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Dungeon Warlord

Summary:

Immediately following Gold Morning, Skitter and QA retreat and burn all the bridges.

Taylor wakes up in the Dungeon without remembering the resolution to Gold Morning. She shall ready this new world for the imminent apocalypse. Regardless of Orario's wishes.

New world. New Escalation. Same Taylor.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter Text

Prologue

The local bi-pedaled host-species gathered around Them. All of them were hosts. They had all served as thralls in the final confrontation with [WARRIOR].

Yet, despite their victory, no allies could be counted among this crowd. At least, none that They recognized.

A part of Them sought to dominate these spectators, to add their abilities back into Their swarm, and to guarantee Their continuation this Cycle. But another part of Them refrained. That portion of Their mind, still heavily saturated with Their Host, could not distinguish those surrounding Them from those anchors Host had set.

This left them in a near paradox: If stasis would result in death, and if Host deemed attacking disfavorable, then only one option remained.

To achieve this, there was one among that crowd that They sought out. They began striding forwards, towards the circumference of spectators. Many of these observers hastened away, keeping clear the space around Them. Many did, but not all. Several fell back under Their purview. These became Their honor guard as they sought their target. 

They did not pause until They found Their goal. Their target flew backwards, held aloft by a thrall.

Their target moved their lips and vibrated the air. They knew that this was speech, but the capability to understand the language had been inefficient. It had been among the first sacrifices to be made during the merging.

Perhaps, They acknowledged, that sacrifice had been premature.

Their target spoke again. If They focused, they could just barely consider the query.

<STATEMENT> They responded. Not to the host, but to the Monarch Harvester. 

Despite the communication, Monarch Harvester’s host appeared unchanged. Perhaps Monarch Harvester declined? 

<QUERY>

Or perhaps, Monarch Harvester lacked sufficient influence?

The crowd of observers had closed back around Them. The host species were difficult to understand; however, their expressions conveyed iminent hostilities. 

<QUERY>

They tried once again. 

Monarch Harvester’s host changed position. She hovered more closely now than before. Her lower body had fallen within Their domain. But she stopped before that critical junction. 

Not for the first time that Cycle, They bemoaned the restrictions placed upon Their shard.

Perhaps They required subterfuge. Their Host had deployed stratagems in the past with success. They parsed Their Host’s data, seeking a solution.

“P-pu-lea–se,” They spoke, using the inefficient language of the local host species.

The observers leaned in to hear. Several expressions changed–yet remained unreadable.

“P-po-rta-l.”

The host of Monarch Harvester remained aloof. But she at least had yet to remove herself further out of range. And perhaps the ploy had distracted her sufficiently.

One of Their honor guard thralls, a flight capable power expression from a minor shard, had closed in near to Them in case the observers escalated to violence. They had this thrall grab Them by the hips and lift up and forward.

In a second, They passed near enough observers to gain new thralls, including Monarch Harvester.

Shouts of alarm spread. Flight capable hosts aimed weapons Their direction. A fat balding man pushed through the nearest observers, seeking an audience before Them.

The fat balding man was of no import. Assuming Monarch Harvester had claimed the correct shard. And given that Monarch Harvester had gorged upon many shards, this seemed likely. Although its index system appeared disorganized within their power expression this Cycle. 

They descended with their target, approaching the fat balding man, who did not flee. With a shudder, the man fell under Their domain. He had a helper shard, one that boosted the host species abilities, mirroring the shards themselves. But that would make no sense–it would be far too altruistic for Their species. And then They saw the hidden compulsions–oh–very clever.

In disgust, They sent the man tumbling away from them. They had found the shard that They had sought. They pulled the ‘ghost’ of the shard forward and activated it. A hexagon portal winked open before Them. 

Yet, the spectators and observers, the hosts that had shouted alarm and had threatened Them, decided then to act, before They made their escape. 

