Zack didn't have the time to fully devote himself to watching the adventurers run the dungeon. There were just too many things he needed to prepare. He promised he'd peek in while they were fighting the forest's boss, but he had other matters that required his attention. The adventurers assured him they'd be more than capable of taking care of their own and went on their way. As soon as the portal shut behind them, Zack moved his awareness into Glitch's room.

Like Zack's core room, Glitch's room was sequestered away from the rest of the dungeon. That was where the similarity ended, though. Because Glitch was a portal core, they didn't need a direct connection to the entire dungeon—only to their portals. That was how Zack and Glitch had created the portal system that would allow traversal throughout the dungeon: by directly connecting Glitch to the prime portal, they could effectively open a gate to any location connected to it. And since the portal arch was connected to Zack, that gave Glitch full access to the entire dungeon.

"Hey, buddies. How are you two holding out?" Zack asked them.

Unlike the other cores in Zack's care, Glitch was actually two cores broken apart then fused together by magic. As such, they spoke with two voices—one masculine and one feminine—and had conflicting personalities that sometimes struggled for full control, resulting in the vinyl-like skips that earned them the name.

"We-we-we are fine," Glitch stuttered. "The adventurers were hard-difficult-challenging to move without damaging our portals. They are too high above our level. We are working on rectifying that issue."

Zack made a non-comittal grunt of affirmation. He had always suspected that higher level beings would pose a problem for Glitch, and secretly hoped he could bear the brunt of that burden thanks to his own higher level. He had a long way to go before he approached a full party of adventurers, though.

"I'm glad it wasn't impossible for you. We'll need you ready for tomorrow, since we're opening up to customers again," Zack informed them. "You… are going to be ready for that, right?"

Glitch made a quiet buzzing noise for a few seconds, a sound that Zack had grown to realize as their two halves communicating with one another. "We should be-be-be fine," Glitch admitted. "Unless something too strong tries to move-pass-slip through our portals, we-we-we can hold them steady."

That was a problem Zack wished he'd known about sooner, but he wasn't about to get mad at the portal cores for that one. They didn't fully understand the limits of their abilities, since most of their time awake was spent as experiments in a lab. They never had a chance to properly stretch the boundaries of their portal powers, not to mention getting shattered likely further damaged their abilities. Zack made a note to ask Archie to look for Glitch's missing pieces. Salazar could dissolve the electrum holding Glitch's two halves together and then mend them with their proper pieces again.

"I have a job for you, and it's probably one you'll be none too excited about," Zack started. "I'm going to send some mobs back to Waterloo—"

Before Zack even finished his sentence, Glitch started screaming. The buzzing of its halves communicating could barely be heard over its two sides hollering in fear. Zack had to slam down upon them with his influence, pushing against them with everything he had. Cores didn't actually speak the same way that people did, instead they had three avenues of communication: telepathy, mana, and vibration. In this instance, Glitch's mana was filling the room, so they used it as a transmitter for thoughts and words to Zack. Therefore, Zack was able to silence their screams by pushing their mana way from his point of view.

It helped that Zack's mana was so much stronger than Glitch's, and pressed down upon their core like a weighted blanket. He waited until he felt their core stop shivering, and released them from his mana.

"We are… Sorry," Glitch muttered.

"No, that's okay. I knew that was going to bring back bad memories for you. I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of warning you. Are you okay to keep talking about this?"

Glitch pulled in mana and let it back out again a few times, cycling the energy in the room. "Yes. We are… F-f-f-fine."

Zack stared silently at the purple core for a long moment, just in case they had another outburst. "Our intention is to try and establish communication with Matt, the other dungeon core. And rescue it, if we can. Would you be willing to open a portal to Waterloo?"

"No."

There was no debate between Glitch's two halves. Zack didn't even think he could argue the point. For Glitch, Waterloo University was a place of immeasurable trauma and horror. Even bringing it up like this was enough to put them into a post-traumatic distress spiral. Zack knew that, and still sought them out.

"I'm sorry. Asking you to do this was a mistake. I… I'm really sorry," Zack muttered.

He was about to pull his awareness out of the room when Glitch spoke again. "Wait." It was Glitch's feminine voice that spoke, not the two voices at once. Zack could pick up the faint buzzing that alerted him to their internal debate before the portal core spoke again. "I… We… Can't open a portal directly to Waterloo," the feminine voice explained. "We are too disconnected from it. However, if someone were to bring something from us there, we can establish a wider portal network."

Somewhere in the dungeon, Jean-Claude's face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean?" Zack asked.

"We are… two," Glitch explained, their second voice once again joining the first. "If our two halves connect over distances, we could connect the two dungeons together."

"That's all well and good, but not exactly what I'm looking for. I just want to send some to the university then bring them back here."

