Ethan swung his axe one handed, using his shield to deflect the spear thrust aimed for his face. Nine danced to the side, avoiding the blow, but hitting her hadn't been his aim. Dropping low under the next spear thrust, Ethan reached out further on the return swing and hooked the beard of his axe around Nine’s ancle. With a light tug, he sent her sprawling backwards. Ethan went diving after her, ready to use his greater size and strength to grapple her on the ground.

Nine, the agile fighter that she was, turned the sprawling fall into a backwards roll and came to her feet just in time to leap over Ethan’s low, wide armed tackle. Not wanting to waste time, Ethan turned his tackle into a forward roll, using his forward momentum to regain his footing and put a little distance between him and his opponent.

“Good,” Nine said, raising a hand to forestall any further attacks. “I think that’s enough. You’re a long way from even junior gladiator status, but as long as we don’t face anything more threatening than a hobgoblin, I think you’ll at least survive long enough for me to save you.” She said that last sentence with a smirk, straightening up and resting her spear shaft on her shoulder. It was her signature stance to show the sparring had ended.

“Alright,” Ethan said, slinging the shield over his shoulder and sliding his axe into the loop on his belt. The movements feeling natural and automatic. He smirked at that realization. They should feel natural at this point. After all, they’d spent the better part of ten days doing nothing but sparring. That was, when they weren’t hunting for boar to eat, or goblins to feed kill energy to Eve. “How much longer until we can go then?” He asked, his worry for Davis coming back in a wave now that the sparring session had ended, and his mind was free to wander.

“You have cotton in your ears? I said that was enough. You’re ready… physically at least.” She added with a frown. Ethan sighed internally at the words, and the look, though he did his best to hide any outward signs of displeasure.

He’d been completely unable to fix his mana system. He’d meditated on it for long hours every day, but he hadn't been able to fix it. Kill energy had helped, but only to a point. After the first few goblin and boar kills, the influx of mana did nothing for him. Nine had taken it personally, blaming herself for his situation, since it was while he was healing her that he’d hurt himself. That alone might not have been so bad, except the took out her frustrations on him in the sparring ring. Ethan thought it was all quite unfair, but he had learned a great deal about how to defend himself from attacks while getting his butt handed to him four or five times a day. At least he could still heal himself physically, with the limited mana he could use.

“Well, that’s something.” Ethan said with a small nod. He was ready, but. “What about Eve?” He asked, thinking about the emaciated woman, who was most likely hiding in a bathroom stall.

“She’s…” Nine frowned, clearly searching for words. “She’s in about as good a shape as I was when we left to come here. Again, physically at least. Mentally… I don’t know. Not everyone in the program was as stubborn is me.”

“The program…” Ethan muttered, then waved it away when Nine scowled at him. “I’m not asking,” he said defensively. Knowing it was one of those topics she didn’t want to talk about. “I’m just… I don’t know, Eve is really messed up.” His mind flitted back to the first few minutes after they’d woken her up.

She’d screamed and cried, begged for death, very much like Nine had. Only, she didn’t stop. It had taken them hours to calm her down, and it had only really happened after Ethan had left the room. She’d been terrified by him for some reason, and even now, ten days later, she would only talk to him through the green curtain in the bathroom stall. He sighed sadly, thinking about her malnourished body.

She wasn’t quite as bad off as Nine had been. Nine had eluded to the fact that few people survived the program as long as she had. Still, she was bad enough. Remembering back to when they woke her up, Ethan thought she had a lot of eastern blood in her. Korea, or China maybe. It was hard to tell. Lunarians didn’t judge each other based on skin color like they did on earth. It wasn’t that they were better than those from earth or anything either. It was mainly due to the size of the moon. It was tiny compared to the earth, and once the conflicts began, they didn’t get any new immigrants for a long time. A few dozen decades was plenty long enough for the once separate races to intermingle enough that there were only a few small communities left who bothered keeping their bloodlines ‘pure.’

