Archie's plan to stick around for a couple days turned into an almost week-long sabbatical in the dungeon. For the first two days, he was too tired to even see Chandra, sleeping away the time in his room. Twice she had asked Zack if she could see him, and both times he warned her that Archie was asleep. On the third day, the werewolf took matters into her own hands and descended into the burrow of her own accord. Thankfully, Zack didn't need to rouse Archie from his slumber. The rabbit was finally awake and in the middle of a bath when she walked into his quarters.

Rather than be accused of voyeurism, Zack turned his attention to other issues. Namely, the green adventurers delving his dungeon. True to their agreement, the local adventurer guild was using him as a training ground for their newest members. A silver-ranked adventurer he didn't know was training a team of four iron-rankers, using the forest zone to run drills and exercises. While the meadow was designed with newbies in mind, these adventurers were well seasoned enough to tackle the difficulty his harder floors presented. They mostly needed to work on their teamwork rather than their magical aptitude.

Zack silently observed as the quartet took on a group of challenged the Woodfolk. Much like Salazar had during his time on this floor, the silver-rank adventurer was offering commands and suggestions for how to tackle this group of enemies. Unlike Salazar, though, this adventurer didn't participate in the fight. He kept his distance and let his trainees do all the hard work. Zack would have been disgusted by this, if it weren't for the fact he knew these adventurers could handle the challenge. Already the trainees were in formation and making quick work of their enemies. They lacked the specific element that these mobs were weak to—namely, fire—but they made up for this with creative use of the elements they had.

Zack was surprised to find one of the adventurers had the crystal aspect, not unlike Salazar. Where Sal frequently used the crystal element to break apart molecular bonds and turn his throwing weapons into shrapnel, this adventurer instead used it to create crystalline structures. Zack watched in excitement as the crystal user combined forces with their healer to turn a healing stream of water into jagged spikes of ice. From Zack's understanding, someone with the water aspect should already have access to ice as part of their suite, but the addition of the crystal element reinforced the spikes. Rather than shatter upon hitting their target, the spikes punched right through and kept on going.

Impressed with their progress, Zack kept watching them until they made it to the Nuckelavee. Rather than challenge the wing's boss, though, they took a break on the forest floor and passed around some potions. The instructor palmed his teleport stone and proceeded to lecture his trainees about the mistakes they made during their fights. Zack sighed in disappointment as Glitch opened a portal for them and took them away. It would seem he wouldn't get to see them fight his boss after all.

"Maybe I made Nuckelavee a bit too hard after all," he lamented in frustration.

Turning his attention away from the currently active wings of the dungeon, Zack took a moment to take in his own stats and growth.

[Status]

[Name: Zack]

[Core type: Dungeon]

[Level: 19]

[Integrity: 102%]

[Mana: 91/125]

[Upkeep requirements]

[Influence: 110 mana per hour]

[Monsters: 25 mana per hour]

[Advanced Spawners: 45 mana per hour]

[Aether intake]

[Influence: 85 aether per hour]

[Ambient: 80 aether per hour (+55 aether per hour from harvesters)]

[Recovery: 15 per hour]

[Aether recovery and upkeep requirements have reached a stable equilibrium. Growth increased.]

He mentally frowned at the numbers. So far, nothing was different from the last time he checked. Sure his integrity was rebalancing itself, and his current mana values fluctuated with use and time, but that was all expected. Even the math from his monsters was well within his calculations. He'd added more wings and new challenges to his dungeon, and was doing everything in his power to expand his own existing knowledge-base.

As far as he was concerned, he was doing everything necessary to advance his level. So why was he stuck? And why did it bother him so much? He was just a dungeon, it's not like he needed to stand up and walk around. His clash with Snow already proved that a core's level was on a completely different scale than that of a conventional creature. His current level was leagues beyond what any other core he knew of could reach.

But it wasn't enough. There was some quiet, nagging part inside him that urged him to keep growing, to keep amassing more and more power.

He didn't understand why he felt that way, and he didn't know what he could do to alleviate the feeling. So, rather than try to force himself to understand, he took several deep mana breaths to calm down. The action recentered his focus on his core, the crystal heart at its place of rest.

His new core room was in the manor, true to Archie's advice. He didn't have a special hidey hole for it like he had in the warren, and it was instead tucked away in a specially guarded room. It would have, at one point in time, served as one of the many hidden alcoves for adventurers to explore. Alas, nobody had made it this far in the dungeon in some time. Most people who had the potential to go all the way ran out of time or steam in the forest. So Zack had his pick of rooms.

