Huh. So.

It'd been, what, two floors? Three? Long enough that I'd gotten past my annoyed stage and frankly forgotten about the possibility.

But of course right as I was digging out the literal final spot of my cavern, a little niche in the wall where the tunnel to my core room would be, that I finally ran into something that wasn't my standard limestone and mineral fare.

A fossil.

It was a twisted thing, bound up and jostled like it'd suplexed into the ground, but undeniably bone. I tore into its surrounding limestones to expose it fully, practically purring with glee at every new sliver of white exposed—finally.

I'd found fossils before in my digs, but they had been small things, bare crumbs scattered around by general erosion or the shifting of the mountain; not enough for my Resurrector title to properly work. Same issue with stupid invaders only wearing the skin of an animal, not even a scrap of bone or flesh as well for me to compile together. All powerful I was not, apparently. Infuriating.

But this one… deliciously complete. A whole skull fell gently onto a bed of algae I'd woven into existence as I dug it out of the wall, easily ten feet long and riddled with fangs. A spine slithered out next, ridged with dorsal spines, clawed skeletal feet clattering down too; plenty for me to shape.

It was a beast, though shrunk and twisted by age. Perhaps thirty, maybe forty feet long with an overwhelming number of them going to the head, long and twisting like a lizard. A triangular skull with wide, snapping jaws and a tail snaking down to a jagged tip. Not a creature I could remember having heard about, but one that I certainly knew of its descendants.

A crocodile.

I could have purred. For my last fossil, I'd had to design a floor around the mangroves, perfecting somewhere for them to survive. An aquatic reptilian monster, however, would fit beautifully onto several of my current floors.

…would Seros get jealous? Hm. I know I certainly would be in his position.

No matter.

I brushed across my Named creature's mind, settling a gentle suggestion to watch over my floors; he stirred with a lazy yawn but unwrapped from around my core's pillar, meandering through the labyrinth to head up to the higher floors. There wasn't enough going on in the fourth floor beyond the scheming little rats and their jewels and the horned serpent to keep watch there. The second and third floors were far more busy.

But hopefully his guard would be a moot point. If my Resurrector title didn't reduce the time to reawaken a fossil from the bloody three days it'd taken me last time, I would scream.

I reached out and shifted the skeleton back to a rough approximation to how it had probably looked while alive, stretching out its spine and legs, having to really strain my creativity in order to make the stone move in a way that wouldn't damage but just move it.

My floors had been busy, constant cycles of death and predation, mostly from those within and the constant stream of fools hungry for mana that clambered within my halls. Nothing too new yet, although there'd been a half dozen fish species that hadn't yet tested the new paths the cloudskipper wisp ran over the Underlake, creating a suction to keep them from freely fleeing back out the entrance. None of them looked too interesting, but I'd always welcome new species.

Which. Back on track. I glanced at my core.

Dragonheart Core

Mana: 38.4 / 75

Mana Regeneration: +0.9 per hour

Patrons: Rhoborh

Titles: Resurrector