Silence filled Gem’s Core Room. It was a stark contrast to the mournful wailing that happened below, or even the chirping, cheerful sounds coming from Shriek and friends just around the corner from the generators.

“That was… necessary,” Chesu said, his tone unconvincing. “You need to level, and fast. To do that, you’re going to have to kill adventurers.”

And he did. But there was a massive difference between the theory of dungeons and the reality.

The wisp nodded. “Yeah, of course. We’ll get that sorted as soon as these guys are gone.” He looked into Gem’s core with a smirk. “Won’t be long now. Did you want to get the full-wipe quest out of the way today?”

Gem focused his attention on what Chesu was talking about.

Tabeth and Lars sat in the grass. The Swashbuckler was wailing, her arms wrapped tightly around her own head while her companion spoke in soothing words and held her. Behind them, the twins were also crying, although Likara stood in a wide stance over a pile of her own vomit, while Dinara leaned against the wall of the dungeon with her head in her hands.

Their mourning meant none saw the group of mobs sneaking through the underbrush.

At the lead were three Cicadossums, all in various states of injury. The adventurers had all ignored the tank mobs as soon as they had activated Feign Death, even though they hadn’t produced a Mob Heart.

With them were the two remaining Goosalopes. The first was the ambushing Goosalope from in front of the Boss Room, but the other was the remaining creature from the first room, the one who had stolen Likara’s staff.

“If you want to stop them, you can, but this might be all she wrote for these adventurers.”

Chesu shook his head firmly. “Not this group, and not any more. Without their Rogue they are down a significant portion of their power, especially since their Enchanter is without her magic boosting item. The Swashbuckler doesn’t have enough aggro generation at this level to secure all the monsters quickly, and a Sage’s major weakness is dealing with lots of injuries very quickly. Not to mention that they are all incredibly distracted right now.”

Tabeth was halfway into the water. Lars was practically hanging from one arm as he tried to stop her from rushing to her death, but she was yelling about collecting his items to return them to his family. Apparently gear was a priceless thing in this pre-apocalyptic world.

It meant that neither of them were close when the first Goosalope struck.

The creature went for Likara, likely because it recognized her. Once more it bit her on the behind, and the Enchanter wailed in anguish and surprise. “Oh no! Not again! Go away!” She slapped at the Goosalope with her hands, but it only honked and bit at her fingers.

Her shouts alerted her companions of the danger. Dinara had her bow in her hands in a flurry of movement, but when she went to reach for her arrows she instead found another Goosalope. “Damnit! There’s another one!” She grabbed at the arrow. “Give that back!”

“We’re on our way!” Tabeth shouted from the trap room.

“Shame you can’t close that door,” Chesu said with a wistful sigh. “Cause some real chaos.”

“Nothing is guaranteed, kid. While I think it’s very unlikely that they take on this mob, I could be wrong. Maybe they’ve got some hidden item. But I’ll tell you that it feels very much like this is it.”

Gem sent the wisp an image of a frowning core. He looked to the party of adventurers, where Tabeth was struggling with controlling the two Goosalope.

The wisp started to argue, and then shook his head. “Sure, kid. You do or say whatever helps you get through this. Just remember: they chose to come here, knowing the risks. Don’t be afraid to have a little fun at their expense.”

Gem felt anger wind its way through his core, but he pushed it aside because below them, the Cicadossum were joining the fight.

All three attacked at once, surging from the same bush and causing the already struggling Tabeth to shout in anger and confusion. She smashed her off-hand weapon into one, gaining its attention, but the other two ran for Likara.

“Get them away from me!” the golden-braided Enchanter cried as she retreated. Her skin arced with lightning, but it was a pale comparison to the earlier sparks. Instead of lashing out with the magic, however, she flinched away from the oncoming mobs. It didn’t take long for her to break and run away entirely.

“Where are you going?” Tabeth yelled, her voice cracking. “Bring them to me!”

“Get them off!”

“Poor girl,” Chesu said before clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “She’s going to be the first to go.”

“I’ve seen this exact scenario play out, kid. Usually it’s a healer, but clothies in general are fond of the ‘run away from the tank’ game. It means their frontline can’t interject before the mob runs them down. She’s just lucky the Cicadossum doesn’t have ranged attacks.”

Chesu pointed a finger at Gem and waggled it a little. “Good call. That would be terrifying. I wonder if a Servitor would.”

The wisp looked pointedly at the action below them. “Oh, don’t worry. I have a feeling you’ll be leveling up soon.”

Gem was pretty sure he was correct. The logical conclusion of running around in the woods without watching where you were going happened: Likara tripped over some decoration, or maybe her own two feet. Either way, she ended up sprawled out in the grass, wailing, as two Cicadossum closed in.

Their work was done quickly. Tank Mobs weren’t very strong and couldn’t do much damage, but that didn’t matter when their opponent was prone and uninterested in fighting back.

Gem received notification of her death moments after her screams cut out.

“Likara!”

“Dinara! Focus! Let’s get these down and then we can go help her!”

But the golden-haired Ranger was shaking her head. “She’s dead! You can’t help her! She died! Alone!”

