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The Dungeon, Medea Island, Kalenic Sea

Moments after the Delve.

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I...

I may have gone overboard.

After seeing them mow through the crabs, even when they were full-on trying their best to murder the party, I'd kinda just assumed they'd do the same with the fish.

I completely disregarded the fact they were at a huge disadvantage.

They were underwater, which severely restricted their movement.

Lieza couldn't use her most devastating spells, which removed the easiest method to clear the monsters.

Lione couldn't effectively fight dozens of fish with just his daggers, given his bow wouldn't really work well underwater.

Ferai was a healer, and couldn't exactly fight with his Morningstar underwater. it just wasn't designed for it.

Isid and Jerrad were similar, being unable to move or fight normally.

All that, combined with the overwhelming number of fish monsters just... didn't give them enough time or space to retaliate. By the time the fish had killed the first three, I had shaken off the shock at their lack of resistance and hastily ordered the monsters to retreat. Jerrad and Isid escaped to the surface, leaving me with slightly enhanced monsters and three floating corpses.

Well... At least some good will come from this fiasco.

While the guilder's mana drifted into the manastream and started on it's journey to my core, I had a group of Kobolds collect the corpses. They stripped them of their armor and weapons, collected their manacores, then threw the bodies to the fish. The bones would make good decorations.

Yes. I'm distracting myself from my lack of reaction by focusing on something positive. Let me have a quiet breakdown later.

The Manacores were interesting. Shaped like a ellipse, the little gems were tucked away between the heart and spine. A similar location to my monster's but a different shape; my monsters all had perfectly spherical cores. They were... fascinating.

Lieza's core discharged electricity when mana was pushed into it. Ferai's core radiated a gentle yellow light that I assume is some kind of healing magic. Lione's core did nothing special, it just stored the mana. Thankfully, I could remove it at will.

What made their cores different from each other? I had no idea.

A quick bit of biological manipulation gave me two Shaman Kobold mini-bosses with gnarled wooden staves, with the ellipsoid cores clenched at one end by a wooden Kobold hand. My Fire Shaman looked disappointed, so I gave her a stave holding Lione's core. While the Fire Shaman would remain a mini-boss, my new healer and lightning mage expy quickly took up leadership roles in the two Kobold tree-top villages.

Hopefully they could learn how to produce the spells on their own, but my new Staff of Healing and Staff of Sparks are good enough for now.

Their robes, metal weapons and armor were distributed between the mini-bosses, each getting at least one bit of armor. My 'Floor Guardian' Mushu was given Ferai's Morningstar. It was a bit of a departure from his pincer-sword, but a far stronger weapon. He seemed to like it, given how he was swinging it about and smashing it into rocks.

The Teleport crystals were... strange. I had absolutely no idea how the mana in the tiny crystal warped space-time to transport the person holding it. I also felt like I wouldn't figure it out for a while.

The bones I spread about the second floor. Alright. No avoiding it now. What the fuck was going on with my morals?!

No guilt from killing the humans. That at least, I understand. I wouldn't be able to properly defend myself from their grubby little hands if I wasn't willing to kill them. Wait. That seems... Wrong. The new lord of the island, Medean, told the Guilders I wasn't to be conquered. I mean, they could just disregard it and enslave me anyhow... I could at least give them the benefit of the doubt? But they couldn't be trusted...

Fucking damnit! Fucking Dungeon Instincts. That's what it is. Time to face facts. I'm not a human, if I ever was one. I'm a dungeon core with the full, unadulterated mind, memories and sapience of a human. I don't know if my old life was real, if that man ever really existed...

If it was just some sick dream...

I'm going to go insane if I keep worrying about this.

Okay!

I'm a Dungeon Core.

My first instinct is to protect myself, from all and sundry who would shackle or destroy me.

Alongside that is the desire to build and create marvels. Beautiful landscapes and intricate designs, all designed to elicit an awed breath, or a whispered comment of beauty from those who manage to delve deep enough.

These two goals aren't entirely exclusive.

While the dungeon part of me wants as many floors and layers of defense between the humans and my core as possible, the human part of me doesn't want to murder them all, even if I don't exactly care about their lives anymore. The human part of me is more memory and lingering morals, along with the creative flair. It's... a little saddening.

In short, I want to show off, but I'm deathly afraid of letting people close...

Do I have social anxiety?

Oh look, the mana's here. Time for tasty Knowledge. I wanna know how to make my monsters throw lightning!

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Layla's Office, The Guild Hall, Medea Island

Four Days Later

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Layla was collapsed forward on her desk, her face buried on her crossed arms. She'd just spent the night trying to figure out what she was going to do. The dungeon was dangerous, incredibly so. It was willing to let people run the first floor and leave, but enter with the intention of going deeper and it threw everything it had at you. With deadly intent.

Somehow, it knew when you were intending to go deeper. The round-the-clock guard hadn't reported any monsters leaving the dungeon, so foreknowledge was out. It couldn't be reading their minds... could it? No. Dungeons lost control of their mana around humans. It would need to make a connection somehow, and there's no evidence of that. Their party and Isid's hadn't said anything out loud about attempting to go deeper. as far as she was aware the sibling's party hadn't either... but the girl was so distraught, she might have said something off-hand but forgotten.

Was it... reading their intentions through body language? It's the only possibility left. That implies a heavy familiarity with humans, which is expected, but even picking up their intention to go deeper from the moment you walk in is too extraordinary.

In the end, it just knows.

