Azaria 2 - 5

Good evening everyone! I hope the weekend is treating everyone good!

BTW on my azaria chapters i title the chapter heading and if any of you think you have a good idea for an alternative chapter heading post it in the comments. Sometimes, I can think of them on the spot, then there are times like this one that I struggled for a little bit to get one that i felt it worked. So, its a chance to be included in the book lol. Just keep it in mind!

Chapter 5: Going Around in Circles

Azaria

“Keeping my arms like this does get tiring, mistress,” Starburst said but I only chuckled and snuggled closer.

“Think of it as training,” I retorted enjoying the princess carry, or would it be princess hold since he wasn’t walking around.

“I need more training with his form, I was in that horse for too long and have grown rusty.”

“Fine!” I pouted floating into the air. He dropped his arms and I realized they were shaking. I looked down and turned away. “Sorry.”

“No. You’re fine. Like you said it made for good training. Just next time, maybe not do the entire night.”

I nodded. I hadn’t thought about it since I was communing with Lance’s doll with DJ Rai. One of her dolls had gotten close enough to connect to the rogue allowing us to help her finally. DJ Rai was bringing in all sorts of useful information from around the city. It helped that most people just saw the dolls as well dolls. I couldn’t help but snicker when I thought that I might be the first dungeon to let her monsters out in such a way.

Glancing out of the dungeon toward the tents, I let out a breath. “Looks like no one will come in today either.” Ever since Neo had bought the dungeon, other than guarding the entrance, no one had entered the dungeon itself. I feared they planned to starve me or something to weaken me before attempting another dive. I was lucky to have found a way to pull mana in from the air outside, but there was only so much everyday.

“This is turning into a bit of a headache. I didn’t even get the chance to try out my disguise.” With DJ Rai’s creation, I didn’t want to risk sending Starburst outside. He would still revive in the dungeon even if he died, but it would take several times longer from what he explained. Better safe than sorry.

“Sometimes, I feel like you’re the only one I can trust, even though you are the one that put me in this situation. What do you call that?” I asked leaning on his shoulders.

“I’m not familiar with that topic. But, as I’m part of the dungeon I will do my best to protect you. Like I have explained before.”

“I know, but I feel some of the auras outside now and then. Those people aren’t much different from monsters. If one of them seriously wanted to kill me, how would we stop it? Then there’s Lance that swings from being stable to being a few inches from being a monster.”

“Sorry, mistress. I… wish I could be more help. I was only responsible for creating the connection. Everything afterwards was out of my hands. All I can say is we have to get through this together.”

“I guess you’re right. Take responsibility for what you did to me,” I said with a snicker. “I’m going to work on the dungeon.” I fell away while glancing at my status.

Azaria Highlock

Age: 14

Level: 4

Race: Dungeon

Type: Doll

Subtype: Goddess’s Chosen

Aether: 3,700

Floors: 3/4

Skills: Creation

Deconstruction

Summon (7/123)

Teleport Matrix (1/1)

Enchanter’s Melody

Uncontrollable Proliferation

Mirrored Perception

Random Ability

Achievements: God Killer – Killed a God, albeit a weak one.

Reigning Power – Permanently enhances abilities by ten percent.

The Surface – When a dungeon reaches the surface, the world opens up to them. Aether hourly gain (+1)

After the fight with Lance’s arch enemy, I had gained a level. This was good and let me create another floor, I honestly had little idea on what I wanted to actually create. Having theme allowed the monsters created for the dungeon to gain a bit of a power boost. What I really wanted to focus on was the random ability.

So far, I got really good skills, but I wanted something that would increase my chances of survival in this dog-eat-dog world. If the dungeons goal was to kill all humans, then eventually they were going to catch on. At that point, I doubted they would spare me just because I said I didn’t want to kill everyone.

Ironically, I appeared to have the best Kill ratio of all my brothers and sisters. Just shows that I have talent, I thought sticking my currently nonexistent chest into the air. I needed to come to a decision. Either work with the other dungeons to save myself or commit to working with the humans to potential give them information that would save their lives.

“There is a third path,” I spun and found my other self-looking at me.

“Third? Which is?” I asked skeptical.

“Play the field. Be everyone’s friend. Become the ultimate dungeon. Then when it actually matters, you can have the final say. Be it humans, monsters, or self-proclaimed gods.”

“Self-proclaimed?”

“Isn’t that what you think?” Zaria asked putting her hand on my cheek in an almost sisterly way. “I’m you after all.”

