Worthy Core

An hour after the surviving Rainlanders had been enspelled by Sincere and shown the door, Xenia was sitting at the core chamber's main table and staring at her intrusion report while her council gathered. Whatever she was looking for, she didn't appear to be finding it given her frazzled appearance. After they've taken their seats Lollyp and Sincere both share a look of concern, but before they can voice their thoughts Xenia speaks up first.

"Alright, so, thoughts: where and how badly did I fuck up?" The dungeon master dismisses her dungeon interface screens as she turns her attention to the floor bosses and Guy, who was hovering not far away. Lollyp begins to answer, then thinks twice and tries again.

"You - wait, hold on, now. What makes you so sure you fucked up? I got the impression we basically got what we wanted, right? The Rainlanders don't remember a thing, including that we kinda went out of our way to party-wipe them for a while there."

Xenia shakes her head in disagreement. "We mighta recovered, but the truth is, I definitely kinda panicked there when I pulled the plug on the elevator, and in my experience, when I make panic decisions that usually means I fucked something up. Plus, that wasn't how I like to do things. I try to give folks a fair shake, especially when they aren't immediately trying to smash my core or something, but I ain't pushed that hard for a party wipe since before I finished Floor One. So, you know, intrusion postmortem: y'all try and tell me how I fucked up, and how we can make sure we don't get in that situation again."

Pressing his palms together, Sincere spends a moment in thought before answering. "I do agree with Lollyp, in that we at least need to determine if a mistake was made first. For starters, what was actually at risk? They appeared to have solid confirmation of Lollyp's origins, although my impression is everyone out there is already aware that Lollyp is unusual for a dungeon boss. If left to their own devices, they could have questioned Lollyp's 'echo' for further information, but pre-death Lollyp knew nothing of the dungeon. At most she could have spilled secrets of the Domain military, which isn't much our concern."

Lollyp taps a finger on the table, squishing it out of shape slightly in the process. "We've talked before about the risks of people finding out about the reincarnating trick, and like, it would probably not be great if that became public knowledge, but probably not 'get a government kill order put out on Xenia's core'-level bad. Buuuuut, if the way people found out was by finding out that me, a Domain soldier was a floor boss...yeah, people might jump to the conclusion that it's all a Dragonlord project of some kind. That could be bad. If word had to get out about the curse, we probably need to make sure people find out at the same time that it's a you-thing and not a Dragonlord-thing."

Guy chimes in with their thoughts. "Of course, after we provoked their suspicion, things perhaps spiraled a bit from there. The indication that perhaps Beatrice let something slip about your luck curse, and the fact that we have a fourth floor, for example. I thought that we were expanding quite well, admittedly I didn't put much thought into how others might account for our rapid growth. But that is perhaps all magnified by your - our reactions. Locking out the elevator, removing the healing fountains and emergency exits, swapping in more luck charm rewards...it likely played into and confirmed all of their suspicions for them. Once we made obvious modifications to the dungeon, our course was set."

Xenia nods while staring at the table. "Yeah, that's about what I was thinking. If I'd just played it a little cooler maybe, it wouldn't have been so bad? How about the trick with Sincere's memory reversion? That's probably better than wiping the party, hopefully? Or would fighting to the death have been safer?"

Sincere waggles a hand, equivocating. "We should note for starters that there's no guarantee we could have wiped them out. Very likely, yes, especially if the water elementals provided more combat support. However, I know we're trying not to force the elementals into fighting for us, and additionally, I've not yet fully tested the combat abilities of this current body. If any of the survivors had been stronger than they appeared, they could have perhaps gotten out and with their memories intact, which would have been the worst case scenario. Now, I'm sure some questions will be raised, but probably no more or less than if an entire party made up of Advanced-and-higher soldiers had disappeared."

Xenia considers the point before nodding. "Fair enough, yeah. So, moving on: making sure we don't need to scramble like that again. Fortunately, they already told us one way to patch things over. That gnoll mage said that those ghost echoes or whatever can only be called up once a month or so. Therefore..." Pulling from her newly acquired knowledge of the Spirit Mage's class, and draining a bit of her mana, Xenia gestures at the far end of the table and summons a ghostly duplicate of Sincere. "We make sure to bring out ghost-Lollyp and ghost-Sincere ourselves once a month or so, and they're not gonna be able to pull that trick again even if they find another Spirit Mage. Speaking of, welcome to the party, ghost-Sincere, grab yourself a seat."

Looking around in confusion, the transparently blue copy of Sincere takes in the sight of a party which appears to include himself. "Ghost Sincere? What is...oh. I am but an echo, am I?" He tries to pull out a seat, which takes him a bit of effort, but eventually manages to do so and sit down.

Sincere gives himself a grin. "Quite astute. You must be quite the intelligent fellow."

"Oh, why thank you. It's always flattering to receive a compliment from a handsome man such as yourself."

