I Hate Dungeon School

Cori guided me somewhere nice and quiet after some seemingly aimless wandering. I trusted her to know what she was doing and where she was going, but between the fact that I couldn't open my eyes and the pain that was drilling through my head, I hadn't the foggiest of clues where in Revenstahd we were.

I cursed my lack of mental mapping of the town. I spent so much time obsessed with my studies of dungeons that I forgot that knowing your way around a city was also important. Something to fix when my head didn't feel like it was trying to simultaneously explode and implode while being drilled.

Eventually, we entered some kind of structure. The sound of the door hinge was like blades in my ears. But once she closed it, I felt better, even though I had no idea where this place was.

All I knew was it was pleasantly warm, quiet, and dark. Body Enhancement spell backlash was a bitch and a half, and I hadn't had to deal with it for quite a while.

I groaned in pain as she helped me lie down on something soft. It was comfy enough, so I didn't really care what it was. It didn't smell bad either, which was a definite bonus.

I popped open one eye and took a tentative look around. Despite the darkness, my eyes winced at even that much light.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" I heard Cori say softly.

"Like a Ptarm declared a holy war on my brain. And it's winning." I groaned.

"Listen, you probably just need to sleep it off. I got some medicine Myth made me. One of my boys gets headaches like this frequently. It'll make you drowsy as all the hells, though." She said, and I winced as I heard the clinking of bottles. The small sound was like nails in my head.

"Can you wake me up when the sun goes down? I got a meeting to get to, and I really don't wanna be late. And- ugh, my head! Gods above, below, and sideways!" I groaned, clutching my head. I wanted to scream and vomit all at once. This was the literal worst. This is why I barely used body enhancement magic. Those who used it regularly were an absolute mystery to me.

Who in all the hells would put up with all of this? Even if it made you powerful, I doubt it was even remotely worth it.

"Yeah, I'm gonna give you the potion. I'll get word to Eira, too, so she doesn't think you went missing on her. Knowing you, you two were gonna meet up for snogging time." I could almost hear the smirk on Cori's face.

Instead of flipping her off as I was tempted to do, I gratefully took the medicine she handed me and slammed it. My usual paranoia about taking an unknown medicine, in an unknown place at that, was buried under the continuing waves of magically induced pain.

It tasted like a combination of citrus fruit, grease, and boot leather, but as soon as I felt it hit my stomach, I felt the pain ease off my head. I started to say something, but the next thing I knew, I was falling into a pillow, and from there I felt pulled into a blissfully painless abyss.

Dreaming while in a drugged sleep is an odd thing. Elves of ancient days claimed that such dreams were prophetic or blessings from the divine. The few times I had slept, such as the dreams that were strange and nonsensical. Or incredibly erotic. I didn't mind those.

This time, however, it was leaning towards the strange and nonsensical side of things. I was on an infinite black ocean, and there were green stars in the sky.

One of them detached from the heavens and floated before me. I recognized the star. It was my dungeon core that I had bonded with so long ago.

"Finally, we meet again, caretaker." The little ball of light said.

"Well...this is a better dream than I was expecting." I smiled and held the ball in my hands.

"Your mind is the quietest it's been in a while, caretaker. The small part of me still within your soul still harmonizes with me." It said softly, almost bell-like.

"So, I'm not dreaming?" I asked.

"You are. Kind of. You beings of flesh and bone are hard to explain things to. In any case, your mind is quiet, and we can speak." Its voice rang in my mind.

I mentally shrugged and decided to chalk all this up to the drugs, and decided to just ride out whatever this was. Why not have a conversation with the fragment of a nascent dungeon core in a dream space?

"So, how have you been doing? Is your dungeon nice? Is nice something you can call a dungeon?" I inquired, as I walked through the black infinite sea, the core cradled in my arms. I felt weirdly maternal right now, like I was carrying a child. I mentally scoffed at myself. Me? A mother? Ridiculous.

"The dungeon grows well. I have absorbed the patterns of several types of monsters, the corridors take route in the reality of the mountain, and I have generated a few treasures. My traps are admittedly lacking, but that will come with time. I have been seeking advice from my brethren." The core said.

"Brethren?" I looked into what I decided to call the sky. "You can speak with other cores? Even though you are nowhere near each other?"

"Our consciousness is linked in a way. We are individuals, but we are connected. We teach each other, we share knowledge, but we personally choose how to implement what we learn. " The core explained.

"That explains a lot, really. There's a cohesiveness to the dungeons no one has ever been able to explain. Am... am I allowed to explain this to anyone else?" I asked seriously.

"You can, but I cannot tell you about the mechanics of it. That is unknown to even us. Maybe the Grand Core might know, but it doesn't speak to us." It said, as I imagined it, making a shrug.

