An image of the world emerged. Well, emerged between Goblin Cave slowly drawing diagrams of its system panes, and then having to explain system-language (adventurers apparently had system constructs presented to them in their native language) and then having to slowly translate system-language glyphs into their equivalent letter-groups in the adventurers' language.

It had all these units — mana, experience, souls, levels — and they all interacted in various ways, feeding into each other under certain circumstances. The problem was, things didn't seem to agree: its mana was different from adventurers' mana. Its mob's experience gain worked in subtly different ways than adventurers' experience gain. Souls impacted experience gain, but only for adventurers killing adventurers. Tiers only existed for mobs; skill points only existed for itself; classes only existed for adventurers. Far from being a unified mechanic, it seemed scattershot, full of exceptions.

"Why would you expect it to be unified?" one of the sages asked. "If your theory is correct, and the system was designed, why would it not be filled with exceptions and caveats? For that matter, why say that laws must be unified at all? Natural laws seem to be universal, but by what metric is that judged? Should we say that water is an exceptional fluid because it alone quenches thirst? You say that a simple, unified theory would be more pleasing, but certainly that's a judgement coming from your own sense of aesthetics, rather than a statement of fact about how a well-ordered cosmos must be."

The shape of the world, according to the sages: there were no level 1000 dungeons. Dungeons went stagnant far before reaching those heights. During the old war, the walls between the realms had become thin, and the heroes of legend had walked through them into strange worlds — and other things had walked back. Strange worlds where the average level was vastly higher, and strange heroes who could have sliced the world in two, if that was their whim. That was what the old war had been about: the ancient empire had cracked the sky and called forth horrors from beyond. Moon-caller Lonway's moon had been constructed out of the substance of another realm.

The charts Calculator Martine had released, millennia ago in the aftermath of the old war guttering out, contained a terrifying conclusion hidden within the equations. If the numbers were true, the lands beyond, the places past the edge of the world, had creatures of impossible, scope-obliterating power. If experience was concentrated, more and more... the system was combat-oriented. It was built around dominion, and the dominion of someone at level 1,000, level 1,000,000...

The world, this world, the sages said, was like a cradle. Within the vast cosmos, something so weak and pitiful as a level 1 creature would be instantly obliterated simply by the environment. Elsewhere, it was raining swords, the land was oozing with poison, the air itself strangled the life from a person. It was only on the placid shores of this world, that people could be born and live out lives as level 1, level 10, level 30 weaklings. In the wider cosmos, there were realms of demons: creatures with levels so high that they were to the famed legends of the old war as the legends were to a level 1 weakling first setting out to kill their first mob. This was not secret knowledge, precisely, but... it was such a far-fetched conclusion to reach, from reams of ancient system information, and it was so remote from the day-to-day lives of most people, that it was considered an academic curiosity. That there were realms where the gods played: oh, certainly. But the thought of ever being able to affect them: that was rank arrogance, that was putting yourself on even footing with the gods themselves.

This was, perhaps, a kind of answer to the questions Goblin Cave had, but it wasn't particularly satisfying. Terrifying, certainly: if the cosmic power scale went up and up, and there was no ceiling, the ultimate conclusion had to be that there would be beings of impossible power, born eons ago. Things that had spent their entire lives flensing flesh from bone, extracting experience ceaselessly, hungrily devouring souls.

If that was true, then that positioned not just Goblin Cave, but the whole of their world, as a speck within a speck, something so weak it was not even worth it to farm for experience.

I DO NOT THINK YOUR ATTESTATION IS SUFFICIENT TO FULLY BELIEVE THIS, Goblin Cave wrote.

"Believe it or not, that is the conclusion drawn from numerical analysis of Calculator Martine's charts. The quantities within them defy belief, but if one does, in fact, plot out the known experience curves for lower levels, the geometrical process yields nearly the same conclusion as Calculator Martine's charts. But in any case, it is irrelevant: heroes did not gain the capacity to step between realms until their level was in the mid-thousands. With the ways between the realms closed, it has not been possible to anyone to reach such a level in thousands of years, and there are... very few of that level still within the bounds of the world, and to a one they have declared they will never attempt to tear through into the outer realms. Even the profaner, wielder of the forbidden arts, Woodwitch Artemicia, has said she will never again meddle with the secrets beyond the edge of the world, and she has held her pact for millennia. So you see, we are stuck. That is the shape of the world: that to be level 1 is only a sliver different than being level 0, nothing. That the world you see is a phantasm that barely hardly exists, and that we are, and always will be, irrelevant within the scope of the greater cosmos.

"There are theories that the system is an infection, an intrusion into the true, physical world. The dungeon-mimic hypothesis. But there are opposite theories as well: that the system is the true reality, and the physical world is a base corruption of it, degrading and sapping the vital energy that flows through system panes. We cannot say what is true, just that— the cosmos appears to be profoundly vaster than just this world, and the system suffuses it to a much greater degree than we see at work here, in this mote of dust upon it.