On her desk was all the necessary paperwork to restrict access to the dungeon. All those below Gold were forbidden from delving. All those at Gold were restricted to 'Safe' levels, assuming the dungeon lets people delve floors that have already been cleared once. Platinum ranked adventurers were allowed to attempt to delve deeper, with sufficient planning and information. The same applied for all those above Platinum, rare as they were. All it needed was her signature.

The problem was the parties who had been regularly delving the dungeon's first floor so far were only gold ranked because of the party's leaders. The rest of them were still silver. Layla, Felin, Horat and Deval were the only Gold guilders on the island, after the two visiting parties left. Sure, Horat and Deval's parties had done well on the first floor so far, but if any of them decided to attempt the next floor they'd be decimated.

Layla sat up, leaning back in her chair. It was a hard decision, not one to make lightly. She had too much responsibility now to just delve into the dungeon every day. A glance out her office window revealed the supposedly fantastic view; The beautiful black sand beach was grey and lifeless to her mana-sight. The sparkling and warm water pulsed with mana, full of life. The clear blue skies were also grey, but dominated by the great river of mana pouring into the dungeon's entrance. And there, on the horizon, a fleet of ships approached.

With a sigh, Layla pushed the paperwork off to the side. When they had more Gold ranked, or if the Silvers reached their next milestone, then she would revisit it. For now, they just didn't have the manpower.

She tidied her desk, collating the reports her aunt and uncle had written with the previous accounts of the second floor. Her mostly-complete record of the first floor joined them in her desk. She placed the large bottle of mana-infused ink carefully into a separate drawer. Thank the Gods Isid had brought some more, she wouldn't be able to write a damn thing without it. Idly, she made a mental note to order more from the mainland. All paperwork that passed her desk had to be written in it for her to do her job, and their stocks were never full.

The next hour she spent in the Dungeon Room, updating information and naming the new monsters. She was interrupted by Felin, who spoke in his usual curt manner.

"Whole bunch of Guilders just pulled into port." He rasped, handing over a report from the newly-established port authority. A glance at the mana-inked writing enlightened her. A whole dozen Silver, five Gold and two Platinum parties, some almost a dozen Guilders strong, had just walked off that fleet of merchant ships.

"Did they say why?" She asked, trying to keep her cool. Her mind was racing with possibilities. Mostly about how they would house and feed so many Guilders, especially the higher ranked ones which would expect better quality accommodation.

"A bounty on the Dungeon." He said, a serious cast to his features. "Ten thousand gold to the party that shatters the core." At that, she froze.

Ten. Thousand. Gold. Pieces. That's...

"That's Insane." She started, off balance. "Who would throw away so much money over a dungeon!?"

He waved a piece of parchment, which unfortunately wasn't written in mana-ink. Luckily, Felin knew to read it out for her.

"By order of the Grand Duke Plaised, for the murder of his second son." Layla took a deep, calming breath.

"That party who left a week ago, the boy who died and left his sister behind, correct? They never gave their last names." She guessed. Felin shrugged.

Ultimately there was nothing they could have done about that, it didn't matter where you came from, if you took the oath you were a Guilder. Many who joined were trying to escape something or someone. Some didn't want their family names behind them in some misguided sense of honor and fair play. An applicant only had to give one name, but it had to be the name they were given at birth. Lie-detecting artifacts were used liberally in that sense.

Layla sprung into action.

"Ask Isid and Jerrard if Horat and Dival can use their Teleport crystals to get some crab meat from the dungeon. We're going to have to test it's edibility first, but it's the most bountiful source of meat on the island.

"Organize tents for the Silvers. The Platinums can take the spare rooms in the guild hall, though they'll have to share. Those new houses near the Hall, knock on a couple of doors and ask if we can rent the buildings for a few weeks. We'll give them fair compensation for the use of their new homes." Felin nodded and left. Layla ran her long, thin fingers through her hair.

If she wasn't albino, this job would have given her grey hairs long before her time.

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The ships filled with Guilders pulling in to port gave me a terrible feeling, even before i overheard their reasons for being here.

A bounty.

Someone had put a bounty on me.

For Murder of all things!

Isn't it implicit that you risk your life when delving dungeons? Why the sudden hate? I haven't killed that many people... Kurt, Kale, Herna, Rorgas, Lione, Lieza, Ferai...

Rorgas.

It had to have been his sister. She ran home and told on me to her father, who put out a ridiculously high bounty on me if the response is this... enormous.

I guess I'm going to get a few guests in the very near future.

Guests that want to murder me for money.

I think I'm justified in upping the reproductive rates of my crabs.

I watched through dozens of seagulls and scores of rats as the Guilders settled in for the night. The two parties who delved my first floor regularly were given orders to kill my crabs, then use the teleport crystals to escape with the bodies.

it was certainly... odd. Then they tried cooking the things and it turned out my crabs are delicious. it's a little disturbing to me that they're eating my barely-sentient crabs, but their numbers had been replaced and then some by the next morning, so it wasn't a huge loss.

I also decided The Crabs were long overdue a new breed. I took a Brawler base, added eastern-dragon-like moustache-tendrils and a larger-than-normal mana core. It's pincers grew hollow tubes from which it could blast fire like a flamethrower.

All that was left was a name...

I'm drawing a blank.

Bah, it'll come to me.

I set it up so a few dozen of these would be sprinkled amongst the defenders.

Thus, my crabs now had a ranged option.

There was much rejoicing among their primitive tribes.

Tomorrow, they would die for the Colon- Ahem.

They would die for the Core.

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