Unlike the echoing chamber outside the gates of the Catacombs, within its deserted streets everything is unnervingly still, quiet, and close. It’s the kind of place that demands whispers and soft footfalls. I step carefully, keenly aware of every scraped talon and kicked pebble. Something about the place makes me tuck my wings in close.

Speaking to Mirzayael now feels like it would break some tacit law, so instead I turn my dialogue inward.

What can you tell about this place? I ask the Dungeon Core. Does any of it feel familiar?

Yes! Rocks. The rocks are very familiar.

I grimace. Right… anything about the rocks? Like, how they were made? Why they were placed this way? Who might have asked you to build such a fortress in the first place?

The Dungeon Core finds this line of questioning extremely confusing. Who asks why rocks are? They just are!

Ah well. It was worth a shot.

How about the hot springs? I ask instead. Can you sense pipes, plumbing, anything like that? I try to visualize what I mean—dark round tunnels cutting through the stone.

The Dungeon Core doesn’t know. It can’t sense very far. It needs more mana to see further. Lots more mana would be preferable. Or better yet, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots—

I get the idea. And I can give you a little bit for now. Not as much as you want, but until we can find this ‘mana ore’ you’re looking for, you’ll have to make do with my scant reserves.

The Dungeon Core finds this entirely unacceptable.

It eagerly holds out its metaphorical hands for whatever mana I can spare.

I shake my head, but allow the Core to tap into my reserves regardless.

Now that I’m getting a feel for how this Pact thing works, it helps for me to visualize the exchange like a faucet. I can fully open the stream and allow all my mana to pour through at once, or I can just barely twist the handle, letting my mana trickle into the Dungeon Core bit by bit. It’s clear which version the Core would prefer, but I’ve got my own wellbeing to consider.

I Check my mana, just to be safe: 139/200. Looks like I spent a lot on that Blaze spell earlier. I’ll need to work on refining that magic later. Level it up so it will reduce the cost. For now I slowly open the valve to my mana, watching the numbers as I trickle a stream into the Dungeon Core.

[Mana Depletion Rate: 2 mana per minute,] Echo reports.

At the same time, I watch the range on our map grow larger. I myself can’t actually see more of our surroundings, but the Dungeon Core’s awareness expands with the increase in radius on the map. It doesn’t see exactly, either, but it can sense the surrounding stone, taste the lime deposits in the rock, smell its age and structure.

It’s difficult to not become lost within such sensations. Just thinking about what the Dungeon Core is doing pulls my mind in its direction, threatening to spill me over into it. I lightly clap my cheeks, drawing my attention back to my physical surroundings. I need to focus on walking; time to leave the Dungeon Core to do its thing.

With the scant amount of mana I’m feeding it, the Dungeon Core doesn’t have much depth to what it can sense, but it already begins feeling out any hints of structure that might be the thermal pipes I’m looking for.

I twist my mana valve open a little bit more.

[Mana Depletion Rate: 5 mana per minute.]

There. That should be enough for now. The Dungeon Core can sense the stones all around us in a twelve-foot radius, or focus all its sensation about forty feet in one direction. At the current rate of depletion, I can have the Dungeon Core searching our surroundings for the next half an hour. After that, I’ll need to start recovering my mana.

Watching our snaking path eat into the surrounding dark on the Map display, I can’t help but wonder if we have any specific destination in mind. Mirzayael knows why I’m here, but it would be best if we didn’t wander aimlessly. If there’s a bathhouse of some sort, that would be the best place to begin.

Not to mention, I’m still on the lookout for any form of historical documents I can get my hands on, on the off chance they have survived their time spent down here. Maybe stone carvings or mosaics?

“Mirzayael,” I finally whisper. Even that sounds too loud for this place, and echoes of my voice chase after me, reflecting from crumbling, empty doorways we pass like ghosts living in the abandoned halls.

She looks back at me with a sharp gaze.

I grimace apologetically. “Where are we headed?”

She lifts her spear to point into the darkness ahead and above us. The streets are wide, and our lights reflect off the stone of the nearby buildings, but above them everything is black, like a starless night sky.

