“No gift can ever replace the value of being there in person.”

—Denis Waitley

==Zidaun==

“That is not me,” I said, rising to my feet, followed by the others. “The dungeon apparently decided to show itself.”

I stopped creating my facsimile, and it was wiped away by the dungeon’s own power; stone gathered together into a now familiar shape. I could see Caden’s avatar, naked as ever, suddenly standing next to the forming statue. The statue acquired clothes before any of the sensitive details emerged, for which I gave an appropriate prayer of thanks. I had dealt with Gurek’s prurient teasing quite enough already.

The statue neared completion and Caden’s avatar stepped into in the same place as the statue.

It suddenly came to life.

Not literally, but the stone flesh animated in a way all his previous golems had failed to do. For a moment Caden’s eyes widened, but the expression quickly passed and his lips quirked in a slow smirking smile. The left side of his mouth rose more than his right, exposing pearlescent stone teeth. Deep breaths moved Caden’s chest, and the unyielding firmness of stone gave way to the gentle movements of false flesh.

I could sense that Caden was still stone, but his stone body had gained depth. A depth that I could only sense for a moment; a shroud of mana emerged to cloak him from my perceptions. If I couldn’t see the stone, he would feel like a normal person to my aura sense.

His clothes would still give him away as someone unusual. He wore a simple green shirt with a pocket over the left side, and his pants were made of a thick blueish material. Loops surrounded the waist line, while some kind of interlinked metal fastening and a button closed the front. Pockets and dark golden threading finished off the pants.

And he still wasn’t wearing shoes.

“Hello,” Caden said, his head tilting slightly to the side as he dipped it toward us in a nod.

His voice wasn’t something that could be passed off as normal either. For all that he had managed to make his body move like flesh, it very much wasn’t. It sounded hollow and echoing, like it had come from inside the depths of a cave, which, considering he was made of stone… it essentially had. It wasn’t rough or hoarse, but it was profoundly unnatural.

“Caden,” I said, bowing. I gestured to my companions. “Allow me to introduce Gurek, Inda, and Firi.”

The others responded halfheartedly and their voices trailed off awkwardly.

Caden waited for a moment longer, he nodded again in a decisive manner and waved his hand at us.

“Goodbye,” he said, and the life left the statue as it started to sink back into the earth.

The others were stunned into silence, for a moment, before Gurek exploded.

“I get that the Adar have their secrets, but why don’t any of you tell people that dungeons can think?” he said, practically at the verge of shouting.

“Dungeons, are not usually… that,” I said, shaking my head. “People would try to negotiate with them. Countries would try to hold them hostage or apply pressure and they wouldn’t respond well.”

Gurek gestured to where the now absent Caden had stood.

“Sure, but that, him, we could communicate with! Or at least we will when he can speak properly. Why hide this secret?” he said.

“I have known about Caden for only days, Gurek! Are you expecting me to change the policy of my people for just this one dungeon?” I said, my voice clearly exasperated.

“And why not, people deserve to know!” he said. “What if we could negotiate with this one? It might lead to negotiating with the rest. Maybe they don’t all need to be such enormous death traps.”

“Don’t you think you are overdoing it a little Gurek,” Inda said, her voice calm, soft, and carefully measured. “There is no guarantee that would happen. We don’t even know if it would be good odds.”

“I’m tired of losing friends,” Gurek mumbled. “I’ve seen too many people go out and never come back. Sure, it doesn’t happen as often to people at our level, but it still happens.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Like you said though, it has gotten better for us.” Firi said. “We haven’t lost nearly as many people past a certain point.”

“Yeah?” Gurek said, before pointing his finger at Inda. “When was the last time Inda tutored a newbie, like she used to? I still remember when she joined the guild. She was strong for a newbie, well prepared.”

Inda had fallen silent, her face pale.

“I remember helping people out too for a while.” he said. “You’re the only who still teaches people, Firi, and I know you do that more through the church than the adventurer’s guild.” His voice turned gentle. “How many of the people you taught are still alive, Inda?”

“Two,” she whispered.

“And you tried to help, what, seventy people?” Gurek asked.

She gave a weak smile, “Fifty-four, actually.”

“I… didn’t keep trying to help for very long,” Gurek said. “They all died. I used to have a survivor too… someone to feel good about.” He took a breath, steadying himself before continuing. “I tried to help the ones who obviously needed it. The poor kids that didn’t have any other choices. Gods, I know each of us bought equipment for some of them, just so they didn’t have to go in with nothing better than a club. And how many of all those kids die? The survival rate for a newbie who isn’t a noble, or part of an adventuring family, or trained in a dungeon by competent adventurers, is what, one in a hundred?”

“One in one hundred and twelve, actually. I am ahead of the odds, having helped two to get there.” Inda said with a small smile.

