The Core shined in the dim light that seeped through the crystals that adorned the inner sanctum. She was powerful and ancient, a Core like no other. For hundreds of years, she feasted on the punny mortals who dared to challenge her, who once, so long ago, tried to tame her. But the passing decades took away the anger and tempered her violence. She no longer craved blood, but she also never allowed anyone to think they were safe within her grounds. Sometimes, she allowed the mortals to enter her domain, and she allowed them to explore. Only mortals could appreciate the finesse and craftsmanship put into creating her Dungeon. Her scions brought her news of the large-scale war that raged outside her borders, but she cared little about the affairs of mortals. She focused on complex and painstakingly crafted cave systems that ran deep underground, spreading like a maze, in which waited wonders and death. She had never participated in the dungeon wars, but each time wayward forces attacked her domain, she mercilessly culled them. After all, she was the most powerful.
The artificial light that shined from light moss illuminated the narrow passages and large chambers, where droves of enslaved mortals who foolishly dared to delve too deep had to mine the resources and fight in the arena. She kept them alive, mercifully allowing them to live and serve until they passed on. She watched their labour and enjoyed the constant flow of mana the slaves provided. Some of them were born here, unquestioningly loyal to her every order, forcing her will on newly obtained slaves. However, recently, the tide of delvers had dwindled and then stopped. At first, she was concerned that her proven source of income was depleted, but once she learnt about the war amongst mortals, the situation became clear. The war was not her concern, and if the new ruler of mortals dared to try to subdue her, she would accept all the slaves he could send. The Twilight Caverns Dungeon ruled this region, and even other dungeons dared not provoke her.
Up until now...
A colossal explosion had ruined the main entrance to her domain and would have made her furious if not for the fact that wasn't the only one affected. Somehow, all three entrances to the caverns were attacked almost simultaneously, killing the guardians in the chambers behind them. But even so, it was not alarming. But the fact that five of the secret entrances were not only discovered but used against her changed her fury into anxiety. Enemy dungeons had arrived, joining their forces in an attempt to steal from her. Their entities were challenging, shredding through the hastily assembled resistance her Earth Elemental scion had mounted. The Ents crushed the rock bodies of the Elementals like eggshells, and her Serpents were powerless to fight the living trees. Right behind the first wave came the second, less resilient to Serpentine poison but far faster and vicious. The Beastly monsters soon were everywhere, fighting everything her scions threw at them. The Core was paralysed not by the sheer ferocity or audacity of this attack but by the presence that crept nearby. A presence that had just entered her domain.
•••
Crawline merrily skittered around, looking at her Master's vassals scions and their denizens at work. She never participated in a real battle, but Brother Galahad and Sister Morrigan told her stories about their battles. The Field Marshal, Galahad of Avalon, especially had plenty of stories to tell. She enjoyed listening to them and often imagined herself commanding a Legion in battle. With a chittering giggle, she jumped on the wall, decapitating a giant snake that foolishly dared to stay in her way during the process. Without even noticing her kill, Crawline sighed at the thought that she was only nominally leading the army. The real commander was Hrulf, Wolf Manor's scion. Crawline stopped in her tracks to take a better look at the evolved monster. Even she remembered that Hrulf had started as a Dire Wolf, a tad bigger than a typical Warg. Right now, he was a Garmr, a massive wolf-like creature with thick, relatively long, brown-grey fur. His vast claws made quick work of the unfortunate adversaries who stood in his way. Compared to Brother Thor, Hrulf looked more vicious and wild, but he lacked the dignity and majesty of Fenrir.
Metal chains conjured by the Garmr scion bound one of the more resilient defenders. The Earth Elemental tried to break free, but with a crack, accompanied by the screams of the damned, the chains dragged him to hell. Hrulf howled with a blood-curdling howl that made even her shiver. Another Elemental was shattered with the hit of Hrulf's tail, which had something that looked like a spiked ball at the end of it. His red, fierce eyes scanned for dangers while his calm, pleasant-to-hear voice issued commands. The Garmr Scion has done well to this point, and the attack of the forces of Arcadia was going smoothly. Crawline moved slowly towards the ceiling, allowing two of accompanying her Deathweaving Spiders to take care of the lesser spiders that tried to interrupt her. Their viscera and ichor sprayed over the fighting below as three fairly small but highly deadly spiders slowly made their way forward.
The front legs of the Deathweaving Spiders, akin to blades, soon dripped with a mix of red blood and yellow ichor. Crawline had lost interest in personally engaging in the battle because the enemies were too weak. Or rather, she was too strong. Her skills had been honed by constant fighting against the Arcadian Adventurer's Guild members, men and women of exceptional talent and battle prowess. The set of rules she restricted herself with not to harm her friends yet also not let them have an easy victory had no application now. She and her squires' experience in fighting the clever and creative people of Arcadia showed how lacking the servants of this dungeon were. Compared to the Adventurers, these monsters were boring to fight. With a sigh, she let go of the cavern ceiling, and in one fluent and silent drop, she split in half a large Elemental that had raised its stony fist against Hrulf.
"Thank you, Lady Crawline." Hrulf lowered his head to pay his respect. "I hadn't noticed him."
"Pay no mind to it." She replied in a voice more akin to a young woman's, in which you could still hear the girly tones more than anything anyone would have attributed to a spider.
"I wanted to order the Kobolds and Hobgoblins to join the assault," he said. Only after a moment did Crawline realise that he was asking for her opinion.
"It's your battle, Hrulf. I'm just an observer and the direct representative of our King." She made an amused sound, making Hrulf nod heavily.
