“Did you see that?” I asked.

  “See what?”

  “There was a pulse of magic.” I pointed with a pseudopod. “It went that way.”

  Before he could so much as narrow his eyes at the long, empty hallway, I was already hopping ahead. The pulse had gone through the long strands of copper that ran along every corridor we’d visited. Though I couldn’t remember ever having been lower than the first floor, I would have bet my weight in delicious granite that the strands of mana covered the length and breadth of the dungeon down to its deepest floors.

  “Suri! You know, it’s generally considered unwise to follow random pulses of light while dungeon delving,” Dorin called.

  “I live in a perpetual state of ‘random pulses of light’ as you call it.” I paused only to wobble in a frustrated gesture as he jogged to catch up.

  He narrowed his eyes. “I know that gesture. You only use it when you’re irritated.”

  I froze, squishing my slime flat to the dungeon floor. How had he figured out the language of slime wobbling? Why had he figured it out?!

  “I…It’s not…” I didn’t have the words. My mind raced, trying to work through solutions with the same urgency as if I were cornered by a fearsome predator.

  A wry smile crept onto his face and he crouched next to me. “Did you think you were the only one studying the body language of other species?”

  “But! You can’t even use wobble! Why bother learning it?”

  “Maybe because you’re my ally? Besides, your gestures are far more consistent than Samri’s were before he could talk.”

  This was mortifying. Had he seen every single time I’d displayed my frustrations? Or happiness? Did he know when I was afraid? Did he know just how embarrassed I was right now? I wanted to crawl into a wall-crack and never return. Let the lesser slimes eat me to leave no trace of my embarrassment; I wouldn’t be able to live with it all.

  I’d studied human body language for weeks, parsing through different behavioral patterns for each person or group. For example, Dorin smiled rarely, especially if talking to other adults, but his children could draw out a small, sweet smile that others would never see. Tanev twisted her hair when she was nervous, and Samri tapped his fingernails on the table when he was bored or hungry. I’d worked incredibly hard with the sole purpose of communicating better with humanoid species, but this was different.

  I just…didn’t understand why he cared. It wasn’t like he could communicate back in the same way. I could at least nod like humans or vaguely shrug like humans. What was the point if he couldn’t replicate my wobbles?

  “I’m guessing this is an embarrassed slime behavior?” he asked softly.

  “Other slimes don’t get embarrassed.”

  “But this slime?” He reached out and placed a hand on my top membrane. “There’s nothing wrong with communicating the way you know how. I’m just trying to better understand you.”

  I very nearly wobbled the word for “no” when I realized he might be able to understand. “But now you know every time I get upset.”

  “So?”

  He stared at me, and I met his gaze with equal intensity…not that he could tell. Eventually, he sighed and stood up straight.

  “Do you want to follow the magic pulse? It could be a trap.”

  I bobbed my slime in agreement, and Dorin grabbed the cart.

  The silence between us was awkward, but rather than dwell on it, I focused on the thick ropes of copper magic lining the walls. This was the dungeon’s lifeblood, the very thing that kept the roof from caving in around us.

  Another pulse flashed through the magic before disappearing around a corner. I hopped after it. Slow as I was, there was no way I’d keep pace with it. Not even Samri at his healthiest, brimming with youthful energy, could have kept up with the pulse. But I didn’t let that deter me.

  I hurtled down the corridor before slamming my slime down to roll through the corner. It was neither graceful nor smooth, but it maintained some of my momentum as we continued after the pulse of magic. At the first intersection, I waited for the next pulse.

  To my great chagrin, Dorin caught up with the wheelbarrow only a few seconds after I stopped. His wide strides and quick jog had managed to match my speed without issue.

  Stupid slime speed, I thought. I even got halfway through wobbling the words for “bad” and “frustrated” when I remembered our earlier conversation. I stilled myself and tried not to focus on Dorin’s knowing smirk.

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  Another pulse shot through the copper rope, and I took off again. I hopped with all my might, trying desperately to see if I could muster enough speed that I gained at least some ground on Dorin and his heavy wheelbarrow. It was a fruitless effort. He always remained a few paces behind, trotting lightly to keep me in sight.

  Left, right, right, straight, left, straight. The pulse guided us deep underground, through a twisting path of turns that I knew I’d never be able to reproduce on my own. Around the last corner, I chased after it, only for it to stop in the middle of the hallway.

  “Where to now?” Dorin asked. I had to give it to the knight. He was extremely trusting to have followed me through the dungeon, blind as he was to the mana guiding my path.

  “It just disappears,” I said, watching another pulse vanish halfway down the hall.

  “It must be going somewhere,” he reasoned. “Mana like that would have to go somewhere.”

  Part of me wondered if I’d been on a wild wyvern chase this whole time. Dungeon mana was used for a variety of functions from structural support to the creation of monsters. What if the mana being sent was just to keep the roof up, or something else equally anti-climactic? After all the mad dashing through the hallways, how disappointing would that be?

