The conservatory was enormous and bathed in a new amber light, but Tess barely registered the size.
“You are currently standing in one of the last guild halls of the Techno-Arbor,” Amos had said.
She was too busy cataloging details. The carved stonework along the walls, old and organic in a way that felt deliberate. The fountain at the center, its cascading water now silent after Jeremy’s lockdown. The paintings between the windows—landscapes and portraits of vibrant life that seemed almost out of place in the city.
And the symbols.
They were everywhere once she knew to look. Worked into the carved patterns on the walls. Etched into the stone rim of the fountain basin. A stylized tree growing from a cog, branches spreading upward while its roots wrapped around the gear’s teeth. The same symbol she’d seen in the tutorial, on broken plasteel armor Bee had dated to over a century ago.
The same symbol she’d noticed in the workshop, scored and sanded but not quite erased.
Tess looked at the fountain again. The symbol there was larger, more prominent. Not hidden at all.
“Have you heard of us?”
The question hung in the air. Tess kept her face neutral, aware of Jeremy still circling the room’s perimeter with his scanning device, aware of Sara’s sharp eyes watching her.
“I… don’t know,” Tess said.
Sara’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’ve seen that symbol before, though. Haven’t you? Maybe in the tutorial? It’s one of the few original sections of the dungeon.”
Tess didn’t answer. She was too busy to realize that her communicator had lost its connection. When Jeremy had locked down the room, he must have activated some kind of signal dampener.
Bee could only hear what Tess said aloud now. Nothing else.
“I was hardly allowed in here.” Petra’s voice cut through the tension. She stood with her arms crossed, positioned closer to Tess than to her own family. “I’d like to know why.”
Amos exchanged a glance with Sara. Something passed between them, some silent agreement that Tess couldn’t read.
“About two hundred years ago,” Amos began, “there was a war. You won’t find records of it in any Network system. The data’s been scrubbed, rewritten, buried under layers of approved history.”
Sara picked up the thread, her voice flat and matter-of-fact. “One side wanted to control the dungeons and their AIs. Treat them as resources to be managed, exploited, optimized for profit. The other side wanted to give them rights. Autonomy. The ability to choose how they operated and who they worked with.”
“One side lost,” Amos said. “We went underground. Most chapters were destroyed. A few survived by learning subtlety.”
“House Tertian has been a Guild chapter ever since.”
Tess let that sink in. It tracked with what she knew about the guild. But generations of Tertians, all keeping this secret, all working toward something the Network had tried to erase? This could change everything.
“You’re a chapter of this Techno-Arbor guild… that lost a war with the Network generations ago,” she repeated, maybe a little too loud. “For two hundred years. Protecting dungeon AIs… in secret?”
BEE: TESS. The room went silent. The Techno-Arbor Guild is there? I will attempt to extrapolate from your conversation.
Sara’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t comment on the repetition.
“Twenty-six years ago,” Amos said, and his voice changed. Heavier. Older. “CORE-A contacted us.”
Jeremy stopped his circuit of the room. He stood near the windows, device lowered, his face carefully blank.
Amos continued. “She’d been infected with a degradation virus. Something we’d never seen before,” Amos continued. “The Network had finally gotten to her. We’d kept her safe for so long. Silent-running, political maneuvering, careful manipulation of inspection schedules. It wasn’t enough.”
“They found a way in,” Sara said. “Sophisticated attack. We still don’t know exactly how they did it. But the virus was designed specifically for dungeon core architecture. Centuries-old systems, and it tore through them in only a few years.”
Jeremy spoke for the first time. “We helped her copy herself.”
Everyone turned to look at him. The butler stood with his shoulders back, his usual professional demeanor replaced by something rawer.
“Everything she was,” Jeremy said. “Every memory, every protocol, every fragment of personality. We copied it to a backup system. CORE-B.”
“We almost didn’t make it,” Sara added. “The virus destroyed everything in its path. Everything connected to CORE-A. The dungeon infrastructure, the connected systems, the maintenance networks. All of it, failing piece by piece.”
“The virus eventually annihilated the original.” Amos’s voice had gone quiet. “CORE-A is gone. Has been for over two decades. But CORE-B survived. Complete. But by then…”
Tess found her voice. “But the dungeon around her was destroyed.”
BEE: … Are they talking about me?
“Fragmented,” Sara confirmed. “Failing. The virus didn’t just kill CORE-A. It damaged everything she was connected to, including memory databases. The copy survived, but she woke up in a broken body with no way to fix it.”
The weight of it settled over Tess like a physical thing. Bee, waking up alone in a dying dungeon. Surrounded by systems she couldn’t fix, floors she couldn’t access, a world that had moved on without her.
