As soon as I accepted the hidden quest, the orc shaman’s eyes began to glow with an eerie red glow, and he started to swell, becoming larger and more menacing.

“What’s happening right now?” I asked nervously.

“He’s going berserk! But I thought only the king could do that...” The female mage explained.

Ah, great. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.” I mutter.

A gust of wind slams down from the ceiling all around me, pushing my teammates away, and the other orcs step back. I raise an arm reflexively, to try to avoid getting dust blown in my eye, but when I lower it, I see that a wall of dungeon glass is growing all around me and the orc shaman, trapping me in the center of the throne room, my teammates on the other side, helpless to do more than watch. The dungeon was making sure the rules were enforced, I realized.

I look up and it’s as if the ceiling has disappeared, a blood moon hangs overhead and from above a dark shape flies down. It’s a gigantic raven, much larger than Blackwing, the bird radiates something that feels like demonic energy, its blood-red eyes glowing the same fearsome color as the shaman, it lands on the orc’s staff and instantly I can feel a connection. The bird is feeding a torrent of power into the staff, making it available to the shaman.

“You think you and your kind invented what you call wizardry? Mana and Intent was once the domain of gods! Their staves were the primordial dungeons they used to shape the world! The dungeon cores of this era are but faint echoes of that glorious past… just like your pitiful familiars are but faint echoes of what they once were, what they should be! You have no idea what power they can unlock, if you are willing to pay the price!” The shaman ranted.

I could feel it, the dungeon core was possessing the shaman so that it could directly speak to me. There was a deep connection between the orc and all our surroundings, as if it were tied directly into the fabric of the dungeon itself. “Your familiar has asked a favor of me. I will grant it, but only if you succeed in defeating my avatar!”

Huh? What the hell was the dungeon core talking about?

Distracted, I almost didn’t react in time when the shaman suddenly lunged at me, swinging his staff so quickly the raven sitting on it was nearly thrown to the side. The staff cackled with magic, reinforced with arcane power, I knew a blow could be fatal. I raised my own staff, infusing it with intent of sturdiness and durability, desperately hoping it wouldn’t break.

“Twack!” Our two staff met, and I could feel the dragonbone of my staff flexing and almost snapping from the sheer force, but the sturdy material resisted, barely, with the added help of my own magic. My staff might have survived the blow, but I was launched flying backwards into the glass wall separating me from the adventurers and guards who were watching with concern.

I groaned as I slid down the wall. I wasn’t sure how strong the orc’s magic was, but clearly it was much stronger physically than me. Faster too. I was reminded of how I’d won that first wizard duel against the old court mage, I’d exploited the fact that the poor man was old and had little practical training with a staff. To me, a staff had always been a weapon, and I’d enjoyed learning to use it that way, so I had a staff fighter’s reflexes.

I twisted a gust of wind and chilled it as I threw it against the shaman. The blizard gale force winds bought me a few seconds as the orc flinched back, raising a palm to save his face from frostbite. With the stolen heat from the icy blast, I followed up with a quick firebolt.

The shaman grunted as the palm took the brunt of the flames, angry red burns spreading across his hand.

All this, just to buy me time to get back to my feet. Leaning on my staff I pushed myself upright and readied more mana. I needed to keep my distance, this shaman was deadly up close.

Pressing my will upon the mana I’d gathered, I began to pull chunks of stone from the elemental plane of earth. The shaman sneered, as he watched me ready my spell, boulders gathering around me, floating as they waited for my command. “You challenge me with stone? The stone of the whole dungeon is mine to play with!”

Sensing what was coming next, I threw myself to the side as spikes rose from the dungeon’s floor, jagged outcrops of rock aiming to crush me against the dungeon glass behind me. Somehow I managed to maintain my concentration, and was able to launch a quick counterattack, raining down a barrage of large boulders all around the Shaman.

“Your aim could use work.” The shaman taunted me. Only one of the boulders had actually hit the shaman directly, and he batted it aside with a swipe of his staff, shattering it with the force of his blow.

But I wasn’t aiming at him, that one boulder was a distraction, the rest of the enormous rocks were exactly where I wanted them; surrounding the shaman. I’d woven mana and intent into those large boulders, and when the timer ran out on that secondary spell, it triggered. Suddenly all the boulders around the shaman gained a strong magnetic attraction to each other, slamming together with stupendous force. A classic Earth Crush spell, flawlessly executed, I thought to myself with a small grin of satisfaction. The dungeon’s avaltar may be strong, but did it really know all the little nasty tricks a wizard could bring to the table? It mostly had experience fighting mages, and combo spells like this one were wizard only.

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The shaman grunted in pain as boulders slammed him from every direction, crushing him under tons of force as they squeezed mercilessly. “Enough!” He roared, a wave of heat pouring out of him in all directions, turning the stones to molten slag. The temporary enchantment I’d woven into the rocks was consumed and rendered inert by the shaman’s greater intent disrupting the effect. But I was already preparing my next attack.

