Dungeon Champions

Click!

As my party drew together, a small panel rotated out of one wall. It looked like the same sort of ramp that had given us access to the maintenance shafts. This one was quite inviting—well lit and without the shudder and loud grinding noise.

At the same time, two large sections of wall at the rear corner of the room, in an undamaged section that we hadn’t investigated, began to close off.

“Hey!” I shouted, surging forward. “The core is trying to close itself off!”

Without hesitation, I sprinted toward the closing walls. I could hear my party scramble to follow me. There was no way to know if the core was back this way, but there was also no reason for the room to shut itself off otherwise.

“Hurry!” Zuri called out, her voice tinged with urgency.

The gap between the walls was shrinking rapidly. I dove forward, sliding between the metal barriers with plenty of room to spare. Nym and Sadie darted through directly behind me. Both catgirl and feline seemed perfectly fine with the fast sprint—the former was only slightly winded, while the latter was weaving in and out of my legs and rubbing her head against every single inch of my pants she could reach.

Britney and Zuri made it through next, both having plenty of time left to avoid getting caught. The celestial seemed flustered, smoothing her hands along her pants. Zuri gave me a thin smile, and turned to instruct Nym on how to stand to get her breath back.

I turned to watch Merielle’s approach.

Despite Britney’s healing and the Wash, it was clear injuries remained. The elf was moving heavily, favoring a leg. She wasn’t going to make it in time.

“Merielle!”

After ensuring I wouldn’t trip over Sadie, I rushed out into the center of the arena. Merielle stretched out an arm, hoping I’d be able to just grab her and pull her along. But the walls were closing and that just wasn’t an option anymore.

I grabbed her arm, drawing her to me.

Then in a fluid motion I hoisted her up, one arm under her legs and the other behind her back.

I sprinted back towards the narrowing gap, Merielle cradled in my arms. The walls were mere feet apart now, closing fast.

“Jordan, you won’t make it!” Britney cried out.

But I wasn’t about to leave Merielle behind. With a final burst of speed, I dove forward, twisting my body to protect Merielle as we sailed through the shrinking opening.

Sorta wished I hadn’t used my Champion of Wind title already for the day.

We hit the ground hard on the other side, rolling across the floor as the walls slammed shut behind us with a resounding boom. For a moment, we lay there panting, my arms still wrapped protectively around the elf.

She felt so much smaller than she’d seemed during the fight. Against a horde of goblins and boss monsters, she’d become an indomitable streak of grace and power. Now, she felt delicate, her mass of injuries and blood loss taking their toll.

Looking up at me with wide green eyes, she threw her arms around my neck, hugging me tightly.

“That was entirely too close.”

I chuckled, disentangling myself from her. “Yeah, let’s not cut it that fine again. Did I jostle you? Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “Just a leg injury from that boss thing. I’ll be fine. Just…you know. Maybe no running until we have time to properly heal up?”

Britney was already at her side. “There’s a little more mana left. Let me take a look at that.”

While Britney tended to Merielle, I took stock of our surroundings. At the far end of the room was a new passageway. It looked to me like the walls from there moved to be behind us, even though the logistics of how that would work hurt my brain.

“This must be it,” I said, pointing down the hallway beyond. “The core has to be at the end of this.”

Zuri helped Merielle to her feet. “Let’s hope so. I don’t think I can take much more of this place.”

Nym was looking back at the closed off arena. “What if the stairs were the way we were supposed to go?”

I chuckled. “Couldn’t be. It was too easy. This is an artificial core. A real one doesn’t want to be destroyed and will do whatever it can to trick adventurers into leaving instead. But an artificial core? It’s going to be even more interested in self-preservation.”

“Not just that,” Skullie said from his perch behind my back. His voice lost its jovial nature, likely still lamenting his missing body. “An artificial core like this is likely to have even more defenses and traps. It was created by people who knew exactly how adventurers think and operate. We need to be extra cautious.”

I nodded grimly. “He’s right. Everyone stay alert. We don’t know what kind of nasty surprises are waiting for us.”

We moved cautiously down the passageway. I offered to take the lead, but Merielle refused. She did, however, accept my offer of walking side by side, and after a few dozen feet she ended up leaning on me for support.

The walls here were sleek stone, unlike the organic corridors we’d traversed earlier or the metal and glass of the maintenance area. Soft silver lights filtered through the floor, guiding our way forward.

After what felt like an eternity of tense silence, the passage opened up into a small, circular chamber.

And there—floating in the center of the room—was what had to be the core.

