The Dungeon Without a System

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Unknown Place, Unknown Time

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As I drifted awake, it seemed fitting that the first thing I felt was a drifting sensation. It was like I was floating on a pool of water, being gently rocked back and forth. It was soothing. Relaxing. I decided to enjoy the sensation and stay in this half-awake state of being for as long as possible. Inevitably though, I became more and more aware of myself and my surroundings. At some point, something twitched in my mind. I should be in my bed; why was I feeling like this?

When I went to take a deep breath, I felt nothing. I didn't take a breath; I didn't feel my chest expand. In a sudden panic, I was thrust into full awareness. Well, I certainly wasn't in my bed. I was surrounded by water, with an island directly to my west. There were hundreds of fish swimming in the coral reef below me, along with their supporting ecosystems. Wait, What?!

Dumbfounded, I tried to blink. Nothing happened. I tried to raise an arm, and nothing happened. Why couldn't I move? Oh. I was a gem. A Gem? Yes; a Teal Sapphire. Three inches long, tear-drop cut. Why is my body a Sapphire? And where the fuck am I? Unlike my other questions, nothing jumped out to me.

Unable to do anything, I continued to float on the ocean. The rising tide pushed me towards the island, which looked like a volcanic one, given the tall volcano. Specifically, the tide was drifting me into a cave entrance, a vast triangular crack in the side of a cliff at the side of a long, black sand beach. I was soon pushed onto the sandy beach, which ran along one side of the cave.

It was quite a deep cave, and the water reflected beautiful shifting designs on the cave ceiling.

And so, there I lay as the tide rolled out.

My glittering facets darkened as the sunset, the dazzling orange and pink tapestry of the horizon visible from within the cave.

With nothing to distract me, I was confronted with my new existence. I was a Sapphire, a Teal Sapphire. Gems don't have brains, hearts, nerves, or anything most could consider necessary to be alive. They are composed of carbon and other minerals and elements, giving them each a unique structure and coloration.

So, if I was a gemstone, how was I alive?

A glimmer of a memory caught my attention. This situation was achingly familiar... I could have sworn I'd read something like this before... Was I a Dungeon?

Dungeon: A crystal or gem with consciousness and agency, which formed constructs of mana to defend themselves within twisting and dangerous caverns.

So, If I was a dungeon...

Status?

...

Bugger.

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Nothing worked. Wherever I was, I didn't have a system. That's fine. I've read stories where the core did without. I can too. How about Mana?

After all, I'm using it in some capacity since I can see, and I don't exactly have eyes to see with. I have 360-degree vision, though about half of it is obscured by sand, and the other half is staring into the moonlit cave.

I attempted to 'blink' or turn off my vision and failed. Eh, worth a shot.

Maybe it's like an exhale kind of feeling? I imagined taking a deep breath, and a long exhale ad infinitum. After a few dozen repetitions, I felt something. Motes of glowing energy, without color, yet sparkling like distant stars. With every inhale, the motes drew closer, and some were absorbed into my facets. With each exhale, those motes I'd absorbed left my gem. Now, however, I could direct them.

Not accurately or with any finesse, but with grand sweeping motions. With a mental wave, I set them to orbit me.

I also changed my breathing rhythm; sharp, strong inhales drew motes closer and spun my orbitals faster. Long, slow exhales prevented the unaffiliated specks from drifting too far away.

It was... meditative. What once took all my focus slowly became second nature. I was dimly aware of the sun rising and setting, over and over. After what must have been almost two weeks, my rings were like Saturn's, beautiful and glittering in that not-light they exuded.

It also showed me this wasn't working.

Yes, I could draw mana closer and control it afterward, but I couldn't do anything with it. In frustration, I pulled my mana rings within my facets simultaneously. Then with an explosive 'shout,' I shot the mana away. My motes collided with the sand beneath me, the cave walls around me, and the ocean water beside me.

The mana stuck to the walls, becoming lodged. The mana in the water continued unimpeded until it hit the sea bed. The mana in the sand lodged easily, much like the walls. The mana which shot out the cave's mouth hit a passing seabird.

And did something unexpected.

The bird cried in surprise and lost altitude in its panic. It crash-landed on the sand as my speeding motes of mana disrupted its delicate nervous-system-like mana circuits. Within seconds, I felt my mana converting the bird's natural mana to more of mine.

