《I Hate Dungeon School!》 Dungeoneering 101 "Ok, so according to the assignment, this should be the entrance to the-," I squinted at the absolutely garbage handwriting on the scroll. "The Tower of Ash and Blood? Melodramatic much?" I rolled the scroll up without even trying to hide my disgust at the sight before me. It was less a tower and more a pile of old moss-choked stones with something vaguely resembling a doorway set in the middle of a stinking swamp on the outskirts of town. The only sounds were the croaking of frogs and the ever-present buzz of mosquitoes. "I like it. It''s nice and brooding and dark. Dungeons should be dark, ya know?" My companion said, before taking a puff out of what she called a cigarette, but frankly smelled like someone set fire to a potpourri shop. She held back a cough as I waved the smoke away from my face. "Of course you''d like it, Mithramanda. A place like this suits you." I snapped at her. "Hey, don''t be harshing the vibe, Alta! Don''t get your salty, rich girl panties in a twist and just enjoy the quest, ya know?" She punctuated this with another puff of smoke in my direction. I pinched the bridge of my nose, closed my eyes tight, and sighed the kind of deep sigh that I hoped wordlessly expressed the mix of emotions I was feeling right now. I didn''t want to be here. I never wanted to be outside a dungeon in a swamp with a Wood Elf who seemed blitzed out on something more often than not. I was supposed to be steeped in a world of academia, studying in infinitely large libraries, learning the deep secrets of the universe with professors who could warp reality itself, maybe having a sordid romance that went absolutely nowhere but would inspire the songs of weepy bards for generations. But sadly, my reality was unwarped and romance-less. And said unwarped reality sucked and her I was, Alta Alba Marchesi, 5th Daughter of House Marchesi, Lords of the Border Country, Members of the Council of Elven Lords of the Country of Burgotova, eligible bachelorette, crimson haired beauty, and master-ish swordwitch. Cast out by her family for crimes I admittedly did commit, but insist were funny so I should have gotten away with, penniless, and forced to sign up for Adventuring School instead of a proper Magic College like my brothers and sisters. No point in complaining anymore about it, I suppose. "C''mon Mithramanda, lets get this stupid training quest done so I can be depressed somewhere warmer." "Ok but could you call me Myth? Its like, the name of my soul, ya know?" Another puff invaded my air. "Gods dammit fine! But put that damn cig out! The monsters are gonna be on us in nothing flat if they smell that putrid cloud of whatever the hells it is you''re smoking!" I growled at her. It was bad enough that I had to be roommates with her, but she was also in my dungeoneering class and got assigned as my partner for this assignment. She was strange and annoying to me. Tall with dark, unkempt hair, she was also pale like sunlight was only something she had read about. She always seemed to be half awake or stoned out of her mind. Despite all that, I had to grudgingly admit she wasn''t too bad as a healer, which is largely why she was assigned to me. Her job was to patch me up if things got ugly, which in dungeons was more likely than not. This was our first time going into a real dungeon. All of our practice in the training labyrinth under the school led up to this moment. This gross, wet, swampy moment. I drew my sword in one hand, activated a Light Ball spell in my other hand. I took a steadying breath, which my lungs immediately protested. "Alright, let''s do this!" I said with more confidence than I feel,t and we both entered the dark portal into the depths below the swamp. - The mission we were given was very simple. We had to trim the Dungeon Core. At the center of the dungeon, every dungeon for that matter, was a core. The core was what created monsters, generated treasures, various items, and more. It was also what created the structure of the dungeons. When a dungeon core grew for whatever reason, the dungeon would as well. This was usually a problem, as its growth could cause all kinds of issues either in the local ecology, or it could start affecting crops, or all kinds of nasty effects. This is usually because the mana around a dungeon is strange. