“It’s empty like a desert, and boring like my mother’s dessert.”

“Sorry?” Devi asked, glancing back at Heda over her shoulder.

“Never mind, it rhymed better in my head,” Heda said. “It’s true, though. This Dungeon is suspiciously empty.”

“Heda’s rhymes have scared all the monsters away,” Kim said. “Just wait until she starts singing, Devi. You’ll be running too.”

There was a loud smack behind Devi, and the lights wobbled.

“Kim, focus,” Jack said. Kim’s floating eyeball righted itself, turning the bright yellow light that came from its pupils to the tunnel ahead. The second eyeball was flying next to Devi’s head now, blinking with a slight delay compared to the first so that the tunnel was illuminated at all times. So far they hadn’t encountered anything more dangerous than a low-hanging ceiling, but Jack’s caution was unwavering.

“The Dungeon was this empty the first time too,” Devi said. “Is it so unusual?”

“Unusual,” Jack said, “but not impossible.”

“If the Dungeon is moving toward the city, that’s another clue,” Heda said. “Someone must have claimed the Dungeon Core.”

“Claimed?” Devi asked.

“You can take the Dungeon’s Core to become a Dungeon Master,” Heda said. “And as a Dungeon Master you can grow your Dungeon however you want.”

“Unclaimed Cores follow similar patterns,” Jack added to the explanation. “If someone claimed this Dungeon’s Core, that would explain why this place is so empty.”

Devi did her best to grasp what Heda and Jack were saying. Were Dungeons able to grow like plants and trees, or was it a different kind of growth? Perhaps that was why this place was getting closer and closer to the city—it was growing in that direction! So if they wanted to stop this Dungeon, they would need to stop its master.

“How do we find this Dungeon Master?” Devi asked. The tunnel was getting wider now, which gave her hope that they would arrive to another chamber.

“There are rules,” Heda said. “If we beat the Dungeon’s main boss-monster, the DM will be summoned to the boss room. Then the DM can either give the Core to us, or we’ll kill him to become the new DM.”

“Or her,” Kim corrected Heda.

“I bet you one week of housework that the bad guy is a guy,” Heda said.

“That’s sexist,” Kim said. “And it’s not fair, because I wanted to bet on a man too.”

“We don’t even know for sure whether there’s a Dungeon Master,” Jack said. “Focus on this instead.”

The tunnel ended just as Jack finished speaking, and they arrived to an eerie-familiar place. Ahead of them lay a deep chasm, over which a small bridge had hung once for now only two totem poles stood as the remains of the collapsed bridge. Kim sent one of his eyeballs ahead, which zipped first to the other side and then down below to the chasm.

“I don’t see anything suspicious,” Kim said. “The remains of the bridge hang on the opposite cliff, and there’s a small river below. Should I cast Winged Feet on everyone?”

“Please do,” Jack said, and Devi tensed in anticipation; she was excited to finally try out Kim’s Ability.

“One Winged Feet with Multicast, at your service,” Kim said with a bow, and tiny-glowing wings appeared next to everyone’s ankles. Devi looked down at her own feet, noting how the two pairs of wings fluttered even though she was standing still. She raised one foot and stepped onto an invisible platform, shaped by only her imagination. She raised her other foot, stepping higher up as if she was scaling a staircase. It felt odd-unnatural to tread on thin air, but doing it came easily. She changed her mental imagine to a downward slope, and felt the solid air beneath her feet change its shape.

“Girls, you coming?” Kim asked. He and Jack were already wading across the chasm as if it was nothing.

“I hate heights,” Heda grumbled. She glanced at Devi with an odd expression – her pale cheeks having turned reddish for some reason – then broke into a run, sprinting across the chasm as fast as she could. Devi followed in a more sedate pace, finding the endless-dark beneath her intimidating, but forcing herself to face it. Walking on the air came easily; she just had to imagine an invisible pathway beneath her feet. A sudden-loud crash startled her for a moment, but it was just Heda slamming onto the wall on the other side—followed by Kim’s laughter.

When Devi stepped onto solid ground, she turned around to gaze into the chasm one last time. The chasm that had once almost claimed her life; she was nigh-certain that this was the same place. There was barely any light last time and she had been running from the stone sweller, but she remembered this place well; here she had triumphed, in spite of the odds. For the Rangers of Fortram this chasm was nothing more than a nuisance, but for Devi of no House this was a place where she became a survivor.

They moved on after Heda finally finished bicker-bantering with Kim. It didn’t take much time to reach the next notable scene—except, it looked nothing like the village with the river Devi had been expecting. The new chamber was alight with the odd-blue lights of the large, person-sized mushrooms along the walls. The ceiling reached so high that the blue illumination couldn’t even reach it. The center of the chamber was empty, save for the lone figure that stood in the middle. Faded-blue skin was visible beneath the figure’s ruined armor, and instead of a head it had a sweller sitting atop its shoulders.

