The room was so silent that she could hear Valum Lothera, the master of the local branch of the Exterminator’s Hall, swallow.

“The assessment team I sent out reported it to be a small Dungeon, one that should easily be curated by a few teams,” he said, looking at her boldly.

“What happened?” she repeated, some iron entering her voice.

“After the attack a few days ago, I sent out several teams to bring the Dungeon under control…” he said, trailing off at the end.

When she continued to stare at the brown-haired man, he grew uncomfortable enough to continue.

“But we haven’t heard anything from them since…” he said, trailing off again as Celys’ scowl joined her own.

“Are you telling me that you lost contact with your people and failed to tell me such an important thing?” Celys asked, barely able to keep the volume of her voice from skyrocketing.

“It’s not unusual for teams delving to lose contact while in a Dungeon,” he said, defending himself. “You should know that better than anyone,” he shot back, aiming low.

Asami just about incinerated the incompetent human right there, but held back out of respect for Celys’ home. Just as she was about to pipe in, Linette appeared at her side with a steaming cup of tea and a small plate full of Joram’s butter cookies, that he had renamed “honey cookies” for some reason. Sure, she could taste the honey, but they were still very buttery.

“What are you going to do about the Dungeon now?” Celys grated out, obviously holding back for the sake of Kirkwall. “Have you sent any emergency requests yet?”

“Of course,” Valum scoffed, looking offended. “As soon as the numbers of this latest attack were confirmed, I sent out emergency requests to every Hall in the region.”

“They’ll take at least three more days to arrive. That is, if they left as soon as they received the requests,” Celys said, grinding her teeth. “The way things are going; we’ll be besieged before then.”

“Well, it’s the best we can manage,” Valum said defensively.

“Then we’re done here. Go help organize your people to help where they can,” Celys said, dismissing Valum.

He seemed more than happy to leave, especially with Asami’s baleful eyes drilling into him. Once he was gone, Asami turned to Celys.

“He’s going to do something stupid, you know,” she said, shaking her head.

“Valum?” Celys asked, glancing to where he’d been sitting.

“Hmm, him too. But I was talking about Joram,” she said, then took another bite of a cookie. “For some weird reason, he thinks the Dungeon is his responsibility. I’m sure that he’ll leave as soon as he wakes up.”

Celys frowned at that, obviously troubled by the news.

“He’s already done enough,” she said quietly.

Asami could tell that Celys’ words brought to mind for everyone present scenes from the past day. Memories of the goblins attacking and being destroyed by Joram’s weird weapon. Of how he’d run from fight to fight trying to help people he didn’t know. Of how he’d single-handedly dug out a moat that ran the length of two thirds of Kirkwall’s walls.

She remembered in vivid detail Joram’s astonishment when everyone started cheering him before he fell unconscious. And also his fright. He’d been afraid that they’d been angry with him for some reason or another.

“But he doesn’t see it that way,” she said quietly. “He’ll go off and do what he thinks he needs to. But what will we do?” she asked, making eye contact with everyone present before the discussion truly started.

* * * * *

“Hello? Is this Mr…” the voice on the phone asked.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied, a bit nervous with how the person on the other end of the line sounded.

“I regret to inform you that there’s been an accident…” the person said, then proceeded to shatter his world.

He floated there, in his memories, trying to make sense of things. He’d gone shopping, splurging on a new toy for each of his daughters. Nothing extravagant, but something to go with their collection of miniature animals and fantastical beasts.

He looked at the shopping bag sitting on the table. He’d also bought some of their special chocolate ice cream.

It was probably melted by now.

He sat back, then looked around in confusion. This isn’t my living room, he thought, taking in the walls and tatami-like flooring. There were cushions spaced out across the room, as though someone expected company.

He looked around some more, then saw the most unusual fox he’d ever seen. She, for he got the distinct impression that it was a vixen, was dark purple in colour, nearly black. But what was crazier was that she had six tails spread out behind her, each one tipped in black fur, just like her ears.

Then, as she began to approach him, memories started to flit about the living room like butterflies made of tv screens. Each one showed him sights of weird things, from a medieval Japanese town to fox people. But as more of them flitted by, their images seemed to sink into him, bringing those memories back to him.

“What’s going on, Harumi?” he asked, unsure of both why he knew her name and why he expected an answer.

“Don’t go,” her voice sounded in his head, but also seemed to come from the very air itself.

“Go? Go where?” he asked as the scenes that the butterflies showed changed to ones of war and horror. The more he saw, the more he remembered, and the worse he felt.

“But I have to,” he said once he remembered his resolve to deal with the dungeon. “Who else can do it?” he asked, feeling so desperate for an answer that it shocked him.

