The camp stirred with activity as plans were hastily made and executed just as fast.

Once everything had been prepared, they set out to conquer the dungeon.

It was an efficient, and bog standard affair -pun intended. And it wasn’t until Jack found himself recruited for a task he would have gladly avoided that it took a personally negative turn: navigating a narrow passageway that only someone of his slight build could traverse.

The tendrils draping the walls of the present-time worm-dungeon sent crackling arcs of energy that hissed and sparked in the damp air as they brushed against adult Jack’s body. While annoying, they were far less lethal than the tendrils Jack remembered from the fiendish bog.

They had just finished putting down a decidedly wicked foe, a creature that used corrupted life based abilities to not only poison, but also to paralyze and mind control its enemies.

The battle was fierce, and the party was recovering from the onslaught when the tunnel was discovered, hidden behind the bulk of the slug-like creature.

The tunnel was filled with a multitude of thick hair like growths, bioluminescent filaments much like the boss creature they had just defeated.

It turned out the tendrils were living, grasping appendages, drawn to heat and motion like the pseudopods of sea creatures. And like a man-o-war or jellyfish, once they made physical contact - they would latch on with barbed stingers, injecting a paralyzing toxin that brought swift and agonizing death. Even severing them quickly proved futile, as they regrew due to their incredible powers of regeneration. And burning them released a noxious gas that was equally fatal.

Jack’s solution had been born of desperation and ingenuity. He concocted a viscous mixture of lemon juice, vinegar, honey, and a handful of other alchemical ingredients. The stench alone was enough to make his eyes water, but when he’d tested it on the tendrils, they had recoiled with a sizzling hiss.

He was always hanging out with the alchemists and testing random concoctions under their tutelage. Most turned out to be duds. But some, well -some were real gems.

Pleased with his discovery, he presented it to Lord Arlington, who had praised his resourcefulness. The scouts, however, had been less fortunate. One had returned from the passage burned and blistered, the concoction proving only partially effective. It did not last long enough, without an underlying layer of protection. And it seemed Jack’s Fae’Ri markings granted him a unique resistance to the dungeon’s hazards -a resistance no one else seemed to share.

And so, the task fell to him.

Stripped down to his small clothes and slathered in the foul-smelling concoction, Jack stood at the edge of the passage, his heart pounding. The air was cold against his skin, and the weight of the group’s expectations bore down on him like a lead cloak. He cast one final glance back at the party. Arlington gave him a grim nod, and Raya’s crooked smile held an unsettling mix of encouragement and amusement.

“Well,” Jack muttered under his breath. “Here goes nothing.”

The opening yawned before him, dark and uninviting. The tendrils twitched in anticipation, their movements eerily organic. Jack swallowed hard, dropping to his hands and knees. The ground was damp and sticky, clinging to his palms as he crawled forward. The narrow tunnel pressed in around him, the walls slick with slime that glistened faintly in the dim light of his Twice Broken Aura card. He didn’t run the full card’s activation, due to the energy cost, but instead set it to draw on a trickle of the energy he had accumulated since his time with Lord Arlington’s retinue.

If he needed to burn brighter, he’d risk it. But he hoped that would not be the case.

Despite his protections, each movement was a test of will. The tendrils constantly brushed against his skin, before recoiling with a sizzling hiss at the touch of the concoction. The sound was unnervingly similar to the whispers of snakes, and Jack’s pulse quickened with every step. He knew it was testing him, hoping that his simple wards would fail -leaving him vulnerable to attack.

His breathing grew shallow as the air grew heavier, thick with the stench of decay and something older -something primeval. The tunnel seemed to stretch endlessly, the darkness pressing against him like a living thing. But Jack pressed on, his jaw set, his resolve unwavering.

He was an adventurer. He was trusted by Lord Arlington. And he would prove his worth. They were counting on him.

The shadows swallowed him whole as he crawled deeper into the unknown.

It had been a gruesome, stomach-turning affair, every moment a trial of endurance and fortitude. The air in the tunnel was cloying and fetid, each breath clawing at his lungs like rancid oil. The walls wept with condensation, their slick surfaces coated with a faint green slime that glowed faintly, casting eerie, shifting shadows that seemed to move of their own accord. Jack was afraid that it was affecting his mind. He shuddered as he recalled the recent battle against the boss monster. He hoped he was wrong, and the similarities were only in his imagination.

Jack pressed on, the narrow confines of the passage grinding at his resolve. The weight of the earth above him, the damp air pressing against his skin, and the oppressive silence broken only by the occasional crackle of the tendrils brushing his concoction -it all built into a chorus of discomfort that gnawed at his sanity. He muttered curses under his breath, his voice muffled by the tunnel walls.

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He had prepared for this, or so he told himself. He’d brought along several vials of the most noxious concoctions he and the master alchemists could devise. But Jack was no master; he wasn’t even a proper apprentice. But ingenuity, they said, was his true gift -his ability to think sideways, to approach problems with the kind of logic that had no place in the Otherworld but worked all the same.

In truth, he wasn’t sure whether he was a prodigy or just a fraud armed with knowledge from back home. But he wasn’t about to admit that to anyone, least of all himself.

Much like my feelings now, adult Jack thought to himself as he remembered his first true trial.

The plan was as simple as it was dangerous: reach the heart of this living dungeon, unleash the chemicals, and create an explosive, noxious gas that would poison the thing and sicken the dungeon into submission. It wasn’t elegant, but it was effective. Or at least, it should be. Jack had been assured by Lord Arlington that this gambit, though risky, was their best shot. And Jack trusted him with his life.

