Abby had never been in a prison cell, but even she was sure they weren’t supposed to look like this. Imprisonment in general, she was sure, wasn’t supposed to be so free form! There were no shackles, no prison bars, and no guards! Well, ok, there were guards, but not really. It was just people walking about in the hallway outside their unlocked door. The only parts of their room that felt like a prison was the lack of things like a bed or toilet.

  Some slow, slug thing came by at regular intervals to clean up Abby and Isabelle’s… business. Not that Abby had had any so far, just Isabelle. Maybe she was sick, or constipated or something, but she felt fine, so it wasn’t really an issue.

  Isabelle was sitting on the back wall of the cave room that made up their prison. She had one leg up, and rested her arm on it, glowering at the door on the opposite side. Poor girl, she was thinking so hard of how they could escape. Abby already knew it was useless to think, but she didn’t say anything. This was how Isabelle kept herself occupied after all, so Abby wouldn’t take that away from her.

  Abby, in the meantime, was just laying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Five minutes.” Isabelle muttered.

  “Hm?”

  “That was the speedwalker. He always goes past our door five minutes before they come and interrogate us.”

  Abby strained her ears, and sure enough, she could hear the distant footsteps of a fast walker. “Really?”

  “Can’t you hear it?” Isabelle asked.

  “Just because I can hear it doesn’t mean I’m paying attention.”

  Isabelle sighed lightly. “Well, these next five minutes are when the hallway is quietest, so if we’re going to talk about anything, now is the time.”

  “Talk about what?” Abby raised her hands and waved them in the air. “It’s not like anything we say is private.” They were still in the dungeon after all.

  “Do you really think it can pay attention to everything all at once? This dungeon is huge! There’s bound to always be something going on besides us.”

  “Well yeah, but it’s still a dungeon.”

  “Have you ever heard of a dungeon that big?”

  Abby had not. She conceded the point.

  Isabelle dropped her leg and slouched. Tired. She hadn’t slept at all these past few days. First of all, there was the night they were captured, and it’s been at least a day since then. That’s two nights! Even Abby, with her higher constitution now, had to sleep sometimes!

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Isabelle started. “And no, I don’t have a plan. Not yet, I don’t think. The good news is that the denizens of this dungeon operate like clockwork, in twelve hour cycles, but there’s just too many of them.”

  “Most of them aren’t even thralls.” Abby added. She’d noticed that much when the doors were open.

  Isabelle nodded. “It’s strange. Like, it’s obvious which ones are thralls. Horns, claws, their size, whatever. But the regular humans just ignore them. I’m not even sure all of the thralls were human to begin with!”

  “Well… we did know that they were eager to serve Lucid, so maybe it’s the same thing?”

  “Ok, but why? We thought they were looking for dungeons to help them evolve like Garroway.”

  “And?”

  “SO these guys are still thralls!”

  Abby rolled her eyes and sat up. “So?”

  “Isn’t the whole point of serving a dungeon to evolve supposed to be a temporary thing?” Isabelle insisted. “That’s why the church was collecting so many dungeons! People serve the small ones, evolve, other people destroy the dungeon that evolved them, and boom! People are suddenly evolved and free!”

  Abby suddenly realized what she was getting at. “And these people are still serving a dungeon.”

  “The God Core, no doubt.” Isabelle nodded. “But why? And what does this have to do with Lucid?”

  Abby thought about it in silence for a while. “Maybe they’re treating it like a king?”

  Isabelle raised an eyebrow.

  Abby explained herself. “I mean, they call it the GOD Core. And typically, people look to the gods for guidance, right? So maybe not a king, but definitely like a leadership figure of sorts. Like you!”

  Isabelle glared at Abby.

  “Not like you!” She quickly amended.

  Isabelle softened up. “I mean, it makes sense, but then the question rounds back to why they need so many cores?”

  “I would ask why the dungeon is working with humans instead of just killing them.”

  “I thought the answer was obvious.” Isabelle said. “It’s using the unenthralled humans for mana.”

  “Ok, but then why doesn’t every dungeon do that?”

  The door opened behind Abby, letting in a gentle looking priest girl. Unenthralled, interestingly enough. “Because it’s inefficient.”

  Both Abby and Isabelle stayed where they were, watching the new intruder with cautious interest.

