The walls of the dungeon were unusually smooth. It made Charlie feel like he was inside of a building rather than a dungeon. Since he’d been sitting on the wagon floor when they’d transferred, he was now crawling on the dirt of the dungeon. He squeezed some of the dirt in his hands. It didn’t feel like a part of him. There was a foreign feeling to it. He clapped his hands together to clean them and then looked around. The hallway continued forward on one side, but the other direction ended in a pile of rubble.

Charlie blinked at that. The whole dungeon was supposed to be collapsed, just like this part of the hallway was.

So why had they been able to come here? How had so many scalers fit inside the dungeon?

Merlin groaned. “It’s never going to feel normal teleporting from one place to another, is it?” He looked around. “We’re not in the same place as last time. Is it always random where you end up?” he asked.

Charlie thought about it for a moment. “I dunno! I’ve never ended up in the same place twice, so maybe it is random.” Though now he realized he’d never really tried to control where he ended up before. Maybe it was just like when he’d brought King Scalea back from the dungeon and onto Merlin’s back. If he could target a specific part of the dungeon to send them to, it might make things easier on them in the future. They could move to different places within the dungeon more easily. Of course, for that to work, he’d need to know more about the dungeon as a whole. Which was the whole point of Mousifer and Bleedy scouting it out.

Hopefully, he’d learn more after saving his friends and finding out what was going on. Mousifer hadn’t squeaked at all since passing along his message. He rested on Charlie’s shoulder, looking exhausted and on edge. It made Charlie frown. He’d thought the dungeon would be safer for them, and now he regretted letting them stay here alone.

Vetica peeked down the hallway ahead. She gripped the butter knife from Merlin’s cart tight in hand. Charlie wondered how effective it would actually be, but hopefully she wouldn’t need to use it.

They needed to get moving. Charlie held his hands up in the air toward Merlin. Merlin noticed and immediately walked over to oblige him. He picked Charlie up and positioned him so he was sitting in the crook of Merlin’s arm. Merlin nodded toward Vetica. The three of them started moving down the hallway.

Charlie couldn’t get his mind off of what Mousifer had said. How could his friends have been in a part of the dungeon he didn’t control? What was going on? He turned to stare over Merlin’s shoulder at the crumbled hallway behind them. He squinted, realizing that the shattered rock was a much darker shade than the color of the hallway they were currently in. Charlie realized it wasn’t because that hallway had collapsed. That dark, earthen color was the dungeon’s usual shade. So why was this hallway much lighter than usual? Did it have something to do with the fact it hadn’t collapsed? Was it connected to what Mousifer had said about this being a different part of the dungeon? Charlie had so many questions, and he couldn’t think of any answers that made sense.

“Um, I think see that white wall you were talking about. I’m just not sure it actually was a wall…” Merlin trailed off.

Charlie turned around so he could look ahead of them. They exited the hallway and entered an open, round room that stretched upward like most dungeon chambers. It culminated in the same dome that most of these rooms did, but it wasn’t nearly as high as usual. The walls were just as smooth as the hallway, but they were suddenly the least strange thing about this portion of the dungeon.

The white wall Charlie had seen in his visions had, in fact, not been a wall. It had certainly looked that way, since Mousifer was so tiny and because of the angle of the vision. But what Charlie had thought was a wall was actually an enormous egg. It was at least twenty feet tall, and a mass of tendrils slithered around its base like a nest made of snakes. All around it, additional tendrils stretched from the egg’s outer shell into the air to connect with the dungeon’s walls and ceiling. It was like the egg had anchored itself to the dungeon.

The egg had swirling, pulsing markings all around it. Its marks were a blue shade that mirrored Orbs. The egg was familiar, aside from the fact it had grown tremendously since Charlie had last seen it. At the start of his journey in Troa, Lusafeen, the witch had pulled an egg out of her bag. At the time, the markings had been green. But after defeating Lusafeen, they had changed to blue.

Another memory smacked him as hard as a swing from Brel’s hammer. That egg had sprouted tendrils and wrapped them around Bleedy back then. With everything that had happened, he’d never made the connection. The tendrils that had come from that tiny egg in Troa were the same tendrils that had burst free of his palm in Sirra and Sange. What had Charlie been doing? Had he been feeding this egg every time he absorbed a beast or core guardian? An odd sensation gnawed inside him. He’d been using a power he didn’t understand. A power the interface hadn’t told him he had access to. Now he wondered if it was a mistake to rely on it to increase his dungeon’s mass.

Merlin took a step back. “I think we should get out of here. This is insane.”

