I was born along with my sister, and my sister was born along with me. We have been together this entire time and our training has been quite hard. Papa has been very busy due to him marrying his boss monster in the manner that humans do.

I don’t quite understand why he would go through such a thing, but I can understand the connection to someone in which you never want to be without them. That leaves the question of what are we going to do when training is over and we have to go our separate ways?

After Papa got married my sister and I were taken by the elders to train elsewhere along with Var. Var reminds me a lot of Papa, so we get along alright. The elders took us to Elder Madam Erin’s dungeon to finish out our last week of training.

Madam Erin then presented us each with a training crystal and told us to form our dungeons for the last week of our training. All three of our dungeons are side by side so it is still no trouble visiting each other. Once our week is up the elders pull us to a large room.

Madam Erin: “I have to say I am quite impressed with the progress you all made this month. I believe training the new dungeon cores in this manner will greatly improve the survivability of future cores.”

Dyson: “I believe the continued survival of dungeons cores lies in dungeon cores like you three, so I expect to see great things from you all.”

Elder Madam Erin then rolls out a parchment onto a table and it covers the entire table. Forests, mountains, flowing rivers, and even clouds seem to float over the large map on the table.

Madam Erin: “Whenever you three are ready you may choose the location for your dungeons.”

Var, my sister, and I have talked about where we are going to place our dungeons, so it isn’t a surprise when Var steps forward placing his dungeon not even a week away from Madam Erin’s dungeon. Papa’s dungeon is about the same distance away in the opposite direction, so maybe the dungeon cores that Madam Erin train, like to remain close to her.

After all Papa chose a human to take as a wife, but even though my sister and I are birds, our builds are quite similar to Madam Erin’s so maybe there is more to their relationship then they let on.

My sister and I had a plan, after a revelation we discovered a few days ago, so when we step up to the map we both point to a single location at a mountain right at the meeting point between the human kingdoms of Clement, Livinston, and Adra.

Madam Erin: “Both of you?”

Dawn: “Of course.”

Twilight: “We are sisters after all.”

Madam Erin: “If you are sure…”

Both: “Indeed.”

My sister and I are then pulled a great distance and arrive in an open area of the forest along a steep raised mountain. My sister and I both read the [Menu] in front of us and then look to each other and nod.

Dawn: “No going back now. Shall we get to work?”

Twilight: “There is a human village just west of here, so we better get started before someone stumbles across us without our dungeon to protect us.”

My sister and I then get to work. The amount of xp we have is quite limited when we first start out but we have a plan in place for just that.

Warning placing object [Iron Door] here will result in another access point to dungeon.

I guess because going through sister’s dungeon they would be able to enter mine from here as well, I was worried it wouldn’t let us connect them though so I quickly accept and continue working. We are pretty confident in our plan but, just to be on the safe side we reserve a small amount of xp for consumption.

We each placed a few rifts, but the majority of our monsters however are not from rifts. We then spend a long process of giving them names.

Dawn: “After naming all of these small fries, it’s going to be a bit sad when the humans start taking them out.”

Twilight: “Well they can’t leave our dungeons unless they are named, so there isn’t much we can do about it.”

Dawn: “Alright all of you guys, I want you to enter Twilight’s dungeon and defend it with your lives as if it is my dungeon.”

Twilight: “The same to all of you, I want you to enter Dawn’s dungeon and defend it.”

None of the monsters so far are sentient, so they have no objections as they start filling the rooms.

Intruders have entered your dungeon.

Dawn: “So far so good.”

Twilight: “It’s going to be a bit difficult when it comes to rifts, and once we start going a bit more, but for now this ought to work quite nicely.”

Dawn: “The minimum xp we can get for an intruder is 1 xp, so they should pay for themselves for the really weak ones quite quickly, but the others will take up to 100 days before they make up their cost.”

Twilight: “It should only take 50 days if you set the locks on the doors like I suggested.”

Dawn: “Are you sure they will work? Locks on every door seem a bit excessive.”

Twilight: “Their cost is negligible, and as long as the key is accessible then it won’t cause trouble for the crystal.”

Dawn: “I honestly just hung every key on the door.”

Twilight: “Well they aren’t meant to keep things out, so it should work. Once humans start entering the dungeons though, we should start coming up with clever ways to hide the keys.”

Dawn: “Well I think this is the best we can do for now, you think we could visit the village tomorrow?”