“I’ll admit… the thought has crossed my mind.”

“Then… What more do you need to consider? Just crush them all.”

I grinned despite knowing that the idea would turn me against literally everything in the world. “I guess. It’s a goal to work towards.”

“You should absorb me soon. It will grow to be quite a burden if you wait much longer,” Zaria commented while I was laughing to myself.

“Can’t I just let you be yourself?”

“I… I don’t know. That was not my purpose.”

“Then. For now, I’ll leave you out. I’d rather have you around like a sister.”

“Okay. Then I think I’ll rest for a bit.”

“Oh. You do that!” I said patting her shoulder.

While I watched her go, I felt a message from DJ Rai. She said that Lance had managed to contact her person and they had dropped off the goods. Once the documents were back in the dungeon, I would be able to make some headway downstairs and start working on the fourth floor.

I let DJ Rai handle that, since she could control the dolls much better than I could. Even if we had to wait until tonight, at least I could get some actual work done on the third floor. Not that Emelia wasn’t making good progress on her own. She had made plenty of death rides using what I had told her and her own imagination.

I moved down to the third floor and looked for the mechanic. “Emilia!”

“Thee hath called?”

“Yeah. I wanted to check on you,” I said with a nod. The park was coming along. Much like last time I visited, she had gotten the basic outline of all the rides planned and plotted out. There were already seven rides set that I hoped would give the divers a thrill. The biggest issue I could foresaw would be getting them to actually ride the attactions. They were designed to kill after all.

“I am doing well. Thither wast a surge of aether and I has't gotten much done in the last twenty-four hours. I thank thee f'r sending me the energy,” Emelia said as she bowed which was quite the sight given how tall she was. The real problem I had with her, was that when she got going, I had more than a little trouble just understanding what she was saying.

After a few longer than I liked seconds, I felt I had gotten everything. “Um, Okay. I think I got it. We should have those blueprints later tonight. I’ll absorb them then send them your way.”

“Thank thee. 'twill beest most helpful. The deadly part is easy, just having an idea of which ride doest what shall giveth me a much-need'd boost to mine own productivity.”

“Oh, I got most of that!” I cheered then blushed when Emelia looked at me with a tilted head. “Never mind. Keep up the good work.”

“I shalt,” she replied with a bow then left.

“Since I’m down here,” I mumbled watching her go. I turned and flew to the center of the floor. Under the plaza, there was a full-scale mining operation taking place that reminded me of the shows of television. The moles that I made at the beginning of my dungeon life had leveled up and the manipulator leader, Tokie, was able to assign different roles to the summoned minions.

Some dug with their claws much like one would a pickaxe. Others had wider paws to move dirt and stone. There was even one that helped recover the sharpness of the claws, since they did wear over time. They were almost a hundred of the moles now.

“Tokie!” I called when I was near the center of the dig site. The cute mole looked up from a group near him. He actually had some sort of paper in front of him and the group appeared to be discussing how to dig the mine. They used a cute squeak sound to talk to each other.

He squeaked when I lowered next to him. I knew he couldn’t see me, but my main monsters could perceive my location. It at least let him look at me when I was talking. “How goes the mine?”

He squeaked and gestured animatedly. Even though I couldn’t quite understand him, I was able to get the message. They were doing well and he was getting better at digging by the day. I nodded and wished I could reach out and touch the cute creature, but alas that wasn’t my fate.

“Thank you for the hard work. I’m going to see if I can create another floor now.”

He gave me a clawed thumbs up then squeaked at all the other moles. I didn’t blame him. Last time, I made a floor it grew to the size of a small city, or a town. I’m not actually sure how big a place had to be to be classified as such. Either way, it was a lot of space that the amusement park was only taking up about a third of it. I was thinking of adding a water park to it later, but I was still on the fence.

Rubbing my hands together, I flew up to where my dungeon instincts were telling me was the exact center of the space. I concentrated like the previous time and felt there was enough to start the floor process. I didn’t jump right into it though. I wanted to create it with a theme from the get-go. That would save me time later.

“Something that would suit a doll…” If the trend stayed the same, then this floor was going to be even larger than the last one. I might actually be able to place a city in it. I clapped as an idea came to me. “That’s it! I’m make a city. People make miniature cities all the time. There were plenty of dolls that I could put in it as well.”

That decided, I concentrated on the idea of a city for my next floor. I was hoping it would work like the mansion and create all the buildings, or at least most of them for me. I mean, I didn’t have the faintest idea about building a city. Shrugging at the pointlessness of the thought, I started pouring my Aether out while pulling in what I could from the ambient Aether above my dungeon.

