I enjoyed meditation, and ever since I had absorbed the information that the black dragon left me I had been able to enter a deeper state of meditation than ever before. I spent my time reflecting on my new found purpose and meditating.

I was a dungeon so it was my duty to create monsters and traps to judge the worth of invaders and challengers. I was to reward the brave and cunning while culling the weak and foolish, but I also had the responsibility to grow and process mana and ether. I was to serve as the judge and executioner of fate, but I also needed to act as a generator for Eden.

I understood fairly clearly what it was I was supposed to do, but I had no idea how to actually do it. I still wasn’t able to do more than think to myself.

I should be able to create monsters and shape the earth around me, but all I can do is float here and I’m not even sure how I’m doing that… I’m not shaping up to be a very good dungeon…

I had ideas, in fact I’d spent all the time since the dragon left coming up with ideas for my dungeon. I could make a huge sprawling maze with no real exits, make a trap that launches spikes up from the floor, and I could even make a monster that would make even the black dragon seem weak in comparison. Sure I didn’t know how I could go about creating any of that, but I’m sure that thinking about possibilities now will help me when I figure out how to actually create things later.

And at the very least it gives me something besides meditation to do…

***

“Ah…”

I looked at the woman who walked in through the opening of my cavern. She was wearing grey silken garb that covered very little of her body, and her long flowing silver hair hung down to her back. Her sharp blue eye’s locked onto me as soon as she saw me and her expression bloomed into a full smile.

“A dungeon core…”

The woman bent her knees as she dipped slightly while the silken ribbons around her slender legs fluttered.

“My apologies for the intrusion, I came to investigate strange fluctuations of mana and sightings of a black dragon… I am Melinda, a gray mage of some renown.”

***

POV: Melinda

I looked up and schooled my expression into a pleasant and friendly smile. I had come to investigate the dragon sightings that came from this area, and when I found this cave with the remnants of a masking spell on it I thought I may have found a dragon den. Instead I’ve found something much more interesting and valuable.

A dungeon core…

I stared at the orb floating in front of me, its pitch black surface was speckled with motes of silver light and it gave off a soft glow that helped illuminate the cavern. As my eyes adjusted to the low light I blinked and released my mage sight.

“It is an honor to meet you, I hope we will come to be… close friends…”

I glanced carefully around the room and felt my breath hitch at what I saw. The floor was littered with good sized black scales, there was blood moss growing behind the floating core, and beside me there were six barrels and four crates that were carefully placed beside the opening I had just come through.

Maintaining my smile and keeping a respectful distance from the core I felt my mind racing. Blinking I called on my mage sight once again and examined the core again, it was radiating a huge field of mana that was ever shifting between deep black, dark grey, pale green, and bright silver.

A dungeon core, a fairly powerful one as well from what I can see, but still an infant. It seems to be unbound given that there is no creature serving as master or assistant around it, and that even after greeting it so respectfully it hasn’t responded. It also hasn’t created or summoned any monsters for itself…

I felt my smile grow, I could see so many opportunities opening up to me. I had experience with exploiting a dungeon through fear, but now I have the unique opportunity to befriend one. From what I had studied dungeons tend to shower their friends with rewards, I wouldn’t have to be concerned with the dungeon plotting to kill me this way either.

Although I assume it will be difficult to build any sort of relationship with it if It can’t communicate with me… Perhaps I can start our friendship out with a gift.

Reaching down I picked up a single scale, to my mage sight it seemed to shine like black fire with all the mana it contained. Looking back at the core I gave it another polite bow and curtsy before moving back to the opening that led back to the two other caverns that made up this cave system.

“I must apologies for leaving so suddenly after my intrusion, but I assure you that I will return soon. However, before I return I shall send some of my people to you with a gift. I do hope that you will accept my gift in return for this scale, and as a sign of our new friendship…”

I turned and left the dungeon core’s cavern and made my way through the winding passage of stone into the small cavern filled with stalagmites and stalactites. Working around the cones of stone I came to the large cave that opened up right out of the cliff face. As I looked out at the rolling hills of grassland I felt something rise up inside me, chuckling and giggling to myself I couldn’t contain the growing joy I felt. Today had been a good day full of all sorts of pleasant discoveries.

And I finally found a good use for that annoying dungeon fairy… It seems Cal is still leaving me gifts, even after her core’s been shattered…

End POV

***

I watched as the woman, Melinda, left my cavern. She had seemed nice, at the very least she had been polite when she spoke to me. Though it was quite frustrating to have someone interacting with me and having no way to communicate back to them.

Still she did say she was coming back, and she’d send someone to give me gift. I’m not sure why she would feel the need to give me a gift in exchange for some scale she found on the ground…

I seemed to remember dragon scales being valuable, true dragon scales even more so, but I didn’t think they would require my receiving a gift. In fact I’m not even sure if the scales could be considered mine, the black dragon could easily come back and claim them as his own.

Well, I guess that isn’t very likely… that would be like a person coming back to collect their clipped nails…

I gave a mental chuckle at that, I was being ridiculous. I guess that was because of what the woman…

No her name is Melinda, I should use her name since she took the time to give it to me.

What Melinda had said to me, that she wanted to be my friend. It was something that struck at an ache deep inside me. I hadn’t considered myself to be lonely until that moment, bored yes, but not lonely. Now that had changed and I was deeply aware of how alone I was, and I was not at all happy with it.

But that will be changed soon enough, I have a friend now… Or at least I think Melinda and I are friends, I’m not sure I know how friendship works. I think at some point I did, but well… Yeah, I must have known before I became an orb, er… I mean a dungeon…

I shook my nonexistent head and closed my nonexistent eyes. Today had been a good day, but now that my visitor had left all the excitement had died down. Focusing my attention inward and then letting it disperse into nothing I began another round of meditation.