Free from my restraint, the Core happily dives into the stone. Its sense of self plunges ahead, dragging me along like a fish on a line. I hold tight, letting it explore the rock while I mentally catalog the spaces we pass through. As I suspected, it’s not merely solid stone. Our sphere of influence moves through dozens of caverns, intersects tunnels, and skirts around giant pits that seem to stretch without end.

The more of the Map Interface that becomes filled out, the more I picture our route to the surface as some kind of labyrinth. Which route could I plot that wouldn’t cause us to hollow out a space beneath another cavern, causing a collapse? Which way can we go that doesn’t intersect that giant crevasse that runs through the stone, which would necessitate a bridge to traverse? Can we go around, over, beneath? It’s a puzzle—a puzzle I’m uncertain has one single correct answer. But I start running through all the scenarios I can think of regardless.

The Dungeon Core breaks through the surface. It hesitates as cold wind blows through our sphere of influence.

For a moment, it’s like I’m there. I can’t see anything—everything I can experience is limited to the Dungeon Core’s senses of touch and taste. But it’s almost like I’m standing there, eyes closed, face turned to the sun. A distant warmth bathes my skin as an arctic wind ruffles my feathers. Snow-flurries blow over my talons, and packed ice is hard and unyielding beneath my feet. I feel a sudden urge to spread my wings, finally free from being caged beneath the ground, and take flight.

Like a worm nervous of birds, the Dungeon Core’s influence sinks hesitantly back into the stone. The air—the sky—the open space. It’s too much. This is not its element.

Reluctantly, my mind sinks back into the ground with the Core. That’s alright, I assure it, checking our mana stores. We’re still over six hundred thousand. Good. You don’t need to worry about the sky. Let’s reduce our range—backtrack through the stone. A different route, though, so we can expand what’s revealed on our Map.

The Core is more than happy to leave the surface behind and keep exploring the cavern system. As much as I don’t share the Core’s trepidation, and am eager to see the sky with my own eyes, we have the mission to focus on; I need to scout a safe path to carve.

And eventually, I find it. It’s a bit more meandering than I would have liked, and it’s going to cut our mana stores close. We might have to go back to the hot springs for more mana, actually, but I keep this thought from the Core so it doesn’t have the chance to do something melodramatic. Finally, I open my eyes. My eyelids crack like I’ve been asleep, and I take in a deep breath. My body feels warmer than I remember it being.

“She moved,” Nek says. “I think she’s awake.”

“Outsider.” Mirzayael puts a hand on my arm. “Are you alright?”

“What?” I ask, taking my hand from the wall. “What do you mean?”

That’s when I notice the others. Mirzayael’s scouts, Opal, Rei, and Zakaiya, have returned, along with a few new faces whose names I haven’t yet committed to memory. The group is sharing a meal around a makeshift fireplace, the source of the warmth that was washing over my back.

Ollie lifts his head, leaning over toward me. I pat his snout as he puffs a breath of cold air over me. “OH MY GOSH WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!”

I flinch at the mental yelling. “Inside voices, please.” I turn to Mirzayael. “Are they back already? How did the new ones get here so quickly?”

She looks at me strangely. “It’s been nearly four hours,” she says. “When you touched that wall, you appeared to enter some kind of trance. We tried calling out to you, but you didn’t respond. Nek wanted to try to shake you, but I wasn’t sure if that would be wise.”

“What?” I cry. “Four hours? That’s impossible. It only seemed like a handful of minutes.”

But did it? Even now, trying to reflect on the time I’d spent mapping out a path through the stone with the Dungeon Core, the experience feels hazy and abstract. When I fully immerse myself in the Dungeon Core’s senses, do I lose perspective on my own? If so, using it too much is potentially dangerous. Losing a few hours is alarming, but what if I’d lost days? Weeks? Would I have awoken when my body needed sustenance, or would I have withered away, entirely unaware?

“Next time something like that happens, please attempt to wake me,” I say, a little shaken. “I’m sorry to have made you worry.”

“Apologize to the dragon,” Mirzayael says, turning away to head back to the fire pit. “He’s the one who was worried.”

I scratch Ollie’s nose, who lets out a grumbling sigh and rests his head back on the ground. “I’ll try not to do that again,” I promise to him and Nek as the latter wanders over.

“No apologies necessary,” Nek says, watching Mirzayael settle down for some food. “We’re just relieved you’re alright. Her especially, I think.”

“She sure shows her concern in strange ways,” I note.

Nek laughs. “That she does. Now, I’d hazard you’re in the mood for some steamed glowcaps.”

I can’t say I’ve ever been in the mood for bitter, unseasoned mushrooms, but Nek is right that I’m suddenly starving. As soon as we get the hot springs rerouted to warm the city, cultivating new and more flavorful dishes should be at the top of the priority list.

“Lunch would be lovely,” I say as he leads me over to the others. “Or dinner. Or whatever time it is now.”

