We took the Adventurer Hall’s transport service to the entrance of the dungeon immediately after Mel finished our registration. The driver let us know he’d be around for the next twelve hours or so, but beyond that, and he was heading back and reporting us as missing in action. After thanking him, we headed inside. The entrance was just a small crack on the side of a hill, and we had to slosh through a muddy pond to get to it. I slipped through the passage just after the brothers and felt a cold shiver run down my spine as I crossed through into the chamber.

  “Hey guys, did any of you feel that?” I asked, hoping it didn’t mean my soul was already under attack somehow.

  “Yeah, sorry. Should have warned you; that’s the feeling you get when you enter into a dungeon's zone of influence. It’s how people know the borders of one since they can grow and shrink. From what I’ve heard, they tend to be less annoying the stronger you are,” Elicec answered.

  “Just try to ignore it. It can’t really hurt you as far as I know,” his brother added.

  “Cecile, grab your hoe, looks like we’ve got giant slugs, and they’ve already spotted us,” Elicec yelled to his brother.

  I poked my head around them, trying to get a view, and sure enough, there were four orange creatures each with long black protrusions from their head sliding across the ground towards us. One of them had its mouth open, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth. I grabbed a rock from the ground and pelted the open-mouthed slug as hard as I could, which was considerably less than I’d have liked. Still, the rock made contact and fell away, leaving a gash where it had struck home. I may not have a core, but as long as I had a supply of rocks, I wasn’t entirely useless here.

  I had initially considered bringing a weapon, but apparently, that just wasn’t the way things worked around here. Until I had my core, unless I had time for some real training, the weapons available just were not going to be suited to my needs. Armor, I wasn’t so sure about. There wasn’t a lot referenced in anything I had read so far, and Mel didn’t have much for sale that looked like it would fit me, and since he hadn’t suggested any, I didn’t bother to bring it up. Stones were doing a good enough job for now, and armor could be figured out later.

  “Good job, Dave. Now watch this!” Cecile said as he swept the hoe out hard in front of him, cutting straight through one of the slugs and into a second. The first one wriggled slightly as though it hadn’t fully realized its head was no longer connected before it deflated in on itself, melting into a steaming puddle of orange ichor.

  “Let the world around us cool, winter, unleash your gale!” Elicec's chanting had started in the middle of Cecile’s swing and finished the moment the remains had appeared. His hand then pulled something from his pocket that looked like a small leaf and crushed it. Immediately, I felt a cold wind sweep past, noticeably chilling the air. The full effects played out in front of us as the wind made contact with the remaining slugs. The liquids inside of them seemed to freeze and crystallize as their forms cracked apart. But unlike the others, as the wind hit the final one, its color shifted from orange to light blue, and the protrusions on its head sparked in a bright yellow glow as energy danced across them.

  I grabbed two more rocks and threw them one after the other as hard as I could at the monster. Both of them dented into its flesh but did nothing to slow it down. Worse still, as the second rock hit home, some of the energy it had collected rebounded off its head, blasting back at me.

  Luckily, it looked like my attribute increases had paid off because I could feel the energy as it shot through the air at me. My senses had improved enough alongside my reaction time that I was able to throw myself down, completely dodging the blast. My elbow screamed in pain as I hit the rocky ground. While I had successfully evaded one attack, a second that I hadn’t known of became apparent as worms swarmed over my injured arm, biting at all my exposed flesh.

  “Dammit, what the hell?!” I screamed out, trying frantically to get the worms off me. I managed to squash several dozen of them, but more kept coming. It looked like there had been more monsters in the fight than we had realized. I thrashed my body around, trying my best to kill as many as I could, but no matter how many died trapped between my mass and the rocky floor below, the number on me kept increasing.

  “Dave, you okay back there?” Cecile called to me while his brother had started chanting again.

  “Torrential rains, pour downward!” Elicec’s chanting was followed by water pouring across my body from somewhere above. The worms were washed away by what would have seemed a flood at their size.

  “I am now, thanks! Just get the last slug, and I’ll explain,” I said as I started to force myself to my feet, trying to wipe off as much worm goo as I could, but before I could completely stand up, I spotted a small glowing shard of something in the remains of the worms. “Hey, there’s something glowing here.”

  “Likely just a mana shard, as long as it’s not an orb, grab it,” Elicec replied. So I did, pocketing it as I finished getting to my feet. I’d ask the brothers more about it later, once we were in less of a ‘monsters trying to eat us' scenario.

  “This one just refuses to die!” Cecile’s words were accentuated by weird squishing sounds that I realized were the hoe smashing down into the last slug over and over. It looked entirely unfazed by the attacks as it charged up the energy on its head yet again, looking once over to me as it did so.