Vetica glanced at him. Her eyes homed in on the egg before them. Her hand tightened around the butterknife she was forced to wield as a weapon.

Mousifer suddenly roused himself and squeaked from Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie turned to look at him and then followed his pointing snout. He realized he’d missed something amongst the swarming tendrils. There was a small gap in between them in the swirling vines that circled the egg. It was too dark to make out what was inside.

“Hey Merlin, can you put a hex near that opening so we can see better?” Charlie asked.

Merlin gulped. “I could, but I really don’t want to provoke those…things.”

Vetica lifted a brow. “They don’t seem interested in us at all.”

Charlie realized she hadn’t seen him use the tendrils before. He also realized that the tendrils anchoring the egg to the dungeon seemed to be moving. They were burrowing into the dungeon’s earth itself. He wondered if they were the reason for the odd coloring in this section of the dungeon. If the egg was doing something to wrest away his control. Maybe that was what Mousifer had meant. He shook his head. He didn’t come here to figure all of that out. Charlie came to help his friends.

“Merlin, the light!” Charlie insisted.

Merlin sighed. He reluctantly held his hands up. “Hazel Hex Heal,” he whispered.

The hex appeared just outside of the gap. It illuminated the space between the slithering tendrils.

In the center of the small opening, an unconscious Bleedy was curled up. A few of the tendrils had wrapped around him, but as far as Charlie could tell, Bleedy looked okay.

Beside Bleedy, the blue dungeon core that had always been by Charlie’s side sat dormant on the ground. Two tendrils had pierced right through Orb to form an x inside of him. Charlie gasped. “Orb?” he called out. He turned to look at his friends. “We have to go save them!”

Vetica grimaced. “We need to be careful, Charlie. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. I’ve never even seen a creature like this.”

“But—”

“She’s right, Charlie. Do you know anything about where this egg might have come from? We need to figure out what we’re dealing with before rushing in.” Merlin said.

As much as he hated to admit it, they both made sense. “I think it’s the egg from Lusafeen’s bag. I told you about that, didn’t I?” he asked them.

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Merlin and Vetica both nodded. “How big was that bag, exactly?” Merlin looked down at him with wide eyes.

“The egg wasn’t this big! It’s grown. A lot.”

Merlin’s brows furrowed. He looked up at the egg and his face froze. “Have either of you ever heard of that childhood story…the one with the fish?” he asked them.

Charlie shook his head.

“No, what story?” Vetica asked.

Merlin shot an odd look at Vetica. “I can understand Charlie, but you? You grew up in Aysela, didn’t you? Everyone knows this story.”

Vetica didn’t say anything. She just looked away.

“What story? What are you talking about, Merlin?” Charlie frowned. How could Merlin possibly have heard a story about something like this?

“When I was little, my mother told me a story about a creature called an Evolution Koi. They were magical creatures that evolved as they consumed other beasts. They’re extremely powerful, and often hid themselves by taking on the form of the creatures they absorbed. I thought they were just a rumor, but after seeing this, I’m starting to wonder if there was some truth to it.”

Vetica scoffed. “What kind of childhood story is that? You’re saying there is some kind of fish inside that thing?” she asked.

“It was supposed to be encouraging. The moral was that we could be just like the koi and grow up to be anything we wanted to be. But honestly, it just creeps most people out. My point is that between the tendrils, the egg, and what Charlie told us about Troa, this is starting to match up with that story.”

“Absorb creatures?” Charlie asked. He looked at Bleedy and Orb stuck inside the nest. “Then we need to get them out of here now!”

Merlin sighed. “Charlie we can’t—”

Vetica held a hand up. “Get ready to run. I’ll get them,” she said.

“Vetica, you can’t be serious. Those things are dangerous!” Merlin said.

“That’s why I brought this.” Vetica smirked, holding up the butterknife. “Blue Hex Blade!” she called out. A blue light surrounded the knife.

Vetica charged forward.

Charlie held a hand out. He hadn’t meant she should charge in alone. “Wait!” he called out.

She glanced over her shoulder at them but didn’t stop running.

At the same time, the tendrils seemed to sense her approaching. Several of them broke out of the circle and shot towards her as one.

Merlin and Charlie both cried out.

“Watch out!”

“Vetica!”

She turned back and the knife in her hands flashed as she made a series of quick movements. The ends of several tendrils fell severed to the ground. They writhed about for a moment before going still. More and more of the tendrils shot toward her. She was forced to halt her run and go on the defensive. She slashed with one hand, and swatted tendrils away with the other.

