^^ Bulette Creatures ^^

"Remind me again why I'm here? In the snow? Away from my warm bed and warm studio?" Rhea sighed at us, tugging her fur jacket tighter around her.

"You used Ice Magic when you were pissed at the Arch-Mage. Luna thinks you can be a mage, and I think you need battle Experience, just like Medea. Stop bitching." I frowned at her, and commanded the golem to stop digging, pulling out a thick piece of crystal capped with metal out of my pocket.

We'd circled around to the other side of the mountain before beginning our circuitous route towards the Dungeon, to prevent anything inside from escaping towards our village. That is, if it got past the four small stone golems, six wood golems, and two Hugo's that were posted at the exit as security.

The item in my hand was James' invention; a piece of magic crystal as big as my palm, perfectly clear, surrounded by a ring and cap of Adamantite; it echolocated with the main map, and gave me my exact position, exactly like a GPS, only it was 3D, it worked underground, it showed me any other tunnels and structural points, as well as my enemies' positions, all because their magic stones and Auras were tracked by the item if they were within 500 feet. Auras were also carried by living things, not just slimes, so it actually showed me every living thing within 500 feet.

I turned it on with a thought, and hummed at our path, almost perfect. "A deviation of 2 degrees east and 4 degrees astral... Correct 2 degrees west and 4 degrees Core."

The Adamantite golem turned almost imperceptibly, towards my declared destination, and Luna shook her head. "This is ridiculous... what exactly is the plan?"

"We tunnel under the Core, the Crystal Heart. We take the heart. We fight the monsters. We take the heart home and break it into little pieces, and feed it to our other, bigger heart. Then we farm the little horns of crystal that grow from the HoneyPot Heart, and continue our business. Also we mine the Iron that this Core is trying to steal, because we need it more than the Dungeon does." I nodded and laid out our plan simply.

"How do you plan on taking it? It's probably the size of that golem, and wrapped in stone!!!" She shook her head.

"He can carry about 150 tons; I'm sure it'll be fine. Why do you think we made the tunnel so big? Claustrophobia?" I asked wryly.

She hummed, and then shook her head again. "Okay, say you do get it out; feeding it to another heart will just make the other heart so much bigger and stronger... it might even evolve!"

I paused, looking her dead in the eye. "Explain."

"A Crystal Heart ceases to be called a Core when it reaches a certain size; when it gets there, it evolves, and becomes capable of simply moving itself; it no longer needs monster servants. It forms a Golem of sorts, made of Magic Crystals, which is entirely immune to magic! Just like an arch-mage, it cancels out spells before they're even cast! The only way to beat it is to smash it to pieces, before it grows even bigger, and eventually grows skin and muscles, attracting Lightning and absorbing it, becoming a Storm Giant... I don't even want to think about that happening." She shivered.

I blinked slowly, shocked by the new information. "So... crystal hearts are just Cores attempting to gain a humanoid form? They're sentient?"

"No, not even cloud giants, -their final evolution that we know of,- are sentient. They follow basic animalistic desires, based on growth and nothing more. No procreation, no mating, no seeking out others that we've seen; when two see each other, they resort to cannibalism without a second thought. They don't have thoughts about anything other than eating. They're beyond terrifying." She shivered.

"Huh... Curious. Well, we can always just stick it into the cauldron until we can sell it whole to someone. Let it be their problem." I shrugged, accepting the change to the plans easily.

"That's it?!? That's your reaction to that knowledge?!?" She asked incredulously.

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, lover... but we already postulated that the Hearts were, in fact, Hearts, meaning they'd eventually gain sentience. I'd assumed it would be the Dungeon waking up, but it does make more sense that they're simply creatures that desire eternal growth; when they grow skin, it's likely Slime, just like the smaller Dungeon monsters, but with a greater Core inside of it. It's just a really big slime, powered by a golem crystal just like smaller slimes. It's only difference I can imagine is the lightning, which is easily explained by the concept that it needs a source of electricity to maintain its control of such a large form. But none of that matters right now, considering we're 100 feet from a Dungeon and we all need to focus." I smiled and patted her cheek.

She blinked slowly, and then frowned. "Dammit! Why didn't I think of that?!?"

"Don't feel bad, my dear, I'm used to being untrusting, you're just now getting the hang of it." I chuckled and looked at Medea. "Time for the silence and lack of vibrations. You've got this?"

She nodded and opened her own grimoire, which was a leather bound pair of crystal slabs with an Adamantite backing; James had been busy with all these trinkets, ever since his table was finished, and had recently given everyone gifts, as it was apparently his birthday soon. He wasn't subtle at all about wanting something for his birthday, but he'd most certainly earned a little bit of flattery.

The crystal 'pages' lit up, like the Arch-Mage's had when he'd opened his grimoire, and she casually stopped the flickering screen over a long, complicated equation, with no words. She nodded, and a soft ringing came from the Adamantite within in a clear pattern that sounded less like music and more like a note scale for a piano; the sound began to fade... but then no sound at all could be heard. She gave a thumbs up, and grinned.