Xenia cuts in before the pair can continue. "Yeah, yeah, enough of the self-fellatio, if we wanted to...shit, could that work? Damn, I just wasted that spell, didn't I?" As the two Sinceres give her a smirk, Xenia shakes her head and carries on. "Uh, anyways, next order of business. Lollyp's probably right, people finding out about the reincarnation thing on its own is bad, but not as bad as them thinking this whole place is some Dragonlord experiment. Which is made even worse by the fact that we did make a deal with the Domain and it's obvious to see why people would think that. Which means we maybe need to consider some sort of public relations campaign, and god, I hate already that Beatrice is gone now. It hasn't even been a day! I didn't want to hold her back just to make things easier on me, but we ain't got anybody that can really talk to folks for us now. Alizz was chill, but she ain't been by in friggin' ages."

Lollyp counts out on her fingers for a bit before turning towards Guy. "Hey, Guy, how old is the dungeon right now? We're over forty-five days now, right?"

"Nearing the end of day forty-eight, actually. Why do you ask?"

"Well, we might have an opportunity coming up then. I know day fifty is usually considered a big milestone for a new dungeon - probably because of achievements, I guess, though I dunno if that's public info. But the Challengers Association and the Domain both like to check in around that point to get an idea of how a dungeon is developing, what directions it's taking, and so on. Combine that with all the growing we've been doing and I think we can count on Alizz coming by for another visit real soon. Maybe not right on day fifty, but within the next week I'd bet."

The dungeon master claps her hands. "Ah, perfect! That gives us a few days to come up with a public relations plan, and to get Floor Four straightened out. Hell, was thinking maybe I oughtta move back the core chamber and close the floor off for a while, if it's gonna be an issue, maybe we can see what Alizz thinks about it. I did get a cool unlock I think should work for a boss though, gonna summon one up tomorrow after the mana recharges."

Lollyp perks up. "Oooh, another undead rabbit? What kind this time?"

Xenia gives her best evil grin. "You'll see. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise..."

That evening, Commander Paulados is giving disbelieving looks to the survivors of his dungeon expedition. "What do you mean, you don't remember what happened?"

As the highest-level survivor of the party. Vanguard Rill Frudd had taken on the burden of speaking for the group, although she would have clearly wished to have been anywhere else right now. "Our last memories were of approaching the mountain, by our best guess, somewhere between six and eight hours before we woke up. The next thing we knew, we were outside the dungeon door, the sun had moved to an afternoon position, and, as I said...Lieutenant Willowbranch and Spirit Mage Ress were missing. Dead, Or so the dungeon guardian reported to us."

"Because of a dungeon trap? I've heard of dungeons with mind magic, but my impression was that was a difficult thing for them to acquire. I suppose we can't rule out that one of the deceased Valleylanders or Challengers had such an expertise...still, disturbing. Do you have any indications of what occurred, aside from what the guardian told you?"

Combat Medic Goldleaf speaks up from the chair to Frudd's left. "While the three of us seemed to be in good health, we were quite tired and, more oddly...very damp. As if we'd all just gone swimming with our clothes on."

Brow furrowing, Paulados leans over his desk and peers at a set of dungeon floor maps that had been drawn up for him. "Gone swimming, you say? There is that...waterpool room up on the first floor, yes? But isn't that only a few inches deep? I don't believe we have reports of any other uses of water, unless you went for a swim in one of the healing fountains."

Tafyaf, sitting to Frudd's right, nods in agreement. "Must have been something on the third floor, yes, otherwise we would have dried out by time of our escape. Also, can speak to our lost equipment, yes. Aside from the usual expendables; arrows and bandages and such, there's the matter of Vanguard Frudd's lost sword and shield. Also, lost my climbing rope, yes."

Paulados leans back with a sigh. "I feel like we know even less about the dungeon now than before I sent you in there. The scarce details we've heard about the third floor from the Valleylanders don't sound anything like this, and I doubt they'd risk pissing off both us and the Challengers by spreading entirely fabricated rumors."

"Would you like us to, ah..." Frudd finds herself swallowing hard before continuing. "...Re-arm and try a second expedition, sir?"

Much to her relief, the Commander quickly shakes his head. "Oh gods, no. With the loss of Lieutenant Willowbranch, and that Valleylander officer the other day, the dungeon's now slain two experienced, Expert-class soldiers within a week. I've heard of young dungeons with higher death counts, but only of foolish Initiates, or those without any training whatsoever. To be able to reliably kill experienced men? No, I'm not sending in any more teams until we can spare more Expert-class troops for the job at the least, and at the moment we still only have two or three others in the entire force. The Valleylanders are free to send in as many parties as they like, but my curiosity isn't so strong as to send you all out on suicide missions."

All three of the soldiers sitting across from the desk breathe easier, with varying degrees of success at hiding it. Frudd continues. "Thank you, sir. If there is anything more we can do..."

"I may see about trying to get an expert on mental and memory conditions to come down here to take a look at you three, but to be honest I wouldn't count on it. Otherwise, you've done enough for now. The paperwork may be ah, complicated to fill out, given that we're mostly operating on the reported word of a dungeon guardian alone, but I'll choose to believe that you did at least manage to clear the dungeon's three floors despite your condition. So, no need to worry, I'll make sure you all receive proper credit towards your next rank promotions. For now, get yourselves some rest, you clearly need it. Dismissed."

As the trio make their exit from his office, Paulados finds himself once again peering down at the dungeon maps spread across his desk, with piles of records on other dungeons sitting on either end. "...Just what in blazes are you up to in there, Worthy Dungeon?"