Hilda and Alma sat slumped over staring at a blackboard full of diagrams and arcane equations. The teapot between them had long grown cold and the tea leaves had begun to resemble a brown sludge rather than anything natural.

“Possibly the most anomalous thaumaturgical event in the past one hundred years and it happens in the middle of the warehouse district,” began Alma.

“It’s an actual chance to study luck magic in a semi-controlled environment,” admitted Hilda.

“Should we tell someone about this?” asked Alma.

Hilda let out an exhausted sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Two scenarios are currently presenting themselves,” Hilda began.

“On one hand, we have what is essentially a non-aggressive dungeon,” Hilda said pointing to the relevant section of the blackboard, “most other dungeons grow by following a cycle of luring in delvers, be they animals, monsters, or people, and kill them to absorb their mana. However, If we are to assume Riddax’s theorem is correct and that dungeons can absorb latent mana flowing off of a person in high stress life-or-death scenarios and extrapolate, we can assume that this dungeon is gaining mana in a similar way when someone is experiencing a rush of emotions from gambling.”

“Furthermore, this young dungeon has somehow developed an ability of a much more advanced dungeon to distort space and seems to be doing so instead of expanding beyond the boundaries of its initial location. To compensate for the lack of resources it would normally get from expanding out, it formed a symbiotic relationship with the local populace,” Hilda finished.

“And the other scenario?” Alma asked.

“The dungeon is using some form of subtle hypnosis or enchantment to encourage people to bring in materials and other people to gamble,” Hilda said remembering her embarrassingly long foray into the dungeon.

“So shouldn’t we err on the side of caution and contact the Academy?” Alma asked.

“It’s not so simple, I met a man who went by Roach who said that he had recently been able to afford a place to rent due to the dungeon paying very well for what is essentially trash. If we get a guild or the Academy involved then the first thing that they’ll do is take this valuable resource away from the impoverished community,” Hilda explained.

“Oh,” Alma replied.

“Quite the conundrum,” agreed Hilda.

“I suppose the best thing we can do is to start checking people for mind control?” suggested Alma.

“That would be a reasonable suggestion,” said Hilda, “but first we should get some sleep.”

“Agreed,” said Alma as she peeled herself off the chair and stumbled to her room.

***

“A wizard?” asked Duke.

“Oh for sure,” replied Roach, “levitated a whole armoire and everything.”

“Did you get her name?” asked Duke.

“Hilda I believe it was,” said Roach.

Before Duke could ask any more questions Zee came running from around the corner.

“Did you say Hilda?!” Zee exclaimed.

“Why yes I did,” answered Roach.

“I don’t believe it,” Zee whispered, “She was just over in the warehouse district.”

“I take it she’s a big deal,” asked Jasper.

“Big deal? She’s only the wizard who lead the effort in repelling the dragon attack eight years ago!” Zee exclaimed.

“Really? And she just came up to me and said how do you do?” Roach asked.

“I’d like to get her opinion on the new ‘wizard,’” Duke said referring to the dungeon.

“If the ‘new wizard’ gets a stamp of approval from this Hilda person will you calm down a little bit about the person that’s helping everyone?” Jasper groaned.

Duke tensed up and opened his mouth before taking a second and then sighing.

“Yeah alright,” Duke said, “even I’m starting to get tired of hearing myself go on and on about this situation.”

“So how do we talk with Hilda,” Jasper asked the room.

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“I’ve heard rumors that she lives in a remote part of the woods outside the city,” Zee offered.

“That’s pretty vague and quite frankly I’m too old to go questing again,” Duke said.

“Don’t bother,” Roach said, “she disappeared in a flash of light once we left.”

“Recall spell, that would make sense,” Zee nodded.

“Great how are we going to track someone down who can teleport?” Jasper groaned.

“Seemed like she was interested in the lucky cats,” Roach said, “maybe she’ll be back to take a look at it.”

“So we’re just going to wait around until she shows up?” Duke asked.

“I’ll volunteer if you two don’t want to,” Zee offered.

“As funny as it would be seeing you stand around with a goofy grin on your face, I think it would probably be easier to get everyone else who frequents the lucky cats to pass on a message if they run into her,” Jasper said.

