Open your eyes.

You stand in another hallway, though the walls of this one are solid stone bricks. You can't see a thing, however. You can only feel. "Is anyone around?" you whisper aloud, but nobody responds. You're by yourself. On one hand, you could attempt to Bunny Hop out of here, but you'd be leaving everyone behind. Whatever happened wasn't ordinary. That wasn't a normal chasm suddenly breaking open from old, rotten flooring. Magic gripped you, and pulled you elsewhere. It doesn't even feel like you've below where you were before, given there's no debris on the ground to suggest a hole above.

Carefully, you creep along the wall until you're met with a doorway. No door, but an arch leading to presumably a room. You still can't see, however.

Just then, you see a spark of light. The glow is coming closer, illuminating the room you just stepped into. It's coming from the right exit.

"H-Hello?" you hear a voice. It's Trin.

"Hey. It's me, Kyle. Is that you, Trin?" you ask.

"Kyle!" Suddenly her footfalls quicken. She runs into the room with her lightbug in her arms. She releases it back into the air before nearly jumping at you for a hug. She stops herself, however, and clears her throat. "Thank goodness. I mean, I wasn't that scared when I was alone, but I have no idea what's going on. Do you know where we are?"

"Not a clue," you reply. "And the only ways to go are where you came from, and where I came from. William and Jelly have to be around here somewhere though, right?"

"I hope so. This all makes me really uncomfortable, like it's reminding me of something. I gotta think. Have I heard of any kind of magic or anything that could do something like this? Hmm. Let's start walking. That'll help me collect my thoughts."

"All right. Let's go back the other way then.

The two of you turn around and return to where you first appeared. Now you can see the hallway, thanks to the light of the conjured bug. It seems to continue onwards into another room far ahead. This is beginning to feel like a maze. The shittiest maze ever, too. There's only one direction to go.

Just then, a deep, unsettling feeling rushes through your body. Whether it's your Kitty Sense or not, you feel an immediate sensation of dread. You turn your attention to the walls, which suddenly flicker as the stone bricks suddenly begin turning black as night. The air feels as if it's wobbling, though you're not underwater. Then finally, after a moment longer, you hear a sound similar to what you hear whenever you use your Bunny Hop ability.

You grasp your head and focus. That's when you notice the creature looming in front of the doorway ahead. It takes up the entire width and height of the hall. At first, it looks to you like a massive robot with only a body--arms and legs extending from a spherical center. Though the body isn't metal. It's dark, wrinkled flesh. Right in the middle is a large eye that opens wide to a piercing red stare.

Trin takes a trembling step backwards. "Kyle!" She turns to you. There's an expression of complete terror on her face. "Run!"

The red of the creature's eye flashes. Suddenly, a laser fires forward and straight into the lightbug. The room turns completely dark in an instant. Now all you can see is the glowing eyeball of the dark fleshbot coming this way.

You head Trin's warning and take her hand. The two of you sprint back in the other direction once again, into the room you met back up in before, and dart down the hallway Trin originally came from. As you go, you notice the atmosphere change. The walls aren't dark here, and the air is normal. Still, you keep running, even if you can't see. So far, you can at least remember the way, though you grow concerned about not knowing what's ahead.

"H-Here," Trin says. She stops, encouraging you to do the same. She pokes your forehead with her flute and says, "Dark Sight," in a hushed tone.

Suddenly, the world around you shifts. In a matter of seconds, you can see as clear as day, though everything that once was dark is visible in a strange shade of green. Now you can see that it's quite a run to the next room, but nearby are some old barrels that are still intact. "What the hell was that?" you ask quietly.

"A Dungeon Lord. Here of all places. It's an incredibly rare and dangerous demon. Shh. I'll explain more once we lose it. Quick, get in," she says, patting one of the barrels.

"Shouldn't we run?"

"No. It'll keep pursuing us. We have to hide, not run." She lifts a leg up and awkwardly climbs her way inside. It barely has enough room for just one. Still, she tugs you in by your collar, and you have little time to argue. "Hurry. It's coming."

You squeeze yourself down into the barrel and pop the lid back down. Her legs wrap around your waist to your back. She wraps her arms around you, and you to her, as the two of you become so tightly compressed together that you might as well be inside one another. Her body is soft and her hair is softer, though her scaled tail is quite the opposite, and it curls around from her back to over your leg. With nowhere to put your hands, you take hold of the back of her neck with one and just above her tail with the other. Though silent to any nearby, you can hear her tender breaths gently blowing over your ear. She is certainly a cute, lovely dragoness, and acts quite differently than Malakae that's for sure. However, that means it just easier to forget how powerful she likely is in reality. Not only is she an elite class, but she's a dragon, which would be a lot to contend with even if she had no class at all.

She whimpers quietly as she shifts her hips around one last time, but stops the moment the terrifying sensation returns. While you can't see the walls outside the barrel, you assume they've shifted given the tension in the air, and the sudden sound of a warp. It didn't walk here. It just teleported. Though now it moves, and each footfall it makes is hefty and grows even louder as it nears.

However, it stomps right past. You hear it continue for a short moment after, though then it stops. There's another strange, warping sound, and with that, everything is back to normal again.

Trin gasps for air. She lifts the lid from the barrel and drops it to the ground. She then bends forward and awkwardly clambers her way out, stuffing her rear end right into your face. Her panties are... green. Your vision is still limited by magic, so everything is. You can't differentiate any colours. You make your way out from the barrel after her and stretch your limbs.

"Can you explain what's going on now?" you ask. "Jesus."

She breathes a sigh of relief and leans back against the wall. "Dungeon Lords, as I said, are super powerful demons. I've never seen one in person, but legends say they effectively possess ancient untouched ruins, especially those deep in the world. The entire complex effectively becomes the demon, though the Dungeon Core wanders around protecting it. We're currently inside what's kinda like a pocket dimension version of this place. As far as I understand, it is the real chapel, but twisted and warped with no entrance or exit. We were all pulled it and sent to different places within... It makes sense. I've heard they're attracted mostly to places of magical power. All sorts of weird things probably happened here. After it was abandoned long enough, it was basically like leaving food scraps all over the place for a rat infestation to move right in."

"So on a scale of one to ten, how effective would it be to run at it with a sword?"

"I don't really know the extent of your power, but for William I'd say a five. There would be a fifty fifty chance you'd either make it close enough to deal damage, or be struck by the entrapment beam. Anything hit by that is teleported into the Core itself, which is much larger on the inside."

"So William and Jelly are either doing what we're doing right now, hiding in hallways from the Dungeon Core, or were already hit and trapped inside."

"One of those two things, yes." She runs her fingers back through her silver hair. "Oh William. I trust him, but I also worry about him. We need to come up with a plan. Running straight at it is reckless, and finding it is difficult due to its ability to appear anywhere anytime."

"If I could dodge the beam, how strong is the demon itself?"

"Pretty tough. For sheer strength, probably stronger than most dragons. Ah, I mean... not me of course. Well--" She clears her throat. "Probably me. That thing seemed pretty tough. But you know what it doesn't have? Beauty, grace, and magic spells."

"You're a lot more modest than the other dragon I know."

"That's because I'm amazing, and the most gorgeous of all the dragons." She smiles smugly up at you.

"... Still the most modest, actually."