“It’s a Player,” Devi cautioned her teammates as the creature raised the sword it was holding.

“An undead Sylven Player,” Heda said. “That’s new. I’ll—”

The man-sweller pointed his sword upward and a blinding light with the crack of a thunder struck from the ceiling, forcing Devi to close her eyes. When she came to her senses she saw that Heda was holding out her arm, electricity crackling over her hand as she threw the lightning back at the man-sweller. The creature staggered as it took its own attack in the chest, but it stayed on its feet without any visible injuries.

“Woah,” Heda said. “Tough guy.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Jack said, shrugging off his cloak to reveal the assortment of knives and daggers strapped to his leather armor. “Kim, lights please.”

Devi trusted Jack, but she wasn’t going to stand by idly. She created two decoys in quick succession even as one of Kim’s eyes flew behind Jack, shining its light more intensely. It was about the shadows, Devi realized. Jack’s shadow grew large and long, reaching the man-sweller as it lumbered toward the team. Then the shadow became darker and deeper, and Jack was gone—emerging from his own shadow right behind the creature. Jack swept one of his knives at the back of the sweller’s bulk, then sank back into the shadow to reappear in his original place.

“It’s done,” Jack said, sheathing his knife.

“What’s done?” Devi asked, watching the man-sweller as it turned around, clearly confused about how it got hurt.

“The fight,” Jack clarified, and the man-sweller fell to its knees a moment later. The small cut on the back of its bulk was barely-visible, not even bleeding all that much. Yet there was clearly something wrong with the creature, for it dropped its sword and knelt motionlessly, not even making a sound. A couple of heartbeats later it toppled over, laying still.

“It’s dead?” Devi asked, awed-impressed.

“Hopefully,” Jack said. “It could be faking it if it had poison resistance—”

“Don’t listen to him, Devi,” Kim said, walking up to the man-sweller. “Jack is just being humble again. This thing is dead three times over.”

“Kim,” Jack warned him, but Kim nudged the man-sweller with his boot anyway.

“See? Dead. Let’s move on, guys and gals.”

“Kim!” Heda spoke, sounding appalled. “That has been a Sylven man once! Think about Devi. We should at least bury—”

“No, it’s fine,” Devi said, her voice grim-dark. “He did not deserve less. Kim is right, let’s move on.”

“Oh, that’s—okay,” Heda said.

It was more than likely that the dead Sylven was from House Quinn, yet Devi didn’t feel any vengeful-satisfaction at the death of a man who had once tried to lay his hands on her. She felt only cold-detached. This wasn’t the first man dying at her feet, and he wouldn’t be the last.

The team walked across the chamber to the exit on the other side. There was no riddle-gateway this time, just an empty corridor leading downward. A pity, for Devi was prepared to match her new sword against the shifting stone gate.

The Rangers of Fortram descended deeper into the Dungeon, their footsteps echoing dully. The same person-sized mushrooms from the man-sweller’s chamber continued to grow in this new tunnel too, providing plenty of light. They made Kim’s floating eyeballs unnecessary, and so he sent them ahead to scout.

“Looks like there’s a dead-end with a portal,” Kim spoke, “except there’s a gap in the wall, hidden among the mushrooms.”

A gap? Devi soon understood what Kim meant, when the team arrived to yet another oddly-familiar place; it was the same collapsed tunnel with the same shining portal she had passed through last time. The only difference was that the mushrooms here were much larger, and that on one side there was a small-and-narrow tunnel hidden behind the luminous plants.

“No enemies in sight,” Kim reported as he steered his eye into the tunnel.

“Last time we went through portal,” Devi said. “It takes us to center-place.”

“Hrm. Let’s see first where this other route goes, then,” Jack said, turning sideways to fit through the crack.

Devi followed him without hesitation, trying to recall whether any such gap had been here the last time too. She had been too distracted at the time—not only with the shining portal but also with Randel.

“I hate narrow places,” Heda grumbled as she squeezed in after Devi, her plated armor scraping against the stone.

“There’s a hole right here,” Jack said. “Stay alert, we’re dropping down.”

Even in Kim’s wobbling lights it wasn’t difficult to see the hole, because it took up the entire-width of the narrow tunnel. Jack disappeared in it quickly, but Devi hesitated when she reached the ledge; the drop was about two times her height, with dull stone on the bottom. While it wasn’t a life-risking height, it was going to hurt her feet if she didn’t land properly.

