A burst of steam shot from the Core’s rocky shell as it split, revealing a thinner, shorter form than before.

  “On your guards,” Ardenidi said, raising one hand.

  The Core’s new body was made of pure metal, pushing the impurities of rock, wood, and leather out to the side of its shield. In all likelihood, its new body had been built from the scrapped remains of the various weapons it’d been collecting.

  But one weapon remained.

  A massive freakishly huge broadsword, one that I’d barely seen from its fight one life ago.

  “Keep your weapons hidden,” Ardenidi hissed. “Don’t let it know what we do and don’t have.”

  The Core stepped forward, out from its shell.

  It took another step, then another, its body shifting. The hard edges became softer, and its musical build evened out, until he resembled a normal human—albeit one made of metal who frequented the gym.

  The core clicked, bristling its mouth of metal teeth, these closer in form to a humans than a porcupine's quills.

  It knelt then, offering its sword to us.

  I held back Quin, who was stepping forward.

  “What, it’s giving up!” Quin snapped.

  I raised an eyebrow. “It’s so obviously a trap”

  “I know that!” Quin barked. “I just want that sword—”

  “Quiet down, you two,” Ardenidi muttered. She kicked the sword from the Core’s hands, before aiming a spear toward its head.

  The Core bowed low.

  “You expect me to spare you?” Ardenidi asked, to which the Core nodded.

  It clicked again, ripping orbs of light from the ground, and offering those.

  Ardenidi bristled.

  “What?” Quin whispered. “What just happened?”

  “Those are Exp orbs—” I started.

  “---I know that—”

  “---taken from the dungeon itself," I said. “It’s harvesting the actual husk it uses to respawn, as a way of bargaining for its life.”

  “Those orbs, they’re worth a lot, right?” Quin asked.

  I nodded.

  The Core pulled a third lose, and the upper ceiling darkened, edges of which began to rot as their connection to mana was pried loose.

  Ardenidi struck each orb with her spear, and the Exp was released.

  {Ardenidi : (+2000) 2400/6600 Exp}

  {Ardenidi : (+1000) 3400/6600 Exp}

  {Ardenidi : (+1000) 4400/6600 Exp}

  Ardenidi nodded to herself. “That’s a good offer. It’s much more Exp than I’d get by killing you. And I assume, if I keep you alive, you’ll continue to offer a portion of your Exp to me, yes?”

  The Core hastily nodded.

  “Which means you intend to continue reaping the Exp from innocent players,yes?”

  The Core hesitated.

  That was all the time Ardenidi needed to plant her spear into its head and back out the other side, shattering brittle metal.

  “You must think me a fool, Core.”

  The Core’s mannerisms immediately shifted, and a piercing needle exploded from every inch of its skin.

  Ardenidi twitched.

  {Ardenidi : Aegis VI : (~0:05)}

  Needles parted, cracking against a clear shield of energy, which encased her entire body.

  The Core shifted again, shooting out around the shield and lunging for me and Quin, but Ardenidi caught it out of the air grabbing it by the neck, ripping its mouth open, and cramming several shrooms down its gullet, before dumping her entire reserve of mana into a single ability.

  {Ardenidi :MushroomCultivation IV : Mushrooms grow really big really fast}

  Shrooms bulged, climbing out of its metallic mouth, red veins shooting through each limb, then spreading. Energy began to swell within the husk, crackling out.

  “You will die here, monster,” Ardenidi stated, with a cold, emotionless tone. “You will die here, and you will die today. This, I swear.”

  {Ardenidi : Aegis VI : (~0:02)}

  The mushrooms flashed once.

  Twice.

  And the entire dungeon went blistering white.

  {Ardenidi : Aegis VI : (~0:01)}

  ~

  {One-Star Gauntlet of Goblins : Deactivated}

  {One-Star Gauntlet of Bogs : Deactivated}

  {Two-star Gauntlet of Stairs: Deactivated}

  [Core Pulverized : Rewards AutoCollected]

  Shimmering pieces of red and blue crystal covered the sky, twinkling in the rippling heat as the flaming corpse of metal began to smolder out.

  It had more than a single Core.

  I shivered.

  Ardenidi’s shield ability, Aegis, was a nearly invincible full-body shield, not only around herself, but the teammates next to her. As such, the force of the explosion had been parted away from us, instead gouging into the second floor.

  Where it was closer to the blast, the lower floor had become visible, the explosion eviscerating stone and metal in a lopsided range that went down several buildings in length.

  What wasn’t metal and rock that hadn’t been vaporized was hot and smoking, radiating heat.

  Ardenidi stepped away from the blast zone, adjusting the scarf around her neck. “Well. I’d call that a success.”

  {Ardenidi : (+400) 10 Str}

  “You got all the loot,” Quin muttered. “Do you know what I’ve had to go through?!”

  “You will be compensated accordingly,” Ardenidi stated. “Make no mistake.”

  “Does anyone else think that felt…easy?” I sighed.