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. My teachers at Dungeon School would balk at my use of the term strange, but it was true. It didn''t mesh with mana theory, no matter how hard they tried to figure it out. The mana was strange, and dungeons grew; it was just a fact of life. Dungeoneers were a critical part of managing this. A dungeoneer''s job was to enter a dungeon, find the core, and prune it. This usually involved physically damaging the core enough that it reset to its original state. As far as anyone knew, you couldn''t permanently destroy a dungeon. You could blow up the core, burn it, even steal it out of the dungeon, and no matter what, the worst that would happen is that it would go back to the way it was. And that''s what Myth and I were here for. We were both part of the Dungeoneer program at the Burgotovan Adventuring Academy, or Dungeon School as it was more commonly known. We were learning how to trim dungeons back to the original size, to keep them controlled so that adventurer''s could use them to get stronger, find treasures for use by the kingdom, and use the skills they faced fighting the monsters in dungeons to defend against the monsters in countryside, which were far more dangerous. I had chosen the Dungeoneers path for a few reasons, the biggest being I wasn''t keen on the idea of all the traveling common adventurers did, and second, because dungeoneering sometimes led to some lucrative work for cities with their own dungeons. Like a gardener for a flower bed made of horrors. I had thought it would be nice and straightforward, but then I discovered that it wasn''t just something you could march down to a guildhall for, pay a silver for an adventuring license, and call it a day. No! You needed certifications, qualifications, and a degree of all things! Without even thinking about it, I agreed. What little money I had left went to tuition, and now I''m stuck with a four-year program I can''t get out of, living in a dorm with three other girls, and working part-time jobs just to afford what little equipment I did have. And the studying, dear gods the studying. The text tomes were massive! And none of them were ensorcelled like ones in the magic schools! I was developing muscles from carrying the damn things! I wept for my slim, noblewoman''s physique! *click* The sound echoed in the dark hallway, sound bouncing off the walls much like my light did off the water-slick stone of the passageway. I cursed. I had been so distracted in my mental pity party I forgot the first part of Dungeoneering 101. Always check for traps. "Um, Alta, I think you, like, triggered a trap." Myth monotoned at me. "Thank you, Myth. I would have never noticed." I drawled sarcastically at her. "Yeah, I figured. That''s why I told you. You''re welcome." She gave me something resembling a grin and a thumbs-up. Gods, I could throttle her. No time for that, though. Time to analyze the situation. "Give me some more light, will you?" I asked gruffly. Myth nodded and spoke an incantation I could never make the language out of, and a series of small light orbs floated above us. It helped me see what we were looking. A floor switch, but judging by the fact that it hadn''t immediately set anything off, it was a delayed reaction trigger. I scanned the hallway for anything that could be a source of an attack, an arrow hole, a gas dispensing nozzle, even a little bell or something. I looked, racked my brain for possible mechanisms it could belong to, but I couldn''t think of anything it could be. I cursed at myself for not paying attention as we explored, and cursed myself again for not paying more attention in the traps lectures. "Myth, do you have any thoughts on this?" I asked, trying to keep panic out of my voice. "Sorry, nah. I slept through traps. I kinda hoped you''d paid attention." She scratched the back of her head, completely lacking any expression of contrition. Why. Why had I been cursed so. "Ok then. Get back a bit, and get ready to heal me, because I think the only way to get past this one is to trigger it." I waited till she did as I said, and steeling myself, I took my foot off the trigger. It went click again. And then nothing. No fireballs, no gases, no pits, arrows, secret closets full of monsters. Nothing. I pressed it with my foot again. Click. Nothing. Click nothing click nothing. A dead trigger? I bent down to take a look at it. "Those bastards! it''s just a button that goes click! Who the hell makes a button that just goes click in a dungeon? What is wrong with the bloody core to make it think that was a good idea!" I couldn''t help but raise my voice. It was then I heard sounds at the end of the tunnel. Clanking of armor and weapons, and the guttural grunts that approximated language. I facepalmed hard enough that I was sure I left a mark. The other rule of dungeoneering: control your volume. Monsters are attracted to noise. Not ten minutes into this quest and I flubbed all the basics. Not that my partner was helping anything. She just stood there, stock still. No, she was trembling. Was she afraid? "Myth? Are you-" It was then I realized she was muttering under her breath. I didn''t understand the words, but I recognized the tone. She was going to launch a fireball. Which was a death sentence in corridors like this. A scared mage about to go off behind me, and