Zack held his metaphorical breath as he watched Salazar practically run out of the building toward his car. He didn't let himself breathe until the elf threw his vehicle into gear and peeled away, his tires shredding the dirt road as he went. Zack made a mental note to make a proper parking lot once he had some free time. Already he had claimed the ground outside his dungeon, but the overgrown pavement was in dire need of repair. Harsh winters and lack of use rendered them cracked and battered.

When Zack turned his attention back to the others, he found Greg and Chandra staring at the remains of the quicksand pit uncomfortably. It was an easy matter to repair, though Zack didn't appreciate Salazar had been able to affect it at all. A quick reference to his abilities revealed that not infusing his walls and floors with mana had rendered it vulnerable to such magical effects. It would overextend his mana if he were to infuse all his walls and floors, so Zack quickly threaded mana through the lobby and hub only. Powers like the one Sal had demonstrated shouldn't be off-limits, but Zack had zero interest in regularly repairing his structure. It was more than fair, in his opinion, to limit such abilities to the dungeon rooms only.

"That could have gone worse," Alex finally said, breaking the silence that hung over them like an uncomfortably heavy blanket.

Chandra and Greg slowly looked up at each other and then to Alex.

"I'm out," Chandra said quietly. "That was too close for comfort."

"What? Chandra, it was just one mix up," Alex insisted. "Besides, he even said we would have gotten off with fines. That's nothing."

Chandra scowled and crossed her arms. "To you, maybe. Not all of us are interested in getting arrested for illegal adventuring."

Alex flinched but didn't argue. Zack was wondering about that, too. Salazar had mentioned that this wasn't Alex's first brush with the law with regards to illegal adventuring, but he still wasn't entirely sure what that meant.

"Something isn't adding up here," Zack said, hovering his wisp between his friends to draw their attention away from one another. "What exactly is illegal about adventuring?"

"Public and personal endangerment," Alex explained, rubbing the back of his head. "You have to remember, public understanding is still that you need to fight and slay monsters in order to level up. In the early days, a lot of people didn't survive their first brush with a monster. Worse, there were some really nasty beasts that fed off the lingering magic from the Boom."

"The early powered citizens had an easier time dispatching monsters," Greg added. "People started learning skills and developing abilities and fighting them back. It quickly became apparent that people with proper training were needed to handle these larger threats."

"And that's when the universities got involved," Zack jumped in, though he toned it more as a question than a statement.

"Yeah," Alex confirmed. "Harvard and Waterloo were among the first to start lobbying governments to put laws into place to control who can and can't fight monster threats. Both schools have powerful alumni that their respective aetherology departments could fall back on for funding—or in this case, bribes. Yale joined not long after. That's when heroes started popping up—the kind of adventurers able to take on hordes of monsters single-handedly."

Zack allowed his wisp to bob in place curiously for a bit as he mulled that over. This was just rehashing information he already sort of knew, but it didn't give him new context. He understood why it was illegal for people without the proper licensing to hunt monsters—that was just a safety precaution, no different than the process to drive a car. What he didn't understand was why there were limitations on self-defense, or protecting people in emergencies.

Sensing his question, Chandra was the next one to speak up. "Self-defense is only legal when you are actually under attack," she explained. "That child was not directly attacking us, but his magic inverted and turned against him. Though morally we did the right thing, legally we intervened in adventurer business where we had no right."

"There are so many problems with that statement," Zack moaned. "I refuse to believe that it's illegal to save lives in emergencies."

The grimmace Chandra gave him spoke volumes. She shuffled nervously, kicking some lingering sand off her legs. "I'm not comfortable with it either, but I'm not the one who makes the rules."

"Alex, what did Sal mean when he said you've got a record?" Zack asked, deciding it best to change the subject.

Alex flinched at the question and hung his head in shame. "I don't really like talking about it…"

"Alex thought he could game the system," Greg grunted. "Was caught hunting slimes in storm gutters."

"Greg!"

"What? You're really going to lie to him?"

"I wasn't going to lie about it, just…" Alex ran a hand over his face in frustration. "Look, it's no big deal, okay? I had a little bit of fire magic, but I wanted more. So I snuck out at night and fought slime monsters that cropped after spring storms. How was I supposed to know the little snot bubbles would explode…"

"You did jail time over that? Setting the sewer on fire?"

"Not the sewer! Storm drains. There's a massive difference," Alex insisted. "But yeah. I was thrown in jail and had to rely on my parents to make bail. The gutters weren't even badly damaged, they just had to replace one grate…"

"That's actually how we met," Greg chuckled. "This was about eight months post-Boom. I was a freshly turned orc under court orders, Alex a newly minted felon, and Chandra…"

"Recently cursed werewolf," she confirmed. Zack wanted to ask about that, since he wasn't sure how exactly sure how lycanthropy worked. She used the word cursed but Zack got the impression that wasn't necessarily the case. She certainly didn't treat it like a curse.