This room wasn't protected by a boss, but it did have plenty of guards surrounding it. Slimes, skeletons, and creepy creatures of all stripes wandered the hallways just beyond. Plus there were spawners right overhead, so Zack could easily spawn emergency protection if need be.

His core looked unchanged, all things considered. It was still a sizeable chunk of blue-green crystal that glowed with power. He could see the thin wisps of aether filtering into him and mana being produced in its place. By Archie's description, Zack figured his core was roughly an eighth the size of Matt's. That comparison made him feel small and powerless. His core shuddered at the thought, drawing Zack's attention to it curiously.

Why did the knowledge that Matt was bigger than him make him uncomfortable? It's not like being bigger saved him from the dungeon fairy.

As soon as he parsed the thought, he understood where this sudden trepidation was coming from. Matt had vastly more magical potential than Zack, but that hadn't been enough to save him from the fairy. It still took him over and turned him into its hive.

What if a fairy came for Zack? Would he be able to stop it? Would he be able to protect himself, or the myriad of people that called his dungeon home?

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Would he be able to protect his friends?

Zack's core shivered atop its place of rest, rattling the wooden table beneath it. With an exertion of will, Zack managed to stop the crystal from shaking, only to realize that it wasn't just his core. The entire dungeon shuddered. He could feel the tremors ripping through his foundations, sending his walls and floors trembling. It took several deep mana breaths and a concentrated effort to get everything back under his control and settled down again.

"Zack? What was that? Are you okay?"

To his surprise, it wasn't Archie calling out to him, but rather Greg the orc. With Chandra and Archie cuddling in his room, and Alex off doing adventurer chores, Greg Greene was the only member of the usual crew present on site. He was presently minding the front desk, and thankfully didn't have a line up of customers waiting to access the dungeon.

Zack carefully considered his approach before spinning up a wisp in the front lobby above Greg's head. "Sorry. Had a bit of a… a moment, I guess you could say?"

Greg's thick eyebrows pressed together as he glared up at the wisp. "What kind of moment, Zack? The entire building was shaking. I'm pretty sure I heard crying from inside the meadow."

Momentary concern for his customers overriding personal fears, Zack checked in on his delvers. Sure enough, a group that consisted of two parents and two children were huddled together in the meadow. A horned rabbit stood nearby, sniffing at them curiously. Their rented weapons lay discarded on the floor, and one of the children was crying.

"Glitch, get them out of here," Zack ordered. He didn't bother projecting the sound to the family. Thankfully, he didn't need to. As soon as the portal opened, the father ushered his family through it and back to the lobby.

Zack waited for roughly ten minutes as the family yelled at Greg for the unexpected terror of an earthquake, and rather than argue with them the orc simply offered a full refund and some complimentary healing potions. Satisfied with that, the family left.

"I didn't mean to scare them," Zack mumbled, once they were gone.

Greg looked up at the wisp and shook his head. "I've never felt anything like that before. What exactly happened that sent the entire dungeon shaking?"

For a moment, Zack actually considered not telling Greg anything. After a few seconds of hesitation, though, he acquiesced and explained his momentary brush with pure terror. If anyone would understand what it feels like to lose control, and to be scared of it every day, it would be the orc.

The orc tapped his chin and nodded thoughtfully as Zack finished his explanation. "These fairies… Are you sure they would even want to claim you?"

Zack shook his wisp from side to side. "I don't know. Everything I know about them is second hand information and deductions made from studying their pattern. They might come after me, and then again they might not. Matt might have had a lot more power than me, but he was clueless about how to use it all."

"Meanwhile, you're well defended and have a better understanding of your abilities as a core," Greg pointed out. "From what you tell me, it sounds like you went up against one of their thralls once before and walked away unscathed."

"I'm not sure I'd call what I had to do to Ember as unscathed," Zack's wisp involuntarily shuddered at the thought. "I broke her. I killed her. And then I ate her."

"You can't keep blaming yourself for that, Zack. You were under attack and doing everything in your power to protect yourself."

"But couldn't I have done something more? Why did it have to end with me shattering one of my own kind!?" Zack stopped vibrating his mana threads to produce sounds as he noticed the whine in his voice. "Sorry, this kind of wallowing isn't productive. I'm not handling things well right now."

Greg crossed his arms stubbornly and shrugged. "I dunno. Seems to me you're doing a pretty good job thinking it through. You're not letting your fear dictate your actions, and instead putting it towards seeking a solution."

"Am I, though? Seeking a solution, I mean."

"You're sending Archie to check up on this Edward Fenton character, no?"

"Assuming he can ever untangle himself from Wolf Girl Paradise…"

Greg snorted a chuckle and shook his head. "That's the price you pay for having independent creatures within you, I guess. Look, my point is that you're not letting your fear of what could happen control you. You're doing everything in your power to remain master of your own fate. The Zack I met all those months ago wouldn't have done that."

