Mana teasing on the edge of Zack's senses wasn't something he had never experienced before. More than once a particularly powerful person arrived at his dungeon, and their presence was one Zack could feel as though they had influence of their own. This was the level on which his dungeon senses operated, which allowed him to remain appraised of his entire dungeon despite its size.

The person on the edge of Zack's influence, just outside the boundaries of his influence, looked like another adventurer. She was dressed in scaled mail armour, most of it covering her chest and limbs. She had a helmet tucked under one arm and a shoulder back hanging at her side. From the looks of her, she was an elf like Salazar, though her hair was shiny and silver rather than the familiar copper.

Zack beckoned Jean-Claude, his kobold majordomo, out of the dungeon to greet the strange elf woman. The waxy-green kobold had started serving as Zack's mouth piece in situations which required his direct intervention while also allowing him to keep a relative distance. He didn't want everyone to know he was a lippy dungeon core rather than, say, a nigh omnipotent spirit of the land. Or something.

"Greetings, adventurer," Jean-Claude started, bowing politely at the waist in greeting. "I am the dungeon's majordomo. How might I serve you today?"

The kobold had a raspy voice, a slight side effect of his original voice belonging to a toad. That experiment had permanently coloured Zack's interpretation of Jean-Claude, and therefore permanently set his voice into place.

The elf woman cocked her head curiously. "I admit I wasn't expecting this. I was told there is a… spirit of some kind that inhabits this land?"

"Yes, the dungeon spirit," Jean-Claude explained, rising from his bow. "I speak on behalf of the dungeon, and all your words can be heard through me."

Frowning, but with a curious smirk, the woman reached into her shoulder bag and extracted a notebook. She quickly fliped through some pages before she stopped. Rather than pull out a pen, she simply ran her fingers over the paper. From this angle, Zack couldn't see exactly what she was doing, but the stray aether slipping from her revealed enough for him.

[Written Word: Level 3]

[Spell, Earth]

[Inscribe what is spoken upon this paper. The duration of this effect changes depending on the size of the page, size of the text being written, and the power of the caster.]

[Level 3 Upgrade: This spell no longer needs to be channeled.]

[Mana Cost: Variable]

As Zack observed the spell details, the elf woman put her notebook back into her bag. "I'm recording this conversation for investigative purposes, is that okay?"

Jean-Claude paused for a moment, silently waiting for Zack's confirmation. Upon receiving it, the kobold relayed as much to the strange woman.

"My name is Isolde Lachance. I am a silver-tier member with the Toronto Guild assigned to investigate some happenings in this area. May I come in?"

Again, Jean-Claude didn't immediately answer, instead waiting for Zack to relay what to say. "There is already an adventurer—two of them—present in the dungeon. Is this a matter that they could not handle?"

Isolde frowned and glanced past the kobold toward the parking lot, where Salazar's sedan was already parked. She reached into her bag again and pulled out another paper, this one with information already written on it. "Salazar Julio Lorenzo Gonzalez and Alexander Hale. Copper and Iron tier adventurers respectively. Am I correct?"

"Yes," Jean-Claude confirmed, his ears twitching in time with Zack's nervousness.

Isolde nodded. "Unfortunately, they were specifically barred from participating in this investigation due to their proximity to this estabilishment. It is known that Alexander Hale was once an employee for this enterprise, and Salazar has gone on record saying he is working to establish further dungeon-adventurer relations."

Jean-Claude blinked those large amber eyes of his and nodded slowly. "Very well. How might I be of assistance, ma'am?"

"I prefer the honorific Sir, if you don't mind," Isolde corrected.

"My apologies. Do you prefer male pronouns?" Jean-Claude asked.

"I do not. I use she/her as my pronouns, but you my refer to me as Sir Isolde."

The kobold nodded and gestured for Isolde to follow him into the dungeon. The armoured elf lingered on the edge of Zack's influence for a moment before slipping through. Once she was fully inside his mana, Zack was able to peer at her status information with impunity.

Mostly it was everything he expected. She was level thirty-two, her race was definitely elf, and she had more health and stamina than mana. What he didn't expect, though, was that she had two elemental affinities rather than one. The spell she used implied the existence of her earth affinity, but in addition she also had the water affinity. While Zack was no stranger to seeing people with elemental powers, this was the first time he had ever seen someone with two.

He wanted to delve deeper into her powerset, but was mildly surprised to find that he was blocked from seeing deeper than that. This was also something he had come to expect when dealing with higher level people, as more than once he had encountered someone with the power to block his vision. He suspected that deeper understanding of abilities also leant itself to protecting that information.

As Isolde was entering the dungeon, the others were just exiting the portal arch. A rift of purple energy swirled shut as Isolde came face to face with Salazar and the others.

"Isolde," Salazar said, nodding in greeting to the female elf.

Isolde nodded back, before peering down at Alex and repeating the gesture. It was the polite nod of a coworker rather than the kind of excited greeting one might expect from a friend.

