Cassian ducked away from the viewing slit.

  Outside, the knock came again. Polite. Rhythmic. Threatening only by its crisp professionalism. The kind of knock that came with clipboard inspections and guild-funded attorneys.

  “We are from Crimson Threshold,” the voice repeated. “We are here regarding Claim #1124-B on this dungeon site. Please open the hatch for inspection—or we’ll open it ourselves.”

  Cassian muttered, “I hate that they sound like bank tellers.”

  Behind him, Gritch the mimic was pressed flat against the wall like a guilty suitcase trying to blend in with the stone. His lid was clamped nearly shut, his one eye peering out with a kind of flat panic.

  “You didn’t say they were Threshold,” Gritch hissed. “That’s the worst one.”

  “Worse than Arcanum Ledger?”

  “Ledger will kill you with spells. Threshold’ll invoice you for dying. One leaves scorch marks. The other audits your ghost.”

  Cassian winced. “Good point.”

  The core chamber around them flickered. The orb in the center of the pedestal gave off a faint, stuttering glow, like a dying lantern trying to look important. The bureaucratic interface hovering above it looked slightly more coherent than before—the menus wobbled less, the margins aligned.

  He focused, squinting through the hovering data. The system responded, sharpening its edges like a sluggish office assistant trying to wake up. A new notice appeared in pale blue text.

  ---

  [Notice: Competing Claims Detected]

  Validating Legal Ownership...

  Searching for Title Chain...

  Reclaimant Verification: 83% Complete

  Recommended Action: Submit Form 17-D (Defensive Possession Filing)

  ---

  Cassian read the prompt aloud. “Form 17-D. Defensive possession?”

  “Means you’re squatting legally,” Gritch said. “If you file it fast enough.”

  A parchment shimmered into view, materializing just above the core, pages fluttering gently despite the still air.

  Cassian caught it, nearly dropping the thing as its weight shifted unexpectedly. The pages were unnaturally heavy—not physically, but in the bureaucratic sense. The way tax forms felt heavy. The way a summons did.

  Ten pages. Great.

  The first question glared up at him.

  Have you occupied the dungeon for more than 10 system-minutes?

  “Technically,” he muttered.

  The second:

  Please rate your dungeon’s hostility on a scale from 1 to Unholy.

  Cassian glanced at Gritch.

  “Three,” the mimic offered. “On a good day. If you don’t count the ceiling.”

  The next page asked whether any core-bound entities had declared intent to maim, dismember, or legally reclassify the Reclaimant.

  “That depends,” Cassian said. “Do implied threats from doors count?”

  “If they have a face, yes,” Gritch said.

  He worked his way through the form, muttering responses under his breath and skipping entire sections marked Sovereign Bond Required or Necrotic Clause Only. Some of the language bordered on offensive to his professional sensibilities.

  Section 4B, for example, required him to draw a visual representation of his dungeon’s "general aura of menace." Section 7C wanted a sample of monster saliva. Section 9A-ii asked whether he had previously been devoured by a dungeon and, if so, whether he retained legal memory of the event.

  Section 10 included a blank field simply labeled: Please provide a short essay describing your personal vision for the future of the dungeon, including any potential rebranding initiatives.

  “Rebranding?” Cassian muttered. “What do I even call it? The Crumbling Tax Pit?”

  Gritch offered, “'The Pit of Moderate Regret' has a nice ring.”

  “Only if I can add an asterisk for pending litigation.”

  “Now you’re thinking like a Reclaimer.”

  “Do you spit?” Cassian asked without looking up.

  Gritch made a sound somewhere between offended and curious. “Only recreationally.”

  Eventually, he reached a page with a glowing field labeled Blood Oath Certification. He pricked his finger with the stylus, swore on the Dungeon Codebook, and watched as the parchment dissolved in a soft puff of administrative satisfaction.

  The core pulsed slightly brighter.

  ---

  [Form Accepted]

  Defensive Possession Initiated

  Dungeon Control Node: Cassian Bell

  Reclaimant Status: PROVISIONAL OWNER

  Rights Enabled:

  - Dungeon Layout View

  - Monster Management (limited)

  - Trap Editor (locked)

  ---

  A soft ping echoed, almost cheerful.

  Cassian blinked. “I… own it now?”

  “Provisionally,” Gritch said. “The good kind of maybe. You get to use the furniture, but don’t scratch the walls or you forfeit the deposit.”

  Cassian took a step back and let the reality sink in. He remembered a reclamation attempt back in his junior days—Dungeon #337-K. The place was pristine. Efficient. All stairs, no monsters. Everyone thought it would be a clean conversion. Turned out, it had been run by an overclocked sentience core that filed incident reports about its own thoughts. Three auditors left weeping. One tried to unionize the boss room.

  He never forgot that lesson: never trust a dungeon that seems organized.

  He glanced back toward the hatch. Silence. No more knocking.

  He should have felt relief.

  Instead, he felt like someone had just signed him up for an unpaid internship in a collapsing minefield.

  “Horace,” he muttered. “What were you thinking?”

  Maybe this had all made sense to his grandfather. Maybe the old man had seen potential here. A legacy to pass down, a second chance. Or maybe he just hadn’t read the fine print.

  Cassian had. He just didn’t think he’d be living it.

  The glow from the core deepened. For a moment, it almost looked steady. Almost... welcoming.

  He stepped a little closer and held his hand out, watching how the light caught on his skin. He remembered a line from one of the old Reclaimer orientation scrolls: “Dungeons are loyal to debt and memory. Never confuse either for affection.”

