"I don't care how much ya hate it, we're doing it!" Mel yelled at Timon as he floated near the front of the bus, seemingly moving randomly with every quick movement the bus made as Timon drove.

We had quickly made our exit from Smithtown. With the new, very hard deadline sitting over us, we didn't have any choice but to plan as we went. Grant had been left behind with the mayor and a promise of a core by the time we were back. He was less confident on the fifty levels Mel had demanded, but he had promised to try.

"The last time we tried anything like that, your brain nearly exploded, and that was only a handful of drones. We are talking dozens this time!" Timon yelled back.

It turned out that Mel's drones were capable of enough autonomous actions that they could pilot the transport fleet. That was if Timon could handle using his own abilities to link them all together. That was Timon's job the moment we arrived. He'd head to the garage and start getting all the transports up and running.

"What if we used the cores?" Elody asked, looking up from one of her books. She had been looking through four of them nearly nonstop since we had reboarded the bus.

"Use the cores for what?" Pryte asked.

"We can take some of Mel's load off with the cores. There should be about a dozen, assuming none of them have been moved," Elody answered.

Gamma's new form appeared on the bus next to me. "Cores?! They must be rescued!"

"I agree with Gamma. I had forgotten you had mentioned some cores running parts of the archive's equipment. Even if they can't be used to guide any of the fleet, we cannot leave them behind," I said. Adding a dozen cores to our homestead would also be a huge boost. I was sure Traveler and Corey would love to meet them.

"Just so we are on the same page, the cores in the archives are nowhere near as intelligent as any of our friends. While I had heard of cores to that level before meeting Corey, and have interacted with a few of the Travelers, I wasn't aware it was a very widespread possibility. It seems dungeon cores are an area I have neglected my own knowledge base in." Elody's eyes all looked away from Gamma as she spoke. She seemed ashamed of this revelation.

"What do you mean? Are they more like Alpha?" I asked. Alpha had made a lot of progress, but still, I wasn't sure how well they'd ever handle complex assignments.

"No, less awake to the world around them. I honestly had no idea that a nurturing environment could increase that. The books on the subject matter are few and far between. It's part of why I bring them up now. They deserve a chance to grow, and even if they don't move much, I believe they would still make valuable allies as they seem to enjoy operating manadraulic devices," she replied. I had read that word a few times during my stay in the archives. It was the limit of a lot of the Spiral's technology. Some machines could be controlled by the mana flow within them.

"It's alright, ask Mel about his first reactions to Corey when he's done fighting with Timon. The Spiral seems to have some strong feelings on dungeon cores. The important thing is we are here to take them back with us now. What's the plan beyond the cores?" I asked after reassuring her. I knew why the Spiral residents had such a strong feeling against dungeon cores. I didn't like it, but I did understand it.

"We're going to need to tackle this in parts, and it really depends on the shape of the archives. If everything is still in good working order, then we explain to Quarilyn what's going on and get to work. If, as I expect, some of the building has fallen into disrepair, we will need to work our way to the inner reference desk. The librarian's quarters are close to that. From there, we can spread out grabbing books, and meet up for the trip to the sub levels," Elody explained.

"I'm going to go take a look in the administration rooms, assuming I can get inside. The planet was registered as a training room, and I suspect there may be some interesting things in there. Who was your administrator anyway, Elody?" Pryte asked, looking over to her as he spoke.

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"We hadn't had one for quite some time. I was attempting to do both roles and was falling greatly behind. It was part of what let the Triox work their way in so easily," she answered. Her voice was full of regret. It seemed she wasn't nearly so over the loss of the archives as she had appeared.

"How did the book return system work anyway? Can the books just be pulled back once we leave?" I asked. I assumed that couldn't be the case or she'd have brought it up, but I was curious nonetheless.

