The broken dungeon core

Luna wakes up looking rough but she starts the day stirring the soup and scooting it closer to the fire that she builds back up to get the slightly warm soup to get bubbly hot.

Luna, “We will be finishing the soup today so we can make a new batch later, so eat as much as you guys want.”

She ladles out generous portions into everyone’s bowl and offers to refill them once they finished, the contents are more watered down than they were when they first made it as most of the chunks of vegetables and meat have been eaten and the thick broth that had a deeper pinkish color has cleared up to a more a thin transparent pink tinted broth.

Luna comes to my core room to transfer some mana to me and I feel like I’m getting close to being able to condense the mana into a thin layer of liquid mana just enough to fill the smallest cracks and not nearly enough to smooth out the rough edges but I am still happy with any progress towards repairing my core.

I seem to get more lost in thoughts then before as my awareness drifts around my dungeon, so I have decided that the only thing I will use my mana for now will be repairing myself and later mana grass growing until my core room is completely filled with them!

They go out and collect fresh water and food down by the river and then they head to the woods for firewood, forging and a heaping pile of vines.

Speaking of vines my own vines over the entrance are just now reaching a length that they are starting to cover the entrance a little bit and have gotten to the thickness of Luna’s thumb and I seem to be able to move them around from their bace if I expend some energy for it.

Luna prepares to leave and I suddenly want to stop her from going since I know that if something happens again I will be unable to save her like last time, but in the end I just sulk as she heads out and I hope she returns from her last trip safely.

I busy myself with helping her siblings by absorbing the leaves they remove from the vines as well as spilled soup and other food scraps like the remains of tree fruit that they leave on the ground, I am starting to think that they are finding my absorption of things to be amusing to watch.

I noticed that my absorbing ability is degraded as it takes at least twice the time to absorb and it takes more energy to absorb things as well.

I feel like I have become weaker then before and I feel impatient to recover as on my own I replenish only 3 mana in an entire day so most of my mana is actually from Luna giving me hers.

I have decided to make the new path to my core room connect with the room I made for Luna since it’s something I want to do anyways and also because I don’t seem to have the capacity to redo the room I collapsed.

I pretty much just copied everything that I did for the tunnel connecting to the second room, making the arched walls and ceiling smoothed stone and the dungeon floor being soft clay.

Luna returned as I was finishing up the tunnel, again reminding me that I take a lot longer to complete tasks, much to my own frustration.

Luna is carrying two rabbits in one hand and she is keeping the other hand on an over stuffed satchel that looks to be the one she had left behind in the village as well as one of the backpacks she also left behind is now on her back also stuffed to the brim with a rolled up pelt tied to the top.

Rocky seems to have heard her call him because he left to go assist her even before she had gotten within my view.

The sight of Rocky having trouble hefting the satchel and rabbits back to my dungeon mad me remember his big words from yesterday about how he could handle it, and I just had to think he would have ended up having to do at least twice the trips just to carry back the same amount of supplies as his sister managed in one.

They drop everything off in the first dungeon room and Luna heads straight to my core.

The transfer this time around finally triggers the mana liquidation needed to fill the cracks and although the improvements are underwhelming in comparison to before it still makes me feel a little relieved.

I think I will plant a new mana grass later tonight when I get the mana to do so since Luna has been using up a lot of mana grass to speed up her mana recovery and in return helping me recover faster, and it takes a few days for the plants that are harvested from to recover back to full for another harvest.

Luna sighed with relief when she saw that the mana transferred triggered my core repair for the first time since her teleportation.

Luna, “Thank goodness, I was afraid that it had stopped working and that you were unable to get repaired after you had saved me…..could it be more difficult now because there is more damage than before?”

I use a small lump of clay to say yes, and when she bites her lip and scrunches her eyebrows I use the same lump of clay to try to cup it around her hand that she has on the dungeon floor.

Her eyebrows still somewhat scrunched but she forces a smile and lightly grasps the clay back.

Luna, “You know, I sometimes think you are more thoughtful than most people, even though you can’t talk you still seem to find a way to make me feel like you really care about me.”

I form another lump of clay for her and she gives a sad laugh.

Luna, “See, look at you making me feel better when it seems everyone else is too busy, sure my siblings mean well and are trying to help out where they can but what about the adults? They are so busy that they are going to spend more time playing pretend and building their camps and barely bothering to check on me, I practically felt like I had to claim that I was alright just so I don’t end up being a bother, even though I really am not okay.”

Luna cry’s quietly for a moment, just wiping her tears before she continues.

Luna, “I am scared and I don’t want to go back at all, but I have to go retrieve supplies from the barn because they don’t have anyone available to deliver the supplies to a meeting point halfway here, yet they have people who have the time to deliver supplies to the other camps!

I just want to call them out for being biased and choosing to support the camps being run by the more prominent families from the village more than us, they haven’t even sent anyone to check on our location since the first two camps were surveyed and picked to be the primary locations.

The only reason mom met me on the mountain was because everyone thought I literally disappeared or died, and she didn’t want my siblings to be left alone and without resources!

I about couldn’t believe how my own mother had shown up soo happy to see me alive and well and after giving me hugs and kisses she went back to work mode!

I don’t really care about the fuss created by my sudden disappearance, and I don’t care about how they are having to make changes to their stupid plans because of it!

Why would she choose to go back instead of coming back here to really make sure that we are alright!”

Luna’s tears keep rolling down her cheeks and her nose starts to run with snot as he quiet sobs keep getting mixed with sadness, anger and frustration.

My simple little efforts to comfort and calm her seem useless at this moment and I can only wait until she gets herself back under control.

Luna, “I don’t know what I should do and I don’t know if I should care about what happens to the others since I don’t feel like they care much about me in the first place.

Should I just stay here and do my own winter preparations, just forget about everyone else?”

I don’t know what to say but I let my own emotions and personal logic speak I give her a big lump of clay as I want to shout yes!

I don’t want her to go back, I don’t want her to get hurt again and I don’t want her to have to help people who are only concerned about getting what they want done and not about Luna’s well being!

I can’t stop her if she really wants to go but since she asked I won’t let my opinion be left out.

She smiles at my core and carefully caresses it.

Luna, “I will help save you just like you saved me, I won’t let you regret it, better yet I am going to and to make it and investment with a return! We can keep working on communication and I can help you with whatever I can figure out!”

She seems to have regained her spark and she heads back to her siblings to unpack the new supplies.