The sun was up, and Demeter’s illusion was broadcasting elegantly above her lotus-like blossom. She put on a faithful service smile and said in a very polite tone, “My apologies. We are closed for renovations. Please come visit us again next week.”

“Ah, just my luck.” A beastwoman miner scratched her thick red mane. “I’d’ve known if I’d stopped by the Guild before coming.”

“We’re very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“That’s fine. More floors means more treasure, right? I’m not gonna complain about it. I’m Kava, by the way. Judging by the “we, us,” and the lack of guild uniform, are you a monster?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Well that sure is something.” The beastwoman balanced her forearm against the rocky wall behind the illusion and leaned forward, in a manner that was clearly manufactured to look confident and casual. “I didn’t know dungeons could make angels.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” Demeter’s service smile didn’t so much as twitch. “I am a Nymph. My appearance is an illusion tailored to your preference.”

“Well don’t you know how to make a girl feel special,” Kava chuckled, perhaps deliberately missing the point.

While the one explorer present continued her attempts at seducing the dungeon’s gate guard—seemingly with no ulterior motives—and while Demeter continued to professionally deflect her advances, Anniil and Januiil snuck inside with the help of Umbra’s magic.

The silenced, invisible door closed behind them, and Umbra dismissed both the illusionary door he had created to replace it and the invisibility cast over the three of them. Once they had moved farther away from the entrance, he dismissed his silencing spell as well.

“That was a strange experience,” Anniil murmured. She had been escorted from the village to the dungeon like a ghost, completely undetected. It was actually relieving to be back to normal.

“You’d better not go stealing my recipes with your spies, brat,” Januiil spoke to the ceiling. “I’d be plenty willing to make a proper trade if you asked.”

“He says he hasn’t been spying on you, but would happily make that trade later.” Lilith approached them from deeper in and smiled faintly in greeting.

The elves had met the proto-human a few times now. They weren’t surprised to see her again.

“We’re gathering near the second floor,” she told them. “Follow me.”

The elf women followed behind as Lilith led them across the thickly forested first floor and down the stairs on the other side. Anther and Yinether were waiting at the bottom step. Just past them was a wide, sunny field decorated with gently rolling hills. But most of the view was obscured by a large tank. It was clear, with a slightly bluish hue. Everything viewed through the glass-like material appeared blurry.

The final procedure hadn’t been explained to any of the elves yet, so the large, empty container seemed somehow ominous.

“Now we have everybody,” Lilith declared. “Archimedes needs all the mana he can spare today, so I’ll be speaking for him.”

“What is that thing?” Anniil asked, pointing at the large tank beside her. It was big enough to comfortably fit two of her.

Lilith glanced at the hollow container and said, “This is a tank made of Mananite. Anther will be inside it during the procedure.”

“Why?” Yinether asked.

“It might be better if I just explained the whole thing step by step,” Lilith told him. “The plan is to do physical surgery to relocate the exit point of the problematic mana channel in Anther’s brain. We have two options regarding where we’ll have it release. The choice will be yours.”

Lilith’s eyelids fluttered slightly as she quieted. Yinether recognized the signs of telepathic conversation, but it was brief. He had gotten used to being left out of probably half of whatever was being said while living in the dungeon for a month, but it made him a little nervous today. Everything about today made him nervous.

A rhythmic mechanical whirring sound broke the silence and pulled the elves out of their thoughts. Another monster came from the second floor to greet them, and its whole body hummed softly with every motion. Yinether and Anther knew of the shining bronze machine creature, but they had almost never interacted with it. The Clockwork Golem was entirely new to Januiil and Anniil.

“Minute says it’s a pleasure to formally meet you all,” Lilith translated for the voiceless creature.

The bronze giant nodded along to her statement and held out one of its strong hands for a handshake, starting with Anther. The boy’s face and lips were pale, and he’d hardly said anything since waking up, but he forced on a smile while clasping hands.

“Minute will be your surgeon,” Lilith explained. “He’s been training hard for it, which is why you haven’t been able to see each other often. His hands are much steadier than ours, and Archimedes will be sending him real-time scans and instructions telepathically.”

Minute’s face was a blank slate except for its mechanical eyes, so it couldn’t offer a smile to reassure the child. Instead, it gently tousled his hair with its other strong hand, and with its small hands, it patted both shoulders. Then it went on to briefly shake hands with each of the adults.

“What were the options you mentioned?” Anniil asked anxiously.

“Right. The goal of this surgery is to adjust things so that the mana channels in Anther’s brain don’t arrange into a faulty spell formation. One mana channel in particular is causing the problem, so that’s the only one we intend to interfere with. We can either have it release exactly where the spell formation expects it to be, or even farther away, so that there won’t be a spell formation.

