“Maya! It’s a baby bunny!” Sarah squealed, to Maya’s annoyance.

“It’s spring,” Maya said dryly. “That happens.”

“So cute, though!” Sarah said.

“Yep. They do that,” Maya said.

“I’m going to try to catch it,” Sarah said.

“You’ll never catch one,” Maya said automatically, taking Sarah’s basket again.

Maya ignored her sister as she continued walking through the grass. They’d just moved out of the forest when Sarah had made her “discovery.” She’d had a creepy feeling like she was being watched for the last hour or so, which had her on edge. She fingered her bowstring uneasily.

“Maya, Maya!” Sarah shrieked in excitement. “Look!”

Maya looked over in confusion. Sarah was actually holding the little rabbit. It wasn’t even trying to escape.

“That’s… weird,” Maya said.

“I think it hurt its leg,” Sarah said, cradling it to her chest. “It was limping as it ran away.”

“You should put it down before it dies of fright,” Maya said, but narrowed her eyes at the rabbit. It didn’t actually look frightened.

“It’s fine,” Sarah protested. “I’ll take it to its nest. Let’s see… oh, look, there’s more baby bunnies. I bet it’s that way. Come on, let’s go!”

Sarah skipped along, happy as a clam, while Maya followed behind. Sarah was walking towards a hill that they’d never been to before, though they’d seen it plenty of times.

“What’s with this grass?” Maya asked, looking at her feet as they walked. “It’s so short, but there aren’t any horses or whatever out here.”

“Maybe it’s because of the bunnies,” Sarah suggested.

“I’ve never seen grass this short all in one area from rabbits before,” Maya said.

“Ugh, just because you’re thirteen doesn’t mean you know everything. It’s just rabbits. Come on!” Sarah said.

The rabbits were moving weirdly. They seemed like they were leading Sarah to the hillside. Didn’t rabbits usually try to avoid leading animals to their homes? Sarah wasn’t paying any attention to the weirdness, and was happily cooing over the baby in her hands.

“Oh, this is nice,” Sarah said, as they reached the hillside.

She brushed aside a few hanging vines and sat down on a boulder in the shade, still cradling the rabbit. The other rabbits had come inside and were huddled together next to a vine-covered wall. They didn’t look scared, even though Maya and Sarah had to be too close for comfort. They looked… curious, Maya thought.

“Are you thirsty, little guy?” Sarah asked, scooping up some water into her hand to offer the rabbit. It sipped at the water.

“Sarah, this place is weird,” Maya said.

“I know, but…” Sarah started to say, but cut off in realization. “Oh.”

Maya nodded.

“You know the rules,” Maya said.

“Any unusual behaviour from animals, or unusual changes to landscape-” Sarah recited.

“-have to be reported immediately,” Maya finished.

“But that’s for dungeons,” Sarah protested. “There’s no way this is a dungeon.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” Maya agreed. “But those are the rules. And I’ve never been in a dungeon. So who knows?”

“All the stories about dungeons are about how they’re evil, and kill people, and make monsters, and stuff,” Sarah said. “And they always have a clear entrance. There isn’t even an entrance here, or a cave, or anything. It’s just a shaded spot.”

“Except the divine dungeons, remember?” Maya said. “They weren’t all evil.”

“Yeah, but they also had priest guardians,” Sarah said. “And even they had entrances and monsters. And they killed anyone who went in, who wasn’t a priest. And they all died forever ago. This place has no entrance, no monsters, and no priests. Totally not a dungeon.”

“Maybe the stories are for scaring kids,” Maya suggested. “Maybe real dungeons aren’t that bad.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said with a sigh. “But what if they say we can’t come back? I like it here!”

“They’ll only say that if they decide it’s a dungeon,” Maya said. “If it’s not, why would anyone care?”

“I guess,” Sarah said, frowning. “Can we stay for a while?”

“What if it is a dungeon, though?” Maya said. “What if a monster shows up?”

“You have your bow,” Sarah said. “And, it’s definitely not a dungeon.”

“I can’t take on a monster,” Maya said.

“Can, too!” Sarah said. “You won the archery contest.”

“For kids,” Maya said. “And three people entered.”

“So?” Sarah said. “You can shoot a monster.”

Maya groaned.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “We can stay for a few minutes. But, if we see anything that looks like a monster or dungeon entrance, we’re running.”

“Deal,” Sarah said, grinning as she pet the bunny.