Jack’s movements slowed as the passage constricted further. He had to stop periodically to reapply the viscous solution that coated his skin. The walls were constantly testing his resolve with probing tendrils that hissed and recoiled upon contact with his alchemical barrier. And those brief contacts were enough to gradually remove his protection. Each time the concoction wore thinner, he felt the faint sting of the tendrils brushing his skin, a chilling reminder of how close he was to death.

Every inch forward ticked by with the slowness of a time dilation. His muscles ached, his breath came in ragged gasps, and his resolve wavered under the relentless pressure of the journey. He thought about turning back more than once, dozens of times in fact, but the image of Lord Arlington’s trusting -albeit grim- nod and the Blessed Raya’s unsettling smile pushed him onward. There was no going back. Not yet. Not until he was finished.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the passage opened up. Jack tumbled into a cavern and froze, his breath catching in his throat.

The heart chamber.

It was vast, impossibly so, the air heavy with an oppressive energy that seemed to hum against his skin. The walls shimmered faintly, their surfaces etched with flowing patterns of green and black that pulsed in time with the rhythm of the core at the center of the chamber. The heart itself was grotesquely beautiful -a crystalline, pulsating orb, its vermilion glow wrapped in twisting veins of sickly green energy that writhed around the sanguine Prismata core like corrupted blood vessels. It was alive in a way that defied understanding, a presence that demanded attention and repelled it all at once.

Jack’s heart thudded against his ribs as he stood at the edge of the chamber, his eyes locked on the core. Lord Arlington’s voice echoed in his memory, the older man’s words as much a warning as they were guidance. The choices before you will be heavy, Jack. But the burden of those decisions is yours to bear, and yours alone.

He swallowed hard, the mantle of those words settling on his shoulders. He didn’t know what to do. He’d been prepared for danger, for the physical toll of crawling through the tunnels, but this? Confronting the heart itself, this pulsing fount of malevolent energy? That was something else entirely.

The dagger at his belt was little comfort. It was a simple silver blade, good enough for most beasts but laughably inadequate against whatever forces may lay within this core chamber. His free hand rested on its hilt instinctively, though he knew that if there was a guardian here -a true dungeon boss, beyond the one they had defeated- he didn’t stand a chance. Not alone.

He scanned the chamber, his breath shallow as he tried to shake the feeling of being watched. Something was here. He couldn’t see it, but the weight of its presence pressed against him like an invisible tide. The air was colder now, the faint hum of the core joined by the soft whisper of movement somewhere in the shadows.

Jack’s mind raced as he tried to recall what Arlington had told him about dungeons and their ever-changing nature. Cores are fountains of power, the lord had said, his tone solemn. They are coveted by everything -man, beast, and dungeon entity alike. A dungeon does not remain static. It changes. It evolves, sometimes by its own will, and sometimes by the will of those who can claim it.

There were tales of kobold dens transforming into troll warrens, of spider queens displacing ogres and turning entire ecosystems into their personal hunting grounds. Jack’s skin prickled at the thought. This dungeon was no different, he realized. It had been claimed, its power warped and twisted by something dark and malevolent.

But was there a guardian? If so, where was it?

Jack’s eyes darted around the chamber, searching for any sign of movement. Guardians were rare, Arlington had said. Most dungeon cores were left exposed, their patrons arrogant enough to assume that no one could reach them. But this core’s energy was too strange, too alive. It had been tampered with, shaped into something that defied the natural order. If a guardian was here, it would be unlike anything he had come to face in his short career as a squire and apprentice to Lord Arlington.

He stepped cautiously into the chamber, his footsteps muffled by the soft, moss-like growth that carpeted the floor. The air grew thicker with each step, the pulsing energy of the core resonating in his chest like a second heartbeat. Jack’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his dagger, his knuckles white as he strained to hear over the pounding of his own pulse.

I should go back, he thought. I should report to Arlington, let the others decide what to do. But the weight of expectation, of proving himself, held him in place. If he turned back now, he would be haunted by the knowledge that he hadn’t even tried.

The chamber appeared deceptively empty, the silence amplifying every shallow breath Jack took. His booted feet failed to echo against the moss covered stone floor, the lack of sound not really helping his resolve, as the oppressive stillness held the room hostage. It was as if he’d found himself inside a sensory deprivation chamber.

Shadows pooled in the corners, thick and unmoving, while the eerie glow of the core cast a sickly pallor across the cavern.

He knelt, retrieving one of the gas vials from his pouch. The mixture inside sloshed ominously, its faintly glowing contents a testament to the care he’d taken in its creation. He set the vial down carefully, the glass nestled gently in the moss carpet, propped against the stone pedestal where the dungeon core resided.

A whisper of sound slithered through the chamber. Jack froze, his heart hammering as he realized the sound wasn’t coming from the core. It was coming from behind him.

Jack spun on his heel and peered with every ounce of his perception at his surroundings.

He almost activated the full power of the Twice Broken Aura card, but still, he held back.

Despite doing a thorough sweep of the room, his focus was drawn inevitably back to the pedestal at its center. The dungeon core atop it pulsed gently, its otherworldly heartbeat thrumming against his senses. He let out a shaky breath and stepped forward, his instincts screaming caution even as the pull of the core seemed to grow stronger.

Take me, use me. Become one with me.

The whispers grew louder, more insistent as he reached for the core.

Unfortunately, in the searching of the room for threats, he hadn’t looked up.

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