I Hate Dungeon School

I'm not one to be lost for words, but this was one of those rare times it's hard to explain what I was seeing.

The room was large. Very large. In terms of your typical dungeon, it was the sort of room that held either the major monster of a dungeon or held the core itself.

And this was true in this case as well, but in the most wrong way possible. In the center of the room was something that looked like a core, but it wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination. It was a sickly red, its throbbing light making it feel more like a wound than anything else. Where a core usually was smooth or shimmered like water, this was jagged, like a crystal that shifted in razor edges. The mana that poured off it felt like rancid grease.

From it were what looked like tendrils at first, but I realized were some kind of thorny vine. My eyes followed those hateful strands to the true source of my horror. Each one is attached to something strapped to the walls. In the red light, I almost couldn't tell what it was, but as my eyes adjusted, I realized what it was.

They were people. Young, old, human, elf, dwarf, drakekin, bastetian, every Mortal race. They were bound, and the tendrils wrapped around their throats. Set into each of their chests was a small crystal that was at once horrifyingly familiar. It was like the strange gemstone that Cavendish had during that disastrous wedding of my sister's.

"What in all the hells am I looking at?" Mariana broke the silence first with a sickened whisper, muffled by her mask.

"I'm not a religious person, but this is the closest thing to blasphemy I can think of." Cori nearly growled the words.

"Smitty doesn't like the smell of this place. No no." The kobold's ears were flat against her head, and her fur bristled. Smitty didn't scare easily, but she was very much on edge.

"I was afraid of this. I had hoped beyond hope it was just a rumor and the knights and mages were up to some usual political trickery, but this...this is beyond the pale. This is monstrous." Noah's usual demeanor had completely shifted to one of anger and contempt.

"What are you talking about, Scarletti?" Myth turned to him.

"There had been talk for a long time that some of the Knight orders had been working with the Mages Concord on a variety of experiments with dungeons and their cores for a variety of purposes. Rumors varied between trying to make their own dungeons, making magically enhanced warriors with absolute loyalty, mind control experiments, and the like. So much of it seemed like mad conspiracy theories, but when I see this, it might have been so mad at all." The knight approached one of the bodies and looked at it sadly.

"Some of these folks are from the missing persons posters I've seen around town. There are rewards offered for finding them, too. Some of these folks have been missing for months now. How the hells long have the Knights been doing this?" Eira said as she circled the room.

I sat there and took everything in for a long moment, and felt a strange nudging from the little sliver in my soul. I couldn't understand what my core was trying to say, not in a waking sense, but I felt I could guess at it.

"We have to destroy this thing. I don't know exactly what it's doing to these people, but I have a feeling we can save them if we destroy this False Core thing." I said, pointing at the pulsing red horror in the center of the chamber.

"Are you insane, Alta? What if it sets off a Chaos Dragon? Or something worse!" Mariana sputtered at my suggestion.

"It won't. Probably. Maybe. Listen, I just got a gut feeling ok! This wouldn't be the first core we've destroyed!" I replied, frustrated.

"We only beat that one because your little pet core ATE IT! We don't have one of those now, do we?!" The blonde elf spat back angrily.

"Shut your face, Togalli, for one gods-damned second and let me explain! Look, these crystals are embedded in everyone? They're exactly like the crystal stuck in those knights' backs at the wedding. I think they're making more of whatever those are. I don't know why, but we have to stop them somehow! Just three of those things caused a ludicrous amount of damage. We have, what, thirty more people here? And what if they've made them stronger since Cavendish?" I said the words spilling out of me in a mad panic.

And I was panicked, that was for sure. I barely survived my fight against Cavendish, and that was with the help of my full party. The idea of thirty Cavendishes chilled me to my bones. The Mages Concord and the rebel Everspring, and what remained of the Obsidian Gauntlet, were clearly not the kind of folks to have moral qualms about causing mass amounts of death for whatever the hells their goal was here.

"She's right. This is bigger than just trying to sway votes about Harpies. This is part of something larger and darker than we thought. We have to do something." Farina focused a determined gaze on the core.

"But what if it kills us all?" Cori joined the conversation. "This thing could explode and kill us, kill Revenstahd, or worse. I don't know shit about magic and all that, but I'm sure we are not equipped for this. We should get help or something. We are underequipped and underprepared for all of this ptarm-shit!"