"Mostly powered by a combination of the librarians' mana and the dungeon core mechanisms. This is another reason we will want to liberate them all. Though I highly doubt it would be possible to return them once they leave the world anyway. Pryte, if you are planning to head to the administration room, I think you should destroy all the records in there once you have what you want," Elody answered, before adding another great idea. If they didn't know exactly what was lost, it would be near impossible to track it.

"Was already planning to. I want an index of all the books that currently exist, or have existed in the archives. At some point, I think we are going to want to start cataloging the full written works across the Spiral. As far as I know, it's never been done, but I'm guessing it's something both of you are very interested in," Pryte replied, typing away at a small device in his hand as he spoke.

"I've had dreams of such a thing before, but the danger involved, lack of resources, or those interested in the goal have always pushed me away," Elody said.

"I want to help if that's a plan," Elicec said as he and his brother sat down next to me. "There are a lot of diaries our people keep of interesting things, and I don't want them to be lost. Mom gave me the only complete copy of the history of our people when I left."

"Of course, welcome to the future board of our grand library," I said, smiling at Elicec. His people were still a problem we were likely to face in the future. Pryte had said something was happening with the faction that controlled the planet, and I already knew we'd do what we could to take control of it. If it were possible, we'd do it. I owed the brothers that much.

"What are the basements going to be like? With that many books, you must attract knowledge orb formation regularly. If no one is harvesting those, there could be some pretty dangerous things down there," Connie said. She must never have learned about the dungeon we had already gone through in the sublevels.

"Yes, that's the biggest concern. If collection has broken down, and it was already starting to be an issue when Dave was last here, well, we could have some giant issues in the deeper levels," Elody replied.

"I really want to see this basement," said Alex, excitedly. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of that, but surrounded by us, she was most likely safe. I'd hold off on any decision there until we saw how dangerous it really was.

"That will depend a lot on what's going on, but yes, there is a good chance you and John need to stick close to us as we move deeper into the archives," I said, trying to reassure her that she wasn't getting left behind. The fact that she and John hadn't been involved much yet likely was bothering her far more than her brother, but with the pregnancy, it wasn't entirely safe for most things yet.

"I'd prefer to avoid any dungeons, but I'll do what you think is best," John added.

"Good enough for me. Honestly, for the most part, I enjoyed my time in the archives. I'm not sure my sanity would have held quite as well had I ended up anywhere else. I hope that there hasn't been a lot of damage done to it," I said truthfully. The time I spent there had done much to slowly cushion me into this new reality without entirely breaking me.

"Well, looks like none of us is getting our wish. Something bad happened here!" Mel called from the front of the bus, ending our planning. I turned my head to see what he was talking about and spotted the obvious.

There was a darkness hanging over the archives. Almost a gloom that seemed to start above them and spread out. The outer walls still seemed mostly the same, but something had changed deep inside. My thought that a dungeon had grown to encompass the entirety of the place was confirmed as I felt the usual sign hit me as we got closer.

"What does this mean for the other cores that were inside?" I asked, looking back at Elody.

"I have no idea, but likely nothing good. Alex, you need to stick very close to us at all times. We are officially heading into what is likely a powerful dungeon, and you don't have a core, so at the very least, the main core is going to be hunting you. I don't want you leaving my side, okay?" Elody said, her top two eyes focused on my daughter.

"Yeah, okay. I didn't like that weird feeling at all as we approached," she answered. No, she wouldn't have. I hadn't liked it the first time I felt it either.

Knowledge mana orbs are one of the most common stranger types of orbs out there. No two ever seem to be exactly alike. Generally, they are always just slightly attuned to the knowledge of wherever they happened to form. And as no two places are exactly alike, the knowledge contained within them is never perfectly duplicated. Some are more generalized, while some are incredibly specialized. So far, I've been able to document five hundred and twelve distinct types, and while there are still slight variations within the orbs belonging to these types. I'm going to define these versions as the higher order for typing.

A Primer on Knowledge Orbs by Blopin Bloopin IV

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