As I put my hair through the pinprick-sized hole and feel the now annoyingly familiar sensation of a forceful teleportation, I find myself, not outside this arbitrary hellhole but instead, when I open my eyes again, I find myself in the exact same position 1 meter away from the door.

I blankly stare at the wall, and I just get the pointed feeling that if I hadn’t only a bit ago screamed and chucked explosions at this wall for hours, I would have given an unholy shriek and punched this wall.

But I just can’t; I’m exhausted by this nonsense. I utterly despise when I discover a set of rules or uncover information, only to receive information that utterly flies in the face of former conventions.

The world is good when it makes sense, when it follows strict known rules, but the truth is that the world is messy and complicated, not something that is entirely known and limited. Anything that does not adhere to previous conventions has conventions of its own. Everything in the world has an answer, and I refuse to pretend that the world is some unknowable mystery.

Tired down to my very bones, I approach the pinprick hole in order to examine the new changed circumstances.

As I approach the pinhole, I see something strange; I see the same old, same old view of nothing at all, same as before. But the nothing I see now is a bit larger, as if someone placed a screen a bit closer to me.

I think I’ve got a feeling as to what’s going on here. A new portal was installed in front of the earlier one. One that teleports anyone who goes through it one meter behind themselves. Exasperated but understanding the need for posterity and certainty, I take my bit of straightened hair and put it back in the pinhole.

Once I do so, I find myself in the same position as before, roughly one meter behind the hole I placed my hair into.

At this point I toss my hands into the air and say quite bluntly to the ceiling, “FUCK YOU,” while doing my best impression of a middle finger with my nonarticulated gauntlets.

Because at this point it is frankly rather obvious that there’s something that is at the very least sentient around here fucking things up. It’s not like a natural magical phenomenon could suddenly decide to trap you twice.

I’ve already learned that clouds of random emotion are sentient; at this point, a building being sentient isn’t that much of a far-fetched conclusion. Especially since it would be utterly ridiculous to somehow think that a new portal being installed in front of the first is somehow something done on its own.

No face it, the building I’m in is at the very least controlled or affected by something with a quantifiable intelligence, and that intelligence wants to trap me here, unable to leave.

But that does mean an old tool suddenly gets a lot more relevant. Scrying, When I’ve previously used it on non-sentient objects like the temple way back when. I’ve seen visions of its history and the people and times associated with it. But when used on sentient things like the spirits I previously inadvertently peeked in on.

I saw who they fundamentally were. For the spirits, I usually saw the emotion that was their fabric, like the envy of anothers ease of loving, or the wanderlust that comes when the sky shines just right. Although more complex emotions showed me visions of the meaning of them, like the unending compassion of humanity amidst disaster.

If I scry this dungeon, I might get a glimpse of how they operate. Although, nervously clacking my teeth together, I remember that I have no idea how long scrying takes.

What if the dungeon chucks a meat tendril monster operating a custom suit of armor at me while I’m conked out scrying it? Hell, I really need a name for those things.

Regardless I have no clue how long it takes from the outside, since scrying shows me a vision that can take a considerable amount of time from my own perspective.

For that one vision with the man in the earthquake, I spent hours in his brain. For all I know, every time I scry something complex, I really float around for a couple of hours. It’s not like I would know.

Nothing really grows or changes in the Astral. My hair doesn’t grow longer, I don’t get any aches from standing around when I float, I never feel any hungrier or thirstier, time measurements are bonkers here.

Wait, now that I think about it. I note down in the infinite notebook that I should do further experiments on how long it takes to scry, using the more sophisticated water clock back on the base.

Anyway, if I don’t want to walk straight into a trap, I should get as much information as I can, but I don’t have to be an idiot about it. I don’t need to breathe, eat, or drink. There’s no reason I can’t scry the dungeon behind several inches of solid iron.

Grinning I pull out the hexagonal plates I kept carefully stored in my pack, then I stuff them in and out of the duplicating bag a couple of times until I have plenty of iron to work with.

Then, after cutting off the edges of the plates so that they form the ultimately inferior square, I take those and duplicate the square plates until I have 4 of them. Then I weld those plates into a larger square, then duplicate that square. Repeating the process until I have a plate a bit taller than I am.

I then stack that plate onto another one and reincorporate them into one thicker plate, by melting the two plates together and then folding them into one piece of solid iron, before hammering them back into the proper dimensions.

After duplicating the new plate a couple times, I form them into a cube around me and then weld them together with a bit of iron dust. Finally, I bore a hole out of the cube with a heat beam from my gauntlets.