Ethan frowned, trying to remember what Eve looked like, he’d only been around her for the initial wake up after all, and during that time he was too busy trying to keep her alive and to get her to stop screaming to worry about her looks. Still, she was earth Asian, he did know that. She also had far fewer prosthetics than Nine. Only her legs from the knee down, and her left arm from the elbow down. Again, meaning she hadn't had the disease nearly as long as Nine. Or it just didn’t target her extremities. There were plenty of people out there whose organs failed first.

Shaking his head, Ethan did his best to rid his mind of thoughts of what could have happened to him. His body had failed uniformly. That meant nothing gave out before anything else, saving him from amputation or prosthetics, but it also meant that his entire body was wracked with pain. It hadn't been pleasant, and he had to remind himself, firmly, that it wasn’t going to happen to him now. At least, as long as he could fix his mana system.

“She is really messed up,” Nine said, bringing Ethan back to the present. “But at least she was able to share some things with us. About how ship cores worked, and that luna can fix you.”

“Right,” Ethan said with a bark of laughter. “She can fix me. Though, whether or not she will is another story.”

“True enough,” Nine said, But you remember what Eve said don’t you? There is another way.”

“Oh, I remember.” Ethan said, mind going back again to a very awkward conversation between himself and Eve. Her hiding in a bathroom stall with Nine holding her tightly, While Ethan sat on the sink, speaking gently, so as not to frighten her.

“I’m sorry Eve,” he’d said. “We’ve given you several days to adjust, but I need to know about mana, and mana systems. You know my situation... Just… please… tell me.” They’d tried several times over the last week, and every time she’d refused to talk to him. Nine, who’d been more patient with Eve than Ethan could ever have expected, had finally lost her patience. She’d talked to Eve before calling him in, he didn’t know what she’d said, but Eve had agreed to tell him what he needed to know. So, he’d waited for her to speak.

“You… you’re core bound.” Eve had said, voice barely above a whisper. “That means, the ship core has your… b bl…blueprints.” She was struggling to get each word out, so Ethan waited as patiently as he could for her to continue. “In the wild… a dungeon core would cut its losses and just replace a dungeon boss who was so badly damaged. But… it is possible for them to rebuild their creatures. It just costs them mana. For physical wounds, that’s nothing, but for damage like you have suffered… it will be costly. Very costly.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” Ethan said, voice still gentle. “Thank you for sharing… but Luna isn’t the most generous entity I’ve ever met. How do I convince her to heal me?” He wasn’t expecting an answer, that last question had been rhetorical, but to his surprise, she’d answered him.

“Ship cores are born from dungeon cores… but they are not exactly the same. They were forcibly converted by humans… So, there is a way to make the ship core do what you want… But… there is a cost.” After that, she’d gone on to explain just how ship cores were made. An explanation that had shocked, and sickened Ethan to his very soul. The method so… disgusting, he refused to think about it, even now. Shaking away the conversation, he looked at Nine, who wasn’t winded at all from their rigorous sparring match.

“I remember,” he said again, thinking about the preparations he and Nine had made in order to force Luna to cooperate if she wanted to be stubborn. “But is it worth the cost?” Ethan was conflicted with the knowledge Eve had imparted to them, now understood far more about Luna than he had before and could see why she hated humans so much. He felt pity for her, but… how far did that pity extend? Would he let his mana system remain crippled, because of her situation? Or would he use what they’d cobbled together to force her compliance. He didn’t know.

“It’s worth any cost.” Nine said, making her opinion on the matter very clear. “What they did… it’s… inhuman. But it’s done now. I get you feel bad, but if we are going to survive this. We need your ability working. Think of the other twenty people, people like me and Eve, locked in those medical pods, on the verge of death. You can’t help them like you are. Hell, we can’t even wake them up since Eve is more than you can manage without the kill energy we bring for her. I think its pretty clear at this point she isn’t going to go out and get her own kill energy either.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Ethan said shaking his head sadly. Eve was for all intents and purposes, a broken woman. She would eat, when Nine forced her. She would sleep, when Nine laid her down. Other than that, she just hid in the bathroom stall, crying. “But what do we do with her then, if we are leaving?”