After I was almost empty, the snapping happened and much like with the third floor, my aura exploded out as the stone and soil melted away. The material flowed into my core which had sunk down to this floor and was feeding me Aether. Even though I wasn’t sure how far down I was, there were plenty of forms of life that were absorbed by my dungeon.

I felt the process was about half over, when there was an explosion from somewhere in the floor. I hadn’t created any light sources yet, thus it was pitch black. My Aether suddenly started to climb at a horrorifiy rate. I panicked and pushed all the new Aether into the floor creation process. I couldn’t understand what the reason was, nor could I look for the source until the process was complete.

Finally, after almost twenty minutes, my new floor was shaped. I was worried as there still weren’t any buildings to be seen. It would be more than a little headache to have to build it from scratch. The cavern around me started to shake and before I could move out of the way, a skyscraper appeared a hair away from me.

Soon, like grass growing at an accelerated pace, buildings of all shapes and sizes started to burst from the ground. They all took a gothic theme with gargoyles and other sinister statues gracing their ramparts. I soon lost sight of the forest of buildings. Much like I thought, thanks to my uncontrollable Proliferation ability, this floor was now several times larger than the third floor.

There was a building in the exact center and my core sat on the top floor of the building. Four dragon statues pointed in each direction on the roof. I pondered if I could make them into dolls when the floor was done being created. It would serve the divers right to face a dragon or four.

I was stuck for almost three hours before I could move again thanks to the dungeon magic. I was aware of everything but as I expected, no one came into the dungeon today. When the magic finally let me go, my aura snapped over the new floor completely, letting me take full control over it.

There was a sharp pain in my temple as the size was more than I could handle. It was like my field of vision expanded a few hundred times in one go. “I wonder if the dungeons have any medicine I could take?” I mumbled with a chuckle.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on slowly moving through the new floor while ignoring the upper floors for the moment. It helped to relieve some of the stress I was feeling. The city was… large. I didn’t know the exact measurements, but I would but it at several dozen miles. Thinking about what I learned in school, shouldn’t my dungeon completely cover the bottom of the city above me now?

Putting the question to the side for the moment, I continued my tour. It looked like my idea of a city caused a few overlaying themes. Mostly it was the concrete, steel and glass from the city that I knew, while there were a few buildings that looked like they should have been built a few hundred years ago made from bricks.

There were two sections that had tall buildings that reached toward the ceiling, while the rest dropped to more manageable levels as they tapered out. I took a moment to count the tallest building on the floor and came to eighty floors to the roof. There was still a good deal of distance to the roof of the cavern after that.

During my tour, I found out what caused the explosion. I had inadvertently hit the water table, I think was what it was called. There was now a lake to one side of the floor that was fed by a river that flowed from the north to the south wall of the cavern. It was quite amazing and beautiful.

There were a lot of elements being absorbed by the dungeon from the underground river. I was actually concerned about the people above the dungeon when I found there were toxins of some sort. I wasn’t a scientist and couldn’t tell what it was, but I knew that people would die if they ingested too much of it.

“Whew. This was quite the gain,” I commented to myself as I neared the end of my tour. I paused when I felt… something above the ceiling toward one side of the dungeon. When I flew closer, I sensed a presence and even got a mental image of a core much like mine. “Starburst!” I clapped my hands and forcibly teleported him next to me.

“Girl? What is the matter?” he asked as he appeared slipping back to his old way of addressing me.

“Yeah, that just feels better,” I said nodding then pointed above us. “I think there is another dungeon above me right here. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if several dungeon are above my fourth floor. It has to cover a couple miles if not a few dozen.”

“You made your next floor. Congratulations. Now then,” he said then flew to the ceiling and placed his hand. I could feel him exert his aura and Aether. “Yes. Definitely a dungeon there. I’d place it around level six or seven.”

“Higher than me?”

“Normally, it would take about that much to reach this depth. Your skills change that up.”

“So… what’s the plan?” I asked twiddling my fingers. “Do we ignore each other?”

“That would be unwise. I doubt this one has your level of intelligence. To most of the other dungeons you will seem like the most exquisite delicacy they’ve ever seen. It will likely try to send monsters to take your core.”

“What?!” I exclaimed. “Now I have to deal with my own kind too?”

“That is the way of it. I’m sorry.”

“Fine!” I growled baring my teeth even though I knew I would be the only that could see it. “I’ll be the one eating!”

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