Maya settled in on the boulder opposite Sarah. It really was nice here. The water was ice cold, and after Sarah swore it tasted good, Maya sipped at it. It was refreshing.

They stayed for nearly half an hour before Maya insisted on leaving, because they were losing their light. Sarah put down the baby bunny, pet it again for good measure, and they headed off.

---------

What have I done? Amy thought anxiously.

She’d been so excited about her plan, she hadn’t stopped to consider the timing, or any other details.

Amy wasn’t just a dungeon in a world of humans. She was in a world with other dungeons.

And, of course, she had to draw attention to herself when she wasn’t even a week old. She could have lured the kids here after building herself up a little more, but no, she had to do it immediately.

And now she was going to be investigated, to see if she was a threat.

At least she’d gotten some useful information.

Her favorite bit was discovering how amazingly intense the mana was from the girls. It had been downright euphoric, having them hang out for half an hour. One human child gave off more ambient mana than the entire rest of the dungeon combined. Much more. It felt downright pleasurable just having them present.

The other useful knowledge was a better understanding of the nature of dungeons. She felt confident in her guess that the “divine dungeons” were what Prosopon had told her about, from a few hundred years ago.

It gave her the impression that dungeons were pretty much all considered threats. That didn’t bode well for her plan. But, maybe she could come across as something new. Something that was only similar to a dungeon.

In any case, based on what she’d heard, she guessed she was getting adult visitors in the near future. She wanted to make more preparations on that front.

Her instincts screamed at her to dig deeper, bring her core further away, and make monsters and traps to protect the route to her. But again, that just didn’t seem best. Her pit trap and jawtooth flies were fine. She did make a few little revisions to both - she separated the sludge pit from the clean well water, for one thing. For the jawtooth flies, she made an opening in the jaw, so they weren’t limited by the speed at which they could swallow. They’d practically be able to drill through flesh.

In fact, her tests on plant matter suggested that they could probably eat a tunnel through a tree in under a minute. Human flesh would be far faster.

Her trap and monsters were fine. No, if someone got past those, they could get past anything else she could create at the moment. Instead, she went with something her dungeon instincts did not like.

An escape plan.

She wasn’t sure what would happen if her core left the dungeon, but she couldn’t help but think it wouldn’t necessarily be fatal. She’d just probably get incredibly weak, and have to start all over again somewhere else.

Obviously not ideal, but better than death. She modified her mother rabbit to have a little pouch, like a kangaroo. She tested it out, and found that it didn’t allow her core to “breathe” properly. That had been unpleasant to learn.

An alternative occurred to her. She made a loose mesh, with holes barely too small for her to fit through, made of rabbit fur. On testing that, it was uncomfortable, but manageable. Of course, rabbit fur mesh was far too weak for the task.

What sort of fiber can I made that is strong enough? she thought, and then laughed maniacally. Carbon fiber!

Carbon nanotubes woven into a thread, to be specific. It was so easy to make it was almost painful. Something this powerful and useful should not be that easy. It just wasn’t fair.

She didn’t know how the scientists of Earth made carbon nanotubes, or what structure they ultimately had, but that didn’t matter. She had the right idea, and the power to make any idea happen.

Rather than the single tube that dominated pictures online, she decided to make a triple-tube - one larger nanotube, with another layer within, and another within that. She fiddled with the structure a little to make them attach to each other.

The strands she made were as thin as hairs, almost invisible, and yet were incredibly strong. The rabbit fur mesh was remade with carbon fiber and she found that she could be easily carried around.

With all of the holes that the rabbits made in their warren, she had plenty of escape routes to choose from. Her gemstone body was still small, even after the increase - now about the size of a thumbnail - and the baby rabbits were plenty big enough to carry her. She made a carbon fiber mesh for each of them.

The last thing she decided to make was a decoy. She made a chunk of quartz the exact shape and size of her core. She remembered that gemstones got their colors from chemical impurities - that was easy to test. She had a lot of elements to choose from. She hadn’t identified them all, but she had them.

After two hours, she was really glad that this experimentation did not require almost any mana. She’d given up on getting the color right. She’d found all kinds of colors - including what looked like actual amethyst - but the blue-green of her core was just not going to happen. She sighed and decided to make three decoys of different colors. They wouldn’t need to know what color she really was, after all.

The glow, on the other hand, was easy and intuitive. It was exactly the color and brightness she was aiming for. She figured it was because physically changing the crystal required knowledge, but magic was based on desire and intentions. The disadvantage of magical things, though, was that every single magic effect she’d found actively drained her mana. Physical changes were absolutely, perfectly permanent.

