“So, what exactly are we looking at?” Quin asked.

  Leo poked the carcass, frowning to himself. “This is bad. Really bad.”

  The rotting carcass of what had probably been a goblin stained the ground, one arm ripped off and its skin covered in thin silvery teeth. And yet, it hadn’t fully disintegrated.

  “Is that still alive?” I asked.

  Leo smashed his fist through its head, and the poor goblin blew apart in a puff of smoke.

  “Neurotoxins,” Leo muttered. “Nasty stuff. A small dose kills over a period of days, if not weeks.” He shot a glare in my direction. “Would’ve been nice to know that thing had a weapon like that.”

  I thought back. “Yeah no, Neurotoxin is definitely new.”

  Leo glowered. “Explain.”

  “I got hit several times, and nothing happened to me,” I stated. “No toxins, no nothing.”

  For a moment, Leo remained silent, pondering over the given information.

  Then he groaned, hands over his face.

  “Are you…okay?” I asked.

  “This Core can gain abilities,” Leo grumbled. “And that’s not the worst part.”

  “Then what is?” Dexten asked, popping over.

  Leo gestured to the smoldering trails of mana. “That core definitely bit into one of its own creatures.”

  Dexten squinted. “And that's not normal?”

  “It’s ridiculous!” Leo snapped. “The dungeon is an extension of the Core! It might as well be eating its own arms!”

  “Some people resort to eating themselves when they have no other food,” Throttle said, with a shrug. “Is the core starving?”’

  “That’s ridiculous,” Leo hissed. “Cores build their dungeons on areas with naturally high mana, which they feed off until they get too big, and have to move to a new, stronger mana hotspot.”

  “And hotspots don’t run out of mana?” I asked.

  “Never,” Leo said. “But it’s a little more complicated than that. A Core builds its room on the most mana-dense section of the dungeon. Cores can’t channel mana, so they’re forced to stay there.

  I hesitated. “Then how do they leave the dungeon?”

  “Cores can mutate themselves to adapt to outworld conditions, but it makes them drastically weaker, and drastically more vulnerable," Leo said, grabbing his face. “I’ll bet Ardenidi forced the mana out of its shell, and the Core was forced to retreat back up to the second level.”

  In my head, the pieces started to connect.

  “If it couldn’t get up to the second level,” I started, “it’d have to eat the dungeon or the monsters in the dungeon, in order to get itself the energy to return.”

  Leo let out a groan. “It should go without saying that this strategy is horrendously dangerous. I’ve fought seven three-star cores, understand?” Leo snapped. “This behavior does not happen. It does not happen! If a core leaves its throne room then the entire dungeon starts to crumble! And the dungeon uses magic to control the entrance portal! Do you have any idea how much mana that would take for even a simple dimensional state change? Even in a mutated state, it shouldn’t have nearly enough mana to sustain itself!

  “So this Core is totally nuts,” Quin mumbled.

  “How long would the Core have to wait on the second level, before it’s ready to fight again?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” Irion said. “I can’t imagine it’ll be more than a day.” Irion said, kneeling down to the floor and picking a silvery needle-tooth off the ground. “Until then, we need a plan.”

  Leo nodded, poking me in the shoulder.. “Grind, you can do a time loop thing, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many times have we done this dungeon?”

  I blinked.

  Leo scowled. “I’m asking if we’ve already died here before, nimrod. For all I know we’ve already tried and failed this dungeon a hundred times.”

  “They died,” I said, pointing to Dexten, then to Mall and Cierin, who were entertaining Sern. “But this is our party’s first time here.”

  “Well that’s a relief,” Dexten chuckled. “It could be a lot worse, you know.”

  “Not by much,” Leo grumbled.

  Dexten rolled his eyes. “Look on the bright side. We’ve got that one girl, don’t we? The one with the moss?----”

  “Ardenidi?” I asked.

  “Our raid captain is a woman, not a ‘girl,’” Leo huffed.