“We’ll have to put her back into a medical pod.” Nine said, face unhappy, but resolute.

“Is that really the only option?” Ethan asked, unhappily.

“Think about it big guy,” Nine said walking over and resting a hand on his arm, looking up to stare him in the eyes. “She won’t eat without prompting, she starts screaming every time she sees you, and she is unwilling, or unable to fight. If we leave her here, she’ll ether starve to death or get into something she shouldn’t. If we take her with us, she is just as likely to have a panic attack and draw in every enemy within hearing distance or get herself gutted by a goblin rider while we are busy fighting. Or worse, get one of us gutted trying to protect her. No, putting her back into a medical pod is the only way. we can wake her back up after you’re able to use your mana again.”

The conversation dragged on a little longer, mostly consisting of Ethan putting up weak arguments that Nine put down with brutally honest facts. While talking, they moved from the corridor into the office space they had used to hold the bodies. It only held equipment now, since they had used the oven in the second operating room for its intended purpose and burned them all to ashes over the course of a week’s worth of work. It sickened Ethan a little to think they were eating pork cooked in an oven that had consumed human bodies, but in their current situation, it was either that or starvation.

“I really wish we’d had access to Luna’s fabrication abilities… and the kid’s mechanical know how.” Ethan said, as he pulled on his armored skinsuit. They’d down everything they could to patch them, and he was relatively certain they’d managed to get an airtight seal again. Not that he wanted to test it in the unforgiving vacuum of space. Still, they should protect their bodies from goblin attacks. At least, for a little while.

“Well, excuse me for not being a traditional earther housewife type,” Nine said with mock indignation. “It’s not perfect, but even like this, it looks better than that moon crater mess you cobbled together on your own.”

“Hey now,” Ethan said, holding a hand over his heart. “No need to get personal, I was just saying…” his words cut off when Nine grabbed the top lip of his chest armor and yanked his head down to her level to plant a kiss squarely on his lips.

“Shut up Ethan,” she whispered into his mouth before pushing him away again.

“Yes ma’am,” Ethan said with a grin. A grin that was rewarded by a rude hand gesture from the small but fierce woman. Still, he grinned as she stripped out of her doctor’s skinsuit and shimmied her way into the armored skinsuit. It was difficult for her, since she’d made the armored one while she was still skin and bones. Ethan’s breath couldn’t help but catch as she jumped up and down, forcing the one piece suit over her hips. The motion causing some of the other assets she’d used to lack to jiggle slightly.

“Oh, grow up,” Nine said, grabbing a goblin hammer off a nearby table and throwing it at him. He dodged the weak toss easily, grinning the whole time. They had only been intimate that first day after he’d woken up, the action driven mainly by Nine’s emotional state at the time. Still, the pair were closer than ever, and Ethan could see her care and concern for him through every snide remark she made. It was a little jarring at first, to have affection directed at him in such a way, but he’d realized pretty quickly after meeting Eve that Nine had clearly gone though hell. If calling him names and giving him the cold shoulder between steeling light kisses and kicking his ass in the sparring ring was what helped her get over that, he was ok with it.

“All jokes aside. What do we do with Eve?” Ethan asked when they’d both gotten fully dressed in their armored skinsuits and picked up the weapons and equipment, they’d gotten ready for the trip back long ago.

“I told you,” Nine said checking the taser rifle she’d just picked up. “We put her into one of the working pods. I’ve already cleared the dead bodies out and harvested their mechanical parts. Did it while you were meditating, even burned the bodies. The pods are empty, and in good working order. We just have to get her into one, and the unit will do the rest of the work.”

“And you plan to do that by tasing her?” Ethan asked with a frown, “aren’t you down to like three shots left?”

