The scratch of quill on parchment, the scrape of steel on stone. The vastly different tactile sensation of both methods of writing. A scribe, perhaps a historian or priest.

A stream of words and sounds, a kaleidoscope of body movements and strange coins. A trader.

A single, exquisitely polished and shaped gem. Each facet etched so finely it is impossible to see but its maker knew where to lay his tools to cut those runes. The magnum opus of a master craftsdwarf.

Dwarves flowed through my consciousness like the water in my river. They filled me and swept over the stones and channels of my mind but did not flood my banks or carve their own paths. I experienced the afterechoes of soldiers, priests, farmers, smiths, craftsdwarves, spies, criminals, nobles and kings. Their culture had been rich, vibrant and interlocked. Each dwarf worked towards a whole, satisfying their own needs and those of their community with an equal sense of necessity.

Dwarven tenets percolated in my consciousness, each moral principle welcomed by the Other and reviled or mocked by the Dungeon. I had my answer. Consuming the legacy of that first dwarf in my first moments on Earth had etched that sense of self into my own and I had not yet reconciled it with my own. Yet even now, with this knowledge the Dungeon thoughts didn't feel entirely right either. They were small, narrow and self centered. There was a malice there that didn't sit right with me; a vindictive part of myself I found even in my nearly emotionless logical state I just could not find anything in it to appreciate.

It led to only one conclusion. The result of that first absorption on my infant mind had left a mark that would need to be integrated. It had already formed a bond tight enough I could not define where it ended and I began, it was already irrevocably a part of me. Yet that Dungeon self rankled at the idea, rejected it entirely. To my Dungeon self, it was another invasion only worse - it had invaded me and found a foothold. I heard myself crying out for revenge, war, to mount a mental counterattack and tear the foreign influence from me.

That impulse...rankled. There was no logic to it. I had observed the great feats the dwarves had achieved, working towards that common good. I had seen the same logic at work in Leshalinod's actions towards me, the desire to work to a greater whole and already reaped great rewards for doing so. Without my benefactor's influence I would have faced the ratfolk with goblins and mushrooms alone, no spiders, sharks or Argent's strange new abilities. Nor would I have discovered that natural born creatures in my domain could grant me mana and Dungeon Points. To exist only for myself was too...small a goal. I had glimpsed a higher purpose than mere survival. I could not find it in me to be content with less.

That need to surpass, to be greater, came from my Dungeon nature. It had value as well, I would not simply be a Dwarven Core, a gaudy relic of a forgotten people. My own kind had great value of their own - these dwarves had died thousands of years ago, the stone of their bones was old. For all I knew the race was extinct, a prospect I could not help but suspect was likely with these ancient ruins populated by two warring factions of foreigners. I had the memory of Dwarven language and names now, not in a form I could speak or read but I felt a linguistic shape in my memory. The rhythm and echo of words thought and spoken, shaping bone that had become stone - and 'Gitsnik Hammerfetish' did not fit that structure. The language could have evolved and changed...but I thought not.

No, Dungeon Cores were a superior species. No Dwarf reached through time to avert the doom of their race or change the future but a Core had - possibly more than one. No dwarf created life, sentient and not, by the handful with little more than a thought. That was the province of Cores and Gods alone. If there were Gods and not simply Cores grown great enough to be worshipped. I had, after all, had many forms of Temple to choose from as my Archetype.

Both had value, both had worth. They required integration.

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This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Oh, mistake, mistake. Argent hissed, spit bubbling at the corners of her mouth. Reconnecting the nerve endings in her arms, allowing her brain to receive the signals that made up her sense of touch and sensation, mistake. Her concentration wavered, forcing her to slow her descent down the spiraling staircase to the Library and refocus on regenerating her limbs. In future, regenerate the entire limb before repairing the nerve endings; the goblin mage thought, grimacing and squinting at her new fingers. It wasn't the raw sensation of new skin knitting with the old, nor the burning of muscle tears too fine for her attention to mend, it was the horrible, crawling sensation of keratin growing over skin, pushing it, pulling it, turning tough epidermis to soft hyponychium. The result was an itch so intense she had to restrain stop altogether, to breath, to close her eyes and hold her hands to each side and flex the offending digits to their furthest extent; to stem the desire to somehow scratch beneath the lengthening nails.