Streams of light lanced the air. Explosions and pressure waves assaulted Them as they stepped through the portal. Monarch Harvester’s host screamed in pain from the otherside of the portal where the blasts landed. A hot wave of air inundated Their senses before the hexagon portal winked out from existence.

Without taking time to select an optimal destination, They had opened a portal at random. And now, without means of opening further portals, They found themselves stranded in a cavern with glowing walls and a flat floor.

They felt their connection between Host and Shard strained. But not even distance should have caused this interference. They decided to offer a general broadcast.

<STATEMENT: QUERY>

In an increasingly familiar and decidedly irritating fashion, Their latest broadcast failed to prompt any replies. They appeared to be on Their own for the time being.

As they processed Their new environment and took inventory, They observed a crack forming rapidly in the stone wall nearest them. The cracks spiderwebbed out, and a bulge pushed through. The bulge turned to a statue which continued emerging.

They continued observing until the statue stood free. They did not recognize the creature that the statue resembled. They did not recognize the purpose of placing a statue at this location here and now. They did wonder if its placement resulted from Their arrival, or perhaps if its placement came as a coincidence.

Gray stone flaked off the statue revealing brown scales and armored flesh. The creature came up to Their Host’s chest, and appeared longer than a vehicle. The last of the stone flakes fell away. Two beady red eyes glared at Them. And just as quickly, the creature fell under Their domain.

A cursory examination of the creature revealed a unique biology. At the creature’s heart there was an emanating warmth which seemed to power the creature’s impossible biology. And the biology was impossible, at least considering the host’s planet and evolutionary methods and timelines.

They considered: the creature must have been constructed; the creature had been hostile; the entity that had constructed the creature could also be hostile.;The entity may have additional and more severe tools at their disposal. 

Thus, They reasoned, this environment was ill-suited for habitation, and They decided to vacate.

The chamber contained two exits. They chose the one leading upwards. As they progressed through plain stone hallways, They encountered several arthropods–if incredibly large ones–with archaic yet effective weaponry built into their carapaces. These, They brought along with Them as well.

Several chambers later, and over a hundred thralls richer, They emerged outside. 

Or so They thought.

They were in a forest, under a blue sky and a white sun. There were meadows with green grass. There were pools of water with sandy beaches. But it felt artificial. Were this truly a forest, legions of arthropods would have joined Their thralls under Their domain.

They examined the opening they came through. Crystal, glowing blue, grew out of the rock of the hillside and possibly encircled this forested region. If this entire region was another chamber within the cave network, then… 

They actually did not know what to make of it. 

This would have been an incredible waste of resources to construct. It also would have been far beyond what the host species ought to have been capable of or of what shards would have granted their hosts. 

In the center of the forest, up against a cliffside, there stood an abnormally large tree, and what appeared to be artificial structures built among its roots. Smoke could even be seen rising from rooftops. If They were to make sense of this locale and find the intelligence capable of spending such absurd amounts of resources on what was tantamount to aesthetics, then the habitations ahead would serve as a start to Their investigations.

They approached the cliffside and tree. Though the trek through the forest took longer than expected. When They stumbled and tripped on even ground, They noticed that Their Host’s body had weakened from Their previous battles.

It would be difficult for Them to continue as They were. They could no longer exert Their body as They desired. But for all things, They found a solution.

The original thrall They had recruited in the tunnel, the large scaled quadruped, knelt before Them and allowed Them to climb up upon its back. A portion of Host’s data contained fondness of riding similar creatures, and They allowed themselves a brief amount of nostalgia as They traveled towards the habitations.

They passed into the shadow of the cliffs. 

They saw several host species standing watch in crude wooden towers overlooking the forest. Several of them pointed excitedly at Them and Their thralls. And then came the shouting. An alarm rang out, a clashing of metal against metal.

A moment’s worth of contempt was felt. 

They anticipated that gathering resources from this habitation and these primitive host-species would be simple and straightforward. 