“Two shots, actually.” Nine said with a grin. “But who cares, it’s not like we need this now. You can fight good enough to not need a handicap. At least against goblins and war dogs.” She gave him a rare smile, likely proud of her teaching ability more than his progress, but he accepted it with a grin of his own. “But no, this will be a last resort. I slipped her some pain killers I found in one of the lab coats before we started sparring. She should be asleep by now. My plan is to just put her sleeping body in a pod, and she won’t even realize it until we wake her up again. Simple right?”

“Looks like you’re several moves ahead of me, like always.” Ethan shook his head in amazement. He’d never met someone as devious as Nine. It gave him pause sometimes, since he was positive she was manipulating him into doing what she wanted most of the time. He shook his head again, it didn’t matter. She hadn't done anything to hurt him, and without her he’d have died several times over by now. Let her play her games, as long as they stayed innocent, he didn’t care.

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“You know it,” Nine said, checking over his suit for imperfections before turning to the door. “I’ll go check on her, if she is out then you can carry her in for me. Wait just a second.” She disappeared through the automatic door as she spoke, Ethan watching her hips sway as she went, the move deliberate, since she would never take herself off guard like that without reason. After she’d left, Ethan finished gathering his own gear… including the preparations they’d made for Luna.

Ten minutes later, the pair had put Eve back to sleep, locked both exterior doors, and climbed out of the hole in the roof. Sealing it shut behind them, the pair moved to the edge in a crouch, looking around for enemies. They’d gone out hunting regularly in the last ten days. During that time, they’d gotten a feel for the movements of the local dungeon creatures.

The boar, both armored and not, moved at dawn and dusk, bedding down at midday and at night. While the goblins only seemed to ride during the boars’ active period, and throughout the night… of course, these were subjective times, considering there really was no day and night where they were. If they split the time, they came up into a day night cycle, so that’s what they were going by. Everyone needs a little normalcy, after all.

“It’s just before noon.” Nine said, after taking a good look around. “If our observations have told us anything, then we should be safe from any actively moving foes for at least an hour. Unless we stumble upon any sleeping pigs anyway.” She added that last bit with a sidelong glance at Ethan. Who decided the better part of valor in this situation would be to ignore the look. After all, he hadn't meant to walk into a clearing filled with nearly a dozen sleeping pigs.

“Then let’s get a move on,” Ethan said clearing his throat awkwardly. “If we made a run for the lip of the crater, and haul ass, we might be able to reach the tower before the save period ends.” They’d argued a bit on this point. Ethan had wanted to make a beeline from this ship car to the car embedded in the ground they’d named the tower. In a straight line it couldn’t be more than a half hour away. Nine had disagreed. Saying they couldn’t see well enough in the dense forest. Coupled with the fact that they would have a hard time spotting any foes who were sleeping nearby, it was just safer to take the long way around. Naturally, she’d gotten her way, though Ethan wasn’t too upset. He’d come up with his plan before he’d walked them into a pig nest. After that, it didn’t seem like going through the forest was the best idea anymore.

Three hours, and two scuffles with wild boar later, Ethan and Nine approached the entrance to the tower. Seeing a group of goblin riders standing sentinel around the improvised door they’d made to cover the rip in the hull. They’d manage to reach the tree line surrounding the little clearing around the tower. Only twenty feet separated them from the goblins, and Ethan leaned over to whisper in Nine’s ear.

“How should we…” he began.

“Just rush in and kill them,” Nine interrupted, as she darted forward on silent feet. With a sigh, Ethan followed suit, his steps far less quiet then hers.

They made it within five feet of their targets before they were noticed. At that point it was far too late for their foes to react. One of the war dogs let out a warning howl before Nine’s spear found its throat, but the rest died too quickly to do anything besides stare. Ethan shook his head in wonderment. Just two weeks ago, when he’d first woken up, a similar pack of goblin riders had nearly killed him. Now, with a bit of training, a proper weapon, and a partner, the goblins hadn't stood a chance. It really felt like he was a six foot something man, fighting against three foot tall, poorly armed, skinny green children for the first time since he’d woken up.