  The new girl closed the door behind her and walked to the center of the room. She folded her hands in front of her priestly clothes, in plain view. “Killing a single human will gain the dungeon the same amount of mana as a hundred humans just hanging about for a full day. It’s slow, and the humans need to leave to recover after less than a day.”

  “But it’s constant.” Isabelle said.

  “True.” The girl admitted with a smile. “But working with humans requires trust. After all, any human would likely see a core of our God’s size and be filled with greed. Then it’s only a matter of who betrays who first.”

  “So why are you working with it?” Isabelle challenged.

  “Why does Lucid work with humans?” The girl met the challenge with another question.

  Both Abby and Isabelle said nothing.

  The girl continued asking questions anyway, pausing for a few seconds after each one. “How did Lucid convince the humans to work with him? Why does Lucid conceive of himself as a ‘he’? How old is Lucid, truly? How was he able to create a golem? What does Lucid want?”

  That last question hung in the air for longer than the others. Clearly, this was the important question for some reason.

  The questions never changed. The previous two times someone had come in to ask those questions, it’d been a thrall. A large, intimidating man. The stark contrast between that one and this unenthralled girl was just a difference too blatant for even Abby to ignore. They’d opened up with intimidation, and now they were resorting to something slightly more comforting in an attempt to get them to talk.

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  It wouldn’t work.

  Isabelle’s stomach growled loud enough for even the other human girl to notice.

  … It might work.

  “We need to eat.”

  “No you don’t.” The girl responded as smoothly as a mother telling her child they didn’t need candy. “Whether or not you answer our God’s questions is inconsequential. Our God will get what they want in the end, regardless of your cooperation. And if you die…” She shrugged.

  “Just leave.” Isabelle muttered, slouching back against the stone wall.

  The girl gave no outward reaction to her attitude and simply turned around. Abby watched her open and close the door behind her before rushing to Isabelle’s side.

  “Are you ok?”

  “‘M fine.” Isabelle slurred. “Just sleepy.”

  “Yeah! Obviously! Did you even eat anything yesterday?” That was another part of the whole ‘prison’ deal. No food or water.

  “I bought a bread roll.” Isabelle said.

  Abby sighed. “Ok, but still. You haven’t slept any since we got here.”

  “Someone needs to stay awake.” Her words came out slow.

  “So sleep now. You know we have another twelve hours until they come back. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Ok…”

  Abby adjusted Isabelle to lay on her lap. She knew her thighs used to be a little squishier than they are now, but even her hard muscles would be a better pillow than the hard floor. Isabelle fought sleep for a little while longer, or maybe her growling stomach did that for her, but eventually, she did go to sleep.

  Abby stroked her head idly while she thought. Maybe escaping should be something she thought about. If not from the dungeon as a whole, maybe just from their cell for a while. Find some food for Isabelle. There was no doubt in her mind that if she tried to get to the core again, she’d be dead long before she saw the giant thing.

  She wasn’t Owyn, so she didn’t know everything, but she remembered something about cores growing in size with the mana they controlled as well as the amount of space they took up. She didn’t know if one influenced growth more than another, but she did know that size typically indicated age. The largest core Abby had seen herself was about the size of her head, though she heard rumors of some growing to the size of her torso. Those ones were typically well established, and very powerful. Those ones took small armies to take down. A far cry from the adventurer teams that took care of the little guys.

  She briefly found herself wondering what it’d be like to be enthralled to a dungeon of that size. Surely, it would feel different from the other dungeons she’d been enthralled to, right? Like, sure, she thought that they were the best dungeon in the world at the time, but now, she’d witnessed what a dungeon could really be. Would it feel different to be enthralled to-

  No! Abby shook her head. Bad thoughts!

  Was this what it was like to be a dungeon monster? The kind that feel like they can’t live without being enthralled?

  Oh no, what if she got back to Owyn and Lucid and she found Lucid hot!

  …

  Abby snickered at herself. Maybe right now wasn’t the best time or place to be making jokes, but it did make her feel better.

  So! Escape. How should she do that? The prison, and the halls outside, were all very well lit, so no sneaking around shadows. Not that it was likely she was going to go through this place without being seen in the first place, there were just too many people.

  What would Owyn do? What would Isabelle do?

  Well, Isabelle suggested they just walk through the front gate to enter the city, and that worked. Could she do that here? It wasn’t like the door was locked or anything.