“Don’t go,” her voice repeated as the living room began to fade away around him.

- - -

Joram opened his eyes slowly, aware of a weight on his chest. Thinking that it was Asami, he looked down to instead find out that it was Harumi curled up on his chest instead. Her breathing was deep and slow, letting him know that she was still asleep.

He turned his head slightly as he heard more breathing and realized that his left arm was pinned.

There he saw Myra laying on his bare arm, drooling slightly in her sleep. He was reminded of when he’d woken up in Melois’ clinic and had found her in a similar state. He smiled. She was a good kid-. No. No, she was a good woman and a good friend. A bit dishonest with herself, but then, who wasn’t?

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Then he saw Avi standing behind her, who then motioned for him to come over. So, as carefully as he could, he used the blanket on top of him to slowly and gently slide Harumi off his chest as he slid around Myra’s sleeping form.

Once out, he realized that he was once again naked, so he quickly created new clothing before stopping. Thinking about what was to come, he quickly deposited most of his stored crates along the far wall of the room, stacking them three tall and five wide, though he left the ones containing food inside his inventory for fear that nothing would be left by the time he got back.

He then followed Avi out of the room as quietly as he could. Once in the hallway, he could hear voices in the living room, so he turned the other way and followed Avi out back.

‘What is it?’ he asked once they were outside, but chose to use their connection to speak so as not to disturb anyone.

‘Lots,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I know that I won’t be able to convince you to just flee instead of diving headlong into the metaphorical blender. So, instead, I’ll just tell you that I’ll help in any way that I can,’ she finished, looking more resolute, stubborn, and concerned than he could ever remember seeing.

‘How?’ he asked simply, knowing that she was more than likely to explain given that she’d started the conversation.

- - -

Feeling more confident than before, he set off as the eastern horizon was just starting to prepare for predawn. He also did his best to avoid being seen. Even though Avi had assured him that the yelling of the people on the wall had instead been cheering, he still felt uneasy.

He got the distinct impression that he’d be stopped if he was found. Now, he wasn’t sure if it would be to congratulate him on how well he’d slaughtered the goblins, or to try stopping him from leaving. So, [Improved Stealth] it was.

When he reached the south gate, he found that they’d stacked up wagons to create a barricade. There were also more guards patrolling than usual, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise, really. Sticking to his plan of staying out of sight, he angled westward and found a quieter section of wall that he promptly scaled before slipping over the other side.

The landing was a bit tricky, as he’d left less than three metres of ground between the wall and the moat, but he managed to avoid rolling into the new moat. From there, he quickly created a long, and thick, plank of wood that spanned the moat. Once across, he dismissed it and took off.

Once he was inside the treeline, he angled south and jogged until he found where the goblins had come out of the woods. He looked back at Kirkwall and saw his construction model still standing there, loaded up with the goblins’ weapons.

Instead of bringing them with him, he dismissed the construct, causing the weapons to fall to the ground and the guards to stir. Not bothering with them, he then dismissed all the rest of his constructs, leaving only the invisible dragons.

He went a bit further into the woods, then began the process of creating new battle models.

These ones were… different. For them, he went full tentacle monster for their forms. Sure, they could only attack a certain number of times every few seconds, but giving them all [Constrict], [Extreme Damage Reduction], [Extreme Deflection], and two [Muscle], they’d be absolute terrors to anything they got their tentacles on.

Once he had eight of them made and designated as [Astral Ally]s, he continued on his way. It wasn’t terribly hard to follow the tracks of hundreds of goblins, especially when they went out of their way to hack at anything nearby.

It took him nearly two hours to finally get close it the dungeon, the source of his problems since he’d arrived on this world. Yet, it wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting.

When one thinks of dungeons, they imagine delving deep into the ground, exploring tunnels both natural and unnatural. Avoiding traps, finding treasure, fighting monsters.

Well, at lest there were plenty of monsters about.

What he saw ahead of him in the forest looked to be an ancient ruin. He wasn’t sure if it had been a castle, palace, or even a series of large buildings in a compound, but what was left told him that it would have been quite the sight in its heyday.

Pillars, columns, and broken stone walls were the primary theme. Though, he could see where the goblins had started using whatever they could find to make crude shelters attached to the stone ruins. There were also plenty of campfires, even with dawn already past.

There were also many trees throughout the ruins, most not quite as large as those outside of it. However, that also gave him an idea about how to approach things. Gauging the distance between trees, though, it might not be possible to manage before the next wave of goblins spewed forth.

Looking at how many there already were, he thought it better to not try to make connecting bridges between the trees and just get to it. If he wanted to mess around and make a tree city to make the elves proud, he could do it once he finished here….

