The glow is striking, though thankfully also quiet. The gate guards are too distracted chatting about their personal lives to take a peek inside the core room.

Dowmy's wings grow from the stumps, the same for the horns. The scar indentations fill in and disappear. The warmth revitalizes the girl, and the constant reverberations of old pains, consequences of mistreatment, stop echoing.

The glow dims to dullness. Dowmy, eyes wide as saucers, looks down at her hands and gasps in surprise to discover that the damaged skin and marks are gone. The membranous wings quiver on her back, an involuntary movement that catches the imp's attention. She looks over her shoulder to contemplate the recovered appendages.

Mouth open in a smile and eyes watering, Dowmy begins to leap for joy, soaring six feet above the floor, then dropping gently like a flying squirrel surfing the wind.

"I can fly! I can fly!"

«You don't fly, you glide, but okay»

The correction doesn't hurt Dowmy's spirits, who drops to the glass and clutches her arms and legs in an embrace. Tears and snot mist the blue surface.

"Thanks, thanks, thanks!"

«Okay, but get off now» Jimbo replies, uncomfortable with having Dowmy's face so close. He may have healed her, but Dowmy still looks as pleasing to the eye as a scarlet gargoyle. A soldier raps the door with the hilt of his spear and asks without looking at the imp to make less noise.

The imp sits cross-legged on the stool, keenly watching for the crystal's next words. Jim decides to put his assistant in context and explains that the king will most likely order to remove him. Hearing that Dowmy gasps and covers her mouth with her hands.

"But why?! Master be good! Master help a lot!"

«Don't tell me master. If I wanted to have some sort of role play, you'd be the last option that would cross my mind. Call me Jimbo»

"Jimbo?"

«Yes»

"Jimbo"

«It's my name»

"Jimbo!" She repeats encouragingly.

«Okay, Cut off»

The imp calms down.

Jimbo is aware that Dowmy, like him, is in danger. If Arrax returns, the torture of the imp will return, and Jimbo will end up as a guinea pig for tens or hundreds experiments, until the king orders his destruction.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

The first tactic that comes to mind is an aggressive one. Squeeze his abilities, gather ether, and barricade himself with traps, summons, and monsters, long enough to escape or negotiate. It's unlikely he'll be able to do much with the level he's at, but if Jimbo is forced to act, he'll do what it takes to live another day.

«I wish I could move...»

He enters the core and stares at the blue space around. Tries to push the crystal with his hands, as if that will somehow move even a couple of centimeters the core. Nothing happens. After despairing and asking the system for advice, it replies that although the crystal is anchored in space, the sections that make up the dungeon domains can be moved and modified. This is done from the crystal.

Jimbo arches an eyebrow, intrigued.

«If Muhammad doesn't go the mountain, the mountain goes to Muhammad - something like that, right?»

Jimbo asks Dowmy to close the doors. As soon as the imp complies, Jim enters the core and tries to practice moving sections. He concentrates, and a three-dimensional map of the basement floats up. If he leans in and looks closely, can see a miniature version of the crystal and Dowmy. The guards look like toys or chess pieces, the same with the prisoners shown lying down and in muted color. Jimbo tries to get more detail of the soldiers, but a sudden headache throws him back.

Note: To affect a visitor or enemy, or spy on their status and stats, you need to exceed their level.

«I noticed...»

He used to have the combined mages power, now he's on his own. Is natural to keep running into obstacles. However Jimbo's spirits are not deflated, the options and possibilities that being a dungeon gives the hope that he can save himself.

«Now let's try moving rooms»

Before proceeding, steps out of the glass for a moment and asks Dowmy to whatever happens, stay calm and avoid screaming. The girl nods, holds a finger in front her lips and lets out a: Shhhh.

Jimbo returns to where the basement map is, places an ethereal finger over the core room, located to the north of the lab, and being careful to leave the door in place, slides the core room to place it to the west.

Jimbo goes back outside to check what changed, and sees Dowmy looking towards the entrance, or more specifically the absence of it, since now instead of doors there is only a stone brick wall.

"Are we locked in...?" asks the imp.

«Nope. I just moved one thing»

Dowmy turns to the crystal and looks at it with a mixture of concern and hope. It's the first time anything has come between her and the wizards who raised her.

"Will we escape, master?"

«I told you not to call me master... I need to think»

Escape?

Jimbo was tempted to touch the core room and push it as far as he could into the bowels of the earth. It seemed so easy, so promising. He could make his way through without having to deal with the king and his knights.

«Sounds too good to be true...»

Jimbo looks down into the dark pit where he is suspended and at the engraved circles around. He remembers Hilda's words, how believed that Arrax prepared some mechanism to force the Dungeo Core to obey. Jimbo has that suspicion as well, the dark belief that if he escapes and Arrax finds out, the wizard might make him pay with some spell.

«We need to find out»

Trying to ask Arrax directly would be ridiculous. Instead Jimbo thinks of the wizard's disciples.

«If only I had more ether»

-Jimbo the Dungeon Core LV 1

-Ether: 11/100

-External link: Active.

-Age: Stone.

In addition to the expense of healing the imp, some extra points were consumed by moving the core room. Ether is essential for survival. Whether it is an aggressive or peaceful tactic, increasing the reserves is indispensable.