The fading echo of Brent’s voice still lingered in the air as his projection blinked out, followed by Emil’s quiet departure through a side corridor of obsidian and steel.

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Only the crackling of magma and the low rumble of Ignarok’s breath filled the room. The chamber had grown darker without Brent’s glow—cooler in tone, but no less heavy.

  It was Ferron who finally broke the silence, arms folded across his broad chest. His voice was low but solid. “I don’t like it.”

  Caldron, standing nearby, arced a faint wave of magnetism along one of his arms. “You don’t like anything, Ferron.”

  Ferron didn’t rise to the bait. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” He looked out over the rest of the group. “We’ve been running races, building rooms, pulling double-duty to keep this place running smooth since Shadow left. Now we’re preparing for a siege. A war. And we’re down one of the most dangerous assets we had.”

  “Dangerous is right,” Kagejin muttered from where he stood half-shadowed beneath a jagged obsidian overhang. “Shadow didn’t just break rules. He broke trust.”

  Zyrris drifted slowly across the platform, his voice thoughtful. “But he did it because he thought Brent was leading us in the wrong direction. He wanted something more primal. More true to the essence of a dungeon.”

  Caldron snorted. “What, death and blood on every turn? He wanted to take the fun out of the chaos.”

  “Shadow didn’t want chaos,” Kagejin said quietly. “He wanted control. Through fear.”

  Ferron grunted. “Yeah, and he got himself gone. Can’t say I miss the lectures, but… it’s a hole, no doubt. We all feel it.”

  “His room is still sealed,” Ignarok rumbled from his magma-crowned perch, his voice echoing like stone grinding beneath the earth. “I cannot reach it… but I feel the silence where he once was. Like a furnace that burned too hot, too fast—now gone cold, but not forgotten.”

  Mechard, scribbling something quickly into a glowing blueprint with a stylus arm, didn’t look up. “Whether Shadow was right or wrong is irrelevant. He is not here. What we have is what we use.”

  Tradez, standing just off the main group with a bundle of enchanted inventory scrolls clutched against his angular chest, let out a low, gravelly hum. “Inventory flow has shifted since he left. Fewer demand-side fluctuations. More predictability. Boring, but easier to catalog.”

  “Glad you’re emotionally coping through inventory, Tradez,” Ferron said dryly.

  “I’m a counter golem,” Tradez replied. “That is how I cope.”

  Caldron let out a metallic snicker.

  Zyrris’s voice turned thoughtful again. “Brent’s changed too, since Shadow left. Focused, yes—but heavier. There’s less spark in the light of the Core. Less wonder.”

  “He’s carrying more than he should,” Ferron muttered. “Always has.”

  Kagejin turned his head toward the lavafall, the flicker of light tracing across the curve of his obsidian armor. “He let Shadow go. That says a lot. About him… and about us.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Vulcanis finally said, his voice like molten stone bubbling through ancient pipes. “There was no forging that blade back into shape. Too warped. Better to let it fall.”

  Mechard finished a line, turned a schematic over, and began a new one in the air. “Then we make new tools. Better tools. Ones designed for what comes next.”

  “I’ll get to reinforcing the second-floor pressure valves tonight,” Ferron said. “If they try to tunnel in or overtake a corridor, we’ll blow the floor out beneath them and reroute them into the Jungle Room. Let the vines have ‘em.”

  “You think they’ll come physically?” Zyrris asked. “Not through illusions, or worse—corruption?”

  “I think they’ll come in every way,” Kagejin said. “And I think they’ll expect us to panic.”

  “They want to find weakness,” Ignarok said, glowing eyes narrowing. “But they’ll only find heat.”

  There was a low ripple of agreement across the group.

  “We’re not a perfect machine,” Ferron said. “But we’ve built something real here. Something worth fighting for.”

  Caldron crackled. “And we’re going to fight like hell to keep it.”

  For the first time in a long while, even with Shadow’s absence still fresh, the minions stood not as fragments of Brent’s creation—but as a unified force.

  Not because they had to.

  Because they chose to.

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  And with the Verdant Depths coming… choice was the one advantage they still had.

  Brent hovered in the Core Room, his light soft and dimmed—not from weariness, but from thought. His awareness stretched beyond the crystal chamber, drifting down into the vast first floor where his minions still stood gathered in Ignarok’s room.

  They hadn’t left yet.