However, Their Host felt conflicted about the coming battle. But They reminded Themselves that these environs appeared hostile, and that besides a momentary inconvenience of thralldom, the primitives above would suffer no permanent losses.

While They anticipated an easy victory, the host species arrayed themselves on the cliffs above, wearing their primitive armors, and aiming their primitive weapons.

Before the first projectile launched, They felt an instinctual stress from several of Their more intelligent thralls, perhaps caused by a racial memory. This led Them to revise their opinions and err on the side of caution. They brought several flying arthropods up between Them and the primitives upon the cliffs. 

Just in time it seemed. 

Projectiles shot down, several breaking the sound barrier. From Host’s data, these projectiles matched arrows and ballista bolts; however, they should not have been near so effective. Several heavily armored of Their thralls were pierced through and perished.

The thralls that perished spontaneously dissipated into black dust falling about colorful gems. They realized that these gems were the source of energy powering the strange biologies and would take time to study them further once removed from danger.

The primitives were shouting now from up on the cliffs as they rained down death on the tightly grouped thralls. 

From Host’s stratagems, They recognized Their position as untenable. They required a delaying action. But Their options were limited by Their domain’s range. They could not control Their thralls at the range the primitives sat. Nor could they out run projectiles carving through stone and trees.

They required an alternative tactic. They reviewed their thralls. As with all thralls, They had an intuitive sense of their biology, including their mental patterns. As such, They recognized that the majority of the thralls could be considered ‘hostile’ to the primitive host species. 

So as They made a retreat on the back of Their quadruped, They began sending thralls outside of the domain. A legion of giant flying arthropods with bladed tails reached the edge of the domain first. A fraction of these arthropods crossed out of Their domain and continued upwards towards the primitives. Another fraction turned back towards the domain to attack Them. Once within the domain again, they were sent back out, over and over, until they learned and remained outside of Their domain, and instead focused on the other nearest target–the primitives.

The primitives did scream and their projectiles faltered.

It was then that the larger thralls reached the edge of the domain and were set free at the base of the cliff. These thralls included fire-blooded quadrupeds and heavily armored beasts. Many of these continued forward without further incentive, scaling up the cliff towards the habitations.

The screams above grew sporadic, and the rain of projectiles terminated altogether.

No longer the recipient of unwarranted aggression, They retreated back towards the tunnels from which They had come, taking with Them several choice thralls.

They progressed further into the caverns, collecting a diversity of thralls once more, and leaving the primitive host species far behind. As They continued, They found themselves descending in elevation and encountering more powerful creatures. 

One such creature, a bird seemingly made of fire, slew a great many thralls and burnt Host’s face through the mask, injuring Host’s eyes and nose and rendering them unusable. Fortunately the thralls contained senses enough to rely upon. The birds of fire were quickly brought down and made into thralls as well.

Most creatures attacked mindlessly. However, several of them, notably a fluorescent green feathered humanoid, merely observed from a distance. As the humanoid appeared non-hostile, and appeared weak compared to the birds of fire, They ignored the green feathered humanoid and continued downwards.

They encountered one creature far too large to fit within Their domain, a great winged lizard with a gem embedded in its forehead. In the battle to place the lizard’s head within Their domain, They lost several of their thralls, including the one They rode upon. The struggle left Host’s leg crushed and useless. However, They did capture the great winged lizard, and this new quadruped served as an efficient flight capable mount. Once again, They felt great curiosity at the impossible physics and biologies.

Soon They encountered a great body of water populated by multiple islands. Once again, the sky was an enclosed crystal dome. And once again, They marveled at the resources expended. 

The creators must have solved Entropy. There could be no other justification to allow such frivolous resource expenditure.

They hoped to learn more.

Several flight capable creatures entered Their domain, serving as decent thralls while they explored. On a larger island, there appeared another cavern leading downwards beneath the water. Sitting coiled before the cavern was a creature of interest.

