The core room’s pulse was still unsteady, lingering with the last echoes of the magical intrusion. The illusion had vanished, but its presence still clung to the walls like the scent of ozone after a lightning strike. Brent hadn’t moved.

  He hovered in the center of the room, his glow drawn in tight, dimmer than usual as he replayed the conversation over and over. Every word. Every threat.

  And then—

  SLAM.

  The doors to the core chamber burst open with a thunderous clang of metal on stone.

  “Brent!”

  Ferron’s heavy footfalls echoed as the iron golem stomped inside, his eyes burning with alarm. His hammer-sized fists were clenched, shoulders braced like he was expecting to find a fight already in progress.

  “I felt something,” Ferron rumbled. “Magic. Deep and old. It bled through the whole damn frame of the dungeon. What was it?”

  Brent didn’t answer at first.

  Instead, his light flickered with exasperation. “Seriously, why do I even bother installing doors if no one’s going to knock?”

  Ferron blinked, thrown off. “What?”

  “I mean it,” Brent said, his voice dry. “They swing. They slide. I even carved those little inlays. And for what? So my chief of operations can treat them like they’re made of paper?”

  Ferron stared at him blankly, still tense. “I thought you wanted an open-door policy.”

  “I don’t! That’s why they were closed! ” Brent snapped. “Do you see a welcome mat? A little plaque that says ‘Core Sweet Core’? No. Because this is a serious, extremely vulnerable magical sanctuary, not a tavern back room!”

  Ferron stared at him for a moment longer, then grunted. “If something’s wrong, we’re not doing polite. We’re doing fast.”

  Brent sighed dramatically. “I suppose knocking is hard when your fists weigh more than a boulder. Fine. What’s etiquette when the world might be ending?”

  Ferron pointed again. “So, what was it?”

  Brent pulsed once, glow tightening. The humor faded.

  He turned slowly—just a shift of his core-light in the air, not a true movement, but it carried weight all the same. “It’s handled.”

  Ferron took another step in. “Like hell it is. That wasn’t some loose rune trap misfiring. That was a presence , Brent. It pressed down on everything. Even the forge fires dipped.”

  Brent pulsed faintly. “I know.”

  “Then tell me what it was.”

  “I said it’s handled.”

  Ferron’s jaw flexed. “Don’t pull that Core stuff on me right now.” He pointed a thick metal finger at Brent’s projection. “You’ve been off for weeks. Ever since Shadow left. We all see it. We feel it.”

  Brent’s light flickered slightly. “And I’ve been doing my job. I haven’t let anything fall behind. The races are running. Adventurers are thriving. The dungeon is still alive.”

  “That’s not what I asked!” Ferron snapped. “You think we’re just cogs to keep turning while you stew up here in silence? You think we don’t know something’s coming? We’ve been on edge for a month, Brent. Don’t you dare shut me out now.”

  Brent’s voice turned quiet. “If I told you everything right now, you’d stop focusing on what needs doing and start worrying about what we might not be able to stop.”

  Ferron narrowed his glowing eyes. “You think I scare easy?”

  “No,” Brent replied, the words low and deliberate. “But I need you focused. We all need to be ready—and that starts with control. Right now, we stay the course.”

  Ferron held his ground for a long moment. You could practically feel the heat radiating off the forge steel in his frame. But then, slowly, his shoulders dropped.

  “…Alright,” he said, voice rough. “But you’re calling a meeting.”

  Brent pulsed once in agreement. “End of day. When the dungeon closes.”

  Ferron gave a slow nod, then turned and marched out, the heavy thunk of his steps echoing long after he was gone.

  Brent hovered silently for a moment, then pulsed as Emil stepped forward from the edge of the chamber. He hadn’t spoken during the exchange, but it was clear he’d seen everything.

  “You’re being hard on them,” Emil said gently. “They’re worried because they care. You know that, right?”

  Brent gave a flickering pulse, not quite annoyed, but not welcoming the lecture either. “I know . But it’s my responsibility. I’m the Core. This whole place exists because of me. If something goes wrong, it’s not on Ferron. Or Kagejin. Or even Shadow. It’s on me.”

  Emil crossed his arms. “This might shock you, but you’re not actually the first Dungeon Core in existence. None of them did it alone, and neither will you. You’re not supposed to. That’s the whole reason we’re here. We’re a team, Brent. Whether you like it or not.”

  Brent’s glow dimmed a little, then flickered with a pulse of reluctant amusement. “You know, you’re starting to sound like my mom. ‘You don’t have to carry the world by yourself, honey. You’ll get stress fractures in your soul.’”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Emil raised an eyebrow. “Would your mother also remind you to eat something before you start manifesting catastrophic emotional shutdowns?”

  “I mean... she’d probably suggest a sandwich first, but yeah.”

  “And what about keeping your chambers clean? Do I need to start leaving chore charts around the dungeon?”