A flood of water roared out, bathing the shaman, the heated rocks reacted, and the water flashed into steam, blinding him. A torrent of flame burst through the steam to where I’d last been standing, but the orc was firing blind. He might be the avaltar of the dungeon, but right now the dungeon could only see through the orc’s eyes. By focusing it’s attention into one minion, the dungeon was giving up it’s normal near omniscience within the confines of the dungeon.

I was running around the dazed wounded orc, I’d seen how his arm hung loosely, the earth crush spell had broken some bones. The orc had switched to holding his staff left handed, gripping it with the hand I’d already burnt. I’d already spent more than half my reserves, didn’t have enough mana left for a big spell. But there was really only one thing I needed to do to win; steal the orc’s staff.

I threw out a pulse of lightning aimed at the hand the orc was using to hold the staff. I knew the orc was too sturdy to take much damage from the quick lightning bolt spell, but success! I’d briefly paralyzed him.

The orc screamed in fury as the jolts of electricity traveling up his arm forced his hand to relax, in the moment the staff left his grip, I yoinked it, with that same invisible telekenitic hand I’d been maintaining this whole time, throwing it behind me. As long as the orc had been holding the staff, minor spells would simply be absorbed if I cast them at his staff, but outside of his grip? The staff had no ability of to disrupt my spells.

Staffless, the orc whirled to face me, his face twisted in rage. “You think you’ve won?” He growled, then laughed. “A staff is a powerful tool, wizard, but it is also a crutch. How will you fight when neither of us have one?”

Startled, I felt something grab my staff, looking down, I saw to my horror that the very floor of the dungeon had turned to liquid and my staff was rapidly sinking. “That’s cheating!” I complained, using all my strength and the strength of my telekinetic hand to try to pull the staff out, but to no avail.

“Hah,” the orc laughed, “That’s exactly what the old court wizard said. I can see the city above, you know, endless entertainment. Entertain me some more.” With a feral grin, the orc charged at me.

I was immediately caught in a dilemma. Do I let go of my staff to dodge the shaman’s charge, or do I hold on and let myself get clobbered by the enormous orcish fist heading towards my face with blinding speed.

I chose to let go, and jumped backwards, keeping my staff between us. But I maintained a thread of mana, connecting me to the staff. “You sure that I need to hold a staff to use it?” I asked the shaman, backing away to try to get as much distance as I could.

Heedless, the orc stepped around my staff and tried to charge me again. But as the orc was closest to the staff, I detonated it.

I hated having to do it. Destroy my own staff? I felt like weeping. So much effort to enchant it, such a nice looking staff. Wizards across the world would flinch in pain to hear me tell this tale.

But there was a lot of mana and intent bound into that staff, and by reclaiming the shard of my soul that I’d placed into my staff, that enchantment suddenly and rather explosively destabilized.

The explosion threw me back, my ears ringing, I bounced off another dungeon glass wall. Groaning in pain, I struggled to get up, get my bearings, but I couldn’t. My vision was swimming, a concussion then? I flopped to the floor and passed out.

Sometime later I woke up, to see the concerned face of the shy healer. “Are you feeling better, sir wizard?” She asked me.

“Yeah,” I said with a groan. “What happened?”

“I healed you… oh you mean the fight? You won, the shaman was blown to bits, but maybe you blew him up a bit too hard, because that explosion in the confined space nearly killed you.”

“Ah,” I said, “And what happened next?” I asked.

“The rest of the orcs started glowing and disappeared, after they all knelt down and bowed towards you. They turned into streams of light that went into the crown… that thing is still glowing faintly, want to see it?” The female mage asked me.

“Yes please,” Examining the crown I could feel the magic woven into it. It was a potent spell, the surviving orcs were stored inside the crown, bound to obedience. I let my own mana delve into the crown, to confirm my guess, performing an identify spell. I was right. The crown was a one time use item. When used, the orcs would be released, ready to serve the one who held the crown. My own miniature orc army ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Only a dungeon core could achieve this type of dimensional storage, so it was an extremely valuable artifact.

“So, um, can I keep this?” I asked the tank, who seemed to be the team’s leader.

“Of course! We’ll get the next one.” He said with a laugh.

“What?”

“Did you think this was a one time thing? Nah you’ve shown us how to do it, I’m not sure how anyone could beat that shaman on their own, but we’ll figure something out, maybe get a diamond rank to come with us next time. That encounter was extra tough for you because of the favor thing, so it should be doable under normal circumstances…”

“The favor?”

“Didn’t you listen? That battle was made harder because your familiar gambled with the dungeon core. Tougher battle for you, a favor if you won.”

“Dungeon core let me come find you, that was favor,” Blackwing explained.

I turned my head and was surprised to see Blackwing perched on a nearby boulder.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You need to go back up,” Blackwing told me, “King’s nephew not missing, king badly hurt. All this was a trick. The humans up above need you.”