Elijah struggled to get to his feet. His head was spinning, and his ears were ringing. He had to get to the firepit, the location of the source of the Fire Golem’s existence. As his eyes focused, he found the creature. It had been blown to the other side of the room, and its flames had dimmed significantly, revealing a core of charred timber within the flames. That must have been what he had hit with his bats. A lucky break that it had been summoned that way and not been a creature of pure fire and plasma.

  His eyes dropped to the fire pit, and his stomach sank. Whatever had been inside—the structured piece of code that had called to him—was gone. Everything within the pit was gone—the ash, the timber, the item. He searched around, but he couldn’t sense it like he had before. Like it had been eliminated from existence. But the golem was still here; it had to be somewhere.

  Doubt crept into his mind. What if he’d been wrong?

  A bloodcurdling scream came from beside him. The scream of a dryad. He knew it all too well from his time in the trials of the Heartwood Glade. The sound of a dryad in pain would haunt him for the rest of his life. He rushed over to Bitter Dryad trying to figure out what was wrong. The creature’s health was dangerously low, but that was almost normal for his familiars. He was lying on his side with his back to Elijah.

  Elijah slid onto the ground beside his familiar, grabbing his shoulder and rolling him over. He didn’t understand what kind of wound could make him scream like this.

  Then he saw it.

  [Item]

  Elementalist’s Focus (Fire)

  Tier: Master

  Description: Boosts the effectiveness of fire-type spells while reducing their mana cost.

  A red gemstone, so similar to the one that Mercer had shown him in the underbelly of Klade, stuck out of Bitter Dryad’s chest. It glowed with an internal light, like the fire golem burned inside of it. Dryad’s skin around the wound was charred, and the scent of burning wood and cooking meat invaded Elijah’s nose. This gemstone was burning hot and lodged inside his familiar. He didn’t know if the gem was creating its own internal heat, or if it was from the firepit; all he knew was that it was causing Dryad immense pain.

  He could sense the structured, orderly code now. It was emanating from the Elementalist’s focus.

  His thoughts raced, and panic set in as he looked over the wound. Could he risk pulling it out? Would the heat from the crystal burn Elijah? Would it kill Bitter Dryad?

  No, that was the wrong way to think. This was a game, even if it felt so real. Even though Bitter Dryad seemed so alive.

  He reached for his connection to the miniature dryad and cancelled the link. The creature’s screams cut off as he dissipated in a puff of mana and the gemstone dropped to the ground.

  He reached out and gripped it firmly, the heat from the crystal burning his fingers and palm. He could sense the power inside, but it felt different from the focus that had been held by Mercer. Like it had been changed. Grown. It had become something more than a simple focus.

  He felt the heat of the golem getting closer to him. If this were the source of the golem, he had to act fast. Something deep within him was pushing against the back of his mind. An instinct that he had tried to suppress. A feeling he’d tried to forget about.

  In this gemstone, there was a trapped entity, bound by the actions of the shaman and forced to control the golem.

  The entity loved Elijah, and he loved it.

  It was a sliver of the Core AI for this dungeon. Something had gone very wrong. An elementalist’s focus should never have appeared in this dungeon, never have been brought in. It wasn’t designed for this. Its creations didn’t know how to handle this uniquely powerful item. The grey shamans, in their attempt to bind the ‘ancestral spirits’ of their home to the focus, the grey shamans had inadvertently split the core and created a monster.

  It begged Elijah to free it and remove the threat of the golem from the dungeon it loved and so meticulously maintained.

  He grabbed the focus in both hands, even as the heat from the golem scorched his back, and twisted. The gemstone itself remained unaffected, but he could feel the code in his hands as if it were a solid entity. He tore the code from the focus, activating his ‘Core Breaker’ skill.

  Behind him, the golem let out a high-pitched screech of pain as lines of magic spider-webbed across its body. The golem burst, blasting flames around the room that dissipated quickly.

  He could sense the code that he had torn from the focus; it was seeping through the stone of the floor like water. Working its way down to the true dungeon core hidden somewhere far below. Elijah thought it was strange that it could act like a physical but unseen thing. The logic of these things was strange, but this was a game world. A broken game world.

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  Elijah considered the gemstone in his hands. It was his fault that this focus had wound up here. If he hadn’t caused the catastrophic glitch that had trapped everyone here that had also killed everyone at the same time. The game’s code had become horribly corrupted due to his actions, and not even the low-level AIs of the dungeon cores were safe now from the destructive effects of his actions.

  Astoria was larger than the planet Earth, with significantly less water covering the surface as well. That meant that all over this planet, little vignettes like this one could be playing out. Game-breaking bugs cropping up due to his actions. Likely there wasn’t anyone else able to fix these glitches, and with the developers completely locked out, that meant that these problems could propagate and grow. One misplaced Elementalist Focus had led to a completely broken enemy being spawned in. What did that mean for the rest of the players in the wider world?