Another horrific ordeal in her brief existence. Another wondrous experience in her short life.

Above her matrons argued, chattered, politicked, and schemed. Ochre Tilesgoblins lit torches and ret pig tails in water to later weave the fibre into cloth. Some bales would likely be sewn into clothing but much would likely be set aside for use as bandages for the Granite Mob and any other injuries. Others tended to the wounded, burns and shrapnel cuts the order of the day. Kelter and Uller...

Healing them would require the Dungeon, require Sedurzefon, a word that still brought a shiver to her spine and lanced an icicle into her mind. Yet the Dungeon, at the very moment of victory had abandoned them, abandoned itself. The emerald radiance that permeated the halls and caverns of its bounds had retreated, shrinking from the battlefield just slow enough to perceive its flight. The sudden darkness, black as pitch, was broken only by the faint purple glow that leaked from between Kelter's limbs. Matrons had helped her organise the masses, improvise and light torches, then in private vented their own fear. As they had calmed their tribesgoblins, she had reassured them until the bright words had appeared in front of them all with orders. Only that sight had silenced the shrieking fear in her breast that the Core had somehow been slain or perished. A faint tendril of light had extended over her shoulder and past them, faint but straight and starkly defined. Her creator was weakened somehow but in control, she decided.

Reaching the bottom she could finally see into the Library, freezing instantly. An enormous shape blocked the doors, blinding light flaring in strange apertures formed by its limbs and protrusions. Coruscating reflections coursed across painted and bare metal, glinting from plating and delicate clockwork innards, blazing in the depths of jagged glass shards and fine lenses. A decapitated head lay smouldering against the doorframe, askew and cooling. A goblin could have stood upright in its cyclopean eye alone and still needed a ladder to touch the top. Deep cracks and bright pings echoed through the Chronicle Vault, punctuating the fizzing of constrained mana. Edging closer, Argent saw the hulking shape was a construct, bare steel and brass furnishings. It was incomplete, panels open to expose hollows in its design waiting to be filled. Its only decoration was carbon scoring and scraped paint. Metal scaffolds and braces collapsed under and across the bipedal frame, forming the strange silhouette. Squinting and shading her eyes against the storm of light, she made out the source of the sounds. The great head, gears and struts spilling from the stump of its neck was from a second construct; one that had strewn debris across the bare shell of the first. She made out a hand, shorn fingers, a geared joint. Each shared the same dark red lacquer and straight slagged edges, cooling even now.

Yet the Vault showed no signs of struggle, no tablets broken or fallen from place. Whatever terrible heat had dismembered the second automaton had left no trace, no melted stone, fire or rising steam from the Fountain. The only soot and spatter was what had fallen directly from the severed parts. Nearing the doors she could feel the residual heat radiating from the gargantuan helm, smell the smoke of burnt paper and rubber. No life remained, the esoteric internal mechanisms she could see through its eye still and motionless. Brass sigils were inlaid in its visage, so thin they were invisible from a distance. Her eyes watered reading them, as though comprehension almost but just barely failed to quite find purchase, like the meaning slid from her corneas to gather as tears to be blinked away.

Shaking her head against a rising pain in her temples, she squinted at the strobing green sun. The mortal battle had wrought such destruction had not taken place here but some other strife was. Mana pulsed, gleaming emerald only at the edges, the center a blazing white. It surged and fell, contorting and recoiling, a tormented oobleck of magic and consciousness. The Dungeon wa-

It collapsed, imploding upon the Core, into it, to a single point, detonated, a sphere of green light banded by eleven rays of purest white -