It reminded me of Corey, but also not. It was a pulsing crystal with many sides, and it was about the size of a smart car. There were complex patterns of light moving under the faceted exterior. None of them seemed to be an eye, and it didn’t try to communicate with us.

“That’s it,” I said. “The artificial core.”

Merielle looked up at it, her face tight with worry. “It’s...beautiful, in a way. But also deeply wrong.”

I knew what she meant. There was something fundamentally unnatural about the core. It radiated power, but it felt twisted, corrupted.

“What makes a dungeon core artificial?” I asked.

“Well,” Skullie said, shifting, “a natural dungeon core forms from concentrated mana and the essence of the land. It grows and evolves over time, developing its own personality and purpose. I assume this one was created through unnatural means—likely a combination of technology and magic, based on what we’ve seen.”

Or whatever that static stuff was, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud. There were beings and forces at play here I didn’t understand, and didn’t know if I wanted to understand. One thing I had learned was that saying some things out loud seemed to trigger my Tablet, and I wasn’t about to do that again.

I said, “You’re suggesting this thing was manufactured, given power but no true life of its own.”

“Exactly. Which makes it incredibly dangerous. It has immense power but no moral compass, no true understanding of life or death. It simply seeks to grow and expand, consuming everything in its path.”

Zuri shuddered. “No wonder it went out of control. The researchers were playing with forces they couldn’t hope to contain.”

“This is great and all,” Britney said with an exhausted sigh, “but how do we destroy it?”

I frowned, considering our options. “In a normal dungeon, you’d have to overcome its defenses and then deal enough damage to shatter the core. But this...”

“It won’t be that simple,” Merielle finished for me. “Look.”

She pointed to the base of the floating crystal. There, barely visible, was a complex array of runes and circuitry.

“Some kind of magic field,” Nym observed, her tail thrashing back and forth. “It’s channeling energy to maintain the core’s integrity.”

“Which means brute force alone probably won’t be enough to destroy it.”

Skullie made a sound like bones clinking together—a laugh. “All you’d need to do is overload the magic input.”

“How exactly do we do that?”

Skullie’s jaw clacked. “Like we did with the portal at the beginning. Minus the wolf-man mage. The runes at the base are channeling magical energy to maintain the core’s stability. If we can overwhelm that system with a surge of raw magical power, it should cause a cascade failure.”

I nodded slowly. “So we need to hit it with everything we’ve got, all at once.”

“But it will take a coordinated effort. Everyone channeling their magic simultaneously.”

I looked around at my companions. “What do you think? Can we pull this off?”

Britney nodded. “I may not be the strongest spellcaster, but I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”

“Same here,” Nym said.

Beside her, Sadie yowled and positioned herself next to Nym, like she was going to help out.

Zuri and Merielle exchanged glances before the elf nodded and stepped forward.

“I don’t exactly have much magic,” Merielle said, “but I’ll take over the brute-force stuff if you’d like.”

Zuri smiled at me. “I don’t know how to do this sort of mana channeling. Want me to watch the door?”

I laughed and nodded at her. “On my signal, everyone channel as much magical energy as you can directly into those runes at the base. Don’t hold anything back. Merielle, as soon as there’s a fizzle, hit it with your hammer.”

“I’m a big fan of hitting things with my hammer,” she said with a tilted grin that spoke volumes about her heart. I knew she was extremely low on health, yet she did not waver.

My party moved into position, spreading out to surround the floating crystal. I could feel the hum of power emanating from it, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“Ready? Go!”

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then the runes began to glow brighter and brighter, pulsing with an unstable light. The crystal itself started to vibrate, small cracks appearing on an unseen surface around the core.

“It’s working!” Nym shouted over the rising hum of energy. “Keep going!”

We pushed harder, pouring every ounce of magical power we had into overloading the system. The cracks in the invisible mana field spread, glowing with an intense inner light. The runes at its base were now blindingly bright, sparks of energy arcing between them.

POP!

Suddenly, the magical field surrounding the core flickered.

The elf didn’t hesitate. With a fierce cry, she swung her hammer in a powerful arc, bringing it crashing down onto the destabilized crystal. The impact sent shockwaves through the room, nearly knocking us off our feet.

For a heartbeat, everything went still.

Then the core exploded in a blinding flash of light and energy.

KH-THOOM.

I blinked spots from my vision, struggling to see through the swirling dust and debris. When the air cleared, I saw the shattered remains of the artificial core scattered across the ground. The pulsing energy that had filled the room was gone, replaced by an eerie silence.

