Zagaroth

  Deep in the flesh of the world, bound to a single crystal of deep purple and fined by innumerable wards to a single sealed chamber of stone, an a mind y dormant.

  With the steadiness of a river cutting a yon through solid stohe power of the slumberiy and that of the wards that bound it waned over time as they wore at each other.

  The wards were meant to st slightly loharapped entity, given the normal course of events. But not even the gods could predict everything perfectly and while those who id the wards may have had divine guidahey were certainly not gods.

  This far underground it was often silent but there were always noises as the nd grew, eroded, and shifted. he sleeping mind was so used to that they did not disturb its slumber. Yet, on this day, there were new sounds. Something faint; an impact; scrabbling sounds; muttered curses. Lack of grip caused a body to tinue slipping and falling. Then following a moment of silehere was a sharp yell, and a final crash shortly after the trapped presence had awakened.

  The unusual noises had stirred the mind to partial wakefulness and then a crashing boulder dispelled the st of its mental fog. Full awareness followed as swiftly as the boulder breaking through the roof of the cavern was followed by a filing body.

  It reacted more on instinct than thought, eling magito a swirl of ford dim light that surrouhe figure and slowed its fall. There was a softer ‘woof’, then a quiet groan as it y there, rec.

  The mind observed its new visitor, the first si had been sealed here, and tried to decide what he should do.

  He? ht, he did think of himself that way. Not that a soul born of a crystal core had to be a specifider, but it felt right. Hmm. He focused his attention on the slowly moving form as it sat upright. Ah, a human.. no, her aura wasn’t quite right. It had a touch of something more fey… a half-elf? That seemed likely.

  His mi sluggish as he tried to think after so long. This intrusion had a meaning of some importance, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t bring all of his thoughts together.

  “Hello?” a soft voice called out, breaking his tration. ht, he should talk to her. Um, how again? He used to know how to do it... ht, an avatar. Hmm, could he still make one? He was so much weaker… ah, good. Weaker than he was, but still so much strohan when he'd first awakened with only a single room between his core and the world beyond. He only needed a basiternal avatar for now, so he was effit with his mana and reused a basic tempte for designing the body. Her being here was also making him feel stronger; as an outsider in a dungeon's territory, the beat of her life and spirit was a steady sourana. Her presence should also ence a flow of mana from outside, but that normal flow was absent.

  Small motes of purplish and indigo hues began appearing and slowly gathering a few meters away from the half-elf, who swiftly leapt to her feet in surprise. He took his time in order to be as effit as possible, but in due course, his avatar was structed: A somewhat tallish humanoid male, with moderately tanned skin, purple-hued bck hair that fell a little below his shoulders, and eyes that were an almost molten gold color. ht! Just before the avatar finished coalesg he remembered that clothes were important, and mao get leather pants on his avatar. A distant memory rose of being pyfully enced to dress like this, and he didn't take the time to sider his other options.

  “Hello,” He replied, though his tone wavered a moment as he focused to remember how to speak. “I’m sorry if I got anything wrong; I still feel half asleep, and it’s been a very long time.” His voice had caused his visitor to jump slightly again, perhaps caused by the adrenaline rush after her fall?

  Fall? From where?

  He looked up at the thought, to see the hole in his prison. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to have disrupted the wards themselves very much, his senses and power were uo cross that threshold.

  Because of his distra, he missed it when his guest started to talk. “Hi yourself, um, I think you’re over there?” The sudden fre of light caught his attention and drew his gaze back down to where the woman was standing with a small orb of whitish light h nearby. It was undoubtedly the result of an untiered light spell, on even amongst explorers who don't use much magic.

  For a moment they studied each other, with the light giving him a better image than his other senses had. She had almost delicate facial features, someale skin with golden uones, bck hair pinned into a oneat bun, rich browhat faintly hi red tones, and pointed ears that spoke of her elven bloodlines. While many elven-blooded folk did tend to have somewhat almond-shaped eyes, his impression of her features also made him think of the humans from the Azanxuan ti, though not enough to say she definitely had bloodlines from there.

  Her lightweight clothing didn’t look practical for spelunking, but he guessed that cave delving hadn’t been her i for the day. The clothing style also held hints of teiques from different tis, and it left him w what exactly had happened while he had slumbered. If that represented how much cultural intermingling there had been then any specution on her ary was rather meaningless.