  The pulse came again, stopping in the same spot as previously. Then, a few minutes later, it did it again, always stopping in the exact same spot.

  There has to be something here, right?

  I pressed a pseudopod to the wall. It tasted like granite which wasn’t all that surprising since we were probably somewhere under High Ridge. Moving to the side, I examined the entire stretch of wall similarly. To my surprise, not all of it was the lava rock I’d come to know and love. In fact, most of it was the denser version; the Tier 2 granite, if you will.

  “Nice,” I muttered. “Dorin, does this rock look any different than the wall here?”

  He studied the wall where I pointed, first examining the granite section, then the section of denser rock. Once his inspection was complete, he stepped back and shook his head.

  “Looks the same to me.”

  I remained still for a long moment. That didn’t make any sense. Those two rocks should have looked very different under color-vision. High Ridge granite was largely grayish white, but with some darker crystals speckling its surface. The denser rock was much darker…or so I’d been told. I made a mental note to spend some time with Arcane Ascendant studying that difference for myself. Inferior as my humanoid form was, I had to admit it had some minor uses.

  Without any further recourse, I decided to fall back on the old slime classic; when in doubt, eat your problems. I pressed a pseudopod into the granite section. My acid sizzled against the stone. As soon as I began making headway, the wall shimmered with a sheen of copper.

  “Wait, Suri, it just changed,” Dorin reported. “It’s lighter in that section.”

  “An illusion? Interesting.”

  The illusion must have been designed for species with color-sight, but there was no fooling a slime. I was an expert in rocks, after all.

  With renewed enthusiasm, I examined the bottom of the section. It had to be a door of some kind. It could lead anywhere; a trove of hidden treasure, a den of the tastiest slimes in the dungeon, a secret library filled with the knowledge of every rock ever recorded! The possibilities were endless!

  My pod caught on a ledge at the bottom. It was tucked into a groove in the floor disguised as a simple wall crack. Between the natural camouflage and the illusion, it was extremely well-hidden which only made my curiosity more insatiable. At this rate, my hunger to know the door’s contents was going to outpace my natural slime appetite. I didn’t think it possible.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told Dorin as I flattened my body and core before slipping in between the rocks. The crack was more than wide enough for a slime, and I was on the other side in no time. A copper button glowed in my slime sight. Reaching up with a pseudopod, I pressed it inward.

  [Dungeon born tag analyzed. Access granted.]

  Stone scraped against stone. With part of my attention, I waited patiently for Dorin. With the other part—the far greater part, in fact—I peered down the tunnel revealed by the secret door. The pulse of mana surged along a copper matrix that lined the walls in far more intricate patterns than the rest of the dungeon. It was as if the rope of mana outside had unraveled into individual strands which each traced swirling patterns along the walls. The copper vines were beautiful, and I spent a moment, just staring at the mana dancing across the walls.

  “I wish you could see this, Dorin,” I murmured, not wanting to ruin the view by speaking too loudly. “It’s incredible.”

  “Really? Just looks like an empty hall to me,” he said. “Although, the hidden door kind of does allow the imagination to fill in some of the details. What do you think is inside?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked puzzled. “You’re dungeon born. You knew how to get to the boss room without even looking. How could you not know?”

  I raised my slime to imitate a shrug. “I don’t have any authority in the dungeon. I’m just one of what’s probably a billion slimes.”

  Unable to contain my excitement any longer, I hopped down the tunnel. The further we proceeded down the hall, the more delicate the patterns on the wall became. Vines branched into beautiful leaves until we were walking through a forest with a copper canopy. I’d never seen anything so intricate and lovely in all my very short life.

  Soon, the vines coalesced into a shimmering magical veil. I hopped through the barrier, tasting the metallic magic on my membrane. There was a slight jolt that passed through my slime, leaving me feeling tingly all through my core.

  [Dungeon born tag analyzed. Access granted.]

  Within, the copper threads covered every surface of a wide room with a pedestal at its center upon which a copper orb rested. The orb pulsed with the heartbeat of the dungeon itself.

  “We can’t possibly have already found the dungeon core,” Dorin mused as he stepped through the magic veil. “We’re only on the first—”

  A shrill alarm shook the room, and the copper mana matrix suddenly turned crimson. The stones shuddered, and the orb pedestal was swallowed by the floor.

  Dorin backed up, only to find the veil had turned solid. “I don’t think it likes us. What’s happening?”

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy wrestling with my own mind. My core pulsed in an unfamiliar cadence, as if something had taken control of its beat and was forcing it to its own beat. Whatever it was, it injected a fear that was not my own straight into my core, drowning out all thoughts.

  There was an intruder. It was in control room 1-17.

  And it needed to be eliminated.