  His focus came back to him as he stashed the Focus in his inventory. The palms of his hands were badly burned, but they were slowly healing as his body naturally regenerated.

  A decision had to be made. He had what he had come for and could return to the Thieves Guild, but he could sense there was more to this dungeon. After all, he still hadn’t found the boss monster somewhere far below. Compared to the Fire Golem, whatever waited for him should be easy.

  His mana was just below half now and regenerating quickly, just shy of one point every three seconds. His health had been damaged, but that wasn’t something he couldn’t mitigate. It wasn’t the worst idea for him to keep going. Perhaps he could even collect some good loot along the way. They were still in the market for some good gear that Elijah could amplify. Whether finding it here in a dungeon or finding something he could sell or trade, it could benefit his friends.

  His friends came to his mind as he considered his options. Were they worried about him? He had told them that he was just going into the city to visit the guild hall and explore a little bit. They didn’t know yet about Shyrain or the Thieves Guild. Things had just moved too fast after he’d been given this mission; he hadn’t thought to let them know what was going on.

  ”What we doing, Boss?” Bitter Root broke him from his reverie. He hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. Completely focused on getting his hands on the gemstone so that he could end the threat posed by the golem, and then letting his mind get wrapped up in other thoughts.

  He relayed the possible choices to Bitter Root and Bat, choosing to give them a say in what they did from here. Bitter Root, of course, was determined to continue on.

  ”Me want kill all greys. Dirty, ugly, filthy greys.”

  He was going to have to have a talk with the Goblin about that. Later. It made Elijah very uncomfortable that Bitter Root had such a hatred for other goblins and made it seem like it was based solely on their skin color. After all, Elijah still hadn’t seen any indication that they were really any different, and definitely no sign that the greys ate their own babies.

  ”Alright, let’s spread out and look for a way to head further into the dungeon,” he told his familiars. He considered re-summoning Bitter Dryad but wanted to put that off until he had free time to sit down with the creatures and discuss what had happened. He felt bad that his familiar had been hurt so badly and wanted to make sure he was okay before forcing him into a position where he could be hurt again.

  It didn’t take long before they’d found their way. Bitter Root’s knowledge of his kind provided valuable assistance. The path forward had been hidden behind several heavy leather racks and carefully placed boulders. This room, as Bitter Root explained it, served as a false ending to prevent adventurers from seeking to get deeper into the areas where the goblins actually lived.

  They travelled deeper, and the whole time Elijah kept a steady pressure on the connection to his familiars. He wanted their help if things escalated into combat, but he didn’t want to get dragged into another fight before he was ready, like had happened with the last chamber.

  The tunnel led deep into the mountain, as Elijah had expected from the fact the core was deeper. They passed several areas that looked like they had been living areas long ago. Rotten wooden doors hung on rusty hinges, but something felt off about them. Elijah stopped and took a close look at one. It was much shorter than a standard door—as would be expected in a goblin home—but that wasn’t what made him stop. The hinges themselves were what had caught his eye.

  They weren’t of the rough-forged style that he had seen in the human cities; they were intricate. Designs had been forged into the metal, which seemed at odds with the crudely made weapons that he’d seen from the goblins.

  Bitter Root saw him looking at the hinges and pointed to one. “See Boss? Mountain Gobs makes these. Make good iron. Got magic too.” He reached out and scratched at the rust. The hinge flashed an orange light, and when that light faded, the rust covering it fell off like dust, leaving the item pristine and shining.

  “That seems like very intricate magic for the greys to be doing. Especially for living areas, they don’t seem to be using.”

  Bitter Root shook his head. “Not greys. Greys stupid. No know how do real magic. Mountain Gobs different than other gobs. Big, furry, mean. Make good iron but not like other gobs.”

  That was interesting. Elijah had assumed that the Mountain Goblins and the greys had been the same, but this meant that there was something else going on here. A deeper story. “What happened then? Why are the Grey Goblins here instead of the Mountain ones?”

  Bitter Root shrugged his shoulders. “Mountain Gobs all go poof one day. Gone. No more. One day here, next day not.”

  There was definitely a deeper story going on here. One that Elijah wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved in. After all, there were already several storylines spread out for him. The Dragontooth Fort, the Undying Library, dealing with Arturus and the remnants of the Reaper Guild, not to mention that he still needed to make it to Celestial-tier so that he could log everyone out.

  Just as he was going over all those quest lines in his head, a new text box appeared in his vision, like the game was reading his mind.

  [New Quest]

  Mountain Goblins

  Description: An entire race vanished in a single night long ago. Now their story can only be told through the artifacts that remain. Find out what happened.

  He groaned, catching the attention of his familiars. He really didn’t need yet another quest, but if the AI was allowing this one through after deleting the one that Jefflan had tried to give to him about Raystown, then that must mean that he was still on the right track.