Oz surfaced from his meditation, unsure how much time had passed. He felt sweaty and warm. Shrugging off his blazer, he rolled up his sleeves.

  [Hoodlum has Good conductivity with ‘Heavily Modified Noxarcer Uniform’]

  Oz snorted, looking down at his blood soaked uniform, he wasn't about to fully embrace the [Hoodlum] life but right now he'd take every advantage he could get. It was time to get out of here and that meant he was going to have to commit an above average level of violence even for him.

  Oz wasn’t completely ignorant about how dungeons worked. He wasn’t a total idiot.

  But most of what he knew came from studying the local tame dungeons—the kind managed by 'Coreholders'. Too weak to be considered proper Keepers, but useful. These dungeons were practically civil servants: predictable, heavily regulated, and they barely tried to kill anyone.

  The dangerous ones—those which were corrupted, rogue, or wild—those were different beasts entirely. Still, he’d picked up enough from general cultural osmosis, school, and gossip to feel relatively sure that this room, now cleared, was safe. Probably. Safe enough.

  Before casting [The Mutt], he figured it was time to upgrade from “door” to “actual weapon.” Ideally something that would work with [Hoodlum].

  As Venna had so helpfully mentioned, a full row of weapons lined one wall. The other side had empty dummies, the kind you might find armour on, apparently he didn’t warrant any defensive equipment though. That was good by him he really was more offense focused.

  Swords, spears, bows—decent gear, but none of them called to him. Or rather, none of them called to the voice, and Oz was learning to trust that weird little intuition.

  That part of him—the Other—didn’t care for the swords or the bows. It liked a pair of throwing hatchets, and a couple of short knives. The knives, especially, gave off a vibe that said yes, this fits. That would’ve been his pick too, if he hadn’t noticed something else.

  The thick chain that was holding the weapons in place.

  Oz eyed it. “Fine. Let’s see if you’re right.”

  He yanked the chain free, wrapped it around one fist, and let the rest dangle like a whip.

  [Hoodlum has exceptional conductivity with improvised weapon, ‘Armoury Chain’]

  A grin spread across his face.

  It felt right—heavy but agile, humming with energy. He could feel it drinking in his essence, strengthening under his grip. This? This was [Hoodlum] material.

  Out of curiosity—definitely not his usual thing—he grabbed a sweeping rapier with a artful basket hilt.

  It felt decent in his hand. Familiar, even. But the connection wasn’t there. He could already tell Hoodlum didn’t care. It didn’t have enough bite to it.

  Next, he tested the throwing axes and knife.

  [Hoodlum has middling conductivity with hatchet]

  [Hoodlum has good conductivity with knife]

  He took them all—just in case.

  A pair of jackal belts made a half-decent harness. Oz didn’t need the Other to tell him that having a backup weapon was just common sense. He knew that already. He was never without a boot knife. Well—until now.

  The Other helpfully pointed out that carrying a boot knife was a very “delinquent” thing to do.

  Oz ignored it. He was after all most comfortable with a knife. As a proper dwarf father should, his dad had drilled knife work into him until it was second nature—grip, angle, timing, pressure. All muscle memory by now. Even with all that training, a knife just wasn’t the right choice here. Not against jackals. Not in this dungeon.

  The blade was steel, so impossible to etch a rune worth a damn into without proper tools. There was no sign of any flint or reasonable stone he could knap into shape and then rune either. Not having runes stripped the knife of half its utility. No runes, no power boosts, no clever tricks. Just a sharp bit of metal with short reach.

  He scowled at the thought. Not being able to use his runic knowledge? That really got under his skin.

  If this was supposed to be a test, then it was a crap one—rigged from the start. Why throw him into a dungeon and then lock away one of the few actual skills he was proud of?

  Grumbling he stepped back, he was as geared up as he was going to get.

  It was time to summon something.

  He focused. His understanding of familiar summoning was… patchy. Not because he hadn’t paid attention—well, not just because of that—but because no one ever explained the full picture.

  There were too many types of magic. Too many schools. Too many special exceptions, subsystems, and regional oddities. Schools just taught what the average citizen needed to know.