As I sit down to eat, Nek offers Ollie a bowlful of greens. The hungry dragon enthusiastically opens his mouth for the crumbs of food to be tossed in—and spits them out with equal enthusiasm, retching at the “GROSS” and “POOPY” taste. It seems he’ll be needing meat after all. The came still has some dried stinger meat they’re preserving, but I doubt even the entire store would be more than a single bite for Ollie.

Some of my stamina returns to me over the course of shared food and good company, but throughout the meal my mind is elsewhere, tracing over the route I’d created from the Core’s Map Interface. Zakaiya offers me a stone of the mana ore we’d spoken of earlier, and I have Echo Check it over. However, it would only provide a hundred mana, which pales in comparison to my now staggering stores. I gently turn her down; it will go much further with the dracid than it would with me.

Opal and Rei also brought a few of the cave system maps Mirzayael had mentioned. Comparing them to my planned tunnel, I’m happy to find my initial assumption had been correct, and the direction we’re tunneling should pose no threat to the Keep or the Catacombs. At least, assuming these maps are right. Eventually, I’ll want my own Map Interface fully populated. I need to know everything about this cave network. To take full advantage of the resources available, to help these people to their utmost potential, I’ll need to leave no pebble of these caverns uncatalogued. It will take time, but given the thermal springs can be used as a mana source—assuming I can continue to wrangle cooperation out of the Dungeon Core—it should be possible.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

As everyone is packing the meal away and dousing the fire, I stand back up. “I’ll be carving the tunnel now,” I announce. Since I’d already warned them before about keeping too close, I decide to not repeat the warnings again—Mirzayael would take it as an insult, anyway.

“Ready?” I ask the Dungeon Core, raising my hand to the wall. I summon the mental blueprint of the path I’d plotted through the stone and make sure the Core is paying attention. “This’ll take a lot of mana. Maybe all of it.”

Oh yes! The Dungeon Core cannot wait to do it! Eating through stone is its second favorite thing, and its first favorite thing is eating mana, and now it gets to do both! The Core is practically quivering from excitement on my arm.

Great, I think. Just stick to the Map.

It will. It will!

In that case…

I open the floodgates, allowing the mana to rush into the Dungeon Core.

The stone roars to life.

And in contrasting complete silence, a giant block of stone and ice vanishes in front of me. There’s no warning: it just evaporates. The Dungeon Core powers forward, grabbing the next piece of stone to consume. That block vanishes too. Piece by piece, swaths of stone unnervingly vanish from existence. I step forward into the makeshift cave, following the path on our Map. But as the Core surges ahead, eagerly gobbling up everything in its wake, it feels more like I’m being pulled along; a little girl holding onto a string who’s managed to leash a hurricane.

And with the incredible amount of mana that’s pouring into the creature, with its presence swelling in my mind, from such a simple, small stone, to some entity far more vast—far more dangerous—I begin to doubt if I should have trusted it with such fearsome power. I consider pulling back, trying to throttle the deluge of mana that’s still pouring into the creature, but I can’t stop carving the tunnel, for Ollie’s sake. Not to mention, a part of me wonders if I even could wrest control from the Core as it is.

If the Dungeon Core hears any of these thoughts, it pays me no mind. It only has one objective. One purpose. And that is to consume all the earth it can. Devour every stone and pebble that enters its range. It truly is like some kind of black hole—maybe even more insidious. At least a black hole betrays its existence with a gravity well. You can see its danger from the glowing accretion disk. But this beast is silent: its force undetectable. The matter it targets, gone in an instant without a trace of it ever having existed a moment before. It’s a good thing, I’m now realizing, the only thing it seems to have a taste for is rocks.

It turns out that keeping the Core on track, following the Map, is a consistent exercise. It’s so single-minded that it forgets where it’s supposed to be chewing only a minute after I remind it again. It’s like steering a bull by its horns. Exhausting, and at any moment I fear I could accidentally become skewered by the very force of nature I’m attempting to direct.

Yet, we progress. We climb. We carve our way around giant pits, pick carefully around loose rock, cut in and out of caverns. The others follow behind, speaking to each other in hushed, awed tones that I’m too distracted to parse. We travel this way for over a half hour. And then…

The Core cuts another block away, and I’m instantly bathed in sunlight. I flinch away, squeezing my eyes shut and tucking my head down from the painfully bright light as the Core continues to widen the hole, exposing the surface. A buffet of freezing winds blows down into the tunnel, and I’m nearly knocked from my feet.

Mirzayael grabs my right arm, and Nek is there at my left. Both their heads are also turned down, eyes squinted painfully. I focus on the Map Interface for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust as I watch the exit grow wider and wider.

Ollie roars with glee. “THE SURFACE! WE MADE IT!” He leaps over us, crashing out onto the snow and ice.

“Wait,” I call. “Be careful!”