Above Merlin and Charlie, the rock crumbled. They looked up simultaneously. But it wasn’t rocks that were falling. There were tendrils.

Dozens of them.

Charlie had seen them burrowing into the dungeon, but he hadn’t thought about what that meant.

They were surrounded. The ceiling, the walls, probably even the ground. They’d walked right into a trap.

“Merlin!” Charlie called out.

Merlin ran towards the hallway. Charlie sat up to look over Merlin’s shoulder. The tendrils pivoted mid-air and shot after them. They were going to catch up.

“Dungeon Manipulation!”

His powers didn’t activate. It was just like Mousifer said. He didn’t have control over this portion of the dungeon.

Before he could try anything else, the tendrils reached them. They wrapped around Merlin’s legs and waist. A powerful force pulled them back. Before Charlie could process what was happening, Merlin was hanging in the air, slowly being pulled toward the dungeon’s ceiling.

A panicked squeak escaped Mousifer. He clung to Charlie’s onesie. Charlie reached up and scooped him up in his hands to keep him safe.

Merlin clutched Charlie tight against his body. “What do we do?” Merlin called out.

Charlie had to come up with something. He couldn’t see anything because gravity had forced Merlin’s cloak to hang around their faces. It covered Charlie’s vision.

He had to try something, anything else.

“Convergence!”

Convergence unavailable. There are no other dungeons in the area.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Charlie thought.

“Charlie, are your powers back yet?” Merlin asked.

He shook his head. “No! I don’t know what’s going on!” Charlie said. He couldn’t see, and he didn’t know if Vetica was okay. This was bad. No, he couldn’t freak out. He just had to come up with a…

“Vetica! Catch him!” Merlin cried out.

“What?” Charlie asked as Merlin let him fall.

He reached out with his spare hand to grab Merlin’s cloak a moment too late. Charlie hadn’t been able to see, so he wasn’t aware of just how close they’d been to the ceiling. As he flailed through the air, plummeting quickly towards the ground, he realized Merlin was already waist deep inside the dungeon’s roof.

“Merlin…” Charlie said as he fell.

Merlin offered a light smile. “It’s okay, Charlie. It’s okay.”

Charlie turned to look over his shoulder at the ground rapidly approaching. There was a flash of movement. Vetica appeared under him just in time to snag him from the air. The momentum caused her to fall. Charlie closed his eyes as they fell. He heard her knife clamber as it hit the ground. She’d dropped it to catch him.

When he realized he was okay, he looked up and saw Vetica staring down at him in concern. He turned to look at the egg and saw a pile of mutilated tendrils lying in front of it. Vetica had held her own against them even with a knife intended for buttering bread. It spoke to the strength she had and the power of her hex.

He gasped, remembering Merlin. He looked up just in time to see the magician’s outstretched hand pulled into the dungeon’s ceiling.

“Merlin!” Charlie said. “No...”

The earth beneath them shook. Vetica reacted first. She scrambled for the knife that had fallen a few feet to her right, but the ground beneath it opened up and swallowed it.

Her eyes widened when she realized the implications of that. “That’s not good.” She hurried to her feet and took a step but suddenly face planted. She held Charlie up in the air to protect him from the fall. Vetica lost her grip on him when her face hit the dirt. Charlie tumbled forward, wrapping both of his hands around Mousifer to keep him safe. Vetica had protected Charlie from the brunt of the fall and his rock skin passive was still doing its job as well. He straightened himself and turned back to look at her.

Vetica groaned and shook the impact off. Her eyes shot open. “Crap!” She dug her fingers into the dirt and tried to pull herself away from something behind her.

“Vetica? What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

“Use transfer! Now!” she said. She looked over her shoulder as her body slid backward.

“What? I’m not leaving you! What’s going on?” he asked. He craned his neck to try to look past her.

There was a pit behind her, and the tendrils were working to pull her inside.

“Charlie, just do it!” she yelled. More tendrils erupted from the hole and wrapped around her. It was too much. One moment she was there, and the next the dungeon had swallowed her. The hole disappeared as quickly as it had opened.

Charlie shook his head. “What’s happening?” he said.

This was his dungeon. He was in charge. Why were his friends…

He was getting angry at this stupid egg.

A deep voice rumbled all around him. “Good, now we can speak alone, little one. It’s time the two of us talked.”

Charlie looked around. He couldn’t place the voice’s origin. “Who are you?” he asked.

“You’ve borrowed my power all this time, and you still don’t know? Strange.”

Charlie’s eyes focused on the source. The voice could only be coming from one place.

The egg.

The egg was talking to him.