Kobolds, I had found, were not very bright.

Currently it was looking high and low about the room that I had summoned it into, its normally huge eyes narrowed into the smallest of slits as if putting an intense amount of concentration into its search. Judging by the occasional “Hello?” and “Cute caller? Insulter? Why are you the hide?”, the creature was still looking for me.

I, meanwhile, was trying to figure out how exactly the kobold had heard me. It wasn’t exactly like I had an actual voice, right? The badgers certainly didn’t seem to hear me, but then again, I didn’t exactly have a mouth. I didn’t really even have an actual body, come to think of it. My main body was a glowing crystal rock and then the rest of me sort of just radiated off of that like some kind of weird wiggly aura.

If I thought too long about it my head started to hurt, and I didn’t even have a head.

Still, it made sense that my own monster would be able to hear me somehow, right? How else was I supposed to be able to tell them what I needed them to do? But if that was the case then why didn’t the kobold seem to be able to hear me now?

Hello, why are you walking around looking into corners like they might be hiding something? I’m right here, dummy! I’m all around you!

Ugh. How did it hear me the first time?

The kobold’s tail went straight as it froze in place, longer ridges on the sides of its head that must have been ears swaying about. “Hello…? Where are you? What do you mean ‘hearing you’? You’re the speaking now, yes? Hello?”

Hey, Inner Voice? How the hell am I managing to mess this up? Can you help an idiot core out with some direction here? How exactly did the kobold hear that part but not the rest? Clearly it didn’t hear me calling it a dummy, because otherwise it would probably be complaining about that the same way it was complaining about being cute.

Communication between the Dungeon Core and the Dungeon Core’s Monster Mobs is done via a special link between the two, and is not the same as the Core’s usual method of processing information.

… Am I just dumb, or does that not make any kind of sense, Inner Voice…?

No response? Alright then, guess I’m just pretty dumb. Your silence says it all!

I watched the kobold circle the room again before it began to head down the tunnel, still looking around as if trying to find the source of the voice, which was of course myself. I needed to figure out how to communicate, and I needed to do it fast. I couldn’t have it stumbling into the main tunnel and waking up the badgers.

Either the kobold would scare the badgers off, or they would all just attack each other, and I wasn’t sure what the outcome of that would be. Either I’d be down two permanent food sources, or I’d be down the only creature I could summon at the moment who could leave the dungeon. Either way I’d be at a severe disadvantage, and I really didn’t like those kinds of odds at all. I was an idiot, I needed all the advantages I could get!

What had I done the first time? Or the second? Or even the third? What was so different about communicating?! Was it something about how I had to focus? Something had felt a bit different about it somehow, about how those particular words seemed to echo through my core, but I wasn’t sure how to put that thought into words. It was like it was tickling around inside of my mind, just out of reach, like a spider trying to avoid being eaten by a dungeon core…

Alarm flashed through me as I realized the kobold wasn’t looking where it was walking.

“Hey, idiot! Watch out! You’re gonna crush me!”

Gasping in shock the kobold stumbled backwards over its own feet, tripping and falling hard onto its rump as it stared down at the little red crystal that was me on the ground. “That’s who’s talking?!”

I think I maybe possibly had the idea of how to use this whole link thing that Inner Voice had been talking about… It was sort of like focusing on something in order to use [Appraisal], except what I was focusing on were the words themselves. It was like I was making them louder somehow, more like the way Inner Voice’s words affected me. Words that were somehow visible everywhere, heard throughout the entire space all at once, existing on all planes at the same time.

“Yeah, that’s me. Or my core at least. Be more careful! I’m kind of delicate!”

The kobold was making an expression that might have been considered frowning, but I wasn’t entirely sure given the jaw structure and the giant eyes. “Insult Caller is… Very small.” It concluded after studying me for a moment.

I felt all of my tendrils bristle at the insult. “Hey! Look who’s talking! You’re absolutely tiny! You’re barely bigger than a badger!”

“I don’t even know what a badger is!” Its squeaky voice broke the louder it yelled, which was actually so cute it made me a bit less angry. “No more insults! I am descended from a dragon!” It hit the ground with its little fist, not even managing to kick up dirt from the hard packed surface.