“Moon have mercy,” Lars said, almost under his breath.

Tabeth only growled. “Then avenge her! Help us!”

Their efforts were futile, however. The Cicadossums returned, and the combined damage of all five mobs was too much for Lars’s healing and Tabeth’s mitigation. One by one, the party fell. Notification after notification filled Gem’s consciousness, and then there were no more.

Quest Complete: Not Like This. Eliminate an entire party of adventurers with your dungeon mobs or traps. Reward: 100 xp baseline (600 xp total)

Quest Complete: Caught Like A Moth In A Bath. Trap an adventurer. Reward: 100 xp baseline (300 xp total)

Congratulations! Through grit and determination you’ve earned enough experience to gain Tin Two.

Upgrade Point Earned! New Mob Unlocked: Cardinowl New Feature Unlocked: Coin Creation

Congratulations! Through grit and determination you’ve earned enough experience to gain Tin Three.

Upgrade Point Earned! New Alteration Unlocked: Forest Hut New Room Unlocked: Forge

Congratulations! Through grit and determination you’ve earned enough experience to gain Tin Four.

Upgrade Point Earned! New Creature Unlocked: Skunkupine New Feature Unlocked: Basic Furniture

“How much did you get?”

Gem sent the wisp a picture of a crystal core with question marks floating above its unorthodox head.

Chesu clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “No. This is the way of the world. Of the universe. It’s a complicated system and we’re just living in it.” He patted Gem’s surface in a very kind way. “Think of it this way, kid: you didn’t do anything malicious to them. And by asking if you shouldn’t feel overjoyed at getting levels, you’re showing way more compassion than they deserve. Enjoy your increase in power. There will be more and more and then we’ll go use them to fight for the world to save the rest of them, yeah?”

Gem turned those words over in his mind for a few moments while he surveyed the cooling corpses in his dungeon.

He found he had little true empathy for them. Chesu was right, even if his words weren’t the most elegant: the goal of a dungeon was to separate the weak from the strong. To provide challenges for folks to either overcome, or to fall to. Either way, it was a co-dependent relationship. He needed them to run the dungeon so he could get stronger and they needed him so they could get stronger. Taking it easy on them would just make them both weaker.

And then the Ostrum would win.

Chesu continued to talk, and Gem split his mind so he could both listen and absorb the fallen adventurers and their gear. Instead of putting all of his effort into engaging the wisp when he was talking about cosmic balance and the economics of dungeon cores, Gem focused on cleaning up his dungeon.

He absorbed the corpses without remorse. It wasn’t so much stoicism but something akin.

These weren’t adventurers. They weren’t the people who had run his dungeon. Who had teased one another relentlessly. Instead, these were just bodies. Things left behind.

Afterthoughts.

The gear they had was interesting. Gem absorbed the various bits and suddenly knew how to make armor of all three varieties—cloth, leather, and plate—and also how to make books (that seemed to be specifically for Sages), swords, daggers, and bows. He also learned the ability to duplicate small items they’d had on them, including simple jewelry and coins. Lars had also carried a stoppered vial that Gem found out was a mana potion when he absorbed it.

But no matter where Gem looked, he couldn’t find how to make some of these new things. The coins were under Crafting, and he assumed that was because of his new Feature to create coin.

Gem combined both halves of himself and then waited for a lull in the conversation.

Chesu seemed unperturbed. “Sleyn’s a bit different in this way: you need to make the specific room. It’ll come with an NPC—short for Non-Philosophically Conscious entity—that will help you make whatever you need.”

“Well, now hold on, kid. There’s two sides to this. You can will anything into existence, except for legal tender and actual life. But you can’t use it, and neither can your mobs. That staff you got from the Enchanter? You can duplicate it and make it a drop for people running your dungeon. It doesn’t even take mana. But for it to be something you can use, it needs a room and an NPC.”

Gem sent him an image of a frown.

“You need to unlock Coin Creation, which I’m sure you did. However, coins take mana to make. Sleyn rule. Economy was rotten after the whole fall-of-society-because-of-the-Ostrum thing. Cores made too much coin, adventurers were suddenly flush with cash, and inflation went into the stratosphere. Patch notes came out real quick limiting what Dungeon Cores could produce.”

Chesu shrugged. “There’s a downside to that though: you won’t have mana to do anything else. And that, kid, is the balance. Spend all day making coins? Cool, now you can’t resummon your mobs. Or cast spells.”

Excitement flooded Gem’s core.

The wisp laughed, a bit too hard. “Hallow Blessed I can feel the enthusiasm radiating off you. Yes. Eventually.”

Gem felt his eagerness fade.

“It ain’t like that, kid. You’ll soon unlock the ability to make a Library. And then you can enchant gear, cast spells, and give your mobs the ability to cast spells. It’s really quite a powerful Room, which is why it’s a little higher level.”

He sent the wisp an image of a sad crystal.

Something gleamed in Chesu’s eyes. “Excellent. Now, let’s reset your dungeon, make sure you’ve absorbed all the things, and start distributing some loot since you’ve got some things to poof into existence, maybe even summon some more mobs… and then we can make the Forge.”