The golem began digging again, but there was no sound, or vibration at all. 'Wicked...' I smirked, and followed the tunneling brute, collecting the rocks into my new and improved Bottomless Bag; with the runes inside it instead of just on the rim, it had massively increased in size, and I could see everything within clearly.

Luna summoned her sword, grumbling silently, but watched the item in my hand with the corners of her eyes, the rest of her attention on the surrounding rocks. We tunneled under the Crystal Heart, the Core, and then began systematically closing off all the tunnels that led away from it, one by one.

When all of the different supports were gone, the Adamantite Golem moved underneath the Core, (about Eight feet across, it seemed,) and a second golem smashed the last support on the ceiling. The Fall was short, about fifteen feet, but the impact force hadn't occurred to me; it did when the golem was slammed onto its back, crushed underneath the weight of 5746 tons-forces of impact, from the massive boulder of crystal.

No sound came from this impact, but a small, noticeable shiver -or shockwave,- did make me flinch, as the golem slowly stood up, vaguely dented, and hefted the boulder onto its shoulder. The heart was already dripping slime, which Luna was quick to grab the crystals from, but that all stopped when it disappeared.

I blinked at it, or more specifically the place where it'd been, and then looked at Medea, as I realized I could hear my own gasp. She grinned victoriously, and pumped her Fist up into the air energetically. "HAHAHA!!! IT WORKED!!! FIRST TRY, BITCHES!!!"

"Language." Rhea frowned at her.

"Huh? Oh, shit! Why'd the silence spell go away?!?" She hissed, opening the book again and reading through the pages.

"You can't cast two spells at a time, my dear... but that was most impressive." Luna sighed, leaning on her sword lazily. "Where'd you put it, anyway? Your personal pocket?"

"Yeah, I sent it there, I just didn't know it would work so easily... I expected a challenge." Medea frowned, and raised a glowing hand for light as the golem looked around, confused.

I sent it back to stand about thirty feet behind us, just outside the silence spell's previous range, readying it's hands to clap if we were in enough trouble to need it's intervention. "Well, let's start with the first tunnel."

Rhea sighed at us all, and pulled out the wooden wand that had been given to her by Luna (which looked like a conductor's baton, almost,) as well as her revolver. "Yes, let's go risk our lives for almost no reason; what could go wrong?"

"Lots of things. All of which could just as easily happen inside your warm little studio when you least expect them; hence the need for this training." I frowned at her sternly, biting back at her sarcasm.

She paused, then sighed. "I understand, you're just trying to help. I'm sorry for complaining."

I nodded, accepting her apology, then made a slope of earth climb up to the first tunnel. "Now, behind Door Number One..." The 'door' fell apart like loose dirt and gravel, revealing a long tunnel.

My map showed only one sign of life in this tunnel, coming towards us swiftly, as Medea positioned herself in the front and raised a glowing hand. "I'll go first..." she muttered, and began reading an equation aloud. It took about four seconds total, by which time a large mole-like creature covered in a hardened steel-like carapace had barreled into the light, and was charging us.

"Don't take too long with that casting..." Luna gripped her sword, glancing between Medea and the creature as it leapt at her... and was utterly incinerated.

As Medea finished the equation, which had been appearing over her hand as she'd said it, the circle completed itself, and then the air in front of it, the entire tunnel, in fact, seemed to detonate; instead of incinerating the creature, it could simply be said that she Destabilized its molecules, and it melted down like an atom bomb.

Then her other hand rose, holding a magic crystal, and she made another circle, gathering all the fire into one point; a crystal marble full of blinding light that she sent away to some unknown holding place. The monster's crystal was nowhere to be seen.

"Well, hell, darlin'..." I murmured, amazed.

She grinned and bowed grandly. "Thank you, thank you, ladies, you're too kind..."

"That was certainly impressive! You might be at the level of an Expert Battle-Mage, in raw destructive ability alone, Medea... though your intellect and skill is clearly far higher." Luna hummed slowly, eying the charred tunnel, where there was visibly more tunnel than there'd been before. "Did you explode the walls?"

"Destabilize, but yes, the walls and the monster's Core as well, it got caught in the crossfire... it was a bit of a waste, it'll need some tweaking." Medea nodded seriously.

"Alright, then. Off we go, unless there's anything interesting in this tunnel?" Luna glanced at me.

"No, but it does lead to the Iron Vein, which we need to get to first. We'll do that later." I shrugged, and created another ramp to the second tunnel.

"Alright, my turn..." Rhea sighed, and raised the wand, muttering a short poem under her breath; maybe to ready herself, calm her nerves.

When I lowered the wall, and she saw the three other tunneling monsters behind it, she finished the poem hurriedly and flicked her wand at them, as an icy fog sprayed from the end, sucking away all the heat in the tunnel. The monsters were sluggish, clearly unaccustomed to cold temperatures down here in the warm bowels of the earth, (or whatever this planet's name was,) but they weren't dead.