  Gently, she let Isabelle down. The small girl, even smaller now that Abby had grown, slept like a rock. Which wasn’t surprising. Should Abby bring her along? No, that’d be stupid. She knew she was going to fail anyway, there was no way such a simple plan would actually work, so she’d be back in just a second anyway.

  Abby walked up to the door and opened it up a crack, peering out. Several members of the church paused in their activities to look at her, but otherwise didn’t do anything. Opening it up further showed the several humanoid monsters wandering about, doing the same. One was a four armed woman, carrying several stacks of paper. Another was a young page looking fellow, but he had some long antenna like an ant coming up from his hair. A few had horns, most were larger than normal humans, and all around, none of them seemed to care for Abby.

  There’s no way.

  She took a step out of her prison and closed the door behind her. Again, some people watched her, but overall, they just went about their business.

  The hallway, and really everything this far underground, was just a series of caves, like an ant hill. The walls and floor had been obviously cared for by human hands, with sconces in the walls for torch light, walls and doors where rooms were, and smooth floors for walking. It was like being inside the world's largest building.

  Abby got over the decor quickly, but kept an eye on the enthralled. The humans she'd have no troubles with, she knew that much. The thralls on the other hand were a different story. Of course, she couldn’t entirely discount the humans, since like the knight that had done her in had demonstrated, evolved humans could be just as free as everyone else and still serve the church.

  She took a few steps away from her prison, but when nobody made a move to stop her, she increased her pace, not quite running through the maze-like halls. Her ears flicked as she overheard snippets of conversation.

  “The Herdanl family is asking for more subsidiaries again. Have we proven their corruption yet?”

  “I haven’t seen that blonde brat in a while, do you think they’re dead?”

  “I think we need to move some more knights to this area here. There’s been news of-”

  “Have you heard? Janet proposed!”

  One conversation caught her attention.

  “The God Core is stirring up activity in the dungeons around Verdant forest. It’s holding them back for now, but soon-”

  “Sh.” A voice in the same room hushed the other.

  Abby slowed as she passed the room, ears straining to hear more.

  “Keep moving.” A voice calmly said.

  Abby started and ran off.

  They were clearly aware of her actions. The dungeon was aware of her actions. So why wasn’t anyone stopping her?

  Some hallways sloped up or down. Deciding that up was just better, Abby ran up those ways. She’d run around areas that seemed like a dead end, and others that only had more ways up at the other end of a short maze. She encountered meeting rooms, sleeping quarters, offices, and entire pools of water filled with true monsters and humans alike, evolved or not.

  It wasn’t the last time she saw true monsters. One time, she passed a turtle whose shell was indented at the top and filled with rocks like it was a cart with legs. She also spotted a lizard scurry across the ceiling with rapid speed, heading deeper down the dungeon. None of the humans seemed bothered by any of it. Ironically enough, it all seemed… peaceful.

  Abby had mapped out her route in her head as best she could, including the information she remembered from being carried from the core room to the prison, though she was blindfolded for that too. However, eventually, she thought she found it. The exit.

  A large, half human, half deer looking guy stood in her way. It was an open cavern here, with a slope that rose up around the edge to a bricked door up above, probably the church basement. The large beastman stood half to the side, gesturing for a large door just to the right of Abby.

  Abby gave him a look and scooted around him, intent on bypassing the door entirely. The deer man got back in her way, glaring down on her for disobeying his silent command. Abby backed down. There was no sense in getting into a fight now. Not when it might get Isabelle in trouble. They let her up this far, she may as well play along.

  Without turning her back to the large deer person, Abby felt up the solid metal door. She braced against it, pushing lightly. It didn’t budge at first, so she tried again, actually using her muscles this time. Still, it didn’t move.

  The deer person sneered at her mockingly. He stepped closer, putting a hand on the door over her shoulder. Seemingly without effort, he pushed it slightly open. Just enough for Abby’s torso to slip through the crack. Abby didn’t know if he was insulting her, but she couldn’t get it open further, so she sucked in and squeezed through. She still didn’t want to show her hand about being able to squeeze through a much smaller gap than this.

  The room on the other side of the door wasn’t lit by torches, but by a bright, prismatic white dungeon core.

  “Well shit.”

  “Welcome child.” A giant man greeted her with a smile. The same giant man that had greeted them before. “Praise the God Core!”

  No thanks. “What do you want?”

  The man waggled a giant finger. “No no! What do you want? Have you come to pledge loyalty to God?”