monsters advancing in front of me. This was going to get dicey in a hurry. Fear in the Dark "Myth? Myth, c''mon get it together please!" I pleaded. I could see glowing lights, and it wasn''t the reassuring yellow glow of a torch light, but a bale green glow that never indicated anything good. She just kept muttering, and I could feel the increasing pull of energy towards her. It was pulling whatever fresh mana it could out of the air and heating it up. And judging by the heat, this was going to be a big one. I had no idea what to do. I tried shouting at her, shaking her, snapping my fingers in front of her face, and nothing was working. I searched my brain for whatever bits of half-remembered lectures had to say about situations like this. Damn me and damn my brain for not paying better attention. I suddenly remembered something. Oh, I couldn''t. But I sort of wanted to. "I''m mostly sorry about this!" I turned to Myth, squared up, and slugged her in the face with my gauntleted fist. If a mage can''t concentrate, they can''t cast a spell. Pain was a great distractor. She tumbled to the ground, her rear landing in a puddle of dungeon slime or something, judging by the splash. Myth sputtered a bunch of curses at me, and I didn''t know the Wood Elf language, but I knew when I was being called all sorts of names. "That really hurt, Alta! I think you broke my nose!" She whined at me. "And I''m really sorry, mostly! But we need your head in the game!" I pointed down the corridor sternly at the coalescing shapes of our approaching foes. She looked at she got that far away look again, and the trembling started. "Alta, I''m-" The coo,l calm attitude she had outside the dungeon was gone. Whatever she had been smoking didn''t stave off all her feelings, I guess. I couldn''t blame her, though. Fighting monsters was a scary thing, and the risk of death was high. Most of my fellow classmates had never even seen a monster. I was a noble, a Sword-Witch at that. My family had been training me since I was young. I killed my first monster, a slime, admittedly, when I was 8. I was like this too. My older sister kept me from running away, but I remembered that fear. I recognized it in Myth''s face. "I understand Myth, but we have to do this. You stand back, ready any healing spells you can think of, and I''ll protect you. Ok?" I took a handkerchief out and wiped the blood off her nose. She nodded and I helped her to her feet. She took a deep breath. "I can do this! Go get em Alta!" She said with feigned confidence. She''d get there. Probably. This, however,r was my time to shine! The enemy had gotten closer, but was slowing down. The sounds of some springs and clunks of metal and screams of pain told me that the monsters of this dungeon weren''t exempt from the traps, which would thin out their numbers. The most important thing was that the horde of monsters was entirely Dungeon Goblins. Which meant this was going to be easier than I thought. Dungeon Goblins, also called False Goblins, were beings born of the dungeons and resembled Goblins, which had a long and vibrant history and had been staunch allies of the Mortal Kingdoms for as far back as recorded history could remember. It is unknown why dungeons would spawn these false goblins with such frequency. They looked like feral versions of their namesakes, thus the name, and even spoke what sounded like the Goblin language, but translators found it all to be gibberish. They weren''t strong or very smart, but they made up for that in numbers. This case was also true. They were basically falling over each to reach us and no doubt bite us to death. They were awfully bitey things. I had approximately 30 seconds till they were on us. I couldn''t let them get too close to keep Myth from being in danger. So that left out a lot of powerful spells. The narrow corridor didn''t help any either. So instead of offense- I held out my hand and spoke the incantation, "Shield this Maiden from Sword and Stone, let only my blade pierce and shatter bone!" I felt the energy rush into me and out through my hand, and in front of me was a luminous transparent wall that the horde of goblins immediately collided with. I could see their weight push against it, and knew I had to hurry. I held my blade in front of me and began stabbing like a mad woman, my blade piercing the wall into the flesh of the goblins. I may have had more experience than Myth with all this, but I had to admit, I didn''t care for all the monster slaying. It was the fluids mostly. Why did it have to sound so gross?! Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I could feel my wall hitting its limit, and while the goblin horde had thinned out some, it was still too much, and I was getting tired. I had to think of something else. I heard Myth shout something behind me, and I felt warmth wash over me, and the ache from my muscles receded. A stamina boost spell! Thank goodness, she hadn''t frozen back up. Still, the wall wasn''t going to hold up. Time to try a different attack. I held my sword before me and focused. "Sword of Steel and Burning Heat, Light the Flames of Their Defeat!" I ran two fingers up the length of it, a magical blue fire following in the wake of my touch. After it was engulfed in flame, I advanced. Fighting in corridors with a sword wasn''t ideal, as I couldn''t get much strength behind a swipe, and often had to resort to stabbing, which meant I could only dispatch one foe at a time. The main draw of using a flaming sword in this situation was to make the enemy flinch back. Often you''d have archers or mages shooting over your shoulder in situations like this, but I''d rather have Myth focusing on healing and boosting me. And she was doing a good job of it I had to admit. Almost a soon as any goblin teeth or claws made contact with me, it was healed. Every time I started to waver I perked up again. Despite all her flaws and terrible taste in smoking habits, she was a fine healer once she got her head in the game. The battle had settled into a comfortable rhythm, and after a few tense minutes the Dungeon Goblins had been defeated, and I was covered head to toe in viscera and everything stank to the high heavens. I wanted to sit down, but the idea of sitting in the deep morass of blood wasn''t the most appealing prospect. I slumped against the wall instead and breathed deeply despite the miasma of the bodies and watched. Myth joined me against the wall, popping a potion and swigging it down, her face blanching at the taste. Mana potions were disgusting things, but a necessary evil. Soon, I saw what I hoped to see. The bodies of the goblins began to liquify, and their ooze seeped into the stone, including blood splatters on the floor. Little tendrils of faint light even pulled some of the blood off my clothes and armor. Dungeons always recycled the corpses of the monsters that they spawned. It was unknown where it all went, but it inevitably was reabsorbed by the dungeon to be used again later. We sat there in silence for a bit, catching our breaths and sharing a potion between the two of us. "I''m sorry about that, Alta. I can''t believe I did that!" Myth broke the silence. It was strange to see her expression, one of shame and sadness. As long as I had known her, she maintained either an expression of detachment or at most faint bemusement when whatever it was she smoked hit her system. "I''ll be honest, I wasn''t surprised. You''ve never seen a real monster before, have you?" I asked as I started to wipe some of the monster slime off my armor. "I figured I could handle it. We had the practice dungeons, and I was fine." "You knew they weren''t real. Simulated danger is easy to handle. Even simulated pain. But they can''t recreate the whole thing. Its a lot for your brain to take in. Darkness, stink, danger, fear, the strange mana of a dungeon, it can be overwhelming. Everyone has three reactions when that happens. They run, they fight, or they freeze up." I explained as best I could. I found myself wanting to snap at her and give her a good dressing down. Like my sister did with my first time fighting monsters. She shouted at me till I cried. And then shouted at me for crying. No one deserved that, even in situations like this. I steadied my emotions. Myth annoyed me at the best of times, but even a grudging comrade deserved respect. We sat in the dark, lit only by spells, in silence some more. "You mentioned once that you''ve fought monsters before. Was it scary for you the first time too?" She asked, looking directly in my eyes. "Absolutely not. I''ve never been scared in my life of a monster." I lied. Myth gave a little smile that showed she saw right through my facade. "Sure. I getcha. Any tips for a scaredy cat like myself?" She chuckled as she said it. I couldn''t help but smile. "Its all chaos, so just focus on what you can do, and hope your allies can back you up. If you can''t believe in yourself, believe in them till you can believe in yourself. Half of fighting dungeon monsters is confidence. The other half is violence." I patted her on the shoulder. "I guess its a good thing we found out what happens when I get scared, huh? Plan around it for the future." She looked sad again. "That''s the best way to look at it, I think. Plan for the future. Don''t let this hold you back." I tried my best to be encouraging. "We should probably get going, huh? I think there''s a time limit on this assignment." She said, looking at a timepiece she fished out of a pouch. I cursed. I had forgotten the time limit. Our professor was a strict harridan, and she would totally mark us down for being even a few minutes late. I looked at my own timepiece and swore again. "We''re