The doors had stopped moving, but I hadn't walked forward yet. Beyond those doors was a world that I had no knowledge of, no place in, no one who knew me, or that I knew.

Standing there, the chance to leave the cave dungeon, it really finally hit me. I had died in my world. All of the knowledge, things I'd learned through school, or just over time, was still there. If in bits and pieces, some of it. All of the memories I had of family and friends, though, were all fuzzy and seemed to be missing context.

No, missing the emotions that should be there. I didn't feel sad that I wouldn't be seeing them again. I knew that I loved and cared for all the people who had been important to me, I just didn't feel it anymore.

“It will pass, Sage Luna. Like distant memories,” the voice of the dungeon echoed in the chamber. And sounded all too familiar with my little existential crisis.

“Do I want it too, though?” I asked softly. There wasn't a response. Whether the dungeon could commiserate with my situation or not, I got the feeling that was a question I wouldn't be able to answer myself.

Closing my eyes, I tried my best to steady my nerves. It wasn't really helping much. I still had those nervous butterflies in my stomach. “Well, I guess I should get this over with. Can't stay here forever, can I?”

An air of amused denial seemed to fill the cave. Or I was just imagining it. Either way, I started walking out through the doors.

I finally stepped out into the light of a sun, my stone club in hand, and a worried look on my face. There was a large crowd surrounding the exit. I was never one for big groups of people. Yay me, I'm the center of attention. Just let me go find a place to hide, yeah?

Attempting to appear nonchalant about everything, I slowly swept my gaze over the crowd. There wasn't anything that stood out, nothing immediately to my eyes to say this person was in charge. No one had moved or spoken to me yet either, like they were expecting more.

Which did happen. Another set of doors, about twice the size of the ones I'd just exited, started to open. Half the attention left me, and went to the larger opening. I turned and looked that way myself, and had to do a double take at the statue above the building with the doors.

A jade green serpent man with a sword. That was different. And below, at the entrance to the building, a gorilla. A giant gorilla, nine or ten feet at the hunched shoulders.

My mind tried to go blank, my mouth had opened and my eyes had gone wide as saucers. Too bad my tongue decided to work. “Gorillillillillilla!” I said, not loudly and not in a panic, just kind of conversationally.

The giant beast looked at me with a huff. “Not purple, little moon,” it said. “Shop opening. Captain waiting. Escort to merchant.”

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I blinked. It had gotten the reference. How? I frowned, walking slowly in the direction it had indicated. “You read my memories? How… wait…”

“Quick, little moon. Guildmaster, Lorekeeper. Baron and little sun. Follow little moon,” it said, sitting as it reached he'd out a hand and pointed to the opening doors across from the cave I'd come from.

The gasp of alarm and sense of panic from. The people around us had me stop, looking at them with widened eyes. “Uh, Something wrong?” I asked.

A woman stepped forward, reddish hair hanging to her shoulders and clad in some sort of scaled armor, and with a sword in both hands. “Dungeon creatures aren't supposed to be able to exit the dungeon,” she said, voice tinged with a stern defiance.

I looked at the giant gorilla, then at the building with the three sets of doors. Turning, my eyes followed the edge of stone that formed a paved courtyard. “Well, we are all standing in the dungeons area of influence here…” I said, pointing at the paving stones.

Wow, did that cause even more of a panic. People rushed back, some grabbing at those who were a little too slow. By the time it seemed all who were going to escape had done so, only a handful Of people remained in the courtyard with me.

The redhead who had stepped forward, to attack or defend or both, another middle aged looking woman and a man in fancier clothes stood to either side of her. Behind those three were a few men and women, some in robes and some in armor. All with weapons ready or hands prepared to cast spells.

I looked back at the gorilla, who hadn't moved and pointed, first at the people then the stones. “Shouldn't they have known this?”

The beast gave that toothy, gummy grin all apes could do before speaking. “New rules. Need to learn new ways. Oops.”

The giant gorilla had left out details, important ones apparently, to get a laugh. “Not worried they'd, oh I don't know, attack you?” I asked, looking back at the people that had stayed.

Who were all looking at me like I was crazy. The jury was still out on that one. I gave a sigh as I shook my head, pointing at them all. They flinched, one younger woman looking like she was planning on leaping at me.

“Okay, ya'll just take a breath, okay? Whoever belongs to the titles this guy just said should follow me into this next area, I'll explain what I can, and if I'm lucky the dungeon will tell us the rest.”

“Dungeons don't speak,” one of the robed men in the back row said.

The two women and the man in the front all turned to look at the speaker. The darker haired woman was the one that spoke, pointing at the gorilla. “What do you think the Core Guardian has been doing?” she asked him. “Speaking for the dungeon. It's been a hypothesis for almost as long as we've known the Guardians exist.”

Huh, I thought, looking at them all. Apparently, the dungeons don't appear to people and have conversations. Good to know what I shouldn't talk about, thanks dungeon.

I held up the two tokens I had gotten for killing the rat king and completing the quest. “I have these to trade, and I guess we have some talking to do.”

I didn't wait to see if they followed, just turned and made my way over. I did pause enough to glare up at the Guardian as I passed in front of him. “You're trouble waiting to happen.”

The gorilla just huffed happily, watching as the group sorted themselves. Apparently one of them was a member of the local nobility, and another one didn't have any standing at all within the organization she belonged to.

I stopped at the opening to the shop area, looked back at them and made it simple. “The dungeon already said who had permission to go in. Either they do and they get to see what's inside, or they don't and no one replaces them. Unless you want to take it up with the gorilla.”

Not waiting for a response, I just walked in. They'd follow or they wouldn't. I had better things to do. And a dungeon to try and not piss off.