“The palace,” she murmurs. Oh good. At least whispering seems to be allowed. “Most likely place to discover any relics of our past.”

Makes sense to me. “How far?”

“Ten minutes.”

She knew that offhand. “You explore here often?”

She looks back at me again, raising an irritated eyebrow. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Sorry,” I say. “Am I being too loud? We could use my Psionic Touch if you want to speak mind to mind.”

“No,” she quickly says, clearly uncomfortable with the suggestion. “Your volume is acceptable. Complete silence was wishful thinking anyway; your clumsy steps announce our presence louder than your voice.” I wince. “Though a little noise will also give notice to any nearby creatures so they will not startle,” she adds.

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“Oh. Good,” I breathe. I guess she was more irritated that I was asking questions than that I was making noise. “Sorry about the interrogation. My wife always said I was too curious for my own good. Asked too many questions.”

Mirzayael’s look turns into one of surprise. “You have a wife?”

“Had,” I say. “We were no longer together when I… before I came here. I wasn’t a very good husband.”

“Husband?” Mirzayael repeats, her voice loud with surprise. She lowers it again, giving me a double take. “You are a man?”

“I…” The words knot themselves up on my tongue, just as my feelings on the matter feel all knotted up in my head. “I was, at least.”

“I’m sorry,” Mirzayael says. “I’ve been assuming incorrectly this entire time. That was wrong of me.”

“No,” I object. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t sure what to say. In all honesty, I’m not sure about all this myself.”

Mirzayael tips her head. “Not sure about what?”

I’m thankful for the dark, as I can feel another flush threatening to overtake me. “I don’t know. Being a woman. I should be more horrified by all this, shouldn’t I? It should feel wrong. But for some reason, in some way I can’t explain, this feels more natural than the body I spent my whole life living in. Like I was dreaming all those years, and have only just now woken up. It doesn’t make sense.”

Mirzayael regards me thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” she suggests slowly, “this is who you have always been?”

I shake my head. “No, no. I was a man back on my world.”

“You are referring to your birth body,” Mirzayael says. She reaches out to tap me once on the chest, and once on the forehead. “I mean in here.”

I frown. “I… I don’t know. I never thought of it that way. I guess I never really thought about it at all. I mean, what you’re saying…”

“This body doesn’t define you any more or less than your last,” Mirzayael says. “What’s inside hasn’t changed. Whether you wish for me to identify you as a man or a woman—or anything else—is something that I would expect to remain consistent regardless of which world you are in.”

Her words shake me.

It’s not that I’ve never heard of transgender people. They were there, on the periphery of my awareness, in the same way basketball or nail salons were concepts of which I knew but never spent much time thinking about.

I don’t object to the idea of being labeled as a woman. In fact, I haven’t objected to it since coming here because it felt… natural. Comfortable. Implicit.

But how does that fit with the life I’d led on Earth? I’d been a man. A husband. A father. Or at least, I’d assumed I’d been all those things. I’d never really considered there was an alternative, before now. But could there have been?

I take a difficult mental step back. I try to imagine my old self—my human self—as a woman. Would I have felt uncomfortable being called “she” and “her?” Would someone calling me Ma’am instead of Sir make me feel warm, or cold? Was that ever-present sense of wrongness, of my life being off kilter, of always waiting for some intangible change to snap my life into focus like a pair of glasses, rooted in all this?

My stomach churns with uncertainty. I’m not sure I have an answer.

But shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t the answer to such a simple question be obvious?

“I… I guess I didn’t know that was an option,” I say, a little dazed.

“Regardless, how should I refer to you now?” Mirzayael asks.

Panic wells up inside me. “Uh, well, that is…” The words tumble out of my mouth without any direction, without me even knowing what I’ll say next. “I would prefer…”

What? What would I prefer? I can’t expect her to use no pronouns with me at all. Just pick something!

I take in a breath.

And it all comes out in a gasp as my foot plunges through the ground and I go careening forward.

