“I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.”

― Jonathan Swift – “A Modest Proposal”

For a few long moments I waited impatiently for a reply.

What talk?

You can get survival points from things other than people dying in the dungeon right?

Yes.

Right, Exsan wasn’t much of a talker.

How else can we get survival points?

Prey come, they leave. Get points. Survive other dungeons, get points. Quests give points. Special things.

Special things? I sighed. Obviously Exsan needed to be taught how to speak better. Admittedly Exsan could get the point across, but the finer details were either beyond him or he simply didn’t understand that he was expected to clarify. It was mostly what I expected anyway. Though one thing did raise alarms.

What do you mean survive other dungeons?

Touch dungeon, conflict between.

So only if we grow and end up touching another dungeon?

No, some move. Treat like prey.

Honestly, I probably should have considered this. I already had an ability that let me move the core. There could easily be greater abilities that could move an entire dungeon. I imagined that any dungeon capable of moving would probably be incredibly dangerous.

How often do dungeons get attacked by other dungeons?

Not common.

That was definitely not enough information.

How uncommon? Several times a year? Once every year or two? Decades, centuries?

Don’t know. Long time. May never happen.

I breathed a little easier for a moment before I realized I wasn’t breathing at all. I was so used to it by now that I usually forgot I didn’t have a body. Even when I did things like smile. The mind was strange.

Okay, based on how getting five levels in the space of a single year was something noteworthy, I was probably looking at the longer timescales with dungeons anyway. I was probably dealing with centuries rather than years. That was good. It also brought up the possibility that I could prey on other dungeons instead of other people. I was fairly okay with that. Dungeons didn’t start out self aware, and if they were all essentially sociopaths like Exsan I wouldn’t feel much guilt.

There were a few problems with that. One, I couldn’t move and I wasn’t sure how long it would be before that changed. Another issue was that I was ridiculously young for a dungeon, and while I was fairly certain that I had skipped some steps by getting access to a ridiculous amount of mana, it was likely that any dungeon I attacked would be out of my league. Not to mention that for the moment all I could move was my core and a small space around it. I suppose that I could just create a giant mana battery…

I was distracted. Right, back to the issue at hand.

So we get points when people come in and then leave again. Why kill people at all?

Small. Points tiny. Death is big.

Again, that was about what I expected. It only made sense there was a reason that dungeons wanted to kill people instead of… for example, throwing amazing parties and then kicking everyone out at dawn and then collecting points.

Tell me how the points work when they leave. Does anything change how many points we get?

Yes, not always same. Points change.

Right. He is not doing it on purpose. I needed to adjust to the fact that he was incredibly brief. At least he would answer the questions.

So what does make the points change, and how does it change?

Time. Longer time more points. Struggle. Danger. Almost kill prey, get more. Travel. Prey go long way, change level, more.

I was struck by a sudden thought. I had English at IX right? That should apply to Exsan too. What if Exsan knew how to speak properly and simply didn’t bother because shorter sentences worked just as well for him. If Exsan had not bothered simply because I failed to ask… head meet wall.

Exsan? Do you know how to speak properly? Speak like I do, for example, and use complete sentences?

Not understand. Am speaking now.

Apparently not. I wished it were that simple even if would have felt like the biggest idiot in the universe.

Right, never mind. Anyway… I… wanted to talk about people, about prey.

What about prey?

Do you remember how you said I belong to you?

Yes.

Okay. So we both belong to each other. We own this dungeon, the space, the creatures, plants, mana and so on. It belongs to both of us. Do you understand and agree?

Yes. All one. All same. Belong.

Good. Do you know what I was before we belonged to each other?

No. Before absent.

I used to be a person. I died, but I was what you would consider prey. I was combined with you, our souls were joined.

You were prey. Now dungeon. Predator.

Well at least Exsan didn’t care much about the fact I used to be a person. Exsan definitely was very focused on the present. He planned for the people coming, but that seemed to be part of his instincts. If he had no need for the past or the future he seemed to ignore it. I was guessing that dungeons probably couldn’t get bored. And right now I was trying to get Exsan to understand something that was more ephemeral. Humans had a hard enough time dealing with ethics already. Where was a professor of ethics and moral philosophy when you needed one?

I still remember my old life. I still feel like a person.

Will help.

Wait what?

You will? How?

Teach Caden. Help kill. Make good predator. Consume much prey.

Yeah… not that easy to make him understand. I would need to approach this from a different angle.

Okay, so everything in the dungeon is yours. You could let most of it be destroyed and you would just rebuild it without caring right?

Yes.

You wouldn’t want me harmed at all though, right?

Yes.

So what is different between me and the rest of the dungeon?

You me. You hurt. Hurt. Dungeon remake. No hurt.

Well that was fairly basic. Pain was a good deterrent. Humans had pain so they knew what not to do. It told us when we approached the limit of the body, or when something was wrong. Since the dungeon was capable of experiencing pain, it made perfect sense for it to respond to it.

People belong to each other. One dies, others hurt. It is not pain of the body, the core. It is pain of the mind. My mind is still human. People die and I will hurt. People that come in, they will belong to me. It they die it will hurt me. Do you understand?

Prey come, they die. Caden hurt?

