"Creatures. .. saving creatures." How should he go about it? Founding a zoo? How could a group of undead save lots and lots of creatures? It was the question of the day. He could move using his minions who carried him, he could relocate his dungeon like that, but the problem was all his population depended on [Tomb] and he could not move them easily. He had just five undead without tombs, making him uncomfortably weak while on the move.

However, he was quite weak and stationary anyway, if he was unable to find some good way to level up crazily.

"How can a small group of undead save a lot of creatures.. " He was pondering about it for some time, arriving only at a single resolution. "Undead cannot, but tunnels can!"

Having a grand plan in his mind, he began to travel underground with a small group of undead, peeking out of the ground from time to time. It was slow and dangerous, but he knew that his strength was lacking in front of cities like Durkan. One big raiding party and he was finished with his current level.

His plan was simple, locate a place with periodic droughts and channel an underground river there. It was an ambitious project, but had the potential to save a lot of animals and monsters. Another option was to avert a natural or human-made disaster or a war. No, he wanted to stay away from wars with his strength. He could also create a passage to lead someone from dangerous regions.

In short, there were options to gain insane levels over time, by using these schemes, but he desperately needed information and his current rate of progress was not helping with gathering it.

He still felt his hate towards the thing, but it could not be helped. Even if he hurried, he was out of time and would be unable to do a thing in his current state.

Toby decided to locate tracks made by animals and camp near one of them, to wait for his future hunter informant. He left the safety of the ravine's bottom, moving through the ground at the pace of a slow walk in order to turn his schemes into reality. It was fast considering his acolytes had to dig through rock, they seemed to be using some specialized earth tunnel-making magic. Well, he did not need to know the details. He was moving forth, being carried like an emperor, if you ignored the fact he was a piece of a fancy stone.

Everything would have surely gone nice and slick, if not for a little mishappening. His acolytes broke into a hollow space and in the next second, enraged roar of a bear welcomed them to a small cave. His acolytes tried to fight off the beast, but they were not specialized for combat after all. Toby was forced to shut his senses off, when he saw a big mouth and felt the touch of a pink tongue soon after, followed by a sticky sensation of contracting and convulsing soft tissue. He imagined for a second it was a wild orgy, but it had not felt better.

Yes, he had just been swallowed whole.

Toby tried several times to check on the outside, but only an intensely nauseating experience welcomed him every time he switched his senses back on, leaving him in a situation where he could only sit and wait it out.

When he checked on his surroundings for a hundreth time, the first sensation was of metal touching his surface.

"Metal?" To his surprise, he seemed to be embedded in an intricate filigree made of black metal, hanging on a chain.

Meaning . .

"I have become a jewelry?! A necklace?! Wait, just for how long have I waited? This is insane!" Toby had imagined his career as a dungeon to start with something else than becoming a necklace. He was not hanging on a neck of anyone, but was placed in a showcase of a high-end shop and he could tell it was night.

Some hunter must have killed the bear and sold his lucky find to a craftsman. The piece of jewelry then traveling to a place where it could be monetized the best, a luxurious shop in a nearest big city.

* * * *

"Lara, the hero of Durkan. Who would have thought that an ordinary security guard would end up here, on the second floor of the city. "

"It was luck, that one moment I thought we were dead." Lara smiled and looked outside, it had taken her some time not to become dizzy while looking at the distant forest. They lived at the edge of the second floor now and it was quite the height.

"I hope it is not too ominous, but purple with black is an ideal color scheme for you." Quin said looking into her eyes. People said living through hell made the best friends and lovers and they were a living proof to that rule. After the insane experience of Durkan being besieged by demons and undead, Quin and Lara began to live together. For their merit in organizing resistence, they had received status they would have never dreamed of.

Quin opened a little box he had been hiding behind his back and watched Lara's silly smile when he presented it proudly to her. She loved gifts, all women did.

There was a necklace inside, a purple stone embedded in black metal, hung on a delicate chain. The same black as Lara's hair and eyes.

Back then, the most critical moment had been when a demon kidnapped them and they had been chased by death knights. Soon after, the emperor had managed to leverage his influence in the Magic Guild and the cavalry came, guns blazing. A single demon lord had no chance to stand against the united might of the Guild and all high ranking enemies fled the field of battle soon after the Guild's involvement. Currently, Durkan was already at its original place. Although damaged and half-crumbling, it survived the attack, its inhabitants working day and night to restore the city to its former glory. In the end, it was just a game of some bored demon lords, not an organized effort to destroy the city.

"It is perfect." Lara kissed Quin on his forehead, but he had not been satisfied with it and pulled her closer for more.

"Wait, I have to put it on first." Lara giggled and pulled away from him.

"It fits you perfectly." Quin looked at her hungrily.

"Of course it does, I am a beauty." She smiled and stopped postponing what was about to happen, their bodies joining in a wild exchange of fluids.

* * * *

"God dammit! So much swaying and hair in my face!" Toby cursed.

It was strange, but it seemed being a stone influenced his desires a bit, with no testosteron flooding his brain, he was calm even dangling back and forth on Lara's neck, who was currently being wildly penetrated by her lover. Toby was trying to focus on something else that caught his interest. There were some paintings on the walls of the luxurious room and on one of them, many figures stood side by side, including Lara, Quin, his original demonic self, Wilson and many others and among all the people, there was a face he would never have expected there.

