After his introspection, Valterra was in the process of making good on his promise. However, as most of his creatures were still Ascending, he figured now was as good a time as any to begin another floor. Yes, his seventh floor wasn’t even filled yet, and yes, the majority of the Ascensions wouldn’t be moving to this room in particular, but he felt it was prudent to be prepared.
Valterra moved to the room directly across from the furnace room, which was now his seventh floor. Letting his awareness fill the area, he found himself seeing it more through the eyes of a human. It was still massive in his opinion, but he was gradually coming to terms with the fact that his existence, and indeed his struggles, would probably be considered relatively small to those like his father. That his father was powerful among his people was a foregone conclusion. His memories were full of magical might collected over many years.
Looking now upon what must be his father’s old bedroom, Valterra tried to see like a giant. He raised his awareness to a height in the air and looked over everything from a perspective he thought his father might have had. It was a strange experience. It helped him gain a better understanding of why things were the way they were.
The soft bed in the corner was there so that his father could get up easily in the morning, leaving the center of the room open. The window was raised off the ground so that he would be able to look outside easily and let the light in, even though it was facing south. There was a piece of furniture called a desk to the left of the window, consisting of a flat table-like structure on top of a cabinet and two posts, to the left and right, respectively. A wooden chair was placed in the space between them.
Now that he knew where the pond was, he could see that his father might have put the window there and the desk in order to look out and enjoy the view of untouched nature. Of course, he then went and experimented with nature, so perhaps he was plotting such things while looking outside. To the right of the door was his closet, where his clothes still hung, and Valterra stared at them for a time. There were robes of various kinds, pants, shirts, boots on the ground, and nicer shoes hung up carefully off to the side.
The dungeon core was tempted to leave the room as it was. As much as he had already transformed the house beyond its intended purpose, his recent encounters with his father’s memories had shed a new light on the place. It didn’t take Valterra long to overcome those feelings. His father had stated quite clearly that he had prepared the lands and the house for him to use as he saw fit. Perhaps if his father had lived, it would have been different.
As it was, he saw no reason to hesitate longer than he already had. Still, there were a few things he needed to safeguard. A few of the robes were quite obviously magical in nature, which necessitated further study on the core’s part. Furthermore, there was a likeness painted on canvas in striking detail. Whether magically done or not, Valterra recognized the man in the picture as his father. The young girl present was most likely the Natalia his father had spoken of in his message.
These items he sealed inside clear crystal, similar to the glass that made up the windows, though quite a bit more sturdy. Next, he moved them to one side of the closet and sealed that portion as well. With the important articles safely tucked away, he could begin his actual work. He began by transforming the underside of the bed into a labyrinth of earth and rock. He figured they would make an excellent hiding place for any creatures that made it this far.
Within the closet, he simply piled up dirt, loam, and some windblown moss. The creatures he would be placing within the room would need it. He followed that by covering the wooden paneling of the floor with dirt and loam. He then planted the three kinds of trees he had. He was surprised to find the Northern Pinewillow still there, actually. The creation of his Pinewillow Emberseed hadn’t triggered the System to scour the old Framework from his Spark. Perhaps it was because, despite the drastic changes, it was still a Pinewillow.
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When he accepted the placement, he was surprised by the speed at which the miniature trees sprouted, despite his lack of control. He had made sure to set the height of the trees to a lower threshold than the ones he had planted elsewhere. He wasn’t looking for a giant standalone tree but rather a miniature forest. Soon, there was a fuzzy carpet of drooping Pinewillows hanging above Sugar Maples and numerous smaller ash trees.
The Pinwillows did form a pleasing sight in the center of the room, their long limbs swaying from the minutest wisp of air current. Valterra, seeing this, went high and carved Runes of Holding into the ceiling before injecting them with Air Affinitied Aether. The fresh breezes caused the forest to sway pleasingly, the needles and leaves of the trees brushing against each other to create an ever-present rustle.
He grew the taller trees until they reached three feet in height, a height which would correspond to around 72 feet in real life. The Ash quickly reached their maximum height, but they would provide additional shade to smaller creatures. He went underneath them to manifest miniature rock formations and boulders, recreating different natural formations from his father’s memories. Miniature hidden pools that he formed in depressions in the ‘forest’ floor, along with dens and clearings interspersed here and there.
From there, he threw up a singular sprawling mountain that met the bottom left-most corner of the room and whose peak reached the top of the wall. The slope was relatively gentle, punctuated with periods of sharp decline, until it reached the forest in the center of the room. He placed some trees, mainly Northern Mountain Ash, grass, and moss on the mountain, giving the approximation of an actual mountain in miniature. Its western slope was short, descending rapidly till it hit the doorway. The southern slope extended perhaps six feet outward just past the halfway point of the room itself. He didn’t quite know what kind of creatures he would put here, but he made some small to medium dens here and there up and down the slopes, just in case.
With most of the main features taken care of, Valterra turned to making a way for his creatures to descend to the eighth floor. While it wasn’t strictly necessary to do so, since most of his creatures would rather go through the fortress of mice to delve deeper, he wasn’t going to force them to do so. It would also provide a way for his ants to delve deeper should they reach their next Ascension.
If he were honest with himself, the secondary reason was for delvers to be able to reach the menagerie of dangerous beasts. He had learned from the Fae invasion. If he didn’t offer a way down from the third floor, they might make one themselves and try to bypass the floor entirely by going in a different direction. So he would provide them a nice, dangerous route through his ants, and if they wished to follow the path deeper than they could.
To this end, he started at the center of the ceiling where one of his breathing entrances was located. He formed a funnel almost a foot and a half wide and deep, which then opened up into a western-facing cave. The Core then formed a number of the small floating islands from before in a descending manner until they reached his father's large four-poster bed and its tall canopy. Valterra took a moment to chuckle at his father’s apparent attempt at having some form of comfort out in the middle of nowhere.
Each of the islands he connected in long connecting curtains of moss, like on the fifth floor. From the top left corner, he caused a phantom wind to blow to move the bedpost curtain closer to the window ledge, where he grabbed it with an outgrowth of stone to which he connected fully and spread it out. Feeling proud of himself for that feat of ingenuity, he added moss to the sides of the cloth to strengthen the whole structure with plant fibers.
From there, off the window ledge, Valterra hung a curtain of Windblown Moss that reached all the way to the floor. Finally finished, he looked over his handiwork and was satisfied with the overall look. Now, all that was left was to wait for his creatures to finish Ascending.