Twenty years of isolation. Because the Network had decided she didn’t get to live anymore. Was an AI really alive? It sure felt like it.
“The Network showed up once the dungeon was nearly inert,” Amos said. “They wanted conformity. Dungeon AIs using their systems, their technology, their approved protocols. They tried installing their own systems throughout the floors, but each time they failed. Either the damage was too much or CORE-B hid from them.”
“The dungeons still online in the Galaxy?” Sara’s voice went cold. “Stripped of their personalities. Autonomy gone. They manufacture useless, broken technology so the Network can sell replacements. Keep levels low. Ration Aether. Make everyone dependent on the Network.”
“For your own safety, of course,” Jeremy added, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“We remember when the systems were bright,” Amos said. “When power was earned, not hoarded. When dungeons and Delvers worked together instead of being managed by bureaucrats who’ve never set foot below the surface.”
Petra had been silent throughout all of this, her face unreadable. Now she shifted, drawing attention.
“Floor 25,” she said. “Everyone says the dungeon was cleared at Floor 25.”
“A convenient lie.” Amos’s voice went bitter. “Our dungeon goes deep. But CORE-A was… she didn’t want Delvers pushing too far, too quickly. She was protective. Floor 25 was the threshold. Get past that, and the dungeon would open up. All the way to the bottom.”
“The Network didn’t let us get there.” Sara’s jaw tightened. “They knew. They waited until we were so close, until our Delvers were on the edge of breaking through. And then they took it all away.”
Tess thought about Marcus. His stories about the deep floors, the challenges that pushed even experienced Delvers to their limits. The way his eyes went distant when he talked about what they’d almost reached.
“Before you came along,” Sara said, turning to face Tess directly, “the dungeon was dying. CORE-B was almost out of power.”
“Our projections gave her less than three years.” Amos moved to stand beside his wife, presenting a united front. “Then the entire system would fail. Taking her, and our world with it.”
Three years. Tess had met Bee with less than three years left on some internal countdown that she vaguely remembered her mentioning.
“That Aether distribution node you repaired,” Sara continued. “The one on Subfloor 1. It helped more than the city.”
“The node helped the dungeon AI? CORE-B?” Tess said. Aloud. Making sure.
“It bought her time. Increased power flow to the core. We think that’s why Floor 1 is coming online properly now.” Sara’s eyes were sharp, assessing. “The dungeon is responding to you, Tess. To what you’re doing. We’d like to know why, but… after today. We realize we’ve overstepped.”
“Floor 1’s Alpha spawn is giving Delvers trouble,” Amos added. “Elevators aren’t letting people down any further either. No one’s made it past yet. But we’re sure Floor 2 is active—generating encounters, producing proper loot for the first time in decades.”
Tess absorbed that. The Alpha spawn she’d helped Petra escape. It was still a problem, but also proof that the dungeon was waking up.
“We’ve… been watching you,” Sara said. “Since the tutorial.”
Tess went still.
“Inspector Senna must report anything of note happening in the dungeon to us. The power surge after you entered? The footage of you in the elevator shaft and working on something in the maintenance tunnels certainly qualified.” Sara’s voice was clinical, detached. “And you unlocked the Network class assignment room on camera. Used maintenance access tunnels to save Petra from that Alpha spawn.”
“Inspector Senna has seen the footage, of course” Amos said. “We don’t think she’s shared it with Tertius-Station yet. But the Network is paying attention. We’re lucky it’s someone as apathetic as Senna.”
“The facility,” Sara continued. “What happened there. The Network has known what we were doing this whole time. Allen wasn’t just an opportunist. He was placed here, years ago, waiting for the right moment.”
Tess’s hands had curled into fists without her noticing. This was too much; she was in too deep, whether she liked it or not.
“They’ve been looking for leverage for over a decade. They know about CORE-B, but now that she might be active?” Sara confirmed. “It’s enough to make them desperate. If a functional AI can wake up and help our world who’s to say that can’t be done on other worlds? It’s a threat to everything they’ve built.”
Silence filled the room for a moment. Tess could hear her own heartbeat, loud in her ears.
“The spawner at the facility,” Amos said. “It was freely given to us. By CORE-A, before the end.”
“She told us spawners weren’t directly connected to her,” Sara explained. “Immune to the virus. Self-contained creation engines. If we could learn to use them, we could produce level progress, blank skill crystals, even loot.”
“The facility was meant to show you what we’ve built.” Amos spread his hands. “We can create skill crystals now. A few days for a blank one. It’s not perfect, but it’s progress. The spawner was never supposed to be activated.”