"It is definitely him! William, that guy in elven clothes!" Toby would have shouted if he had a voice. "How was a supposed treasure hunter able to get out of Durkan and meet me in a day?"

Well . .

"Who the hell is here?! Show yourself!" The pair stopped their activity abruptly and was looking around in alert.

To his horror, Toby understood his premise that he was unable to talk was wrong! Of course it was, he had been always alone or with his minions since the moment he had became a dungeon. He was unaware of the fact that he actually really spoke when he was talking.

"Fuck." Toby cursed.

"No, we won't until you reveal yourself!" Toby got a lightning fast answer from the disturbed Lara.

Still, his main focus was on the fact that he just might be able to find a person who knew the fate of the elven girl. He could not let it go, the guilt gnawed on him. He had to know to have peace, it was a debt he owed.

He did not even know why it felt important, maybe because it was personal. He felt the body doing it at that time, in principle he was actually the one doing it, despite not willing it himself. When he tried to put his finger on the reason why he felt this way, he thought it was the way he did it. Some sadistic sex would have been nothing much, what bothered him was the actual evil intent seeping into the actions. There was no intent to play from the side of the thing, it was intent to hurt, to kill. That was probably why it felt different.

He felt the thing's intent while doing it and it was so wrong. It was not about playing around, it was pure evil.

Toby quickly pulled his mind back to reality, knowing that he was being spoken to. There was not much he could do.

"I am so sorry, but save me! I am cursed!" Toby wailed, he knew there was no way he could allow anyone know that he was a dungeon core.

"What are you talking about?!" Both Lara and Quin looked at him with large eyes, still not believing they were talking to a stone.

"I was a fisherman once and I have foolishly dreamt of catching a fish that would make me the best fisherman in our village. I embarked on my quest, but got lost instead. Full of shame, I could not bear to return back home and my wife thought that I ran away from her, because I have not returned for a long time, cursing me into this stone." Toby began to spinn his web of lies and watched the reaction of the two lovers. Right, they seemed to be freshly in love! "I forgave her, for I have broken her heart, but I still crave freedom! Please free me!"

"Oh, poor thing!" Lara threw puppy eyes on him immediately, Quin looking at him unsure of what to think. Whatever, the girl had to do, it had to be something simple and unexpensive.

"Flush me into a toilet and the water will connect my soul back to the sea that sealed my fate and the curse will be broken!" Come on now, flushing him into a toilet was simple enough action.

"Wait, into a toilet? The necklace was expensive!" Quin raised his voice against Toby's wishes.

"Come on Quin, you are too heartless. . ." Lara chastised him.

"She is hopeless, I remember her differently. Love probably lowers one's IQ a lot sometimes." Toby thought and hoped that his thoughts were not being brodcasted to others as well.

"I know, It has to be his joke!" Quin slapped his knee with the palm of his hand.

"Who do you have in mind?" Lara asked.

"Who else? How many mages are we acquainted with? Only the one you see the picture of right over there." Quin laughed like he had just uncovered an evil prank of his old friend and pointed at the painting Toby had been interested in.

Exactly on that person.

"Ehehhheeeee. . .you got me!" Toby decided not to give up this golden opportunity.

"Yes! You are so smart Quin! You have seen through it right away!" Lara was quick to prize Quin to the sky.

"It was nothing much, just a simple hunch." The prideful prick was bathing in the shower of praises, despite being totally wrong, pissing off Toby greatly. Although he fumed, Toby's stakes were high and he continued to play his part.

"Just visit me at my usual place and I can give you something even better than this necklace, but take it with you."

"Gladly." Quin responded and Toby cheered for his big sexy brain that was able to come up with such a cool scheme.

"Scheming master Toby, the dungeon that lets all the others fight each other and gets all the loot, fame and women in the process!" Toby screamed in his mind, praising his genius.

"Just tell us where it is." Quin added innocently and Toby nearly vomited blood like in your usual chinese novel.

That was what he needed to find out too!

"It will be quicker to just show you, meet me at our usual place." Toby tried to at least find out their friend's favorite spot, or frequented pub.

"Hey, we have never seen you since the siege of demons. You owe us an explanation, helping out and then vanishing into thin air." Quin apparently had no clue where the person of Toby's interest was.

"I am . .. the energy in the crystal. . losing connection." Toby fell into silence, irritated that he had learned nothing.

"What a fruitless exchange." Toby wanted to sigh in frustration. They tried to speak to him further, but he stayed true to his narrative and remained silent.

After a while, he began swaying again.

"Hey, wait! What if he is just faking it? Put that thing away first!"

"Is he a pervert or what?"

"Just do it love, I cannot continue like this."

Soon, a blackness of a box arrived and Toby was left to his thoughts.

* * * *

In the end, even though his environment changed, his goals had not. He needed every bit of power he could get before embarking on a grand journey to find out the truth. Regardless of his other agenda, Toby felt that being a dungeon core had brought forth some kind of longing, a longing to grow. Both in size and strength, an urge to manage and organize, to possess, a set of feelings one would expect a dungeon to have as its instincts. He welcomed it, as it was in line with his original goal.

"Gaining strength it is." Toby welcomed that Lara had not taken him with her to work and he had been left in the box. He knew because he listened for the sound of the door closing.

No one was around, finally!