Tom is a dungeon core. It is a pretty simple life as far as Tom is concerned. He makes tunnels. He fills the tunnels with monsters and valuables. Adventurers come in and kill the monsters and collect the loot. Sometimes the adventurers mess up and die. Well, they don’t really die. They get resurrected at the dungeon entrance, a little less powerful, and a lot less clothed. Tom gets a piece of their power, and their memories when they “die”. This is how Tom grows, and this is how Tom got his name.

See, when Tom was just a little baby dungeon he only had two adventurers that went through his tunnels. One adventurer was named Tom, and the other adventurer was named Kurt. Tom the dungeon managed to one day kill Kurt the adventurer. When he absorbed a part of Kurt’s memories he made a rather simple translation mistake. He thought that all sentient beings that were not Kurt were named Tom. It took Tom the dungeon a few more memory absorptions (deaths), including the death of Tom the adventurer to figure out that mistake. By then he had already gotten accustomed to calling himself Tom.

But that was all a few centuries back. Tom (the adventurer) and Kurt started bringing friends, and then those two stopped coming altogether. Those two died in his dungeon so many times that he really was able to get a sense of their lives. Now he hardly killed any adventurers more than a few times. Imagine trying to figure out what a 1000 piece puzzle looks like when you only have a handful of pieces.

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Humans might think this makes Tom lonely. But what the hell do humans know about being a dungeon core? Tom is perfectly happy. If he wants to talk to someone he can always have a long conversation with Gloop his first floor slime boss. Tom can talk to Gloop for days straight, and Gloop will always respond with a periodic “gluwp” to acknowledge what Tom is saying. Gloop even starts many of the conversations, Tom will just be cruising through the dungeon when he notices that Gloop has said “gluwp”, Tom will of course stop to chat for a few hours or days.

Tom is a male dungeon core. But that is somewhat redundant. All dungeon cores are male. There are females for the dungeon core species, but they look nothing like the male dungeon cores. In fact, the female dungeon cores look remarkably similar to old human wizards and witches. Tom is about to have his first meeting with a female of his species, his first date, and his first act of sexual reproduction all in one day.

Again, Humans might come in with their preconceived notions and think “hey isn’t Tom moving a little fast, shouldn’t he take it a little slower with the female?” But humans don’t understand dungeons, if they did maybe they would have a little sympathy for Tom. Because if Tom is successful at his sexual reproduction, it will kill Tom.