile, my newest creation – the magnificent cave wanderer – sat proudly before us. Black and hairy and even larger than the boulderskin, it stared around patiently with eight unblinking eyes.
Don’t be afraid, I wanted to say to the panicking gnomes. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it. But that clearly wasn’t true, so I settled instead for instructing my new pet spider to climb up through the ceiling hole and out of sight.
The arachnid turned and scuttled off to obey. As it passed the cowering gnomes, it clicked its pedipalps mischievously in their direction. They all flinched, and one of them began to wail. Eight black eyes gleamed in the weak sunlight.
Trying not to chuckle, I reinforced my instructions for the cave wanderer to leave my gnomes alone and take up position in the ceiling hole. Reluctantly, the spider – Binky, I decided – unspooled a length of silky thread from the spinnerets on his rear, then flung the thread upward, where it was caught by an almost imperceptible air current and carried up through the hole.
A moment later, Binky followed, climbing the thread delicately. He ascended rear first, staring at the fearful gnomes all the while until, with a final twitch of his pedipalps, he was gone.
‘See?’ I said to Ket. ‘Just misunderstood, is all.’
Once Binky had departed, the cowering gnomes came closer once more. Staring at the hole in the Grotto’s roof, they dropped to their knees before my altar, their faces filled with awe.
‘I told you!’ I said to Ket. ‘I told you spiders would go down well.’
‘I think they’re worshiping the fact that you got rid of the spider, Corey. I know I would be if I were them…’
I barely heard her, because the sudden addition of five gnomes to my tally of Faithful had filled the green inverted triangle, finally pushing me into god tier five. A quick check of the Augmentary confirmed that I’d gained a fifth Pantheon slot, and my Creation limit had now expanded to a grand total of thirty creatures, eleven of which were already filled.
Delicious ecstasy filled every molecule of my being, boosted by delight at seeing the next tier of the Faith triangle already a fifth full, well on the way to tier six.
Even better, the simultaneous worship of thirteen denizens (Granny and the Faithful woodcutter had headed off to rest) was filling my mana globes faster than ever before. Just a few moments had passed since the new worshipers decided to bend the knee, but already my first globe was almost full again. I watched the blue mana level creep up steadily into the second globe, trying and failing not to feel smug.
Then the gnomes who’d spent the entire night worshiping staggered to their feet, yawning. They stumbled toward their tents, leaving behind only Ris’kin and the five new worshipers.
Disappointing.
I’d hoped to reap the mana benefits of having thirteen active worshipers for a little longer, but I supposed they deserved a bit of rest.
Having no need of sleep myself, I leapt straight into my Augmentary, scrolling down my list of abilities until I found the new addition.
Divine Inspiration
; Tier 5 ability
Inspire a truly Faithful denizen to attempt to perform a specific action (e.g. create an item).
More construction-related abilities? Still, I supposed Divine Inspiration could be useful for my gnomes… though I shuddered to think of the sort of useless items their incompetence might produce.
Before I could contemplate Divine Inspiration’s practical uses, I felt a strange twinge at the back of my mind, like someone calling my name from afar.
‘Ket?’
It was as though a thread attached to me were being tugged. Worried, I spun around, searching the Grotto for the source of the alarm. The five new Faithful gnomes were still worshiping at my altar, oblivious to everything else. Ris’kin, however, stood vigilant beside them on two legs, her nose in the air, ears twitching.
‘You sense it too?’ I asked her. She tilted her head to the side, but otherwise ignored me, fixated as she was upon this distant yet nagging sensation.
I squinted upward into the brightening sunlight above my gem. I could just see Binky the spider, hunkered against the side of the hole. He’d spun a web across the center—
A web.
That was what I was feeling. I’d established a web of sentries – skelemander sentries – across my Sphere of Influence, and now something had tripped one of the threads.
Something big.
