“AAAAAaAAaAAAA!!!!!!’’

  “Wha-get-ya-fuuu!!!” Gareth yelled as an agonised scream wrenched him from sleep.

  “AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!’’ The agonised wail continued unceasingly, never stopping for breath, not taking a moment to think, just pure, unfiltered grief on a fundamental level.

  “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!?!?”

  The voice didn't answer, didn't pause. Just one, continuous wail of agony that bounced through Gareth’s skull like a chromed-up cyberpsycho, high on Enchanting Bliss, which is to say with a terrifyingly manic metallic weight.

  Guanji entered the room with such speed and force that, whatever wooden splinters remained of the once unbroken door, bounced across the room, “Gareth! What is the matter?”

  His eyes frantically flickered around the room but found nothing, yet...Gareth kept screaming, hands clamped over his ears as if to block out some sound. He was rocking back and forth while streams of blood ran from his eyes and ears. He had evacuated his bowels, and the stink permeated the room.

  Gareth, still addled by sleep and the gorilla in his head, felt a searing heat in his chest and looked down to see his sternum outlined by an internal light, a powerful red glow doing its best impression of an elemental core.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!” He and the voice in his head screamed together as abject agony ripped through them both.

  His meridians flooded with high-tier Qi. Sparks of blue light went off like little fireworks throughout his meridian system as that high-tier Qi misfired.

  Guanji, for all his power, could once again just helplessly watch as his disciple experienced something he had never encountered before, which meant it had to do with cultivation or the core inside him! He frantically reached out a spiritual connection to Doctor Yondel Figg, then to the perimeter guard who would allow her entry into the manor.

  Gareth clawed at his chest, begging for the pain, the fire, the bellowing voice, to stop. It drove him to the point of delirium and beyond. The only thing that came close to the sensory overload was when he had awakened his brain, yet this pain was soul-deep. It twisted his emotions like an empty can, and he could tell that his psyche was close to tearing.

  For what could have been aeons, he writhed on his bedroom floor, then on the healer’s bed, and once he started harming himself, he ineffectually writhed in a straitjacket.

  It was difficult to describe, but once the screaming stopped, an exhausted, hollow stillness settled on his being.

  “Wh-where am I?” A foreign voice asked Gareth.

  He’d been unable to sleep for more than a week, so couldn't even muster the energy to think of a reply, nevermind speak.

  He sensed a flood of rage boil from within… himself?

  “I asked, WHERE AM I?!” the voice bellowed, and Gareth once more convulsed in agony.

  “I-i-in my soul,” he exhaustedly replied, panting with the effort those few words caused. The answer didn't make sense, even to himself, yet he found it was the one he had given.

  “WHERE. IS. PERRYWINKLE?!” A pulse, like touching an industrial powerline, made his body bend and arc, tearing stomach muscles and dislocating spinal discs - the horrifying sounds of a body breaking silenced the already deathly quiet healer’s chamber.

  Gareth could faintly feel healing magic attempting to fix his self-inflicted injuries, but the weight pressing down on his soul, threatening to extinguish it, demanded an answer, “AAAAaaaa!…D-d-D-dead.”

  “aaaAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!” The flood of rage, grief and pain was like nothing that Gareth had ever felt. Like an emotional tsunami that washed away his ego, self, and id with hurricane-level intensity.

  “P…p…p…p…p-please…ss–s-s—s-stoP. W…w…w..waaAAAAAA!…Wasn’t me,” he slurred, he begged.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The foreign presence within him moved to his brain and started ripping at his neurons, following pathways that forced Gareth to recall his captivity with Ian, his journey with Ivor Hansen, years of training, fighting, until it reached his memories of the dungeon delve. He had no more control of his body than a puppet, like his neurolink was brute forced; as he watched himself fight the rabbit in the first room, the dungeon collapse, crawling through rubble, dying in an attempt to save Perrywinkle from a tier 8.

  Gareth never saw Perrywinkle die, but his neurons recalled the conversation with Lady Monokane, and then Basian collapsed.

  Grief: jagged, raw, never-ending, boundless in scope and form. An eternal wound that would fester and rot, incurable. Because the cure lay dead, out of reach, gone. GONE. DEAD!

