Chapter 5: Spiritual Guidance

Date and Time Unknown

Dungeon Ciara

“…ungeon.” I was startled awake by a voice that I didn’t recognize. Everything shone a brilliant blue and I tried to squint, but I couldn’t feel my eyes. Or anything else.

That’s weird.

The light faded at last. I felt hollow inside, and that realization elicited a burning desire to feed.

“Excellent, you’re finally awake! There’s a whole world out there teeming with food despite the recent calamity, and it’s not going to eat itself!” The voice was deep, gravelly, and sounded impatient.

Who are you, and what are you doing in my bedroo—wait! Where am I?

My vision slowly cleared, and I beheld the outline of a minuscule dragon with a body composed of… dark red light?

Ah, I guess I’m still dreaming. First, that weird vision in the sky and the fires melting everything, and now…

Through my hazy, 360-degree vision, a battle-scarred hide and wizened expression made the little dragon appear far older than its size would suggest. Its black claws and silvery crystalline teeth seemed more real and menacing than the rest of its tiny but powerfully-muscled frame.

The dragonling’s wings flapped slowly and silently while it hovered before me.

Without warning, my vision snapped into perfect clarity as a strange orb appeared at the edge of my attention, no matter where I focused. The miniature red dragon was indeed a tiny being composed of light. Star-shaped pupils in its intelligent eyes stared impatiently down the bridge of its long snout—at me.

Maybe this thing is the dragon I saw in the sky?

I stared at the orb, wondering what in the world it could be.

From out of nowhere, a deep voice spoke,

<Mana.>

What the heck is that about?

The orb shifted to the visage of a striking blue gemstone nearly identical to my own stunning, dreamworld body—but hollow and filled to the brim with some ethereal liquid, or maybe plasma?

Lines of text shone beside it.

Minions: 0/100

Residents: 0/10

Denizens: 0

Traps: 0/5

My shining, shapely, translucent core shimmered, its various facets refracting blue and pink hues as it hovered in the center of a spherical cavern with a one-meter radius. The stone that had become my body slowly rotated on a vertical axis.

I gazed at myself for a long moment, reveling in my own appearance until I realized how strange it was that I could see everything around me, and my own body, simultaneously. How had my mind managed that?

I knew that dreams could bend the rules of reality, but this was so… lifelike. Every little detail of my body and surroundings was impeccable, matching the clarity of my prior dream.

I shuddered mentally under the thick memory of being ravaged by some mysterious force before vaporizing beneath a nuclear fireball.

Motion caught my awareness. The glowing dragon-thing waved its miniature, clawed hands impatiently in front of me.

“Dungeon, are you listening? It’s Sven! Your Spirit Guide. You did pay attention during the training session my Lord provided while you were evolving, yes? That should have explained everything.” Sven said smoothly, with a forced smile.

[Sven? I… Training session? Never mind that! Why am I so hungry? Let’s get some breakfast! Wait. Why can’t I talk aloud?]

“Please tell me the Dungeon’s evolution wasn’t flawed…” the dragon whispered a little too loudly under its breath while staring straight at my core.

I felt a surge of indignation.

[Your attitude is flawed, scaly! I ask if we can eat, and you immediately jump to making insults. Who do you think you are, anyway?]

Hunger surged within me while I stared at his floating body.

[Are you tasty? How is your voice so deep even though you’re so tiny?]

“Oh, this is just perfect. Of course! I get a problem child who specializes in nonsense…” The teeny red dragon facepalmed, then squeezed the bridge between his tightly-shut eyes with a clawed hand.

“Seriously? You don’t recall any of your training?” He cracked open one eye to peer dubiously at me.

[You’re seriously ignoring the fact that I’ve just told you I’m starving? No, I don’t remember any training. I just woke up, you know, even though this is obviously a dream! But one thing is certain. Dream-me needs to eat, and you’re the only edible thing around. So, if you’re just gonna be rude, then—]

He cut me off with a long, exasperated sigh, then spoke slowly and deliberately.

“You can’t eat me, little Dungeon Core. I’m here serving as your Spirit Guide, but my corporeal body resides in another realm.” Sven made a big show of rolling his eyes, then flew closer to poke a clawed finger at me.

Somehow, his words rang true in my mind, so I sulked inwardly.

After a moment, Sven turned away. He blew another lengthy, dramatic sigh and shook his head. “Since we’re starting from scratch, let’s get going. I can’t have you running yourself out of mana on some backwater world before you’ve secured the means to feed. Dungeons are effectively immortal, so long as they manage to survive their early years and don’t anger any Dragons.”

He paused to shoot me a sharp glance before continuing.

“But this is no dream, and if you run yourself out of the most basic resource before you have any means to replenish your supply, you’ll die.”