"If we leave now, they might have something worse up their sleeves. We don't have the luxury of time right now." Adhara's voice cut us all off.

We stood there in silence. I think we all realized she was right.

Eventually, Eira sighed, put her hands on her hips, and looked at the ceiling.

"So, I'm going to guess I'm the only one with core-breaking knowledge? You all haven't really gotten into those classes yet, right?"

"No. That's a second-year class, right?" Myth replied for us. "And really only for those going into the really advanced dungeoneering stuff."

"Got it. Ok. I guess I'm in charge now. Knights and secretaries, please back away to the entrance. If things go poorly, you might be able to escape. Probably not, but the thought is nice." Eira ordered, her usual easy-going nature turning completely professional.

In any other situation, I would have thought it incredibly sexy. Ok, I still did, but now was not the time for thoughts like that.

Eira gave us each instructions in quick order. Mariana was to prepare healing spells for quick release in case of sudden mana energy spikes, which could cause injuries. Cori was to see if she could disconnect the tendrils from the people so there wouldn't be magical feedback from the Core. Myth had been tasked with summoning a magical barrier around Eira while she worked. Smitty was put in charge of making sure the Knights and Farina were protected in case things went badly.

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She knelt down in front of the core and pulled out a little tool kit full of things that looked similar to a dungeoneer's pruning kit, with some exceptions.

"So what do I do?" I asked, feeling a bit left out.

"You've got a very important role here. When I give you the signal, you're going to dump as much mana as you can manage into your Ice Moon sword there, and encase the core in ice. Normally, I'd ask you to do a freezing spell or something, but I hate to say it, beloved, but your sword can probably get colder than your magic by itself." Eira said with a sympathetic pat on my shoulder.

"Good point. If we survive this, I really need to double down on my magic training, huh?" I grimaced, the expression hidden behind my mask.

"That you do. It'll give us something to do during summer break other than make out all the time. Even though I do rather enjoy doing that."

Everyone got in their positions. The room was quiet except for the soft thrum of the core and the soft chanting and praying of Mariana and Myth. I could feel their energies flowing through the room, and everything seemed to be going as planned. Cori moved quickly, and with deft cuts with a blade, the human severed the tendrils. I felt a pang of concern as some of the people attached slumped, but I had to hope it was something we could take care of later.

I watched as the tendrils shriveled and crumbled just past the barrier Myth had placed.

Soon, it was just Eira and me with the False Core.

"So how exactly do we go about this?" I asked nervously.

"Alta, my sweetest of sweets, as much as I'd love to explain, I'm really going to need to focus. I'll go over it later." She said sternly.

"If we survive," I muttered. She held up a finger at my words.

"No. We will survive. No negative thinking. Stay positive. Or at the very least, insist on surviving even if it's out of spite. No giving up." She was firmer than I had ever heard her.

I had to marry this woman.

She walked around the core slowly, sometimes ducking down to look at something or another. I couldn't even begin to fathom what she was seeing or thinking.

As she did her examinations, I focused on my mana, running through some spell poems I used to help myself channel more easily.

The repetition helped me calm down and relax my breathing, which helped my mana flow to where it needed to go. Often, I pulled my mana from my reservoir and then directed it, but I needed it ready to use in a split second.

It took some effort, but I got the mana to flow from my center to my hand, which held Ice Moon at the ready, point aimed at the floor. I was ready. She just needed to give me the word, and I would leap into action.

I watched Eira as she seemed satisfied by what she saw. She knelt and pulled out something that looked like a spike of pale yellow crystal, and a very tiny hammer made out of some kind of metal that shimmered like silver water.

She began to hum something, and I could feel her mana flow from her, and the tools she carried began to resonate. The sound was at once beautiful and painful as the resonance caused something in my ears to hurt. I could feel the tiny dungeon core sliver that had clung to me also shrink at the sound. It was curious, but I pushed the thought from my mind. I had to be ready.

Carefully, she placed the spike at a small spot near the bottom of the core. Her song hit a particularly high note as she drove it in, the hammer sounding like a percussive accompaniment. The hammer rang like a bell on a winter's night.

She then stopped and watched the spike carefully. Despite the ringing and the thrum, I could hear a crack, like a frozen lake under the careless tread of an explorer.