"To what do we owe the pleasure?" Alex asked.

"I am here investigating the cause of the magical explosion that originated at this location," Isolde explained. She adjusted the helmet under her arm, and Zack was curious why she didn't just wear it, or store it in her back. A quick poke with mana revealed that it was a heavily enchanted piece of gear, though he couldn't quite see the specifics. He got the impression it was heavily fortified with earth-aspected mana, though.

Zack was so caught up in the helm that he barely even registered mention of the explosion, nor that the room had fallen suspiciously silent. Everyone was looking at Jean-Claude, as though waiting for him to speak. "That happened a week ago, why are you only investigating this now?" He asked, conveying the question through the kobold.

"Dungeon, I know you are sapient. Could you please stop communicating via intermediaries and speak to me directly?" Isolde asked, looking to the air above the kobold.

Zack flinched, but he probably should have expected as much. If Isolde was one of Salazar's contemporaries, and Salazar's relationship with the dungeon was a known factor in the investigation, it only made sense she knew he could talk. Zack was quietly grateful that he hadn't revealed to the elf his nature as a core just yet. Salazar knew about the other cores under his care, but not that Zack himself was one of their kind.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Ideally, he wanted to keep it that way, if only for a little while longer.

With a twist of mana fibres, Zack created a tangled ball of magic hovering in the air. One of his wisps. These solely existed as a way for him to communicate with other people. He didn't need them to talk to his mobs, nor did he need them to see. They simply allowed him to vibrate his mana to produce a sound that non-dungeon creatures could pick up.

"Would you mind stepping into my office?" Zack asked Isolde. He prodded Glitch to request a portal, and the arch opened up again to a new location. This time, instead of the idyllic meadow, it was something akin to a corporate executive's personal office. Zack commanded his wisp to float through the portal, followed quickly by Jean-Claude, and waited for Isolde on the other side. "Don't worry, the portals are safe. It's just faster than trying to guide you manually through the dungeon."

Isolde turned a suspicious look on Salazar, who nodded in confirmation. "If the dungeon was going to kill you, he wouldn't do it while in plain view of two other carded adventurers," the copper-haired elf noted.

Conceding the point, Isolde nodded and stepped through the portal. The arch closed behind her, and in its place was a rather ordinary looking door. Suspicion creeping up again, Isolde quickly tested the door just to make sure it worked. Beyond the threshold was a world of darkness, dampness, and dirt.

"Are we still in your dungeon?" She asked, glancing at Zack's wisp again.

"Yes. This is the second floor of the first room. We call this the burrow, internally. It's still a work in progress, but its nature and proximity to the entrance make it ideal for handling executive functions. Can I get you any refreshments? Water? Tea?"

"No, thank you," Isolde said, shutting the door again. She panned her gaze around the room, taking in the large wooden desk on one side, and the plush chairs situated just before it.

The walls were decorated in replicas of famous art pieces, courtesy of Iris's uncanny ability to store information. Zack had no intention of revealing it, but just behind the back wall and defended by a complex series of traps was his core room. The added benefit of letting Isolde this close to his core was that, in an emergency, he could try to flood her with mana the way he had Snow.

He desperately hoped the conversation wouldn't come to that, though.

"So, investigating the explosion. What do you want to know?" Zack asked.

Isolde nodded set her helm down on one chair, before lowering herself into another. She extracted her notebook from her bag again and flipped through the pages. "Firstly, I would like to confirm what our investigations and reports from other adventurers have led us to believe. Is it correct that Archmage Cornelius Snow was involved with this explosion?"

Zack pondered how to answer that. From the way Isolde was talking, it seemed like she already knew the answer and was mostly trying to gauge whether or not he was going to be honest with her. So far, he had no reason not to tell the truth. Cornelius Snow had said as much during that very encounter: there was almost nothing authorities could do to Zack in retribution.

"That's correct," Zack ceded.

Isolde nodded. "Is it true that you instigated him by," she paused for a moment and frowned, reviewing the question in her book, "by attempting to steal from him?"

"That is also correct."

Isolde nodded, and made a note in her paper by running her finger across it in a line. Now that she was inside his influence, Zack was able to peer at the notebook properly. As expected, it contained both questions she wanted to ask, as well as recordings of his spoken answer. The line she just wrote was actually a note in the margin.

The dungeon is being cooperative.

"What were you attempting to steal from him?"

This was a question Zack was well prepared for, and had rehearsed his response with many of the others. "Cornelius Snow was holding entities known as cores hostage. Cores are living crystals capable of magical evolution similar to that of a human. He and his ilk were performing unethical experiments on these cores, so I took responsibility to liberate them."

That answer seemed to catch Isolde off-guard, which made Zack mentally smirk. The idea behind the answer was twofold: first, it was to reveal the existence of cores as sapient entities capable of thought and magic. Most people knew of the existence of cores following the Aetheric Boom—the event which saw magic rupture out of the earth like a volcano—and knew that they were the remains of people burned away in aetheric fires. Most had no idea that these cores were alive, though. The second purpose was to reveal that Zack's intention was wholly altruistic.

