That first yellow creature was not unique. A few days later, more appeared on the surface. The first had been unable to speak, and that turned out to be true for the others of its kind. Xir'ain may not have been able to gleam any usable information from then, but that could still be of use to him. Xir'ain ordered the creature that floated next to him in the black water to strike, and it lept from the water.
The new type of creature Xir'ain had born was not unlike the first. It looked like the eels that drifted through the black waters below, but this creature was smaller, thinner, sleeker, and it had legs. Build from the body of the first yellow speed creature, it had inherited the original's speed, and Xir'ain's alteration had made it even faster and more agile, eliminating the original's inability to turn at top speed. He had also given it qualities of his first creations, making it able to swim through water as fast as it could run on land, and slip seamlessly from one to the other.
The sleek black runner was propelled out of the water by a powerful snap of its long tail, tipped with a sharp blade-like crest. It landed in the golden grass, and in three steps it had already accelerated to top speed. The three cheetahs that had been lounging around the black lake sprinted away in three yellow blurs, their coloration making them invisible in the golden grasses. The black runner overtook the first yellow cat in seconds, matching its speed for the moment it took to bite off the cat's head. As the golden body continued forward from pure momentum, the black runner darted off in the opposite direction after the other two golden blurs. The runner's stride grew longer and longer, and as it was about to catch up to the two golden cats, it lept into the air. The first cat barely changed course int time to avoid having its spine broken by the black runner's landing, but the runner's powerful jaws closing around its back made that small victory null. The second cat must have thought it had escaped, but an instant later it collapsed to the ground, both its legs on one side gone from the joint down, removed by one sweeping pass of the runner's deadly tail. The black runner ate the cat it already had in its jaws first, shaking its head until the creature's spine shattered apart in its mouth, eating the rest whole. The runner stalked over to the still-living cat, opened its mouth full of thousands of needle-like teeth around the creature's head, and closed its mouth again without touching a hair on the terrified cat's head. As the runner turned to walk back into the black pool of water, it's tail came out of nowhere, detaching the golden cat's head from its body before it knew that it had not been spared.
Xir'ain watched the runner's first field test with a dark sense of pride. It was perfect. Six dots of golden light emerged from the darkness behind the dark master: three more runners. At Xir'ain's allowance, these new runners emerged from the black lake to consume the bodies of the other two golden runners. The first black runner returned to Xir'ain's side, its stomach bulging from the meal it had gorged itself on. "You did well," was all Xir'ain said to it. The creature, much to the master's pleasure, only flicked its tail in acknowledgement.
An imp swam out of a side tunnel. "Master, we have-" The imp stopped short at the sight of the black runner that drifted in the inky water next to the master. The imps were afraid of the eels because they looked at the imps as they did everything else: like food. But the runners were different; they were filled with the same hunger as the eels, but they were even more dangerous because they were intelligent enough to be able to suppress the hunger and control it.
"What is it," Xir'ain hissed at the imp.
The imp swallowed and started again. "We have found a structure. It is unnatural in origin, exactly as you predicted." The imp relaxed as the golden light from the master's eyes engulfed his body. The master was pleased, and in his golden light the imp's weariness faded and his body was healed anew. Those who pleased the master were rewarded, and those who displeased him were destroyed. The imp's eyes closed for a moment, and when they opened the golden light was gone, and the master along with it. The black runner was gone as well; the imp was alone in the black waters beneath the black lake. The imp sighed, and swam back to its station to resume excavation work. A dozen pinpricks of golden light followed its movements as a half-dozen black eels watched the imp with hungry eyes.
Xir'ain rushed down the pitch black tunnel toward the location of the found structure, the black runner darting behind like a shadow in the darkness. It took half an hour for the pair to reach the structure, and Xir'ain was amazed in how far the dark tunnels had spread as he was worked in the heart. He would have to reward the imps and the eels soon. Perhaps meeting this structure-building creature would tell him more about this world he was in. If the golden runners were all this world had to attack him with, then it would fall to him without contest. Xir'ain didn't want that. Xir'ain very much wanted contest.
No minions being created
Location: The center of the grasslands on the southern end of the continent, S17E02.
Dungeon: An underwater maze of black water, the only visible sign from above being a black lake with a diameter of a half mile. The tunnels spread just below the ground in all directions.
Minions:
100 aquatic imps
40 black eels (and counting)
10 black runners (and counting)
Infrastructure:
Dungeon Heart (underground spring)
Summoning Chamber
Resources: All the golden grass you could possibly want and an endless source of water from deep below the ground
Compendium
Xir’ain, the dark abyss. A layer of black skin over a bottomless void, Xir’ain is the soul of an old keeper of the void, but he merged with the first thing he came into contact with in this world: water. Now he is of the abyss, the void at the bottom of the blackened sea. Though his body is close to that of a human, any who see him would be put off by some unnamable wrongness in the fluidity of his movements. His black skin pollutes all it touches, and his mouth is the bottomless pit of the night sky. To look into his eyes is to be reminded of your childhood fears of what lurked in the dark, and to lose the false notion that you had somehow conquered those fears.