[Die?]

That got my attention.

---

“You’re a few meters beneath a beach surrounded by the wasteland that was once your home city. So, you’ll need to—”

[What? How are you aware of the dream I had last night?]

“Dream? Dungeon, what are you talking about?”

[You know, the one where I got vaporized by a huge fireball and turned into this… thing.]

The dragonling rasped, “You’ve actually retained… that’s not supposed to—why did it have to be me?”

[What?]

“Ahem. So, you’ve retained memories from your past life! Do you have a name, then?” Sven looked anything but amused.

[Past life? What are you on about?]

Sven deadpanned. “…Your name, Dungeon?”

Annoyed by the immediate dismissal of my question, I snapped back, [Of course I have a name, silly wings. It’s Ciara.]

Sven’s eyes bulged briefly, but he quickly mastered himself.

“Well then, Ciara… This is highly irregular and a far cry from the usual start a Dungeon Core receives. A past life’s memories can be problematic after a soul experiences a drastic change of species, but you’ll have to do. You must work hard if you want to save this world from the Great Calamity that has befallen it.”

[Great Calamity? You mean nuclear war?] I got the dire feeling that I could be wrong about it all being a dream.

Sven rolled his eyes. “The fiery tantrum humans had with their petty technologies certainly had an impact on this world’s surface, but it will recover in time. No, I speak of a situation infinitely worse than some lesser species meddling about with the structure of physical matter.”

I saw red. [Lesser species? Take a look in the mirror, scaly! You’re little more than a smug hummingbird with tiny teeth!]

Sven bared his teeth at my words and shut his eyes before continuing, “However, since you have at least some information rattling around in that hollow rock of yours, perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope after all. Let’s continue.” He shook his head with an exasperated sigh, turning toward the wall while raising his short arms.

[Yeah. You conveniently “forgot” to answer my question about a past life. And thanks so much for the overwhelming vote of confidence, you miniature floating lizard.] I grumbled.

Sven snapped his head 180 degrees back in my direction and made tiny fists with his clawed hands.

It was adorable.

“I am an Infernal Drake, and I’ll not suffer some common pebble to speak ill of my kind!” He growled threateningly and bared his teeth at me. His voice grew thunderous, physically shaking my tiny cavern despite his diminutive stature.

[Ah, so you’re not even a weal dwagon! Why am I not surpwised?]

“Do you have any idea what you’re… Never take such an irreverent tone when speaking of Dragons, you imbecile!” He appeared shaken.

[Huh? What are you even on about, fly-boy? Why should I care if some cranky old crocodile with wings takes offense to—]

“Just listen and do as I say, if you want to live long enough to eat something!” Sven yelled, cutting me off before looking around nervously.

Turning back to me, he gritted his crystalline teeth, eyes glaring while he floated upward to gaze imperiously down at my core in contemptuous silence.

[Reprehensible reptile.] I grumbled.

“Just shut your—stop talking. It’s time to start digging, you uncouth little ball of dirt.”

[Lead on, oh, snobbish salamander.]

“Why must I endure this? Lord Auronox, please grant me patience.” The Spirit Drake facepalmed harder than before, then sighed heavily. Sven’s scaled lips undulated in the breeze from his own breath while he shook his little ethereal head.

I failed to suppress a giggle.

After inhaling loudly for almost ten seconds, he forced a smile, “Listen, child. I’m trying to help you and your world! You just need to…”

---

I finally let him talk, and over the next several minutes, Sven lectured me on the basics of running a proper Dungeon. I learned how to capture food, create traps, and summon minions.

He explained the various uses for mana—a rudimentary form of what he called spiritual energy, and how to properly manipulate stone and soil.

Sven spoke of residents—a select few beings, chosen by a Dungeon to serve as its immortal allies, and denizens—creatures who entered a Dungeon of their own accord to make it their home. An important distinction was that residents revived automatically after death while retaining all memories, while denizens remained mortal creatures. Over time, my mana would affect the physiology of both.

Minions, on the other hand, were expendable and functionally endless because they could respawn, so long as my core remained intact and under my control.

That last part sounded ominous.

He mentioned something called The Voice, which would ostensibly provide me with valuable information from time to time.

He guided me as I used a little over a third of my mana to hollow out a suitable room for my core with a hallway leading out from one end.

I was delighted to find that Dungeons possess the innate, intuitive ability to know the exact size, volume, and mass of all materials and spaces they work with. Because of my scientific past, it defaulted to the metric system, which was perfect.

With minions, denizens, and residents in mind, I took care to carve out a network of small tunnels and pockets in the walls. Although Sven approved of the attention to detail, he said such things weren’t strictly necessary until my population increased.

My core now hovered atop a pedestal jutting out from the back wall three meters above the bottom of a narrow pit with very steep, smooth sides of condensed and hardened basalt.

