Chapter 3 - Luna's adventure

Day 1

Lunas POV:

After she went down the stairs, Luna was relieved to still be alive. This dungeon core was weird and the black robed man, just standing around with a vacant expression on his face, was outright creepy. At first, she was terrified of the core's threatening voice and his hideous laughter, but after Neo cleared things up a bit she was relieved, only to then feel completely useless, as the dungeon core already seemed to know everything. So, she decided to do what she did best, she bragged.

But then everything changed. Neo needed her. Without Luna, he would be trapped in this tower for eternity, or at least a very long time. For an eight hour old fairy, that was the same.

When she arrived at the end of the stairs, she found herself in an empty hallway with four identical doors on the right side. Didn't Neo only mention three doors? What about the fourth one? Was it special, maybe there was a treasure behind it, or sweets. She never tasted sweets or even saw them, but the dungeon fairy memories she was born with, contained a lot of knowledge on sweets and she knew she wanted some for herself.

When she noticed her thoughts wandering off her current task, she tried to regain her focus and flew over to the third door. After she touched the handle, it opened instantly and the lights in the kitchen came to life. It was a clean room, which did not seem to like it was used very often, but it was well equipped. When she entered, she discovered the two golems Neo had mentioned.

"Ten-break-alpha" she said and the golems came to life.

She flew to one of them and landed on its head. She decided to get some rest after her lonesome adventure in this spooky tower and sat down. She then remembered that Neo said to bring the golems to him and so she ordered them to go to the hallway and climb the stairs to the top of the tower.

Neos POV:

A few minutes after Luna's departure, Neo heard heavy steps climbing the stairway. He concluded that he could depend on the little fairy, but then he discovered her sleeping on the head of the first golem and he noticed the missing bags.

"Luna!"

"What? Where? I was not sleeping!"

"I did not mention anything about sleep. You forgot to tell the golems to bring the bags."

"Oh."

"It's not important right now, we can get them later. We can bind ourselves together now."

"Really?"

"Yes, of course. You helped me a lot, and without Luna, I would be just a lonely dungeon core."

Neo decide to bind with the fairy. Even if she was a little muddle-headed, at least she was able to improve his mood, after he lost everything he worked torward for the last 400 years. Additionally, she was just a newborn. In fact she was probably the most capable newborn he had ever heard of.

Binding Alarm

Dungeon fairy Luna wants to bind with you for life!

Do you accept yes/no

After pressing yes, he felt his connection to the little fairy forming. He could feel her mood, and she was exhilarated.

"Yes, finally Luna is a real dungeon fairy. Luna will be the best dungeon fairy ever! With the help of the great Luna, you will become a legendary dungeon too."

"Of course, Luna is the best."

After concentrating on his connection to the fairy, Neo was able to see through her eyes. That could come in handy later.

"Can you order one of the golems to go back to the kitchen and get the bags? The other one should start to gather the valuable items from the experiment table and then he should start to dismantle this formation. It should be very useful later on."

With this, they started their work to loot every useful item in the room and to fill everything in the bags, one of the golems had brought back a little later.

"I think that's all we need. Please tell the golem with the bag to put my core next to you, so you can secure it with your hands while we leave this room. After this, the other one should grab my old body and follow us to the kitchen downstairs."

"What! Why do you want to bring this creepy dude along?"

"That is not a creepy dude, that is me. Ok, that was me. Maybe I'm a little bit sentimental with my old body, nevertheless doesn't every dungeon have a badass boss? I think an immortal arch mage would be a good choice."

"No, no. We need a way cooler boss. Something like a giant dragon or a fire breathing rabbit!"

"A fire breathing rabbit?"

"I like rabbits, they are cute. Almost as cute as Luna."

"We'll see what happens. Can you tell the golem to bring it along?"

"Ok."

When the golem took the first step of the stairwell, Neo got a notification.

Warning!

Your dungeon core is leaving its dungeon. You have 60 seconds to return, otherwise the dungeon will be abandoned.

Do you want to abandon your dungeon and start over?

yes/no

He pressed yes and felt his dungeon collapsing. Without the connection to Luna, he was no longer able to sense anything further away than one meter. He checked his status to see if something changed.

