CHAPTER 8 — “Slow Growth” #4
“Because something changed, after you were gone. The dungeon started behaving differently. The monsters got stronger. The spawns got more frequent. And the mana leakage…” He shakes his head. “The old records talk about it like a plague. Like the dungeon was sick, and the sickness was spreading.”
“So they sealed it.”
“They tried. Added layer after layer of protection, trying to contain whatever was happening. It worked, mostly. The leakage slowed. The monsters stayed underground. But the seal was never perfect.” He meets my eyes. “And now you’re here, breaking it open again.”
The implications settle over me like a weight.
“You think I’m making things worse.”
“I think you’re doing something that nobody’s done in two hundred years, and there might be consequences we don’t understand.
” He finishes his drink. “I’m not telling you to stop.
What’s done is done, and frankly, the village needed someone to clear those first three floors.
I’m just saying… be careful. The people who sealed this dungeon were powerful. They did it for a reason.”
“What happened to them? The mages who added the seal?”
“Dead. All of them. Within a year of completing the work.” His voice is flat. “Nobody knows how. They just… stopped. One by one.”
That’s ominous, Johnson says from his spot by the fire. Very ominous. The kind of ominous that usually precedes something terrible.
I think about the dungeon. About the floors I’ve cleared, the power I’ve reclaimed, the mana recovery rate that keeps climbing.
About Floor 10, waiting at the bottom, with whatever I left there for myself.
“I appreciate the warning,” I say finally. “But I can’t stop. Not now. Not when I’m this close.”
“I figured you’d say that.” Garrett stands, retrieving his sword from where he’d leaned it against the wall. “Just remember—dungeons have memories. Especially old ones. Especially ones that were built by someone who had reason to be paranoid.”
“And?”
“And sometimes, memories wake up.” He pauses at the door. “Training tomorrow afternoon. Bring the boy. I’ll show him some basics while you work on not getting yourself killed.”
He’s gone before I can respond.
The silence after his departure stretches long.
Mariella sets down the shirt she wasn’t really mending. Johnson raises his head from his paws.
“That was concerning,” Mariella says.
“Very.”
“Are you going to listen to him? Be careful?”
I think about it. Really think about it, the way I should have been thinking about it all along.
The dungeon is mine. I built it. But Garrett is right—I didn’t seal it, and I don’t know everything that happened in the two hundred years I was gone. There could be traps I don’t remember. Defenses I didn’t create. Things that have changed, evolved, become something new.
But stopping isn’t an option. Not with Anton’s scouts sniffing around. Not with my power slowly trickling back through the Mary Harvest connection. Not with everything I’ve built pointing toward Floor 10 and whatever waits there.
“I’ll be careful,” I say. “But I can’t stop.”
“I know.” She stands, moving toward her sleeping corner. “Just… don’t die. Okay? I’ve lost too many people already. I’d rather not add you to the list.”
The vulnerability in her voice catches me off guard.
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
She disappears behind the curtain she’s rigged for privacy, and I’m left alone with Johnson and my thoughts.
She cares about you, he observes.
“She cares about having somewhere safe. I’m part of that.”
Maybe. Or maybe she cares about you specifically. His eyes gleam in the firelight. Humans are complicated. They can do both.
“You’re being unusually philosophical tonight.”
Near-death experiences do that to me. Also, the old man’s warning was legitimately concerning.
He stretches, claws extending. Dungeons with memories.
Dead mages. Something that made powerful people die within a year of touching it.
A pause. Be careful, Velthar. I didn’t attach myself to you just to watch you die.
“Why did you attach yourself to me?”
The question hangs in the air.
Johnson is quiet for a long moment.
Because you reminded me of someone, he says finally. Someone I knew, a very long time ago. Someone who also tried to fight against impossible odds, who also refused to give up no matter how bad things got.
“What happened to them?”
They died. His voice is matter-of-fact, but there’s something underneath—old grief, carefully buried. They all die, eventually. The stubborn ones just take longer.
“That’s not exactly encouraging.”
It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be honest. He meets my eyes. I’m not here to encourage you, Velthar. I’m here to help you survive long enough to accomplish whatever you’re trying to accomplish. Encouragement is someone else’s job.
“Whose job?”
Hers, apparently. A flicker of amusement. She’s much better at it than I am.
I look toward Mariella’s curtain, then back at Johnson.
“Goodnight, Johnson.”
Goodnight, Velthar. Try not to dream of dead mages and dungeon memories.
“I’ll do my best.”
That’s all any of us can do.
I don’t dream of dead mages.
I dream of the workshop again—the one from before, with books on the walls and alchemical equipment on every surface. The spell matrix is still there, rotating slowly, but this time I’m alone.
Or I think I’m alone.
“You’re learning faster than I expected.”
I spin around.
Past-me is standing by the window, looking out at a view I can’t quite see. He’s younger than I remember—younger than I was when I died, anyway. Healthy. Whole. His eyes carry the weight of knowledge but not yet the weight of betrayal.
“Who are you?” I ask. “Really?”
“I’m you. Mostly.” He turns to face me, and I see something familiar in his expression—the same confusion, the same uncertainty, the same desperate need to understand. “I’m the part of you that got stored in the dungeon. A fragment. A memory. Enough to help, but not enough to be whole.”
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ SOUL ECHO ACTIVATED ││ \[Dream State --- Memory Fragment\] │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ Connection Strength: 47% ││ Duration: Limited (dream state only) ││ ││ Fragment Identity: Past Self (Age \~35) ││ Fragment Purpose: Guidance / Information ││ ││ WARNING: Information from Soul Echoes may be ││ incomplete, outdated, or metaphorical.
││ Treat all revelations with appropriate ││ skepticism.
││ ││ "You're literally talking to yourself.
││ Somehow this is the least weird thing ││ that's happened to you recently.
" │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
“The [Soul Echo] skill,” I say.