(Just a teaser for now. I will post more after the clockwork week is up.)(sry for no clockwork post. I have a cold and not really in the right set of mind to write.)

My name is Mavis Shin. I’ve been a researcher with all my 50 some colleagues since I was at the young age of 16. I followed my father with all of them as we traveled like adventurers even though we weren’t one. As I said before, we were researchers, though we were a strange one.

If someone saw us they would think we were a mercenary group or a merchant's caravan. Our older ones are hardy and strong. What would cause researchers to be like this? Two things. One is because our world is filled with magical monsters that would rip us limb by limb if we weren’t strong enough and two because our research subject are dungeons.

Specifically we want to know everything about them. Every last one of us wants to learn exactly what a dungeon is and how it builds itself.

For the past several years we have gone into dungeons. Killing monsters and studying the rare core gems that drops from a few of them or even a dungeon heart or two that a kingdom holds and allows us to see.

Slowly we unravel the mysteries of this strange entity that we call Dungeons. Adventures call these places magic hot spots that attract monsters but we know better. Examining so many captured dungeon hearts has already shown us that dungeons are in fact, living beings. The heart acts like a brain where the consciousness stays while the dungeon itself is its body.

Some 20 years ago we reached a bottleneck. We truly learned everything we could from them by simply examining them all. For nearly a month we wondered what to do as we travelled until we came to a simple conclusion.

“If we can’t figure out more by examining them, let's make one of our own.”

You would think making a dungeon was easy. We had see hundreds of them and know what kind of monster was attracted to what.

We headed to a safe city near the capital of the kingdom where most of us were born in. The area was known for having goblins here so we thought of making one.

We found an abandoned cave and with the tutelage of a few dwarves we learned some mining skills. We then dug out a sizeable cave, equipped the rooms with some basic straw beds and so on.

It worked nicely and attracted the goblins. Problem was it is simply a cave home for goblins and not a dungeon.

We quickly saw the fault in it. We were digging a cave. Not making a magical area where the dungeon grows by itself the more magic power it absorbs. We had trained several mages in our group but none of them advanced in the art enough and only can use it to provide magic power for us.

We pondered on how to go about this and decided to go by digging out a cave and burying several mana crystals deep within everyday with the mages and having them push all their magic power into the area the crystals were.

We went on for a month and only ended up with making the crystals grow a bit until it sprouted out of the ground it was buried under like a plant.

We were mad of course and some of the guys were yelling as they got drunk in one of the taverns.

Though we hated their drinking habits it helped us this time.

Several elves who were present when he was yelling became interested and came to speak with us in the morning after everyone of them were sober.

It seems they were doing the same thing as we were and were hoping to join our groups.

We had much more knowledge than them and they had the magic ability we lacked.

We agreed and soon after we united our groups.

With the 58 humans in our group plus the 30 elves from theirs we made a small guild that would focus on this. The strongest of our fighters would do quests in the adventurer's guild to help pay for the research equipment.

We also purchased a small farm near the edge of the city farmlands. This was so we could research in peace. We didn’t want some crappy city guard spying on us.

We did expand the place. No way in hell would it fit 88 people in such a small place.

For the next 7 years we researched dungeons and dungeons hearts that were owned by the royal family who let us see them on a daily basis to the point of the guards not even stopping us when we head inside.

At the beginning of the 7th year of research we had developed a spell which allowed the caster the control an area around him like a dungeon. It had to be an enclosed area and the caster could not leave the area or the dungeon zone would vanish.

The system was also rather simple. Strangely a screen appeared before the caster of the spell stating a few things he could choose from. Like excavating or laying a trap. Each of the action however drained nearly all of the caster's mana.

It was a start though, for the next 3 years we continued perfecting it but couldn’t pass much until the spell itself changes once we reached a point.

It took us by surprise when one of our elders who were testing the improvements inside a cave had his body turned into particles of light and was scattered about inside the cave.

A few minutes later the elves said that they could hear him. Our elder had lost his body and became a dungeon. The elves said that he kept mumbling to himself like a crazy man.

After he yelled like a madman for a while, the walls around the cave all broke apart. We at first thought that it is a cave in but the ceiling never fell. What appeared were monsters. Slimes, goblins and so on. They were all weak but it worried us about what happened. We searched the new dungeon made by the elder and found a small circular gem embedded into the back of the cave.

It was a tiny dungeon heart, it was glowing bright red and emitting killing intent. The elves say that he is currently similar to a weak dungeon. Hungry for magic power. His small mana reserve couldn’t sustain him much longer and with us killing the monsters he summoned he was even weaker now.

We, not knowing what to do at the time could only watch as the small core slowly grow dim until the light vanished. When the elves confirmed his death, we removed the tiny crystal from the wall and took it back to our guild house to examine.

We weren’t going to let our friend's death to be in vain.

We looked over the spell and the core. It was incredible really, the core held his entire soul. Once we examined it properly the elves said that he simply shut down. If we filled him up with mana he would wake up but it would be a bad idea. He was living through a normal dungeon's birth period. Unless he is placed inside a strong dungeon which has a good amount of mana within he would simply go crazy again.