It was just so cute…

“Other kobolds, maybe, but you? I made you, right here a few minutes ago. You can’t be descended from anything except maybe for me.”

That seemed to give the kobold pause. It leaned back slightly, clawed toes wiggling and flexing, as it stared down at my core with an expression and emotion I couldn’t even begin to decipher. Its long but blunted tail started to twitch, and then to swish, and then finally thump the ground hard as it threw its head back and began to make odd wheezing squeaks.

“This is hilarious! This cannot be Core!” It slapped one of its legs as it spoke, and that was when the slow realization that the kobold was laughing at me finally clicked. “Core should be in special room, on pedestal, or altar! Not just lying on floor like random rock!”

The light that glowed out from my core began to get brighter, flickering and flashing as if responding to my growing irritation. That sight seemed to shock the kobold, and it ceased all laughter as it gave a few sideways blinks and stared hard at the sight.

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It tipped its head to one side, and then to the other, and then finally it leaned forward and began to carefully gather my core up in its claws.

The sensation was beyond strange. I could feel the slight heat and warmth of the creature on a level that was different from the ambient heat coming off it as it just existed in the tunnel. I could feel how weak I was, how much stronger this creature I had made was than myself. I could see myself through its own eyes, this shimmering lump of red translucent stone that was so fragile that it needed to be held gently in both hands lest something awful happen to it.

“Really…? Really and truly…? That is Core…?” It asked in the quietest voice.

That sense of awe and wonder seemed to transfer to me through the current link we shared, as well as the sense of horror at the state that it had found me in. Apparently I really was just the dumbest dungeon core in history.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

My kobold made a soft noise, and the sensation that traveled through me was as if it had found some pitiful little creature on the ground, but weirdly overlapped with the feeling of finding some powerful object like a legendary sword being used as a toothpick. I was just plain wrong and out of place, and it wasn’t sure what to do with me because of that.

“Why is Core on ground? Did someone hurt it?” My kobold asked softly, and as carefully as if a single scratch from a claw might break me it began to turn me over in its hands as if searching for any cracks. “Core seems unharmed. Small, but whole. What is the happen?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that.

I had woken up deep in the soil and had eaten my way out, after that I had just sort of been trying to figure things out. The fact that my monster seemed to know more about how a Dungeon Core should be than I did? Well, that was just sort of disturbing, like Inner Voice was kind of off-putting if I thought about it too much.

There was a part of me that clearly knew what to do, and that part had somehow been copied into my kobold, but it wasn’t openly available to the rest of me.

“Don’t worry about all of that right now, okay? I need you to listen to me, very carefully. Can you do that?”

My kobold nodded, the floppier ear like appendages on its head bouncing with the movement while the rest of the ridges stayed firm. How could it be this adorable? It was absolutely criminal, and yet through our solid connection at the moment I could feel that my kobold thought itself to be very majestic.

“Good. Okay, so at the end of the tunnel ahead of you, where those roots are, there’s another tunnel. Off to the left will be a room with a pair of sleeping badgers… Hey, no! I don’t need you to kill them! Pay attention! I’m using them as a free source of mana. By letting them live here, they’re feeding me, so I need you to leave them alone, okay?”

My kobold nodded rapidly, ears flopping, and managing to look no less determined to fight that before. Still, I could feel that it would listen to my instructions thanks to the fact it was still holding me in its hands.

“Good, I’m glad you understand. Now. What I need you to do is to head outside and look for a bunch of branches. I want you to bring them back and stack them up in front of the entryway into this little side tunnel, okay?”

For a short moment my kobold seemed to just stare down at me with no change in expression, and then the oblong shape of its pupils seemed to twitch before expanding to almost eat up the yellow of the rest of its eyes. “Core is doing cheat by making makeshift door…” With a little laugh it lifted my main body up in its hands, holding it high to gaze up at me with an expression of awe and affection. “So smart! So sneaky! Can see why Core made me! We are like two peas in the pod, yes?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are.” What even was a pea? And why was it shoved into a pod? I didn’t have a single idea at all, but apparently my kobold had an idea. I could kind of infer from the wording that apparently this creature and I were similar to each other, though.

