The king remains silent. His stern eyes express the doubt generated by the Dungeon Core's words: Besides battles, what help could a monster-creating crystal give to humans?

Jimbo hurries to speak wanting to curry favor with the ruler, while Dowmy translates.

«I can repair the castle! The place must have been badly damaged by the attack. I'll have it restored in a wink and you'll know how useful and trustworthy I am!»

Instead of rejoicing, King Marc shakes his head.

"What you did with the wall certainly helped us. But you also erased with your feat the old monarchs' reliefs, and the watchtowers, several of them built even before I was born... It would be foolish to allow you to act like that inside the castle. Even if I prefer unshaped stone and wood, my responsibility prevents me from bequeathing such a thing to the king who will receive my crown"

«Please reconsider my offer. I will not let you down»

"I made my decision. Remain calm, Dungeon Core, until your creator returns and we have your fate resolved"

Jimbo clicks his ethereal tongue understanding that continuing to press the issue will not bring him any good with the monarch, indeed, it will probably end up annoying him.

«In that case, can I ask one last thing?»

Hilda frowns and steps forward to reproach Jimbo for demanding favors from a king, but Marc restrains the woman with an outstretched arm gesture, granting Jimbo permission to communicate.

«Release the Imp. I promise you she will not leave this basement or bother you. Seeing her caged makes me uncomfortable»

Dowmy opens and closes her mouth, not daring to translate that. Especially when the last few times she asked for freedom, all she got was to anger Arrax and suffer fierce magical shocks. The king noticing the hesitant imp, orders her to translate the core words.

"The core wants... w-wants me to be free" she says, lowering her gaze.

King Marc squints and looks at his knights to ask what they think. Hilda replies that keeping an imp in the castle is dangerous and that Arrax should never have gotten her. Claus says that he sees no problem with that, and that if something bad happens he will solve it. Lynel is the most hesitant as he has Arrax in mind.

"Won't Arrax be angry that we're releasing the creature?"

"Is my order, Arrax will have to obey" says the king.

The order to set the imp free is given. The soldiers guarding the door take the cage away, and the imp follows its small prison with a look of confusion and longing. The monarch faces the core.

"Don't you dare demand anything more, Dungeon Core. Goodwill without proper limits is stupidity and vulnerability. What the imp does is your responsibility, and remember, do not let your influence go beyond the cells. Otherwise my four captains will finish you"

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Jimbo swallows saliva and steps back an inch. He is used to being threatened with death, but always in online chats or social networks. It's the first time this happens face-to-face, and Hilda looks quite motivated at the thought of tearing him to shreds.

«I don't think a skeleton and a caveman will be enough to stop these people...»

The king and the knights retreat. Jimbo takes advantage of his ethereal abilities to follow the king and spy the conversation.

"Claus, do you think the core is playing tricks on us or could it get out of control?" The king asks.

"So far I sense no malice or hostility coming from the core" replies the man with the golden helmet.

"The first captain's helmet is never wrong!" Lynel exclaims with a laugh.

They pass between the cells. This time the prisoners don't try approaching the monarch, the presence of Claus intimidates them.

"I still don't trust him," says Hilda. "That thing deep down must be as twisted as the man who created it, and perhaps its synthetic nature makes it easy for him to hide it"

"Whatever happens, I doubt you'll have to worry for too long, Hilda," King Marc says with a dull face. "News travels fast, and the Wizard King will most likely order the core destruction. I will try to use my authority to protect Arrax and his disciples... But the fruits of this amazing research, knowing how delicate our balance is, have their days counted"

The group walks up the stairs and disappears. Jimbo doesn't try to follow them, he remains stunned in mid-air, all too aware that he needs to do something to save his own skin.

Perhaps in the afterlife he will have less luck and be reborn as a shoebox.

Jimbo returns to the core room with hands thrown to his head. Moving from left to right, he thinks about what he'll do when that hateful sorcerer heals and comes back to treat him like Dowmy. Or worse, when that Wizard King guy points out that it would be better to rip him to shreds.

«I'm screwed!» He exclaims through gritted teeth.

Stops as he notices Dowmy is looking the crystal with big, tender eyes. Jimbo asks the imp what's going on.

"You did it... You really helped me... Thank you"

The honest gratitude helps calm Jimbo and makes him feel a little warmth in his ethereal heart. He gives an invisible smile that sours as he senses again how badly the girl's body is battered. Jimbo wants to help her, and when thinks about it, new options appear in his field of vision. Two skills show themselves.

-Skill: Heal minion.

Requirement: Contact.

Cost: 10 Ether.

Description: Heals a minion's wounds.

-Skill: Heal minion 2.

Requirement: Contact.

Cost: 20 Ether.

Description: Heals the wounds and rebuilds the minion's body.

He has mixed feelings. One part of him is happy to have the tools to help his allies, but his stingy side thinks it's too expensive. Only has 33 Ether he was hoping to save to level up and get more ways to defend himself. Besides, even though it seems like an understandable expense now, what will happen when he has more than one assistant? Ether will slip through his non-existent fingers like water!

Still, Jimbo doesn't have a stone heart...

«Brat, I want to try something. Touch me»

Dowmy squints in suspicion and retreats to behind a pillar.

«It's not a bad thing!»

After a minute of prodding, Jim convinces her to cooperate. How Dowmy is unable to reach the crystal by own means, she goes out to the lab and grabs a stool. The soldiers guarding the door frown at Dowmy and ask what she is doing.

"Huh... Me..." The imp's mind goes blank.

«Tell them you need to clean me» Jimbo's sounds come to her rescue.

"I clean the glass... Yes"

The soldiers let her continue, although none of them look happy. Understandable when the task they were ordered to do is a real tedium. The guards talk to each other to pass the time, while waiting for the relief soldiers.

Dowmy places the stool at the pit's edge and stands up on the seat. Stretching her fingers, touches the hard surface of the glass, feeling the warmth of the contained magic. Jimbo activates [Heal minion 2] and watches, covering his mouth in agony, as the hard-won ether is consumed.

Dowmy's body is enveloped by an aquamarine glow.