To get our friends back we would need to perfect the spell. It was 4 years before we tried the spell again. It was much more advanced now. The dungeon core had been a necessary factor for us to discover how to improve the spell.

A normal dungeon heart simply held a consciousness normally referred to as the hive. It normally took over simple animals which it will use as bait to draw in bigger creatures. The dungeon then will try slowly to take the creature's mind over and changing it to suit its purpose of protecting the dungeon.

The volunteer's core held his soul as well as his consciousness which made things very different. The dungeon heart very structure was different and we incorporated that into the spell which stabilized it.

A new volunteer casted the spell. This time there was no abrupt dispersion of his body. It glow brightly and was absorbed into the ground then a wave of light passed through the cave we were in.

After a while the elves confirmed he was alive. After another good time of communicating with him, the elves said he had lost some of his memories.

It was clear it would have some side effects but we certainly didn't expect something like memory loss. It was after the elves said that this process was similar to reincarnation that we understood. Its thought that reincarnation would wipe the past memories preparing the soul for its new body. The volunteer said that he remembered most of the recent stuff but his childhood and dead parents, distant siblings and any memory up to around 10 years ago was wiped clean. This counted at around 60% of his memories being wiped but he wasn’t worried. We simply told him about his family and some of the stories he told us about his past.

He was also very sane, unlike our elder during the first experiment.

He explained the system he possessed and we found it quite interesting. Like the original spell he could excavate and so on but it seems he can spawn some small low food chain animals like rats and so on. It seems he has the basic needs for attracting wild animals. We quickly located the core. It was in a hidden space at the end of the cave. 5 elves poured into him half of their mana pools giving him a good amount of magic power to work with.

With him sane we began to slowly build this dungeon.

For the next year we expanded it without a problem. We found out that he could manipulate the evolution of these low class animals he had. Bugs and rats were all he could do without wasting too much energy and start to feel the hunger. When ever he was working on expanding or something a few elves would be near by to supply mana.

Soon variant rats and bugs began appearing.

Some of them are violent and attacked us. While others docile and didn’t care if we passed right next to them.

Other animals also invaded the dungeon. Bats and wild cats were among them. As they grew by eating the docile rats the larger violent ones ganged up on them killing them. Small baby cats were left alive as they were slowly taken over after eating the magical rats and mutated into magical creatures of the dungeon.

The years worth of research caused massive improvements and examining the growing dungeon heart didn’t help deter us from our path.

It was a shame it came to an end.

It happened when the dungeon reached a size where it allowed itself to expand down a new level, making a new floor.

He did it without thinking and wasted almost all of his mana. This put him in a frenzy and even with the elves mana he didn’t stop. It's a shame, but we removed him from the dungeon. Simply removing the dungeon heart from the wall will release its influence from the dungeon.

Those inside the dungeon killed all the monsters inside including the rats and bugs. The core was fed for a while before it was determined that he was lost. The frenzy caused mental trauma to the volunteer. Life is a series of trial and error. You learn not only from your own but from others errors.

With what we gathered during the year we spent another year developing the spell.

This dungeon came out better. The one who went in lost less than 15% of their memories and the system advanced again but at a lesser degree. It seems a system to help the conscience was created without us noticing. It mainly told the relationship of one animal with another and how much power you can get by killing one creature. How to design a room and a few efficient ways to alter a monster.

The dungeon grew quick and soon new animals entered and began feeding his need for mana.

We watched from far as to not deter outside monsters from entering. Most of the dungeons we made were inside the same cave. When a dungeon fails parts of it collapses so we used the same one since it wouldn’t burden any new ones as it mostly returned to the same size as it started, a 6 by 10 by 3 meter cave room.

Unlike the second, the third absorbed a larger amount of magic power before expanding. It was then that a few goblins stuck their huge noses in. Those green scrawny bastards that only caused trouble found paradise in this animal filled cave.

Large groups moved in and on the second floor, the third built a peaceful area safe from animals. The goblins that fit took up residence and slowly he began corroding their mind. As the goblins grew stronger they became aggressive to the newer weaker ones that came in but didn’t kill them. Not until after around 20 lived in the cave. Those 20 were much stronger and since they were well fed from eating the plentiful rats and cats they killed off the other goblins.

It was impressive to see how efficient they were. The dungeon further expanded but the goblin population only grew by breeding those 20.

This way the goblins would be easily taken over at birth.

Since they had their wills restrained the third could make it easy for us to enter without getting attacked simply by controlling the monsters.

We felt confident it would finally work out for us but unfortunately nothing goes right for a long time. The city patrols the woods and kills off the goblins regularly. When they found the dungeon they quickly exterminated all the goblins, rats, cats and bugs they found.

It pissed off the third but he controlled himself. He had hidden his core on the second floor and several rats nest and bug hives were also hidden with cracks that led out of them. The goblins had the babies in a hidden alcove on the second floor which was safe as it was hard to spot.

After the patrol left the third got back on track and brought the bugs back out. He wanted to repopulate so he directed them to eat the moss off the walls. He needed the bugs to be the biggest population or else the rats would start to starve and that would result in a collapse in the food chain.