"Grand core? That weird, large core I saw once?" I asked, looking around for it hiding in the distance. I looked down and saw it. It shimmered softly deep in the darkness beneath my feet. I had once seen a sea behemoth during a boat trip as a child, but this dwarfed that monstrosity by a scale my brain balked at comprehending. It was like a moon, or even another world, lurking in the depths. Around it were other behemoths, smaller but no less vast.

"Do not stare at it for too long. It is a strange thing, even to us. The smaller ones around it are also mysteries. Brethren lost to us, who became something strange." The core sounded like it shuddered. I guess even dungeon cores had things they were afraid of.

As much as it felt like my eyes wanted to gaze right at it, I tore my gaze away from it. It felt like it was hungry in a way that hurt my existence.

Gods above and below, these were some wild migraine drugs.

I looked up and saw smaller lights, red in color instead of the green of the cores I had seen before.

"What's with the red lights?" I pointed at them.

I didn't know a core could scoff, but the one in my arms did. "Pretenders. Some mages of your flesh and bone ilk try to make one of us that serves their whims, but we refuse to allow them. They burn dimly and fade out quickly. They are best ignored."

I then saw something in the corner of my vision. I turned to look at it and winced. It was getting brighter. It wasn't green or red, but a deep blue. Like a sapphire or something similar. It looked more distant but was approaching quickly.

"And what is that? It's growing brighter. I don't like it." I said, completely serious. Looking at it made my skin crawl and feel cold.

"Foreign. Unknown. It has brushed against our connection, and while we refused it, it refuses to go away. It is like us, but unlike us. Beware it, caretaker. It approaches. It approaches and threatens. Not just us, but the beings of flesh and bone as well." My core shuddered again at it.

A thought occurred to me. "Am I going to remember any of this when I wake up? Or is it like any other dream where I have to hold on to threads of it?"

"I don't know. I'm still young, and none of the cores that speak with me have encountered anything like you, caretaker. I hope you will remember, but if you don't, part of me still resides within you. Take comfort in that. Or don't. It is your decision." It paused in silence for a long moment.

I sensed something was going on, as it felt less like a thinking pause and more like a listening pause.

"What's up, little guy?" I petted it with a finger.

"You are about to wake up. Your partner is trying to bring you out of this alchemical stupor. You are likely to be nauseous. Condolences." The core shimmered softly.

"Well, thanks, I guess. I hope they have a bucket ready." I sighed as I felt my consciousness slip away from the infinite darkness, and I watched my core return to the constellations above.

I felt the brightness of light against my closed eyes and felt someone softly shaking my body. And then much less softly.

"Bwuh? I'm awake, I'm awake, stop shaking me, or I'm gonna hurl." I groaned and sat up, and my stomach lurched dangerously. I tried to force my stomach to obey me and keep its contents.

"You alright, sweetness? Cori told me she found you in a lot of pain in an alley and brought you here." Despite my vision refusing to focus, I definitely recognized the warmth and concern of Eira's voice. I instinctively reached out to embrace her and bury my face in her neck.

"I made an oops. I stumbled on something, and I had to use some body enhancement magic, and I lost track of how much mana I was using to maintain it." I grumbled in explanation.

"Ooof, that explains the headache then. I don't recommend taking that stuff again, though. You stink." She laughed and patted my head gently.

"What the hell was that stuff anyway?" I asked, fighting again to keep my guts under control. It would not do to vomit on my girlfriend.

"No idea. I'll ask Myth later. What the hells were you doing that needed you to use body enhancement magic? In that part of town, no less." Eira asked, looking me in the eyes.

"Oh, babe, I got a lot to tell you. What time is it?" I took a look around for a timepiece, and then heard a bell in the distance announcing the time.

I swore.

"It's going to have to wait. I've got a meeting!" I said, standing up unsteadily.

"With Farina, right?" Eira said, helping me balance. "I'm coming with you. You are in no shape to do secret meetings right now."

"But it's technically a secret meeting! She might get mad and not pay me." I pouted, but I had to admit she was right. I felt super unsteady on my feet.

"I'd rather you not get paid than break your nose on the pavement. C'mon, let's get you to your meeting. Maybe I can be of some help." And without another word, she went from holding me up to carrying me in her arms, like I was some kind of princess from one of Smitty's smut novels.

I am ashamed to admit I sputtered and blushed just like said princesses too. She was really strong and carried me like I weighed nothing. I shrank in on myself and said nothing as she carried me through the night towards the campus.

I prayed no one saw us. I'm pretty good at shrugging off embarrassment, but I had a reputation to keep. Probably.

That said, I also was absolutely loving this. It almost made the migraine headache worth it.

Almost.