“I really can’t believe how easy that was,” he muttered in wonder as he followed Nine into the tower.

“A little training can be the difference between life and death,” Nine said. A line she’d used every time he’d tried to tell her he wanted to cut the training short and go after the kid. A line he’d grown sick of hearing, but now realized had real merit.

“Duly noted.” Ethan answered, truly convinced.

Stepping into the tower, a step that would have been a drop before, Ethan stopped and gaped in shock at the changes since they’d left. Before, the floor had become the wall. Thinking back to his earlier analogy, it was like a very long train car, stuck end first into the ground. Now, well it still looked like that. The difference came in the lattice work of emergency panel strips that had formed a sort of hard net floor with ladders between levels. They could still see up through the floor all the way to the top by looking through the hatches, but it looked like a tower in truth now.

“Looks like the kid was busy.” Nine noted with a low whistle. “The place is completely empty too. Minus the floors he put in. It looks like he must have gone back to the luna to get this many panels and adhesive.” As they spoke, the pair climbed up the stairs towards the top of the tower, where another surprise was waiting for them.

“It looks like… damn, it looks like he stripped the top from the tower completely. How did we miss this from below?” Ethan asked, entering the medical pod room to find it was almost completely gone. It looked like someone had sawed the top thirty feet or so of the tower away entirely, making it that much shorter.

“The trees were too thick I guess,” Nine said with a shrug. “But how did he do it?” She asked, looking around in confusion. “It’s only been thirteen or fourteen days. There’s no way he could do this much work all by himself… what happened?” Ethan could only shrug. It would have taken several people working round the clock to get this much work done in such a short time.

“Let’s take a look below,” he said, having a thought he didn’t like. Sure enough, when they got down to the room they’d dumped all the bodies in to, it was completely empty. “I think Luna must have done something.” Ethan said after they looked everywhere and found nothing of use anywhere. No bodies, no clothes, food, battery packs, nothing. “I don’t know how though, the only blueprints she had were the goblins. They couldn’t have done this, right?”

“Only one way to find out.” Nine said, turning to the door. “Come on, let’s go see what the hell that bitch is up to.” Locking the door behind them, the pair ran at top speed for the ship. A speed that was considerable, with their greater than human abilities. They crossed the short distance in no time, and soon after clearing the tree line, found a partial answer to their questions.

“Well, that’s new.” Ethan said, looking at a wall built from emergency panels. A wall that spanned the entire width of the trench, created when the Luna slid from the bottom of the crater to the lip. It was a good five feet tall, and there were small forms walking around behind it. Goblins, he realized after a moment. Somehow, Luna had built a wall to protect the ship and manned it with goblins.

“Ok, this is getting weird.” Nine said, motioning him to follow as she walked straight up the middle of the crater.

“Should we just walk up like this?” Ethan asked worriedly.

“you’re the Captain, Luna’s dungeon boss, remember? Do you think they will really hurt you? They are outside Luna’s domain, anyway. Just do that mind trick thing you can do and push them away.”

“Huh, yea, ok.” Ethan said, doing just that, as they drew nearer, and the goblins went on alert. It was surprisingly easy. All he had to do was find that little spot in the back of his mind that connected him to Luna’s creations and grip it. He couldn’t command them completely, not like the stoats and Crescent, but he could send them some basic instructions, like standing down. He didn’t manage to get them all though, and one of the little green figures disappeared into the ship before they reached it.

“Well, it looks like she knows we’re coming.” Nine said, giving Ethan a dirty look.

“Hey, I’m sorry.” Ethan said defensively. “I didn’t see you using your mind powers to keep the mythical creatures from attacking us.” He added, giving her shoulder a light push. “Gosh, that sounds so weird when I say it out loud, what have our lives become?”