  “Yeah whatever Leo,” Dexten grunted, swatting the thought away. “But didn’t you notice the Dungeon Core was trying to make her leave? It opened the portal for her and everything.”

  “Which Ardenidi declined.”

  “Yes Leo, that was very respectable of her. But my point is this. The dungeon is strong and smart, but it has limits.” Dexten cackled, rubbing his hands together. “Being the world's greatest physicist doesn’t mean much if you get hit by a train.”

  I grimaced. “That’s an odd way of putting it.”

  Dexten said, “So we find a way around the toxin and then just hit it really, really hard until it doesn’t get back up.”

  Irion slid the edge of the tooth over his finger.

  {Irion : (-0) 120 Hp}

  [Neurotoxin III applied]

  His hand went rigid for a moment, before a new notification appeared.

  [{Irion} has resisted {Neurotoxin III}]

  [{Neurotoxin III} has been removed]

  “That’s new,” I said.

  He flexed his hands, then slid the needle back over them. This time, it was a much faster response.

  {Irion : (-0) 120 Hp}

  [Neurotoxin III applied]

  ~

  [{Irion} has resisted {Neurotoxin III}]

  [{Neurotoxin III} has been removed]

  “It’s a skill,” Irion stated. “Cleansing II. But it doesn’t work on other people, but it’ll handle most toxins. Maybe I could be some sort of bait?”

  Eere hobbled over, rubbing her eyes. She made vague gestures toward Quin, and he groaned.

  “Eere thinks you’re all being stupid,” Quin muttered. “She has magic that copies an effect onto someone else. We’ll copy the immunity onto someone so they can fight the core.

  “Then we’ll put it on Leo,” Irion stated. “He’s the strongest.”

  Leo huffed, rising to his feet. “Ardenidi is the strongest. We'll find her first.”

  Quin winced. “You sure she’s still alive?”

  “If that thing could kill her,” Leo started, “then we’re all dead.”

  “I hate toxins,” I muttered. “There was one dungeon Core we fought in, just a couple days ago, and it had something like this.”

  “Did it?” Leo asked.

  “Yeah, but it was a horrendously weak little pile of dirt, so it couldn’t really use the ability.”

  “I hate dungeon Cores,” Leo murmured. “They always make things so complicated.”

  Throttle perked up. “You too?”

  “Grind? Could you come over here?” Cierin asked. “Serenity’s acting weird.”

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  Sern held her hands to her ears, face pressed to the ground.

  “Be quick, Grind.” Leo huffed.

  “I know,” I said over a shoulder. “Sern? Can you hear me?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s the problem?”

  Sern shook, burying her head in her arms. Beads of cold sweat ran down her skin, dripping to the floor.

  “...Sern?” I asked.

  Leo cleared his throat. “We can’t wait around much longer. It’s time to get moving.”

  I sighed, reaching down. “I’m going to pick you up, now, Sern. Is that okay?”

  She nodded.

  I scooped her into my arms, laying her over my shoulder. She clenched my shirt, squeezing her head against my neck.

  “Sorry,” I said, with a wince. “She’s not usually like this.”

  Irion scratched his chin. “Maybe Sern’s able to sense something we’re not picking up on. She’s a monster, technically.”

  Dexten walked around, to my back, smiling at Sern. “Sern, are there monsters nearby?”

  She nodded.

  “Are there a lot of them?”

  She nodded again.

  “Could you point to where they are?”

  She pointed straight into a wall.

  Dexten blinked. “Sern. That’s a wall.”

  Sern insisted, jabbing in that direction.

  Irion sighed. “Either the monster’s a wall—”

  “—wildly unlikely,” Leo grumbled.

  “---then she might mean something on the other side of the wall.”

  “She can sense that?” Quin asked.

  The others shrugged.

