No Need for a Core?

Mordecai remembered to nod along with her explanation, holding back the questions that had sprung to mind, his face unnaturally still. He had no knowledge of the forest she spoke of, and upon reflection realized they weren’t actually speaking the language that he had once known as Common. It seemed his ability to assimilate new languages spoken inside his territory still worked, triggered when she’d said ‘hello’.

And then the question Moriko asked triggered memories he’d been avoiding. He couldn’t help but flinch in anticipated pain... huh. Oh, it still hurt, and he took a moment to let himself experience it, but the acuteness had faded. His long sleep had let him put away some of the pain. The rage seemed to be no more than dying embers now, though he’d rather not test how readily those coals could be stoked.

Oh right, he should actually answer her. “The full story is very long, and in some ways, it just doesn’t matter. I’ve been down here longer than I can calculate at the moment, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t even any elves from my era that are still alive. But in short, I was grieving, angry, and very, very vengeful.”

Mordecai had been gazing off into the distance as he recalled that past, but now he focused back on her. “My theme was dragons.” He said slowly, gathering his thoughts. “At the time, my dungeon was over a hundred floors deep, and I had spent a lot of time exploring the world outside by investing some of my energy into fully incarnate avatars. When my heart broke, I was able to lash out and break limitations. There is a rush of power a Core can utilize when it feels truly threatened, and I was able to force myself into that state continuously and push my power outside of my boundaries. I was able to call upon the forms of all my invested avatars, and I went to war. A lot of people died, including an emperor and most of his court. But very importantly, specific people died, people I could only reach with this unfettered assault.”

He watched Moriko’s expression change to reflect the myriad emotions she was experiencing, reflexively mirroring her expressions as he relearned the process, but he didn’t stop telling his story. “That was enough, or at least, enough for me to withdraw. To let go of my grip on that torrent of power, to retreat back into myself, settle back into my core, and focus on my grief. I didn’t reform any avatars when they came for me, and I didn’t care enough to try and stoke my breach powers again. But neither did I keep my dungeon and residents from defending themselves. The normal balance between a Living Dungeon and the people in the surrounding regions had been broken, the rules violated in ways that couldn’t readily be forgiven. The armies that came were not able to reach my core, however, for the normal cycles of respawning went on and they couldn't overwhelm my inhabitants fast enough. The number of people who died kept feeding into my strength."

He pointed at the wards glowing faintly along the surface of the last room of his dungeon and prison. "This was their solution. A standard ward would not have been able to stop the normal flow of mana, I had to be cut off more thoroughly.”

“Once I was cut off from the outside world, I could sleep. And for untold ages, I have. Thankfully, the long sleep seems to have been good for me, or at least, for my soul. Had you not arrived, then eventually the last of my power would have faded, and my soul would have moved on.” He couldn’t help but give a little half smile. “But now that I am awake again, I find I would rather live. So I am hoping I can think of a way to get out of this.”

The young woman’s face was quite the study of mixed reactions, and Mordecai couldn't blame her. He had just told Moriko that he had waged a war of retribution and slaughtered everyone that stood against him. He had been responsible for the death of so many thousands of people that he had never even tried to calculate the number of casualties, and many of those would have been innocents. But he was also certain he was going to need her help to get out of here, and if she was going to release him, he wanted her to at least know what she was actually releasing into the world. It’s not like he had many friends out there anymore, depending on how a few long-lived individuals felt about him now, so it wouldn’t be bad for her to be his first new friend. And lies were never a good way to start a potential friendship.

Moriko didn’t know how to process this immediately. The level of power he talked about so casually was ridiculous. She had never heard of a dungeon that powerful before, nor a war waged by literal dragons. And a war for personal vengeance? She was torn by both horror at the bloodbath it would have been and sympathy for the pain that must have driven him to such lengths. It just beggared belief that such a thing could have happened and not left its mark on written history - wait.

She took an instinctive step backward, “You… your story, it loosely matches a couple of old stories. A war waged to correct an injustice, a raging demon bent on destruction, or just a monster gone insane, depending on the story. But, those are really old, even older than the kingdom. Oh by The Twins, how long have you been down here? How in all the hells can you still be alive‽" She finally processed the state of her environment: the strange stillness that took over the little room almost immediately upon her arrival; the lack of dust, even after all the earth and stone that had fallen in with her; and the tinge of stale air whose scent tickled her nose.

She didn’t know a lot about Living Dungeons, but she knew they ‘fed’ on interaction with the outside world, and that it was supposed to be nigh impossible to close them off completely. Yeah, dungeons are weird, but there are a lot of weird creatures in the world. Dungeons couldn’t really be considered the strangest of them.