gonna have to make a run for it, Myth! We''ve got two hours to get this done and back to town!" I groaned, thinking about everything we had to do yet. I really should have set an alarm this morning. And skipped coffee. Really, there was a lot of regret to go around today. We were still on the first floor, with two more to go! Damn monsters messing with our time table! We rushed down the corridors, following the path we had planned out ahead of time. Thankfully, the earlier chaos had caused most of the traps to be tripped, and the dungeon hadn''t had time to reconstitute more monsters to slow us down. We ignored all the treasures in exchange for cutting precious minutes off our time. We turned the corner and found the last thing we expected. "Isn''t there supposed to be a set of stairs here?" Myth voiced the question on both our minds. She grabbed her copy of the map, and I did as well. We looked at it, and both of us felt dread growing in our guts. "Yes. Yes, there is. What in the hells is going on here?" I scowled and glared at the wall. This whole trip was conspiring to really piss me off. I punched the offending wall and fell right through it. Deeper Still We Go! The world flipped end over end for what felt like forever till it came to an abrupt skid and a stop. I stared at the ceiling for a bit, before swearing as the paint caught up with my shock. "Alta? You good?" I heard Myth''s voice drift from somewhere above me. "Yes, Mythramanda, I''m perfectly peachy." I drawled while the roof finally decided to stop swirling. "Cool Cool. I''ll be right down." I heard her footsteps shuffle down the stairway. I pulled myself up, grumbling a bit at my now-damp outfit. A shake of my head cleared the last bit of fogginess from my brain. I looked up and the wall was still there at the top of the stairs. "An illusory wall? The map didn''t say anything about illusory walls. What the hell is this?" I double-checked the map and confirmed my suspicions. Absolutely nothing. No margin notes, markings, or anything. I was going to have words for the map maker, most of them four letters and unfit for polite company. "Yeah, looks like. After you fell through, I poked my head in and its just not even there. Kind of cool, but super weird too huh?" Myth cast a small healing spell to fix some injuries I hadn''t noticed. "Yeah, weird. Where are we, though? If the map didn''t show the illusion walls, we don''t know what else might be wrong." I didn''t like this. I don''t like surprises in general, but dungeon surprises never went well, especially on a time crunch. Dungeon mapping was a critical part of a Dungeoneer''s job, and many of them staked their reputations on the accuracy of them. Mismarked areas, incorrect layouts, and even loose assessments of monsters could be the difference between life and death for adventurers doing a delve. Excuses could be made for new dungeons, but the Tower of Ash and Blood had been explored and mapped before I was born. Before my parents had been born for that matter. Which left two options. Someone gave us a bad map on purpose, or something was wrong with the dungeon, and I was leaning towards the first. A time crunch and bad info? Our professor was an arse and I was totally going to let him have it when we got back. I don''t have to put up with this! I''m a beautiful noblewoman! Was! Whatever! No time for that now. "Let''s get going. Weirdness aside, we don''t have enough time to worry about it." I held up my hand and conjured a light orb, and Myth did the same with her small swarm of lights. As we made our way down the corridors, stopping every so often to disarm a trap, and pocketing the more interesting bits and bobs from the mechanism. Some artificers and others find the mechanical parts, poisonous liquids, and other such things very valuable. Since the dungeon regrows all its parts and can reset the traps, probably through the same method as it creates monsters, it can afford to lose a few parts, and I had expenses to pay. Being in exile was not lucrative at all, and I''d prefer not to work hard for my money if I could avoid it. Sadly, I couldn''t avoid it nearly as much as I liked. I had my pride, but pride doesn''t feed a gal. We made our way through the floor, and aside from stray goblins from the earlier swarm, there wasn''t much in the way of monsters. Any chests we found had some fairly useful stuff, like potions and the like which both Myth and I were glad of. Healing magic could do a lot, but it drained mana from a magic user, which would need to be replaced by drawing in the mana from outside the body. The problem with this is that there was only so much a person could absorb. If you did it too much, you got a kind of sickness. Muscle pain, nausea, dizziness, blurred vision. A lot of magic training was less about using spells and more about stretching