Avan still had the two facial expressions of his team in his mind as he stepped out again, frowning, on the other side of the black dripping portal.

Shoulders hunched and muscles tense, he immediately looked around for danger. But the only thing that greeted him was darkness and a long corridor of black masonry, with several stone doors on either side of the corridor. At the other end, it glowed ominously in a dark pulsating purple where it seemed to open into a larger room.

"Huh..." escaped from Avan's mouth as he looked at the gloomy overall picture. "Not ominous at all. It just screams death and doom."

With a quick mental wave, his left hand glowed a bit and he held it in front of him to see better with his magical light. Carefully and extra quietly, he tiptoed to the first door on the left and pushed it open a few inches, which surprisingly swung open effortlessly without any squeaks or creaks. Inside he saw, much to his amazement, a few very human beds but nothing else of consequence, so he turned to the door on the other side next. The second stone door opened just as smoothly and behind it was a kind of dark lounge with benches, tables and chairs, partially burned torches in torch holders on the wall and nothing else.

So he looked at the next doors and found a relatively empty warehouse with open empty boxes and shelves, a kind of kitchen which seemed to be made of supernaturally smooth stone almost as if it were cast out of stone and at the end two offices.

The last door on the right, which Avan carefully pushed open just before entering the purple-lit hall behind the corridor, took Avan's breath away for a moment. His breath caught, not out of surprise or excitement, but because what he found here brought back the worst of recent memories. The door swung open completely and Avan stood in the doorway to another torture chamber, but one that looked more like a sacrificial altar.

A gloomy stone table, or stone pedestal, stood in the center, while grooves running down from the center were integrated into the floor all around, iron soot-blackened torch holders hung on the walls, and all around the walls and in front of them hung various weapons and torture instruments.

A shiver of fear and sweat ran down Avan's back and he inevitably wiped his forehead with the back of his right hand, while his hands trembled slightly as memories of the fat torturer were involuntarily brought back to his mind.

He swallowed significantly, and his larynx made a distinct jump as the last of the saliva ran down his dry throat. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Cursing, he stumbled backward out of the room and quickly turned his gaze upward. Shaking his head to banish the images again, he kneaded his hands in front of him and stumbled further down the corridor towards the purple light, trying to get to the dungeon core as quickly as possible.

With unsteady steps he continued the last rest of the gloomy corridor, and with an incidental subconscious command the light on his left hand also went out, since it was bright enough in the room in front of him.

Resting his right hand on the black stone to his right and still breathing a little heavily, Avan arrived at the end of the corridor and looked into the room beyond.

Now he could make out the source of the purple light and why it seemed to pulsate. At the other end of the twenty meter room, a melon-sized dark sphere was suspended in mid-air. The purple light emanated from the sphere in pulses, and Avan could briefly make out a few dark purple veins from afar with each outgoing pulse, which ran through the interior of the dungeon core.

This looks... eerily beautiful, I would almost say.

Cautiously, Avan stepped into the room and looked around for more dangers. The room itself was very unadorned and except for the four columns in the corners, which rose from the floor to the ten meter high ceiling, everything was barren and uncharitable black stone. Only the dungeon core itself radiated something that captivated Avan. He suspected that it must have something to do with the fact that he himself was a dungeon, and that he had unlocked new things in his last dungeon dive. I wonder if that's the case here, too, if I connect to the core... somehow?

One step after another, he crept toward the dungeon core, which glowed up and down like a heartbeat, always emitting waves of purple light. I wonder... or rather, I hope that this corruption does not affect me as well...

In the middle of the room, Avan spun around again to check for hidden traps or nasty surprises, but still found nothing else or no one else. Carefully putting one foot in front of the other, he continued toward the core. Has the frequency of the pulse increased? Or am I mistaken? he suddenly asked himself, not five meters from the core, rubbing his eyes.

A few more steps later, Avan finally stood in front of the dungeon core and looked at it up close with fascination and a tilted head. The pulsing had really increased in frequency and flowed in rapid heartbeat-like waves away from the core as the center point. It was interesting to see, however, that the waves seemed to break on Avan's body and he stood like a rock in the surf against the waves.

For a few minutes, he stared into the sphere as if hypnotized, as if he were trying to fathom the depths of this strange object. Avan's heart pounded in his chest with its own rhythm as he slowly raised both his hands and placed his palms on the core.

With a jolt and completely abruptly, as if glued to the dungeon core, he was mentally somewhere else.

---

Three people with robes and hoods pulled deep into their foreheads marched through the streets of a city. One of the three grunted disdainfully as he looked around. Humans, beastkin, elves, and many more were milling around the various market stalls, and the general mood was happy and cheerful.

The three marched on through side streets and soon arrived at another marketplace. This was used for more upscale goods such as silk, valuable jewelry, finely crafted weapons and armor, and magical items.

The goal of the robe bearers, however, was behind it, where a majestic white tower pierced the sparse clouds above the city and towered over all the other buildings far and wide.

A bright silver portal gleamed at the end of a passageway that led into the first floor of the tower.

The three figures paid a few pieces of silver to the guards to be admitted and, along with a small stream of other citizens and adventurers, passed through the portal.

Throughout the levels they encountered other groups, which they avoided or ignored, and worked their way up from the lower levels to the higher levels without difficulty.

Time had passed, and the three had made several stops, slept, eaten, and conferred. Now they stood before their apparent goal; a huge silver double door rose seven meters in height and three meters in width, forged in runes. The reliefs and carvings were inlaid with gold, silver and various precious stones in a wide variety of colors and decorated the door, which turned into an imposing masterpiece of art.

Above the door itself, a round perfect silver inlaid sphere adorned the door frame.

All three figures approached the door, which normally no one could open, and placed their palms on the surface.

At first nothing happened, and the group seemed to be lost in deep concentration, until suddenly a black mist rose from all six hands and became denser and denser. After another while, purple veins suddenly sprouted from under the palms of the hands and crept, first slowly and then faster and faster, over and into the double door.

A loud groan sounded from the large double doors, and suddenly a shrill sound was heard throughout the dungeon, on every level, and everyone in the dungeon held their ears while the monsters themselves stood frozen.

Chimes rang out, and the wing doors, now completely black and purple, magically opened slowly with a murmuring sound.

The three robe-bearers with their concealed faces now stood in a white room, a hovering silver sphere suspended in front of them in the midst of the air, which seemed to pulsate in panic and emit waves of light.

The smallest of the three figures, a woman in body shape, walked forward and placed both her hands on the sphere, which was now emitting irritatingly fast and irregular waves of silvery light and humming.

A woman's voice sounded and intoned a strange language, more guttural than melodic, and purple veins flowed down her arms to her hand and into the dungeon sphere.

A crack and crash, as if glass were slowly shattering and cracking, sounded from inside the dungeon core. Where the hands rested, black and lilac cracks and veins spread and soon encased the entire surface, then penetrated deeper into the sphere.

A shrill noise echoed through the dungeon hallways and levels, and every monster trembled, and every level boss hissed and looked up angrily at their dungeon core. Everyone knew what was happening, but no one could do anything about it or rush to help in time.

The dungeon core took on an eerie purple dark color, and after a few minutes of silence, it billowed, pulsing purple light where before it was silvery.

The three shapes settled in, and the dungeon core obeyed. It changed the levels, it created spaces for the wearers of the robes, and gradually the black purple mass moved through the levels from top to bottom, converting all the other monsters as well.

---

Avan was finally able to let go of the ball, and sank to the ground in a swoon like a doll with its strings cut.