Matthias had a problem. His slimes had returned with a surprise: one of them had become sapient—and it was an acid slime.

  The slime in question sat before him, bubbling and churning in delight as it asked a million questions. It wanted to know what everything was. It wanted to know what was okay to eat and what was not. It wanted to stay living in his dungeon.

  It did not want to frolic. It did not want to adventure. It did not want to explore. Apparently, the dungeon war was quite enough excitement for its short life.

  And by short, he meant total time. The slime was immortal unless killed. An immortal, acidic, curious slime wanted to live with him.

  "You know, you can literally do anything," he offered.

  "But I don't know what all that entails," the slime burbled in surprisingly fluent Common. "How can I pick from that which I do not know? Surely my creator knows what my abilities would enable me to contribute."

  And there it was. This slime kept talking him into a corner. No matter how polite he was, the slime was adamant that Matthias choose what they dedicated their life to.

  Everyone else in the core room was suppressing laughter as the slime verbally outmaneuvered him. It had only been fully aware for three or four days and was already impossible to deal with.

  "Why don't we start with a name," Matthias sighed.

  "Are names important?" the slime burbled.

  "They are," Matthias began. "If any more slimes rise to sapience, a name is how others differentiate you. It does not change you physically, but it is what you agree everyone else can call you, and that you will respond to."

  "Names sound good," the slime agreed. "Please give me one."

  Everyone else broke out in laughter as Matthias was put on the spot again. Ignoring them, he contemplated. Acid slime—acid—Cid—Cedric. That would work.

  "How about Cedric?" Matthias offered.

  "Wow, I have my own name!" Cedric burbled happily, with no hesitation.

  Matthias suppressed a sigh before moving on to the next concern.

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  "Acid has many uses," Matthias offered. "But honestly, etching might be the most useful."

  "Etching?" Cedric asked, and the eyes of the fey suddenly lit up with intrigue.

  Matthias manifested two swords in front of Cedric. One was plain; the other was enchanted.

  "Can you mimic the designs on the one sword and place them on the other?" Matthias asked.

  Cedric did not respond. They simply reached out with pseudopods and "looked" closer. The pseudopod over the plain sword narrowed to a fine tip before dexterously copying the designs.

  Everyone marveled as Cedric enchanted the sword in seconds.

  "Like this?" they asked.

  "Exactly," Matthias agreed. "But what you did was called a borrowed enchantment."

  "Borrowed?"

  "You see, every enchanter can create their own language," Matthias explained. "Those designs are how the original enchanter communicated their intent into the blade. Those designs mean nothing to you, but you can copy them. Thus, your enchantments will be a degree weaker because you are borrowing intent. But if you make your own enchanting language…" he trailed off.

  "Then my etchings will carry the full intent of my will!" Cedric finished. "Yes. I can do this. This sounds fun! I can't wait. How do I make my own language, though?"

  "It comes from your soul," Matthias responded blandly. "Think deeply about a concept—like durability. For some, a shield is durable. For others, a brick is durable. What is it that your soul shows you when you think about durability? You don't need to answer. Sometimes your first answer is right; sometimes it is the wrong kind of answer."

  "You have given me much to think on," Cedric mused.

  "I will set you up a room to the north to use as a living space and workshop," Matthias informed them. "Please make use of it at your leisure."

  With that, Cedric meandered off down the winding paths, deep in contemplation.

  Matthias sighed before refocusing his mind. "Sylt, did you give those necklaces to Greg?"

  "He refused them and told me to dispose of them," Sylt responded. "Said he refused to let them be martyrs."

  "What did you do with them?"

  "Cedric," was all Sylt said in response.

  Matthias decided to move on instead of asking more questions. Everyone had assured him that the team that had been wiped out were insufferable god-botherers. He still felt bad. They had delved the deepest and now could not carry word back to the surface of what there was to look forward to—not that they had ever stopped to loot.

  That reminded him: he had far too many insects on his second floor. He needed to add some kind of super-predator to thin them out. He had thought the Horrorpede would eat more, but no—it just slept until triggered. Then it would only eat enough to restore its health. The real mechanic of the Horrorpede was that it had a mouth at each end. So as you harmed one end, the other would eat the other mobs on the floor to heal. He had not designed that ability; it had just shown up.

  He had to admit his dungeon was starting to get away from him again. He had maxed out his passives again to further boost birthrates and maturation speed in his dungeon. He just had not expected the explosion in populations.

  The hobs had to be moved down to the third floor because they were outcompeting the bugs. The war trolls had to be moved to the fourth floor because they were using dinosaurs as a warm-up to fight each other. And again, the turtles had mutated into something even harder to kill.

  If it was not one thing, it was another in his runaway train of a dungeon.