Bryn struggled to wake up, feeling both an unnatural lethargy and the best she’d ever felt in her life- despite the fact that she was apparently sleeping on stone. Someone was playing truly bizarre music. What had happened? She frowned as she began to stretch trying to recall, not wanting to open her eyes just yet- that would mean admitting she was awake. They’d been approaching the location, ready to destroy the dungeon and-

'Good morning' Alien sounds burst into her head. They were accompanied by a wave of memories. Waking up next to a lover, sleepy morning sex. She knew what it was like for a man now- just a glimmer. Eating eggs, fried meat strips, some sort of delicious crispy starch, a drink both sugary and bitter that filled her with power. Petting a vibrating fuzzy thing- kinda like a cat. Warmth, relaxation, contentment. She couldn’t help but relax…

What. She tensed again. Akasha witness, what the hell was that. 'Me.' The voice sent her reeling. That single syllable contained so much- so much meaning that she couldn’t even start to process it. Just a blur of a thousand things, the memories of an entire life flashing by too fast to be seen. It hurt- hurt in a fashion she had never felt before.

'Oh, sorry. Was I too, uh, loud? Your soul is jiggling.' Bryn was suddenly aware of her own soul in a way she never had been before. She could see it move, quake, a pool of water filled with a million ghostly plants and fish darting around. It was, however, quieter. The 'I' only felt calm, curious, slightly detached but joyously watching. A far cry from the blast of memories.

“I- yes?” She opened her eyes- she’d gone from closing them from the remnants of sleep to squeezing them shut in shock and pain. She saw it again and all the memories came back. The dungeon. The disastrous delve. The certainty of death. The question- do you want to live? No, not just that. The question had been so much more than those paltry words. She saw the pearl again. It was less terrifying. Slightly. It no longer blazed with heat and pulsed unsettlingly, but it was still suspended by a thousand tiny threads. Dungeon pearls don’t DO that.

'We don’t?' 'We' was… Confused. Human but also dungeon? She didn’t know what he was asking. 'Dungeon pearls don’t carry themselves around, you said.' She’d never said that. It was true, though. They never moved. They stayed embedded in the wall. Nobody had ever seen them move, at least. When they expanded their dungeons they always stayed at the very end, in a place of safety. It was assumed that they burrowed deeper into the walls and then dissolved the walls behind them.

'Oops, reading your thoughts. Sorry ‘bout that. Lemme see if I can...' The first was a ripple of faintly astonished amusement, the second a dismissive apology. Sort of… I did a bad thing but wasn’t aware so it’s not my fault? The third sentence faded and buzzed in an odd way- it felt like something expanding, turning it’s attention away from her to view a thousand things at once. Was this… Soulspeech? She’d heard the tales of prophecy, how those who heard it understood the meaning even without knowing the words.

Bryn sat up, absently brushing some cobwebs away from her face. She looked around. This was the same cave she’d found the pearl in, but it’d changed greatly in the time she’d been sleeping. Where before it had been barren now she was surrounded by thick black soil, a multitude of plants growing from it. They seemed weeks old- neither sprouts nor fully grown yet. The tendrils coming from the core were still plunging in and out of the soil and she could feel tiny pulses of essence from them each time. There was more moss but it wasn’t nearly as bright- still the brightest dungeon she’d ever been in.

She could see the stalker drake in the corner, staring at her with eerie yellow eyes. Bryn touched her neck- she remembered it breaking, the pain as an entire chunk of flesh was roughly torn out. Her skin was unmarred and felt smoother than she’d ever felt it before. The drake should have killed her. Her heart should have stopped and she’d have bled out instantly even if it hadn’t. She was alive regardless, like she’d never been injured. She should fear the demon anyways. She couldn’t. It was ridiculous.

The demon, a drake, the descendant of a great and mighty dragon, was sitting on a big, round cushion. It was green and had little black drake head patterns adorning it, woven or dyed with absurd skill. They had pink hearts for eyes. The drake itself was rolled over to expose its belly and a cloud of tendrils softly stroked the exposed scales. It chuffed and righted itself and the tendrils moved on to rubbing the chin. The deadly monster half-closed its eyes and began to buzz.

“That’s a drake and you’re treating it like a noblewoman’s pet cat.” She stated absently. It was too bizarre. The intense battle through the dungeon, the attack of the tusked drake, fleeing through seemingly endless tunnels, the terrifying confrontation and her near death… And now this. Bryn couldn’t help but laugh even as she felt herself begin to cry. She flopped back down onto the stone- she was in a little depression, the soil forming an outline around her. It’d been a fool’s mission, doomed from the start. How was this a newly grown dungeon? Even if they had managed to reach the pearl they could never have cracked the shell without magical weapons and none of them could have powered them even if they had them. The thing was twice the size of her head! Pearls grew harder even as they grew in size!

The pearl came closer and a cloud of tendrils approached her face. She closed her eyes tight, crying harder. She’d always been a coward, she knew that. If not for her cursed bloodline she’d have spent her entire life in an Akashic cloister, just learning and recording her own days. That was a death sentence for a Butcherbird though- only by becoming a magister could they stop off the wasting sickness and even then they had two thirds the lifespan any other magister was afforded.

Oh. She felt cobwebs sweep her face- that was what she had felt when she leaned up. She’d been brushing away the tendrils. She felt a prickle of almost-pain cover her face and then it went away. 'Shhh, shh. There there. You’re fine. You’re safe. Everything is okay.' She calmed down even though she knew the words were lies. She could feel a presence- a mother? No, an elder sister. Faint memories from a child who was being soothed just like she was being soothed now.

Were these memories the dungeons? Had he been a child once, then a man? Or had the dungeon simply devoured the soul of a man as they were known to do? She wanted to ask but she was afraid of the answers. Well, it could read her mind, see her soul, pour thoughts and memories inside her- just like a god. Did she even need to ask? It had plucked questions and answers from her mind before. Her body began to tense again.

'Don’t worry, it’s fine. I can’t read your thoughts anymore if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m just guessing. Turns out I was, uh, yeah. I was doing a thing and I stopped now and it’s fine. If you want to ask me something just ask out loud. If you don’t, go back to sleep. I don’t think those essence naps are real sleep, the brain- well. You probably don’t want to know.' She did want to know. What about the brain? It was the seat of the soul but what did that have to do with sleeping? She’d read that the brain was the bridge from the soul to the body and that it also functioned as a heat radiator, but what did that have to do with sleep?.. Her thoughts were getting muzzier. She couldn’t open her eyes again even if she wanted to. She felt something light settle atop her and moved her hand to feel it- a blanket? Was this silk?

A thousand questions echoing in her head, Bryn fell back to sleep. She dreamed of her team. It should have been a nightmare, tried to turn dark, but she felt a vast gentle presence calming her fears, taking the pain away.