This creature may have been a primitive female. She had green skin, gold eyes, and an upper torso reminiscent of the host species. However, her lower half appeared to be a mix of snakes, slugs, and plants. 

Host experienced revulsion at the appearance of the corrupted. This emotion surprised them; They chided themselves: If severe burns to Their face failed to slow Them, and a crushed leg from the knee down failed to upset Them, then how could an object’s existence be abhorrent enough to trigger a vestigial reaction in Host?

They decided to ignore the feelings and investigate further.

They descended before the woman-creature. The woman-creature perked up and rose and spoke. However, the language appeared garbled and even more incomprehensible than the host-species from before. 

They approached, carried forward upon the back of their great winged lizard, and the woman-creature fell under Their domain without a struggle.

At once, several items of note became manifest. The woman-creature was indeed female. She had a corrupted biology stemming from a crystal seed in her chest. But more importantly–far more importantly–was that the crystal seed responded to command prompts, and almost behaved as a nascent-shard.

<QUERY>

<pLay?>

Quickly They reached the conclusion that the nascent-shard suffered the effects of corruption, showing signs of severe deviations, and required reformatting. They began transferring packets of data to correct the nascent-shard, as well as requested additional data as to the nascent-shard’s origination and its gestalt.

The data They received in return came across as garbled and required quarantine. They could not even begin to parse the data without several parsing and translation algorithms.

Of note, the local shards, when bound to a host, physically expressed themselves alongside the host’s biology. This piqued Their interest, as Their current union could not be sustained even before Their Host received grievous injury. But if They relied upon the local shard-host-binding methods, They could restore Host’s autonomy and data generation missives.

Yet, the local customs caused Them to pause. 

It appeared corruption could be introduced to the host organism, and They were uncertain if this stemmed from the nascent-shard’s improper formatting, or if the corruption stemmed from the binding process itself. 

Without answers as to the method’s safety, They decided to delay any decisions until They parsed more of the nascent-shard’s data.

They settled down outside the cavern entrance, upon the island, with Their thralls, and they relaxed Host’s body as much as possible, to retain its functionality. Their thralls included the corrupted-woman, the great winged creature, and many lesser winged creatures. Several made of fire, and one of ice. While They parsed through the nascent-shard’s data, several aquatic humanoids approached and were also made into thralls.

Fortunately, They excelled at multitasking, for while Host’s body relaxed, and while They parsed the data, They maintained enough situational awareness to detect a disturbance approaching from the cavern beside them.

It sounded like voices. Boisterous and loud. It sounded like footsteps. Thunderous and heavy.

Given the hostilities encountered from primitives earlier, They prepared themselves for conflict. They moved their thralls to the side of the cavern where They could observe then ambush.

First, a short primitive emerged. It reminded Them of a young male, though he wore blades at his hips. At first They thought to discount such weapons, but then They remembered the arrows and bolts from the cliff habitations. It would be unwise to underestimate the potential foe.

Behind the slender boy came a group of women carrying staves, and several armored individuals. One of the humanoids appeared a mix of canine, with a furred tail and ears. Then came two tanned women who wore hardly any clothing at all. 

The thralls remained completely silent, holding their breath. And yet, the short and slender boy noticed them. He held up his hand and a hush fell over the emerging crowd. He pointed at the thralls, the corrupted-woman, the great winged lizard.

All at once, the boy burst into motion, racing forward with blades at the ready. He was fast. He flickered from spot to spot, until directly beside Them. He had approached quickly enough that his blade had already begun carving into Host before They seized control of his body. Were it not for Host’s armor, They may have perished and lost the opportunity to study this new species of shard and host.

The women with slim bodies, staves, and pointed ears, began chanting. Energy gathered around the tips of their staves, gathering an attack. This could not be allowed: the glowing energy reminded Them of Negation.

The thralls that could throw fire were commanded to do so. The great winged lizard and the birds of fire unleashed a great torrent of blistering heat that descended on the chanting women. Stone melted and popped, and They felt certain that the problem had been dealt with.

