The dead bramblekin melted away in front of Merrick’s eyes, looking much like wax place onto a hotplate. He tried to ignore the way the eyes, or rather where the eyes used to be, were slower to melt than the rest of the creature.

  After the boar-headed bramblekin finished dissolving, Merrick found something in its place that wasn’t the copper coin he’d been expecting. No, he saw a wooden sword. The ‘blade’ was roughly three feet long and the hilt about nine inches. All in all, it reminded him greatly of the blade he usually carried, who’s empty sheath he still had strapped to his hip.

  He picked up the wooden blade and was unsurprised to find that the weight and balance were much different than his sword was. Attempting to run his finger along where the edge of a blade would be, he was shocked to find that it had some sharpness to it. Not as much as a sharpened steel blade would, but far more than he’d expect a piece of wood to.

  Unable to ignore the paranoid feeling that had been plaguing him for the previous few hours, Merrick attempted to sheath the wooden blade. With a sick, heavy feeling in his stomach, the blade slid in smoothly and perfectly filled out the sheath.

  “It’s alive. The fucking dungeon is alive, and it is spying on me.” Merrick scowled at the floor. He’d had a feeling he was being watched for some time, and this confirmed it. At first, he’d told himself it was probably because of the holes James had been drilling into the side of his head, or the oddly infatuated gaze Mary kept throwing his way, or even Rod’s every persistent way he watched everyone and everything like a hawk.

  “Whatever you are, mister or missus dungeon, I’d really like not to be trapped down here forever. I know it’s probably a lot to ask for, but if you could just tell me what you want from me and let me go about my ways I’d really appreciate it.” Merrick decided to try to plead with the dungeon.

  Though he hadn’t read anything about dungeons being sapient creatures or beings, it was well known that there was some level of intelligence in their design. He’d read a few of the common theories about what dungeons were. The one he’d previously subscribed to was that the fae controlled dungeons, mostly supported by the fact that the dungeon magics greatly resembled the way they shaped their domains in the known fae courts.

  Others thought that the dungeons were run by the Gods, some thought they were forces of nature not unlike the massive storms that plagued the coast and seas, and even others thought that the dungeons were just some variety of massive mimic evolution.

  Regardless of what the dungeon was, though, Merrick knew that it was intelligent, and it likely meant no harm to him. Well, minimal amounts of harm. No dungeon was completely safe.

  Why else had the escape tunnel been survivable? Even without his sudden gain of the [[Sledding]] skill, he probably would have lived with just a few more injuries. It had even gifted him a sword to help defend himself, one that almost exactly matched what he’d dropped above. There was also his landing zone to be considered, with it dropping him directly on top of a resource he could turn into a natural healing treasure.

  Merrick froze in thought at that moment. His feeling of paranoia had spiked, he realized, after he’d [[Merge]]d the three goodberries up above and had never completely gone away after that. He wasn’t sure how the dungeon knew he needed three identical objects for his skill when he hadn’t even known that, or even that he had the skill at all, but it had arranged for them to run into the bush.

  “Is it the gooderberry that you want? I can give you one right now, just show me a way out!” Merrick yelled to the dungeon’s ceiling. Although he was a bit manic and excited to learn more about his skill, he was having a hard time not panicking about the idea of being a captive.

  His own voice echoed back at him, followed by some distant crashing that reminded him that he was still located in a hostile terrain. Even if the dungeon wanted something from him, it hadn’t stopped any of its denizens from attempting to take his life.

  Sure enough, two more bramblekin came crashing out of the bushes nearby. With his new blade in hand, after unsheathing it of course, he was able to dispatch them both relatively easily. Even though they didn’t have the same pig-head the last one had, being a snake and a rodent of some variety, they both had the same problem slowing down from their charge.

  With his arm still ringing from the jarring impact of slamming his wooden sword down on another wooden surface in the form of the bramblekin spines, Merrick leaned down to rip the horns off their faces before letting them fade away.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

  The creatures dissolved away, leaving two identical swords where their spines had been located. One of them even dropped a copper coin as well, for no reason Merrick could determine.

  The dungeon had not sent him a sign on how to get out, but he couldn’t help but assume that it was still trying to speak to him. It wanted him to [[Merge]] the blades, of that he was sure. The only question was did he want to do what the entity was essentially demanding of him.

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  Merrick stopped for a moment to consider if his issues with authority extended their feelers into this new territory. Was he really going to listen to his would-be captor? The worse it could do would be throw never ending waves of monsters at him until he fell of exhaustion or outright died in combat.

  “Right then, [[Merge]]”

  [Merge Successful. One T2 Brambleblade Merged.]

  [SML: ::99%, GRW Mod: 0%, GTR Mod: 0%, RFN Mod: 0%, CFT Mod: 0%. TP: 99% See More…]

  The blade now in Merrick’s hands had somehow not grown in size like everything else he’d merged successfully up to that point. On one hand, that was good because it meant it would still fit into his sheath and his attack range would still be what he was used to. On the other hand, however, it was an inconsistent data point and that bothered him greatly.

