A mace falls through the air, through the skull of yet another skeleton. The dungeon had gone all out against these adventurers, raising even the corpses it held in reserve. Heroes who had fallen against the summoned undead of the deeper floors, buried deeply in a side storage cave to be pulled out as a last line of defense.

But now, that line was being eroded. From the least impressive summoned skeletons of the top floor down to the lich dragon boss, adventurers had punched through every mechanism the dungeon had at its disposal to buy time. Even the skeletal champions, equipped with all the skills that had failed them in life, were proving not to be enough to halt the progress of enchanted steel through its cold, damp walls.

On its pedestal deep within a catacomb of bone, the dungeon’s core sits unmoving. It had very little time left before the group would reach its resting place, and their combined presence so near to its source continues to negate its ability to spawn anything that might help it. At this point, the only thing it can do is trust in its preparations.

The room it is in held little in the way of distractions. Other than the fact it was almost entirely composed of bone, the sheer size of the chamber, and the onyx pedestal in the center of the room capped with a football-sized chunk of translucent teal gemstone, the area is almost entirely nondescript. A cylindrical chamber, the bones spread out from the base of the pedestal in a widdershins spiral, reaching around the ground in a slightly inclined circle, culminating at the wall. The wall took the spiral of the floor, and reversed the pattern, going straight up from the point the pattern hit the edge and restarting the spiral going clockwise on the ceiling. Centered above the core, the bones merge into a flowerbud made of calcium, an oval pointing downward.

Over the course of its time digging deeper, the dungeon had poured countless resources into this room, shaping it into the ideal container for its most fragile part. It had grown larger, and with the size of the core so had the room it used for its presentation and protection. Every time it made improvements, it would shift the entirety of the chamber farther back and down, preserving as much of its work as possible. This would be the last thing an intruder sees before either complete victory or complete defeat.

So far, the scales have fallen on the side of the adventurer’s defeat.

Thudding noises emanate from the corridor leading to the core. A suit of armor wielding an enormous axe, presumably wrapped around some sort of humanoid creature, stomps into the room. Were the bones not reinforced with incredible amounts of magical energy, these mere footfalls would have crushed the spiral into dust. Following the walking tank, a similarly adorned creature with a mace and lantern enters the room, stopping next to the first. The second holds up their lantern, which flares to life and blasts a burning light around the entirety of the area. When nothing happens, two others enter the chamber.

A human in studded leathers carefully inspects the ground, tracing the groves of the bone pattern in an attempt to locate any irregularities. Only following grudgingly, and twenty meters behind, another being in leather, holding a bow nearly as long as they were tall, stalks into the room, an arrow nocked and drawn back, aimed far enough above the core to account for gravitational drop. Slowly moving toward the center of the chamber, the two armored beings join with the archer following the one making sure the path is clear.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Over the course of three minutes, the group of four make their way to the center, moving less than a foot a second, slowly descending as the floor sinks downward over the concave surface. In the center, the dungeon core continues to watch, confident in its foresight and preparations.

Nothing happens as they reach the pillar.

Having cleared the path to the center, the one in hide nods to the rest of the group, and quickly makes their way back to the safely lit area of the lantern, while the one with the enormous axe hefts it onto its shoulder, and confidently stomps up to the 70 centimeter sphere. The left hand extends out to take hold of the prize, when -

*SNAP*

The bone bud above the core opens suddenly, decorative looking seams in the flower-like sculpture breaking apart to allow a hole to exist in the bottom. It falls from the ceiling, the edges of the bud slicing through the armored hand, severing it to drop on the bone floor. The archer immediately looses their arrow, only for it to stop an inch into the bone cover now protecting the gemstone.

Simultaneously, a cacophony of cracks and snaps erupt from the floor, walls, and ceiling. Every indentation decoration the chamber split apart, and the ceiling begins to collapse down into the floor. The floor itself also raises up, the indents separating away from each other just wide enough for the strips of the ceiling to pass through them.

Noticing that the effect is concentrated at the center of the room, the leather coated person tugs their companions toward the doorway. If they can escape the collapsing room trap, they can retrieve the core before it resets. It takes the armored one at the dias a few moments to notice the retreat, and they glare for a moment more at the core before turning around themself.

As the weight leaves the center, the obsidian column retracts into the ground, and the bone spiral of the floor expands slightly. Around the core, the bone flowerbud closes itself again, and quickly dives down into the space created. Unfortunately for the adventurers, the ceiling follows the path of the flower, pulling with it the walls. At once, the adventurers are trapped in a constricting cage of calcium, closing in to crush their chests to mush.

Seeing their path close before them, the giant axe-wielder hefts their weapon one-handed, bringing it sideways against the ligaments of their imprisonment.

There is no effect.

Within moments, it’s over. The cage and room are turned inside-out, and the flowerbud blooms from the ground. The core of the dungeon sits in the midst of the carnage, unmoving. However, nothing continues to happen. If the core had a face, it would have an expression of confusion, as it had destroyed the invaders handily, but is still rendered unable to control its dungeon.

Footprints appear in the puddles of viscera, coming straight toward the center of the room.

The air shimmers, and a robed mage appears out of nowhere, having dropped their spell of invisibility.

“And now, for crimes against life and existence, for necromancy on a grand scale, the wholesale slaughter of innocents, and the unforgivable sin of not having very good loot, the world passes judgement on this dungeon core.”

With a casting of magic missile, the flawless surface of the core is cracked, and it fades into black opacity.

“Lots of mana in it. This’ll fuel a couple projects at least.”