Within a minute, the seagull was an extension of my will. I could feel its existence in the back of my mind even when I wasn't paying attention. Focusing on it, however, gave me a wealth of information. I could feel every detail of its biology, see through its eyes, and feel the wind rushing over its feathers. I could feel my mana within it and order it what to do by imposing my will upon that mana. Absently, I directed it to fly up and around the island.

Flying is incredible, by the way, even if only by proxy.

It turned out I was right; the island is indeed volcanic. The volcano was active, even if it wasn't erupting at the moment. Its crater lake boiled with nebulous and toxic gasses. The island was covered in tropical flora, with palm trees by the beach and a dense rainforest filling the rest. The seagull could hear the droning hum of birdsong, insects, and other typical noises and calls of the animals within it. I released the bird from my direct control, letting it fly about on its own. Alright. I can control animals I infuse with my mana. Cool.

What about the mana that stuck to the rock?

As soon as I directed my attention to it, I felt the mana in the walls and ground shift slightly, and suddenly I wasn't just the Gem lying in the quartz and obsidian sand. I was also the sand and the walls formed from various strata of volcanic rock. I could feel that my mind still resided within the gem, the Core, but the rest was like my body.

In a very real sense, I was the cave, from the mouth to the termination.

Time for some testing.

I willed the sand below my gem to move, and it moved. Like water, the black sand rushed towards my gem. It swirled beneath me, then lifted me into the air with a push and pull, then when I made the decision, It fused into a five-foot-tall pedestal, sparking with white glimmers of quartz amongst the black rock.

My tear-drop form was gently held in place by delicately sculpted fingers of rock, the tip of my pedestal designed to look like a hand reaching up to caress my core. Quickly, before my pedestal could tip sideways, I extended long rock roots down from the base to anchor my beautiful pedestal in the sand.

I also felt slightly 'out of breath.' It felt odd, given I didn't need to breathe, but it also made sense. I did manipulate and fuse sand into... Obsidian? Or a black rock. No, it's made mostly of silicon, which makes it obsidian. It certainly matches my memories of the material. But anyway, fusing sand into obsidian should take a fair amount of both mana and mental energy.

The next 'breath' of mana I took, I breathed with the whole cave as my 'mouth.' I watched, astonished, as hundreds of free-floating specks of mana rushed into my cave, merging into a stream of glittering not-light that wove through the air towards my gem.

After a few minutes of this, I realized I hadn't exhaled. I was still 'breathing in.' Wait. Oh, Duh. I was a Gem, not a Human. I didn't need to breathe anymore. It was just a mental construct I'd fashioned to help conceptualize this weird sense and manipulation of mana.

As the stream grew from hundreds of motes to thousands, I drank down the river of mana. I guzzled it down like the world's biggest glutton. But soon I began to feel... Full. I was glowing fairly brightly, something inside me radiating beams of light through my facets onto the cave walls. As the feeling of fullness gained strength, I took the mental cue and stopped inhaling.

But the Mana didn't stop coming.

It was now a roaring river, moving under its own unstoppable momentum. The unaligned, atmospheric mana moving towards me had created a kind of suction or vacuum, and nature abhors vacuums. More mana moved in to fill the spaces mana had just left, propagating outwards with alarming speed. Panicked, and with the feeling of fullness growing painful, I pushed my mana out, making space for new mana to rush in.

I threw my mana into an orbital ring and watched as it collided with the river of pure power coursing towards me. Slowly, ever so slowly, the river was diverted. It joined the orbiting mana ring, and as it ran into mine, it mingled and shifted. Gradually the incoming mana became mine all on its own.

After what felt like an eternity but must have been less than an hour given the shifting shadows, the stream slowed to a trickle. Though, it hadn't stopped. Now I have a new problem. There was so much mana orbiting me, and I had no idea what to do with it.

After a second of thinking, the answer came to me. I'm a Dungeon core. I can manipulate and absorb mana. Cores got larger as they grew in strength. At least they had in the stories I'd read.

Tentatively, I pushed a few motes inside me to the surface of my facets. I gently prodded them out and held them to the surface of my core. Slowly the motes crystallized, and I felt my gem grow. I gently brought more to the surface in even layers, growing larger one grain of width at a time. Days more passed, and the orbital ring of mana dwindled. Soon my rings more resembled Jupiter's rather than Saturn's. There and visible but nowhere near as awe-inspiring.

And so, that is how I became an almost foot-long glowing Dungeon Core, on a five-foot-long obsidian arm and hand sticking out of the sand.

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