Granted, that wasn't the exact truth, but it was close enough for him to spin it. In reality, Zack's egotistical altruism was mostly to satisfy his own self-importance, and it had resulted in Alex's death. That was a mistake he wouldn't make a second time.

"Do you still have these cores in your dungeon?" Isolde asked, after a moment of quiet contemplation.

"I do. In fact, one of them would be willing to speak with you about their treatment at the hands of Snow and his contemporaries, if you'd like," Zack said. This was another answer he'd prepared. Of the three other cores in his dungeon, only one of them was in any right state to actually hold a conversation with another person. Glitch was too fragmented and struggled to carry a conversation, and Enza refused to speak with anyone.

Iris, despite her nature as a library core making her more solitary than others, was all too willing to share her experience.

"That won't be necessary for now," Isolde said quickly, making another note in the margins of her book. "For now, we are simply seeking the cause of the explosion."

"I understand. It was quite the blast. I did what I could to absorb the loose aether but there was a lot more than I can normally handle, and some of it was bound to slip through my grasp." Another rehearsed answer, this one with more intention behind it than simply conveying information.

Due to the interference of people like Archmage Snow, people were unaware that cores were capable of syphoning aether and converting it back into mana. It was part of the natural magic cycle, the same way that water evaporated and fell as rain. Judging by the way Isolde stared at the wisp from under raised eyebrows, Zack was fairly certain he got her thinking about what he meant by that.

She didn't, however, ask him to elaborate. Instead, she asked something that threw Zack for a loop. "Did you cause the explosion?"

Zack was about to blurt out no but stopped himself. While it was true that he wasn't directly responsible for the detonation, he was the one that gave Snow the power to pull it off.

"Cornelius Snow was the one to use the ability," Zack said, wording his answer carefully so that he could swear under magical oath that it was the truth. "His ability to hurl bolts of magic upgraded into one that caused his entire body to explode with magical power, and that was the burst that took out my dungeon."

Isolde's eyes narrowed, and she didn't immediately start writing again. Instead, she peered deep into the wisp, as though trying to gauge whether or not Zack was telling the truth. Even Zack was starting to see the holes in his answer. How did Snow upgrade his spell, and why would he choose that upgrade specifically? Any adventurer worth their license knew that upgrading spells was about learning how to use them more efficiently rather than some illusory experience value going up.

Although Zack had yet to reveal that he knew that to her, and from the way her face tightened he could tell that she was debating whether or not to reveal that to him. Zack decided to try playing off this known string of misinformation and seeing where it got him.

"Snow stormed through my dungeon and fought all of my mobs. He earned a couple levels for the trouble, too. His power was so much that I couldn't see his abilities in great detail," Zack explained, sticking solely to the truth. Snow had fought all his mobs and gained a couple levels during his dungeon run. Zack hadn't been able to see the old man's status with detail, either, due to how Snow's magic affinity allowed him to block the dungeon's senses.

That explanation seemed to assuage Isolde, as her expression softened. She ran her fingers over the paper once more, leaving the phrase the dungeon seems truthful behind.

"If you don't mind me asking, how come your guild waited a week before seeking out this information?" Zack asked, as Isolde closed her book and returned it to her bag.

"You've been honest with me, so I think it's reasonable I should do the same with you," Isolde said, nodding slowly. "The truth is that monsters have been appearing with increased frequency since the event. Enough so that we haven't been able to devote enough personel to this investigation."

Jean-Claude frowned and tapped his chin, a reflection of Zack's pensiveness. "Increased frequency? How so?"

Isolde pursed her lips and carefully considered her words before answering. "Monsters born from aetheric manifestation are often chaotic in nature and very dangerous, but they tend only to appear in areas with a high density of aether. This time, they appeared in the city streets, and because we needed to send adventurers to fight them, the fighting only increased their numbers. No sooner had one fallen did another appear."

Jean-Claude's eyes widened. "But that's insane," he said, a reflection of Zack's own shock.

"Yes, it is. In the end, after a week of fighting endlessly spawning monsters, we managed to kite them to an area of lower aetheric density. The end result is that the aether was dispersed enough to allow the fighting to ebb, but we are still dealing with the rammifications of this event." Isolde explained. "We were, at last, able to devote people to this investigation. The gold-tiers are handling the fighting while the rest of us can carry on our basic day to day tasks."

"Does that mean my answers have satisfied your questions?" Zack asked.

"Mostly, yes," Isolde confirmed, rising from the seat. She scooped her helmet off the other chair and tucked it under her arm again. "I believe I have the answers I needed to continue my investigation. Thank you for your cooperation, spirit."

"No problem," Zack murmured, as Isolde turned and strode for the door. With a nudge, Zack alerted Glitch to open the portal network and sent her through, before following with his wisp. As she left, her words hung in the air and plucked at his worries.

If monsters were appearing in the city streets, they were going to have a huge problem.