Maybe I didn’t need a fat little mushroom… Maybe I could just fill my rooms and tunnels up with more little kobolds like this one. That wouldn’t be so bad…

I liked the idea enough that more core let off a rosy glow, reflecting across the slightly ridges scales that covered my kobold’s body. The slightly yellowish edges of its mouth seemed to curl in response to that glow. “If you know what you need to do, then snap to it!” I told it with enthusiasm, more a cheerful suggestion than an order.

“Yes yes. I am the doing for Core, I promise,” My kobold said, though it pulled me closer, holding it against its underbelly. The scales there were surprisingly warm, and soft. So different from dirt and wood. “But first? First I am making the safe. Is no good for Core to be laying about on ground. What if peoples come? No more Core! I will take deeper in, tuck away. Core is okay with this, yes?”

I could have laughed, and bright red lit up the inside of the tunnel from my enthusiasm.

“Yes! Yes yes, a thousand times yes!”

Showing off a mouth full of little needle like teeth and looking, and feeling, very proud of itself, my kobold proceeded to puff up and head back into the room I had generated it into. Cradling me in clawed hands like a delicate treasure, held close to its chest, the lizard like creature carried me to the far back corner of the room.

It made distressed little noises like clicking or chirping noises in the bottom of its throat, vibrating against me, as it began looking about. “I am not the understanding…” My kobold muttered out loud, but softly, obviously not to me, “No altar, no sign of one, not even shelf… What do…?”

Poor thing… It sounded so upset. Was it really so odd for me to be found the way I was? It seemed like it wasn’t just that I myself was wrong somehow, but that the entire situation was wrong. I wish I knew more about the whole thing, but Inner Voice wasn’t volunteering the information, and I wasn’t sure how to ask my kobold the question I wanted to know the answer to.

What was wrong with me? In what way was I broken?

There was no way that my kobold would know the answer. I had just brought the poor thing into the world, after all. It seemed to know some things that I didn’t, but how could it know the answer to something that must have happened before it was born?

There was no point dwelling on it, though. What was done was done, I couldn’t change the circumstances of how I began but I could sure as hell change how I moved forward from this point.

“Just set me down in the corner, okay? While you’re out I’ll look into building myself a little nook for you to set me into, okay?”

Sure I would eventually outgrow it and need to move, but maybe I could do something else with the space when that time came. Besides, I was practically bursting with mana so I needed to get to building and expanding while I could.

My kobold nodded quickly, the floppier spikes that seemed to be ears flicking up and down. “I can do that! Just… Be safe? If something happens to Core, then I will be the alone, and that doesn’t sound nice… Kobolds should never be the alone.”

Kobolds should never be alone, huh? Well… I did have space for five total of them, and my first was pretty small… Maybe once I sorted out the situation with blocking off the badger tunnel and getting things settled I could turn my energy into making more kobolds… If my first was any indication it seemed like I would like them.

“Be safe yourself out there, okay? You’re the only monster I have, and if something happens to you… Well. Make sure nothing happens to you.”

My words seemed to be funny, because once my kobold sat my core down it began that wheezing laughter again, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut as it let out breaths. I huffed silently but it must have somehow felt my ire because the laughter died down quickly.

Looking down at me my kobold puffed up to its full height, small though it was. “Core is funny! Kobolds will always run when fight is not the winnable! If is dangerous then I will hide and return quick fast to protect Core! Do not the worry, yes?” It tipped its head in a truly cute away, and I practically felt myself soften.

I didn’t respond, not with our connection, but the rosy glow was back and my kobold must have felt my approval. Nodding and looking truly pleased it turned and began to scurry off back down the tunnel.

I watched from all the walls as scaly feet padded along near silently, the kobold low to the ground so that its softer yellowish belly nearly touched the hard packed earth, eyes large and wide as it peered about around the slight turn in the hall. The badgers were still deep asleep, and it paused in the doorway and seemed to listen to the snores before turning to the pale sunlight that was streaming inside.

My kobold hissed softly. “Sun… I hate sun… But for Core I will do the doing, yes.” It muttered, squeaky voice low, and with those words the kobold left the dungeon to go out into the world.

Outside of my reach. To a place unknown to me.

I instantly felt nervous.