  Which, for someone like Oz, meant a whole lot of passive skills, basic safety protocols, and vague diagrams about magical symbiosis.

  Actual rituals? Those were in the advanced classes—maybe. Probably. Who knew.

  Familiars, from what Oz remembered, were usually small magical creatures. Helpful little things. A wind dragon to boost air spells. A fire imp that made flames bounce off you like rain. Neat. Predictable. Useful.

  What he was about to summon? Not so much.

  He slipped back into that strange, meditative state and activated the skill. He’d heard rituals were different—but hearing it and feeling it were two very different things.

  All his other skills just... happened. Like flexing an extra muscle. Easy, instinctual. This wasn’t that.

  This time, his vision swam with images. Instructions poured in. His body moved on its own. Oz could’ve resisted—but didn’t. He let it guide him.

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  He lumbered over to the two jackal corpses and dragged them together. Then, kneeling, he began to trace a circle around them. His fingertip left behind a thick black line of magic across the stone, like his skin had turned into a paintbrush. It reminded him of an old painting skill he’d swapped out long ago.

  And the smell—gods, the smell. The 'ink' stank of chemicals, and it mixed horribly with the reek of blood and jackal grease. This wasn’t illusion magic. This was real.

  As his finger swept along the stone, he felt something shift inside him—a strange tug, like someone dipping into a warm pocket of liquid deep in his chest.

  He frowned. Great. Another thing.

  He figured it was his mana-core. He knew he’d always had one, but it had never introduced itself until now. Even the Other didn’t have the energy to ask questions about it. Just silently accepting it as “magic stuff.” to bother Oz about later.

  It joined a rapidly growing list of things Oz was definitely going to pretend to understand until he had time to drown out his freak out with excessive amounts of exercise.

  It took a good couple of minutes to construct. Oz let himself slide into automatic as he began to chant some sort of nonsense words that the skill pushed on him. They probably had a deep meaning, but right now it was just some worryingly guttural gibberish.

  He watched as the entire circle went black, like someone had dropped a bucket of ink within it. The ‘ink’ seeped across the stone till it reached to the edge of the circle where its march froze.

  Streams of black tendrils, spread out the ink leaching into it the air itself in a chaotic, mesmerising display. The other told him this was what ink dropped into water looked like. At first it was chaotic, twisting ribbons of black tendrils spreading through the air, but then it found the bodies. The ribbons multiplied, they swarmed and the peaceful sense was gone as it seemed like the ink was devouring all within its reach.

  Oz winced, adding magic circles to his list of things to watch out for in the dungeon.

  The ink swirled until the circle was now a completely black hemisphere. A bubble of void sitting on the floor before him, Oz was still chanting and he dared not stop.

  The chanting had become something akin to guttural yodelling. The kind of sounds that generally spoke to altars and ritual sacrifice.

  He could sense he was coming to the end of the skill and was glad for it, even if he was scared of what he'd find when the bubble. The words ended and the bubble cleared the ink being sucked into the floor.

  There, sitting in the circle, was a dog unlike anything Oz had ever seen.

  It had a squat, muscular frame and an inky black coat so glossy it looked wet. Two heads blinked independently and turned to survey the room, one after the other—like someone had duplicated a large, intimidating guard dog and mashed them together for extra bite.

  Beefy didn’t even begin to cover it. The thing came up to his waist and had the kind of presence that made you wonder if you should freeze, pray, or throw a steak and run.

  [The Mutt is summoned. Name familiar?]

  It bounded toward him with all the enthusiasm of a dog who’d just spotted its long-lost owner—and had twice the mouths to show it. One head went for his face, the other his arm. Oz tried to fend off the assault, but every time he blocked one, the other snuck through with a wet, happy lick.

  “Hey… boy,” he said cautiously, testing the word. The left head perked up. “You wanna help me get out of this dungeon?”

  The summon barked in stereo, a sharp noise that bounced off the walls and made his ears hurt. It's tail was wagging, and if he didn't know better he'd say it was smiling.

  [Name familiar ‘Boy’?]

