Schema are a strange concept to the mortal mind I have found. They are a framework and a category, yet different. They are in a way an area of expertise, a collection of things you know intimately and broadly without necessarily containing every entity that might fall within its purview. My own first choice contained two I felt overlapped, yet on future reflection I realised they did not.
The decision seemed obvious at first but I forced myself to hesitate. Revenants were a powerful and versatile minion, an excellent choice with their ability to create and communicate coupled with their ethereal nature giving them excellent defence against most attacks. However, while I had found the remains of several dwarfs in my new domain there was no guaranteeing if they met the prerequisites. ‘A Sapient of Great Will’ was an indefinable property with the information I had at hand. I could no doubt be assured of raising some small handful but even if I could raise all eighty three, my supply was then exhausted.
I also didn’t know how raising the Revenants would interact with my consuming of their fossils and I dearly wanted that banquet of experience. No, Revenants I must set aside. Besides, I had already decided against becoming a dedicated realm of undeath so choosing undead as my first Schema felt imprudent. Still, refusing a unique opportunity...the pain of giving up an option I may never have again was almost physical.
Kobolds and Lizardfolk at first seemed very similar, coldblooded bipedal reptiles that started weak, growing their societies naturally and evolving along specialised lines. It was the draconic bloodline of the Kobolds that I realised was the difference, signifying their origin. One was draconic, adaptable and weak at early stages but capable of growing into powerful and unique entities. The other were simply intelligent reptiles, mundane in origin rather than containing the potential and magic of dragons within them. Both I set aside, the Lizardfolk for their lack of variety and the Kobolds for the uncertainty of their ability to learn. It felt odd to specify they could learn basic skills, as though they could not learn more complex subjects even at later levels.
The Rock Worm I pondered on for some time but ultimately declined. Perhaps a future schema to pick up but an unintelligent Schema for a Bastion of Artifice was definitely ill advised. With an environmental modifier, it was likely I would once again encounter them and have the opportunity to acquire their Schema. Likewise the Golems, for I lacked the ability to directly control my creations. How then could I set anything but the most vague and basic of tasks?
The decision then was between Ratfolk and Goblins. Neither appealed, in truth. Crude, low creatures, weak and frail. Both had great adaptability and inventiveness, questioning my innate knowledge gave me visions of strange contraptions but there was no beauty to them. The dwarfs who had first crafted the chamber I was birthed in I felt were enemies of both, their own dwellings crude and ramshackle. I did not wish to be surrounded by squalor, to house nests within my walls of fickle, squabbling near beasts that sullied the great labour that had raised them. It was this that decided me, the Ratfolk were hungry and guided only by a lust for more. Goblins had an affinity for tools and tools I had aplenty. Perhaps goblins could learn to imitate their betters, if guided and allowed to do so.
The name rang in my mind, giving me a truly defined sense of self for the first time. The rings around my core turned and changed once more and I knew my name was now an intrinsic part of me, indelible and inseparable. I no longer simply was, I was me, Sedurzefon. The Emerald Fountain in mortal tongues, my true name I knew better than to share. If the Warlord above attempted to claim my domain now, he would receive a warning similar to that I received, that he sought to contest The Emerald Fountain. Admittedly not the most intimidating name but it was mine, I liked it, I would embody it and I would earn the fear and trepidation it would one day instil in others. So I promised myself, in my naivety.
My memory bloomed anew, my Dungeon Guide manifesting itself. The flood of knowledge was overwhelming, familiar somehow that highlighted how alien the dwarf’s had been. It encompassed and surpassed me, I felt my mana surging in response, my light blazing in my Core Room. It built to a splitting pressure in a heartbeat and released in an exhausting expenditure of mana to become -
A single thick slab of polished serpentine, carved with runes so tightly packed even my light could not define them. The writing seemed to twist and writhe, as though it overlapped, each rune carved over the next like a fractal, like an infinite number of pages all carved into the same face. My Dungeon Guide appeared, elegant in it’s form and simplicity, infinite in it’s contents. I knew as I observed it that here lay everything I needed to become a truly terrible edifice. Not some wayward spirit was my Guide, residing in my mind to answer questions, no. Mine was a tome, knowledge to be read and comprehended, to be interpreted by my own great intellect and turned to my goals and ambitions. It would serve to guide me as I learned the histories and secrets of other Dungeons, this was truly the key to my inevitable victory over this place.
That beautiful stone appeared, a literal gift from the gods, exactly two metres, sixteen centimetres and four millimetres in the air where it hung for a moment before gravity, clearly my most relentless and eternal of foes, ordained her singular law upon it. At which point it fell cleanly to the ground and shattered into four unequal pieces and a small cloud of dust.
My horror was epitomised by a word I had just learned and now vocalised with the last of my mana to an empty room.
“FUCK”
