The dungeon core hung from the ceiling of a cave like a singular massive tooth, a stalactite at least thirty feet across at the base. The shape wasn’t particularly surprising to Velik—cores could come in all sorts of shapes, though in almost all cases, they were physically connected to the rest of the dungeon. But this one was absolutely massive, and rather than looking like smooth stone or crystal, its surface was pitted and etched and stained.

Some sort of creeping plant covered it, hundreds of small, leafy vines reaching out to hug the dungeon core close. Everywhere they touched, the core beneath was stained a familiar shade of red, the same color the agents of corruption were. Deep gouges laced the core’s surface. Each one matched the thickness of the vine nearest it, and even as Velik watched, one of them retracted another inch closer to the far side of the dungeon core.

Approaching the core was impossible thanks to the bottomless pit it hung suspended over. It was actually a rather ingenious last line of defense. Anyone who lacked the ability to fly in some form wouldn’t get near the thing, and if someone with ranged attacks like Torwin destroyed it, it’d fall into the abyss, preventing them from claiming champion seeds from the ruined core.

They stood on a thin sliver of a shelf overlooking the pit, no more than ten feet wide. Below them, the darkness stretched out into infinity, so absolute that Velik could see no bottom. Considering the nature of the dungeon, there probably wasn’t one. If he fell in, maybe he would just keep falling forever in an endless loop. Even the mana seemed to disappear a few hundred feet down.

Torwin lifted his bow and let an arrow materialize on the string. “Any objections to destroying that core?”

“Depends,” Velik said. “Do you know how to get back out once the dungeon dies?”

“Not a concern. We’ll be in the watchtower once the dungeon’s magic breaks. None of these places are real. Or, I don’t know, maybe they are, and it made copies of them. Either way, I’m not worried about our escape.” Torwin paused and eyed the vines as they shifted. “On the other hand…”

“Do you think that’s the dungeon seed?”

“Maybe this is how they take over a core,” Torwin said. “Either way, we’re not getting up there to pry it off. We’re just going to have to break the dungeon and hope that we can recover the seed after it spits us out.”

“The whole point of this was to get hold of that dungeon seed,” Velik said. “If you’re not sure it’ll survive, then we need a new plan.”

“I’m open to ideas if you’ve got one,” Torwin told him. “But I don’t see how we’re getting close to that core unless you’ve been keeping secrets.”

Torwin had already seen the [Air Walk] enchantment on Velik’s cloak plenty of times, and they both knew that might serve to get him there, but he’d need to find some other way to keep himself from falling into the abyss. Preferably, that way would allow him to defend himself in case the dungeon seed attacked.

“We’ve still got some climbing gear,” Velik said. He pulled the rope out of his bracelet and held it up. "Tie one end around me. I’ll [Air Walk] over there and try to collect the seed, then you haul me back in once the magic runs out.”

“And how exactly will you ‘collect the seed?’ That’s not like the one you found as a kid. It’s sprouted or whatever. It’s massive.”

“Kill it, stuff it in the bracelet.”

Torwin mused over that plan for a moment. There were obviously a lot of ways it could go wrong, but it at least had the potential to work, and if it failed, Torwin could just haul Velik back in. Then he could shoot the core until it broke, and they’d at least know they’d tried.

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“I can’t believe I’m even considering this. Of all the reckless crap to pull, this has got to be the worst I’ve ever heard of.”

Velik ignored the grumbling and started looping the rope around himself. It had plenty of length, and he wanted some redundancies in case the dungeon seed could fight back. He fashioned it into a harness, one that went around his waist, crossed his chest twice, and even looped around his thighs. The whole thing had knots at every intersection in the hopes that if one particular loop were to be cut, he wouldn’t suddenly find himself in a freefall while Torwin held a slack length of useless rope at the other end.

“Are you sure about this?” Torwin asked as he took his end and wrapped it around his forearm several times.

“Not really,” Velik said. “But it’s this or give up, so don’t let me fall to my death if things don’t work out. Ready?”

Torwin set his feet and grabbed the rope firmly with both hands. The hundred feet or so was coiled loosely on the ground between them. “Do it.”

Velik gave himself as much of a running start as he could, then leaped at the edge of the shelf. He needed to cross about fifty feet of open space and go up another twenty, so he activated [Air Walk] at the apex of his leap in order to force himself up another step. He got less distance that way, but it preserved his height.

All said, it took four steps to reach the core. Velik slammed into it hard, his fingers scrabbling to dig into the lines cut into the side of the stone and secure his position. They weren’t that deep, half an inch or so and not even that wide, so it was a tight fit, but he felt his weight settle onto his fingertips and his legs dangling freely below him.

“Cannot believe that worked,” Torwin muttered from behind him, not so quiet that Velik couldn’t hear him in the silence.

There were so many scars covering the core’s surface that it actually wasn’t that difficult to climb across it. The vines also seemed to shy away from his presence, doing their best to retract from him. They just didn’t move fast enough to really get out of the way, so it was easy for him to grab one up and tear it free. It spasmed in the process, and the whole cavern rumbled in response.

“Okay, maybe don’t do that again,” Velik said as peered at the length of vine. Every single inch of it had dozens of tiny hairs, giving it a fuzzy appearance, and where he’d ripped it free of the core, thousands of little holes were visible.

What the hell does that mean?

he wondered. And is the core… bleeding?

“Do cores bleed?” Velik called out.

“What? No, they’re… they’re not alive like that.”

“Well, this one’s got some sort of liquid coming out of it, black like monster blood. It’s a bit thinner than normal, but that might just be because the holes are like pores instead of injuries.”

A thunderous crack split the air as the stone surface of the dungeon core where he’d ripped the vine free splintered, flakes of corruption-red stone breaking free and falling into the darkness below. A good foot-deep crater was left behind, all the normal gray of dungeon stone. Did the core just purge itself of this plant’s influence somehow? Shit, can this thing do something like that to me?

But the vine just sat limply in Velik’s hand, the hairs not so much as scratching his skin. Hesitantly, Velik pulled on the vine, ripping another length free of the stone. That section started bleeding just like before, and a new chunk cracked and fell free.

“What are you doing over there?” Torwin called out.

“Every time I pull up some of this vine, the dungeon core sheds the infected stone.”

“And it’s just letting you do that?”

“So far,” Velik replied.

“Can you just crawl past the vines for now and find the heart of the plant?”

Velik craned his neck to peer around the curve of the dungeon core. The scars crossing the surface disappeared on the far side, or rather, they were still there, but they were filled with vines that hadn’t yet crept back to wherever they were coming from.

“Only if I want to trust my weight to the vines,” he said. “I’ve still got two [Air Walk] charges left, but if I fall, we’ll be waiting an hour or more to try again.”

Left unsaid was that two steps would not be enough to get him to safety, and if Torwin failed to reel him in for whatever reason, he’d plummet into that black abyss. The best scenario at this point was that Velik clung to the stalactite-shaped core for another ten minutes or so, preferably longer since he wouldn’t have the running start to help clear the distance back.

“Better to take it slow then. Just make sure the whole core doesn’t fall apart and take you with it.”

Velik did just this, proceeding slowly over the next twenty minutes as he carefully de-vined the dungeon core and chunks of it fell away. The good news was that the newly roughened surface gave him some traction for his boots and allowed him to rest the fingers that had been supporting his whole weight, but it was still a slow process.

He was more than halfway around the core when something moved in front of him. Straining, he stretched to see around the curve, only to recoil when something that looked like a spider made out of stitched-together human limbs and torsos skittered toward him.