"Alex was ordered to attend group therapy sessions to get over his hero complex, while the rest of us were coming to terms with our magical nature," Greg continued. "Anyway, that's a whole other story, one I'd rather not delve deeper into. The point is, illegal adventuring isn't the kind of stuff you want to mess with if it can be avoided."

"But you heard Sal. What we're dealing with here is something totally new," Alex insisted. "That means that it falls outside the bounds of illegal adventuring. He thought we were capturing monsters, but we're not."

"I don't know about you, but I would rather not stick around to catch the blame when what we're doing is deemed part of the illegal adventure umbrella," Chandra snapped.

"It might be too late for that," Zack chuckled. "After all, he did say that he's been tailing you guys since the toy store incident. Today was just the first time he managed to get all three of you together at once."

Chandra shot the wisp a frustrated snarl, but didn't argue. Instead, she simply crossed her arms and looked away, out the window toward the parking lot. The only three cars were Alex's, Greg's, and the one belonging to the people currently running the dungeon—their next two scheduled teams had already disappeared in Salazar's wake. Today was a bust financially.

Zack decided it was time to change the subject. Clearly illegal adventuring was a topic that rubbed his friends the wrong way for a myriad of reasons. Besides, he had questions of his own that needed answering.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I'm a little surprised that Salazar has never heard of dungeons before," Zack said, picking a topic and taking the conversation that way. It was a hard left turn away from the current concerns, but his curiosity was picking away at him. "I know for a fact that I'm not the only living core in existence, so how is it that a certified adventurer has never heard of my kind?"

That got him looks of confusion from all present. "How could you know that for a fact?" Greg asked.

Zack was about to answer, but when he reached for the explanation, he found the knowledge slipping from his grasp. He couldn't remember how he knew it, he just did. Quickly, before the others got suspicious, he scrambled for an explanation that made sense. "I'm not the only person that was caught in the Boom. If I turned into a living core, it stands to reason the others did, too."

Alex shrugged, Zack's excuse seemingly enough to satisfy him. "Maybe the others aren't awake yet? It did take Karen's wrath to wake you up. Maybe other cores need a jolt of aether to get them going, too."

Zack mentally chuckled at the memory. He nearly forgot about Karen and her violet bolt of energy kickstarting the process to bring him back to lucidity. Still, he refused to believe this was the first time somebody actually tried running aether through a core. But if that was the case, where were all the other cores? And why did Salazar claim that Zack was new?

"Hey guys," Zack started, unable to keep the concern from his voice as a nagging thought tugged at him. "What happened to the other cores following the Boom? I know Alex held onto me when my parents didn't want me…"

Greg and Alex shared an uncomfortable look with one another. Chandra looked pointedly away, hugging herself as a shiver rolled down her spine.

"G-guys?"

"Zack, you need to understand: people didn't know they were alive," Greg started. "Everyone thought the cores were just inert crystals that were good at holding magic. Some people thought they were human remains at best. At worst, they were just pretty rocks left over from the Boom. We didn't know…"

If Zack still had a body, he knew Greg's words would have sent ice flooding through his veins. He didn't need more elaboration than that, he could already picture all the experiments that could be done with such a substance. Grinding cores up into sand for their magical properties. Topping staves and wands with crystals to help channel and direct magic. Breaking cores up to create amulets and jewelry.

The grief hit Zack like a tidal wave. His wisp dropped out of the air, the fibers untangling as it collided with the ground. Alex was on his knees in an instant, worriedly looking at the wisp before remembering it wasn't Zack's real body. Meanwhile, the dungeon's consciousness remained frozen in place, the horror bubbling within.

"They killed them," Zack whispered, though without a wisp his words were voiceless. "They ground us up and shattered us to make tools and reagents. They destroyed the very things meant to help guide and teach them."

Zack felt a hand on his core, and quickly flung his awareness away from his friends into his core room. Archie was there, watching his crystal worriedly. Zack's core was shivering on the desk, the uneven facets clicking loudly against the wooden surface. He tried to get ahold of himself, but he couldn't shake the dread.

There were two reasons for cores to exist: the first was to balance the flow of aether and mana in a world. Without cores, aether would quickly outgrow mana, and lead to aetheric manifestation. The second was to create dungeons and other similar environs. To serve as places for people to learn and master their abilities. To enhance and deepen their connection to whichever system of magic laid claim to their world!

The Akashic System thrived off learning and growth, and these people destroyed their teachers.

"No wonder nobody knows how to properly level up," Zack murmured. He vibrated the threads of mana in his core almost instinctively, and Archie's ears twitched as he picked them up. The rabbit didn't need to hear Zack's spoken words, of course, but it drove home how truly devastating this news was that he did.

"I'm sorry, Zack," Archie whispered. "I'm so very sorry…"

A tear rolled down Archie's cheek, and the rabbit hastily wiped it away, frowning at the damp spot on his paw. It wasn't his tear. It was Zack's, expressed through his mobs. It was the only way he could truly let the emotion out.

