Magical Engineering

Even as I boarded the bus, the small thread of energy persisted to the dungeon. It felt nearly the same as the one connecting me to the cores. Would it actually stay attached when we returned home? If it did, that meant we would need to keep greater tabs on this dungeon somehow.

I didn’t like the idea of splitting our resources, and would have preferred letting the government watch it. But if it was attached to me, there was just no way I couldn’t make sure it was protected. I sighed as the bus door closed behind me, almost glad to see my life continue to spawn new problem after problem. At least it meant nothing had really changed in the great scheme of things.

“Connie, what was that thing?” I asked, my nerves finally starting to settle.

“Not really sure. Gramps calls them outsiders on account of their not coming from normal space. The origin of the Stellar Opera came from him encountering one of these things, and as he tells it, a moment of brilliance in how to fight them, but I tend to think it had more to do with desperation.” Her voice broke several times as she answered. That was more fear than I’d ever heard from her. She had faced the Arena with total confidence so far. This didn’t bode well as a new problem.

“It’s my fault it managed to break in at all. Well, most recently my fault. There’s a very long string of events where the fault doesn’t begin with me, but today I suppose I’ll take the blame,” a new voice joined the conversation. Karlinovo spoke fast, but every word was perfectly articulated in a deep voice.

“What happened in there? Why were the penguins dancing?” I asked the man. This almost felt like a first meeting, but considering we had been talking for months in my mind, I knew it wasn’t. It was just strange to see him as a real physical being now.

“Distraction mostly. At the same time, I sent you that message that the dungeon core had noticed me, but it was for an entirely different reason than I realized; it didn’t want to enthrall me. Right behind my form being pulled into this world came that outsider. Oh, and Trelione might be claiming to have named the monsters these days, but he didn’t. He also isn’t entirely lying about the inspired act of the Stellar Opera. These things are captivated by certain melodies. The rhythmic dance of the penguins worked well enough, but it took all of my and the core’s focus to even keep that up. I’m surprised it was so willing to work with me,” Karlinovo explained. The whole time he spoke, he kept running his hand through a messy black beard, entirely failing to straight it.

“Wait, you know Gramps?” Connie asked, her voice instantly shifting from fear to interest.

“Know is a strong word. Dave, correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m still trying to adjust to the idea of a physical form again, not to mention one that only has two arms. But did you take control of the dungeon from the core?” Karlinovo asked.

“I did, at least I think I did. Let’s table that conversation until we are back. I want to know a lot more about what happened, but I want to have that conversation with a few more people. Is the new dungeon core safe to travel in that penguin form?” I asked. I honestly had thought dungeon cores couldn’t leave a dungeon inside a captured form like that.

“I think I am fine,” a small, chirpy voice replied from the penguin.

“Good enough for now. Timon, let’s get us home and we can discuss everything there,” I said, taking a seat and focusing on the line connecting me to the dungeon. I wanted to watch for any changes as we moved across the world.