Mordeodded along with her expnation, holding back the questions that had sprung to mind. He had no knowledge of the forest she spoke of, and upon refle realized they weren’t actually speaking the nguage that he had onown as on. It seemed his ability to assimite new nguages 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 flin anticipated pain... huh. Oh, it still hurt, aook a moment to let himself experie, but the aess had faded. His long sleep had let him process things. There didn't eveo be much rage left anymore, though he’d rather not test how readily those coals could be stoked.

  ht, 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 lohan I calcute 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 ba 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 expl the world outside with fully Ied Avatars. When my heart broke, I was able to sh out and break limitations. There is a rush of power a Core utilize when it feels itself truly threatened, and I was able to force myself into that state tinuously, and push my power outside of my boundaries. I was able to call upon the forms of all my ied 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 uered assault.”

  He watched Moriko’s expression ge to reflect the myriad emotions she was experieng, but he didn’t stop. “That was enough, or at least, enough for me to withdraw. To let go of my grip on that torrent of power, to retreat bato myself, settle bato my core, and foy grief. I didn’t reform any avatars when they came for me, and I didn’t care enough to try and stoke my Breach pain. But her did I keep my dungeon and residents from defending themselves. The normal baween a Living Dungeon and the people in the surrounding regions had been broken, the rules vioted in ways that couldn’t readily be fiven. The armies that came were not able to reach my core, however, for the normal daily beat of respawni on and they couldn't overwhelm my inhabitants fast enough. The number of people who died kept feeding into my strength."

  He poi the wards glowing faintly along the surface of the st room of his dungeon and prison. "This was their solution.”

  “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, theually the st of my power would have faded, and my soul would have moved on.” He couldn’t help but give a little half smile. “And now that I am awake again, I find I would rather live. So I am hoping I think of a way to get out of this.”

  The young woman’s face was quite the study of mixed reas, and Mordecai couldn't bme her. He had just told Moriko that he had waged a war of retribution, and sughtered everyohat stood against him. He had been responsible for the death of so many thousands of people that he had never even tried to calcute the number of casualties, and many of those would have been is. 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 duhat 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 corre injustice, a raging demo oru, or just a monster gone insane, depending oory. 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 you still be alive?"

  She didn’t know a lot about Living Dungeons, but she khey ‘fed’ on iion with the outside world, and that it was supposed to be impossible to close them off pletely. Yeah, dungeons are weird, but there are a lot of weird creatures in the world. Dungeons couldn’t really be sidered the stra of them.

  “And you're saying that you are all good because you got some sleep? I don't know which story is true, but even the best of them paints 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 impriso, but Moriko felt very uain about her ces 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 smmed the mental door on that 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 watg her with what looked like a mix of amusement and patience. “Okay, right. I got that out of my system.” She wasly lying to herself, but Moriko was shoving her shock as deep as she could. The elf-blooded woman looked up at the hole she had crashed through, deg to focus oure instead of campfire horror stories. Even if this particur 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 n to flirt with the scary a dungeon man. Especially nht 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 distrag 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 examihe walls in more detail. “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?”

  Giveory she had just heard, turning her ba the man seemed risky, but her bat awareness retty good, and if he was too powerful it wouldn’t matter if she was fag him or not. So being trusting seemed most expedient. The fact that he hadn't tried to hide why he was sealed oint in his favor. But he could also have been trying to win trust by being so open. But even if it was a calcuted move, it could be either sincere or ical, how was she to tell? There just was a limit to how far she could sed guess herself, and his personality and body nguage didn't strike her as off.

  Moriko would be a lot more incredulous about his tale if she had entered 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 ected 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 plete. However, I have the start of an idea, and it would get both of us out of here; but depending oails it might e 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 o spend a bit of time figuring out what I actually do. Once I’ve eliminated enough not-possibles, I focus on ways to hack the things that are possible.”

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

  “Yes. Most spells and such are formus. They are safe, known patterns.” He her little orb of light. “Like that one. But you also try to create unique effects. They usually aren’t repeatable, because you have to make them for a specific set of circumstances.” Mordecai k down on a particurly ft se of rod began using a trip to draw diagrams of faint color on it. “I hope I am not being desding, but despite yht spell, you don’t strike me as a magic specialist. Your muscle tone and movement suggest a more physically oriented lifestyle and bat training.”

  Well, he was right about that, and she was going to pletely ighe fact that he had looked at her body that closely. “Alright, fine, do yierd stuff. I’ll look around.” She khe basics of how spells worked, but her few spells were iricks from her elven bloodline. Formal magic was not her focus. “And yeah, I’ve put my effort into reinf my body and improving my martial arts.” Her temple training was the only reason she'd survived the banging she'd gotten while redug the speed of her fall on the sides of the tunnel, but that st bit had been too much free fall for the state she was in.

  Zagaroth