  Before it had a chance to release the built-up charge, the hoe was suddenly covered by a silvery metallic coating, a split second before it made an impact. This time finally cutting deep into the mollusk’s head, severing both of the appendages. This saved me from having to try to dodge another blast, but it also enraged the creature as an otherworldly roar erupted from its mouth. I felt the force of it crash into my skull and slide off. The brothers hadn’t been so fortunate; they had fallen face-first onto the ground from the cry. Neither was moving.

  Fresh fear hit me as the possibility of their death entered my mind, but before the feeling could grab full control of my thoughts, I saw one of their arms move and then heard one of them moan slightly. They were just hurt, possibly badly, and the slug was still moving towards them. The damage the hoe had inflicted had slowed it down, but onward it came. I couldn’t leave them to be eaten by the monster, but what could I do to help? My rocks had done nothing but annoy it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something that gave me an idea. The hoe, still covered in metal, had been thrown into the cavern wall near of the approaching snail. I ran forward, leaping over the body of the brothers, barely keeping my feet, and doing my best to ignore the creaking pain from my knees as I made the mad dash for the farm implement turned weapon. It was the only chance we had. As I grabbed the tool, I saw the slug had turned towards me, its mouth now open and more of the earlier energy starting to form.

  There was no time left. I had to take my one shot and hope it was enough. I slammed the hoe as hard as I could, blade end first, directly into the slug’s open mouth. Whatever the energy was inside, it reacted with the head of the hoe, causing the slug’s head to explode, raining down its disgusting goo on all of us.

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  A message box popped into my vision, and the first thought that hit upon reading it was that it was a lot of experience, but I didn’t have time to do anything with it just yet. The brothers were still down, and I had no idea what else lurked in the dungeon. Dismissing the notification and still holding the hoe firmly in my hands, I walked back over to their prone form.

  “Hey guys, any chance you are mostly alive down there?” I asked. In response, I heard some moans of pain but nothing beyond that. I really hoped they were just unconscious and not dying in some way that I couldn’t do anything about.

  “I will make you a deal, Dave, surrender yourself to me, and I will make sure they leave alive,” a new voice said slowly in my mind. I spun my head around, trying to find the owner of the voice, and saw nothing. That wasn’t great; I was effectively alone down here and now hearing voices. Was this the core I had been warned about?

  “No, and stay out of my head!” I called back into the darkness that clung deeply into the far end of the cavern, figuring it had to be hiding somewhere back there. I was wrong, so very wrong, as what I thought was a boulder on the ground rose up, revealing a large snail below it. The head whipped around, latching onto my chest before I had the slightest chance to react.

  “No, Dave, I do not think that I will, and now all three of you will die. Such a waste,” the snail said, still speaking directly into my mind. I fell backward, not able to hold myself up, both from the force of its head and the tearing pain above my heart. Was the dungeon core inside this creature, and trying to get into me now? The question was purely academic, as I had no way to stop it, rendering any answer moot. I was going to die here, and my friends were going to die shortly after me.

  The hoe clanked down onto the ground before the handle hit Cecile in the head, as I hit the ground myself. The metal casing vanished as it touched him, and I saw his eyes open, making eye contact with me as I silently pleaded for help. I was now in too much pain to even cry out.

  Cecile pulled himself and his brother to their feet, holding the hoe strongly in both his hands. I watched them charge at the snail, slamming the weapon down over and over into the elongated neck. After a few hits, Elicec had joined in the assault. I couldn’t hear exactly what he said, but I saw something burn away at the creature's flesh, and the hoe finally severed the head off. A small orb fell free from the neck, the head still managing to stay attached to me. It clattered to the ground and rolled against the wall.

  With the snail dead, the teeth of its mouth released, and I was able to pull it off my chest. There was surprisingly little blood, but each tooth mark was accompanied by a small burn. Whatever it had been doing to get to my soul had been working, and with it dead, my senses were returning to normal.

  “Dave, you going to be okay, buddy?” Cecile asked. His voice was full of concern as he looked down at me.

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’m hurt that badly, actually. You two going to be okay?” I asked, far more worried about them than I was myself.

  “Oh yeah, we’re pretty tough. Though if you hadn’t taken out that last slug, I’m not sure what would have happened, so great job there. Bet you got a ton of experience, eh? I wouldn’t try to do anything with it until we’re out of the dungeon,” Cecile said, now sounding a little annoyed.

  “Wait, really? Why? Let’s just get out of here then,” I said, forcing myself once again back to my feet. Someday, I hoped my knees would forgive me for the torture I was putting them through.

  “Unless you really need to, it’s best not to look at your status in the middle of a potential fight. And we can’t leave yet, Dave, first we need to loot the place!” Elicec said, hoarse but excited.

  We are born in a darkness that few of us can remember, but from there, a small pull grabs us, something familiar. I have been told that what I'm describing here reminds many of a parental bond, but that is not something I can personally speak on. This is where intelligence stops for most of my brethren. Why? I don’t know, but few dungeon cores truly awaken, and fewer still, escape the madness of that awakening.

  Interconnectivity, Linkages Through Space by Traveler-1

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