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"This battle is hard, Lady Crawline," he admitted after a moment with a hard-to-read expression. However, Hrulf wagged happily with his tail, and Crawline noticed she didn’t see the spiked ball anymore.
"But so far, you are doing well," she replied, not even bothered by the giant Serpent that had tried to rush her but was caught in the webs of her squires.
Hrulf observed the swift death of the otherwise problematic creature in silent awe. The Deathweaving Spiders of Avalon dealt with the level eighty creature without a problem, making the Garmr even more glad that she was his ally. "Thank you. If you allow me, I will continue the assault."
"Please proceed, and don't mind me. I will follow you for some time, perhaps even until the Twilight Caverns Scions finally show up."
Hearing that, Hrulf hesitated for a moment but bowed his head. "But of course, Lady Crawline."
•••
Who might be this powerful? Why did they attack her? She was truly afraid for the first time in what seemed to be millennia. That unprecedented attack had left her forces spread too thin; it rendered all the painstakingly prepared defences obsolete. The initial blast had obliterated all the traps she had prepared. The enemies pushed further, regardless of their losses, with each moment getting closer and closer to the lower caverns and her inner sanctum. She gathered her four scions to guard her, but up there were at least five enemy scions and... And these three monsters, who alone seemed formidable enough to fight her scions on their own. One of these three emanated a power so immense that it had to be a scion. But whose scions were they?! No, that couldn't be true; it would imply there was a dungeon far more powerful than she was. Another alarming thing was the fact that she could name most of the dungeons involved in this outrageous attack, but their power was at least two times bigger than it should have been.
The Wolves of Wolf Manor Dungeon were bigger, fiercer, and more vicious than the last time she had dispatched their pathetic attack. The Ents smelled of the Dungeon of Snares, but why he would work with that feral brute from the Wild Beast Dungeon was a mystery. The animal monsters, for sure, had come from the south! She sensed Cave Kobolds and Hobgoblins as well. All of them were working in unison, and the most unthinkable was that their forces were working together without the usual hostility amongst each other. She frantically threw all she had at the enemies, but it seemed futile. If she pushed them away from one side, they pushed in on two other. Before she noticed, the enemies made their way to the slave pits, and to her surprise, they had abducted them. But maybe she shouldn't be that surprised. After all, if they had killed them, she would have obtained mana. Well, speaking of mana...
•••
"Move! You must get away from here!" one of the monsters ordered, but his voice was calming, without hostility.
"What do you plan to do with us?" a terrified woman asked, holding an infant in her arms. A man standing nearby stepped between her and the monster.
"Don't worry. You won't be hurt," another monster assured them. It was a blue-scaled Kobold that wore elaborate, blue and white armour with a complicated coat of arms. "We serve King Theon Avalon, the righteous ruler of the Kingdom of Arcadia. Please listen to the Ents, who will guide you outside. Quickly! The Twilight Caverns Dungeon is preparing a counter-offensive. Run if you want to live!"
The Kobold had barely finished speaking when she was pushed down by a tree-like monster who covered all four of them. With the roar of pain, the Ent turned towards the enemies who entered the cavern and hurled a large boulder at them. The woman was shocked to see the extent of the wounds he suffered. Its burned bark and charred wooden flesh beneath secreted a thick resin that must have been the monster's blood. The Kobold woman grabbed her magic staff, and after casting a spell, she turned towards the people still cowering behind them.
"Run!" she ordered, which was finally enough to force a man and woman to flee.
However, the path shown by the Kobold mage narrowed dangerously as the fighting between the monsters became fiercer with each moment. She instinctively felt something hostile behind her but could only try to run away. The woman whimpered in fear as something flew right next to her ear, and a fountain of thick, hot blood covered her and her baby. She collapsed to her knees, struck by unimaginable force that took away all her strength, replacing it with emptiness and apathy. In the silence that befell the entire room, the helpless cry of her small child seemed so loud.
"Hush, little one. Everything will be fine," a pleasant and soothing voice of a young woman calmed the child.
She turned around and saw a fairly small spider—as far as the monsters got, of course—but it was beautiful. To the woman's surprise, the Spider spoke again: "You must get to the surface, Miss."
"Y-yes. We will..." She nodded automatically and took one last look at that spider.
She was covered in some kind of fur or hair that was black with tinges of gold and red. The spider was standing maybe one metre tall and observed her with golden-red eyes, in which the woman somehow saw compassion. The black and red fur that covered her abdomen was shaped like a skull, which was fairly frightening. Her front legs looked more like golden blades, another concerning thing about this spider. Even more concerning was the fact that she killed a Serpent that was at least three times bigger than her. However, what topped the list was that it was she who had just forced everyone in the chamber to stop. The minions of the Twilight Cavern Dungeon moved back and focused solely on the spider. The other monsters seemed to follow her silent order and regrouped to secure a safe path out of the chamber. A strong pair of arms tugged the woman and her child towards the exit, disrupting the woman’s stupor.
"Abi! We must go!"
"Y-yes..."
•••
As the last people left the chamber, Crawline unleashed her killing intent and anger at her enemies. The entities of this Dungeon stepped back, intimidated by the mere display of her discontent. She ignored them, focusing her wrath on the one responsible for this despicable act. She looked directly down where she sensed the Core of this dungeon and asked calmly, yet every word was dripping with wrath. "It was you who ordered to kill the defenceless?"
There was no one to reply to her in that room, which angered the Deathweaving Spider even more. Crawline lowered her voice, but it echoed in the still, silent room anyway. "You have violated the rules of war..."
She sensed the fear emanating from the enemy Core and four scions awaiting her right before the inner sanctum. With an enraged snarl, Crawline promised, "I am coming for you."