  “Then what are we waiting for?” Throttle chuckled. She patted Bruce on the shoulder. “Give it a look, would you?”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Bruce said, tapping the wall, before nodding to himself. “There’s definitely a room behind it, and the wall doesn’t seem too thin.”

  “If there’s monsters in there, we need to inspect them,” Irion said. “Good ears, Sern. Now we’ll just need a hammer or a pickaxe—”

  Bruce punched his arm through the stone wall, grabbing onto the other side and tearing hunks out of alignment.

  My jaw dropped.

  Quin cackled, grabbing Bruce by the arm.“Since when were you so strong?!”

  “We’ve been training for a while, haven’t we?” Bruce asked. “Most people in Irion’s team have only been playing for a couple weeks, me included. Five days of decent—” he grunted, ripping another boulder out—“Decent dungeons do wonders for the body.”

  “We got all the trashy dungeons,” Throttle muttered.

  “Let me guess, forty stats?” Bruce chuckled.

  “Try fifteen.”

  He hesitated for a moment, bricks in hand. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Closer to twenty, maybe, but yeah.”

  “Unbelievable,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “Were all the dungeons that bad?”

  “Two were, till Grind found that insane dungeon with the herald,” Throttle frowned. “That one was too strong.”

  “You fought one of the Heralds?” Leo asked, genuinely surprised.

  “I guess,” I said, rubbing Sern's back. “She was made of rocks.”

  Irion let out a whistle. “Even a first level herald has to be a rough fight. You’re either the gutsiest man I know or the stupidest.”

  “Definitely the stupidest.” Mall snorted.

  “You weren’t even there,” I grumbled. “I was in peak form.”

  Bruce halted, grabbing onto pieces of metal tubing, lodged into the walls. “Hey, could I get some help over here?”

  “You heard him,” Leo said, grabbing me by the shoulder. “Give the man some help.”

  I glanced down at Sern. “But—”

  “I wasn’t asking, runt,” he huffed. “Focus and get to work.”

  I sighed, leaning my head against Sern.

  Truth was, I could do a lot more without my hands occupied, and if I was helping Bruce, this would be a lot safer. We were going straight into a pitch-black room in the middle of a two-star dungeon, after all. There was a decent chance this could lead us right to the Core.

  “Sern, I need to work,” I whispered. “Can you walk on your own?”

  She shook her head.

  I glanced at Dexten, who grinned.

  “I’ll take her.”

  “Sern,” I asked. “Would you like someone else to carry you?”

  An impish grin covered Sern’s face. She pointed to Quin, who promptly gagged.

  “Me?!”

  Leo clapped him on the back. “Carry the girl, runt.”

  Quin glowered, cradling Sern in his arms. She made cackling sounds, snuggling into his shoulder.

  Throttle gave Quin a pat on the back. “You’re doing great.”

  “Thank you,” Quin hissed through gritted teeth.

  After wrenching the metal out of the way, Bruce and I had widened the hole to the point Leo could squeeze through.

  Once we were all on the other side, Eere cast a fireball into her hands, swelling the blackness with orange light.

  Other than rot and mold, the hallway was empty. The air, however, was not; swollen with the telltale stench of monster blood.

  “Keep your guard up,” Leo grunted.

  “No fair,” Quin mumbled. He adjusted his hold on Sern, doing the best he could to retain whatever shred of dignity he still had. She, in turn, did her best to flop about, forcing him to keep adjusting his grip. “Grind always seems so regal holding onto you.”

  Sern poked him in the stomach, and he staggered.

  “What was that for?!”

  “QUIN!” Leo barked, whirling toward him. He held a shaking finger to his lips, face red with anger. “Quiet.”

  “Of course.” Quin smiled nervously. “Of course.”

  “And adjust your hold on Sern,” he grumbled. “She’s slipping.”

  Sern remained in his arms, eyes closed, though there were whispers of a smile on her face.

  “Scared, huh?” Quin bickered. “She seems fine to me.”

