Some days it doesn’t pay to wake up. Given that, as a gem, I don’t sleep, such thoughts say something about how exhausted I felt. It wasn’t that I had been tricked by Denda, I had seen that coming from a mile away. Is it really being fooled if you have willingly gone along with the plan knowing that it would work out differently than you thought? No, not really, and in the grand scheme of things, her project just cost me a small amount of pride rather than any actual harm. There had been sticky moments -the young paladin Yargo comes to mind- but in general, I was as safe as she could set things up to be.

It wasn’t Vetta thinking she would claim a promise of assistance from me either. At first, the idea that I would owe her a trial for a champion had pissed me off. After all, she picked a fight with me, not the other way around. But then I got to thinking about it. A powerful goddess wants to set up a trial for a champion, and I get to be the mystical challenge to determine the worth of the hero? Talk about an instant legend! It wasn’t really a punishment, more of a gift in disguise as a punishment! I was starting to get a feel for how the gods worked, and one of the ways was tricky games where their help can be unhelpful, and their punishments could be helpful. Tricky, but if you watch for it, useful to understand. I still didn’t know why they played these games, but I had hints that it had something to do with the way their domains pulled at them.

My exhaustion didn’t even come from the failure of my dungeon to protect me against the perfect duo. Thanks to those two, I now had new ideas, and my weird secondary focus effect was working on those plans in the background as I focused on my real frustration.

No, my mental angst came from the kingdom. More specifically, what was left of it and the refugees who had decided to hide in my vestibule. I had actually enjoyed watching some of the drama play out above the city. The different factions fighting against each other. The King’s men abandoning the town, almost in mass, hauling off whatever wasn’t bolted down. The different noble groups either trying to release their leaders from the castle, rush to kill those leaders while they were still contained, or trying to stop the other two groups. It was a massacre, and for once, the peasants mostly remained safe and secure in their houses while the castle burned. The ordinary people didn’t start suffering until one of the factions decided to set fire to some other group’s mansion. Of course, one good fire deserves another, which left the whole city burnt and looking like what happens when you hand a lighter to an angsty teenager.

The castle was still sporting its giant blank ‘go away’ enchantment which left me without a view inside, but given the fires, the noble’s insanity, and the fact that the King’s guards left in a hurry with pockets stuffed with loot, I could guess what had happened. Somewhere, somewhen, someone stuck a pointy thing in a royal person, and that was the end of the bloodline.

Still: not my monkey, not my circus.

The real issue was that I had only a few days left here before I planned to move my entrance to another location, but my vestibule was filled with huddled refugees. I could understand things from their perspective. When super-powered humans start fighting, those without power should move quickly. Even given that, more were hiding in cellars than in my dungeon, but it only took a small number to fill me full.

My secondary vestibule would still allow me to move my gate, but I wasn’t eager to lock these commoners in the lobby and leave them to die. I had been relaxed about the whole idea when it had been hardened military dwarves. If they had camped out in my vestibule, it would have been because they were trying to annoy me or trying to get something from me. I felt no compunctions against retaliation there. But these peasants, they were just trying to live through the day, with some sneaking out for food during the night.

I had plans, I had goals, and some of them were planned for my vestibule. But no! No, of course not! No, they had to huddle there and try and survive, blocking my construction efforts the whole time. I still hadn’t updated my plaque with Yargo’s death, and I had a unique plan for that.

I was upset, but truthfully, I felt for the commoners too much to do anything about them huddling there and blocking my construction with their fluctuating mana. Some were doing more than huddling and waiting for the dungeon to eat them or the nobles to attack, whichever came first. A few enterprising people were trying their hand at my challenges instead of just waiting.

I had been watching a large man with wild sideburns. He had huffed like a steam engine as he tried my agility challenges but had quit after the second challenge. Apparently, he was afraid of heights, and he wanted nothing to do with a repeat of the vertical spiral room of monkey bars. Which was too bad, it had been impressive to see such a large fellow moving from bar to bar. His use of the bars the way I had intended had also reinforced my idea that the lady lizard had been one of the few who would think of scooting across the top of the bars.

It was when he looped around back through my hall of champions to my vestibule that I realized how I had been limiting myself. I was still trying to pretend I wasn’t sapient. But, truthfully, it didn’t matter any longer. That secret was out of the bag and had been for a while. Sure, the average Joe on the street didn’t know, but there had to be rumors. Anyone with any connection to the gods or any of the nobles had to have figured it out by now. That ‘secret’ wasn’t going to be keeping me safe. I had decided during the fight with Yargo that I was going to make my labyrinth a deadly affair the likes of which none had ever seen. If someone had evil intent, one look at my new maze would be enough to convince them I wasn’t a dumb stone.

Refusing to starve out my unhappy houseguests meant that I had to kick them out some other way. With me no longer hiding my ability to think, I could be blatant about how I request their absence.

First, I needed a place to go. Welden’s [High Priest] suggested that I head to the mage’s spire to the west, but should I trust him? I stacked and unstacked coins in my treasury as I considered the option. One location was as good as any in many ways. Wherever I go, Vetta’s church will try and follow. While I’m sure that Vetta’s followers are upset after those messages by miss blue box, I know it’s only this local branch’s leadership which has been ignoring her commands. This leaves me with no real goal for where to travel except ‘away from here.’

I knew why I was hesitating to head to the west; it felt too much like following along to the tune of the gods. While it’s true that I danced to that tune last time and it worked out well for me, it also rankled.

One beautiful thing about being a dungeon core was the nature of my new emotions. When I wasn’t experiencing extreme panic, my feelings were cold, calculating things — a bit like a crocodile waiting in ambush. I could think about my situation for hours without feeling the emotional drive to do, which would previously press at my mind. Even my affectations of pondering, stacking, and unstacking coins, was purely something to comfort me because of the new emotional silence. Truthfully, existence as a dungeon core was half frantic construction, something my alternate attentions were handling, and one-half cold, careful deliberation.

Despite my frustration with the gods, I had to consider the west my best option. Even if I was following along to Denda’s plan, something I wasn’t sure was the case. I still needed a place to travel next and somewhere that I could learn more about magic would be ideal. My options came down to solving two goals at the same time, or petulantly wandering around somewhere else while ignoring my plans. That sounded far too like my old self's habit of ignoring well-intentioned family advice in order to demonstrate my independence, or will, or something.

With my intent to better myself and avoid the mistakes of my past, I pointed my remote view to the west and began moving it at the fastest speed I was able.