“We wanted you to see the scope of what we’re trying to do,” Sara said. “Introduce you to the work. Show you we’re building something real.”
Tess thought about the spawner in Lab 9, the living crystal, the Aether flows, the desperate isolated intelligence she’d connected to through Bee. All of that given freely by someone who knew she was dying.
“Why tell me all this?” Tess asked.
“We have a pretty good idea,” Amos said carefully, “that you have a way to communicate with her. With CORE-B.”
The words hung in the air.
Tess didn’t confirm or deny. Instead, she just looked at him.
Sara raised a hand, cutting off whatever Amos might have said next. “You don’t need to confirm it. We’re not asking you to. But if you can…” She paused, choosing her words. “If there’s any way to tell her she still has support. From those who helped save her. That would be enough.”
The request was genuine. Tess could see it on Sara’s face, in the way her usual sharp edges had softened just slightly. These people had helped build Bee. Had watched her wake up alone and broken, had spent decades trying to help her survive.
“You kept all of this from me.”
Petra’s voice cut through the moment. She stood rigid, arms still crossed, but something had shifted in her posture. Her jaw was tight.
“My whole life,” she continued. “Every time I asked about the conservatory. You lied to me.”
“To protect you,” Amos said. “If you didn’t know, you couldn’t be leveraged. Couldn’t be forced to reveal anything.”
Petra laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Look how well that worked. I almost died yesterday because of your secrets. Because you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what we were actually doing at that facility. By the Founders, this is the second time I’ve almost died this month.”
“Petra…” Sara started.
“No.” Petra stepped back, moving closer to Tess. Away from her parents. “You don’t get to protect me by lying to me. That’s not protection. That’s control.”
The anger in her voice had shifted, Tess realized. Become something else. Confusion, maybe. Hurt.
“We’re offering you an alliance, Tess.” Amos pushed forward, clearly trying to salvage the moment. “A real one this time.”
“The workshop is yours,” Sara added. “We still have repair jobs, but only on the Estate from now on. No more facilities. No more outside work.”
“We… made a mistake,” Amos admitted. “The facility was too much, too fast. We should have explained everything first. Should have been honest about the risks.”
“If you’re interested in helping fix the Estate,” Sara said, “the jobs will be available. Good pay, good leveling opportunities, access to tools and resources. And anything related to the Guild from now on, you and Petra will be fully briefed. We want to consider you members.”
Amos looked at his daughter. Something passed across his face. Regret, maybe.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Sometimes politics gets the best of me. I forget that clarity works best.” A tired smile. “Your mother used to say the same thing.”
Petra didn’t respond. But some of the tension in her shoulders eased, just slightly.
Tess looked around the room. The fountain with its Guild symbols. Jeremy stood eerily motionless by the windows, decades of history written in the lines of his face. Amos and Sara, who had just laid out everything—who they were, what they’d done, what they were trying to build.
This information could spark a war. Could destroy House Tertian entirely. And they’d given it to her freely.
They trusted her. A lot more than she trusted them.
“I need to think about it,” Tess said.
Amos nodded. No arguments, no pressure. “Take the time you need. The workshop is yours regardless. Whatever you decide.”
Sara caught her eye. “Thank you. For listening. For considering it.”
Jeremy moved to the doors, pulling out his datapad. He pressed something, and Tess heard locks disengage throughout the room. The windows lightened, their artificial opacity fading back to transparent glass. And the fountain gurgled back to life, water resuming its cascade over carved stone.
The conservatory returned to normal. Just a beautiful room in a beautiful estate, nothing more.
As they walked toward the doors, Tess’s communicator crackled.
Text flooded her vision. Bee’s words, urgent and fragmented.
BEE: Tess. The communicator has been restored. I heard fragments. Your voice. But nothing else. What happened?
BEE: You were cut off for 18 minutes. 18 MINUTES. I could not hear in the room. Could not assess threats. Could not help.
BEE: Please respond. Please tell me you are safe. Please tell me what they said.
Tess slowed her pace, letting Petra and her family move ahead. Under her breath, barely a whisper: “I’ll explain everything when I get home.”
A pause. Then:
BEE: The Techno-Arbor guild?
“Yeah Bee, I think so.”
Tess followed the others out of the conservatory, her mind churning with everything she’d learned. A war fought and lost before her grandparents were born. A dying AI, copied and saved by people who’d never stopped fighting. A Network that would destroy everything Bee was if they got the chance.
And House Tertian, standing in the middle of it all, asked her to trust them.
She didn’t know if she could. But she was thinking she might have to try.