“Got you,” Kim said, and glowing wings appeared next to Devi’s ankles.

“Thank you,” Devi said. She imagined a slick slope, then slid down to the bottom of the hole.

The air smelled even worse here, putrid-stale and suffocating. The first thing Devi saw upon arrival was that Jack had drawn a pair of knives and was standing with his knees bent, combat-ready. That was already enough reason for her to draw Silverfang, even before she saw the blue sacs. Those things were everywhere! The spacious room they had arrived to was filled with clusters of globs; cocoons filled with dark blue liquid. When Kim sent his floating eye deeper in, Devi could see that the clusters of cocoons extended far in every direction, some of them swaying slightly as the swellers inside them fidgeted in the liquid.

“Form a circle, everyone,” Jack said. “We’ve found the boss-monster.”

“It’s just the nest,” Kim said, though he moved beside Devi. “I can’t see the hive mother.”

“Yes, you can,” Jack grunted. “Just look at the floor and the walls.”

Kim summoned more eyeballs – bringing their number up to six – and fixed them on their surroundings. The floor looked indeed odd, not truly made of stone upon closer inspection. It felt firm-and-solid under Devi’s boots, oddly smooth, yet for all its smoothness it wasn’t flat like a man-made floor either; there were little bumps and hills all over the place. The cocoons reached from floor to ceiling all around, which made seeing the walls tricky—and even when Devi did see the wall, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Blue veins, irregular bumps. Dull gray, stone-like texture. Occasional jerks and twitches, as if the wall was a living-breathing body…

“We are inside the boss-monster?” Heda asked, her tone filled with disbelief.

“Protocol Four,” Jack said in response. He was referring to the fourth combat-procedure of the Rangers of Fortram, according to which they had to talk with the assumption that their opponent could hear and understand them. Devi exchanged a brief glance with Heda, giving her an assurance-nod that she understood the rules.

“Oh god,” Kim said. “There’s a woman in there.”

“What?” Heda spun around. “Where?”

“Look to my right, next to that fleshy pillar.”

Devi glanced in the direction Kim was indicating, furrowing her brow at what she saw. Off in the distance and almost-hidden by a cluster of cocoons, a naked upper-body of a Human was sticking out of the wall. Dirt-streaked hair obscured the woman’s face as her head hung limply, but the black collar around the her neck was unmistakable. There was little doubt in Devi’s mind that the woman was—

“Tamara,” Devi whispered in shock.

As if on cue, the little swellers in the room began to kick around in their cocoons, bursting them open and flooding the ground with blue liquid. Some of the newly-hatched swellers had venom-green skin with a stinger-tail on their back, while others seemed to have a thick black carapace. There were hundreds of the small creatures, surrounding them from every direction.

“Heda with Kim,” Jack said. “I’ll cover Devi.”

“You two save that girl,” Heda said in turn, and a pair of warhammers appeared in her hands. “I’ll do my thing.”

Not waiting for the swellers to launch their attack, Heda dashed into the nearest cluster. Devi moved in the opposite direction, running toward Tamara. Kim’s lights suddenly wobbled – he was no longer consciously controlling them – but Jack smashed a small jar against the ground and a swarm of luminous insects flew out of its remains. When Devi activated Silverfang, they had more than enough light to see the approaching swarm.

The swellers stood too close to the ground to be easily-reached, but they oftentimes jumped up to get to Devi’s upper body—which put them in Silverfang’s reach. The blade of pure energy sliced through them as if they were nothing but mist, leaving behind the misty-puffs of their soul and the smell of burnt flesh. Devi activated her Downswing and Uppercut Weapon Skills one after the other, but after the first few vertical slashes she had to abandon this technique. Although her collar-assisted movements were faster and more precise, she had too many wasted movements between killing strikes and the swellers were able to slip through.

Devi kicked away a sweller that was trying to grab onto her leg, but as she brought her foot back one of the green ones grabbed her foot, swinging its stinger at her thigh. Her leather armor protected her, but by the time she stabbed the monster to death another sweller grabbed her foot and yet another jumped up toward her head. Devi used her free hand to blast the jumping sweller with a Recursive Ray, then brought her sword up to defend against the three other swellers lunging at her—each of which got impaled by knives mid-air. Thin wires glinted as the knives retracted to Jack’s fingers, who swung them around and launched them at another group of skittering swellers. Streaks of white smoke flew to Devi from every direction, absorbed by her collar.

Congratulations, your level has increased!

Level 8 reached.

