The glow is striking, though fortunately it is also silent. The guards at the door are too distracted talking about their personal lives to take a peek inside the core room.
Dowmy's wings grow from the stumps, the same happens with her horns. The indentations of her scars fill in and disappear. The heat revitalizes the girl, and the constant echo of old pains, consequences of the abuse, stops chiming.
The glare dims until it fades out. Dowmy, with eyes as wide as dinner plates, looks at her hands and gasps in surprise to discover that the damaged skin and marks are gone. The membranous wings shudder on her back, an involuntary movement that catches the imp's attention. She looks over her shoulder to behold her recovered appendages.
With her mouth open in a smile and teary eyes, Dowmy starts jumping for joy, rising two meters above the floor, and then falling softly like a flying squirrel surfing the wind.
"I can fly! I can fly!"
«You don't fly, you glide, but okay.»
The correction barely dents Dowmy's mood; she drops down to the crystal and clings with arms and legs in a hug. Tears and snot fog up the blue surface.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
«Alright, but get off now,» Jimbo replies, uncomfortable having Dowmy's face so close. He might have healed her, but Dowmy is still about as pleasing to the eye as a scarlet gargoyle. One of the soldiers bangs on the door with the hilt of his spear and asks, without looking at the imp, to keep the noise down.
The imp sits cross-legged on the stool, paying close attention to the crystal's next words. Jim decides to give his assistant some context and explains that the king will surely order him disposed of. Hearing that, Dowmy gasps and covers her mouth with her hands, unable to believe it.
"But why?! Master be good! Master help a lot!"
«Don't call me master. If I wanted to do some kind of roleplay, you'd be the last option that would cross my mind.»
"Teacher then?"
«What? No. Call me Jimbo.»
"Jimbo?"
«Yeah.»
"Jimbo."
«It's my name.»
"Jimbo!" she repeats cheerfully.
«Okay, cut it out.»
The imp calms down.
Jimbo is aware that Dowmy, just like him, is in danger. If Arrax returns, the abuse towards the imp will most likely resume, and Jimbo will end up as a guinea pig for tens or hundreds of experiments, until the king orders his destruction.
The first tactic that comes to mind is an aggressive one. Squeeze out his skills, gather ether, and barricade himself with traps, summons, and monsters long enough to escape or negotiate. It's unlikely he can do much with the level he has, but if Jimbo is pushed to act, he will do what is necessary to live another day.
«I wish I could move.»
He enters the core and stares at the blue space surrounding him. He tries to push the crystal with his hands, as if that would somehow shift the core even a couple of inches. Nothing happens. After despairing and asking the system for advice, it responds that although the crystal is anchored in space, the sections that make up the dungeon's domains can be moved and modified. This is done from the bowels of the crystal.
Jimbo arches an eyebrow, intrigued.
«If Muhammad won't go to the mountain, the mountain comes to Muhammad. Something like that, right?»
Jimbo asks Dowmy to close the doors. As soon as the imp obeys, Jim enters the core and tries to put moving sections into practice. He concentrates, and a three-dimensional map of the basement appears floating. If he leans in and looks closely, he can see a miniature version of the crystal and Dowmy. The guards look like toys or chess pieces, same with the prisoners who are shown lying down with dull colors. Jimbo tries to get more detail on the soldiers, but a sudden headache pushes him back.
Note: To affect a visitor or enemy, or to spy on their status and stats, it is necessary to surpass their level.
«I noticed...»
He used to have the combined power of the mages, now he's on his own. It's natural to run into obstacles. However, Jimbo's spirits don't deflate; the options and possibilities that being a dungeon give him provide hope that he can save himself.
«Now let's try moving rooms.»
Before proceeding, he pops out of the crystal for a moment and asks Dowmy to, no matter what happens, stay calm and avoid screaming. The girl nods, brings a finger to her lips, and lets out a: Shhhh.
Jimbo goes back to the basement map, places an ethereal finger over the core room, located north of the laboratory, and being careful to leave the door in its place, he slides the core room to place it west of the laboratory.
Jimbo pops back out to check what changed, and sees Dowmy looking towards the entrance, or more specifically at the lack of it, since now instead of doors there is only a stone brick wall.
"Are we locked in...?" the imp asks.
«Not at all. I just moved a thing.»
Dowmy turns back to the crystal and looks at him with a mix of worry and hope. It's the first time something has stood between her and the mages who raised her.
"Will we escape, master?"
«I told you not to call me master... I need to think.»
Escape?
Jimbo felt tempted to unglue the core room and push it all the way down into the bowels of the earth. It seemed so easy, so promising. He could carve a path without having to deal with the king and his knights.
«Sounds too good to be true...»
Thinking about that, Jimbo looks down at the dark well where he is suspended and the engraved circles surrounding him. He remembers Hilda's words, how she believed Arrax had prepared some mechanism to force the Dungeon Core to obey. Jimbo also has that suspicion, the dark belief that if he escapes and Arrax finds out, the mage could make him pay with some spell.
«We need to find out exactly what they had prepared.»
Trying to ask Arrax directly would be ridiculous. Instead, Jimbo thinks of the mage's disciples.
«If only I had more ether.»
-Jimbo the Dungeon Core LV 1
Ether: 11/100
External Connection: Active.
Age: Stone.
In addition to the cost of healing the imp, a few extra points were consumed by shifting the core room. Ether is essential for survival. Whether an aggressive or peaceful tactic, increasing his reserves is vital.