"I… am not sure whether I should take that as a compliment or not," Zack confessed.

"Compliment. You've gotten stronger in more ways than just raw power. The bottom line is that you've had to fight your way through way worse stuff than some freaking fairies. Ain't no way they'll compare to Snow."

Zack decided to take Greg's comments at face value. He wanted to retort, and remind the orc that the only reason Zack had been able to best Snow was by pumping the archmage so full of mana that he physically exploded. There was no telling if such a feat was even possible to replicate, and he wasn't keen to experiment with it given the outcome it produced.

At the same time, though, Greg had a really good point. A few short months ago, Zack might have been flippant about the fairy threat, but he would have ruminated in his fears. The trials he faced in his short time as an awoken core had left him prepared for the fairies.

"I'm still painfully uninformed about them," Zack grumbled. "That's something I'll need to rectify sooner rather than later. Edward Fenton may be our only real lead, but he can't be the only one who knows these things exist. The one Archie killed made it sound like there were loads of them hiding in plain sight. If only Iris would take a moment to talk with me…"

"Well, have you tried talking to Enza?" Greg suggested.

Zack's wisp froze in midair. "I… have not."

The orc nodded. "Maybe it would behoove you to do so? If anyone within your dungeon would have information about fairies, surely it would be Snow's personal core?"

Zack mulled it over in his head for a few seconds, before deciding that Greg was probably right. "Thanks for the talk. I guess I'm going to pay Enza another visit…"

"Anytime, man," Greg nodded, as the wisp vanished into thin air.

Zack quickly pulled his awareness out of the lobby, briefly taking in the whole of his dungeon layout, before shooting his point of view into the room where he stored Enza. She was right where he left her, attached to the pommel of a crude dagger. As soon as he entered her chamber, he could feel the hostility of her gaze boring into him.

"We need to talk about something," he declared, not bothering with pleasantries.

For a few brief moments, Enza was silent. "What is it?" she finally demanded.

"Matt was taken over by a fairy," Zack declared.

Enza's dagger suddenly shuddered on its platform. The act must have lasted less than a second, but it was enough for Zack to realize that she knew something.

"Tell me everything you know about fairies," he ordered her.

"I can't," Enza said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.

"Can't? or won't? If you cooperate, I promise to afford you a few more freedoms."

"As much as I would love to get your influence off of me, I really can't tell you anything about them. If you know they exist, you know as much as I do," Enza confessed.

"But… Snow…"

"Fairies were not a part of my husband's greater research," Enza explained, her tone sharpening as conversation shifted to her husband. "He was focused entirely on the capabilities of cores. The only reason he discovered the existence of fairies was because one came to us."

"It came to you?"

"I can't tell you why! Honest! All I know is that one of those creatures came to our lab and demanded audience with my husband. He left me outside the office when it became clear that the fairy was both a manavore and interested in our cores."

Zack mentally frowned. He didn't get the impression that Enza was lying to him. Far from it, he could feel genuine concern radiating off of her. "What would a fairy want with Cornelius Snow?"

"I don't know. I really don't know. It revealed enough information to pique my husband's curiosity but Cornelius never revealed more than that to me."

With a sigh, Zack decided he wasn't going to get more information out of Enza at this time. Still, the knowledge that the fairies approached Snow was something worth keeping in mind. As thanks for telling him that much, Zack obeyed her wish and eased his influence off her. As an armament core, Enza was incapable of producing an influence of her own. Still, he could feel her relaxing as the weight of his magic was removed.

"Thank you for cooperating," Zack said quietly, slowly pulling his awareness out of her room. The information she gave him wasn't particularly helpful, but it was something.

"Um… Zachary," Enza started, drawing the dungeon's attention back to her again.

"Just Zack, please."

"Zack. I know we are not exactly on the best of terms, but I have to know: will you protect me if the fairies come for us?"

Zack was momentarily stunned by the question. Was Enza as afraid of the fairies as he was? "Pardon?" He asked, just to make sure he understood her right.

"Fairies are manavores. They eat magic. In particular, they eat the magic in cores like us. If fairies invade your dungeon, will you protect me from them?"

There wasn't a second of hesitation in Zack's answer. "Of course I will. I don't like you, Enza. You've been accomplice to crimes against our kind and you will be held to account for them. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let a fairy eat you. I'm pretty sure I've seen what they do to cores, and I refuse to let that happen to anyone. If it's wihtin my power to stop them, I will. If it isn't within my power, I'll grow strong enough that it is."

Enza sighed in relief, releasing a mana breath she'd been holding. "Thank you."