  “No, that's just how you talk to dogs.” Oz swore. Names. Why did naming things always feel like a test? He was awful at it. Always had been.

  He pulled on the other for suggestions hoping it was better at naming dogs than swords.

  Nope! The first suggestion was Soulmaw.

  Oz made a face like he'd just stepped in something wet and sentient.

  “You want me to yell ‘Soulmaw, fetch!’ in public? Absolutely not.”

  Next suggestion was Onyx Reaper—too dramatic. Dreadfang? Worse. Bloodrune? That one got vetoed on principle. Runes made of blood were total slag.

  The dog started licking him again, and he had to refocus or end up a slobbery mess.

  The Other was terrible at naming things. Not surprising, really. It didn’t even feel like a proper voice, just a running commentary shoved into the back of his thoughts. If he didn’t have a firm grasp on what being “Oz Classic” felt like, he might not have noticed it didn’t belong.

  It should have been unsettling. But he was too tired to question it. Plus, it had its uses.

  Like now, when a name popped into his head that… honestly? Kind of worked.

  “I think there was a dog called Chop,” Oz muttered. “Looked sorta like you. Helpful. Friendly. Apparently summonable. I dunno, it’s all a blur. But the name? Not bad.”

  He scratched behind one of the heads' ears, watching the tail go wild. “And since there’s two of you… how about Chops?”

  The beast barked in stereo and spun in place, tail thrashing like a whip. Clearly, he approved.

  Oz chuckled and ruffled the glossy black fur—thankfully, just shiny, not slimy. “Chops it is, then.”

  [Name familiar ‘Chops’?]

  He confirmed the request just as the dog bowled him over, licking him excitedly. Oz let out a short laugh and didn’t fight it. For a few minutes, he just enjoyed the moment—petting the overenthusiastic, clearly-too-large familiar that seemed thrilled to exist.

  When he finally pulled himself together, mentally and physically, he stood and looked around. Time to figure out what came next.

  There were two doors: one on the left, one on the right.

  He listened at both—right first, then left. Nothing. Not a scrape, not a whisper. Still, he knew better than to trust silence. So did the Other. Traps were a thing, after all—even if that warning from the Headmaster had been a bit vague.

  His dad had been a trapper, and toward the end, he'd trapped everything. Not just the keep he was mining behind their house—everything. Oz had once had to avoid a spike trap in the toilet. Which was a challenge when you were bursting for a piss.

  Lesson learned. He’d gotten good at checking for traps. And at dodging.

  He scanned the doorframe, the hinges, the handle. No tripwires. No obvious poison spikes. He even looked for hidden runes that might detect movement. Nothing.

  Which didn’t mean it was safe.

  Anyone competent with runes wouldn’t leave visible signs. And he didn’t have the tools to disable them anyway. He considered grabbing one of the spears and carving in some basic detection runes, but what good would that do? Warning him a trap was there didn’t help if he couldn’t avoid it.

  No—this door was trapped. He felt it in his bones. The same kind of bone-deep certainty that sent him diving sideways some mornings to the sound of crossbows twanging.

  He checked around. The surroundings didn’t have the tell tale hollow sound that would indicate a pit or ceiling trap, if he had to guess it was something on the other side of the door or built into the frame.

  He had no way to disarm it, but should that stop him? He could dodge but Chops?

  He looked over the dog was still bounding around, tail wagging. Just happy to be here.

  Oz glanced at the dog and felt a flicker of guilt. Bringing a cheerful, two-headed mutt into a death dungeon felt unfair. Then again, the cynical part of him pointed out that’s exactly what had happened to him.

  Which just drove the point home harder.

  This place sucked.

  The crossbow he’d spotted in the heap of weapons earlier hadn’t helped his mood either. Firstly [Hoodlum] didn't like it, and secondly it made him aware of how large of a target he was. Oz was fairly confident in a straight fight—but what if some enemy just picked him off from across the room? A couple throwing axes weren’t going to cut it.

  He looked at both doors, each holding the vague promise of soul damage and a respawn. He sighed, he knew which one to pick, at least with the trapped one he knew what to expect.

  Now he just had to make a plan.