  “I will banish you to the tutorial chamber,” Brent said dryly.

  They both chuckled, the tension in the room easing for a beat.

  But then Emil’s expression softened, and his voice lowered. “In all seriousness, Brent... I’ve been here since the start. I know this dungeon almost as well as you do. If something’s coming, I want to be ready. I can be ready. Just... don’t shut me out.”

  Brent hovered there in silence, then pulsed gently.

  “…Thanks, Emil. For everything you do. And for putting up with me.”

  Emil smirked. “That last part’s the real miracle, honestly.”

  Brent chuckled faintly. “You’re not wrong.”

  Then his glow tightened once more.

  “End of day,” Brent said. “When the dungeon closes. Everyone. Ignarok’s room.”

  Emil nodded once. “I’ll make sure they’re there.”

  That evening, the dungeon quieted.

  The last adventurers finished their run. The final cart clattered across the finish line. The gates sealed, the traps deactivated. The ambient magic relaxed.

  And in the heart of Ignarok’s chamber, the minions of Golem’s Gambit gathered.

  The forge burned hot as always, casting red-orange light across the room, flickering against steel plates, bronze claws, and shimmering arcane forms. They stood in a loose semicircle—some stoic, some wary, all alert. Even the flames seemed to lean in, waiting.

  Brent’s projection appeared above them, hovering above a magma pit.

  He didn’t waste time.

  “We were contacted.”

  The room stilled.

  Brent continued. “An entity sent a magical transmission directly into the core chamber. It was the Verdant Depths.”

  Now even the fire seemed to pull tighter into its flames.

  “It wasn’t a warning,” Brent said. “It was a demand.”

  He looked over the gathered faces.

  “They want me to give up half the dungeon. Control, territory, creative rights—everything. They want us to shrink, to become ornamental. A non-threat. They offered to let us exist in exchange for submission.”

  The room stayed silent.

  Brent’s light dimmed slightly. “I said no.”

  The glow of the magma flared like it approved.

  “I don’t know how they’ll come,” Brent said, his voice calm but cold. “But I know when. A week from now. That’s the time they gave us to surrender.”

  He let the words settle.

  “They expect us to give up… or be destroyed.”

  Another long pause, then Brent’s projection brightened ever so slightly.

  “We won’t do either,” he finished.

  The silence that followed was thicker than the heat, each minion letting the weight of the words settle before breaking it.

  Ferron was first, stepping forward with arms folded like an iron gate locked into place.

  ? “They gave us a week?” he rumbled. “Good. That’s time to dig in. Reinforce every corridor, double up the trap cores, reroute fallback channels through fortified choke points. If they’re coming, we make them earn every step.”

  Kagejin shifted subtly where he stood, perched near the shadows cast by the flowing magma. “We should let them advance. Draw them where we want. Precision will beat power. Use misdirection. Let them overextend.”

  Caldron crackled with visible arcs of static, the magnetic pressure around him distorting the air. “Convert Magnetic Mayhem into a suppression zone. Anchor-pull traps. Charge bursts. I’ll rewrite the polarity runes to collapse flanks in a controlled burst.”

  Zyrris drifted across the edge of the magma’s glow, his starlit form trailing a wake of arcane shimmer. “Their energy is rooted in something old—elemental, primal. I can recalibrate the Arcane Aetherium to interrupt their frequency. With time, I may be able to siphon their magic directly into our reserves.”

  And behind them all, Ignarok rumbled deep in his magma-lined perch, massive arms folded across his obsidian-plated chest. “Let them come,” he said, voice like a volcano slumbering on the edge of fury. “If they want fire, they will drown in it. ”

  Brent listened in silence, letting them speak, watching them form their own resolve. Then, slowly, he turned.

  “Mechard.”

  From a recessed alcove near the magmafall, the brass-and-glass silhouette of the dungeon’s scientist stepped forward. Lenses gleamed, and his etched gears whirred softly as he adjusted an arm-mounted drafting quill.

  Brent pulsed. “Begin designing weapons.”

  Mechard tilted his head slightly.

  “Ranged. Area denial. Disruption. We need tools, not just traps. Make them fast, make them effective—and make them brutal.”

  The scientist nodded. “Authorization for unrestricted lethality?”

  Brent hesitated only a second. The light of the magmafall flared brighter behind him, painting the obsidian platform in molten gold.

  “Yes. If they come for us, there will be no limits.”

  Mechard turned immediately, already pulling a glowing schematic into the air as he walked. “Very well. I’ll begin prototyping tonight.”

  Brent turned back to the group.

  “We begin preparations immediately. No hesitation. No fear.”

  He hovered for a beat longer, letting the full meaning land.

  “Seven days,” he said. “That’s all the time we’ve got.”

  And with that, the magma roared louder, and Golem’s Gambit began to prepare for war.