I turned my mind to my Physical Essence but didn’t have enough to build anything useful except for a few more traps. They would take time to position and craft, but I could summon Hellbats almost instantaneously. I still had 400 Infernal Essence but didn’t want to pour everything into a horde of minions.
Before I could make a decision, I felt the first raider step into the dungeon. My consciousness reflexively fluttered away from the essence, as though it had suddenly become out of reach. Snarling to myself, I tried to catch hold of it, but it was lost to me. The corner of my jewel that could excavate, build, and shape things from essence was shut off. The abilities I had come to rely on were imprisoned within a metaphorical concrete bunker.
Then I realized what had happened: I couldn’t change my dungeon or summon more minions after a visitor entered my gates. It was something instinctive and integral to my nature as a dungeon core.
I felt more feet on my entrance steps and refocused, dismissing the limitation in half a second. They filtered down, one after the other. I spotted the half-orcs instantly—huge, blunt tusks jutted out of their grey faces and narrowed eyes below ridged foreheads also gave them away. They weren’t exactly Gavin’s level of ugly, but what might a human being have fucked to create one of these guys?
They were cautious as they proceeded down the staircase, pausing with each step and waiting almost a full thirty seconds before continuing. Their wary movements gave me time to inspect their equipment. Some carried torches flickering with pitch, ugly but useful additions to decorate and illuminate my dungeon.
Their weapons formed a motley collection, but they were all goldmines to a dungeon core. Curved swords of dull metal with leather-wrapped hilts hung down from their sides. I couldn’t even build a sword at this point to decorate my dungeon or give to Von Dominus. There were short spears with wide blades that would make perfect dungeon spikes. One half-orc, shorter and slimmer than the others, carried two slender daggers, completely different from Bertha’s cleaver. Some of the weapons glistened with Infernal Essence, and I suppressed the giddy thought of absorbing more of them to create new weapons with differing effects. The time would come for that; right now, I had to focus on dealing with these fools.
The amount of Soul Essence swirling down the staircase from my entrance was enough to make my mental mouth water. I needed that delicious, golden buffet to create, to transform, to make more and more minions.
My jewel flickered in anticipation as the raiders continued their descent with measured steps. The tendrils of my consciousness hovered near the Hellbats as they hibernated, utterly unaware of my intention to call upon them. I could already imagine the chaos, but I needed all of the raiders inside my dungeon’s antechamber before I awoke the first minion. I’d pull the trigger and start a shitfest to stir the bats into a frenzy, and I almost yipped with the joy of it. If I wanted clean kills, I’d need four times the number of Hellbats I already had. With only five in the Antechamber, I’d need to move a few from the Pretzel to make a good first impression.
As I issued the command to the dormant minions, the last pair of raiders entered my dungeon: the humans. The first was a young man, fit from hard work, carrying a weapon glowing with an Infernal sigil. The whole weapon was shimmering with essence; it was not merely a conduit. The second I saw it, I attempted to consume the weapon, but I came up against that same mental wall that had prevented me building traps while my dungeon had visitors.
I might not have been able to eat the weapon now, but I would later. The guy carrying it was dead. I’d have to save the other human as my dungeon’s primary advertiser.
The old guy behind him carried a staff shining with a steady, guiding light. Carved into the wood was another Infernal sigil, but as I could see no residual essence floating off the light source, I assumed the staff illuminated without the need for fuel. Torches would require constant upkeep, but this staff could be a more permanent, resource-sparing solution to Zagorath’s lighting problem.
The old man’s robes brushed across the steps as he moved down. They were definitely the robes of a priest, and the symbol on the garment’s front reminded me of Lilith. Was he devoted to Lilith? I supposed it didn’t matter; Lilith hadn’t ordered me not to kill her priests.
He was practically glowing with the characteristically red-edged, golden aura of Soul Essence. Was it his age, his years of channeling Essence into weapons, or did he possess some kind of potent, hidden power? I didn’t know how exactly adventurers harvested and manipulated the energy of dungeons and monster. It was all a mystery to me.
The more I focused on the priest, the more I felt there was more to him—or, at least, more to his equipment. I centered my consciousness on a pouch hanging from his belt, sensing something that changed the game entirely.
It was a consciousness not unlike my own, buried behind a container of some kind. It deafened her voice, but I knew she was pleading for help. I could tell the voice was feminine, but I couldn’t quite say why. Something reached out and connected with me, a dull cry that electrified my heart. The jolt of energy further roused my curiosity, and I spent almost a full minute mentally dissecting the object within the leather pouch.
Then I found it.
A small, azure jewel was hidden beneath the leather folds, an egg-like shell covered in binding magic keeping her from breaking out. Each time I flickered over her, she recoiled, hardening her mental defenses. But