She growled in annoyance, before attempting to chant something else, but it was clear she wouldn't have time to finish this one, as they slowly trotted towards us. She abandoned it, (displaying an understanding of her limitations and therefore earning some points from me and Luna,) firing her revolver three times at the three creatures.

All three turned into slush, crushing down to crystals the size of my fist, and I blinked slowly, approaching them and picking them up. "Huh... I think we just found a way to farm crystals..." I showed Medea the three glowing crystal cores surrounded by a slightly-less-shiny version of the Tungsten Silicide.

"That is amazing... Good Job, Rhea!!!" She grinned and hugged Rhea while I tucked the three stones away into my pocket.

"Curious..." Luna frowned at the newest revelation we'd discovered, and then threw her sword like a javelin at the last monster in the tunnel, as it sprinted towards us. The sword stabbed perfectly into its left eye, piercing through to the back of its head, and it tumbled to a halt, before turning to liquid. She retrieved her sword while keeping an eye on the creature, and watched the puddle as it went around in circles. "Seems it doesn't know where to go." She mused.

I shot it with the gravity spell and pocketed the crystal calmly. "Well, it's probably capable of some sort of long-distance communication with the Core, but now that it's gone, it doesn't even have the wherewithal to form a new body." I shook my head and checked the map again, confirming the tunnel was empty.

The next tunnel, Medea stepped forward again, and began reciting another equation, a different one entirely. The magic circle was larger, almost twice the size of a normal shield. When it finished, it seemed to solidify, and form an actual shield. "I want to test out my defensive capabilities." She explained.

"Admirable, my dear, and I can tell you from experience that that spell will block anything short of an Adamantite Weapon; it's a very powerful spell." Luna smiled at her proudly.

"But it can't stop Adamantite? Hmph. I'll make my own, then." She muttered irritably, and sat down, drawing in her grimoire while the shield slowly circled her.

I patted her head, or tried to; the spell slammed against my armored hand, immediately rebuffing me and nearly unbalancing me from the small movement. "Whoa! Alright, that's a pretty nifty spell... hey, when you make yours, make sure it doesn't allow the Stun spell through either, Alright? The mages I fought weren't able to stop the Stun Round of my wand." I explained when she looked up at me curiously.

She nodded and continued working as I drew my hammer and knocked down the wall of this tunnel, walking forward. Rhea began reciting poetry again under her breath, while I readied my hammer at the sound of running feet.

Six of the insect-mole creatures appeared around the bend, charging full speed like a stampede, and Luna cursed under her breath about bad luck. "Could really use that shield of yours right now!!!" She called back to Medea.

I moved forward calmly to a portion of the tunnel that was too small for them to go more than one at a time, then waited patiently with my crossbow in my left hand and my hammer in my right.

"Theo..." Luna frowned, her hand sparking with magic.

"I've got it, hold your horses." I snorted at her, and shot the one in the lead as they entered the bottleneck, then stepped out of the way as Rhea's poem ended. The first creature tripped and fell with a bolt through its forehead, cramping the bottleneck and causing a pileup as the others crashed into and through him, but they'd lost most of their momentum, and when the snow fog reached them, they slowed to a walking speed.

I winked at Luna and walked forward, smashing their brittle bodies like so many icicles. I noticed that they didn't turn to mist, even after I removed their stones, and I hummed softly. "So cold stops them from misting... good to know... I think I'll upgrade the Tower. Or just build a new one, now that I think about it. I have a new Core now, and Hard Light Technology, so maybe I could build something a bit more intricate?" I thought out loud for a moment, and then collected all the fragments into my bag.

"The Tower? You mean the thing that Rhea works on? And what's 'Hard Light'?" Luna asked, confused.

"It's a magic that Medea developed, very useful. Let's clean the rest of this place up, Alright? Rhea's getting a hang of this, and Medea is... still Medea, so let's move on." I gestured at the small woman who was currently typing long series' of numbers into a collegiate calculator; a Ti84, or something like that.

The next tunnel yielded three more crystals, and the final one yielded seven more, as I used the same tactic to bottleneck them and kill their momentum. Afterwards, I sent Rhea and Medea home with Luna, and looked around at the small tunnel system. A center room with six radial tunnels, and a vaulted roof, right next to an Iron Deposit.

"Yeah... I've got some ideas for you, dear." I smirked, already drawing up plans in my head.

With the thirty-foot ceiling, I could set several layers of netting, and simply throw the iron down a shaft into the cauldron, where it would be eaten by the Crystal Heart and turned into purified iron; the refining process would be completed without creating Smog, which was our main concern, plus we'd have saved the time from doing it manually or chemically.

Then again, I didn't want to have such an important piece of our economy so far from the village, and in such an insecure place; clearly, anyone could waltz right on in here if they felt like it. Just like that, I realized what I wanted the second of my two 10x10 rooms inside the Temple should be; all our Crafting Equipment and Laboratories.