  He watched them—Ferron, proud and practical as ever, already thinking of fallback corridors. Kagejin, quiet but piercing, observing everything with surgical clarity. Zyrris, thoughtful and arcane, seeing the threat in layers others couldn’t. Even Caldron, erratic in energy but precise in execution, was committing fully.

  They weren’t just readying themselves for battle.

  They were standing by him.

  Shadow had left. Had accused Brent of being too soft. Too fanciful.

  But here they were—choosing him, even with the danger laid bare.

  His glow brightened slightly, a small, private pulse of emotion.

  “You’ve built something rare, you know.”

  Emil’s voice was soft, approaching from behind, his boots echoing lightly on the polished stone.

  Brent didn’t turn. He didn’t have to. “I didn’t build them. Not really.”

  “You gave them a place,” Emil replied. “You gave them a reason. They built themselves around that.”

  Brent pulsed. “Still feels like I lucked out.”

  “You didn’t,” Emil said, walking beside the core and resting his hand lightly on the ledge of the platform. “You listened. You cared. You saw them as more than tools. Most Dungeon Cores don’t bother with that part.”

  Brent was quiet for a moment, watching as Ferron nudged Caldron with a grunt and something like amusement, and Zyrris nodded once toward Mechard’s projections in mid-air.

  “They’re stronger than I thought,” Brent murmured. “All of them.”

  “They always were,” Emil said. “They were just waiting for the moment to show you.”

  Brent flickered with something like a laugh. “Guess I have to stop pretending I know everything, huh?”

  “You never pretended,” Emil said. “You hoped. That’s different. And a lot braver, frankly.”

  Brent turned slightly toward him, his glow warming. “You always say the right things when I’m about to spiral.”

  “Only because I hear the spiraling before you do,” Emil smirked. “It echoes.”

  Brent chuckled, then paused, quieter now. “I don’t know what the Verdant Depths is planning. I don’t even know if we can beat them.”

  “But we’ll try,” Emil said. “Together.”

  Brent pulsed softly. “Together.”

  And for a moment, there was peace. Not the peace of quiet times, but the peace that comes when you know you’re not facing the dark alone.

  The silence between them lingered a moment longer before Emil straightened, his eyes sharpening.

  “There’s something else we need to talk about,” he said, stepping away from the core’s edge. “Defense.”

  Brent’s glow shifted subtly—more alert now. “Go on.”

  “You’ve got loyal minions. Intelligent ones. But that also means they’re limited in number, and specialized.” Emil began pacing slowly in a loose circle, half-thinking aloud. “If the Verdant Depths sends what I think they will—hordes of corrupted beasts, vine-twisted constructs, things that regenerate or multiply—we’ll need more than clever traps and a few well-placed spellcasters.”

  Brent was silent, but listening. Emil knew that posture well.

  “We need bodies. Lots of them. Not soldiers in the way Ferron or Kagejin are,” Emil continued, “but basic dungeon constructs—functioning automata. You’ve got the core energy to spare. Divert a portion of it to fabrication. Standard template sentries, arc-slingers, blade rollers—nothing fancy, just reliable.”

  Brent pulsed thoughtfully. “Automatons. Disposable troops.”

  “Exactly. The kind of thing that can hold a line, delay an incursion, absorb spells.” Emil turned back to face him. “We don't need them to think. We need them to stall. ”

  Brent hesitated. “I’ve never made that many at once. Not without sacrificing some of the dungeon’s responsiveness.”

  “You won’t have to run them all at once. We stagger the deployment, tie them into a lattice system. Let Mechard help calibrate the command chain. Keep them tethered to specific zones—mechanical kill pockets.”

  Brent’s glow tightened, calculating now. “If I use older patterns from the floor guardians, scale down the mana circuits… I could probably generate a hundred. Maybe more.”

  “Do it,” Emil said without hesitation. “Start now. Let them see we’re ready.”

  Brent’s light flared with resolve. “I’ll initiate the process. Mechard can handle coordination and expansion.”

  Emil gave a tight nod. “Good. And if the Depths break through the track defenses, we’ll need fallback squads waiting in ambush. Programs that activate the moment a chamber falls.”

  Brent laughed dryly. “You want contingency plans for our contingency plans.”

  “You’re finally learning,” Emil smirked. “Now you’re thinking like a paranoid dungeon.”

  Brent pulsed warm. “And here I thought I was just a stressed-out gem.”

  “Tomato, tomahto.”