If she had to escape, there’d be four rabbits running. One with her crystal; one with a glowing purple amethyst; one with a pretty red gem that didn’t quite look like ruby; and one with a yellow gem. She turned off the glow, for now. No sense wasting the mana.

Her final act was to get her core as far away from the entrance room as possible, to buy a little extra time if escape proved necessary.

Well, that was it for her preparations. There was nothing left to do but wait.

Waiting wasn’t fun or exciting.

Best to have as much mana as possible in case things went south. That meant she wasn’t allowed to play around. It was irritating to have magic and not be allowed to play with it. Of course, it was no one’s fault but hers. No, she had to go and get people’s attention as soon as possible, because obviously, she was an impatient idiot.

She sighed and nestled in to her core to wait, continuing to berate herself.

Her rabbits stayed safely at home, while her insects continued to forage. Now she knew that the consequences of their foraging was obvious, but it didn’t change the fact that she needed more mana and material. She was pretty sure all insects within twenty feet of her entrance were dead - only her scout flies had any luck hunting.

Amy managed to almost do absolutely nothing the entire night, other than a few last minute tweaks. It was one thing to restrain herself when she was so hungry that it hurt, but restraint when she had spare mana? There were so many things she wanted to do!

Dawn came eventually. By that point, she discovered what it felt like to actually feel satisfied. Mind, it was only her hunger that was satisfied - her itch to hide her core better seemed to grow proportionally to her mana reserves.

An hour after dawn, Amy noticed unusual movement through her scout flies. She took one and enhanced its senses, gladly paying the mana drain cost for more information.

Two horses were trotting towards her, with a large dog running alongside. She recognized the amber coloured hair of the two sisters riding the second horse, but she didn’t know who the rider of the first horse was. He looked healthy and fit, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. His black hair was in a tidy ponytail and his beard was short and well maintained. His eyes were sharp, and held the spark of intelligence.

They pulled to a smooth stop a dozen yards from where the grass became short. The man helped the sisters down from the horses, which Sarah appreciated, but Maya didn’t. Both Maya and the man pulled out a bow and arrow. He tasked the dog with keeping watch over the horses. The dog was clearly pleased at the task, and set to walking in circles around the horses, who simply grazed and ignored the dog.

Amy brought the enhanced scout fly closer - low in the grass, and from behind - to eavesdrop on the conversation.

“Yep,” Sarah was saying. “This is it.”

“You were right to report it,” the man said. “This is unlikely to be anything other than a dungeon’s work.”

“Really?” Sarah asked. “But it was nice here!”

“We’ll see,” the man said. “Do you remember your job here?”

“Yes, sir,” Maya said promptly. “If any monsters appear, or you disappear, or you yell ‘run,’ we ride back to the village as fast as we can to get help.”

“Good,” the man said, turning to walk towards the north side of her hill. “It shouldn’t come to that, even if it is a dungeon.”

“You’ve been in dungeons before, right?” Maya asked.

“Several times,” the man said.

“Are they all as bad as they say?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” the man said. “But they’re incredibly useful. It’s the only way to get refined metals and crystals.”

The only way? Did they not mine iron anywhere?

“And monster parts,” Maya said.

“That’s right,” the man said with a smile. “That’s how I earned the money to get my home here.”

“So cool,” Sarah said. “I didn’t know you were a delver!”

He nodded, looking around. They were at the north side of the hill, and there was absolutely nothing unusual there, other than the presence of too-short grass. He continued to make his way around, circling her dungeon.

“If this is a dungeon, are you going to be a delver again?” Maya asked.

“I might have to,” he said with a laugh. “It’s dangerous, but if a dungeon becomes too strong, it sends monsters out into the night. Someone’s got to keep its strength reasonably low.”

Amy thought this was promising. It sounded like they would be more likely to try to use her as a source of resources instead of killing her outright. That could go badly, if she were made into essentially a slave, but it eased her nerves a little.

“You don’t want to?” Maya asked, looking disappointed.

“It depends, I guess,” the man said with a shrug. “I’m enjoying being a hunter. Deer don’t try to rip your head off, or lure you into pit traps. It was exciting being a delver, I’ll admit. Thing is, you really need a team to safely handle dungeons. The only other person in Miran who’s skilled with dungeons is retired.”

“But you could train new people,” Maya said.

By that point, they’d circled the entire dungeon. The man seemed satisfied that this was the only entrance. He cautiously began to step forward towards the hanging vines.