She took a deep breath, let out yet another note, followed by another blow of the hammer. This time, I could see the cracks; they spread through the core like a spider's web, racing across its diameter. The red light began to flare, the mana from it pouring out like rotten molasses. It took a lot of willpower to keep myself steady.

Eira hit it one more time and gave me the signal.

Without hesitation, I let my mana loose into Ice Moon and spoke the word to unleash its power. "Einfrieren."

The core began to shatter and blaze like a small sun, just as the ice sheathed it. The ice steamed and melted almost as fast as I could summon it. It was a tug of war between the unnatural heat of the dying false core and my magical ice, but I refused to be bested. I wouldn't lose it. I wouldn't lose Eira or my friends or even the knights and Farina. I wouldn't let this abomination burn away the evidence of the sins happening in this thrice-damned basement.

I focused. I focused everything I had into maintaining the deep cold of Ice Moon. I felt my mana draining, but I held firm.

Soon, the ice stopped steaming, the sheets of pure cold thickening around the red glow, which faded more and more before ceasing altogether.

The frozen sphere fell to the ground with a satisfying thud.

"Well, that did it. Good work, everyone! We didn't die!" Eira called out. Everyone collectively let out a sigh of relief and released their various spells.

"Let's not do that again for a while, yeah?" I said as I slumped to the ground, feeling absolutely spent.

"Here you go. This will help. Learned how to make these recently." Myth came up to me and handed me a bottle.

"What is it?" I said, unstopping it and blanching a bit at the scent. It smelled like apples mixed with soap and manure.

"Mana potion mixed with health potion. Took some work to figure out how to get the two to mix without exploding. Or turning your hair pink. Don't ask." She said, before giving one to Mariana and Eira. Mariana refused, saying holy magic didn't work like that, but Myth insisted.

"We need to take care of these people, huh? They may be free of whatever that core was doing, but the crystals are still embedded in their chests, and they don't look like they're doing so great." I noted as I chugged the potion, which tasted exactly how it smelled.

"I'm not sure what we can do. I got a feeling this is connected somehow to the people in town. The dryad experiments we found, plus whatever this is, could explain the strange behavior from the guards in town, and the others we've seen suffering from strange effects. I'm not sure if getting them out of here is the safer option. Also, why isn't the dungeon changing? We destroyed that core." Farina noted as she checked on the people.

"That...is true. The dungeon, at the very least, should have shifted. But nothing has happened." Eira commented.

"Which means two things. Either that wasn't the main core, or this wasn't a dungeon and was purpose-built. Neither really makes sense, though. I can't sense regular dungeon mana now, and that thing we fought earlier was very clearly a dungeon monster." I thought aloud.

Our discussion was interrupted by one of the walls sliding open.

We all turned to face it and saw in the doorway a robed figure flanked by two individuals. A green armored knight and a black armored one. The heraldry of the Everspring and the Obsidian Gauntlet is clear on their pauldrons.

"Intruders! They've destroyed the project! Dispatch them! I have to tell the Magister!" The robed figure turned and fled down a dark hallway.

"Just what we needed!" Cori shouted with frustration before drawing her crossbow and shooting at the fleeing figure, the bolt knocked out of the air by the knight with a swipe of their arm.

I struggled to my feet, still a bit woozy from the magic I channeled earlier. Eira raised her fists. Myth and Mariana moved to put some space between them and these new foes. Myth readying a spell, and Mariana readying a short bow.

Suddenly, Smitty surged past all of us and slammed into the foremost of the two knights like an armored avalanche. She shoved them off their feet, causing them to crash onto the floor.

"Wicked armored men do not threaten my pack! Smitty protect! Smitty kill you!" She roared, with more fury than I had ever seen from her when dealing with monsters, either in the wild or in the dungeon.

The knights scrambled back down the revealed hallway, and instead of continuing the battle, turned to flee Smitty's onslaught and bolted away with surprising speed.

"After them! We can't let them alert any others!" Noah shouted. Cori and Mariana nodded and fired in unison, catching both of them in the knee.

They crumpled to the floor loudly, like a pile of pots and pans falling from a shelf.

"We got these two! Catch the mage!" Adhara ordered as she and Noah quickly moved to subdue the two knights as they thrashed in pain.

I nodded and motioned to my party.

"C'mon, gals! We got a mage to catch!"