***** Amandine’s POV 11:40 PM *****

“What just happened?” I asked.

“If an energy shield, such as your new toy, is to absorb incoming energy and protect whatever is behind it with as little bleed through as possible, it needs somewhere to dump all of the energy that it absorbs,” explained the first kobold. “Some shields use this energy to power themselves, but they tend to blow up if overloaded. In this case, when I say blow up, I mean everything inside of the area they protect doesn’t exist anymore.

“Instead, they anchor themselves in an extra-dimensional space or maybe another plane of existence, I’m not entirely clear on the details, but either way, they transfer the energy there rather than allowing it into whatever they’re protecting. In this case, that means that the shield absorbed somewhere north of 95% of the incoming kinetic energy.

“The rebound though, that was all you. It’ll be interesting to watch you play around with them.”

“Wait, what? Why do you think you’ll get to see me play around with them?”

“Oops. I can’t answer that. Oh, by the way, he who was known as Chroma sends his regards, and thanks you for showing him such a glaring weakness in his fighting style.”

“You mean the boss? But I thought that was the Slaver Queen…”

“The Boss is actually a suit of armor with significant simulation capabilities. Before he was part of the Dungeon, his name was Chroma, but now it cannot be because Dungeon Rules. Anyway, he’s never had an actual fight in that form before, and it didn’t occur to him that losing a leg at speed could be so lethal.”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, that’s all I got at the moment. Onwards!”

Shrugging, I let the power fade somewhat as I walked towards the newly revealed doorway, which turned out to lead to the core room, where again I just stood there in shock.

The first thing that caught my attention was the heartbeat of the room, the very core itself. I’d heard tell of other dungeon cores over the years, but they all looked like gems of one sort or another. This one was made out of crystal, but that’s where the similarities ended. Every dungeon core that I’d ever heard of had been faceted, but this one was perfectly spherical. Also, there was a multitude of lights inside, dancing here and there in some fashion that I couldn’t determine from the doorway.

However, it wasn’t the core that held my attention, it was the carvings covering the walls. Directly behind the core, there was a depiction of the dragon that we’d faced earlier, with the dryad standing next to his head in a posture that made it clear they were together. The way the carvings loomed over the core crystal made it clear that if you did somehow manage to destroy the dungeon there would be hell to pay.

Above the dragon and the dryad, there was another depiction of the pyramid headed thing from the entrance room and the giant fairy thing. They weren’t looming quite as much, but they were still there.

The remaining walls were covered in carvings of various creatures that we had encountered in the dungeon, as well as many things that we hadn’t encountered yet.

Then I realized that–

Temporary Divine Redaction: Not a Spoiler

the crystal before me was not the dungeon core. It didn’t have any of the divine energy from the Seal that I’d given it earlier.

I’m sorry my child, but I’m locking this thought away from you for now. You have a mission here, now go finish it without that piece of information.

–the time had come.

Without any warning, I charged forward and picked up the crystal, causing the dungeon to go wild. The room filled with a blinding array of lights, a deafening cacophony of sound, and I started smelling traces of sleeping gas.

None of that, however, could stop me from reaching into the pouch on my belt and activating the teleport talisman, dropping me back in Lord Ubaro’s office.

“Hand it to me!” he demanded, and I complied. “Yes! At last, I have the last thing that I need to complete the plans! You are of no further use to me. Now die!”

My body crumpled to the floor and the world started fading away, then the divine seal on my thoughts faded away and I remembered that this wasn’t actually the dungeon’s core crystal.

If it’s not the dungeon’s core crystal, then what is it?

Bong! Bing! Bong!

Wait, that’s the sound the dungeon used to mark the start of the transition period–

*beepbeepbeep*

Oh. It’s a trap. Clever.

Splorch! … hisssss…

Suddenly I was covered in a thick layer of goo, then my body finally gave up the ghost.

I’m not sure what I expected from the afterlife, but being stuck in a featureless void with an indistinct blue person as well as the dragon, the dryad, the pyramid head, and the fairy was not it. What was even more disturbing was that the void somehow managed to lack color completely – it wasn’t even black or grey, it just simply wasn’t anything at all.

Finally! It’s about time he tried to kill you guys with the curse! Now I can start cleaning up the mess he made starting with you and your people Amandine.

“What’s going on? I’m dead aren’t I?”

Yes, but no. Under normal conditions, yes, you and your people are quite dead. However, given all of the rules that Lord Ubaro broke to create the curse that he placed on you, I get Veto power on your death in this instance and I’m using it. Even so, I cannot shove you back into bodies that have stopped functioning. Yes, as the Divinely Appointed & Created Guardian and Director of this world I have an immense amount of power at my disposal. However, once a body has ceased to function as a vessel for life, even I cannot put it back. Necromancers can create something that mimics the life lost, but… They’re like two-year-old’s trying to fix the shattered remains of a hermetically sealed container using a dull needle and some hemp twine. It just doesn’t work that way, and it never will.

“Okaaay… You only answered part of my question.”

The simplest solution is to give you and your people to me as quasi-contracted monsters. You won’t get your old bodies back, as he said they are broken beyond repair, but I can give you a job that you can be proud of, interjected the pyramid headed thing.

“He’s got plenty of help inside the dungeon, but I’m going to need lots of help protecting and policing the city I’m going to build for him,” added the Dryad. “I would also appreciate some local perspectives on what is comfortable for humans and other races as my idea of what is comfortable is heavily skewed by my nature. I’d ask scale for brains here,”

“Hey!”

“But as a dragon, his perspective is just as skewed as mine.”

“Before we get too sidetracked,” interjected the fairy, “what kind of bodies could you give them? That seems to be a rather important question.”

“Please, not goblins or slimes. I’d rather just die now if you’re going to try turning me into a goblin or a slime.”

Well, the nature of your curse lends itself rather well to turning you into werewolves, but there are a lot of problems with that.

How about turning them into Lizarolfkang?

Huh. That works. In fact, that solves a couple of ongoing problems quite nicely. Amandine, what do you think?

“At this point, my people are so tired of being under that idiot’s thumb that we would gladly accept any improvement in our circumstances. However, I’d rather not be trading one evil master for another or paying a price that is far higher than we can afford.”

I will do my best to treat you with respect, honor, and dignity. I will warn you that it might not seem that way at first, but I’d rather not spend large amounts of mana resurrecting y’all multiple times because of training accidents. Make no mistake, given what the Lizarolfkang can do, there will be training accidents.

“To this day, I still cannot believe those idiots thought they would make good slaves. I don’t care how cute they are, one look at what goes on in their coliseums will tell you they are not submissive by nature,” muttered the dragon.

“In that case, I accept, provided that we won’t always be stuck in a policing role.”

Most definitely not. I have plans for the future and leaving you and your people as police officers long term would be a complete waste. You’re mostly going to fill the gap until Broohn has time to head out and recruit some actual police officers to come live out here with us. I will have need of your fighting capabilities at some point. When exactly, I don’t know, but I will.

“Good. In that case, let’s do this thing. How does this work?”

Your agreement is sufficient. Initiating respawn in 5…. 4… 3… 2… 1…