Then peeking out of the cube of iron, I scry the dungeon that has dared to trap me in its depths.

—

I see an endless horizon of dancing plates, surrounding a beacon of hope. It beckons the supplicants, whispering sweet nothings. Come, do you wish to stay in the muck, to be poor, cowardly, WEAK, or do you want to rise. To become rich, virtuous, and strong? Give me all of you, and you can join the light.

Bits and pieces of the dancing plates fall off; their surfaces scorch under the merciless light, they break into tiny pieces and those that can painstakingly piece themselves together. The pain, the horror, the loss does not matter if they can be something more than the dirt they were before. Blood drips from the worshipers as they give their labor, their lives, to their only hope for salvation.

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A scouring light, burning and breaking the weak, the unworthy, the impure. Leaving behind a person, a group, a community stronger than before.

—

Earnest joy, hard work well done, radiates out an endless stream of victors as they strive to become something more. The sacred light showing them the path.

Sweet tears fall onto the floor, a group rejoicing in well-earned valor and loot, as tears fall, debts shatter, hopes rise.

Home beckons in an empty slab of darkness, well-earned rest gifted to those who fought for that rest to be given to everyone else.

Death retreats in the last second. Safe sanctuary found through clever tricks and quick feet, not brute strength. The hissing maw of death snapping shut empty when the door is crossed, for the sacred light brooks no treachery by its own hands.

Soft murmuring prayers and absolutions, prayers and respect given to the sacred light all around. After all, it is only its blessings, both painful and joyous, that have allowed them to venture so deep into their own paths of light.

Under pressure, under fear, a leader is born. Someone who is more than a sword, someone of honor, of beautiful words, strong enough to stand under the noonday sun. Not in spite of the pain, but because of it.

If only passes through the lips of a thousand faces, weary, weepy, wild. All could rise if only they grasped the star at the end of the horizon. But steel cages, honed claws, and gentle white wings guard that impossible dream.

Fairness in death and life, the buzzing plates, part of something grander, a steel cage around the purifying light.

Laughter erupts as the poor rogue looks around for a lockpicking set now long gone, spirited away by his own sloth.

The dull thrum of grief overtakes the light, love lost, turned sour and twisted by the impossible distance of the veil. Behind its blinding, burning rays, the scouring light hides an endless sea of blood.

Fools scrabble at the insides, scratching and tearing only the very surface, only for despair to descend when the thin film comes back like nothing ever changed. No escape from the end for cowards.

Choking laughter rings out as the dungeon begins to consume the errant silverware the party dropped. Not bothering to wait for some soon-to-be corpses.

Craven insults repaid with pressing walls, impending threats, impending hopelessness, impending death, prayers babbled echo against the guts of the very thing set out to devour them.

A child just barely crawling out of the corpse of a first life crawls into the last grave, where no growth may enter.

And at the end of it all shines a star, overseeing it all from their throne of bones, shielded by claw and drooping wings. Certain that it has done its duty, that it has made the world just a bit better of a place by scouring the rot with its holy light.

—

My eyes burn as I open them, a gout of light escaping the gaze I dragged it into. I frantically look around for threats, an endless swarm of glittering plates coming to and fro, pressing against my eyes.

But as I look around, I see only strong walls of iron, so I calm down. My breath heaving in the background slows to a crawl, and I gingerly stand up off the floor I fell onto during my scrying.

I give a wince as my legs inside my armor peel free of the plates that indented against them when I fell.

Well, it looks like my idea that a certain amount of time passes when I scry was proven true, and quite a while as well, considering that my armor stayed there for long enough to imprint into my flesh like a pair of socks after a long day.

Although I am still confused about how long is long, considering my circumstances.

But ugh, I should get back to more pressing matters, namely the dungeon.

Hells below is it disgusting. From what I could scry, it seems so proud of its slaughter, seeing it as righteous, the rot scoured so that the rest may stay clean.

There is no doubt about it; the dungeon is not only alive, it’s intelligent and vindictive. I shudder as the scrap of the sensation of I and my friends burned alive because of a few insults washes over me. Which is more than slightly alarming considering that right before I scryed it, I screamed, 'FUCK YOU' at the top of my lungs.

That probably won't change much of anything since it's already tried trapping me in here and tried to kill me, but I'm still pretty sure it isn't the smartest idea to insult the person you're standing inside.

Anyways, it also seems to have some measure of control over itself, namely it consumes anything it can get away with. Spoons, lockpicks, sets of armor—you name it.

Yet, there seem to be some sort of rules over what it can do. But those rules are unclear. After all, while I never saw a vision where something in someone’s hands or in a backpack was eaten. That clearly can’t be the only rule because the wands I set to blast open the entrance were never devoured, despite me not holding them close.