“Of course, both options come with consequences. If we complete the spell formation, Anther will start casting Memory of the Earth passively with his ambient mana, and he won’t really be able to decide when or how often it happens. But there will be absolutely no further problems with his physical health.

“If we eliminate the spell formation, there will be no more episodes and no random spellcasting, but the result will be farther from the intended structure of his brain. Mana would be released in a very different region than it was intended to be released in. The exact consequences of that are difficult to predict and will most likely only show after some time has passed, but we can expect results typical of hormonal imbalances; an elevated risk of depression and other mental illnesses; changes to growth and development; and possibly personality or emotional changes.

“Of course, no matter which option you choose, Archimedes has prepared options for mitigating the consequences.”

The three adults shared glances. They weren’t capable of telepathic communication, but it seemed like they were in that moment. They all simultaneously came to the same conclusion.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Yinether got on his knees and placed a hand on Anther’s shoulder. “Did you understand all of that? It’s your body; if you have a preference, that’s what we’ll do.”

The boy chewed his lip glancing between his family, the monsters, and the ominous empty tank. “I don’t want to not be me, so the second option scares me. And having a spell formation in my head sounds kind of cool?” He put a tight smile on his pale lips.

His parents and aunt nodded, and Yinether stood up. “You haven’t explained the tank yet,” he said.

Lilith smiled despite herself. “Mananite is capable of holding liquid ether,” she explained. “You probably don’t know what ether is, but just think of it like healing magic. We’re going to have both Anther and Minute stay inside that tank, and we’ll fill it with ether. He won’t be able to breathe, of course, but he won’t have to. Archimedes will tune the ether to keep him alive and to keep the incision site from bleeding. If any mistakes happen, he’ll turn up the healing factor to reverse the process. The procedure is safe to the point that death is impossible, barring malevolent intervention.”

“Will it hurt?” Anther asked.

“It won’t hurt,” Lilith assured him. “Not breathing will feel strange, but you won’t get light-headed or dizzy. And even if you inhale, the ether won’t hurt you. We’ll be using a topical anesthetic on the surgery site so you won’t feel any of the incisions. You won’t be able to talk in the tank, but Archimedes will be reading your thoughts. We’ll know if anything is wrong as soon as—or sooner than—you do, and we’ll fix it. And I can be your voice if you need one, so don’t worry.”

“And one more thing,” Lilith looked over her shoulder and an ominous-looking chair suddenly appeared in the tank. It was made of silvery metal, covered with a dozen leather straps and some kind of leather-cushioned cage-like contraption mounted where a seated person’s head would go.

“I’m sure this thing looks a little scary, but you’ll have to sit in it to keep your head perfectly still. If you moved at all during the surgery, we would probably have to start over. This is expected to take two to three hours, so we would rather not have to do that.”

“Three hours?!” Some of the boy’s fear was replaced with dread for the ensuing boredom.

Minute showed the boy an encouraging thumbs up and started walking toward the tank.

Anniil and Yinether stood at the bottom of the stairs and hugged their little boy tightly, clearly holding back all their tears and worry. Then Anther went toward the tank too.

***

There were two reasons for hosting the surgery on the second floor. First, mana behaved strangely around (most) elves, so eliminating it as a variable seemed poignant. Due to Anther’s clogged mana channels, he could stay longer and more comfortably in a manaless environment than most elves anyway. Second, Archimedes was sincere about wanting to save every drop of mana that he could, and letting Deorsa’s roots act as steps spared him from having to conjure some.

The Nymph’s twisting vines escorted Minute and Anther to the top of the Mananite tank, where there was an opening. After they were both inside, a prepared lid was lifted and placed on top. Archimedes stitched the lid to the walls of the tank while Minute fastened Anther into his surgery chair. There wasn’t much more room than what was absolutely necessary, but Minute reached a hand around to where Anther could see it and pointed at several of the soft leather straps, its mechanical joints whirring faintly.

“Minute is asking if any of the straps are too tight,” Lilith cupped her hands and shouted at the glass. It did muffle the sound, but they could still hear each other.

“It’s a little uncomfortable, but it’s fine,” the boy said, trying and failing to turn his head back to look at the golem as he did so. His neck and head were absolutely fixed in place, as was his torso, to keep him from sliding down. There were also loose straps around his upper arms and ankles to keep him from reaching his hands up high or kicking the wall of the tank out of boredom.

“Good,” Lilith called back. “The anesthetic is going to be applied next. It will be a little cold.”

Anther felt a cool gel spread into his hair as a small section of his scalp was smeared with it. They waited a few minutes for it to take effect, and Minute prodded the area to ensure there was no more sensation. Then the area was sanitized, and Minute took up its surgical implements, which were strapped to the back of the chair.