  “Easy?” Ardenidi asked, suddenly frowning. “You had a union team, one of which graced against the absolute limits of power in this area, and still almost died. It was not easy by any means or metrics.”

  “But the Core was virtually unkillable one moment, and then the next, we’d won.”

  “That’s how a proper Dungeon Core fight goes, rookie,” Ardenidi smiled. “Perhaps you would cheer up once you see the other members of the party.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “We still don’t know what happened to them,” Quin muttered. “I wouldn’t say I’m getting worried…but you know…a natural born leader like myself has to look out for the rest of his crew.”

  Sern punched him in the leg.

  “See, the imp agrees with me.” Quin stretched, then patted me on the shoulder. “So how do we get down—”

  Ardenidi jumped into the smoking hole.

  Quin let out a sigh. “Of course—”

  I grabbed Quin and Sern and flung myself into the abyss.

  From the smoke, the first floor rose up, shrouded in smoke and dust from Ardenidi's landing.

  Before I crashed into the ground, Ardenidi broke one of her HopStoppers.

  It was like hitting a massive pillow, as all your momentum was absorbed into the shroom, scattering its spores over the dungeon.

  “Those aren’t the parasitic kind of spores, are they?” Quin asked, stumbling off of me, one hand over his nose.

  “If they were, you’d already be dead,” Ardenidi said, with a dry chuckle and a pat on his shoulder. “Let’s find the others.”

  The others had gathered around the exit portal.

  When we’d killed the Core, its spell on the portal had been removed, thus allowing everyone to leave the dungeon. Of course, when the rest of the party saw that, they realized at least someone else had survived.

  “Ardenidi!” Leo shouted, running forward.

  She grabbed him and shoved him back, clicking her tongue. “You didn’t actually expect me to be dead, did you?” Ardenidi hissed.

  Leo swallowed. “No! Of course not.”

  Ardenidi smirked. “Good to see you too, Leo. Anybody die?”

  “Thankfully not,” Leo sighed. He gestured toward the rest of our party, where they’d set up a fire, using the wood from several weapons. They’d also prepared a little bit of food, set onto a large table, which someone either took through their portal or summoned from their inventory. “Harva’s doing just fine, as you can see.”

  Harva gave a wave. One arm had been put into a sling, and the rest of her body was covered in bandages, but she could move.

  “Once the little wounds heal up, she'll be alright. Nobody from the other team died either, though there were several close calls.”

  Bruce was covered in bandages as well, one of which was made of leather, covering his back around his side, up to his chest.

  “The Core attacked us, soon after Quin left,” Bruce said. “But we managed. Besides, another hour in this regen, and all our little injuries will have healed up.”

  Harva leaned her head against Bruce, smiling. “Hey Ardenidi, did you know Bruce has Aegis?”

  Ardenidi jolted in surprise. “Level one?”

  “Yeah,” Bruce shrugged.

  “That’s quite impressive.”

  “We were just lucky to get some good dungeons,” Bruce said, trying to hide an embarrassed smile. “But thank you.”

  Dexten clapped his hands. “GRIND! I’d imagine you had something to do with our little friend, yes?”

  “Yeah,” I said, summoning a Rupert Shroom. “You just had to make it swallow something that hurts it.”

  “---And then the explosive would spread through its entire body,” Leo muttered. “Which would make it incredibly hard to remove, even for a shapeshifter. That was some good thinking.”

  He glanced at Ardenidi. “I don’t suppose we can take him for our team?”

  Ardenidi scoffed. “He’s barely a Tin. Give the boy a couple ‘respawns’ and then we’ll talk.”

  Quin sat at the breakfast table, stuffing his face. Sern poked him in the shoulder.

  “Mph Math?” Quin groaned.

  Sern gave him a hug, and Quin flushed bright red, shrugging her off.

  “I didn’t help you cause I wanted to, imp,” he snarled.

  Sern giggled, bopping him on the nose, and running back to me, eliciting chuckles from the rest of the party.

  Quin let out a deep sigh. “Nobody’s ever going to take me seriously anymore.”

  “We never did,” Dexten said, laughing loudly. “Now, we’re alive, the Core is dead, we have enough food to hold us over. What say we get out of this pit and claim our prize, huh?”

  The party immediately started filling out of the dungeon, one after the other. Harva reached for the table, taking not only it, but all the food and dirty dishes ontop of it.

  “Grind?”

  I blinked, turning to Ardenidi.

  She frowned. “Focus. We’re leaving the dungeon.”

  “Yeah,” I said, pushing Sern toward her. “I just want to take a moment to admire the view.”

  She scoffed. “What’s to admire?”

  “I doubt I’ll ever be in a dungeon quite like this again.”

  “Unless you respawn,” Ardenidi stated.

  “I’d like to avoid that, for the time being. Dying isn’t much fun.”

  She rolled her eyes, gesturing for Sern to follow. “Don’t take too long, or Sern’s going to snap back in here.”

  “I know,” I said.

