Cara

Something was wrong. Cara had retreated into herself to mourn the fact that she wouldn’t have a companion. She couldn’t know for a fact, but she was pretty sure that dungeons only ever bonded a single companion, and Manning’s had shown up first.

Although she had no reason to mistrust Manning, she feared the day he would push her out and take over the core for himself. It was one thing that everyone who read about dungeons knew, they only cared about expanding their own power. From what she could see from how naturally he picked everything up, Manning had the instincts of a dungeon already. It was only a matter of time.

As she spent her time contemplating ways to convince him to allow her to stay, she felt him go unconscious again. She let down her wall and looked back out into her surroundings, only to be shocked by how much she could see and feel again. It seemed that Ash, his new companion, had shown him how dungeons expanded.

“Is Manning going to be okay?”

“Oh! Um, Cara, right? Yeah, Manning should be fine. It looks like he was a little over enthusiastic about expanding his influence and used up all of his mana,” the dryad bit her lip and furrowed her brows like she was thinking about something. Cara remembered a lot of the woman she’d met in her lifetime, and although Ash was small and had strange skin textures, she was objectively one of the more beautiful women she’d seen. “Maybe I should have warned him to hold back a bit? Oops!”

When she was still a human, Cara had trained to be a mage. She was born with an affinity for active magic and was no stranger to the feeling of mana exhaustion. Although back then it had only given her a mild headache, she could see how it would be a little more dangerous for a dungeon, given that they functioned entirely on mana nearest she could tell.

“Are you excited for your companion to arrive?” The gentle lilting voice of Ash’s broke Cara out of her train of thought. Had she just said her companion would still show up?

“I thought that dungeons only bonded to one companion? I mean not that I know too much about how they function, but it seems strange to keep tying your soul to more and more people…”

“Well traditionally the dungeon does only have one companion. But you and Manning aren’t a traditional dungeon, are you? The bonding process intertwines souls and, although you and Manning make up one dungeon core, you have very separate and distinct souls.” She must have somehow felt my doubt, because after a moment of silence she spoke again. “Plus, the beacon for your dungeon is still going, they usually die off after you bond, like how Manning’s faded.”

Suddenly there was hope again. With a companion of her own, Cara worried far less about being pushed out of the core or suppressed. Ash and Manning seemed nice enough, but Cara knew it was only a matter of time until their interests collided. They seemed perfectly content to be a dungeon, but Cara would not let go of her dream to become a human again until she had exhausted all possibilities. She was used to a certain lifestyle and being a rock who was constantly under attack from adventurers did not appeal to her much.

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Although Ash was not her bonded companion, she was still more than happy to share lessons with her on how to expand influence and what not. A lot of the magic lessons she offered were skipped over due to her previous experience, but she listened in as Ash explained how dungeons usually spawned in resources and plant life.

Underground there was little to no way for Cara to measure the passing of time, but after what felt like days, her companion finally arrived.

“Briccriu is my name, but ye can just call me Brick. I’m a brownie.” Her companion was even shorter than Ash. His ears were also pointed but seemed to droop backwards, like there was too much skin on the side of his head. On top of his head he was nearly bald, with only a few wisps of hair, and his eyes took up a large portion of his face along with a very long and crooked nose.

“I thought that brownies were house spirits? What are you doing looking for a dungeon to bond with?” Cara was more than a little skeptical. Nobody she’d known had ever seen a brownie before, but everyone knew what they were supposed to be. She’d read that they were spirits attached to a house or family who cleaned and helped with the upkeep. You always left them a bowl of milk or cream and treated them respectfully, even if you couldn’t see them.

“Ahh, ye. I suppose that you would think that. We are not spirits so much as fae folk. Not quite a fairy, but closer to one than a ghost. As for why I want ta bond, I’m a bit of a boggart. Got tired o’ looking afta my last family and decided I wanted something more excited. Never been much of a cleaner any which ways.

With that cleared up, there wasn’t much point in waiting to bond. She could probably hold out for a stronger, or prettier looking, companion but a brownie seemed perfect. It seemed almost perfect in the fact that the brownie would probably not be too upset to return to civilization with her if she ever regained her humanity. At least, as long as she didn’t make him clean and their souls remained entwined. Plenty of Archmagi make familiar contracts with fairies, this wouldn’t be too different.

The bonded process went off without a hitch, and she spent the next little while expanding her influence and claiming insects as she found them. When Manning woke up they would plan their next step. From the way his mana pool felt that could be any moment now, so Cara wasted no time trying to claim the area around them.

It seemed that they had woken up in some sort of primitive mine, and there was a lot to be done to make it dungeon worthy. She discovered several small veins of copper and tin, as well as minor amounts of other metals in the walls and soil that she couldn’t quite identify. Mostly she spent her time trying to create a monster to help her dig additional tunnels and traps. There were bats, but they escaped before she could claim them almost every time. Mostly she had bugs to work with, and that's what she did.

With her beetles tamed and trained, she sent them out to scout out where the entrance to the mine was. There was little doubt in her mind that somebody had dug the twisting and turning mine shaft that she and Manning currently resided in, and that meant that there was an opening to surface somewhere.

Where there was an opening to the surface, there were more animals and plant life, waiting to be captured and dominated. Although the idea of being a dungeon did not appeal to her, Cara knew she would have to become an extremely powerful dungeon long before she ever found her way back into a body.