Yes.

You die?

I hesitated. From a certain metaphorical sense I could lose my sense of morals and die by becoming something else, but that was not really what he was asking. I could lie, but I was potentially going to be stuck with Exsan forever. Having his trust was going to be really important.

No, pain only. However, I do not wish to experience pain. I wish to make a compromise.

How?

I want to offer a better chance for people to survive. If people give us a sacrifice that allows us to grow then we will spare them when they would otherwise die. They will gain a certain… leeway. It is not infinite. They are not preserved forever. However, by helping us to grow they are given another chance.

This should encourage them to help us more. And from that we will gain new things. New animals, plants, new decorations and loot.

No.

Why not?

Not enough. Slow down. Gain not worth levels.

It is. If the dungeon gives people a second chance then more people will come. And by getting so many new things we will draw in more people with better loot. And then they will come back again and again.

There was a pause.

Gain not certain. Not enough.

It will also reduce my pain.

Caden survive.

If you believe that pain is something just ignored then I will show you a type of mental pain.

What pain?

For the first time I could recall, Exsan sounded a bit wary. I wanted to smile. I could also be patient and ruthless if I needed to be.

Frustration.

I had prepared for this. I knew that Exsan might not agree, but this was a line I was not willing to cross. If it had been flatly impossible to gain survival points without killing I would have simply learned to live with it. However, as long as I had a choice, I wanted to cause as little death as possible.

Death was inevitable. Hell, I had died. The fact that people had souls was a bit of a comfort, but it did not make their lives unimportant. If I was going to consider myself a moral person, even a person at all, then I needed to tread this path my own way.

Splitting my mind into multiple points of focus, I began.

I had already stored all the mana crystals that had been made, and canceled the system so it wasn’t making any new ones. Now I created a large mana crystal and poured all of my mana into it. It went into my storage. Exsan still had mana, but I would deal with that.

I focused on each end of the tunnels that Exsan was creating. Then, using the ability I gained from the mobile dungeon skill, I started to unravel the aura at the end of each of the tunnels Exsan was creating.

It only took a moment before Exsan fought back. The aura frothed in a fury of creation and destruction. This, however, was not a battle that Exsan could win. Our wills were equal, but the mana gained from unraveling aura was shared between us. However when aura was created it only took it from the one who made it.

Aura was cheap, so the battle continued for many hours without any change. When Exsan finally started to run out of mana he spoke again.

Stop! There is no point. This useless.

Do you agree to my terms?

No.

Then I will not stop.

Exsan borrowed my own tactics and began to dissolve aura from the surface, drawing mana in so he could continue the fight. It took me a few moments, but soon we were both dissolving and creating aura.

The fight was interminable. The aura from the surface drained away and was replaced as Exsan fought to keep enough mana to maintain the aura in the tunnels. The speed of creation and destruction was evenly matched. Exsan took another tack and tried to dissolve the mana crystal I had made. I didn’t bother to fight this directly. I stored the mana crystal and then released it and thousands of others into the empty air of a large cavern at the very edge of my aura. The mana crystals quickly fell out of reach.

Exsan tried to expand our aura to go after them, but immediately faced the same problem as I dissolved the aura just as fast as he could make more.

Stop. Will win.

This is not a battle that either of us can win.

Caden meditate. Can wait. Will rebuild.

It won’t be enough. I can demolish all of our aura. Dismantle our dungeon. Destroy everything.

No. Will not agree. Will fight.

You can fight, but it will not be enough. Even if you fight your hardest. Even if you fight me constantly. Even if you battle forward and make gains while I cannot fight you. Even if you fight me every single day for every step, for every foot, for every speck of mana needed to keep the dungeon working, you will never get rid of this frustration. It will never end. You cannot win, because even if you do all of this and you manage to kill a horde of people and gain countless points, it will profit you nothing.

You. Need. ME. To. Level.

If you do this then I will share my own pain with you forever. You will cause me pain as you kill, but I will cause you pain in turn. You will rack up survival points and never be able to spend them. My compromise might be slower, it might be faster, but anything will be faster than being stuck in a stalemate for eternity.

I don’t actually need to fight. All I need to do is never consent.

I am going to stop fighting for a moment, if you stop too. Take some time to think properly.

There was a pause as our frantic stalemate settled down into a ceasefire. I opened a notification I hadn’t noticed in the tumult and snorted with amusement. Aura expansion had reached level III. Apparently an endless fight using our auras had also counted as fantastic aura training.

As the pause extended I could practically hear Exsan thinking. I was sure he was looking for a way to win. In truth Exsan might be able to win somehow, but if he had to battle me for every step of the way it would almost certainly be slower than just compromising with me.

It wasn’t like Exsan didn’t already have some idea of how a compromise worked. He had told me he would lure in prey and let some escape to bring in more people. He even knew that the strong would survive. He could accept something less than a total win. He knew how to balance between danger and loot.

Exsan just had no motivation to make this compromise before. That was just too bad. I had given him one. And even with the chance I would offer people, I was willing to make a compromise and know that sometimes people would still die. I was compromising in truth, meeting Exsan halfway.

Mental pain. This… frustration. Understand. Will compromise.