  She wouldn’t actually. So long as the portal was open, you could ignore it. Though we may be on separate dimensions, the truth was Sern would only be a couple feet in distance away.

  It was one of the many things I’d tried to find a way to safely keep her out of dungeons. Unfortunately, it wasn’t usually possible to beat a dungeon while keeping yourself a foot away from the portal.

  Usually. There were always bound to be exceptions.

  This was one of those.

  I took a deep breath in, then out.

  “Alright. Show yourself.”

  First there was silence.

  Then the portal flashed red.

  Sern instantly teleported beside me, with a sound of popping bubbles.

  I’d been worried about this. But it was necessary.

  A metallic figure crawled from the shadows.

  Its body was slightly different than before, with a darker shade of metal, and a larger mouth, with sharper, thinner teeth.

  Eventually, it’d given up on a more human appearance.

  Once it was close, it pushed up onto two legs, allowing other small limbs to sink into its smooth metal skin. A gray notification poofed into existence.

  [My, you’re a clever little boy]

  “Not really,” I sighed. “I just figured that, assuming you had a shred of common sense, you’d hide your real core somewhere safer than your own body.”

  [Not necessarily. Distance weakens the effect, so it’s a matter of which body.]

  I nodded along, putting the last couple pieces into place. “---And the thing with the Exp orbs? That was buying time to move the gem around, right?”

  He grinned.

  [Such a clever boy. How many deaths?]

  “Right to the point, huh? Just three.”

  The Core jolted. Then it held a hand up, before rubbing its face in an eerily human gesture. [Three? Time travel is a waste to a boy who won’t use it properly. If you’d have half a spine, you’d kill yourself, run a couple lives until you had the power to flatten a moon, then kill me. And that’s not to mention the rest of your A.C.E… it’s one thing to squander money, but power?]

  He frowned.

  “It’s complicated,” I stated.

  [Most things are.]

  Sern started shaking, finally realizing what was going on.

  The Core turned its head. [Poor thing. Slave, right?]

  I nodded.

  [Then you are an idiot. A sincere idiot, but an idiot.] The smile dropped, and the monster sat, summoning a stone bench up from the dungeon floor. [Tell me, what exactly is your plan here?]

  “I had to bait you into revealing yourself,” I said. “You can’t resist my abilities. If I survive for a little while, my friends will force the portal open, and we’ll kill you for good.” I shrugged. “Nothing personal.”

  [Interesting]

  The metallic form shifted, adopting color, then shape. Its jaw sunk back, and ears appeared from the sides of its face. A nose bulged out, singling a series of rapid distortions and transformations within the metal. Its chest slackened, forming a t-shirt. The skin paled, and its legs went through a similar process, with a few additional steps to simulate the denim pattern of jeans.

  [It should be relatively obvious that I’m not a normal core]

  “Yeah, I picked that up.”

  [I’m here for you, actually. Straight from the top.]

  The Core tilted its head one way, then the other, examining the sides of my face.

  [I’ve been around for a while, you know—oh give or take fifteen years—but despite this fact and my prowling, and the weeks I spend corrupting an enemy core, I have never been marked as a threat. Do you know why?]

  “Because you’re good at hiding,” I stated. “You could shapeshift into pets, but I doubt it. You probably make yourself look like a player, take the job, take the Core, and replace it with a fake.

  The Core twitched.

  [A fake?]

  It makes a clicking sound, not unlike a scoff.

  [Don’t insult my craft. The Cores I forge are small, and feeble, but I assure you, they are the real deal.]

  Then his transformation finished.

  Standing before me, was a boy, my height, with a nose, eyes, and ears identical to mine. He had greasy black hair, kept loose, but not so loose to become annoying. His body was scrawny, but not entirely without muscle. His skin shone with a metallic gloss, but that was soon fading as further texturing rippled through.

  In that moment, something dawned on me.

  “I’m not much of a looker, am I?” I grumbled.

  The Core cackled, snapping back to his true form, a nine-foot monstrosity of metal.

  [Here’s what’s going to happen. I will kill you, then take your power. Thanks to your buddy’s elixir, this dungeon is spent, so I will leave and pretend to be you for several days, until I understand your abilities, enough to use them properly and kill every player, monster and being in the five greater areas.] The Core sneered. [Nothing personal.]

  “And Sern?”

  He watched the elf girl, now hiding behind my back. [The girl died, fighting the two-star in its last throes of death. How brave, and how unfortunate.]

  One thing was still bugging me. “So if you’re not the gauntlet of stairs—”

  [Oh, that? Weakest Core I’ve ever seen. The dungeon was filled only with stairs, no monsters. If you had decent cardio you'd make it to the top and skewer the boss.]

  The portal behind me flickered blue, but the Core sealed it shut with a single gesture.

  [It should be sufficient to say that I am much, much more than meets the eye. So why don’t you be a good little player and get this over with quick.]

  {Three Star Core : Gauntlet of Feasting}

  [Core : Active]

  I grabbed Sern and bolted in the other direction.