how long you could last before getting sick, or at worst, fighting through said sickness. Mana potions helped with this, holding off the sickness and making drawing in power easier, with the downside of causing the magic user to crash into a deep sleep when the mana potion wore off. You didn''t want to take too many of them, as it hadn''t been unheard of for a magic user to pass out for days afterwards. Another part of magic training was learning your limit for potions. For Dungeoneer''s though, these potions were essential. Drawing in mana was fine, but the deeper you got, the mana got, I guess for lack of a better term, grosser. You could use Dungeon Mana, but it felt rotten somehow. Wrong. You could use it but it made your body feel off. Mana potions had the added effect of staving this feeling off. Useful little bottles of liquid. And a good thing we found them. Only on the second floor, and the Dungeon, mana felt thick. So this was a real dungeon, huh? Simulated practice could never prepare you for the feeling. What confidence I had felt when we started, as slight as it was, was drying up. "How''s our time looking?" I broke the silence. For some reason, even whispering down here felt like asking for trouble, but it had to be done. "We''ve been making ok time. We got a little over an hour or so, and there''s the next set of stairs." She pointed ahead of us. I envied her eyes sometimes. Wood Elves had the best eyes of elf kind, and even with light spells active, I could barely make it out. "Good. The next floor doesn''t have much to it, according to the map, though let''s be honest, we haven''t exactly been able to fully trust it yet." I tightened my grip on my sword, and I saw Myth ready herself as well. We approached the stairs carefully, keeping my eyes peeled for any tell-tale signs of traps, but felt relief as I didn''t see any. I had no idea what criteria dungeons used to decide where to place things, and I didn''t need another tumble today, thank you very much. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. As we descended, I noticed the soft orange of torchlight, but it lacked the characteristic oily smoke smell. As we made it to the bottom we discovered a singular room. The source of the light was, in fact torches, but they looked strange, like their flames were made out of some kind of glass bubble. Something to steal later for the artificers, I mused. The only other thing in the room was a singular treasure chest. Myth and I both looked at it for a moment, looked at each other, nodded and said in unison. "Mimic." Mimics were a staple of dungeon ecologies, and of all things that could dwell within them, every dungeon had one, and every mimic worked the same. They even used the same pattern of chest down the wood grain. Since they had become such common knowledge, even outside the Adventuring field, the only things that fell for mimics were stray monsters and idiots. Since we were neither, it was time to figure out our approach. Mimics though well known, were not pushovers or safe. They were strong, fast, and durable with sharp teeth, claws, and a venomous barbed tongue. This I was ready for! The first trick to fighting a mimic was to get it to stop hiding as a chest. Their chest form was a kind of chitinous shell, which was incredibly tough stuff, and you needed it to open up so you could strike at the more meaty bits. My first instinct was to shoot a little bolt of magic at it, but I didn''t want to waste magic this deep in the dungeon. I motioned for Myth to get back. She was a good healer and mage, but I was the front line and I needed room for what was about to go down. She knew what to do. I hoped. Goblins were scary enough, I had no idea how she''d react to a mimic. I searched around my belt pouch till I found what I was looking for. A smooth, perfectly round steel ball, about the size of a man''s eye. Good and heavy. I wound up and pitched it across the chamber straight and true. My eldest brother, one summer, during one of the many times I had escaped by sister''s monster slaying lessons, had taught me about stone tossing on lakes to get them to skip across. I never could get the skipping right, but the tossing, I was plenty skilled at. The metal ball struck with a solid metallic thud and a small crack. I had hit it harder than I thought, as it stuck in the mimic''s false wooden shell. The creature reared up, its long, lanky limbs unfolding, muscles taut, drawing to its full height, much taller than any human, elf, or other of the Mortal species. The lid lifted to show rows of sharp dripping teeth and a long disgusting snaking tongue with a spear-like tip at the end, dripping with a paralytic venom. It stumbled for a moment, as if it had trouble getting its bearings, before turning to me and focusing its eyeless gaze upon me and letting out a roar of