“Only with a bow,” the man said. “We’d need someone who can fend off heavy blows with a shield, and who can slice through things an arrow’s not good for. Plus, getting a mage - a healing mage, especially - would be ideal. Worse, not only would it be hard to get the people, but we don’t have any iron for the quality of shields and armor we’d need.”

Amy had iron, she realized. Not much, but there were things other than silicon and oxygen in the rocks. Her senses didn’t quite let her see how many protons and neutrons they had - a fact that she found mildly disappointing - but plants and animals needed iron, so it stood to reason that at least some of the extra stuff was iron.

Now wasn’t the time to analyze it, though.

“That’s sad,” Maya said. “Wouldn’t going alone be really dangerous?”

“Too dangerous,” he said. “I’d have to bring others. We’d have to do our best. But…”

“But people might die,” Sarah said, clutching her hands close to her belly.

The man nodded as he poked at the vines with an arrow, as though testing it for a reaction.

Which suggested that she could do something like that. She tested it quickly on a part of the vine that was inside. She giggled to herself at the realization that she could animate the vine length for a little less mana than it’d take to make a living creature of its size.

The man was satisfied with the nonreactivity of the vines, but sliced down an opening anyway. She supposed that he didn’t want his exit blocked.

“This is rather inviting,” he said, frowning at the setup that Amy had.

“It’s comfy, too,” Sarah said, peeking around from behind him.

They stepped in cautiously, and if Amy had had a mouth, she’d have groaned in sheer pleasure from the mana intensity. The girls were heavenly enough, but the man...

“And the water tastes good,” Maya added.

“That’s strange,” the man said, tapping around the water basin as though looking for structural weaknesses. “Dungeons are sometimes inviting, but only old ones, after they’ve started to get smart. There’s no reason to think it’s old, though. An old dungeon wouldn’t care about some grass outside, and would have plenty of monsters around.”

Amy privately agreed with that. She would make monsters, too, although only as a defensive measure. They wouldn’t be easily visible, but she’d have them anyway. And surely, she’d eventually get enough plant matter that she didn’t want anymore.

It was also interesting that he said dungeons “got smart” as they got old. But it wasn’t enough information to come to new conclusions.

“Ephraim, look!” Sarah said abruptly, glee in her voice.

He turned immediately and saw her pointing at a few baby bunnies sticking their noses out of holes.

“Huh,” Ephraim said, as she knelt to pick up one.

It obligingly hopped into her hands at Amy’s command. He stared.

“It’s so cute, isn’t it?” she asked, showing it to him.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’d said the rabbits were friendly, but… why?”

“It’s why we came here,” Maya said. “We followed the bunnies here.”

“Why would it lure you here, but not lure you deeper? And I don’t even see an entrance to the dungeon proper,” he said, looking around, perplexed.

If luring them in deeper was a normal thing… maybe the intensity of the mana flow was stronger, the closer they were to her core. She’d not noticed it before, but the ambient mana from the rabbits wasn’t strong enough to easily detect changes in intensity. The insects hadn’t even registered.

With humans, though?

If it would be even stronger, if they got closer… she could only imagine what it would feel like.

A craving for the imagined sensation started to grow in her mind.

Sarah shrugged and resumed petting the rabbit.

“I guess I’ll keep looking,” he said, shaking his head as he started poking around at the wall.

Amy watched nervously as he poked the open area of the wall.

“Aha,” he said, grinning, as he parted the vines, bringing his face carefully closer to peer inside. “These are sharp, too. But it’s still… I don’t know, it’s like the dungeon doesn’t want us to go in here. It looks awful, and smells worse.”

He took out his knife and carefully started cutting away the protective vines. He was going to check inside, Amy realized. She didn’t want to kill him, but she also did not want him to go inside.

Maybe it was time to go the communicative route.

Best to have an avatar. Her “mother” rabbit looked unusual, which she figured was a good start. She quickly made its fur pure white and a little fluffier, to stand out even more, then she sent it through one of the little holes.

“Oh, look!” Sarah said. “Another bunny! It’s so pretty, Ephraim, look!”

He’d already turned at the first sound of her voice, and looked at the mother rabbit curiously. Amy had her stand up on her hind legs and deliberately shook her head back and forth.

He blinked.

“You… you’re communicating…?” he asked, bewildered.

She nodded.

“You’re asking me not to go inside?” he asked, sounding even more off balance.

She nodded again.