  “So, um, I guess I have you to thank for the save there?” She asked, shifting her weight. “Well, thanks. My name’s Moriko.” And with that stepped forward to offer her hand.

  Name? Oh yes, his was… “Ah, right. You are most weloriko.” he was a little slow in responding to her offered hand, but he did take it and gave it a firm grip and a brief shake before letting go. “I believe my name is Mordecai. It’s been a long time, my memory is a little fuzzy.”

  But he was beginning to remember things. Many good things, but also some very bad things. As those memories came, he started searg for certain patterns in his core's matrix, but they weren't there. Other souls and memories, the creatures that had once been a part of his dungeon. They should have been there still, if they had stayed and their bodies perished inside his territory. Had they all mao leave after he was sealed?

  “A pleasure to meet you as well, Mordecai,” Moriko replied, trying to not eye him too much. She retty certain he wasn’t truly any kind of humanoid, not with the giant orb of crystal behind him, but whoever had helped design that body certainly had a type. And well, she couldly say she disapproved: a tall and lean base with just enough muscle to show off could be a tasty treat. She just didn’t find it very appropriate for him to be greeting her while barefoot and shirtless like that. Mostly because it was distrag.

  As for what this strange man actually was: “So, I take it you are a dungeon avatar?” Okay, she khat wasn’t quite right, the avatar was aension of the dungeon and core, but it didn’t feel right to call him just the dungeon or the core. “I haven’t met one before, but that is sort of what brought me here.”

  There was just the slightest hesitation before he nodded, and another slight pause before he spoke. “Yes, I am, though I have been sealed here for a while. So I might not be like the ones you’ve heard of.” It was a touch creepy to be ho, the little hesitations. But based on what he’d said so far it had been a long time since he’d had a body, so Moriko was going to give him the be of the doubt on that matter. Especially si was smoothing out the more he talked and acted. “How did you get here?”

  Moriko hesitated when he asked her that. She was tempted to try and deflect, but given her situation, maybe she should just let herself be embarrassed. And if she en, maybe he’d be more open when she asked him questions, because What in the Nine Hells? This dungeoence didn’t seem possible.

  “Well, I have to admit it’s not a story I’m going to like telling very much, but the first part isn’t too bad. I was taking a trip to visit my family, who live iy of Riverbridge, and I had retly passed the Azeria Forest. I was kind of meandering to explore a bit as it's pretty peaceful in the area. So while expl, I came across a little stream that seemed to be ing out of a small cave. And there were a few different types of weird rabbits in the cave, which sounded like what I’d heard about how living dungeoo theme their creatures. I figured it might be a new dungeon because you guys are kind of rare and I had never heard of one in the area before. Naturally, I went expl.” Moriko did her best to work in a couple of ndmarks, but nothing in his expression suggested he reized either of them, so she tinued on to the more embarrassing part.

  Though she was absolutely not going to admit that the strange bunnies with the horns were super adorable and she had been hoping to be able to cuddle some, that would be even more embarrassing. “Things went well at first, then I think the dungeon panicked? All of a sudden a small wave of new rabbits charged out at me, bigger ohat jumped to try and hit me with their horns as well as others that breathed fire and stuff. None of them were very dangerous to me, but there were a lot of them and I wound up stepping into a pitfall that I swear wasn’t there a moment before.”

  “And then... I fell. And hit a slope. Slid. Fell again. Rinse a more times than I tried to t. No idea how far I fell, boung off of things until I wound up here. And would probably have died if you hadn’t caught me. And, well, you know the rest.” The ache all over her body was trying to tell her the t of how much she had hit, and her dress was in terrible shape.

  There was more to tell really. She retty certain he didn’t know much about what was going on up on the surface, but she’d kept to the most immediate, relevant stuff. And she certainly was not going to talk about why she was on 'vacatiht now. “But my story is simple. What I want to know is how the heck you even still be ience sealed all the way down here.” Mordecai flinched a little at that, Moriko had clearly hit on a sensitive subjeot surprising really, one didly e to be sealed some gods-only-know depth below the ground because of a light-hearted story.

  Zagaroth