“Master… what do we do?”

There was another boom, the entire place shook as another portion of the dungeon collapsed.

{Your tamed monster, The Ember Vine, has died.}

Infernal Hell was attacking from one side, and Twilight was attacking from another. We were surrounded, and we were severely outmatched. I had collapsed a part of the dungeon and bought us a little bit of time on each side, but it was an inevitability that the two sides would crush us and meet. Then, it wouldn’t be just our lives on the line, but the lives of everyone on the surface too.

“Master! I have an idea. Come meet us in the main boss room.” Garnet sent a communication.

She had remained mostly quiet while I was focusing on the fighting, but she must have realized that the situation was turning south. I went to the safe room and used the transportation array to travel to my boss’s room. I was hesitant to part for too long, as I didn’t know how long it’d be before Twilight managed to force her way through. As I walked into the main boss room, I found Garnet, Lapis, and Gabbro all waiting for me. Behind them were the rest of the dwarves as well as Pait and Dav.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We’ve made as much armor and weapons as we can make.” Gabbro explained. “Now, we’re here to fight.”

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“Fight?” I couldn’t help but keep a feeling of bitterness out of my voice.

“Every dwarf here is willing to put their life on the line.” Gabbro declared. “This threat is a danger to us all. We may be small, but we are fighters. We’d love a chance to get back at the shadow witch who took everything from us.”

His words were filled with ambition and determination. If this had been a few hours ago, I would have felt my spirit being lifted. However, after seeing us have to fall back and seeing boss after boss fall, I knew that there was no victory to be had.

“King Diorite didn’t give me his legacy so that you guys could all perish,” I spoke carefully.

“Deek, even so…”

“He wouldn’t have wanted you all to die,” I said with certainty. “He would have wanted you all to escape.”

“What about Twilight, then?” Gabbro demanded. “What did he want to do about that?”

“I don’t know… I tried to build a dungeon, but it wasn’t strong enough. He gave me this lore, and I still wasn’t able to change his fate…” I stopped as I said those words, and a realization came over me. “Unless… I was wrong about the legacy in the first place.”

“What are you on about?”

“King Diorite handed me his lore. At first, I thought he intended me to use it. Then, I had thought he intended it for Sapphire. Maybe… he never intended us to open it at all.”

I started to search through the dungeon lore, finding the pieces obtained by King Diorite. I immediately found what I was looking for.

“Deek?” Garnet asked.

“I’m such an idiot!” I smacked my head. “He never intended me to build a dungeon to block Twilight. He intended me to build a dungeon to ignite it. His plan… his weapon… it was always to ignite the lore. He had a way to do it… it sort of cause the dungeon to collapse into a black hole of lore. It would cut the Infernal Hell and Twilight off for months if not years!”

I knew what I had to do now. I had to finish what King Diorite started. I had to blow up the dungeon right in his face.