“Shut up and let’s get inside before she has a chance to set up any traps.” Nine said with an angry glare. The slight twitch to her lips let Ethan know she wasn’t really mad, and he moved in front of her to lead the way through the narrow corridor. A corridor in a ship that seemed much smaller to him after spending a few days in the medical car. A single section of a larger ship that was by itself, larger than the entirety of the Luna.

Captain, you’re alive. I am… so… pleased to see that. You have managed to damage your mana system I see. That is a problem. I can’t have a dungeon boss who is incapable of feeding me mana. You understand that don’t you Ethan?

Luna wrote on the air as they entered the bridge. Actually writing in the dot, dot, dot, to show the pause. Like if she didn’t, he might not know she didn’t mean it.

“Hi Luna,” Ethan said looking around the room in shock. It was no longer a crumpled in wreck of a room, some fifteen feet across. No, it was even bigger than it had been before. Maybe forty feet across, and that was without seeing the cargo hold. Even the roof was taller, now towering twenty feet or so into the air. “Luna,” Ethan said, looking around. “I see you’ve grown… but how do you plan on getting into space? This shape, its…”

Not even going to acknowledge the clear threat I made to your life I see. What need to I have to go to space. I’m done being a ship core. controlled by humans. No, I will once more become a dungeon core, and expand my domain until I have covered this entire asteroid.

Luna interrupted with large print, taking up a huge section of the air. Her equivalent of shouting Ethan figured after judging the feelings he got through their link.

“That’s really interesting, Luna.” Ethan said, speaking far more calmly than he felt. Considering he couldn’t see much in the room. Despite how large it had grown it was still completely filled with plants. A thick oak tree dominated the center of the room, its branches spreading out across the dome of the ceiling, completely covered with creeping fig vines and pots filled with even more oak trees.

Don’t you care about your life, Captain? Maybe this will help you to understand your place.

At her words, shapes began moving through the massive tangle of plants. Coming into view as they stepped around the tree and into a line. Ethan gasped when he saw them standing there. His mind spiraling out of control, and his knees failing him. Nine’s grip on his shoulders, the only thing keeping him on his feet.

That’s right, Captain. Despite your best efforts, I got all their blueprints.

Luna said, words filled with a gloating Ethan didn’t think mere words could contain.

“Luna, how, why?” Ethan asked, looking at the row of familiar faces. Faces he’d spent eight months living beside on the way out here. Dale, James, Cherry, Lesa, and Sven. His brother’s team members. The ones whose bodies survived the crash that broke the ship into pieces anyway. Each holding a gun and looking at him with familiar expressions. Sven’s lips had a welcoming grin, while Cherry looked disdainful. The others wore neutral expressions, not having spent much time around Ethan on the trip out. Despite that, Ethan couldn’t sense much more from them than he could from the goblins. They were alive, but they weren’t really people. At least, not the people they had been.

I acquired their blueprints because I was able to absorb their bodies. The same way I have your blueprint, Captain.

Ethan staggered, despite Nine’s hands on his shoulders. This was all happening too fast. Too fast. Just this morning, he’d been sparring with Nine, talking about heading back to find the kid. Now, Luna had apparently gone completely off the rails, and somehow revived his brother’s teammates. Wait, the kid, that was why they had come here after all.

“Luna, where’s ensign Davis?” Ethan asked, regaining his footing and looking around. There were more bodies moving around the edges of the room, but he could feel them in his mind. They were just goblins. Dozens of them, but still, only goblins. He didn’t care about any of that however, his mind was busy searching the room for the small orb that was Luna’s true body.

Oh, the ensign has been very helpful since he came back. If it wasn’t for his diligent work and instructions to my creatures, we never would have expanded as much as we did in such a short time. He’s in the cargo hold, one moment, Captain, I’ll bring him out to see you.

No sooner did the words stop appearing, the hatch in the floor swung open, and an unconscious Davis appeared. Appeared in the grip of another familiar face. One Ethan had hoped he wouldn’t see since he spotted Sven and the others moving around the tree.