  After a few swings with the blade, Merrick decided that although it hadn’t visibly grown it had definitely increased in mass. Apart from that, the edge looked like it might be a bit sharper and the wood had darkened in color. It went from the color of a peanut to.. a slightly darker peanut, he supposed. There wasn’t much of a change if he was being honest with himself. At the very least though, the weight was much closer to what he was used to.

  It was just as well, since the dungeon spawn were still responding to his call. Several waves of bramblekin charged him, one or two at a time, and he spent the next hour or so fighting for his life. By the time he was done, his pants-turned-shorts were all but missing and only barely covering his delicate bits. He was also bleeding from several locations and had ripped open every scab that had tried to form.

  “Bottoms up,” Merrick ate one of the three gooderberries he’d merged and was thankful that he had two more should he need them. He did his best to ignore the uncomfortable sensation of heatwaves and itching as he went around twisting off horns and throwing them into a pile near his bag. By the time he was done, the healing was mostly done. He pulled up his resource pools as he went around and started to collect the swords that had dropped as well as the few and far between copper coins.

  - Health: 71%

  - Stamina: 32%

  - Magicka: 77%

  His magicka wasn’t like to regenerate until he found time to either sleep or [[Meditate]], having been expended in the fight with the first bramblekin. He’d not needed to risk the [Smooth Knot] spell since getting his new sword, which was good since there was no way he’d be able to keep up that level of expenditure of magicka. He made a mental note that the gooderberries didn’t restore stamina or magicka, only health. With a concentrated effort on skin regeneration, if he didn’t miss his guess.

  Merrick looked at the pile of swords and did a quick count.

  “Twenty four swords, twenty seven if you count the three that went into forming my current blade. Some [[Quick Math]] tells me that’s three cubed.” Merrick sighed to himself, feeling some of his mania slip away.

  “You know, I don’t know if you can understand or even hear me, but I’ve always had a terrible habit. Even if I want to do something, or am actively working on something, being told to do that thing makes me not want to do it. It’s almost instantly, really. Takes the wind right out of my sails, so to speak.

  “It’s even more annoying, because I would have gotten around to doing this on my own. There's no reason to keep throwing these things at me, I was going to try and merge the horns I collected on the first floor anyways.”

  Merrick was conflicted. There was nothing more that he’d wanted for the last five years than for someone to just give him the answer to his skill. To solve the problem for him so he could figure out what class was best for him and move on with his life. But now that the dungeon was actively helping him solve his skill, nearest he could tell, he just wanted it to stop.

  Instead of merging the swords right away, Merrick took a seat to contemplate.

  “Why am I so bothered?”

  It didn’t take too long, Merrick had always been rather good at introspection. It was because he’d gotten so far on his own and he felt like the dungeon was cheating him of his experience. He’d gotten so close to figuring it out on his own and now the damned thing was swooping in at the finish line to try and get partial credit.

  It was a silly reason to be upset, he decided. Knowing now what was bothering him, he was able to ignore the irritation and get on doing what he should.

  [Merge Successful…]

  [Merge Successful…]

  [Merge Successful. One T3 Brambleblade Merged.]

  [Merge Successful…]

  [Merge Successful…]

  …

  [Merge Successful. One T4 Brambleblade Merged.]

  The blade was now much closer to the balance and weight he was used to. The color now reminded him more of a chestnut nightstand he’d seen in his parent’s bedroom growing up, and had streaks of a darker brown grain that ran along the edge of the blade and glinted almost like it was metallic.

  A quick glance at his status showed that his health had ticked up another percent but nothing else had changed. He found himself frustrated, not for the first time, that he had no clue what resource his body was expending to use his innate skill.

  He was able to feel the fatigue when he did too many consecutive merges but it didn’t use magicka, health, or stamina. Even though the consumption of whatever the mystery resource was had reduced greatly after discovering how to correctly use his skill, he’d noticed that he was having to push himself farther and harder with each subsequent merge.

  It wasn’t quite exponential, he discovered, but there was certainly a curve to it. With a scowl and a little light critical thinking, he realized that the higher tier materials he was merging the more of whatever invisible resource pool he was utilizing got expended.

  Luckily, whatever the resource pool was it seemed to regenerate faster than stamina. Already he felt refreshed and only slightly sore. It was akin to lifting weights, he decided. If he pushed harder and faster, it got more difficult rapidly but so long as he was taking breaks between his sets, so to speak, he could get more work done.

  With no more bramblekin coming to attack him, it was time to take a break from experimenting with his innate skill. Merrick packed away his meager belongings, including all 27 of his new bramblekin horns alongside the 9 already in his pack. It was time to explore around the cave to see if he could locate an exit.

  Preferably one that led upwards.