It seemed to Samuel Tolliver that, when he thought about it, the stories told in the taverns about epic fights and shining knights always seemed to stop after the victory. The villain vanquished, the hero triumphant, and usually a girl of some sort gotten—bonus points if she was a princess, the end.

Except real life didn’t stop after the bad guy went down for the count. It continued to spiral on, completely out of control like a gnomish steam engine with a blown gasket. And often with just as much destructive potential. Standing in the center room of the dungeon he had built up over the last week, Sam decided not for the first time that life would be much simpler if it were like the bards’ tales.

He stood at the back of the circular chamber, in front of the small grotto he’d carved out not ten hours before. It was a grave, and a memorial; A simple shallow rectangle with a bronze plaque hung on the wall between two small mana torches in honor of a fallen kobold. The plaque read;

Here lays Rakun.

Devoted Father, Loyal Friend, Opinionated Bastard.

He will be missed.

It said nothing about how the kobold had been slain by the undead monarch that ruled this piece of the continent. Nor how he had risen again as an undead monster, hell-bent on eradicating life wherever he found it. Or how he had summoned armies of undead in an attempt to kill Sam and his people.

Or how he had murdered dozens of living men and women in order to further bolster his ranks.

Sam closed his eyes and let the weight of that press down on him for a moment. They had saved Melloram, the little town just outside the dungeon. They had rescued nearly a hundred and fifty residents, men, women and children. But so many had already been killed by the revenant, slain in the first days when Sam had been stuck deep in the heart of God’s Thumb, the great that now contained his dungeon. He was not to blame for those deaths, but they weighed on him nonetheless.

There was nothing he could have done. He knew that.

Now if only he could convince his heart to believe it.

“You look pensive,” a familiar feminine voice said from behind him. “Your mother has taught me a phrase to be used in times like this; ‘penny for your thoughts’?”

Sam smiled and turned to Cora. The tall woman’s silver skin gleamed softly in the light of the mana torches on the walls. Even her black hair shimmered like living obsidian. As it always did, it took Sam a moment to make the mental adjustments necessary to recognize her. Until yesterday, she had inhabited the spherical form of a ruby dungeon core. But a trip through Creation had allowed her to choose a new race, and the Pacifista golem she had selected was a far cry from her previous form.

In fact, a fair semblance of her former body was floating next to her, he realized, at about waist-height.

“Hiya butter-boy,” said Sally, the only other sentient dungeon core Sam had ever encountered. She was an orichalcum sphere around a brilliant blue gemstone in the center, with thousands upon thousands of mana sigils and runes inscribed on the silvery metal, layered on top of each other and even into the metal and onto the gemstone itself.

“Hey Cora. Sally. I was thinking that it just doesn’t seem fair how much work there still is left to do,” he replied.

“You knew that there would be much ahead of us after we took down the revenant,” she said, coming up to stand next to him. In her bare feet, she was at least six inches taller than he was in his boots. “Has something changed?”

“Yeah, it’s staring me in the face now instead of hiding behind the whole ‘survive long enough to grease the powerful undead that’s trying to destroy the world’ thing. Now it’s something I have to deal with.”

“So kick its teeth in and move on,” Sally said, bobbing in the air. “Doesn’t seem like a hard thing to wrap your noodle around.”

“I have seen you go from a frightened child scrabbling in the dark to a leader of those who saved the world in a short time,” Cora said, smiling. And that expression too was strange in Sam’s mind. She had come into the world bereft of emotions thanks to a premature and destructive awakening. Now in her new form, they seemed to be returning with a vengeance.

“It strikes me,” she continued in that same soft voice so at odds with her metallic form, “that you will likely overcome the challenges ahead of you in like manner.”

“And I can remember when it was me who was constantly reassuring you,” Sam said with a quiet chuckle. “Change seems to be the order of the day, these days.”

“Oh, gag me with a fork,” Sally rocked back and forth and made a retching noise. “Just get a room already. Or did you want to wait until after we told you what we found?”

Sam came instantly alert. “You’ve found something?”

“No,” Cora said, grimacing. “I’m sorry Samuel, we used every scanning routine we have at our disposal.”

“And a couple I cribbed from the goblins,” Sally added. “Don’t tell ‘em.”

“And you didn’t find anything?”

“I’m sorry,” Cora said again. “You appear to be the same as you were before you gained that subrace.”

“And neither one of us have anything in our memories about what it means, either. Looks like you’re ess-oh-ell, buddy.”

“Damn.” Sam scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. “I’d hoped—“

Hoped that the sisters—who in reality were pieces of the same personality that had been split apart through a series of unfortunate mishaps—would be able to tell him about his new subrace. He’d gained it only last night, and had told no one except those two about it.

He pulled his stat menu up again in his glasses, letting his eyes drift over the readouts that were at once so familiar and—in one crucial instance—so utterly alien to him.

