--------- Plainsheart Ministry of Truth Temple ---------

"He's been admonished, but the Ministry isn't one of punishment. That's for the concordances or laws to decide." The priest tried to soothe the exterminator.

"I understand that, but the dungeon might have been made to alter itself completely. I'm not the one to worry about, I'm just reminding you what might happen."

"You are the one who took the quest to inform the capital?", the priest asked.

"No, it was already taken."

The priest exhaled deeply. "Then I will be preparing to go to the dungeon upon the inspector's arrival. Please leave me, I have much to do."

The exterminator left, and went back to his guild. The priest however, started looking through his scrolls, trying to find the ones with the right spells and rituals written upon them that he would need. It had been a long time since he had made a dungeon Honest, and looking at his hands, he saw how much more wrinkly they had become since then.

--------- Bogsreach Outskirts ---------

"Get it! Get it!" Mael yelled at Snyl. "Don't let it get away!"

Snyl threw his short spear, but the beast changed the angle it was running abruptly, avoiding the weapon.

Mael ran after it, trying to keep up with it, or maybe outsmart it to get in the way of its trajectory, once he figured out what it was.

Snyl instead ran towards the dungeon, thinking it was going there since that was the worst thing he could think of it doing, and he wanted to be prepared.

--------- Dungeon Entrance ---------

"Who's yelling out there?", the young scout asked the rogue.

"Don't go anywhere. It might be a distraction. Get ready."

"For what?"

"You are young, aren't you?", Branch asked with a small amount of humor but bigger amount of condescension.

--------- Dungeon Monster Training Room ---------

'Tag, you're it. That means you're getting researched! Wanna know why you're getting researched? Because I'm fuckin' bored!'

[Estimated time to research Frog Eggs: 1 hour]

He wandered around the room. 'Hey! Zombie!'

The monster came into the room.

'Go put your sword in the Storage room. You're going to need both hands. Once you do that, get all the stuff you can move and put it in the Storage. Not the dirt though! I'm almost done with that! Oh and you can have your sword back after that.'

The zombie doing as it was told, the dungeon core's imaginary self turned to the "Wood Floor" that had been sitting at a strange upright angle, almost making it look like a wall. Though, it could be identified as something besides a wall, since the "Mouse Hole Wall" was what it was propped up against at this point. Climbing up the floor, the transparent and incorporeal form was able to finally reach what it was trying to get to.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

'Store!', he said. However, the stalactite didn't move.

[Special Construction discovered: Stalactite]

He looked down, and jumped. It was only a few feet of a drop, but he didn't feel it either way when he hit. 'Okay so that was fun, but how am I supposed to build fall damage traps? Ugh.'

Bored as he said, he wandered out of the cave mouth, seeing the small men with their backs to him. There was some shouting he could hear, but it was quiet. Quiet, but coming closer?

A sharp stick flew over the peak of the hill, arcing and sticking in the ground. 'Who threw that?', he wondered. 'What are you trying to-', but that's when he saw it. It looked like a weird dog, scruffy and wild. But it was very short and stocky for a dog, and it had a pig nose. A pig nose and warthog tusks. And instead of the fluffy tail of a doggo, it was more like a rat's tail. 'Are you a wild pig? What are you? A wild mutt of some kind? Sure, I'd like you to come on in and-' but that thought was cut off too as one of the small men pulled a dagger out of somewhere the dungeon didn't see, and slashed the creature's side open, letting the animal's own speed make its injury much worse than it would have been otherwise. The other man nearby speared it with his own weapon, keeping it from moving forward anymore. Or at all.

Two small men came from over the hill, meeting up with the now corpse that had ALMOST gotten to the dungeon's territory. 'Should I buy another room so I can nab that thing? Nah, I'll get the next one.'

The four men started talking, but that wasn't of any interest to the dungeon, so it went back inside.

--------- Dungeon Entrance ---------

"Good job, kid", Branch complimented the young scout, causing him to fight a smile while blushing slightly.

"I'm usually better than that", Snyl apologized to the guards.

The rogue smiled. "Doesn't matter. So, who's the cook?"

--------- Dungeon Research Room ---------

He looked around the room to the various things he had researched. 'I seriously need something to do. This boredom isn't helping my concentration. What was I doing again?' He mind wandered, thinking of various things. 'Did that skating rink ever get customers? I never saw it had anyone there. Abandoned shopping mall, abandoned skating rink. Wasn't that the most recent circle room humanity made? No. That was the...' He struggled for awhile and finally gave up. 'I can't remember what it was. I swear I went there a few times. They had hot dogs. What was it? Something to do with lions, I think. Lions eating people. I know you could place bets on monsters. Right?'

Why he was getting his thoughts so jumbled was the fact that many of his memories had holes. If that wasn't the case, he would have remembered that he went to a sports arena to watch the game. He would have remembered that he was playing an older video game because he wasn't at home and only had his friends games, which included a monster arena you could make in-game money from if you made good bets. He would have remembered that he had seen a movie where an arena had lions eat people with an unpopular religion. He did remember the skating rink and the history he was told of it accurately, though. Everything else was fragmented, and he pieced the fragments together into one story without intending to.

[Ding!]

[Research completed: Frog Eggs]

'Finally!', he shouted to no one. Not bothering to look for something else to research, he already knew what it should be. In the Storage room, he found the undamaged piece of wood the zombie had gotten for him. 'Research!', he shouted as he touched it.

[Estimated time to research Wooden Board: 5 minutes]

'Oh. Well then I'll just watch it!' He stood in the Research room, finding the board appear in the wind, slowly becoming less transparent until he heard the ding again. As if it was second nature, or maybe now it was, he went into the Storage room again and spawned four copies of the board. He couldn't assemble them, but did place them over each other in a square pattern.

Feeling good about it, he touched it.

[Special Construction discovered: Sandbox]

'Oh yeah, you know you're getting researched immediately. Come here, you!' He touched it.

[Estimated time to research Sandbox: 4 hours]

Finally getting the thing he had tried so hard to get, he went back to the other thing he was trying to do. In the Frog room, he was ready. He took a deep breath and breathed it all out, imagining the lower area of the room to be half filled with water. He was about to call the zombie, but realized the stupidity of it. 'No, its hands are small and I don't have any shovels. I do have the forge, if I can get something to use it.'

He went back into the cave mouth, and started the annoying task of moving dirt into a shallow pool by hand until it looked dense enough to be useful.