“Everyone good?” I pushed myself to my feet.

There were groans and affirmative responses as the others picked themselves up. Zuri rushed over to check on Merielle, who had taken the brunt of the blast.

The elf sat on the ground, head wavering as if on the very edge of unconsciousness.

Britney clicked her tongue against her teeth. “This is all I’ve got,” she said before she cast another healing spell on the rattled warrior.

It was enough to get her back to her feet, but barely.

There was a small glowing essence, much like a loot-able core, floating where the giant crystal once was.

A low rumble shook the chamber. Cracks began to spread across the walls and floor.

“Huh,” my familiar said from my pack. “I wondered if that would happen.”

A spike of anger lanced across my brow. “If what would happen, Skullie?”

“Oh. If the dungeon would start to collapse. This was controlling everything, after all.”

I thought of the mess of a maze we’d had to go through to get here. The dead left behind, unable to be recovered. The possible living still inside.

“Son of a… We need to get out of here. Now!”

I stepped forward, grabbed the essence, and shoved it in my storage space. Zuri took my pack when I offered it, and then I turned and scooped up Merielle before following the rest of my party out the front door.

We raced back down the passageway we’d come through, Merielle riding piggyback with her arms wrapped around my neck.

Thankfully, now that the core was defeated, the way back had opened wide enough for us to make it through.

We ran through the boss room—ignoring every possible side passage or nook and cranny that might have had treasure—and beelined right out into the main dungeon.

Everything was dead or lying in piles of barely twitching parts. Skullie had said the magic wasn’t like necromancy, but it certainly acted like it. Nothing was able to hold onto its form or its constructed life. And with the core destroyed and the dungeon demolishing itself, maybe this would be the last time we saw anything like it.

Carrying Merielle shouldn’t have been taxing, but even with Black Wash, I was at the end of my stamina. Winded, I demanded every bit of energy left in my new body, willing it to keep going. There was no way the elf would be able to care for herself. And I refused to leave her behind.

Catastrophic sounds erupted from behind us. Metal creaked and groaned, and stone shattered. I didn’t have to imagine how much of this place was built around the magic of the core—because every single thing buckled under the weight of its absence.

“Jordan?”

I barely heard my name called over the racket.

But I recognized the voice.

“Kieran? Where are you?”

“We’re over here!” came the reply, barely audible above the chaos.

Despite the lack of actionable direction, I spotted Kieran and the remaining members of her team—Tallis and Brog—huddled near a partially collapsed doorway. They looked battered and exhausted, but alive. Senior Agent Kieran had a gash along her forehead, and Tallis was holding his arm strangely.

“Have you seen Whistle and Rurik?” Kieran asked when we made our way over.

I nodded, feeling a grimace spread across my face. “They won’t be joining us.”

She lowered her head, looking away. “I was afraid you’d say that.” Kieran sighed. “The exit is this way. Let’s go. We can mourn them later.”

We followed them toward the exit as chunks of ceiling crashed down around us. I tightened my grip on Merielle, determined not to lose her in the chaos.

I was the last one through, ducking low to avoid smashing Merielle’s head on the crumbling frame. As soon as we cleared the threshold, Brog and Kieran shoved a heavy metal door closed behind us, muffling the sounds of destruction.

We found ourselves in what appeared to be an emergency exit tunnel. Occasional lanterns flickered along the walls, illuminating a path that sloped gently upward.

“This way,” Kieran said, taking the lead. “It should bring us out near where we entered.”

We moved as quickly as we could, our progress slowed by exhaustion and injuries. The tunnel seemed to go on forever, twisting and turning as it led us upward. The rumbling from the collapsing dungeon grew fainter behind us, but I didn’t relax until I saw a glimmer of natural light ahead.

“There!” Kieran called out, pointing to a metal hatch set into the ceiling. There was a small porthole in the center. “That’s our way out.”

Brog, being the tallest, reached up and turned the wheel to unlock the hatch. With a groan of protest, it swung open, letting in a flood of sunlight that made us all squint after so long in the dimness below.

One by one, we climbed out into the open air. I went last, carefully maneuvering Merielle through the opening before hauling myself up. As soon as my feet hit solid ground, I let out a long breath of relief.

We were in a small clearing in the forest, not far from the barn where we’d first entered the dungeon.

The ground trembled beneath our feet as the underground complex continued to collapse, but we were safe.

“We did it,” Britney said, looking up at me with an expression that was a mix of disbelief and relief. “We actually did it.”

Then, promptly, her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out.

Somehow I caught her before she hit the ground.