Name: Samuel Tolliver

Race: Human(Unaltered)

Sub Race: Freed Unique Mob

Class: Core Guardian

Subclass: None

Essence Level: 6

HP: 400/400

MP: 175/175

**You have unspent essence exchanges**

It was that third line that held his attention. Before last night he’d never had a sub-race. Even going through the white space of Creation hadn’t offered him a sub-race. But it had been given to him as a reward for killing a Core Guardian. For killing Rakun, or the thing that Rakun had become.

He’d hoped that the sisters would have been able to shed more information on what it meant. But it seemed those hopes were in vain.

… Or perhaps not quite yet.

“What about your other sister,” he asked, looking back and forth between the two. “Could she maybe help?”

Cora pursed her lips thoughtfully and got a far-away look in her eyes. Sally was a bit less restrained.

“No,” she said, surging forward to hover right in front of Sam. “She’s not ready to see anyone yet.”

“I don’t need to see her, Sal,” Sam said, raising an eyebrow at the belligerent core. “But you told me yourself she’s the knowledge part of you three. Maybe she knows what it means. Can you ask her?”

Sally floated at head-height, gem-eye staring right at Sam, who got the distinct impression the core was glaring at him.

“Sure,” she said finally, grudgingly. “I’ll ask her. But don’t hold your breath.” She drifted back to her usual height and moved back beside Cora, quiet and probably brooding. Sally had a soft spot where the never-seen third sister was concerned. Eventually, Sam was sure, he was going to have to press the issue. But Sally had spent the last week in the sway of the revenant, and her sister had apparently been damaged by her awakening. He would give them time to heal before he pushed for answers.

Even if it was frustrating to no end to do so.

He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Moving on then. How are things?”

“Well.” Cora waved her hand and summoned up a display pane in mid-air, just like the one that Sam had in his glasses display. “The residential quarters on the second floor are half-way to dug out. We will need you to place the rooms within an hour, likely. And then we will need you to remove the bunk rooms from the main level, assuming you still wish to install the mob generators there?”

“Yeah, I do,” Sam said, pulling up the schematics in his own display. “It makes sense to have them together with the equipment rooms, and the main entrances.”

“We still need to connect,” Sally said. “The ceremony for taking on a new guardian is a few hours long, so get yourself a block of free time so we can do the nasty, huh?”

Sam blinked. “It’s not actually that, is it?”

“What’sa matter butter-boy? It’s not like it’s your first time.” It was amazing how an utterly featureless core could give the impression of a lascivious smirk. “I promise I can do things to you that my sister never dreamed of.”

“Sally,” Cora said, and her silvery hand thumped onto the top of the core like she was bopping a precocious toddler in reprimand. “You are uncouth and obnoxious. Stop it.”

“You never let me have any fun,” Sally grumbled. “But we really do need to get the bonding rituals done. The longer I go without a guardian, the more you go without learning how to use the powers I give you. And with a lich due to visit in the next couple weeks, you’re gonna need all the practice you can get.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Alright, let’s make it this afternoon then. I’ll message you when I’m ready, alright?”

“Sure butter-boy. Just pencil me in wherever’s convenient. Not like I got any better prospects.”

“Anyone ever tell you how endearing you are under that prickly demeanor?” Sam asked.

Sally’s gem flickered in what he’d come to recognize as a blink. “No?”

“I think I know why,” Sam said, the turned to Cora. “How’s the dungeon going,” he asked her.

“Everyone’s a comedian,” Sally grumbled.

Cora grinned and thumped her sister again. “It fares well, I think,” she said to Sam. “Here, observe.”

Sam turned and studied Cora’s map, still projected in mid-air. It showed the dungeon from a top-down perspective, with the second floor — and the currently-under-construction third floor and basement levels as well — shown as a cluster of tunnels and dug-out caverns surrounded by the gray of the mountain. Small dots of blue or white scurried back and forth, denoting dungeon mobs and allied units moving about on errands of one sort or another.

Almost a hundred souls tied directly to him in one way or another. A week ago that would have been daunting. Now it was… Tuesday.

Funny how fast things changed.

And how things might still change, come to think of it.

“You said you talked to my ma,” Sam said, turning from the map. “Are they in the dungeon right now?”

“Yes,” Cora did something with her fingers and the map zoomed in on a pair of blue dots. “They are currently being given a tour of the new construction by Rashun, who I believe is pushing Bugruk on the new wheelchair Char built for him.”

“Good,” Sam said, feeling a splash of ice well up in his stomach. “I think it’s time I had a talk with them.”

“Yeah?” Sally tilted herself and peered up at Sam. “What about?”

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly, glancing at Cora. The tall silvery woman looked back, and there was understanding in her eyes.

“About why they’ve been lying to me,” Sam murmured just loud enough for his own ears to hear.