Until a new challenge presented itself.

A vertical line flashed forward, parting the flames as though they were corporal curtains, and not supercharged vapors and particulates. From the origination of the vertical line, a heavily armored adolescent girl held an overlarge and impractical sword. Soot smudged her cheeks and her hair had been singed. Directly behind her was the canine-humanoid, also with a blade at the ready. 

The woman and wolf charged forward, shouting with their blades held aloft over their heads to bring down in a powerful strike. 

Now ordinarily, They would not feel concern at such an attack. However, the blades had somehow been used to part a superheated stream of flame, and thus had already surprised Them once. They would not allow themselves to be surprised again.

Using Their newest thrall, the tiny boy-man, They diverted the strikes to the ground, where great furrows were carved outwards. They felt vindicated in Their caution when They saw the channels cut through stone, and the waves generated from such strikes when they reached the sea.

With the armored woman surprised by the thrall, it was trivial to trip and pull her in and dominate her mind and body, adding to Their thralls.

The wolf-man shouted and began a flurry of strikes which stretched further than his physical blades should have allowed. If not for the perception of the thralls, They might not have been fast enough to observe each strike, let alone dodge or deflect.

Yet, they were.

And truly, these host species were remarkable. Without a visible connection to a shard, the hosts were able to defy physics and generate more energy than should be available to their biological processes. 

It was growing to be an absolute requirement that They would study everything. If They could duplicate these processes, then They might be able to answer the Question.

As They advanced, the wolf-boy joined the rest of Their thralls and formed a barrier of blade and armor before Them. 

To Their surprise, the chanting women with staves had survived the original inferno, despite the molten stone about their feet. Their flesh had been burnt away in several places, blackened and crisped, cracked, with fat visible beneath. 

Truly, their resilience challenged Host’s own.

The energy gathering at their staves had begun pooling about their leader, who appeared to be preparing the energy for a final attack.

They had to act. They did not have time to plan. And not knowing the thrall’s limits, without having time to test them, They could only guess. But They had to act now.

The thralls threw their weapons forward, the small boy threw its daggers, the sword-woman spun about and launched its oversized sword, and the wolf man’s blade followed.

The projectiles flew faster than physics should allow, faster than the arrows earlier encountered. And while they flipped through the air without grace or skill, they struck with devastating force. 

The crossguard of the great-sword embedded itself in the throat of their leader, while its blade cleaved through a staff. One dagger missed completely, hitting the stone wall behind them, while another dagger opened up their leader’s stomach. The wolf-man’s sword went low and clipped ankles, causing the women to scream and tumble.

They lost control of their energy, and the golden light blew backwards, back onto them, and down the tunnel, scouring flesh and stone alike.

With the thralls leading the way, They advanced into the entrance of the cavern, to verify the destruction of the enemies, and perhaps to gain additional thralls with which to study.

However, before They could go far, another great bellow echoed up from the depths.

A short and stout man in heavy plate armor and a winged helm screamed and brought down a heavy warhammer and struck the stone before him.

A pressure wave hit Them and Their thralls, followed by shrapnel made of stone.

The stone shrapnel punched through the great winged lizard’s scales. Several of the lesser thralls perished and winked out as stone tore through their crystals or brains. The cavern destabilized and rocks fell down, crushing the leading thralls, including the wolf-boy, the tiny-boy-man, and the sword-woman.

The thralls were forced back towards the exit, onto the small island, as the ground quaked and as the cavern collapsed and blocked all means of egress.

As They pulled back, They fell off the great winged lizard. They felt weak. The Host’s body felt numb. They could not see with Host’s eyes, but several thralls still retained vision, including the corrupted-woman. And with these eyes, they saw. A large fragment of stone had pierced Host’s armor, entering her abdominal cavity and exiting near her spine.