“Are these your babies?” Sarah asked, and Amy laughed to herself, before having the rabbit nod towards Sarah.

“So you’re intelligent,” Maya said.

Amy’s rabbit nodded.

“That’s so cool,” Maya said, sounding like her sister in her excitement.

“It’s… it doesn’t make sense,” Ephraim said. “Are you an old dungeon?”

Amy hesitated. She hadn’t been a dungeon long, but she wasn’t exactly young, either.

“You don’t know…?” Ephraim said, misinterpreting her hesitation. “Do you know what a dungeon is?”

It suddenly occurred to Amy that the gods had considered reincarnating her with no knowledge of dungeons at all. She could pretend that it had happened that way. Feigning ignorance might make her seem less threatening.

The rabbit shook her head.

“Huh,” Ephraim said. “Well, you’re not like any dungeon I’ve ever seen before. Do you want to hurt us?”

She shook her head vigorously. Amy thought she’d best play it up even more, and had the rabbit huddle down and shake.

“You’re scared of us?” Ephraim said.

She nodded.

“We won’t hurt you!” Sarah promised. “Your bunnies are too cute to hurt you.”

“Sarah, you can’t make that promise,” Ephraim said. “If some idiot from the village tried to destroy her core for its magic, or to steal it to sell, she might decide it was a betrayal and go after us all.”

“‘She?’” Maya asked.

“Well, if she’s intelligent, it seems rude to call her an ‘it,’” Ephraim said with a shrug. “And besides, she didn’t just choose a female rabbit to represent herself - she chose a female rabbit with the most engorged, obvious teats I’ve ever seen. I think she wants us to think of her as a female.”

He looked back at the rabbit and asked, “Am I right?”

That wasn’t the plan, but Amy approved. Her rabbit nodded, and Amy tried to make her have a happy expression.

“This is strange,” Ephraim said again, shaking his head in confusion. “A gentle, female dungeon…? That’s not something that’s ever happened before.”

The rabbit shrugged. Amy had to laugh at how ridiculous the gesture looked.

“I’m not going to,” Ephraim said cautiously, “But if I did go inside that hole, would you hurt me?”

The rabbit hunkered down, shaking, and nodded her head.

“So you do feel the need to protect yourself,” he said, and she confirmed it. “But you actually don’t want to lure me in, to kill me.”

This time it wasn’t a question - just a perplexed statement. She nodded anyway.

“But why did you lure the girls here…?” he asked. “Right, yes or no questions. Did you lure them here on purpose?”

She nodded.

“Was it to hurt or kill them?” he asked, looking like he knew the answer.

She shook her head.

“Some other reason,” he said, and she nodded. “Yes or no questions means I have to guess…”

“Maybe she was just curious and wanted to meet us,” Maya suggested.

Close enough. Amy’s rabbit looked at her and nodded.

“Huh,” Ephraim said. “Good guess, Maya.”

“Thanks,” she said. “What do we do now?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “She… she might not even be a dungeon. She might be something else, something we’ve never seen before.”

They all looked at the rabbit with curiosity. Poor Ephraim looked completely stumped, whereas the girls looked mostly intrigued.

“We’ll be telling the chief, right?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Ephraim said. “But… this… it’s unbelievable. I don’t know what we’ll do.”

“Will they try to find its core?” Maya asked.

The rabbit hunkered down and shook. Sarah reached over and pet it soothingly, which made Amy laugh to herself again. She wasn’t actually afraid at the moment, but it was a nice gesture anyway. The rabbit nuzzled up against Sarah, as though needing the comfort.

“I don’t know what they’ll decide,” Ephraim said, “But I’ll argue against it. There’s no sense in angering the only nice dungeon anyone’s ever found.”

“But that means we won’t get the materials,” Sarah said.

Aha! An opportunity. The rabbit hopped up, nodded eagerly at them, held up one paw - hopefully they’d understand she meant “wait” - and then had the rabbit dart inside the dungeon proper. Between the presence of the humans and the partially blocked passage, her magic was pathetically weak in the entrance area.

Materials-wise, she didn’t have much. She had some metals, probably, but they needed identification. Besides, they were usually best as alloys, which needed testing to get the right blend. At the moment, the only decent stuff she had was the quartz and quartz-glass. They might be rare - other dungeons might not think about purifying things at the chemical level. She’d only gotten the glass in the first place because she was removing chemical impurities, which she’d figured would reduce the strength of the rock.