Everywhere in Zack's dungeon, monsters started tearing up at the same time. Even creatures normally unable to cry had a stray tear roll down their faces. In the lobby, the Medibold standing off to the side wiped curiously at its face, confused at the sudden salty droplet.

It was several more minutes before Zack got enough of a handle on his emotions that he trusted himself to speak with the others. Archie asked him multiple times if he was sure he was okay, and each time Zack insisted he was fine. He wasn't, of course. This wasn't the kind of news he could just overcome in a day. It was like being told his entire family was wiped out of existence—that he might be the last core left alive on the planet.

Zack conjured a fresh wisp in the middle of the lobby. The others had already taken to cleaning up the mess left behind in Salazar's wake. They still didn't have any cleaning tools but Greg had done his best to mop up the leftover sand with a wet rag. Chandra was back behind the front desk, though she wiggled uncomfortably in the seat. Alex stood off to the side, chewing on his thumbnail while worriedly staring at the place where Zack's last wisp vanished.

When the new one appeared, all three of them leapt to their feet and stared up at him. They bombarded him with questions, and Zack waited for them to fall silent again before he spoke up.

"I need to know if there are any cores still alive out there," he said quietly. "I need to know if I'm the last of my kind."

Alex nodded vigorously, and Chandra whipped out her phone to start scouring the internet for anything that might be of use. Greg, however, crossed his arms and bunched up his eyebrows.

"Are you sure you want to know?" Greg asked.

Zack took a long moment to consider the question and weigh his options. "Yes," he finally admitted. "If the other cores were all destroyed, that means I'm the only dungeon on Earth. That's really bad for a myriad of reasons, but the big one is that it means someone might try to claim me. After all, if inert cores had powers that boosted and empowered magic users, imagine what an awakened core like me might be able to do."

"I'd never let that happen," Alex growled, his fingertips smouldering with a flickering of fiery aether. "They'd have to get through me."

For a brief moment, Zack's grief for his dead peers subsided. He was grateful that his friend was willing to throw down his life on his behalf, but Zack didn't want to see Alex die to protect him. He desperately hoped it would never come to that.

"The reality is that cores are not a renewable resource; there are only so many of us in existence, and it would take another Boom to make more," Zack continued. "It's extremely important that we don't reveal my nature to anyone, at least for now. It's okay for people to think I'm some kind of magical spirit haunting the mall, but the moment they learn I'm a core? That might mean the end of me…"

Chandra's fur bristled, and Greg's jaw tightened. The fire in Alex's hands burned all the hotter, and smoke wafted into the air from his clenched fists.

"What does this mean for you with regards to Salazar?" Greg asked through gritted teeth. "Or for the rest of us?"

That was a question Zack was asking himself since he revealed his existence to the adventurer. On the one hand, he didn't regret doing so. If it kept his friends out of jail, it was a necessary evil. On the other hand, though, he didn't know how much the adventurers really knew about cores. Salazar was in the dark, but that didn't mean the higher ups were. That was especially true if the universities had conducted any experiments on cores.

"It means business as usual, at least for now," Zack said. "We keep going like nothing changed. I'll keep the dungeon operational, you guys act like nothing's wrong. Adventurer guilds or not, I still need a steady stream of people spending aether inside my walls to keep my progression going. If anything, I think this means I need to fast track some other rooms. The more people in here, the better."

"We'll need to clear out the spider warren, then," Alex pointed out. "I have a couple ideas of how we can do that, but I'm not sure the best way to organize them. I'll let you know when I have something."

"Good. I'll keep working on the manor room. Structurally it's nearly finished, I just need to populate it with mobs. Now that I have my advanced spawners, it should be an easy matter to fill it with higher level monsters. Archie should be nearly finished with the meadow's next level, too, so we'll have that going for us."

Greg and Chandra shared a look with one another while Zack and Alex discussed plans. The dungeon didn't say anything to them, and let them have their silent conversation until they were ready to answer.

"Zack, are there any new materials or patterns you want me to gather?" Greg asked.

"Actually, I've been thinking about that," Zack said quickly. "I need a more efficient way to gather new patterns. I have an idea, but I'll have to finish making the prize counter before I can put it into action."

Greg blinked and nodded.

That left Chandra as the last one standing. Her arms were crossed and she was looking pointedly at her feet. When all eyes fell on her, she breathed deeply through her nose and looked up at the others.

"If I catch even a whiff of legal trouble, I'm gone," she declared. "I would rather not leave you all to your fates, but I don't want to go prison. Werewolves don't do well behind bars."

"I'm glad you'll be sticking around," Zack said. He genuinely meant it, too. He was glad that all three of his friends would be standing by him despite the risks to their own personal safety.

"You're lucky the money from this place is so good," Chandra grumbled, crossing her arms. "If I wasn't rolling in cash from this enterprise, I'd be gone."

"Fair and reasonable. I promise not to actively try and scare away our potential customers," Zack said. Then, he remembered the boss monster waiting at the end of the spider warren. "Okay, I promise not to actively try and scare away customers until after they pay and are in rooms."