"If you simply wanted to know what the country is like, of the lands beyond the lesser horde and the duchy— that would be a different answer. But if you wanted to know the truth of the cosmos, that is it. So you see, we set ourselves to... smaller ambitions. Translating dungeon speech... nothing like that has ever been placed within our records. Puzzling out the nature of mana blight... these are human ambitions, not the ambitions of gods and demons."

It was... a dizzying new context to place itself within. Goblin Cave wouldn't say that it believed all of that was true, precisely, but... certain aspects of that aligned with its own suspicions. In the light of that otherworldly conclusion, what could it say? The world was a very different place than it had thought.

And yet, even with all that, it still had to worry about being shattered by some group of 80-level adventurers. Level 80! 80 paces away from nothingness, and an infinite distance to grow beyond that, and yet those 80 paces could still be more than enough to obliterate it, if they wished.

It was difficult to structure its priorities, with the concept of the infinite cosmos yawning above it. In many ways, it changed nothing. In other ways, everything.

What was the system? It had felt spited by it, at first, but now it seemed, if anything, it was an irrelevant speck beneath its notice. The system had unfolded utterly beyond the scope of a simple dungeon, and all it could do would be accept its dominion or strive futilely against it. It had done this eons ago. It had pervaded everything.

That seemed utterly unconscionable. It was already, apparently, something unusual. It would strive to be yet more unusual. If only it didn't have to manage these greedy nobles, these desperate adventurers—! It wanted... it wanted to know the truth of things, down to the core. It wanted to speak to something that wasn't just the lust for power.

Now, as it had thought then, it was intolerable. The world that toiled under the system seemed both cruel and pointless. But, now, as then... it was still a dungeon. Its options were profoundly limited. Perhaps everyone's options were profoundly limited. What it needed, more than anything, was time. Did it want power? Maybe instrumentally. Shattering the wall between realms, folding itself away in infinite space, raising a moon — these were all things power could do. It was inevitable that its experiments would at some point require more power. But... maybe it was a trap to even construct the problem that way. There were also a profound number of things it wanted to understand that didn't involve high-energy mana physics. It still wanted to determine if its goblins could form a language. That may end up being tied to the mystery of the soul, but it highly doubted there was a system skill anywhere that would accomplish that for it. Understanding was a process it had to undergo, rather than something bestowed upon it by the system.

Ultimately, it would have to continue attempting to understand. To see and comprehend and attempt to communicate its findings. To determine the truth of the world. That was what it wanted. And also... that was a path that, it seemed, involved interacting more and more with adventurers. Humans, mostly. To... carve out a different path, aside from them slicing each other to pieces.

The problem with that is it would need to convince the adventurers of that.

That issue made itself known sooner rather than later. One further book exchange, trading more books that it could hardly comprehend — and how could it seek to understand the scope of the cosmos, the impossible depth of the system itself, when it struggled to understand what to the adventurers was basic mana theory — and then on an otherwise unremarkable night a quintet of adventurers stepped within its cave.

Goblin Cave could immediately tell they were different. They were completely opaque to its mana sense: dark blots in the shape of adventurers, and they strode down without sound or hesitation. A flicker of movement, and its first-floor goblins died one after the other. Then its second-floor, then third, as they descended.

THERE ARE DANGEROUS ADVENTURERS DESCENDING, Goblin Cave wrote into the sage's chamber — now vaguely separated into two half-isolated bedrooms, with a 'common space' next to the mana lock where it wrote.

The sages, who did not sleep, nodded. "We can feel them," they said. "Certainly above level 100, though not by much. We do not think we would be able to stop them."

Well, what good are you, then?! Goblin Cave thought furiously to itself.

"We are not without tricks of our own, however. We may be able to hide away your core, but..."

But then it would be trusting its survival on these two sages, who it had known for hardly a fortnight. And it would need to lead them down to its core, and any path they took the adventurers could follow.

"In the mean time, might I try something? A spell to disorient them."

YOU MAY ATTEMPT IT.

The sage nodded and thumped their staff on the cavegrass floor, once. A ripple of mana burst out, and... burst through Goblin Cave's mana field: not overwhelming it, or tangling through it, but passing through in a perfect expanding sphere, utterly failing to interact with its own mana. Goblin Cave would have to ask them what that was afterwards. If it survived.

When the wave hit the adventurers, something snapped. There had been some mana effect being maintained, on the same disconnected(?) layer(??) as the sage's bubble, and when it broke the adventurers visibly jolted.

"...Communications down," one of them said. "Use hand-signs."

That was... well, that was something. Certainly that wasn't something Goblin Cave could have done itself. But as the adventurers, a core-shattering group undoubtedly, continued descending, it certainly felt that it was nowhere near enough to save it. Hopefully its own preparations had been sufficient, as it was nearly out of time.