He shook his head, then buffed himself, remembering to add [Energy Adaptation] to reduce how much he got cooked. He absently rubbed at the peach fuzz on his head as he formed his shoulder canon, then his [Mind Daggers], ready to start throwing.

The first goblin went down with a dagger through the head, soon followed by several more who mysteriously exploded into gory messes. Then came his tentacle monsters.

His attack hadn’t ever stood a chance, after that first week, of being anything but an all-out assault. His tentacle monsters were performing spectacularly, grabbing goblin after goblin as they approached in formation around him.

With [Marksman], he no longer had to worry about reduced accuracy when throwing, or shooting, his targets. Yes, he still had to take into account the maximum range of each weapon, but even his daggers could go 90 metres before they vanished. And with Avi in control of his shoulder canon, things were about as good as they could get for him. And considering that he was solo delving the dungeon, he was more than happy to take any advantage he could.

Although Avi was in control of the shoulder canon, she still couldn’t activate most of his other class abilities. So, when there was an appropriate target, he paused in throwing his daggers to active the appropriate ability.

That said, the goblins were fighting back with remarkable tenacity and ferocity.

He wasn’t sure how dungeons worked, but he was certainly glad that most of the goblins he’d come across so far had been the normal kind of goblin. The evolved versions had been rare, yet primary targets for Avi.

Joram quickly ducked behind a low stone wall in time to have stone shower him as a lightning bolt shattered the top of the wall, just missing his head.

‘Geeves,’ he said, addressing his psicrystal.

‘Master?’

‘Go around and flank that [Shaman],’ he instructed, then released his psicrystal so it could scuttle away. Given how sneaky psicrystals could be, he was hoping that Geeves could sneak up on the [Shaman]. In the meantime, he directed his tentacle constructs to spread out and kill any goblin they came across. As for his dragons, he had them on overwatch, taking out any goblins that tried to sneak up on him.

After a few moments of silence, he quickly peeked out from his wall to see what was up, and nearly took an arrow through the eye. The only thing that saved him was the flare of his [Force Screen] where the arrow impacted it, forcing it to skid off to the side.

Ducking back, he used [Clear Mind] to help calm down his heart. That had been much too close for comfort. Also, that had been a crazy accurate shot. Now worried that a new type of goblin had appeared, he addressed, then quickly used [Ectoplasmic Creation, Major] to make himself a very large, and very thick translucent shield. It looked like a riot shield, but almost twice as large.

He quickly slid it into position, then peeked around the corner again, prepared to use [Through the Eye of the Needle]. Sure enough, another arrow came, but deflected off his new shield, leaving a concerningly large spiderwebbed gash behind. Fortunately, he spotted the sniper and let him have it.

The shot took it in the ribs under its armpit, knocking it over in a spray of blood. That’s when the [Shaman] sent its next lightning bolt that took him square in the shield.

Head ringing, Joram looked around in a daze, then activated [Clear Mind] and used [Natural Healing]A. He spat out some blood as he rolled over, groaning. His smoking shield, or what was left of it, lay nearby. Seeing that he was out in the open, he quickly rolled back to his little wall, avoiding a few arrows sent his way.

‘Too close,’ Avi said, sounding nervous.

He couldn’t blame her. He, too, was shaken by how he’d almost been killed, even with his elemental resistance provided by [Energy Adaptation]. But seeing as how he was already there; it would be rude to leave before he finished what he’d come for. Or to not send a return gift.

He instructed D1 (dragon number 1) to take out the [Shaman]. A moment later, there was a loud *thud*, followed by some crunching sounds. Taking that as a good sign, he peeked out again and saw a [Shaman] getting minced mid-air… which wasn’t something he’d needed to see.

Reforming his daggers, Joram got back to dashing from cover to cover as Avi shot at things. He wasn’t sure where he needed to go, though, so he just tried to head directly towards what he arbitrarily called Centreville. Because if the core of the dungeon was anywhere, it was likely going to be there. Did dungeons have cores here? If they didn’t, then how was he supposed to destroy the thing?

Speaking of cores, it would be a pain to collect them all afterwards. So, on a whim, he directed D2 to try to loot the goblin it had just torn apart. Amazingly, it began to disintegrate into particles of light at the same time that he got another notification. Smiling, he manifested [Astral Construct]A again, this time making twenty 1st Level constructs that he shaped like felines and loaded them up with [Celerity], making them ridiculously fast.

Which was the point. He sent them out with orders to go back and loot every body he’d left behind while also instructing his [Astral Ally]s to loot anything they killed. With his draconic urges sated, he continued his attack.

Even if he wasn’t able to destroy the dungeon, at least he wouldn’t be leaving empty handed.