Devi barely managed to glance at the message before having to defend herself again, bisecting an armored sweller this time. Jack seemed to be equally busy dealing with this many monsters, at which point Devi had to realize that in spite of the team’s overwhelming combat-prowess, they weren’t winning. They couldn’t get any closer to Tamara. They were barely able to defend themselves! It didn’t matter that Devi’s sword killed everything with a touch, because her sword couldn’t be everywhere. Jack at her side was a whirlwind of knives, striking down swellers rapidly—but not rapidly enough. There were too many of the little monsters that grabbed at Devi’s arms, latched onto her back, bit into her boots. Their sheer number was enough to bury her alive.

Fortunately, it wasn’t only Devi and Jack fighting the swarm.

“Pulling them in now!” Heda yelled.

Devi dropped to one knee and created a portal behind her – with its pair on her other side – just before Heda activated her Center of Attention, lifting the swellers off their numerous feet and making them fly past Devi. Heda’s Ability also incited everyone within range to attack her, which Devi could feel even behind her cover. She set her eyes on herself through the tear-in-space, trying to ignore any violent thoughts toward Heda. Knowing that it was just an Ability helped a lot with resisting its effect.

When the pulling-force ended, Devi peeked out of her cover to see a large pile of writhing swellers in the middle of the room. She tucked her head right back in when sharp rays of light pierced the heap of bodies, and a heartbeat later an enormous explosion shook the ground—making Devi fall through her portal and land on the same place she had been.

She sprang to her feet quickly when blue blood flooded the ground and the walls shivered. The detonation destroyed many of Kim’s eyes, but in the gloom Devi saw Heda’s silhouette climbing out of a bloody crater.

“Sorry!” Heda said. “I think I blew up its heart!”

That explained the shivering walls; the room was collapsing.

“Retreat!” Jack said, and Devi jolted in alarm.

“Take a clone,” she told Jack, creating a decoy and closing her portals at the same time.

She expected Jack to object, to tell her to heed his orders, but no such thing happened; he lifted the decoy over his shoulder without a word. Devi waded through the blood toward Tamara, the blue liquid already up to her ankles and rising still. Her only luck was that the ceiling above her head was deflating instead of outright collapsing, which lent her more time.

Devi shrank Silverfang down to a more compact size as she reached Tamara, observing her in the light of her energy-weapon. She was breathing, but she seemed to be unconscious. Fleshy growths were connecting her collar to the wall, which Devi immediately cut—but the rest she was less sure about. Tamara’s arms and lower body were stuck deep in the sagging wall, and since she couldn’t see where they ended, she’d have to be careful about cutting the woman out. The ceiling was already on top of her head so she decided to create a portal first, willing its pair to appear next to her decoy.

“Devi!” Heda gasped as the portal opened. Devi didn’t bother to look back, too busy pulling at Tamara’s arms and hacking at the boss-monster’s flesh around it. Fortunately, the crumpling wall meant that it wasn’t holding onto the woman as firmly anymore. Devi freed first one arm, then the next. She could do this. The boss-monster’s blood was up to her knees now, and though she had to duck her head, her portal was propping up the ceiling. She could—

A pair of gauntleted hands grabbed her sides and hauled her backward, through her portal.

“No! Stop!”

Devi twisted her body and elbowed Heda as hard as she could, but it was like hitting a wall. Blue blood splashed into her eyes as she kicked and struggled, her own shouts drowning out whatever Heda was yelling. Suddenly she was released, and she wiped the blood off her face furiously. She could have saved Tamara! Why did Heda—

“Ugh, what a mess,” Kim said, struggling to hold Tamara upright. They were both covered in blood from head to toe. Devi blinked in surprise, then turned to look up at Heda’s grinning – and equally dirty – face.

“Told you,” she said.

“Good job, everyone,” Jack said. “Especially you, Devi.”

“Thank you..?” Devi said, turning around with bewilderment. The rush she felt was abating slowly. They were back in the main tunnel with the blue mushrooms. She turned Silverfang off. Tamara had survived. Not only that, but her limbs were intact too—though she was still unconscious. Devi felt a surge of pride at that; even if it wasn’t her who freed Tamara’s legs in the end, she had done her fair-share.

Hive mother defeated

+ 1 Feat

“Did we win?” Devi asked.

“Good question,” Heda said, turning to Jack. “Wasn’t that the final boss? I thought it would be.”

“I’m not sure,” Jack said. “Neither the Dungeon Core nor the Dungeon Master has appeared, so it probably wasn’t. That’s a rule that no Dungeon can cross.”

The obvious conclusion was that the hive mother wasn’t this Dungeon’s boss-monster; there was an even nastier surprise lurking in the depths of this place. The thought should have perhaps intimidated Devi, but truthfully, all she felt was excitement. She couldn’t wait to sink her fang into whatever else the Dungeon held for them!