"Yes, we-we-we understand. It's not that simple. We can create a p-p-portal to any location in your influence, thanks to our connection, but…"

Zack wished he had a face to slap. "It's too far and too removed from my influence for you to access," he finished.

"Yes. We think, after some debate, we can open a portal to Archie if he is outside the d-d-dungeon, but only if he's not too far away-way-way. As it stands, Waterloo is too-too-too far removed for us to open a portal to."

"But if your broken pieces were to awaken in Matt's dungeon, you could access it without a problem."

"Precisely," the masculine voice agreed. Another moment of buzzing interrupted them before they once again spoke in unison. "We do not know if our shards are in Matt's dungeon, but it is worth searching for them, no?"

"I fully agree. I'll relay this information to Archie and we'll see what he thinks. Thanks for cooperating on this matter, I know it's not easy for you to think about that place."

"You have been good to us. Better than the aetherologists, at the very least."

"That's a horribly low bar and I'm glad I cleared it."

Glitch's two halves laughed in unison and thanked him again before he left. Since Zack was already doing the rounds, he decided to stop in on Iris and see how she was doing. Unlike Glitch, who was more than happy to be connected to Zack's mana, Iris was fiercely independent and needed space to call her own. She had connections to multiple systems throughout the dungeon, including the new machine that revealed a person's level to them. Her home, however, was an enormous library built into the manor section of the dungeon.

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Zack kept his awareness on the edge of the library, technically outside of Iris's mana, and waited for her to notice him. Ever observant, she felt his presence immediately and invited him in. Rather than shove his mana and awareness into her influence, Zack conjured a wisp and floated that in instead. Since it was composed entirely of his mana, he could focus his awareness on its position. Its tight knit form would keep it from pushing too hard against Iris's influence, something she absolutely hated.

"Hello, Zack," Iris said. She had a wisp of her own, a pale orange thing that was flitting about the towering book shelves. Most of the shelves were empty, or had only a single book upon them. Even with those paltry numbers, Iris's library had hundreds of books in it.

She was known as a library core. If Zack's purpose as a dungeon core was to create monsters and a space to fight, Iris's purpose was to absorb pure knowledge. When she was a prisoner of the Waterloo aetherologists, they had fed her entire texts and had her recreate them on various materials. Even now, she was practicing this ability by creating scrolls of various textiles.

Iris also had mobs of her own. Golems made of books wandered between the shelves, and sometimes books would flit around them like birds. Back when Zack had first found her, she wasn't even sure she could create mobs. It turned out that she was limited in the structures she could use to make them, but she could have them all the same.

"Hey. I just wanted to check up on you, see how you were doing. There's some things going on that I wanted to keep you appraised of, but I have to warn you: it's not pleasant."

Iris's wisp froze in midair, and two of the bibliogolems slowly turned to glower at Zack with glowing orange eyes. "I was doing quite fine until that little warning. You know you're supposed to ask how I'm doing, let me answer, and then drop that kind of warning, right?"

"No. I'm really bad at this," Zack admitted.

"We'll work on it later. Let's pretend you didn't immediately trigger my anxiety and start over. I'm doing quite fine, thank you. The library is sparser than I'd like, but the inclusion of level monitoring will give me new books to add over time. Currently I'm dedicating multiple tomes to recording every new spell I discover, as well as the status of people who delve into the dungeon."

Zack bobbed his wisp up and down. "That's really exciting!"

"It is! You mentioned once before that you cannot peer at spell upgrades without seeing all potential paths at once, correct? I suspect part of that is you do not know what sort of filters are available to you. It's like trying to search a library for a specific book, without knowing anything about it except its genre. Searching for romance books will result in an inundation of information, overwhelming no matter the mind that peers at it."

Zack considered that for a moment, Iris's analogy making a surprising amount of sense. "So you think by recording the spells you see, I'll have an easier time searching for spell upgrades?"

"Yes and no. It will be less that you have an easier time searching and more that you'll have a better understanding of what to filter out to avoid the paths you don't want. For example, say you have a mob with a mana projection ability and you wanted to upgrade that spell into something like a lightning bolt. Understanding what you want and how to filter for it will then allow you to isolate every path that does not fit your criteria," Iris explained.

Zack could feel his attention wavering as she lectured him, but he forced himself to pay attention. This was important stuff, the answer to one of his burning question and a solution to one of his larger problems. He collected spell nodes from his mobs, but upgrading them into new spells was too difficult for him on his own. Every time he attempted it, he inadvertently peered at every potential upgrade—which for most spells was somewhere in the billions.

"By studying existing spells, I can learn what different filters exist. This goes beyond elements and includes stuff like subcategories, such as enchantments and the like," Zack proposed.

"Precisely!" Iris exclaimed.

Zack bobbed his wisp excitedly. "I see the value in this collection. I'm glad we worked out the kiosk, so you can gather more information about spells outside our currently knowledgebase. I don't have the ability to directly absorb information like you do, though. Have you figured out a way around that problem?"

