Mornings always started with griffins. Like every other bird, they rose at first light, letting out a loud screech, then left their nests to soar in the skies of Rosewind in search of food. Some of them—mostly the younger ones—had acquired the annoying quality of begging the townspeople for treats. Many enjoyed that, petting the majestic creatures, feeding them, even giving them names. That was not the case for Baron Theodor d’Argent, however.

The whole of Rosewind knew the baron as a charming, though eccentric character, with vast magical powers and who had bought a third of the city. He was quite liked both by the Earl of Rosewind and the populace. After all, he was the one who had saved the city from the goblin airship invasion not too long ago, not to mention he had rebuilt the ruins and even given many people their homes for free. Last, but not least, he had captured the notorious Hook Claw gang and returned everything they had stolen to the kingdom. What most didn’t know, what they couldn’t know, was that Theo was actually a dungeon.

Two massive telescopes moved in unison, looking at the sky from the two observatory towers on the east wall. A significant amount of time and effort had gone into creating them. Each lens had been meticulously crafted by the town’s alchemist with rare sand purchased from abroad. Once completed, they had the ability to see further than any spyglass could see, or—with a bit of magic—far beyond what a normal person would consider possible. Lately, the only thing the dungeon used them for was to look at the stars. It had a calming effect and was far better than counting sheep to fall asleep.

As Theo was looking at the horizon, a splat obscured half the view.

“Damn it!” Theo shouted. “Spok, isn’t there a way to house train the creatures?” He had endured a lot of things, but griffin droppings on the lens of his telescopes crossed the line.

“I’m sure it’s an accident, sir,” Spok d’Esprit, the spirit guide and steward of the dungeon, said. Most people knew her as the power behind the power, or the person who did all the work for the baron. In reality, she was a discorporate sprite whose original purpose was to advise Theo in his existence as a dungeon. That was before Theo had granted Spok her own physical avatar.

“Hah!”

“Griffins are free spirited by nature, sir. I’m sure they have no ill intent.”

The dungeon wasn’t sure he agreed. For some reason, they preferred to do that specifically on the observatories. Most likely trying to blackmail him into giving them food. One thing was for certain—they didn’t do it anywhere else in town.

“I’ll tell Cmyk to have a word with them.”

“Do that! And tell that lazy minion he’s due to get more hay. There’s a merchant with a cargo of iron ingots who’s willing to part with them.”

“Oh. Didn’t you buy a whole shipment of ore last week, sir?” the spirit guide asked.

Lately, the dungeon had been buying way more materials than were necessary. At first Spok had approved the initiative—Theo had finally started acting like a proper dungeon and not the human he had been in his previous life. However, lately things were starting to get out of control.

“Your point?”

“Well, why do you need so many materials, sir? All of your corridors have been reinforced and—”

“I’m thinking of creating another ring,” Theo interrupted. “I’ve done the calculations, and for that I need a whole lot of iron. Stone’s easy. I found some stone while digging lower, so all I need is ore.”

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That had Spok even more concerned. As a spirit guide, she knew most things that had happened to dungeons in the past. Normally, it was a dungeon’s initial desire to expand and assimilate lots of ores in the process. Usually, this was accompanied by creating a host of traps and minions to procure said minerals or protect the dungeon from adventurers and heroes. Theo, though, had been a very atypical dungeon. All he had wanted to do was lead a calm and quiet existence, complaining about the fact that he never got it.

“Is there any reason for wanting to grow, sir?” she asked.

“I just feel like it.”

“But you don’t feel a sudden desire to take over the world?”

“Why would I want to do that?” All the doors in the main building creaked in surprise. “All I want is a bit of resources, a bit of core points, and for the griffins to start behaving as they should!”

“If that’s what you want, sir, I’ll tell Cmyk to get more hay and spin it into gold. How much iron will you be buying this time?”

“As much as the merchant has. You deal with the details. I’ll go check on the mana gem.”

When a dungeon said that it’ll go somewhere, that was almost exclusively a figure of speech indicating they would focus their efforts on their rooms or tunnels. In Theo’s case, though, he literally used his avatar to go from the bedroom in the main building, along the corridors beneath the town, to the main aether generation chamber where a crimson mana gem was charged up.

Mana gems, as he had learned, when fully charged and consumed by a dungeon core, had the ability to increase the rank of the dungeon and, with that, increase the number of abilities, chamber blueprints, and knowledge available to it. It was a slow process—mana gems were notoriously difficult to charge up to their functional state. Yet, that was something the dungeon felt he had to do, almost as if he had a craving.

Walking past the traps, through the locked doors, and across the slime pools that filled the middle ring of chambers, the avatar arrived at the location of the coveted gem. Red light pulsed throughout the pyramidal jewel, almost like a beating heart.

“Looks like it’s filled up,” Theo said, rather surprised by the fact. “I thought it would be a few weeks more, at least.”

“Sometimes one gets lucky, sir,” Spok said. She didn’t have any rational explanation either.

Carefully, the avatar used telekinesis to get the ruby red crystal out of the generator. The gem felt warm to the touch. It was almost a pity that he’d have to consume it. Not that it was going to stop him.

Using a flight spell, Theo’s avatar zipped back through the corridors to the core chamber. There, he put the gem into the large glowing orb that represented his very essence. Golden light merged with the red for several seconds, as the gem melted like ice-cream in the sun, disappearing from view.

A second passed, then five, and still Theo didn’t feel any change whatsoever.

“Spok,” he said. “You saw me consume the gem, right?”

“That you did, sir,” the spirit guide agreed.

“In that case, why didn’t I increase my dungeon rank?”

“I have no idea. Normally, the mana gem should be enough for that. There doesn’t seem to be an increase in energy or core points either. It’s almost as if the gem never existed.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Where did you find that gem exactly, sir?”

“Well, I must have taken it from Lord Mandrake,” Theo replied evasively. “Probably back in his stronghold, where you couldn’t scry on me.”

The truth was that he had stolen it from the thieves’ stronghold. Earl Rosewind had sent him to put an end to the Hook Claw gang, and that’s what Theo had done. The gem was just a small trinket he had taken for… sentimental reasons. No one had said anything about it missing, when Theo had brought the treasure to the earl, so there was no reason not to keep it.

“Maybe it was defective, sir? It’s rare, but it happens occasionally.”

The dungeon was just about to make a sarcastic remark, when a sudden sense of hunger possessed it, making it tremble and the entire town with it.

YOU FEEL DEVASTATING HUNGER!

A message appeared in the air.

“Are you alright, sir?” Spok asked.

“That depends. Do you see this?”

“See what precisely, sir?”

That wasn’t good. Not good at all.