What should she make…? She wasn’t an artist, so she’d need to build it from scratch, or from something she’d absorbed…

Ah, that made sense. A rabbit! Her dungeon knowledge gave her the exact shape and size of the avatar rabbit she’d made, and she could easily form a copy out of quartz. She did so, but wasn’t happy with the result. It was so plain.

The “fur” of the rabbit was made white, with the simple addition of microscopic air bubbles just beneath the surface. She made the eyes amethyst. As a final touch, she whispered a little enchantment into it, so that it would cast off a faint blue light.

She cut off her connection, to confirm the magic stayed around without her input. According to her magic sight, it was draining from its own tiny supply. She shoved a little more mana inside, in hopes it’d last for a while. In the scheme of things, as long as it was impressive, she was happy.

Lastly, she made a little bag for it out of carbon fiber. The bag wouldn’t look impressive, but they’d eventually notice that it was ridiculously tough. Utility, magic, and beauty. She nodded to herself, and had her avatar rabbit loop the strap over her head.

It was a bit awkward to drag the gift rabbit through the hole, but she wriggled it through eventually. The avatar shook off the dirt, and then presented the bag to Sarah.

“For me?” Sarah asked, excited. Ephraim frowned, thinking.

She put down the baby bunny and pulled the quartz rabbit out of the bag. Her eyes were bright as she squealed in excitement.

“It’s so pretty!” she said. “It looks just like you!”

“And it’s glowing,” Maya said.

“Why did you give it to Sarah?” Ephraim said quietly.

Amy’s avatar looked up at him and tried to figure out how to tell him. She hopped over to Sarah, huddled down and shook, then nuzzled up against her. Then she looked at Ephraim.

“Because of Sarah’s promise not to hurt you?” Ephraim asked.

She could have hugged him. Instead, she nodded vigorously.

“So this gift… you’re offering to trade for your protection?” he asked.

Nodding wasn’t good enough. The avatar hopped up and down in excitement, too.

“Okay, okay,” Ephraim said, laughing. “We’ll present it as a peace offering from you.”

She nodded again.

“Look, Miss Dungeon,” he said, to her amusement. “I can’t promise anything. But I’ll talk to them. The chief’s a sensible sort. He won’t do anything rash.”

She nodded, bounced over to him, and nuzzled his leg. He laughed and pet her.

“Alright, kids,” Ephraim said, looking at the girls. “Pack up the gift into the bag, and let’s get going. We’ve got quite a report to make.”

The girls immediately put their things away and started following him. Amy suppressed her wave of displeasure when she stopped being able to absorb their ambient mana. As soon as they were past the region of short grass, Ephraim paused.

“Look, girls, this is big,” he said so quietly that Amy couldn’t possibly have heard him, if the scouting fly wasn’t practically on his butt. “You need to be extremely careful with what you say.”

“It’s a secret?” Sarah asked.

“Yes, in a sense,” he said. “We’ll tell the chief. It’ll be discussed with the council. But absolutely no one else can know about this yet.”

“Why?” Maya asked. “Because someone might try to steal it?”

“That,” he agreed, “and the fact that people outside Miran would be interested. That’d be true enough if it was a regular dungeon, but this? We could get attention from the magocracy.”

“What would they do if they found out?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know, but I do know that they don’t give a horse’s tail about us,” he said. “Whatever it is they’d do, it’d be for their benefit, not ours. And if they angered the dungeon, then we could suffer the consequences for their actions.”

“Got it,” Maya said. “We didn’t tell anyone else about it yet - we went straight to the chief. So it should be easy.”

Sarah just nodded quietly, holding her hands close to her belly again.

“Good,” Ephraim said. “Let’s get going.”

They mounted the horses, who’d not ventured more than a few feet away from where they’d been left. The dog eagerly greeted Ephraim, who reassured him that he was a good dog. The dog looked excited about the opportunity to run next to the horses again.

Amy was happy with how that had gone. She watched them ride off under the late morning sky, wondering what the future would bring.

When they were out of sight, Amy decided to turn to a new task. Since, apparently, materials were the big interest in regards to dungeons, it seemed wise to identify them as soon as possible.

She pulled from her reserves all of the unidentified elements, which was fairly mana intensive. She supposed it would make sense that she’d have to pay for the difference in chemical energy.

Hydrogen and oxygen were already identified, from water. Nitrogen was easy, based on air composition - it was the one that accounted for most of the atmosphere. Silicon was known from her quartz. Carbon hadn’t taken long to identify, and she’d done so back when she’d started adjusting plants.