Iris's wisp jittered in place. "Not yet. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure it is possible. I'll let you know if I think of a way around that, though. You might need to buckle down and actually read a book though."

"Ew, reading. Cringe." Zack only half-joked. He technically had the ability to divide his awareness across his entire dungeon, so there was theoretically nothing stopping him from having a piece of him in Iris's library at all times studying the spells she discovered. That meant he would still have to be studying non-stop, though, something he wasn't too keen on.

"It's a matter worth discussing when I have enough spells to share," Iris said, glossing past Zack's contempt for books. "Now, was there something else you wanted to discuss with me?"

Zack took the hint at face value. "Yes, there is, but I must warn you that it's about Waterloo university."

Iris's wisp tensed, and she made a sound like a deep sigh. "Ah, yes. That was a better warning, but it certainly is a topic that will trigger my anxiety no matter what."

"Sorry. I'm planning to send mobs to the university to establish a line of communication with Matt, maybe even rescue him if possible. I know he's not your favourite core in the world, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least loop you in on my plans."

"I appreciate you taking that into consideration. Can I offer you a word of advice?" Iris asked.

Zack bobbed his wisp in affirmation.

"Don't underestimate Matt. His mind may be young, but he's powerful. A lot more powerful than he realizes. He's dangerous, Zack."

"I know. He's a dungeon core, like me. I don't plan on letting him get the better of my mobs. That's why I'm sending Archie and some of the highest level mobs I have at my disposal. Alex is going with them, too. He's stronger than any mob in the dungeon."

Iris made another sighing noise. "As long as you understand the risk. If I can offer another piece of advice: this might be something worth bringing up to Enza."

"Enza? She's not talking to anyone right now!" Zack spat.

"Enza has spent a week of solitude crushed under the weight of your influence. She might be open to talking now," Iris pointed out.

Zack cringed. Whenever Iris spoke of a dungeon's influence, she described it as smothering and heavy. It made him feel self-conscious about his weight, which was technically something he didn't have to worry about anymore. Still, Iris was right. Enza's connection to Cornelius Snow meant she was present whenever he was abusing Matt. If anyone knew what he was capable of, it was her.

Zack thanked Iris for the talk, then shot his awareness out of her library and into the tiny room that housed the armament core. Enza technically had no influence of her own, and without a weapon attached to her she was functionally powerless. Still, Zack emptied the room of his influence and spawned a wisp at the edge of it.

"What do you want?" She spat, the blue-white gem shivering as though a pressure had finally been lifted off of her.

"I need to know about Matt," Zack explained. "I'm going to try and rescue him from the prison your husband build around him."

Enza scoffed a laugh. "You mean the husband you—"

Before she could finish speaking, Zack flooded the room with his mana again. Enza was silenced before she even finished her sentence. "I'm going to pull off you again, but I'm not here to talk about that. Either you can help me and I'll give you a few freedoms as a reward, or you can keep screaming about the husband that treated you as nothing but a tool. Your choice."

When Zack pulled his magic away again, Enza was uncharacteristically silent. It was a few moments of awkward silence before she spoke. "I want a new weapon," she declared. "Something better than a cane."

"Is that a demand, or a request?"

"An exchange. I'll tell you what you want, and in exchange I want a new weapon. I'm an armament core, and I'm powerless when isolated from a weapon like this."

"That's why I isolated you," Zack reminded her.

"Someone still has to wield me you—" Enza paused, reconsidering her insult. "On my own, I might be a magic weapon, but I still need someone to wield me."

Zack considered that carefully, before deciding to oblige. He conjured a dagger beside her core, and watched as she eagerly fused herself into the pommel. As the metal warped to form a proper grip around her gem, she let out a relieved sigh.

"You have a weapon, now tell me what you can about Matt," Zack insisted.

"Okay. When Cornelius and I first discovered Matthew, we assumed he was only good for suppressing the power of other cores. It wasn't until after we met you that we realized there was far more to it than that. One thing is absolutely certain, though: his powers are similar to yours, but also very different."

Somewhere in the dungeon, Jean-Claude frowned in consternation. "Can you elaborate?"

"I don't know. We never could figure out how to make him cooperate and unleash his true potential. Unlike you, we don't have full access to the status information of others," Enza explained.

Zack quietly considered that, before thanking Enza for her honesty. "I appreciate this, really. Keep this up, and maybe I'll be willing to let you go."

"As if I want your appreciation you husband murd—"

Zack slammed his influence back into the room with a frustrated groan. They made some progress, but it was clear Enza had a long way to go before she realized her husband was an abusive monster.

"Oh well. Still, that gives me something to think about," Zack muttered to himself, abandoning the tiny room to return to his dungeon proper.

He had a lot to think about, and an expedition to prepare.