Of course, I did now genuinely feel bad for setting the house on fire. If I had any doubts, the new achievement of “Homewrecker” now haunted my status screen. What’s done is done. No use crying over spilled bees.
Except I really did not want to get in trouble when four corpses were discovered next to me. Well, three, now. Maybe I’d get lucky and the local authorities would be understanding that this was all some big misunderstanding!
I doubted that. As a Dungeon Core I could no longer play the “innocent old lady” card to get away from consequences. I had been given a sliver of freedom. And I didn’t want to lose it. I wouldn’t be able to handle rock jail!
I tried Mana Dusting away the skeletal remains. To my surprise, when I reached out with my minds towards the body with the shattered skull, it disintegrated with the faintest touch. I barely brushed up against the bones and they immediately crumbled into bone dust before changing into smoky Mana.
My shiny mauve core promptly gobbled up the smoke. Yummy. Nothing like huffing bone dust first thing in the morning.
Ah, yes. I had noticed my Mana did not level rise. I mean, I had just barely Mana Dusted away half the house, so that made sense. The “Capacity” capped out at twenty.
I supposed I couldn’t complain. I was taught to be thankful and let nothing go to waste. There are children in Africa who never get to have bone dust.
Well, that was easy-peasy. Onto the next one!
I immediately ran up against that invisible wall again. Just like last time. Or like when I try to step past the porch. While I could Mana Dust around the two bodies, I couldn’t touch them at all. I was stumped. There was some rule that somebody wasn’t telling me. Figures.
I currently didn’t have any other great methods for corpse disposal. I could collapse the floorboards under them. Or bury them under dirt. But no. The former would take too long and the latter might put me to sleep. I was on borrowed time. Someone could show up at any moment to investigate. That amount of smoke must have been seen from miles away.
The solution seemed to be in my other abilities. Miss Flight-crew said that I had a new Power and Skill to choose from. I reckoned there laid my path ahead. If not, I”ll bury them under a tree. That might be nice.
I pulled up my status screen:
MERRIWEATHER DUNGEON
GEOBLOOM CORE (LEVEL 2)
MANA CAPACITY: 20/20
MANA RENEWAL RATE: 1
LOOT: N/A
MINIONS: N/A
TRAP INTEGRITY: N/A
AVAILABLE SKILLS:
LEYLINE KNITTING (LVL 1)
GARDENCRAFT (LVL 2)
MANA DUSTING (LVL 7)
UNLOCKED POWERS:
WEARY BONES AURA
SCRAPBOOK SOULSTEW
TITLES GAINED:
HOMEWRECKER
Hmm… Interesting. Yup.
Still had no idea what half of that meant. Presumably, I gathered a bunch of Mana from Mana Dusting. And the Gardencraft Skill probably let me grow trees. But I still didn’t know what a “Leyline” was. Nor what my powers did. “Scrapbook Soulstew” were all individual words I understood, but sounded revolting when said together like that.
I opened up the Skill options first, since those seemed more immediately useful. These words were read out to me by a different voice. Praise the lord. I didn’t think I could handle every menu being read out by that one lady. This new woman seemed much more casual, yet still very hospitable and almost conspiratorial. She reminded me of this waitress in the south. I think her name was Milly? She poured an extra shot of espresso in my coffee for free. Along with a shot of whiskey. Bless her soul. Honestly. She had the best gossip.