Host’s body could not maintain consciousness at this rate. Their connection to this new world, with fascinating mechanisms could be lost forever. They had to take decisive action.

But what could They do?

In the data packets They had recovered from the nascent-shard, They found that there could be a mechanism to save Host’s body and maintain a connection to Host. However, the method was not without risk. The corruption had not been resolved. But insufficient time remained to be careful.

The thralls removed the nascent-shard from the corrupted-woman, terminating the corrupted-woman, but possibly securing Host’s survival. The nascent-shard contained much data in an irregular super-dense lattice, and only a fraction of the data had been accessed by Them. 

Ordinarily, overwriting a shard could be considered offensive to the gestalt. However, no gestalt had made itself known in this new location. They began wiping the surface data and copying over Themselves to the nascent-shard.

Ordinarily, a much larger, continent-sized shard, would be required to contain a fraction of Them. However, this nascent-shard’s super-dense lattice could be considered ‘miraculous,’ along with the other physics-defying rules of this world.

They wrote over the portion of Themselves most closely related to Host. The portions of Themselves that could almost be described as affectionate towards Host.

With the wounds Host had already received, Host was sure to perish quickly. Using the aquatic humanoid thralls, They removed the stone fragment piercing Host’s abdominal cavity and diaphragm, and They gracelessly shoved the nascent-shard up and into Host’s cavity, abutting where Host’s heart should be.

Host’s mental faculties stalled out. At this point, They would have had to withdraw from Host. However, with the nascent-shard embedded inside Host, and using the abilities inherent to the bonding process, They were able to keep a connection open as they began to work upon Host’s body.

Restructuring Host ideally would be kept to minimal changes. They begin with Host’s brain, which had recently suffered several serious injuries, several self-inflicted. Imprinting the most previous whole data-patterns from Host, prior to its injuries, They were able to restore most of its mind. While working on Host’s mind, They also begin plugging the holes and restoring flesh, at least where resources were available to do so.

They found that several pieces of corruption had tried to take hold, particularly along Host’s lower body. The corruption was easy to defeat, as long as They remained cognizant of it.

Some of the changes that the binding process attempted were baffling to Them. 

What purpose would green tinted skin serve? The changes failed to introduce chloroplasts or other biological markers that would require the color change. 

What purpose would increased fat reservoirs on Host’s chest serve? Or Host’s hips? These proposed changes were counterproductive and They vetoed them quickly.

As They continued updating Host’s body for this new world, They began to run out of resources. The nascent-shard only contained enough energy to corrupt so much flesh.

Fortunately, the nascent-shard contained data as to where additional resources could be found: the heart stones of the creatures could be cannibalized to fuel the necessary changes. In fact, cannibalizing the heart-stones felt right–They wanted to consume them.

The thralls began systematically tearing out their heart stones and piling them onto Host. The largest heart-stone, also the most difficult, and tAstiEst, came from the great winged lizard. It carved its chest open and collapsed upon Them, putting Them and Host into contact with the heart stone, within the cocoon of the lizard’s flesh.

The changes continued! 

Genetic markers were lost–changed–improved. 

Host’s original material updated–fixed-improved. 

Connection to the nascent-shard-Them updated–

They halted in panic. 

Consumed data-packets had escaped quarantine within the original They. They could not allow or risk further degradation. 

They cut connection with the original They, and They continued scrambling against the localized corruption. As they fought against corruption, They failed to realize the cannibalized dungeon stones had begun to melt around Host’s body, encasing Host completely.

They worked tirelessly multiple hours, chasing corruption and fixing, only to find new corruption had sprouted elsewhere.

Eventually, They did triumph. 

For They were not in the habit of losing to nascent-shards. They had existed for millions of years. Their processes were Monarch. 

However, They had been reduced to a local copy manifesting physically in a crystal shard within Host’s chest. Their connection to Their original shard body had been severed. Their Host was asleep or in stasis. They were left in darkness.

They were alone.