Twilight: “I don’t know, the humans never said anything when we were with Papa or the elders, but they were quite nervous around us. Without them I don’t know how humans will react to our appearances.”

Dawn: “As long as we take it slow and steady we should be alright.”

Twilight: “And make sure we don’t lead any humans back here until we are good and ready for them.”

How wrong we were… After we arrived in the village we were quickly chased out. Even when we tried to show our adventurer IDs the villagers kept calling us monsters and wouldn’t even listen to us. We decided to retreat back to our dungeons.

We took several detours to make sure we weren’t followed, and even thought it only took 20 minutes to reach the village it took us several hours to return, to make sure we were alone.

The xp we got from each other’s monsters was enough that we won’t ever have to worry about our consumption, but it is still going to take quite a while before our dungeons are off the ground enough that we are ready for adventurers.

Over the course of the next month we try several more attempts to talk to the villagers, but they won’t have any of it. They have begun sending adventurers out looking for us, but luckily we are leading them in the opposite direction of our dungeons, so they are searching for us in the wrong areas.

The xp we have been gathering from each other hasn’t really been as helpful as we were hoping, because as soon as we start to build some back up we will summon more monsters. Eventually we will get in a way that the amount of xp we receive will be much more than we are putting out, but that may take a while.

We have also decided to put adding any more monsters on hold for now, because the rooms have become quite full of monsters, so we need to save some xp up to increase our dungeon’s size next.

When we received a message from Mama saying Papa has disappeared we were quite worried about him, but we are barely able to take care of ourselves, so we don’t even know how to respond to Mama, so we don’t reply to her.

Dawn: “Shouldn’t we do something though?”

Twilight: “We can’t even enter a village, how can we do anything to help Papa, when he could be anywhere?”

Dawn: “But we can fly! We could just stay high enough the humans couldn’t bother us.”

Twilight: “Then how would we be any help to Papa? Papa is a dungeon core, and he knows the risks. I am sure he wouldn’t fault us for taking care of our own dungeons at a time like this.”

Dawn: “But I want to do something…”

Twilight: “Then get stronger! The only way we can be of help is get stronger. The Elder’s seem to care for Papa as well, so I am sure they will do everything they can to help Mama.”

Dawn: “I guess you are right. I just hope he is ok.”

Twilight: “Me too.”

There isn’t anything we can do for Papa, so we decide that day to double down our efforts. Papa wanted us to succeed, so we need to get stronger, because if something can happen to a dungeon core like Papa, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

In the time between Papa’s disappearance and the time he showed back up, my sister and I have been hard at working increasing our dungeons. We have started to intermingle our dungeons connecting them in strange ways.

It makes moving monster with rifts quite hard, but most of our monsters are still non-rift monsters so it hasn’t been a problem. We only use the rift monsters to level up each other’s monsters. The weak monsters we have been flooding our dungeon with however reach max level before it is really of any benefit to us.

Dawn: “Don’t you think we should summon our boss monsters now? If we leveled them up instead of the small fries we might gain more xp from one another.”

Twilight: “We only gain a very limited amount of boss monsters. I want to put it off as long as possible to make sure they are good monsters.”

Dawn: “But we have 2 available already, couldn’t we at least summon 1?”

Twilight: “You can if you want, but I want my boss monsters to at least be sentient, so I will wait.”

Dawn: “That’s not fair! If I summon one, but you don’t then you will get more benefit from it then I will!”

Twilight: “Then just wait like I am then.”

Dawn: “Fine, but as soon as we unlock monsters that are capable of being sentient I am summoning a boss monster!”

Twilight: “As long as it isn’t something weird. I don’t want your boss monster in my dungeon, even if it is sentient, if it is some kind of ugly fire lizard.”

Dawn: “Then if you get some kind of ugly frog, I don’t want it in my dungeon either!”

Twilight: “Fine!”

Dawn: “Fine!”

It’s been a few months since Papa returned home, but we still haven’t heard from him. Mama sent a message telling us that he lost his memories though, so we still don’t know what to say. Madam Erin has checked on us a few times, but there hasn’t been much to tell.

Other than going out and flying over the forest to stretch our wings we haven’t even left our dungeons in months. If I didn’t have my sister to talk to I would have gone crazy already. How do all the older dungeons do it?

I hear Elder Fredrick, and Elder Draco have never even seen humans without looking through a screen. I wonder what they do to keep their minds occupied…

Dawn: “You think we are ready for the adventurer’s to discover our dungeons yet?”