Instructing Ris’kin to wait by the altar and protect my worshipers, I headed out to discover who – or what – had dared stumble into my domain.
Seventeen
Fireballs on Fridays
‘We’re lost.’
‘No we’re not. We’re just… taking the scenic route.’
‘Scenic? You’re an idiot, Lila. We’ve been down here for a whole day now, and seen nothing but rocks, dirt, and more rocks.’
‘And spiders.’
‘Hush, Benin. The grown-ups are talking.’
‘Don’t speak to him like that, Cassandria. The boy has fire at his fingertips and a decade’s worth of Academy training—’
‘I don’t care if he shoots fireballs out of his arse on Fridays. Just give me the map so I can get us on course.’
‘How about a ladder instead, so you can get off my back?’
I watched the bickering humans with wary amusement. At least, I assumed they were humans, though I couldn’t recall ever seeing any before now.
There were five in all. Three of them hung back in a huddle at the rear of the group, while the other two appeared to be jostling for the position of leader: Cassandria, pale of skin, with short black hair and an assortment of knives on her leather-clad person; and Lila, red-haired and lithe, an unstrung bow slung across her back.
Lila held a map in one hand and an alchemical globe of silver light in the other. She was holding both of these items up in the air, out of reach of the shorter Cassandria, who was attempting to grab them for herself.
‘I can’t stop watching,’ I confessed to Ket. ‘Humans are much more fun than gnomes.’
The sprite shushed me, also engrossed in the conflict playing out below us.
In the end, Cassandria punched Lila in the stomach, then snatched the map and globe when the other woman doubled over.
‘How dare you?’ the redhead wheezed. ‘I’m Lila Mornier, niece of the Baron of Man Caer!’
‘And I’m Cassandria Karst, and I don’t give a damn.’ The woman turned her back on Lila and carelessly thrust out the light globe for one of the other humans to take. ‘Hold this.’
A large, stocky man hurried forward to take it, his chainmail armor rustling with every step. The other two humans behind him – Benin the fireball shooter, and a shy-looking female – watched nervously from the shadows, frowning. The big armored man, now holding the light, shrugged at his quiet companions helplessly, as if to say, ‘What else could I do?’
Ket and I followed as Cassandria led the way down the passage, scowling down at her map all the while. The armored man – whom the others referred to as ‘Coll’ – jogged a couple of steps behind her, holding the glowing alchemical globe far in front of him with both hands as though it might bite his face. Benin and the as-yet-unnamed woman kept close behind Coll, while Lila reluctantly took up the rear.
When they reached the Heart, all five of them gaped at the myriad passages leading away from them – though not as much as they gaped at the pit in the floor. It yawned blackly in front of them, the narrow ledge the only means of traversing its edge.
‘It’s so dark,’ whispered Coll. ‘How far down d’you think it goes?’
‘Throw the light in and find out,’ joked Benin.
He did.
The other four stared at Coll in disbelief as the globe vanished and the cavern descended into pitch blackness.
‘Are you stupid?’ demanded Cassandria. She sounded ready to throttle the warrior – who did admittedly seem more than a little simple – but she was kept in place by fear of misstepping and falling to her death.
The sudden darkness was getting to the others, too.
‘I don’t like this,’ muttered Lila, backing blindly into the tunnel. Her breathing was loud and fast in the oppressive darkness. She bent and began to string her bow by touch alone – an impressive feat, I was forced to admit.
Cassandria snapped her fingers. ‘You! Magicker!’
The one they called Benin edged forward.
‘You’re a mage, are you not?’ barked Cassandria. ‘Give us some light!’
The boy nodded rapidly. After a lot of muttering and wriggling his fingers – and impatient curses from both Lila and Cassandria – a tentative flame flickered into life in Benin’s palm. His hand shook; the tiny fire quavered, illuminating his white face and the stray strands of brown hair that had escaped their ponytail and stuck to the sweat on his forehead.