hungry rage. This was it! It began a slow circle of me, its tongue snaking this way and that, and I kept my eyes on the stinger. That was the greatest threat of a mimic. They didn''t defeat their prey with strength or speed, but by impeding their movement and then devouring them. I kept tapping my sword on the ground to keep its attention on me. I didn''t want it deciding Myth was a better target. It tensed, and the tongue shot out, just like I had expected. I ducked to the side and swiped my blade down, severing the offending tendril, and it gushed a thick purple-ish blood and screamed in pain. I had one shot at this. I rushed forward as fast as I could, my leg muscles burning as I pushed, and drove my sword directly into the open lid-mouth. It leapt backwards and thrashed about, its hands trying to pull the blade free, as blood gushed and ran onto the floor. With a gurgle, it collapsed, and after more twitching, it sat still. As tempting as it was to retrieve my blade, you had to be careful with mimics. They weren''t above feigning death to try some other attack. I saw it twitch with movement, but before I reacted, a bolt of light struck it. I turned and saw Myth, her hands held out. I couldn''t say I blamed her. Probably wanted to get some hits on something while we were down here. The place where the bolt hit smoked softly, and the body of the mimic began to liquify, the stone floor drawing in the blood and body of the creature. After the corpse had vanished, I noticed something twinkling in its place. We both approached and looked it. It was a tiny crystal, pale green in color. It was a crypt-stone. Crypt-stones are a byproduct of dungeons that occur on occasion. Sometimes the dungeon absorbs something extra when reclaiming monster parts, rocks, treasure, other bits of trash, and when it makes a new monster, that bit gets stuck in the monster''s body and it turns into a crypt-stone. There was a whole slew of superstitions about them, such as curing diseases, bringing good luck, and stuff like that, but as far as any Dungeon researchers could tell, it was just a shiny rock. A shiny rock that would fetch a nice price to superstitious suckers. Myth and I couldn''t help but grin at our good fortune. Since we got to keep anything we found during this assignment, it meant that we could get a real meal tonight instead of just broth and bread again. As if to punctuate our joy, the back wall slid open between the strange torches to reveal a room bathed in a soft light. We both knew that light. It was the dungeon core. And looking at my timepiece we didn''t have much time to spare. We entered the room and marveled a bit at actually seeing a dungeon core in person for the first time. It was like a sphere of rippling shimmering greenish light, but not so bright that we couldn''t look at it. A core when it is at its ideal state, is perfectly round, but this one had started to form little offshoots, like roots off a vegetable. Unlike the core, they were opaque and black, almost like glass. This was our duty as future Dungeoneers. These little shoots had to be trimmed. If they gained the same glow as the rest of the core, the shape and size of the physical dungeon would chang,e and the strange mana would spread into the surrounding area. This needed to be prevented at all costs. We both got to work. We opened our pouches and took out our tools. Looking at them, the term pruning was apt. They looked very similar to gardening implements. Shears, little knives, and the like were laid out, but unlike their more pedestrian cousins, the metal was engraved in all kinds of runic markings to make this task possible. We both set to work, clipping here, shaving a bit there, even snapping off more stubborn branches. Eventually, it was done, and the core looked somewhat brighter. I wasn''t sure if the core appreciated what we did, but I liked to think so. We gathered up all the severed pieces into a bag, to show as proof of the completion of our task. As we put our tools away, a circle of runes on the floor in a back corner began to glow. This was a quirk of dungeons no one had quite figured out. When one defeated the dungeon and finished pruning the core to some sort of standard, a teleportation spell circle would form in the core room. "We gotta move, Alta! Clock says we''ve got 30 minutes!" Myth had a panicked look as she held up her timepiece. We both swore and ran for the circle. Upon entering it, we felt surrounded by light, and in mere moments, we found ourselves outside the dungeon''s entrance, ankle-deep in swamp muck once again. I breathed in the air, foetid as it may be, it was better than the stale wrongness of the depths. As I looked, Myth was already tearing down the path back to town quicker than I had ever seen her. I followed behind and caught up quickly. No way I was letting her beat me!