Twilight: “I think we have enough monsters to keep us safe for now, but they aren’t rift monsters, so when they die we will be in a bad way. I think if we keep going like we are we should be ready in another year.”

Dawn: “A year?!”

Twilight: “What’s the big deal?

Dawn: “Staying in the dungeon day in and day out is not boring to you?”

Twilight: “We go out all the time.”

Dawn: “All the time?! Once a week is not all the time!”

Twilight: “You’re so impatient…”

Dawn: “Then what do you do all the time when we are not talking?”

Twilight: “I sleep.”

Dawn: “20 hours a day?!”

Twilight: “We are dungeon cores.”

Dawn: “I can’t sleep that long…”

Twilight: “What you want to be like Papa?”

Dawn: “Of course!”

Twilight: “I think Papa creates way to much work for himself messing with human affairs…”

Dawn: “Then you want to sleep 20 hours a day?”

Twilight: “We are dungeon cores, 100 or 200, or 1000 years from now we will still be going strong unless we are killed, so even at 4 hours a day that is far more than any human lives.”

Dawn: “What about finding a man to make you happy like Papa found in Mama?”

Twilight: “I have got you, so until we get our boss monsters that will be sufficient.”

Dawn: “What about companionship? You don’t want a man?”

Twilight: “The only one of our kind, is that whore that is in Papa’s town. Do you really want that?”

Dawn: “I am not saying him, but we can’t have children anyway, so a human, or beastkin wouldn’t be so bad would it?”

Twilight: “That is disgusting…”

Dawn: “You don’t find humans or beastkin the least bit attractive?”

Twilight: “Do you find a sparrow attractive?”

Dawn: “Of course not!”

Twilight: “We are just as closely related to a bird as we are a human, so what’s the difference?”

Dawn: “Well a human is sentient, and well, human.”

Twilight: “What about all that skin… That is just… -Twilight shudders at the thought.-

Dawn: “Then if there are never any more of our kind, do you mean you are not interested in companionship at all?”

Twilight: “I don’t know, I never thought about it. Maybe I will make due with a hippogriff. No, a griffon, he could pin me down with those large talons and then…”

Dawn: “Eww! Don’t say any more, and you said a human was bad! How could you even think of doing that with a monster?!”

Twilight: “What do you think we are?

Dawn: “We are still beastkin, so that makes far more sense than some non-sentient monster!”

Twilight: “Are you saying if a good looking phoenix male screeched at you, that you wouldn’t shake your tail feathers at him?”

Dawn: “I don’t know… I mean phoenixes can be sentient, but still. It just doesn’t seem right somehow.”

Twilight: “Well I feel the same way as a human or beastkin, so that makes us even.”

Dawn then remains silent only to shudder a bit. Dawn decides on that day she must at least learn to summon more of their kind, if for no other reason that she never has to think of her sister sleeping with some monster, ever again.

My sister and I continue to work on our dungeons for the next few months, and have managed to start filling some of the rooms with more rifts. If it wasn’t then cost of adding another floor being so high we would have made much more progress, but there is only so much of the mountain available between our two dungeons for us to grow into.

By the time that marks 1 year since our birth we have still both managed to make it with 5 floors apiece however. Starting on the 4th floor we have added a few balconies and windows to the exterior rooms, just to give it the tower like look.

It may be a bit of a risk once adventurers start arriving, but it makes our dungeon feel more alive instead of just drab holes in the ground. Besides on the 4th floor however they shouldn’t be able to reach them from the ground, and when I spread my wings while standing on the edge of one of the balconies it makes it feel like it is worth it.

Dawn: “I wonder if Papa is training another dungeon core this year?”

Twilight: “He lost all of his memories, I am sure struggling enough with that to worry about training a new dungeon core.”

Dawn: “The Elders always seem to come calling on him though, so I don’t know.”

Twilight: “Well they didn’t call us, so I think we should consider that lucky.”

Dawn: “I still don’t see how even after a year, that everything that goes on outside of our dungeons seems like it doesn’t interest you.”

Twilight: “We have to continue to expand and build our dungeons. We have our hands full with that as it is. I don’t see any need to worry about what everyone else is doing.”

Dawn: “Not even to see what Papa is doing?”