Some new elements she was able to identify instantly. Chlorine gas smelled just like pools, after all. Sulphur smelled like rotten eggs. The rest was either metal or too small of a quantity for her to really mess with, yet.

Once she created the pure metals, she was able to identify them quickly.

The super light metal that burst into flames the instant it was exposed to air? That’d be aluminum. She purified it again and made it into a sphere, rather than random clumps, before returning it to her dungeon. The surface was instantly covered with aluminum oxide, and then it was fine.

Two super light metals didn’t react with the air, but did explode on contact with water. Those would be sodium, which was lighter, and potassium. She was surprised to find she had nearly the same amount of each.

The small bit of heavier metal was probably iron. Iron would react with oxygen slowly, so she figured an easy test was to get it wet, leave it out, and see if it rusted.

She had her suspicions that one of the itty bitty piles of metal was calcium, but she couldn’t be sure. It fizzled when she dashed water on it, which lent itself to the hypothesis.

Pleased with her testing, she decided that since iron was in short supply, she’d see if she could do anything with aluminum. University chemistry classes popped up in her memory as she recalled learning about the rather insanely intense refinement processes that it took to change the naturally occuring forms of aluminum into the widely used metal of her world. She seemed to recall it was also useful in ionic forms, too. If she figured out how to use it well, it’d probably make for an excellent trade resource.

Hours slipped by as she mixed and matched elements, seeing what she could make with her new toy.

She was startled from her play by an unexpected noise from outside. It kind of sounded like a person shouting? Like frustration, or anger, or disbelief, or something?

She rushed her mind through the connection to her enhanced scout fly, raising it from its comfy place near a nectar pod. She was anxious as it flew outside maddeningly slowly.

An entire group of people were there. What had happened? What had she missed? What time was it?

The sun… it was only halfway down. It was just afternoon. Either she’d missed an entire day somehow, or the villagers moved fast. The scout fly snuck up close, to listen in.

It was a group of men of various ages. All of them bore fairly crude weapons and armor. The various bows were far superior to the swords and clubs. They looked fairly relaxed, but stiff, as though they’d been standing there for a while.

“...is dangerous. What if you’re wrong?” an older man asked Ephraim.

“It’s no more dangerous than dungeon delving,” Ephraim said.

“Unless it’s some sort of trick,” another man said, sounding paranoid. “Sleeping out here? It’s madness.”

“Dungeons only like to kill people once they’re inside,” Ephraim said. “I was here with just myself and two kids. If she wanted to spring a surprise attack, it’d have been then.”

“But you were ready for it,” the older man said. “If you’re asleep…? It might try to drag you inside.”

“I really don’t think I’ll be in danger,” Ephraim said. “I’ll have Lucky and a horse here. Lucky’s trained to run for help - he’s done it before.”

“It’d be too late to help you,” the paranoid sounding man said.

“I know,” Ephraim said. “But this is a way to test her. I think she’s both young and smart, from what I’ve seen. There’s not much a young dungeon can do to get me from a hundred feet away, not with Lucky at my side.”

The eldest man - presumably the chief, by his body language - raised up his hands in a subtly authoritative gesture.

“Enough,” he said. “Ephraim’s suggestion frees us from the normal requirements, which would strain our people. If he is right, then we gain a great boon. If he is wrong, he may die, but so too will many of our young men in the coming months and years. Let us accept his gift of willingness to risk his life for our people.”

“Let it be so,” the others chorused in a ritualistic way.

Amy wasn’t sure what the plan was, but she had to admit to being quite pleased with Ephraim. It was flattering that he trusted her, and noble that he was willing to risk his life over it.

It seemed as though the discussion were over. The various men wished Ephraim luck. The chief told Ephraim to be careful, and to report any new findings. After that, they packed up and left.

Except for Ephraim. He brought his horse and dog to the forest line and pulled out some supplies from a pack on the horse’s saddle. After tying the horse to a tree, he took off the bridle and saddle. He set up a hammock in the trees, and then dug a little fire pit off to the side.

Draining on her mana though it was, the scout fly followed him as he calmly sauntered into the woods. She decided the easiest course of action would be to land on his belt. It’d be hard to see what he was doing, but the odds of a predator catching her fly would be lower. That, and it’d be a little cheaper, mana wise, if she didn’t have to give the fly instructions.

He gathered a few large rocks and put them into her carbon fiber bag. He also gathered some twigs and sticks.

Well, she could impress him with another little gift.

