As Teaghan and Lilith watched the adventurers leave, Teaghan felt something change inside of her.

« Lilith, it's time to talk,» said Teaghan stoically. « What have you been hiding from me. »

Lilith sighed and said, « I was created to only help you get started. Frankly, I was supposed to be gone long ago, but you kept me here. »

« Wait, I did this? » asked Teaghan.

« I was supposed to be gone long before you found out about me. I should have been fully integrated into you within the first three months. But you found out about me, and the process slowed a bit. But now it's time for you to fully absorb me. »

When Lilith said that, Teaghan felt sad. Lilith was the only person she actually somewhat trusted in this world so far. She has kept Teaghan grounded. To Teaghan, it was like losing a best friend, if you could call them that.

Suddenly, Teaghan got a splitting headache, and her core started shaking.

Lilith started speaking, but Teaghan couldn't understand all of it.

« Don't… worry … be … okay … bye … Teaghan. »

When Lilith said this, Teaghan blacked out.

* * *

Teaghan slowly opened her eyes to her core room.

She still had a splitting headache and felt a little dizzy. But when she started to come around, she realized that something was different.

She tried to … remember what happened, but it felt like her memory was a mirror smashed into bits and pieces.

Teaghan could remember bits and pieces, but the further back she went, the more blurred together they became.

She also felt a deep longing for something. Like she was missing something that was always there.

'I think it's, no him, no no, it was her. Ya her. Her name was Lilith' thought Teaghan while she remembered the being that helped her in her early days.

As Teaghan looked further back into her memories, they started to distort. She knew that she was from another place, another realm, but she can't fully remember it. She thinks that she had a brother, Adam, she felt his name was.

Teaghan remembered somewhat vaguely how she became a dungeon core and the hate, fear, and panic that she felt towards the one that brought her here.

She also felt strangely relaxed. Like she was where she was meant to be.

Teaghan looked at her surroundings and found peace. She stared and stared at the rabbits on the first floor to the spiders on the third. To all the dirt, plants, minerals, and everything else in between that was in her home, her domain.

Her home, her creations, the life she can feel being created and die. This is hers, all hers, and Teaghan liked that.

Teaghan started studying everything, and she noticed a few changes that she couldn't remember from before the blackout.

One of the new changes was that her core. It once was a rough-looking violet, blue, green and red ammolite, and now it is shaped as a perfect sphere. Teaghan figured that this was why she was not feeling all that good and why she can't remember all that much from her previous life.

After studying her core, Teaghan started to feel an itch. This itch whispered to her to keep building, keep expanding and keep creating.

Teaghan soon got lost in these whispers and started creating and changing her dungeon.

* * *

When Teaghan finally came around from her work-induced haze, she found that she made many changes.

The first thing that stood out was her access to the dungeon interface.

Before her blackout, Teaghan created her dungeon by hand without much use of the blue screens. But, apparently, the dungeon interface is used to fiddle and develop within the dungeon.

Teaghan pulled up the dungeon interface and was accosted with a screen like her status.

Dungeon Interface

Floors: 3

Rooms: 11

Biomes: 2

Create Floor

Edit Floor

Create Room

Edit Room

Create Biome

Edit Biome

Fauna Species: 18

Flora Species: 30

Monster Species: 13

Trap: 3

Loot: 10

Materials: 4

Dungeon Instances

Dungeon Store

Dungeon Auction

With her new dungeon interface, Teaghan was able to do many things much more comfortable than before. She could also do routine things to keep up the dungeon without putting her mind to it. Teaghan assumed this was what Lilith did before she was fully combined with herself, as she controlled the instincts.

But not it was her job. And it seemed that she was doing it instinctively without any problems. Which seemed weird to Teaghan because, while she can’t remember things all that well from before, she had a feeling that this was supposed to be more difficult.

‘Oh well,’ thought Teaghan. ‘Let’s see what else has changed.’

She decided to play around with the dungeon interface. She already used it in the haze of instincts that she went into after she blacked out. But Teaghan wanted to play and fiddle with it to get more used to using it consciously.

She pulled the dungeon interface again and looked at it.

Dungeon Interface

Floors: 3

Rooms: 11

Biomes: 2

Create Floor

Edit Floor

Create Room

Edit Room

Create Biome

Edit Biome

Fauna Species: 18

Flora Species: 30

Monster Species: 13

Trap: 3

Loot: 10

Materials: 4

Dungeon Instances

Dungeon Store

Dungeon Auction

What Teaghan didn’t realize the first time was the row at the bottom was crossed out.

Looking at the interface, she recognized some of the things she vaguely remembered and some she hasn’t seen before.

Teaghan pulled up the descriptions for the dungeon instances, store, and auction.

Dungeon instances

When a maximum number of dungeon invaders are reached inside the dungeon, the dungeon core can create instances. These instances are the same versions of one floor to ensure that the floors do not have too many invaders at the same time. It can also be used for defence purposes to protect the dungeon core from any large invading armies or groups. Only available to a high level and high volume dungeons.

Dungeon Store

A store that dungeon cores across Sakivis can buy and sell various creatures, plants, monsters, materials, magic, etc. Anything new that a dungeon creates can be put up and sold to other dungeons for profit. Dungeon trades are also accessible through the store. Buying and selling currency comes in the form of DP. Only accessible after the dungeon has five floors.

Dungeon Auction

An auction that dungeon cores across Sakivis can put up unique objects created by a dungeon core that others can bid for. It is different from the dungeon store because it is not available once that item is won until the dungeon core puts it back up again. The dungeon cores can outbid each other to win in a specific time frame. Buying and selling currency comes in the form of DP. Only available to dungeons with at least fifteen floors.

Teaghan tried opening each of the crossed-out options but received warnings every time she tired.

Warning! You do not have enough invaders to open instances.

Warning! You do not have enough floors to open the dungeon store.

Warning! You do not have enough floors to use the dungeon auction.

‘Well, either way,’ thought Teaghan. ‘This was going to be a lot more helpful, I think.’