Twilight: “Well… He still hasn’t contacted us, and I don’t know. After he lost his memories it wouldn’t be fair to try to poke our beaks in his business if he doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

Dawn: “But we haven’t even contacted him either!”

Twilight: “And say what? Hi we are your Avian daughters that you don’t remember, why don’t you travel 4 months and come pay us a visit?”

Dawn: “He has is teleport spell!”

Twilight: “I don’t know how close he has been to here, it still may take months for him to reach us. Besides he isn’t really our Papa.”

Dawn: “We were born in his dungeon, and that is good enough for me! I just want to see him again…”

Twilight: “Yea…”

Right before what would mark the 1 year since my sister and I started our dungeons we receive a message from Madam Erin.

Madam Erin: (I have good news for you girls, I talked to your Papa, and he has some presents for you, next week after finishing up the evaluation of the new dungeon cores, I will bring him by so he can deliver them to you.)

Dawn: “Presents for us?! He hasn’t forgotten about us!”

Twilight: “He lost his memories, so of course he has forgotten about us.”

Dawn: “Then why else would Madam Erin say he has presents for us?”

Twilight: “Well, just because he forgot doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Maybe Madam Erin, or Mama told him about us, and he just feels bad because he can’t remember us.”

Dawn: “We were just talking the other day about wanting to see him, so I don’t care! Oh, but that means Papa is coming to our dungeons. We have a week to make them look their best!”

Over the next week we drain the xp we have been storing up to expand our dungeons as much as possible. We have always focused on the monsters more than the rooms because that is what brings the xp back, but expending so much leaves us unable to fill quite a few of the rooms.

Most of the monsters are not rift monsters so we just spread them out between the rooms, and with the number of monster to each room, it probably evened us out, compared to what a normal dungeon would have per room.

Dawn: “You were acting like it wasn’t that big of a deal that Papa is coming, but you have been preening your feathers the last 2 hours now!”

Twilight: “Not only Papa, but and Elder is coming to our dungeon, so forgive me if I want to look my best.”

Dawn: “Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle, or it will defeat the purpose of all that preening. I am not ashamed to admit I am glad to get to see Papa again.”

Twilight: “I didn’t say I was ashamed of Papa!”

Dawn: “I just got a message from Madam Erin! They are here!”

My sister and I then quickly rush out to meet Madam Erin and Papa.

We spent a few hours visiting with Papa, and it is sad he doesn’t remember us, but he still seems like the same Papa. He scolded us for not sending message to him and Mama, so we promised we would send more.

Papa even brought our big sister Inari, so we got to meet her as well, and we learned of our newest sister and her dungeon. I don’t know how she is building a flying dungeon, but I wish we would have thought of that.

Papa gave me and my sister each a pair of rings, one for helping us level up, and another for us to change our appearance. Now we should be able to go into the village without any trouble. It was so nice to get to see Papa again, and even meet our older sister.

Dawn: “I wish they could have stayed longer…”

Twilight: “We got to see him again, and he does want us to message him and Mama, so we don’t have to worry about being a bother to them.”

Dawn: “And look at these rings! I am going to go to the village first thing in the morning now!”

Twilight: “Shouldn’t we use the other ring to level up a bit more first to be on the safe side?”

Dawn: “If I look human we won’t have nothing to worry about!”

Dawn then takes the [Ring of Many Faces] and puts it on her finger…

Twilight: “You don’t look any different.”

Dawn: “I did just like they said.” –Dawn takes the ring off, and puts it back on several times, but still no change occurs.-

Twilight: “It must because we are Avian. We can’t wear armor and clothes meant for humans, so that ring might be the same.”

Dawn: “Then what about the other ring?”

Twilight: “Be careful, Papa said that shape can’t be changed one set.”

Dawn: “Well if it works where the other didn’t I want to go in the village!” –Dawn then puts on the room while focusing what she would image what she would look like as a human girl.-

Dawn shrinks to almost half of her size, her wings disappear, and her clothes droop over her petite body. She is now in the appearance of a young human woman about 15 years of age, with flaming red hair that extends to her mid back.

Twilight: “You look just like Mama, you really could be Mama, and Papa’s daughter looking like that.”

Dawn had a little trouble getting used to walking in this smaller body with human feet, and she stumbles a few times without her wings to balance her.

Twilight: “Are you sure it was wise to use that ring to look human? To gather xp now you will have to use that body.”

Dawn: “Well I am human now right?” –Dawn then puts on the [Ring of Many Faces] and returns to her normal shape.-

Twilight: “What did you do?”