“He’ll be fine,” Nek says.

“He’s only a child,” I object.

“A five-thousand-pound child,” Mirzayael adds. “There are no predators out here that pose him any threat.”

I suppose that’s probably true. Even so, it’s hard not to worry as he goes frolicking out into the snow drifts. I raise a hand to my eyes, squinting against a white sky and whiter landscape.

“Come on,” I say to Mirzayael and Nek. “Don’t you want to see the surface?”

Both of them hesitate as another buffet of wind hits us, catching my wings and threatening to pull me away like a kite. I cry out, in giddy alarm as much as from the thrill, grabbing each of their hands as I pull them up the final stretch of the slope.

Ollie is bounding around like a puppy, diving into drifts of snow, rolling around on his back, then jumping up and shaking off the ice. I can’t help but laugh at the scene, and Nek joins in with a chuckle of his own. I glance at Mirzayael, but she isn’t looking at Ollie. Her face is full of awe, her head slowly turning to follow the horizon.

“It’s so…” She trails off, leaving her thoughts unspoken.

“Vast?” I offer. “Empty?”

“Far away,” she finally says. “I never knew anyone could see this far.”

I feel a pang of sympathy for her. I can’t imagine what this must be like, having spent her entire life in dark, close spaces. Nek and the other guards, too, lapse into an awed silence, clustered nervously together as they look around the sweeping plains and turn faces to the sky.

All of us jump when Ollie roars, spreading his wings as wide as they’ll stretch, the membrane rippling with gusts of wind.

“I’M GOING TO DO IT,” he cries, springing forward. “I’M GOING TO FLY!”

He takes one, two, three lunging leaps—and on the fourth one, he doesn’t come down. We all watch in amazement as the dragon climbs into the sky, spiraling white against white. Such a mix of emotions overcome me then, prickling at my eyes. Pride. An incredible yearning to join him in the air. Sorrow and regret and relief, all at once. I don’t understand what all of these feelings are even attached to. My ex-wife, perhaps. My little Caroline. Grief for what I’ve left behind—hope for this fresh start, in this new body, with this new, growing family. It’s such an ugly tangle of memories from my past life and hopeful dreams for this new one. But maybe they can’t be untangled. Maybe I am all these things simultaneously.

[Bonus Mana extinguished,] Echo reports.

The Dungeon Core’s mind collapses back into me like a dog falling down at my feet, having chased one too many balls. Its presence is now back to its pitifully small size, only able to sense a few feet of our surroundings in any direction. The Core is disappointed all the mana is gone, yet content with what it achieved. It ate a lot of rock today.

I chuckle. It certainly did.

[EXP threshold met,] Echo says. [Level up!]

[Name: Fyre]

[Species: Harpy]

[Subspecies: Phoenix]

[Class: Psion]

[Level: 21]

[HP: 100/100]

[Mana: 250/250]

[Role: The Dark Lord]

“Fyre,” I say, startled. “My name. Not fire like flames, but Fyre, short for Fyreneth.” I look to Nek and Mirzayael. “Is that true?”

Nek at least has the good sense to appear embarrassed. “The dracid were all calling you that anyway. And since you didn’t give us a different name to use…”

I look at Mirzayael. “You knew about this.”

She nods curtly. “I had assumed you were aware of the association.”

“I’m sorry,” Nek says. “Should we use something else?”

“I don’t feel such a title is deserved,” I say. “You know I am not this lord Fyreneth reincarnated, don’t you?”

Nek hesitates, but to my surprise, Mirzayael laughs. “I think after today you will be hard pressed to convince the town otherwise.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“You held back a river of water with one hand,” Mirzayael says. “You discovered an ice dragon, thought to be extinct, then called it your friend. You’ve given warmth and life to the dracid. You wield the stone-eater. You have brought us to the surface.” She gives me a level look. “Whether you are her, or merely her successor, is irrelevant. You have earned the name many times over.”

I’d never thought of it that way. I was just doing whatever I could manage to be as helpful as possible. If those with the power to help the disadvantaged don’t do so, then what is the purpose of having such power in the first place?

“I don’t feel as if I’ve earned it,” I say anyway.

“It doesn’t matter if you feel you’ve earned it,” Mirzayael says flippantly. “Do you accept it? Or do you have a better name suggestion in mind?”

I think of my human name. The name that never felt like me. The name that still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. No, that name died with my body.

Alternately, the name Fyre warms me. It feels familiar. Comfortable. And the association is simultaneously humbling, and fills me with pride.

“It’s big shoes to fill,” I say. “But I want it. Fyre is a good name. I’ll just have to hope I can live up to everyone’s expectations.”

“Yes,” Mirzayael says flatly. “Don’t let us down.”

Nek looks horrified.

I laugh, shielding my eyes as I raise my face to the distant sun, watching the dragon circle overhead. “I’ll do my best.”