  “RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!”

  Bastian raged. He had no body, but he didn't need one to lash out with mana.

  It burst from Gareth’s every pore and orifice; it burst each of Gareth’s comparatively fragile tier 1 cells as severe mana poisoning set in.

  Just before all seemed lost, just before Guanji ripped the core from Gareth's chest, a gentle presence bathed Bastian, Gareth, and the previously frantic healer’s room in a calming golden light.

  It didn't take away the pain, it didn't take away the grief, but it was the warm hug of a mother. A kind smile in a fucked world. It was compassion, empathy, caring. Hot chocolate on a cold day, a drink with friends around a games table, and above all…acceptance.

  It didn't heal Bastian's cracks, but it smoothed their jagged edges. It reminded him that Perrywinkle loved him. It told him that there was hope at the end of this dark tunnel.

  It reminded Gareth of who he was, who he wanted to be. It reminded Bastian of his past, of the man his father had raised.

  They were both shattered. Fact. Fucked up in their own special fucked up ways. But Gareth had clawed his way out of this hole in the past. He would do so again.

  Bastian was cracked in more ways than one. He would never be whole with a Perriwinkle-sized hole in his soul, but that was the nature of loss, of change. Time might not heal all wounds, but it would teach one to cope.

  Bastian and Gareth now shared a curse, a gift, a blessing, a shackle: Neither could die.

  Fact.

  But the bond forged between them ensured they would not spend the aeons alone.

  That golden, divine light scolded Bastian with strange emotional impressions that seemed to make him contrite, even through his grief. Like a mother settling a dispute between siblings, she did not just show the truth to Bastian but also to Gareth. She showed him Bastian's life before he became a dungeon core, a life on an Earth similar to his own...yet different. The mother showed him decades, centuries-worth of memories shared with Perrywinkle, so that Gareth could understand the depth of Bastian's love. Because in truly knowing your enemy, you cannot help but love them.

  According to the Pact with Lady Monokane, Gareth had the right to excise Bastian because he had directly harmed Gareth. He felt the System prompt to do that very thing hovering in the corner of his awareness. Yet he chose to forgive Bastian.

  Hate begets more hate. Fact.

  He didn't forgive Bastian just yet, there had to be consequences for his actions, but a second chance is something he could give.

  Gareth remembered the long hours of deafening silence in Ian's torture chamber. He recalled the eerie silence of the Oni's tunnels, the scary weeks spent travelling alone through the wilds between Volun and Vormire. That was the keyword: Alone. He didn't dissolve the pact because then he'd be alone again. Forever.

  He needed Bastian for the same reasons dungeons had dungeon fairies in the first place. To keep them company, to keep them in the present, to be their companion through the aeons. To keep them sane.

  As a tenuous peace settled between the two, and Bastian's agonised mental wail faded to a dull background keening, Gareth once more became aware of his surroundings. He lay panting on a hospital operating table, and panic threatened to take hold as his mind jumped to the wrong conclusion, but in that moment, a warm, calloused, scarred hand grasped onto his forearm. He followed that arm up to a set of worried, tearstained red eyes. Guanji's eyes.

  He released a massive breath of pent-up stress and anxiety, then lay his head back in relaxation. Barely opening his eyes, he threw Guanji a sly look and a weak thumbs-up. "You shouldn't worry so much, old man. You'll go grey."

  As the days of sleeplessness caught up and his eyes drifted closed, a blinking dot in the corner of his vision caught his attention. Through the drowsiness of his exhaustion, he willed it open.

  Congratulations!

  You have successfully bonded with a dungeon core.

  For being the first Sethnari ever successfully to bond with a dungeon core, the Elder gods have granted you a gift.

  You are treading a path they have never seen before. Stay alive, keep them entertained. They are watching.

  Gift: The Gift of Choice.

  The Gift of Choice: No longer will bloodlines, traits, or abilities be granted at random. You will be presented with a series of choices. Choose wisely.

  Choose ONE of the following dungeon abilities:

  Unlock [Automaton creation]

  OR

  Unlock [Dungeon creature creation]

  You have 3 minutes to decide: 2:35