  Abby raised her hands defensively. If this giant man so wished it, he could easily throw her against the core and force her to obey. “No, I’m good.”

  “But you came straight here!?” The man seemed upset. “Surely, you feel the pull of the dungeon just the same as any evolved? Surely, you can feel how right it is for us to want to be enthralled?”

  She could.

  Oh goddess, being this close to the dungeon’s core, Abby absolutely felt an invisible pull on her soul, telling her that she needed to be enthralled. But Abby was above such little influences.

  “No… no. I’m good.”

  The giant man frowned. “A shame then. Back to your cell then. Maybe later.”

  Before Abby could blink, the man vanished in a puff of dust, only to appear right in front of her face. Abby brought up her guard, tensing enough that both of her whip spikes appeared in her hands. The man's fist, practically the same size as her whole torso, went under her guard, crushing her ribs at their lowest point. Abby gasped, but no air actually came. She collapsed at his feet, not breathing, but still gasping for air.

  The deer man from before pushed open the door even more, letting him reach in to grab her by the ankle.

  She regained the ability to breathe about halfway through being dragged down the same hallways she used to get up to that point.

  Next time. Next time for sure.

  Thank you everyone for allowing me the time to finish my novel. I’m writing this note just after writing the last word of the epilogue, and before getting to work on the next Lucid Core chapter (the one you just finished reading). I don’t know how many of the people who read this are also authors, but there’s a specific feeling that happens once you finish a novel. Especially one that’s been 2 years in the making. I feel whole and empty at the same time. Out of breath and dizzy without actually being either of those things. I’m being quite literal when I call this feeling indescribable. The fact that I’m experiencing it at all is amazing in the first place.

  I needed this. I really did. So thank you, once again, for letting me do this. I cannot thank you enough.

  Unfortunately, I’ll need to come back to earth eventually. After all, this is just V3 of a novel without a title, so calling it complete would be anything but the truth. Besides naming the darn thing, I still want to go through one last round of beta readers to see if I fixed the problems from the last version, and to make sure I hadn’t accidentally made any new ones. After that, assuming by some miracle I deem it good enough, I’ll see how hard it is to publish it. My biggest worry, as it always has been, is my word count. I cut out so much stuff with this most recent edit, but in the same stroke I had to add answers to the questions the first round of beta’s had.

  The first draft had 146,208 words. However, since I pantsed it, it turned into an incoherent, babbling mess upon further review. Thankfully, the first edit only added a few hundred words to make it functional, bringing the total to 146,786 words. After feedback from beta readers, minor plot changes, and major character development, I managed a smooth 146,802 words! Only 16 more words over the course of a complete, ground up rewrite! Lol.

  The second edit’s main goal, besides correcting small mistakes, was to cut out technical details that weren’t specifically needed. I supplemented it with organic world and character building to flesh everything out and make it feel more alive. One event was swapped for another to help merge some character moments and worldbuilding into a single scene, the fights were expanded upon and influenced the main character more than before, and all of the antagonists present were given the proper respect I hadn’t afforded them in the first place. The big bad is bigger and badder, trust is bent and twisted to the point where none of the characters can ever fully believe the others at the end of it all, and the most major emotional impact is woven deeper into who the main character is as a person and how they develop.

  I like where my story ended up. There are a few points of interest that I’m blindly loyal to keeping, and I’m afraid that will ruin any critique I give it personally. There’s nothing I can see myself doing that won’t add more to the word count or leave out key information that helps the reader understand the story as a whole. I can’t stand to make my story any lesser, which is why I need to let it cool down for a while.

  I’m at that point in the process of writing a novel where I actually need to take a step away from it all and let reason and logic return. Getting an outside perspective will be imperative for how things progress from here. I’ll even open up the offer to people here if they feel like it, but for now, I’m going to let myself revel in this feeling and give it a quick read one last time. For nostalgia’s sake.

  *EDIT from two days after finishing the novel and the day I post this chapter. I have realized, in hindsight, that one of my major events could easily be combined with another, and three whole characters are entirely unnecessary. Trouble is, I'm not sure I want to cut it all out, even if it is for the best. :( Such is the life of an author I suppose. Oh well, I hope you enjoyed todays chapter! I had planned to end Lucid Core soon, but I didn't really know how the ending would work. Good news though, during my time away, I figured out how I want my ending to go, and it's probably going to result in more chapters than I bargained for! WOO!