The next three days were probably the most mind numbingly boring days of RJ's lives, both before he became a dungeon core and after. Each morning the dungeon menu would ding, informing him he had gained mana, he'd spend it on tunnels, and then the next twenty hours he sat there. After the first four hours he began to put Bruce through his paces, seeing how tightly he could control the little ghost mouse. Eight hours later, they were both bored of that. He then taught Bruce how to play tic-tac-toe. Which amused them both for the rest of that day, and about half of the next. Unfortunately they eventually got to the point that the entity that went first always won. Half way through the third day, RJ came up with a new game. scavenger hunt, dungeon core style, RJ created a tiny stone statue of himself and hid it somewhere in the tunnels and warrens of the dungeon. Bruce would then search it out, and RJ would time him. This actually ended up earning them an achievement that RJ had never seen before.

[Achievement Earned - The Great Mouse Detective: Vermin are often used as scouts and spys by dungeons, you have trained your vermin to search out and find specific items. Bonus to perception when searching, Bonus to critical thinking for all vermin dungeon mobs.]

'Thats... good? Hey bruce, you feeling any smarter?' Rj focused his attention down on the little ghost mouse who seemed to be shadow-fighting with the statue he had just successfully found.

Bruce sat back on his hunchs and looked around, his tiny round ears twitched back and forth before he went back to lunging and jumping through the statues.

'Yeah... that's... not helpful buddy. Whatever, it's not like i expected you to suddenly start talking or anything' RJ's voice was tinged with a bit of loneliness, Bruce was a great dungeon monster, but not the best conversationalist.

----

The fourth day was when they finally had a break through, instead of his tunnel leading up into a dead end, RJ ran into an already existing structure. He felt his influence spread out into the collapsed remains of a basement or cellar of some sort. Immediately, RJ began to absorb and add the new materials inside. Oak wood, Bronze, Glass, and Oil became available to him as he cleared out the 'free' room.

'Excellent! you know what this means, right bruce?' The ghost mouse ran in a tight circle excitedly. 'Yup! we're at the surface, just gotta spend a bit more mana and...' A rush of air blasted through the halls as the stagnant dead air of the dungeon whooshed out. RJ was careful to open the dungeon entrance in a way that resembled a caved in building.

'Now... Time to set my plans in motion! muhahaha!...' A glare from Bruce ended the evil cackling early but RJ didn't mind. He quickly reshaped the cellar into what it once must have looked like, beer barrels along the walls, rows of shelves for storage making a small maze with empty and broken glass containers littered about. He then slowly aged everything in the cellar, covering it in dust and cobwebs, creating rubble in one corner so as to appear as though the ceiling had collapsed. he added a few half empty or broken oil lamps as well.

'Looks good, i doubt any adventurer who comes poking around will believe any of this is attached to a dungeon.' He smiled to himself, his tiny core glowing a malevolent purple.

Next he roughened up the tunnel attached to the cellar, half collapsing some of the tunnel, make the supports look old and damaged. 'No dungeon here... just some ruins of a once prosperous dungeon town. hehehe.' He reached his first room at the end of the tunnel and sighed.

'Well, thats all the mana i have for today.' he tsked and checked the time. 'Ah... only eight more hours... lovely. Bruce! go check out the Mock Cellar, oh, let me add some mouse warrens for you. Now that we're open for business i'll make you some friends when the mana resets.'

---

Later that night, while playing scavenger hunt, RJ felt something on the edge of his dungeon sense. 'Bruce!! incoming!... it's... not sapient. oh thank god. what is that... ah!' down the steps of the cellar a snake slowly slithered, its tongue flicking out curiously. The serpent was a black and brown, with a tan diamond pattern. RJ had seen the skin of this particular creature used for sheathes, belts, and boots on some of the low ranked adventurers.

The snake did not seem to be bothered by the dungeon mana in the air, on the contrary it seemed to be heading straight for RJ's tunnel, picking up speed as though it scented something it liked.

'Bruuuce... it's coming.... Do something!' RJ was not a huge fan of snakes, nevermind that there really wasn't anything a snake could do to harm him.

Bruce watched the snake slither by from his mouse hole and slowly walked out to follow it. All of Bruce's instincts were screaming for him to run, snakes ate mice after all, but his dungeon needed him! After only a moment of indecision Bruce lunged forward, pouncing on the snake's tail, and passing right through it.

---

The snake had tasted something amazing on the air, it had been living off the mice and rats infesting the ruined dungeon town for awhile, but nothing had tasted this good before. Following the scent down a set of stairs the snake continued to flick its tongue over and over, the taste was deffinitely down here! Beginning to slither faster as the taste got stronger, the snake suddenly felt a chill run up its body from its tail. Turning its head to look back the snakes tongue flicked out rapidly in confusion. Its eyes saw a blurry shape, but it couldn't taste anything, it's heat sensing pits didn't pick up any warmth. The blur passed through its tail again and the snake convulsed as it's body tried to shiver. Normally cold would just make the snake sleepy and slow, but this cold came with a sense of dread that the simple creature couldn't understand. In a half hearted attempt to defend itself the snake lunged at the shape, fangs popping out to sink into.... nothing. Then the horrifying cold was in its head, mouth and throat. The snake convulsed again, twitching and squirming, then the light left its eyes.