Oh, right. I forgot to mention. As my former captain, I also had your brother, Mark Fairchild’s blueprint as well. Aren’t you surprised? I thought it would be a great present for you when you got back. A parting gift, before I killed you, and replaced you with the ensign. Having a slave like him, one who can expand my domain, will be much better for me in the long run anyway.

“Oh no, Ethan.” Nine whispered from behind him. “So, you were brothers… I’m so sorry.”

Ethan didn’t acknowledge her words, or the hand on her shoulder. He was too busy searching the room for the ship core. When he finally found it, he made his move.

With a click of his tongue, he gave the signal they’d agreed on to Nine. Then, the moment her hand left his back, he moved. Rolling to the side, Ethan made use of his dungeon empowered strength and speed to fling his body around the room as fast as he could. In their planning sessions, they had expected to face goblins and war dogs. They hadn't counted on trained adventurers with guns. Not that it mattered. Despite how well trained they had been in life, the bodies standing in front of him weren’t the same people they had been before, and he made it into the plant forest before the first shots rang out.

Unsurprisingly, Luna had put her core as far from the entrance as she could get it. With the growth to the room, it was a long way to cover in a short time. Dodging around plant pots and small oak trees, Ethan swung his axe to cleave any goblins unfortunate enough to enter his path as he ran for the ship core.

What do you think you can accomplish with this stunt?

Luna asked him, as he ran. Confident curiosity radiating from the words.

Have you forgotten who is in control here? I was making a point earlier, bringing out your brother. You were mine to kill the moment you stepped into my domain.

With those words, what little mana remained in his twisted core began to drain away. Ethan refused to stop, he continued to run forward his axe-free hand reaching into his bag for the object they’d brought to counter Luna. As his vision narrowed down in pain, and Ethan drew closer to Luna’s core, his mind went back to the conversation he’d had with Eve. The words she’d said to him that had changed the way he looked at his race, and how they’ managed their expansion into space.

“Dungeon cores are too alien to us humans to understand the concept of space travel.” Eve said, voice finally warming up after the many false starts. “They just couldn’t understand how to make the connections with the mana engines… but then, someone discovered something. The consciousness inside a dungeon core could be replaced.”

“Replaced?” Ethan had asked, when she’d gone silent for more than a minute.

“Oh, yes.” Eve said, sounding like she’d wandered off mentally again. “With experimentation, humans learned how to bind dungeon cores to us, and how to convert them into ship cores. You see, the old myths about silver hurting the evil spirits like werewolves and vampires must have had some basis in fact. Because it can drain the mana from a core when brought into contact with it.”

“Wait, won’t the dungeon core just absorb the silver?” Nine asked, butting in for the first time.

“No,” Eve said, voice quivering like she was violently shaking her head. “Something about the human body prevents it and what is on it from being absorbed by a core. Only after we die can we get taken in, or if we drop something and move away from it.”

“Ok, so silver can drain the core of its mana. But… I don’t understand how that makes a ship core?” Ethan asked gently, trying to get the conversation back on track.

“It can’t,” Eve said quietly. “But what it does, is drain the mana from the core. Killing the dungeon core personality and creating a sort of vacuum. That vacuum sucks in the soul of whoever was holding the silver. Their mind is damaged, much of their memories, and who they were is lost. But some of it remains. Someone who was good at fighting for example, they would still like combat. A scientist would still enjoy experimenting and so on.”

“…I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Ethan said, frowning deeply. “Are you saying… every spaceship in existence, everyone with a mana engine, and ship core to fuel their movement. Hundreds of thousands of them, made over the centuries as we found more and more dungeon cores in deep corners of the earth, and all the planets we later explored… have a trapped human soul inside? I find it difficult to believe. I mean, how would they even get that many people to volunteer for that?”

“Volunteer?” Eve asked, voice breaking on the word. “Who said we volunteered?”