Oh, the Dungeon Core notices. By the way, there is a hole there!

My other foot goes through the next instant. I’m falling even before I’ve begun to process what’s happened—by the time my wings strike the ground, I have enough time to throw my arms out to the side, trying to catch myself. But by then my momentum is too much to overcome, and in a dozen flashes of pain that happen in an instant, my arms and wings fold beneath my weight and the ground swallows me up. I let out a cry as gravity takes me. Then, impact.

[3 points of Bludgeoning damage sustained,] Echo reports.

[10 points of Fall damage sustained.]

[2 points of Slashing damage sustained.]

I’m on the ground, every limb throbbing but nothing screaming. A faint light over my head indicates the hole I fell through is at least two stories above. I wince, gingerly flexing each leg, arm, and wing, but nothing appears broken. Small miracles.

Thanks for the head’s up, I grumble at the Dungeon Core.

Mirzayael’s face, barely illuminated by her spear, appears at the hole in the ceiling.

“Are you alright?” she calls. Her voice is tense—concerned. I’m flattered.

“I think so.” I carefully pick myself up. There’s a few cuts and scrapes on my arms where a layer of feathers has been shredded away. Some aches in my wings, knees, and hip where bruises will no doubt form. Will I even be able to see bruises beneath the feathers? A curious phenomena I’ll have to investigate later.

“Can you fly back up?” Mirzayael asks.

I shake out my wings, holding them to either side. “I do not believe they can provide sufficient lift.”

“Right,” Mirzayael says. “Phoenix harpy. Sorry. Forgot you don’t have wind magic.”

Lighting a new Spark, as the old one got snuffed out somewhere in the fall, I glance around my surroundings. My spark doesn’t illuminate more than a small radius around me, but from the Dungeon Core’s Map interface I can detect that I’m in a long stone chamber. The floor and ceiling are within the Core’s sphere of influence, along with two opposite walls, but the others are outside its range.

“Perhaps I can look around for a way out,” I say. “There might be stairs somewhere around here.”

“No, hold tight,” Mirzayael says. “The gap’s too small for me to fit through, but I should be able to spin you a rope in a minute. Don’t go wandering off. The ground down there might be compromised as well. And getting separated in here can be a death sentence.”

No kidding. But she’s right that I should pay more attention to where I’m walking. I give the Dungeon Core a pointed look.

Speaking of the Core, I wonder if I could use it to assemble my own staircase back up.

What do you think? I ask. Can you do something that refined, without compromising this room or, say, squashing me into the ceiling? I mentally picture a stone staircase rising from the ground, leading up to the gap in the ceiling for emphasis.

Oh yes! The Dungeon Core excitedly presses forward. Of course! Easily. Not a problem to reshape the stone. It just needs enough mana to do so.

I remain skeptical it understood either of my preventative instructions. Still, it’s worth investigating if I even have enough mana to achieve such a feat.

Echo, I start to ask, bringing up a visual of my mana levels: [91/200]. However, something else snags my attention before I can complete the thought.

Several something elses.

A hiss echoes from the dark.

I spin to face the sound, holding my Spark before me as I strain to make anything out in the dark. A large shadow squats on the ground a few feet away, its eyes reflecting my fire in two perfect orange circles.

I call for a Check.

[Check: Level 14 Greater Stinger. These stone-skinned scorpions often dwell in dark, humid, and isolated environments. Although highly venomous, they are generally passive and avoid conflict so long as their nest isn’t threatened.]

“Oh, shit,” Mirzayael says from above.

I take a cautious step back. “No need to worry about me,” I tell the stinger. “I’m not a predator. I don’t mean you any harm.” And as long as I don’t disturb its nest, I should be able to walk away without drawing its ire.

Then other shadows shift in the dark. Echo displays a label over each new one that skitters forward.

[Level 9 Stinger. Level 10 Greater Stinger. Level 8 stinger. Level 6 stinger. Level 11 Greater Stinger.]

A dozen more blink into existence like fireflies illuminating a forest.

So much for not threatening their nest.

“Oh shit, indeed,” I say.