  Eere appeared next to Quin, scowling. She nudged his arms, adjusting Sern so that she had a head on his shoulder with his arms holding her up. Eere nodded to herself, satisfied with her assistance, and wandered ahead, sinking into the darkness.

  Quin sputtered. “Eere, you’re not gonna leave me alone with an—”

  Leo snapped back, glaring.

  Quin smiled weakly.

  Leo sighed. “Keep walking, slowpoke.”

  Quin turned to Throttle, but she shrugged. “You were always a bit of a jerk, Quin. This could be an excellent time to build some character."

  Quin hunched. “Wonderful.”

  “Slowpoke.”

  “I’ll gouge your eyes out, devil woman.”

  Sern nuzzled into his neck, smiling.

  “I hate this dungeon,” Quin whimpered. “I hate it I hate it I hate it.”

  Bruce held up a fist, stopping me with his other arm. The rest of the party slowed down, peering around.

  “Don’t take another step,” Bruce muttered. He guested for the floating ball of fire. Eere cast another on the stone, revealing a glistening metal wire, strung from one wall to the other.

  Bruce grunted. “Tripwire.”

  “That’s all?” Dexten asked, with relief. “Please. Tripwires are dungeon 101.”

  He went to step over, before Bruce grabbed him, hosting the boy into the air, and back on safe ground.

  “The floors are trapped too,” Bruce stated, pointing.

  There were markings on the tiles, laced with some minor amount of mana.

  He reached over, tracing one with his finger. “Irion?”

  Irion frowned. “It’s a glyph, with a spell of some sort, probably to ward off the monsters from these areas, otherwise they’d activate the traps. As for the trap, I don’t think there’s a seal from the wall to the floor, so maybe a pitfall? Also, the floor in front of us has a stone plate, and there’s another one beyond that.”

  Leo huffed. “I’m glad we’ve got a couple competents in our team. What do we do?”

  “We could just jump over it all,” Bruce said, with a shrug.

  Quin started beaming. “Well, I can’t jump with Sern in my arms, so Grind why don’t you hold onto her—”

  Bruce chucked him over the traps, to safe, solid ground.

  Quin sank to his knees. “I can’t win this.”

  Sern giggled.

  Jumping over was relatively easy, since the tripwire and the two plates had been clumped together. On the other side, the Eere was able to do some wizardry magic, and disabled the traps.

  The traps themselves weren’t much of an issue, though it was concerning to see this much forethought from a creature of stone and metal.

  Quin stopped walking.

  “What, runt?” Leo asked, snorted fumes, glaring, and Quin backed up, one hand in surrender.

  “She’s doing it again,” Quin whined.

  Sern clutched onto his shirt, ripping his wooly cape with her nails.

  “Hey!” Quin hissed, trying to pull her off, but Sern refused, wrapping her arms around his neck and latching on tighter than before.

  I rubbed Sern on the back, whispering. “Serenity?”

  She shook her head.

  I shrugged. “You guys, you don’t feel anything, do you?”

  Eere tested the air for a flow of mana, before shaking her head.

  “Well it still reeks,” Dexten grumbled. “Actually, I’d bet it's gotten worse.”

  As Eere wandered around, doing some sort of tests, she froze, staring into a doorway.

  Quin frowned. “What is it—”

  She ran forward, yanking him along, and the rest of us crowded into the narrow hallway..

  “Is that what I think it is?” Quin whispered. “Guys? Guys, what is this?”

  We crowded around the hallway, peeking in.

  Inside, there was a workshop, with benches and tables and chairs.

  Behind those, there were the corpses of hundreds of monsters, lumped together in a pile that brushed against the ceiling.

  But those were relatively insignificant to the massive crystals littering the tables and floor.

  There were fifty fully intact Dungeon Cores inside the workshop, each covered in different glyphs.

  Dexten poked Leo in the side.

  “That’s not normal, is it?”

  Leo swallowed. “No. No it isn’t.”