“So Spreen then?” asked Duke.

“Spreen,” agreed Jasper as Zee sulked.

***

“Wait, so this place just has coins in glass cases just laying out in the open?” asked an orcish man with a wand thick enough to double as a club.

“That’s what I’m saying,” exclaimed a goblin with daggers strapped to his person, “the wizard running this place doesn’t have a lick of sense,”

“Well we should pay this place a visit,” grinned the orcish man.

***

So far things had been going great.

The coin pushers had been a resounding success, my mana had slowly been ticking back to the cap, and even that wizard named Hilda didn’t seem to see me as a threat.

I hated it.

Things never went right for me. When things were going well, something would always happen and fuck it all up. Needless to say, I had been somewhat anxious for the past few days.

One of my patrolling cats got my attention and informed me of two more people were on their way.

“Ugh, I need to shake this off,” I thought before opening the door.

“Doesn’t look like they have anything, must be here to gamble,” said Midnight.

“It’s a bit early for gambling, isn’t it?” asked Carmen, “Nobody else is even here yet.”

“No, they’re gambling. Look, the two of them are heading over to a coin pusher- HEY!” I exclaimed as the orcish man raised up his stick and broke the glass on one of the machines.

The goblin jumped up and started scooping money into a bag as the orc moved over to the next case.

“We’re being robbed!” exclaimed Carmen as her eyes glowed blue and she jumped toward the goblin.

“Finally something interesting,” said Midnight with a snarl as he grabbed a few of the buzz saws with his telekinesis.

“Don’t kill them!” I exclaimed.

Here it is. The worst case scenario. Somebody came and picked a fight with me. Even with all of the abilities afforded to me as a dungeon, I was powerless to do anything about what was happening right in front of me.

“Huh what the hell is up with this ca-” began the goblin before taking the full force of Carmen’s telekinetic shove and hitting the wall with a sickening crack.

“Oh shit the cat is magic,” cried the orc as he rased his wand at Carmen.

Red light began to glow from the tip of the wand as Midnight’s eyes glowed yellow.

A familiar whirring sound shot across the warehouse.

The orc screamed as his arm and wand fell to the floor.

The red light began to flicker and grow brighter.

“CARMEN!” I shouted as the spell became unstable and released all of the energy it had stored up.

Coins shot everywhere as a deafining explosion ripped through the warehouse and smoke filled the room.

“Midnight where’s Carmen?!” I shouted as I swung open the doors as fast as I could to clear out the smoke.

“No need to shout Mr. House, I’m right here,” said Carmen from the opposite end of the room.

“Carmen are you ok?” I exclaimed as I pulled up her stat screen.

Miraculously, she was somehow unharmed.

“Fine as ever, Mr. House,” she purred as she sauntered back over to the two of them.

“Huh? wait never mind that,” I said as a dozen emotions went through me at once, “Midnight, you cut off that guy’s arm!”

“He was going to hurt my sister,” explained Midnight as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Yes, ok, great job, but we need to stop the bleeding before he dies,” I said trying to calm down.

Midnight said nothing as he slowly walked over to the orc and tore the sleeve off of his shirt and wrapped it around tight like a tourniquet.

“Oh brother of mine, I didn’t know you cared,” said Carmen in a sing-song tone.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have done anything considering you figured out how to teleport from the wizard who came by a few days ago,” said Midnight coldly as he picked up the unconscious orc with his telekinesis and began carrying him outside.

“Well I appreciate it all the same,” Carmen replied as she did the same with the goblin, “I couldn't fall behind when you learned how to see mana from her glasses. Besides, now you know how to teleport too.”

“Wait what?” I asked as I noticed some new notifications from the menu.

! Twinned Soul LVL UP: spells and spell EXP can now be shared between scions !

! Invaders repelled: Mana and EXP rewarded !

The notifications. The constant reminders that I was now something that was supposed to defend against constant attacks.

I was holding things together by a thread. I just needed a few minutes to gather myself and deal with the two unconscious people just outside my walls.

“Well what do we have here?” asked Carmen as three familiar figures rushed toward the entrance.

The thread snapped.