Alverost examined the work he was overseeing. It was a complex sigil made of lines and grooves that were carved into the stone floor of their core room, a magical sigil that everyone was taught early in the classes of the Scholomance.

Axel was lining it with silver coins, inserting them at equal distances along the complex stone engraving, to be hammered down later.

He sighed for lack of a proper forge to pour molten silver, or even of a grinder to turn it into powder and use that. Perhaps with the right mechanisms of stone, Alverost could create something similar… Until then, he would have to rely on a Kobold to do the work. Even if it was a Kobold crafted by himself, like Axel, and filled with dark mana, its hands could only do so much.

Small, scaled and soft. Alverost would have to rely on Axel. The thought would leave a bitter taste in his mouth if he had one, dragging back memories of his partner in the Scholomance— the meritocratic school which was used by the nobility of his father’s empire.

It had taught him many lessons.

Like not relying on anyone.

Because anyone you rely on becomes a liability. A weakness.

“Alverost?” Mark asked, interrupting his string of thoughts. The dolt always seemed to appear at the most inconvenient time, but this time was welcome. Being a dungeon core had left Alverost with far, far too much time to think, and to be consumed by his thoughts. Thoughts and regrets.

“Ah, you’re busy. Nevermind.” Mark departed again in a blink, leaving Alverost and Axel alone.

No forge. Alverost had forged a hammer instead. It was a cheap thing, black wooden handle and pig iron head. But it would be enough. Without being alloyed, silver was plenty malleable. Enough to be beaten into shape. Forced to conform to the lines of the sigil carved in hard rock.

Time passed, Alverost sitting alone with the thud, thud, thud of Axel pressing the silver into the necessary shape. Silver spilled over the edges here and there. Alverost watched impatiently. Finally, this soiree in a dungeon would come to it’s end. Alverost thought he would keep Axel though. Take him home and give him a nice pen.

Silver coinage was pressed into Axel’s best attempt at a refined sigil of silver, forced into shape by hammering the silver against the engraving. All that was left was the fine work of carving it. And Alverost planned to do it with his own hands.

He was sure that dungeons had the power to possess their creatures. That was how they often consorted with the other races— in the body of one of their prized creations. Alverost still remembered the first time he had met a dungeon.

It was at a ball. It wasn’t that unusual to see monsters among the nobility where he came from. His nation, after all, recognized all sentient life. This one was different though.

Eight feet tall and carved of stone, he had hidden behind his guardian when he saw him. Dressed in a dapper, frilled suit that hugged the contours of its gargoyle body, its eyes had glowed as it stared towards where Alverost hid. And as it saw Alverost squirm uncomfortably, its granite face had twisted in an expression that seemed itself a mockery of the human face, a too wide, open smile that revealed polished stone teeth.

Alverost shivered mentally. There was something there in the way it had stared, though the glowing purple light had obscured it eyes. He remembered it well to this day, the way a cat looked at a mouse, the stare of a predator. Not full of malice or anger, but full of hunger. Not evil, just another piece in the chain.

Alverost reached out, pulling on instincts and levers that all dungeoncores had. It was an old instinct, like reaching inside of a dusty attic, inside of a part of himself. And with a pop, he flexed a muscle he had never moved before. It was a strange sensation, like suddenly realizing you had a tail.

Alverost had a strange sense— it was a sudden blanket on its senses, wet and heavy. It wasn’t of Axel’s perception, but rather of the entire dungeon at once. He felt every living creature that they had altered like bright spots in his panoptic view.

He gave into the dizziness as it overwhelmed his senses, the world dancing and spinning as he suddenly fell into Axel’s body and became real again, no longer a mind floating on the wind but once again one of flesh.

He realized immediately that something that gone terribly, terribly wrong. He gasped, staggering to the ground under the weight of a corporeal body. He felt half blind, his sight crippled, and he quickly realized it wasn’t the transition from a panoptic view. No, he could only see out of one eye.

“What… the fuck?” The voice came out in the raspy hiss of Axel’s voice, but they weren’t Alverost’s words. They were—

“Mark! What are you doing!” Alverost shouted through Axel’s throat.

Then with a burning sensation, he realized he needed to breath, gasping as Axel’s body shuttered. His reptilian face scraped against the stone floor, and Alverost did his best to stand. The tiny lizard body lurched to the left, falling on the ground, before lurching back outside of Alverost’s control.

And then Alverost was back in the air, mind burning, free of the weight of flesh. Axel flopped on the ground like a fish out of water, grasping at his head. He gasped.

“Alverost?” His voice was a hiss.

“Mark?”

“N..no… Axel…” He rasped out.

“Mark, what the fuck!?”

There was a dull moment where Mark didn’t reply, a crackle in the air as he paused. “I should be asking you that! I was just making a bow and suddenly I’m choking on air. Was that dungeon possession?”

Dungeon possession. The act of using your soul to act through another body as a puppet. The truth of it slowly dawned on Alverost— his soul and Mark’s were inextricably linked. Which meant that he couldn’t possess a body without Mark possessing it too. And from what it looked like—

He jumped back into Axel’s body, confirming an awful, dreadful thought.

“Can you at least warn me before you do that?” Axel’s grating voice rasped, as Alverost stood in a half lean against the wall, controlling only the right side of Axel’s body.

Alverost only controlled half.

“Fuck.” Axel-verost hissed.