“Sure, but do you want to tell me where we are first?” I didn't move toward the chair just yet, but gestured toward the window and the strange view.

Kyrine laughed, the sound like the tinkling of a waterfall.

“Inside my core,” she said. “The view, well, that’s just decoration, I’m afraid. A view which I remember from… long ago.” She looked as if she was recalling something, then shook her head quickly and returned herself to the moment. “Now, sit. We have much to get through.”

I didn’t exactly have anything else planned for the day, and I was rather interested in seeing what exactly being a Keeper entailed. I pushed the chair around from the fire a little so it was facing out into the rest of the room and sat down.

Kyrine had placed herself on the bed, her legs curled beneath her.

We looked at each other for a moment.

“I have to ask,” I said, “are we truly inside the dungeon core? What are you? And is this place, you know, real?”

She smiled indulgently as she ticked off the answers to my questions on her elegant fingers. “We truly are inside the core. Here, I can create whatever environments I want, within limits. And here, also, I can manifest myself in my humanoid form, as you see me now. I’m not sure if you’d call it real. You can’t die or be harmed here, but you can interact with the environment in… other ways.” Here she glanced at me through her lashes, coyly, and I had an idea what she meant by “interacting.” Then she motioned around her with a broad movement of her hands. “This is home, for me. You should be honored! Not many people get to come here.”

“I gotta admit, it’s quite the digs.”

“Anyway,” she said, clapping her hands. “Enough of this. To business!”

“Hold on a moment,” I said, raising my hand to stop her. “Before we go any further with this, I’d like to know what I’m in for. Astrid and Belinda didn’t exactly explain a lot to me. They let me know how important I could be, but I don’t know what it all entails. What am I meant to do as a Keeper?”

“You will be responsible for guiding my progression.”

“Progression?” I asked. “And how exactly does a dungeon progress?”

“By cultivating, in the same manner as all other creatures who have access to mana.”

“Cultivators absorb essence from their environment and from any creatures they kill,” I said. “So does that mean that you kill people who enter the mansion and absorb their essence?”

“Well, yes, but it’s rather more complicated than that,” Kyrine said. “Not all visitors have to die. They just need to expend a lot of mana.”