Day 6

My. Head. Hurts.

Or whatever counts as my head. I don't think I even have a brain anymore and that thought just makes my head pound even more.

Can I get off this ride and just go home?

...

...

...

Guess not. Damn. Worth a try.

There is a soothing warmth inside me as I just let myself come awake and I find that the little marble of a core has attached itself to the bottom of the basin I was laying in. Firmly adhered there like it was fused with the stone. That's fine, from what I remember of Dungeon core stories most cores needed a physical link with their Dungeon.

Not that I was trying to pick it up anymore... actually, now I decided to move off of it and take a proper assessment of my situation. Five days in a near insane fugue state where I was semi conscious of my inane actions... a short amount of time Awake, and hours spent sleeping to recover and now I feel awful.

Makes sense, My Hp is really low. Stamina is fine though.

Okay... bad news. Level ups don't heal you. No nifty full restores during combat for leveling up, no sleeping off a broken leg.

Stamina seems to have filled up fine though. Again, makes sense. A good rest fixes that right up. I'm not feeling particularly hungry, so I assume I've just been consuming the local mana?

A quick check with my mana Sense tells me... not too much to be honest. I can sense mana. Yup.

Like tingly feeling in the air.

My Skill is telling me that yes. There is mana. Yup. Definitely some mana around. Mmhmm. Yes.

Thank you. You are about as useful as I was expecting a level one Skill to be.

I'm at least able to keep an eye on my status... watching my Hp slowly ticking up little by little, my stamina draining while the skill is active, and occasionally ticking up just a little bit.

I use Inspect on the Dungeon core.

Tiny Dungeon Core

Huh. Little bit of information I didn't have. It's not Nascent anymore. I can make a good guess at what that means but it would be just a guess.

Probably just means it has started growing or something. I just hope it doesn't mean me any harm.

I mean, now that I think about it, depending on how smart it is, it might think I'm holding it hostage or something.

I have no way of knowing. Aside from that first burst of raw emotion I felt when it was first born... it's just a warm little marble. No thoughts or feelings from it.

Now that my immediate situation is dealt with...

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Contract Request from Dungeon Core

This Dungeon core has extended an offer for you to become a Contracted monster under this Cores authority. If you accept your power will grow alongside that of the Dungeon. New options will be unlocked. The Dungeon could invest resources directly in to your growth. You would be at the command of the Dungeon but retain your free will, with restrictions. You would be unable to cause harm to the Dungeon.

You would become weaker when outside the dungeons influence, and be required to return to the Dungeon after being absent for a length of time.

Do you accept? Y/N

Do I want to bind myself to this Dungeon?

No. There wasn't much decision to be made there. I needed to find Her. Even though I have no idea how to do that, I couldn't stay here.

I declined the offer, and another idea hit me. How much of Dungeon lore was actually correct? One of the basic rules from those stories was there had to be an acceptable path from the core to... the outside. Acceptable being up to interpretation sure, but still.

When I woke up here, I know I explored around. It was only after discovering that there didn't seem to BE a way out that I panicked.

Now though I felt some hope. I quickly ooze my way off this table, able to manipulate my form with a noticeably better precision than yesterday as I set to exploring the room at a break neck pace.

Hahaha, I am speed. I am the wind. I am the envy of snails the world over! One day I might be able to beat a turtle and I'll be unstoppable!

...shut up. If I don't try and cheer myself up I'll go crazy...er.

After making my way around the edges of the room for what felt like ages, I came across something I didn't remember. An opening. Investigating the opening by touch, the only reliable sense I have, I feel what seems like a door opened. I hadn't noticed the door before. Or at least I don't remember.

Okay. Okay. Okay. There is a way out. Don't panic. Take lessons from exploring the endless wilderness of minecraft. Make notes, set up landmarks. I go back to the pile of rocks I had been collecting and grabbed as many as I could carry, then went back to the door.

I did that several times until I brought my entire pile of stones to the door, then I made a little pile of four.

The pile was to make the origin point. If I find this pile again I'll know I'm back where I started.

I then selected another stone and set it in the direction I was headed, still connected to the pile, all of this piled against the left side of the doorway. Follow the wall. Like that touch tunnel I went through as a kid. Follow the wall and it becomes harder to get lost.

Keeping one part of my body touching the stone pile, and another touching the wall, I grabbed three more stones and stretched myself as far as I could reach outwards. Once I was at my limit, I set the stones down, putting two across and then set a third just barely separated from the first two, in the direction of my original pile. This way it pointed back 'home'.

I then went back to my pile, collected three more rocks, and moved on to the first marker.

At that marker I spread all over, exploring these new surroundings in detail and making a map in my head of my new environment.

I was never blind I my old life, so I never learned any of the tricks people who had to deal with that ailment learned. Besides that, touch is the only RELIABLE sense that I have right now.

Oh for the love of my precious jelly this is going to take absolute ages!!

I felt like an amature tightrope walker with how nervous of getting lost I was, like if i stepped to the side even a little, I'd fall off my line. Not that I even knew where I was to begin with but I had to take what I could get.

Hours went by like this... every time I I spread out like a puddle, I collected any stones I could pick up and piled them close to the wall. It didn't make sense to relay them all the way back to the start, but I always needed the stones to spread my line of landmarks.

Thanks to this method I was slowly getting a cohesive picture of my environment.

A few times I set my 'back' to the wall and spread directly outwards away from the wall, I made four markers out in to the 'void' of floor before I found another wall. Okay. So this area is four slime lengths wide. Not that I could translate that in to feet or meters since I have nothing to really measure against.

Hallway, hallway, hallway, corner, hallway, doorway, room...

I mapped out several rooms, some furniture that I didn't explore beyond marking their presence and then I felt something new.

A steady vibration. What is that?

Thump Thump Thump Thump. Wrong rhythm for a heartbeat. Drums? No... not as steady unless the drummer sucks.

What is that? Uhm... oh... uhm, not good? It's getting stronger.

Then it stopped right when it was the strongest I have felt yet. Then...

Contact! We have contact! SOMETHING TOUCHED ME!!