I reared back, jaws open wide. I struck; my fangs buried themselves into flesh and liquid gold dripped from their channels. A few seconds later, I pulled back. The tiny holes that my fangs had left behind knit themselves closed.

“Fuck, that really woke me up,” a voice cried out, the noises jumbling together rapidly. In a habitual sweep of the nearby Totems, something that I had been doing to get a better grasp on what my Coreless were thinking and talking about, I caught a general taste of [amusement]. It was quickly followed by raucous laughter, that chortling series of quickly repeated noises that had once confused me so much.

“Deal with it, Rowan,” Needle grunted. “Maybe you won’t be such a baby next time you manage to cut yourself and you can avoid the Little Guardian here trying to fix you up.” Her voice was flat, but there was a twinkling in her eyes and [amusement] continued to run through the connection to the [Little Guardian’s Totem] that was hidden beneath her skin of ore-flesh.

“Hey, now,” the newest addition to our group replied. “I have sensitive skin. Besides, we can’t all be scar-covered monstrosities like Doran and Erik. Some of us like to have more class.”

“Hey!” Will objected; the tone that he used sounded like the times when my Coreless radiated [hurt], but I didn’t taste any. There was only [amusement], and his teeth were bared the same as before. My Coreless were confusing.

“Oh, fuck off.” The Unrepentant One was even harder to read. Unlike the others, he was wearing his [Little Guardian’s Totem] on the outside of his ore-flesh skin; I was only able to sense his emotions in the brief instances that the darkwood carving swung and brushed against his arms or hands.

“Don’t worry, Doran. I’m sure that Valera loves scars.”

“I actually do, they’re pretty hot.” the-female-who-was-not-Needle chirped happily, nodding. For some reason, her words made The Unrepentant One’s face turn blood-red before he hid the change behind giant, meaty hands. I was really wishing that he would wear his [Little Guardian’s Totem] properly. I hadn’t seen that reaction before and was curious to know what it meant.

Whatever it was, it must have been something funny, because the sense of [amusement] from the other Coreless spiked again and they erupted into laughter. Eventually, though, they calmed down. I took the opportunity to climb back up the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s arm, choosing to take my spot at the top of her head this time. We weren’t moving, so it wasn’t hard to stay there. Plus, it let me look down on my Coreless - made me feel larger.

Something about that was always satisfying.

We had been traveling through the large-tunnels of the World Dungeon for a day or so already, confirming my suspicions that we were leaving the many-nest behind for a while. My Coreless were laden with a number of skin-mouths, each carrying useful items, though many of them weren’t necessary for me. Still, I knew that my Coreless could not live purely off of mana like I could, so the bits of mana-water and meats that they carried would allow them to assist me more effectively.

Sometimes they offered bits and pieces to me; I didn’t need them, but I typically chose to accept them anyway. It was important to encourage the habit of providing offerings. They tasted okay, generally. A few of the pieces tasted a bit like Aridae, though, and I enjoyed those ones greatly. They tasted like victory.

Suddenly, the world began to slowly move around me as not-Needle pulled herself to her feet, leaving with a few unintelligible words. Caught off guard, I didn’t catch the emotion behind them in time to help interpret. She reached up a hand towards my head-scales as we moved out of the tiny alcove that my Coreless had sequestered themselves within while they rested.

I had noticed that they tried to find small, hidden places when they needed to sleep. I approved. It was like searching for wall-cracks, areas of the World Dungeon where bad-things would have a harder time attacking them.

Except, well, not nearly as good. Their hidden places were still pretty huge, but then again so were the Coreless.

The cavern that housed the alcove was vast, at least in my perspective. While it wasn’t anywhere near the size of the cavern of the many-nest, it still seemed to stretch on and on. I could just barely make out the light of glow-caps at the other end, the light-providing forests that they created sprawling across the outside edges of the cavern. A few dotted the center here and there, but not nearly as many. Most seemed to be dead; the ones that remained had been damaged and near-crushed by a vast horde. Probably a portion of my own Coreless, running from whatever many-nest they had lived in before I saved them from the Shrieking Bats and Tiamat’s disgusting creatures.

The-female-who-was-not-Needle hummed to herself as she walked about the cavern, examining roots and other growths that spilled from the cavern walls, occasionally cutting pieces off with her fangs of ore-flesh. Some went into one of the skin-mouths at her side, while she kept another small pile bundled within the crook of an arm.

Eventually, she returned to the alcove, where the others had begun to participate in some sort of bizarre activity. They had gathered around each other and were tossing a set of many-sided stones. For some reason, they were alternately very excited and very dejected upon seeing which sides they landed on.

Coreless were strange.

They looked up as we moved a little closer, and The Unrepentant One reached out to take the bundle of roots and growths from under the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s arm. After a few brief moments, they were placed near the alcove’s center in an overlapping formation. He turned around and kneeled, beginning to rummage through one of the larger skin-mouths that the Coreless carried, now set aside on the ground. Before he could find whatever he was searching for, the-female-who-was-not-Needle interrupted him.

“Wait, I want to try something first. If it works, we may not have to deal with the smoke of a real fire. It looks like there’s a few channels for airflow up there somewhere, but it’s best to avoid it if we can, and well…”

A hand reached up, plucking me from my spot at the top of her head, and I found myself staring into a set of eyes. They looked far more serious than I would have expected. Nothing was really happening that would require the level of focus that her eyes and Totem link were displaying.

I brushed it off. Coreless really were strange.

She pointed at me, and then at the pile. I turned with it, looking back immediately afterwards. She pointed again.

“Fire?” the-female-who-was-not-Needle questioned, her [Little Guardian’s Totem] link tasting of tentative [anticipation]. “Fire?”

“You know that he doesn’t understand you, Valera. It’d be easier to just light it ourselves,” I heard Needle say, a mix of [admonishment] and [amusement] reflected by her [Little Guardian’s Totem].

“No, no. I’ve got this. He’ll figure it out,” not-Needle replied. She pointed at me and the pile again, repeating the same noise from before. Immediately afterwards, she started furiously blowing on the pieces. Her face turned red from the exertion, and when she looked back towards me she repeated the noise with an expectant look on her face and [anticipation] in her Totem link.

“Fire?” she said again, and I felt the [amusement] from the other Coreless spike. She glared back at them, brows furrowed, and the [amusement] increased.

She did it again, face somehow turning even more red than before as she blew on the piled sticks and roots in her fury.

“Fire?” she asked hopefully.

I just stared back at her blankly. I had already figured out what she wanted earlier. It was obvious that she was trying to request that I use [Mana Fire] on the waiting pile. I wasn’t stupid; I had seen my Coreless pile roots and sticks so that they could make fires before. I knew that I could make the task much easier for them. Pointing at me and the pile before pantomiming the blowing air (or [Mana Fire], in this case) made her meaning pretty clear.

It was just entertaining to watch her try so hard to get me to do it.

Eh, I’d do it eventually. For the moment, I decided to just join in on the others’ [amusement] as I watched not-Needle’s face turn blood-red again.

It really was kind of funny.