“Yeah,” Gurek said, with a sigh. He slumped for a moment, before gathering himself back up. He looked me in the eyes, “So this place, the way it is obviously meant to train. It’s important. And yeah, plenty of people are bound to come up from the capital. I’m sure this place is going to get crowded, but many of those kids in the capital aren’t going to be able to make it out here. They will go to a normal dungeon, right outside the capital, and they are going to fucking die. So if dungeon’s can be changed, it matters.”

“Maybe something can be done,” I said. “but dungeons are our homes. Any change isn’t going to be swift.”

“It ought to be,” Gurek said softly.

There was little I could offer in reply, but we each sat and tried to comfort the others for a while. We had all seen more than enough death.

==Caden==

After whatever magic Zidaun had gotten up to, I was surprised to recognize the group discussion include my and Exsan’s names. It appeared that he had gotten around to telling the others about me. Not that he had much choice after Gurek touched the artifact.

Zidaun making something that looked like me was a great cue for me to make a personal appearance. And, in making a statue of myself, I discovered that I had been under utilizing my avatar ability. My other shards were busy dealing with the massive number of patterns that were still being downloaded into my mind.

I had stepped into the same place as the statue. Originally I had planned to make its movements as natural as possible by following my avatar manually. And then I found that was entirely unnecessary.

As I stepped into the same location as the statue, the statue fused with me. All my senses merged with the statue. I didn’t focus on it too much at first, I simply said hello and goodbye and left. They seemed rather awkward about meeting me, anyways. Honestly, I couldn’t say that I was surprised. What do you say to the person whose body you have been wandering around in?

So I left; I didn’t speak a ton of their language yet. I had plenty of things I wanted to ask. Especially about the black hole in the sky, how the system worked for them, what the culture of the world was like, and so on. Of course, I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to reveal about myself, either. And some of my questions would inevitably raise questions about me in turn.

Now that I had left them, I placed my avatar next to my core and recreated the statue form.

The detail of my new body was truly amazing. The muscles moved and slipped past each other, tendons strained, blood flowed.

It was still obviously stone though. I could find colors that were closer to flesh tone; there were plenty of different colors of stone, and tan wasn’t a difficult color. Could make some kind of makeup?

Eh, I didn’t really want to hide myself and try going out among the locals anyway. The only reason for that would be to ask questions and talk to them, and my voice was obviously not human. It wasn’t that surprising. My voice box was capable of making the sounds by vibrating, because the stone followed the blueprints from my soul. However, my body was still stone and the sound reverberated back down into my lungs, through my throat, and up into my nose and sinuses. And my body wasn’t soft enough to damp the sound down, so it echoed.

All of that was interesting, and suggested that I could use my avatar more effectively to interact with the world, but the most fascinating thing what what happened with the mana. My avatar had suddenly gained the same kind of dense mana that surrounded other living things. And since it was, completely, my own mana I was able to see through it just as clearly as anywhere else in my aura.

The benefit from my healing title allowed me to get through the auras of other creatures to a certain extent, but it didn’t have this level of clarity. I couldn’t see exactly how it was done, but the mana had shifted in some way. It reminded me of a phase change. Now that I could study it properly, I was sure I would manage to figure out how it was done.

Of course, that paled in comparison to the real test I needed to do.

Nervously, I created a table and chair out of stone. As I sat down I absently noted that I should put padding on my chairs in the future. The table was in front of me, but I was delaying. I took a deep breath, savoring the feeling of cold air in my lungs.

In the light of my core, the light of myself, I started.

In front of me, mana spun together. The mana flowed out of my aura as it acted as a magical 3d printer. Moments later it was finished and a piece of dried meat appeared on a stoneware plate.

I reached out and lifted it to my lips. I could smell the savory scent of the meat, but that didn’t mean anything. I had been able to smell just fine in my avatar form before now.

I took a bite.

I moaned at the first taste of salt. The meat burst with the flavor of smoke and gamey iron. I chewed, my stone teeth more than adequate to the task of grinding down the muscle fibers and releasing the umami flavor trapped within.

My stone form had no saliva, but a moments thought was all it took to create a wooden cup and fill it with water. Drinking from it, I could taste the minerals in the water and the flavor of the wood pressed against my lips.

From there, I proceeded to try the other foods that the adventurers had sacrificed to me. The fruit, meat, and other food disappeared quickly, and I had to actually dissolve the excess in my stomach so I could try everything.

I practically glowed with happiness as I sat and ate in the light of my core. Finally, I had recovered the last of the senses I had been missing. Now, I had the best of both worlds and could experience the senses of both humans and dungeon cores.

I paused a moment as the massive flow of patterns started to slow down; it was time to review my gains.