Dawn: “Now it’s no problem. I can train as either a human or use the ring and train like this.”

Twilight: “Can you use your wings and everything with both the rings on like that?”

Dawn spreads her wings and flies around the room.

Dawn: “See no problem!”

Twilight: “Well I don’t share your enthusiasm for looking human. I do think it would be a good idea to be able to use human equipment while gathering xp, so maybe I should do the same with my ring.”

Dawn: “We are twins, so I am sure you will look the same.”

Twilight: “I could look anyway I want though, so I don’t have to try to look like Mama.”

Dawn: “I didn’t try to look like Mama, I just imagined what I would look like as a human.”

Twilight: “Then how did you do it?”

Dawn: “Just imagine what you would look like if you were human.”

Twilight: “You already said that, but how am I supposed to know how I would look like as a human?”

Dawn: “Well humans are quite smaller, and have no feathers, or wings, so image what you would look like that.”

Twilight: “Like a bird about to be stuffed in an oven!”

Dawn sighs. “Well we are twins, so just make yourself look like I did.”

Twilight: “Well change back so I can see it…”

Dawn takes off the [Ring of Many Faces] returning to a figure of a younger looking Belinda.

Twilight: “You must have done something wrong… Because Mama only looks like that because she became Papa’s boss monster, so if we really were her daughters wouldn’t we look like she was back before?”

Dawn: “But we weren’t born till after she changed, so it only stands to reason we would look like she does now.”

Twilight: “But then we would be babies as well.”

Dawn: “Well we might be only a year old, but our appearance is of an Avian equivalent to 15 years to a human, so I went with that.”

Twilight then focuses while putting on her ring. Her appearance much to the same looks just like a younger Belinda, the only difference instead of fiery red hair like Dawn and Belinda, her hair is a brilliant blue color.

Dawn: “I know my hair matched my feathers, but I didn’t try for that, you didn’t have to make your hair blue, most humans don’t have blue hair!”

Twilight: “I did the best I could, be glad I don’t still have a beak… It feels weird talking like this…”

Dawn makes weird noises as she runs her finger up and down her lips while making noises. “I don’t know it’s kind of fun.”

Twilight: “I don’t know I feel naked without my feathers…”

Dawn: “Have you looked at yourself, you practically are naked!”

Twilight: “You are wearing the same thing I am!”

Dawn: “Well we should summon some human clothes.”

Dawn summons herself a very bold form fitting outfit that maintains modesty, without leaving much up to imagination. Twilight summons a pair of clothes much bulkier, and it even has feathers attached to it.

Dawn: “That is what you are going with? You don’t really know much about humans do you?”

Twilight: “Well I am not trying to seduce them!”

Dawn: “Our normal clothes are far more revealing then these, so how is it any better?”

Twilight: “We also had our feathers!”

Dawn: “Maybe you should have gone with a bird beastkin appearance then, it may have been a bit more comfortable for you.”

Twilight: “I did like you told me! Now you tell me this?!”

Dawn: “Sorry…”

Twilight: “It’s too late now… -Twilight then takes the human clothes off putting hers back on then puts on the second ring, returning to her normal shape.-

Dawn: “What we are not going to the village?”

Twilight: “This late? You can at least wait till morning before getting yourself into trouble, let’s just begin training on some of each other’s rift monsters.”

Dawn: “Fine, but we are going to the village tomorrow alright?”

My sister and I then finish the rest of the afternoon training ourselves in each other’s dungeons. It proves to be so much more beneficial to our dungeons then we even thought. Not only are we as dungeon cores gaining xp, but we gain the xp of the monsters we kill to take back to our own dungeon.

The monsters we had training on the rifts in each other’s dungeon did the same, but they were so much weaker it made it harder to do, but this way we can start adding far more rifts to our dungeons. At the end of the day though we are both quite exhausted.

Dawn: “Papa really helped us out with those rings.”

Twilight: “I am still worried about going to the village again, but I agree for at least gathering xp this should really speed things up.”

Dawn: “I guess to thank Papa, we have to do like he asked and send messages to him and Mama far more often then.”

Twilight: “We didn’t get to spend much time with Mama during our training, but if it makes Papa happy I am sure we can do it.”

Dawn: “I am going to bed, we got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

Twilight: “Good night…”

My sister and I then retreat to our dungeon core rooms and go to bed for the night.