The tank filled instantly to the brim with liquid ether, which the dungeon transferred from another tank located elsewhere.

Then it began, and Lilith’s job switched from explaining the proceedings to entertaining and reassuring the elves. She took out a deck of cards and offered to act as Anther’s stand-in. She stood where he could see her cards and acted on whatever he thought to the dungeon.

Meanwhile, Minute was putting its hundreds of hours of practice to use. It wasn’t much experience at all compared to a professional outsider surgeon, but it was a lot for someone who only started a month ago. And fortunately, the golem’s hands didn’t require the same amount of repetition to train their motions as a flesh creature’s did. There was also no risk of making a mistake with the procedure, since the instructions were being fed into its mind in real time.

A small section of skin and muscle was stripped from the skull with some very sharp implements and then pinned aside. The red-tinted ether all around them met with the wound and ensured no blood spilled to obscure the area. The spin on each particle was being directly controlled by the dungeon so that the surgery site got exactly as much or as little healing as it needed. This was the burdensome but best method that Archimedes had decided on.

Minute took out a small, cylindrical, saw-like tool and held it up against the bare patch of Anther’s skull. It spun its wrist around three hundred and sixty degrees several times very quickly, and the razor sharp edge made a neat hole. The small bone cutting came away with the saw bit, set aside for later.

While working inside of the brain, Minute had a series of long, thin tools with varying degrees of curvature. It wouldn’t be able to see the rest of the procedure with its own eyes, but the dungeon shared scans with it that were just as good as—if not better than—its own vision. Miniscule tongs snaked their way between fibers. A microscopic blade helped to cut open a path only when absolutely necessary. Thin membranes connecting vein and gray matter were severed, and those tiny fleshy tubes were gently corralled from one place to another.

It took erudite magic to move a body’s mana channels without moving the veins they followed. To separate the two without creating new problems was even more difficult–especially in the case of elves, where their physical anatomy had become dependent on magic in unique ways. Therefore, it was best to just go with the simplest solution and move the blood supply in order to move the magic supply. All the calculations had already been done to ensure there would be no issues, and they continued to be redone in real-time using live data. The dungeon’s meticulous planning and the Superior Clockwork Golem’s immaculate fine motor skills created a harmony of skill that broked no potential for errors.

***

The most anxious person in the room wasn’t Anther, or Anther’s parents. It was Archimedes.

He had thought through every option available to him, planned every step, and taken every possible measure to assure the treatment’s success. Yet he couldn’t seem to rest awash in confidence, since the penalty for failure hung like a sword of Damocles over his core.

The dungeon finally felt like he had a friend in an outsider. If, in the process of saving Anther’s life, Archimedes failed to account for something and warped his personality into someone unrecognizable, it would be a massive setback to the dungeon’s emotional growth.

It would be no different from killing his friend with his own hands.

Archimedes had realized a while ago that meeting this kind-natured boy was one of the events that had changed the course of his second life. Back when Archimedes was but a single-floor dungeon and this friendly simpleton was the first to step inside, his mental structure had left a clear imprint on the dungeon’s, still raw and exposed from adjusting to a new storage format after rebirth. When his fine mana control was seized away from him by the elf’s nature, his psychic defenses had been penetrated before he even realized it.

Archimedes believed he would never be a truly good person. No matter how many imprints he allowed from saintly people, it wouldn’t erase the dirty marks of the millions of humans who came before them. Nor would he ever be completely uninfluenced by his most primitive nature as a coldly calculating construct.

But still, Anther’s positive, childish influence had likely contributed subconsciously to the creation of monsters like Alphio, Thesia, and Helios: boundlessly kind monsters who were beginning to form the emotional bedrock of Archimedes’ current incarnation.

At least, it made more sense to the dungeon if those lovable monsters were inspired more by an equally lovable elf than by his own bitter soul.

Not quite so bitter now, of course. Thanks to Vow. Thanks to Anther. Thanks to all the others who came and would come after–especially Thesia and Ulbert, who had a knack for saying what the dungeon needed to hear.

Now that he had a taste of happiness, he was bitterly terrified of losing it.

Archimedes couldn’t simply banish his anxiety away, not until all of this had resolved successfully. So instead, he harnessed it to push himself to do better. After hours of repetitive and complex calculations, cold focus permeated his mind. Every scan, a chance to confirm that the boy was still alright. Every computation, a way to ensure the best outcome. There was no need for Archimedes to work himself so hard for this, but he wanted to. To the point where constructing his fourth floor after this might feel like a break in comparison.

But it would all be worth it in the end.