  He’d always thought it was metaphor. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “They’re leaving,” Gritch confirmed, slithering up to peek through the edge of his lid. “But they’ll be back. Threshold always files appeals. Might even file for preemptive annexation if they think the vault is active.”

  “Great,” Cassian muttered. “Seven days of peace, then a legal war.”

  He turned back to the core. The interface now shimmered with a cleaner light, lines and boxes emerging with actual legibility. It felt more alive. Or maybe more aware. A small blinking node in the corner caught his eye.

  ---

  [Layout View – Access Granted]

  ---

  He opened it.

  A top-down view of the dungeon expanded outward, projected in shimmering blue light across the dusty chamber floor. Corridors sprawled like veins, branching into collapsed wings, storage annexes, and unstable rooms. Each was labeled in floating text—Unstable, Degraded, Historically Litigated.

  “That last one’s my favorite,” Gritch said, leaning in. “We got sued for existential ambiguity.”

  Cassian scanned the glowing map. Most of it looked unusable. Some rooms had pulsing red borders with warning sigils. Others had been marked for magical foreclosure, the arcane equivalent of a condemned sign.

  One hallway simply read: Legally Haunted. Another had an annotation in fine red text: Casually Anomalous (Review Pending).

  One chamber blinked intermittently, its tag flickering between "Storage" and "Cursed Kitchenette." Cassian decided not to ask.

  A small bubble popped open on the far left: Staff Wellness Room (collapsed). Beneath it: Dry Erase Threat Board (obsolete).

  Cassian squinted. “What is a threat board?”

  “Something a past Reclaimer used,” Gritch said. “Color-coded everything. Tried to rate monster moods with smiley faces. Didn’t end well.”

  “Why?”

  “He used red for grumpy. Guess who else was red?”

  Cassian winced. “Ah.”

  There was a narrow junction labeled Unfiled Torment Archive. Another room simply read Temporal Complaint Loop. He blinked.

  “Is that a... hallway of arguments?”

  “Yes,” Gritch said. “They echo backwards.”

  Cassian exhaled. “Of course they do.”

  Cassian tilted his head. “This one’s labeled ‘Negotiation Pit.’”

  Gritch peered over. “Still in mediation. Eighty-seven years and counting.”

  “Over what?”

  “Whether abyssals count as employees.”

  He moved on.

  The system beeped politely at him as he tapped through the map, refusing to open additional views.

  “You need clearance,” Gritch said. “Or a bribe.”

  “Bribe the interface?”

  “It's learned behavior. You feed it mana credits, and it unlocks features. Call it emergent capitalism.”

  Cassian sighed. “It’s like working with an intern who thinks they’re middle management.”

  Then he saw it.

  Far beneath the others, buried under a jagged sublevel marked Hazardous Depths, one room pulsed with a deep crimson glow.

  Locked: Boss Vault – LAST LINKED SENTIENCE

  Cassian frowned. “Last linked what?”

  Another alert appeared, blinking in urgent orange.

  ---

  [Warning]

  Structural Instability Detected in Sublevel V

  Vault Connection Corrupted

  Sentience Core Status: UNKNOWN

  Integration: NOT RECOMMENDED

  ---

  Cassian exhaled slowly. “Of course there’s a vault. And of course it’s broken.”

  “You expected otherwise?” Gritch asked.

  “I was hoping for a janitor closet.”

  The mimic gave a soft laugh. “Then you’re really not going to like what comes next.”

  Cassian stared at the map again, tracing the sealed vault with his eyes. Something deep in the system was still alive. Connected. But if this was the same vault referenced in the core’s default inheritance clause, then whatever lived there was either key to stabilization—or the reason this place fell apart to begin with.

  The red glow pulsed again, slower this time, as if breathing. Somewhere beneath his feet, he could almost feel it—the rhythm of some dormant mechanism, like gears flexing in their sleep.

  “Do you know what’s down there?” he asked.

  Gritch hesitated. His eye narrowed.

  “Not exactly. But I know what it used to be.”

  Cassian turned.

  “Before everything went sideways,” Gritch said, “this dungeon had a personality core. Not a system shell, not just a voice. A full directive intelligence.”

  “And?”

  “And it went quiet thirteen years ago. Same time the debt started compounding.”

  The mimic slumped back against the wall. “They tried rebooting it. Resetting the vault. Even summoned a Tribunal agent. Didn’t work. One guy said the core was too old. Another said it bonded too deep with the original Reclaimer. I say it got tired of being ignored.”

  Cassian was quiet for a long moment. The glowing vault on the map pulsed again, red and slow, like a heartbeat trapped behind stone.

  He felt it again—that hum. Not from the core or the floor, but from somewhere behind the interface. A presence. Watching. Waiting. The kind of silence that wasn't empty, but listening.

  There was a tooltip flashing faintly at the edge of the interface: [Click here for Help]. He tapped it.

  ---

  [Click here for Help]

  Don't.

  ---

  Cassian stared.

  “Don’t… what?” he muttered.

  The box offered no follow-up. No context. Just that single word.

  He considered it. Was it warning him not to disturb the vault? Or not to open the help menu again? With this system, either was plausible.

  He closed it with exaggerated care.

  “I guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow,” he said.

  Gritch groaned. “You’re going to poke the haunted sublevel, aren’t you.”

  Cassian gave a faint, exhausted smile.

  “I’m going to wake the core. And then I’m going to make it explain itself.”

  The mimic sighed. “You know, at least the last guy brought cookies.”