The compressed stone I created for the pit and pedestal felt comforting and my body glowed a little bit brighter for it as I worked.

I absorbed some sand from above into my inventory, a type of spiritual pocket dimension that Dungeons can place materials into—then I scattered some of it at the edge of the pit below my core, to make greedy core thieves lose their footing. To finish up, I grew a few spikes jutting from the bottom of the pit.

Sven gave a nod of approval.

Each cubic meter of stone or soil I displaced removed around four percent of my maximum mana, and the action automatically deposited the material into my inventory—a spatial pocket with effectively infinite capacity. Now that was incredible.

Improving the stone didn’t consume mana, but it did require time and focus. I became slightly better and faster at it as I went, which spurred me on. Consequently, preparing the second half of the pit’s surface took one-third as long as the first half.

To increase the possibility of catching food for myself, I spent mana placing a manually-triggered spike trap into the hallway, just outside my core room. The action lowered my current MP to around 50 percent, and when that happened my discomfort increased sharply.

[Uh, Sven! The hunger inside me… it’s getting worse! Are you sure this trap is a good idea?]

“Life is about taking risks, Ciara. Have courage.” Sven supplied gently.

[Sh-sure…] His well-meaning words had the opposite effect, and I feared I might starve before anything ventured down to the trap I’d made.

Minions: 0/100

Residents: 0/10

Denizens: 0

Traps: 1/5

Forty long, thin, smooth-sided lances of hardened quartz were nestled into irregularly-spaced 2-cm wide cylindrical tubes and hydraulically coupled to a hidden reservoir of air and water that I could pressurize and depressurize at will.

The trap initially took around two minutes to arm and one minute to re-arm afterward. But when activated, its needle-sharp, 1-meter spikes deployed fully in less than half a second, biting like huge, hungry teeth into the roughly 1.2-meter, cube-shaped kill zone I’d created.

Ten spikes drove into the trap from the floor, with ten more each from the ceiling and side walls.

After the trap’s second test, four spikes broke and I had to reattach them. But while the repair took time and attention, I was relieved that it consumed no mana.

With my trap armed and ready, I opened a relatively small S-shaped passage that ascended toward the beach. When I breached the surface, my 360-degree vision expanded to include a vibrant view of the surface world, centered above my tiny Dungeon. I was struck by how my vision utterly ignored the huge difference in lighting.

A seemingly haphazard, rotating flock of seagulls caught my attention as they soared over the surf, diving in choreographed waves to snatch any small fish that strayed too near the surface. I burned with hunger and yearned for some way to draw that entire flock down so that I might devour them whole.

“Ciara.”

[Seagulls… I know they’re gross, greedy little scavengers, but still.]

“Ciara!”

[Mm? Yeah, they look delicious, don’t they?]

“Pay attention, Rock Brain. You’re wasting time. If you want to eat, you must finish your preparations!”

[Right, right,] I replied noncommittally, still thoroughly distracted by the presence of food.

Sven shook his head.

Since my Dungeon sat very close to the water’s edge, he had me shape the roughly 14 cubic meters of stone and soil I’d gathered into a protective levy around my entrance to prevent flooding.

Like repairing my spike trap, it only cost me time and attention to deposit the materials and work those into shape. I sculpted some of the stone into a solid, cylindrical wall that rose above the sand and connected that to the bedrock. Then I lined the outside with piles of large rocks to form a proper barrier against the surf.

Per Sven’s recommendation, I filled the interior portion of my barrier with smaller stones and sand, then created a 40-cm diameter entrance for the path down into my relatively-shallow depths.

The entrance ended up rather… feminine in appearance when viewed from above, but that didn’t bother me nearly as much as it would have when I was human. Something in my Dungeon mind grinned wickedly over how such things might lure unsuspecting men into my depths.

My conscience shuddered a bit at that troubling thought, but it didn’t bother me as much as I knew it should.

Sven kept a largely-silent but close watch over my preparations until, at last, he said, “That will have to do. Don’t enlarge the orifice any further until you have an entire Floor completed like we discussed. And don’t use any more mana until after you’ve made your first kill. If you run out, your consciousness will slowly expire. As a newborn Dungeon Core, patience and caution are vital to your survival.”

[Yeah, you’ve mentioned that already.] I snapped impatiently.

The miniature drake shut his eyes, drew a long breath, then spoke quickly, “Right! I’ll be back to check on you soon, special one. Good luck, then. Bye!”

[Special one? What the hell is that supposed to mea—]

Sven disappeared from view without a sound or a trace, leaving me as the sole occupant of my Dungeon.

[Fine. Run away. You bat-winged skink!] I lashed out at the empty space where Sven had been.

---