Additionally, the dungeon doesn’t seem to be abiding by the ‘politeness’ it usually does. Whatever grim little thing that politeness is considering, it sees murder as some sort of holy duty.

I saw many scenes of loot given for hard work, so where the hell is my loot from my fight with the flesh tendrils inside the armor! Plus when I fought the strange rabbits, I did get a reward, but in the form of useless gold coins raining from the ceiling and dinging my helmet.

For others I saw loot being generated from thin air! Useful things too, like knives, clothes, and wands engraved with runes. Hells below, I want those runes. They don’t seem to be in the same style as the ones I use, but that just makes me even more excited. If I can replicate their effects, I could have a whole new world of effects to play with when making enchantments.

Even more intriguing than that, however, is that after particularly difficult fights, it was fairly common for portals to be loot.

But considering how unfair this dungeon has been to me, I can’t expect to earn a portal when it seems to disregard some of the rules and tendencies I saw.

Although I wonder if the walls are so indestructible as I’ve seen myself in both effort and vision, why doesn’t it just put a wall in front of me and have me starve to death? That wouldn’t work on me of course. I haven’t eaten in weeks, months, years? I’m not sure how long it's been but I don't need to eat.

Regardless, it works on others, so why wouldn’t it try that instead of some bullshit portal in front of a pinprick-thin hole that leads to another portal?

I don’t understand how or why; it’s restrained, but it is. A sensation flits across my mind of a steel cage the star operates in. The metaphorical density of scrying makes me not quite understand what that cage is, but it seems to be in one.

But I can’t rely on that cage to escape; if I want to leave, I’ll have to reach for the star. I chuckle a bit at using the dramatic phrasing that pulsed through my mind in the vision. In reality, that star at the end of the dungeon is likely to be the dungeon itself. Or at the very least a core piece of it.

After all, for something to be coveted so much by so many, it’s highly unlikely for it to be unimportant; additionally, for them to know of something so valuable without ever seeing it must mean that it popped up before in other places similar to the dungeon.

But I find it unlikely that all dungeons have the exact same loot. That would be like competing storefronts selling the exact same item. So it must be something of the dungeon itself.

My hypothesis is that if the dungeon is alive, it probably has specialized organs to do particular things. So if that star is found frequently in dungeons at the very end, guarded heavily, then it could be an important organ of the dungeon. My guess is that it would be the central processor of the dungeon.

After all, isn’t the most heavily guarded organ in most bodies the brain? Even alien biology tends to follow that, well except for those who aren’t heavily armored, period. The Clavicula are more like disembodied brains with branching tendrils of nerves only thinly clad in squishy flesh. But even the Clavicula have a spread-out nervous system and excellent regenerative capabilities for nerves. Many of our greatest breakthroughs on nerve repair came from willing studies of them.

Digressions aside, if at the end of the dungeon there’s a highly vulnerable organ of the dungeon, then I can use it to threaten the dungeon!

After all, if it can understand insults and has a posse of people pray to it. Then it understands language and can be spoken to. There might be some language difficulties, but if I scream ‘OUT’ while holding an organ of theirs, they will probably get my point; they might toss me out themselves if it means getting me away from them.

If all else fails, however, I can always break whatever organ it is; if it’s important enough to be so heavily guarded, even if it isn’t the brain, most likely it's important enough that its destruction will harm the dungeon severely enough to kill it. Most humans can’t live without our heart, lungs, or brain after all.

But as I think through this, a queasy feeling shoots through my mostly empty stomach. My thoughts turned so quickly to murder even when the victim is as smart as any person. I have fought and killed, but should I be so quick to jump to murder as a solution?

I take a breath and steel myself; ultimately, this situation is a lot different. The victim here isn’t some innocent animal or a spirit I couldn’t truly talk to.

They’re a person, a person who is so sick and twisted that they view the death of the weak, not as something to mourn, but as something righteous. Why should I respect someone’s right to live when they disrespected so many others’ right to live? If I must kill, I can accept killing them.

I might not like violence as a solution, but violence is a necessary ingredient for change, and I am willing to kill someone who has caused such misery.

Hells, I don’t even know if I should let it live if I have the chance to kill it. Nobody would kill a literal money-summoning machine. If I don’t kill them, they will keep killing the weak. The very same people who should be protected, uplifted. But can I really appoint myself judge, jury, and executioner when all I know about it comes from strange metaphorical visions?

I don’t know, but I’ll keep moving forward; it’s all I can do.