“Hold it still! Damnit! And stop bending so low! You’re fucking up my engraving.”

Alverost yelled for the fourth time that hour. Mark and Alverost had been working diligently using Axel’s body and the removed metal point of an iron spear to carve runes into the pressed silver.

“I’m bending because you’re not using your other leg to support us! You’re fucking killing me man. Lizard knees weren’t meant for this!” Mark replied, gritting Axel’s teeth. The poor Kobold had been possessed by the dungeoncore for somewhere around two hours now, finishing the fine detailing of the sigil. Not only did the fine detailing need to be done, but also, the hammering of the coins into place meant that not every nook of the sigil engraving was filled with silver. They had to cut and hammer away the excess that was pounded into overflowing outside of the stone channels, then recapture it and pound it back into shape.

It was an ugly mess of metal by the time they were done, crudely engraved with glyphs.

“I swear to Aurie I’m creating a Kobold with a built in carving knife after this.”

“Maybe we give it steadier hands, huh? And four legs.” Mark laughed.

“Yes… that could work…” Alverost hissed as he carved into the metal. They were both talking back and forth through Axel’s mouth. If anyone saw them, they would probably think Axel had gone crazy. “Aaand… done!”

Mark felt dizzy as he was ejected from Axel’s body, who immediately groaned. Axel stretched, rubbing his sore skin where it had been pressed against the floor.

Mark reached out with his mana, healing Axel’s injury.

“Now how do we activate it?”

“Like this.” Alverost replied simply, stretching one dungeon root upwards towards the sigil. It floated ethereal through the solid ground. As the dungeon had exchanged heavy mana for refreshed mana, it grew, and as it grew, it gained more and longer roots. Their influence was greater than ever, and the dungeoncore that formed their beating heart was now almost the size of a Kobold’s head.

When the root touched the silver, misshapen and engraved and pressed into a stone relief, mana flooded it. The silver burned white, blindingly bright against the dark contrast of the cavern, the edge of the mana root fraying where it touched the silver sigil. Mana exploded into the room the room, a brilliant, shimmering light taking form in the air above the sigil— it was blue, twinged with a thousand twinkling stars as it reformed into the shape of a bird made of pure, cyan mana. It lifted a wing, staggered in a few stumbling steps to its side, looking around.

“Is it sentient?”

“Partially. Its more like a servitor. It completes a basic task. The message and destination are encoded via the glyphs I carved into the silver.”

Luminescent sparkles glittered along the silver, flowing up and down the metal like water reflecting sunlight. With a final glance around, the bird exploded into motion, shooting upwards and out of the room. Kobold’s stumbled out of the way as it blew past them, phasing through the solid stone bars that held shut the gate to the next level like they didn’t exist. Mark struggled to follow as it whipped around the stairs, reaching the top in an instant, and still climbing higher, before it was gone entirely— slipped directly out of the dungeon’s domain.

“Whats this spell called?” Mark asked, feeling Alverost’s consciousness nearby. “A bright blue bird. This better not be called a tweet.”

“What? No. Its called [Songbird].”

“Good. Good… so how long does it take to make contact?”

“We can see its progress in the sigil, the mana there—” Alverost shifted away, and Mark followed down into the dungeoncore room. “—The Songbird is magically attached to the sigil that created it. As long as its still in motion—”

Alverost stopped.

“Wait, no. That can’t be right…”

There was a change in the blue lights moving in the metal. They suddenly danced erratically, instead of spinning along the metal in a smooth motion, they zigged and zagged and jumped back and forth and then—

A flash of light. The spell went completely dark.

“That can’t be right. How deep underground could we be? What could be…”

Alverost whipped another dungeon root to the sigil, reactivating it. A new bird appear, fumbled, flew away.

Mark sat in silence, watching the sigil. At first it flowed normally as the bird leapt through the dungeons domain, through its depths, up.

Then the spell went dark.

“No, no… Is something interfering? Magical interference…” Alverost started whispering to himself.

“Is there something wrong with the sigil, maybe? The engravings?”

“Yes… yes, the engravings! That has to be it… lets see… the fourth ring… activation sequence… the contained message, maybe? Below maximum length… Its not even 140 characters… shit, no! Theres nothing wrong with the magic!” Alverost hissed.

“Then what could it be?”

“There has to be some kind of interference field. A counter ritual… silver node… maybe an interference Arcana. Shit! Shit. Shit! We just have to move up another floor and figure out what it is. We just have to break through it. It will be okay, Mark. We will just have to break through it…” Alverost spoke quickly, panicking. With a lurch, the dungeons domain pushed upwards, crawling. Mark felt it. It had slowed to a stand still at the start of the altercation with the dungeon in the Bighorn clan, but now they pushed upwards again.

Except they hit something. Like a surface that was at the same time slimy and hard. It felt like their head bumped into it, all progress stopped. It was a sea of static noise, of overlapping energies. They shifted and roiled like burning waves, stepping in the way just to leap backwards again.

“Is that the interference field?”

“Shit.”

“What is it, Alverost?” Mark asked.

“No! Its not an interference field! There are at least four dungeons fighting to expand their domains over our head.”

“Shit… what? How many dungeons are on this floor? And when did they expand over us?”

“They must have been watching the whole time and expanded during our fight with the other dungeon. It was a perfect opportunity… All hell is about to break loose on this floor. All of the dungeons are pushing against each other for dominance now.”