She pulled her mind back to the dungeon and made a quartz rod with a little plant matter in the middle, for easier holding. At the end of the rod, she made some more carbon fiber cloth and arranged it in an awkwardly puffy tangle of threads. She bound them together and to the rod. Next, using material drawn from the plants and knowledge from the rabbits, she filled the gaps with rabbit fat.

Now that she had a torch, it was time to light it. She decided to try to light it with magic, rather than setting up something complicated with the quartz crystal.

Her first few attempts fizzled out, but she finally made an enchantment stick. The cloth was now trying to make other things catch on fire, which resulted in the rabbit fat finally catching aflame.

It worked, but it was not remotely mana efficient. It might be sensible to set up an ignition system with the quartz crystal after all.

For now, though, it was good enough. She had the avatar rabbit grab the torch by the plant stem handle in her teeth, and bounded off to the campsite. She was pleased to discover that her rabbit had an easier time than expected. Improving her core was definitely on her list of things to do.

She didn’t beat him there by much. The rabbit was just placing the torch carefully into the pit when Ephraim returned.

“What’s this?” he asked, laughing. “A torch bearing rabbit? You are full of surprises, Miss Dungeon.”

She perked up at his return, and watched him place the rocks around the firepit before putting the sticks in. Lucky helped, like the good boy he was.

“I wasn’t quite ready for the fire yet, but I appreciate it nonetheless,” he said. “I’m assuming, if you’re here, that you overheard our conversation?”

She’d only overheard part of it, so she shook her head.

“Just being friendly, then, huh?” he asked, smiling at her. “Well, the plan is, I’m going to camp out here for the next while. I’m used to sleeping out in the rough, and I’ve been in dungeons, so I’m perfect for this. I’ll watch over you. If some foolhardy chap comes to give you a hard time, I’ll give him what for. If you turn out to be a regular dungeon - which I don’t expect - then I’ll let the chief know. That’s about all there is to it.”

She nodded at him. She wished she could stay and talk, but the mana drain was still too much. For now, she had to withdraw. Hopefully he’d come visit, and not just the area right outside, either. Inside, where she could sip away at his deliciously intense mana.

The avatar rabbit yawned hugely, stretched, and then waved goodbye to him. He laughed and waved at her, saying goodbye before resuming setting up camp.

Both the rabbit and scouting fly were brought back to her dungeon. She considered her options, and decided to get to work enhancing her own core. If it improved her range and effective leverage with her magic, then it was a priority.

Now that she was trying to enhance her core, she became aware of how slow the process was. It was as though her mana was simply crystallizing, expanding the natural shape of her core.

Ah, well. She made sure her rabbits were comfortably taking care of themselves, set her insects to go gather what they could, and resigned herself to a long night of concentration.

In the morning, she pulled out of her core, to find herself in a bizarrely distorted room. Everything was smaller than it was supposed to be. The five foot by eight foot room had felt plenty large enough before, but now it seemed almost suffocatingly tiny, with the entrance to the outside almost painfully close.

Her instincts won this fight - without even thinking about it, Amy immediately scooped away a dozen feet of dirt to the south, and increased the height of the cavern such that a human could easily stand within. A rabbit rushed in at her unconscious command, grabbed her core, and ran to the back of the enlarged room as fast as it could move. Even then, only having one “room” between herself and the outside was deeply uncomfortable.

By the time she regained a sense of herself, she’d added hundreds of cubic feet of the earth to her reserves.

Well, it looks like enlarging my crystal has drawbacks, too. Maybe I’ll need to take things slower in the future.

On the bright side, though, her power had dramatically improved. Previously, she could only dig through the ground at around the same speed that a human could dig through loose sand with their bare hands. Now, she was as fast as a small team with shovels. Plus, since it was easier to dig, it seemed to use less mana in application.

Her appetite for mana seemed to have grown proportionally, too. The rabbits had once looked exquisite. Though they paled next to humans, they had still been satisfying last night. Now, they reminded her of mere broth. Technically meeting her requirements, but almost disgustingly insufficient.

She had planned on playing with her aluminum creations some more. She’d found that aluminum and oxygen made for a remarkably hard, pretty crystal. But that was not happening anymore.

No, her hunger was insistent. She would find a way to improve her mana intake.

For that, she needed more life. Whether to kill it or include it in her ecosystem, the requirement was the same. For that she needed to get the life from somewhere else. For that…

Ephraim is a hunter, she remembered with a start.

She grinned and directed some flies and rabbits. She had an excellent idea.