As soon as the cave was lit once more, Cassandria threw a threatening stare at Coll – who audibly gulped – then returned to glowering at her map.
After a few tense minutes of Cassandria’s muttered cursing, the quiet female stepped forward for the first time. She was dark-skinned, with long black hair that hung in hundreds of tiny braids around her face. ‘If I might—’
‘Who are you?’ demanded Cassandria.
The girl frowned. ‘Tiri. My name’s Tiri. I’ve been with this group since—’
‘The beginning. I know. What do you want now?’
‘I—I might be able to help. I studied cartography at—’
‘Ugh,’ Cassandria said. ‘You’re as dull as Mornier.’
Lila began to protest, but Cassandria shoved the map at Tiri and spoke over them both. ‘Here. Find which passage we need to take. You have one minute.’
The girl squeaked. Her eyes were suddenly very wide, and she turned her face to the map, frantically scanning it for clues as to their whereabouts.
I was beginning to get bored now. I checked my mana; the gnomes must still have been worshiping, because I now had almost three full globes.
‘Corey, listen!’ Ket sounded worried.
‘Hm?’
‘… need to reach its base before it gains strength enough to fight us,’ Lila was saying, still glancing around nervously, an arrow now nocked to her bowstring. ‘The Guild bounty was clear on that. It’s building up its numbers as we speak.’
‘Not for long.’ Cassandria drew one of the many knives ornamenting her belt and pointed the blade at Tiri. ‘You, bookworm – which way to the Core?’
Under Cassandria’s watchful eye, the girl began to trace a shaking finger along the map. Then she looked up and pointed across at one of the passages. I didn’t see which one; I was too busy being outraged.
‘They’re hunting me? How dare they?’ I fumed. ‘What do we do, Ket?’
‘We need to direct them away from the Grotto – hurry!’
I pulled up my Augmentary before Ket even finished speaking, navigating frantically to my god-born blueprints. I hurriedly selected the most recent one and began to pour mana into it, barely payi
ng any attention to the humans – until a gurgling sound made me look down at them again.
Benin was staring at the ground in front of him. His eyes were huge pools of fear set in his chalk-pale face.
‘Sp—spider,’ he managed to utter. The flame in his hand began to gutter as he backed down the tunnel toward Lila, away from the hand-sized cave spider crawling across the ledge before him, minding its own business.
Cassandria rounded on the retreating mage. ‘Get back here, coward,’ she growled. ‘And enough about the damned spiders. For the hundredth time: they’re harmless!’ She stepped forward; the cave spider crunched beneath her boot. ‘See?’
With a sudden flash of white light, my freshly created cave wanderer dropped to the ground between Cassandria and the others. Tiri and Coll let out matching shrieks before running flat-out for the tunnel Benin had already retreated down. Lila, however, stood her ground, rising to her feet and drawing her bow in one smooth motion.
‘Don’t. Hit. Me.’ Cassandria spoke to the bow-woman through gritted teeth, frozen in place with a dagger in each hand as she and my new god-born spider – five times as large as the one she’d just cruelly crushed – sized each other up.
Don’t hit it, I silently pleaded Lila.
The hairy black creature had cost me three full globes of mana, and was almost as high as Cassandria’s knee – far taller than the average gnome. My own rage at witnessing Cassandria’s unprovoked murder of the cave spider had made me push more mana into this new blueprint, making it much larger and stronger than I’d originally intended.
‘Now!’ yelled Cassandria, leaping forward with both daggers.
Lila released the arrow, but not before Coll’s armored shoulder barged her as he ran past. I cheered silently as the shaft went wide, slicing through one of my spider’s legs but otherwise skittering harmlessly off the wall beside Cassandria.
Well, not quite harmlessly.
Flinching away from the sudden unexpected projectile, Cassandria lost her footing on the uneven rock. Time seemed to slow as she overbalanced, windmilling her arms desperately and dropping both daggers to clatter down the side of the pit.