“And you're saying that you are all good because you got some sleep‽ I don't know which stories are true, but even the best of them paint you more as a warning story and tragedy than a hero.” Oh gods she was trapped here with him. He might be weakened by his long imprisonment, but Moriko felt very uncertain about her chances against even just his avatar if she had to fight him. For a moment she felt very vulnerable as she looked up at Mordecai - and slammed the mental door on that chain of thoughts. She was hardly a teenager in one of those books.

Doing that reset her emotions, and Moriko took a deep breath to restore her focus. Her ‘host' was watching her with what looked like a mix of amusement and patience, which was at least better than the emotionless mask he'd started with. “Okay, right. I got that out of my system.” She wasn't exactly lying to herself, but Moriko was shoving her shock as deep as she could. The half-elven woman looked up at the hole she had crashed through, deciding to focus on the future instead of campfire horror stories. Even if this particular set of stories seemed to have a grain of truth to them. “Yeah, getting out of here looks like it’s going to be hard for me too. No offense, but I’d rather not share this room as a tomb with you. You’re not that cute.” Crap. She was not trying to flirt with the scary ancient dungeon man. Especially not right now. Why couldn't he at least be wearing a shirt? She was still riding the rush of fear from her final fall, and it was making him more distracting than he would be otherwise.

She saw Mordecai’s lips twitch, but thankfully he decided not to say anything, and she pretended she hadn’t let that slip. Avoiding looking at him or thinking about the state of her dress, or thinking about how she normally worked off that sort of rush, she turned on the ball of her foot to examine the walls in more detail, though somewhat less gracefully than usual as she winced. How had she gotten a braise on the arch of her foot? “Those walls are too smooth for me to climb up the inside curve of the dome. Think I could do something about the wards? They obviously don’t do anything to stop me from passing through. Or are they one way?”

Given the story she had just heard, turning her back on the man seemed risky, but her combat awareness was pretty good, and if he was too powerful it wouldn’t matter if she was facing him or not. So being trusting seemed most expedient. The fact that he hadn't tried to hide why he was sealed was a point in his favor. But he could also have been trying to win trust by being so open. But even if it was a calculated move, it could be either sincere or cynical, how was she to tell? There just was a limit to how far she could second guess herself, and his personality and body language didn't strike her as off. Well, not in that way at least.

Moriko would be a lot more incredulous about his tale if she had encountered him just about anywhere else. But she had a rough idea of how far she’d fallen and could see the wards surrounding the chamber. Also, he had already proven himself capable of doing things that a ‘one-room’ dungeon shouldn’t be able to do. So something was clearly amiss here and in a way that made his story more likely than anything else that she could think of.

His deep voice seemed to be moving away as he replied. “I doubt that you’d be able to harm the runes, but you aren’t connected to me, so I don’t think they’d bar you from leaving. So I could create a set of stairs to get you close to the opening, but from what you described the rest of the climb seems likely to be beyond your capabilities to complete. However, I have the start of an idea, and it would get both of us out of here; but depending on the details it might come with some drawbacks. Once I’ve worked out the details, I’ll discuss what I believe our options are.” She turned her head to frown at him, and he shrugged. “I’ve only got the start of an idea, and I need to spend a bit of time figuring out what I can actually do. Once I’ve eliminated enough not-possibles, I can focus on ways to rig together the things that are possible.”

Oh, that sounded ominous. “Rig?” she asked, and couldn’t keep from sounding dubious as she did so.

“Yes. Most spells and such are formulas. They are safe, known patterns.” He nodded at her little orb of light. “Like that one. But you can also try to create unique effects. They usually aren’t repeatable, because you have to make them for a specific set of circumstances.” Mordecai knelt down on a particularly flat section of rock and began using a cantrip to draw diagrams of faint color on it. “I hope I am not being condescending, but despite your light spell, you don’t strike me as a magic specialist. Your muscle tone and movement suggest a more physically oriented lifestyle and combat training.”

Well, he was right about that, and she was going to completely ignore the fact that he had been looking at her body that closely, though in other circumstances she might have appreciated it more. “Alright, fine, do your magic nerd stuff. I’ll look around.” Besides, even with her training, she was too keyed up to sit still.

She knew the basics of how spells worked, but her few spells were innate tricks from her elven bloodline. Formal magic was not her focus. “And yeah, I’ve put my effort into reinforcing my body and improving my martial arts.” Her temple training was the only reason she'd survived the banging she'd gotten and managed to reduce the speed of her fall using the sides of the tunnel, but that last bit had been too long of a free fall given the state she was in by then. She'd done longer drops before, but that had been under controlled circumstances where she'd been ready and had mental clarity and focus.