As the food chain got back on track it was unfortunately hit again by the patrol. This time they brought mages and they hit with magic all over the place. The smoke left by the fireballs and so on invaded the cracks and killed off the hives and nests. We moved quick and removed the third before he lost his sanity. He soon calmed down but because he had too little magic power he did something dungeon hearts could do but never did. He went to sleep.

It's kind of like hibernating. With him removed from the dungeon and safely in our guildhouse he only gathered a bit of magic power in the air to survive as did the other two smaller dungeon hearts.

With each spell the dungeon hearts got larger. The first was the size of a small marble. The second the size of a small rock that fit in the palm of your hand. The third was about the size of a bulky mercenaries shut fist.

The last spell we worked for 4 which led to this exact moment.

At this time I, Mavis Shin, 50 years old with no family left as my father was the first core, am using the perfected spell.

As the spell activate I lose my sense in pain as my body is rapidly broken apart. It gathers in a small ball over the magic circle. As soon as it is absorbed into the floor of the cave a huge wave of energy comes from my position as my body is transformed into the dungeon. In a moment space distorts and the cave mouth closes, sealing the dungeon.

???: ‘WHATS GOING ON?!'

???: ‘DID WE FAIL?!’

???: ‘No! This feeling.. He already turned into a dungeon! Did we create a new type again like the first core?’

They moved back from the wall.

I was dizzy after the transformation but slowly my sense gather themselves.

I couldn’t feel my body but then I remember that I had casted the spell.

I looked around and only saw a rocky ceiling.

Mavis: Is this how dungeons see themselves?

???: ”No sir, you are simply looking at the ground. If you think to yourself, “Overview” you shall see yourself from a better view”

I do as the voice said. I already know, this must be the help thing that the third had. Instantly my view changed to one looking from an angle down on the room I was before. It been sealed and those who were inside at the time were getting desperate.

Mavis: ”How do I speak with them?”

Help: ”Focus on a spiritually high being such as an elf and speak.”

I look at the elves. Everyone was yelling and soon someone took charge and silenced them.

I felt the elves probing about so I thought it was easier to move my mind to the probe and focus on them.

Mavis: ‘How is everyone now?’

???: ‘You're all right! Mavis is fine guys. It was a success! Tell us Mavis, how much do you remember?’

I reviewed my memories.

Mavis: ‘I can remember most of my life. What I can’t I had already forgotten before doing this spell. So what happened to the door?’

???: ‘It sealed itself when you became a dungeon.’

Help: ”The dungeon as a whole is within a separate realm. If you wish you can open a portal back to your previous world. It is a skill you possess called Dungeon Gate”

(Dungeon gate and the separate dimension thing were inspired by Lair as will the Dungeon walk skill.)

Mavis: ”How do I activate it?”

Help: ”Focus on the location where the portal will appear, a wall is a good location for a beginner, and then imagine a black gate appearing and opening.”

I did as instructed. I focused on the spot the cave entrance was before and imagined a gate black metal double door you find in dwarf cities or jails.

The doors appeared as if it was always there and slowly opened revealing the outside.

Mavis: ‘That is the way out. I suggest you guys leave for now.’

???: ‘Mavis you know elves can make contracts with spirits right.

Mavis: ‘Of course, you told us dozens of times.

???: ‘Then make one with us. You fall under spirit category now. Also we need to have access to this dungeon to make sure you stay sane.’

The ones who said that were the elves present.

Mavis: ‘Will it take long?’

???: ‘No.’

Mavis: ‘Then do it!’

The elves all nodded. All 10 of those present pulled a dagger and made a cut on their hand and drew a circle with their blood.

They then did the ritual and all the circles began glowing. When they were done they opened their eyes.

They looked from one to the next nodding.

???: ‘We all succeeded so we will go back now. Don’t waste too much magic power..’

Mavis: ‘Hurry and leave before I waste too much.’

It was quite draining but as soon as the last one left I let the door close and I breathed out deeply a sigh of relieve.

That thing was quite exhausting. When I finally got a hold of myself I wondered to myself, why I wasn’t going wild from hunger?

Help: ”You have a small mana capacity but the skill Dungeon Gate uses ambient magic power which doesn’t interfere with your own supply.”

Well that is convenient. A spell that I can use all I wanted and only need to concentrate. Nice.

I then looked around towards the place I opened the door at. It was then that I noticed that I could see the area outside the dungeon. All the men were talking. I moved my consciousness near the door but heard nothing.

Mavis: ”Oh right I'm in another realm. Wait, what does that mean?”

Help: ”It means that you're dungeon body is in a separate dimension which only the dungeon gate spell can access.”

Mavis: ”Fuck, that sucks. Why am I different from the other dungeons to this degree!”

Help: ”Because you are a true dungeon. You can move and change your location should you feel the need.”

A mobile dungeon.. is that even possible? No, we can’t say it's not. Maybe it's right. A true dungeon. One with a real conscience, with human morals and even with the ability to go to another location. A real magical being that is built to be a trap for everything.

Mavis: ‘So this is a real dungeon.. The true dungeon.’