Name: Neo

Species: Dungeon core

Affinity: None

Rank: G-0

Level: 1

Structural Integrity: 1/1

Mana: 64/64

Mana Regeneration: 100 /h *50000%% = 13.88 /s

Life Energy: 2.3

'For opening the skill menu at least 10 life energy are needed!'

His maximum mana was still the same. It seemed like increasing the mana capacity changed the core itself and thereafter independent from the dungeon size. Without the formation, his mana regeneration had decreased a lot, but it was still a little bit cheaty for a fresh dungeon. Leaving his status window alone for the moment, he noticed that they already arrived at the kitchen.

"Why are we going to the kitchen again?"

"We need to use the small lift behind that hatch. With it, we can get to the store room."

"Why don't we take the stairs? Are there stairs?"

"Yes, there are stairs. In fact, they are behind the fourth door in the hallway, but they are guarded by a warden golem which will kill every entity that is unknown to it. That would be you and me both. This lift is our only way to get past them."

"Oh. I just thought there were sweets behind that door."

"Let's talk about sweets later. Please command the golems to take all the metal flatware from the drawers and to put them in the bags. We could use the materials later on. After they are finished, they should put us into the lift hatch and drive us down to the store room. Last, they need to take the stairs and meet us there. The warden golem will let them pass."

When the lift was activated, it took them only a minute to get to the storage room.

"Good, we arrived. We have access to four levels of the tower now. We can't move further down, there is another checkpoint guarded by golems, but we have access to the floors above us."

"Did somebody tell you that you are a little paranoid with all these golems?"

"It's not paranoia if you have enemies."

"Only if those enemies are real." Luna muttered.

"I heard that! Whatever, our only way out of the tower is the teleportation formation three floors above us. But first, let me get the useful stuff from this storage level."

With that said, Neo started to expand his influence again. Even without the formation and his lower mana regeneration, it only took him a second to regenerate enough mana to expand his new dungeon by one m². But mana regeneration was not everything, with his lack of practice, he needed more than a minute for the first m². While he was focused on this, he noticed Luna falling asleep again and the golems' arrival with his body.

He made some progress and got faster expanding the dungeon. It took him a little more than an hour to grow back his dungeon to the maximum size. Before absorbing the useful tools and materials in the floor, he stopped. His rash decision, to absorb all life on the top floor, almost condemned him to a long boring imprisonment there. He checked if he was still able to create the plants he absorbed. But it was not possible. Maybe the blueprints for living objects were connected to the dungeon itself and would be lost after abandoning it and creating a new one? He wanted to check if this was the same for items and material and decided to absorb a small metal spoon from the storage. After this, he abandoned the dungeon recreated it again. He increased his influence a little bit so he had enough room for the spoon. Then he checked if he could create it again. It was not working. This it didn't make any sense. Why should his blueprints be connected to the dungeon and not to the core. After thinking about the issue a little bit without coming to a satisfying conclusion , he decided to wake up Luna.

"Luna wake up!"

"HUAAAA - What, where how?"

"Luna are you awake?"

"Oh, yes of course."

"Good. I have a problem. I tried to recreate the plant I absorbed on the top level, but it was not working. Then I absorbed a spoon and recreated the dungeon again, but I didn't have success with this either. Do you know why that is the case?"

"Let Luna think about it a moment. - Haha, Luna knows why. Luna is so smart!"

"Of course you are. Can you tell me?"

"Yes, yes, I will share to knowledge of the wise Luna with you! To create something, you need the material. You are storing your gathered materials in a another dimension, connected to your dungeon. When you abandoned your dungeon, you lost this connection and the materials you gathered disappeared into the void. So, you still have the blueprint, but you can't create the object without the material."

"Hmm, I always thought dungeons are able to create objects from nothing."

"Some dungeons are, but that requires a more advanced dungeon core depending on the material. Additionally, it's very expensive to create objects, plants or animals just from mana. You always want to have the basic building blocks in store, this way it's much cheaper."

"Ok, that makes sense. That means, I can't absorb the stuff we want to take with us. I have to instruct you which items we need and you'll tell the golems to bring them to the teleportation formation three floors above us, ok?"

"Ok!"

It took them a few hours to gather all the useful stuff. In the end, Neo decided to even take the steel storage drawers with them. The raw material could come in handy later on.