Violet pulled his hand away from the burned handprint, less disappointed than he had been after the previous attempt to connect to the dungeon that way. He waved his hand and summoned his completed thinky-talky device. He placed it next to the dungeon core. Emotions warred in Violet, switching rapidly between fear, resentment, excitement, and fierce pride in his creation. His feelings bubbled up into a burst of crazed laughter. When the laughter subsided, he shook himself, took a deep breath, and activated the device.


    A soft muttering floated out of the thinky-talky device. Violet''s eyes went wide and he leaned in hear more clearly. The dungeon core was saying... random words. "Grow. Spawn fruit. Creature death. Other." The words overlapped and there seemed to be multiple voices, or multiple copies of the same voice. Violet had no idea if that was normal, since he hadn''t tested the device on another creature. Violet tried to think at the device himself, to see what he would sound like. Nothing happened, so Violet tried to think harder, repeating "Hello dungeon" as a chant in his mind. He gave himself a headache trying to think at the machine and he wasn''t sure if he had imagined a tiny whisper of his own voice coming from the device.


    Violet collapsed on his back, rubbing at his temples. "No wonder the dungeon doesn''t talk to me, I''m telepathically mute." He groaned in frustration. "If that telepathic raven was around I could probably just have it do the talking both ways." Violet let his arms flop to the ground next to him. "I guess... I can probably build a ''talky-thinky'' device so the dungeon can hear what I''m saying. It should just be the same process in reverse, right? It would have to target the dungeon core though..." Violet muttered to himself as he worked through the problem in his head. His professors from school would not have recognized him with how much he was focusing on something complex.


    Violet stood and wrote some notes at his desk. He glanced idly at the wall of visual scanners. "Oh shoot!" He shouted. "My employee!" He dumped a handful of miscellaneous jewelry out on the desk and snatched up a flat wooden talisman tied on a leather thong. He blinked out of the dungeon core space and rushed down into the tunnels.


    <hr>


    Chaney lay motionless on a high vine branch. Below, a peahen pecked at a patch of glowing moss. Chaney watched the bird, memorizing its movement pattern. When he was confident, he moved his arm Silently to pull a stone ball from a rough pouch he had made from a giant cocoon. Patiently, he aimed and released. The stone ball smashed the peahen''s head into the ground, killing it instantly. Instantly, but not silently. A deep *thump* carried across the swamp.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    Chaney quickly and quietly pulled his feet under himself and turned to run along the branch, away from the dead peahen. He ran faster than he would have thought possible before practicing his Balancing on and off for days. His passage rustled one big vine leaf when his concentration slipped for a moment. He winced at the noise. Perhaps it wouldn''t be noticed.


    Chaney crossed over the main vine and up a different branch. He leapt from the branch onto the stone hut, then from the hut into an apricot tree. He spent five heartbeats shoving apricots into his pouch, then dropped to the ground. He jumped over a wide pond, nearly slipping on the far side. Chaney spun his arms wildly but managed both to not fall and to not make any noise. He aimed for a patch of regular sized vines, the ones that grew eyes on the leaves.


    Silently, Chaney eased between the vines to the edge of a pond that was partially obscured by the vines. He slowly pulled on a grass rope, lifting a trap he had crafted the day before. Two fish had swum into the trap and been unable to leave. When Chaney raised the trap clear of the water, the fish thrashed loudly in the small space, and Chaney knew he was dead.


    A heavy body crashed into Chaney''s back, knocking him into the pond. He sputtered and shouted as he got to his feet in the shallow pond. "Yes, yes. You win again. You are still the best hunter in this whole dungeon." Chaney gave the moon cat a mock glare as it sat under the vines in the exact spot he had just been. The cat looked up briefly from licking one of its paws. Chaney laughed and grinned. "I did better that time! Look!" Chaney waded out of the pond and shook several handfuls of apricots from his sodden pouch. "Apricots and almost fish is a lot better, you have to admit." The moon cat flicked its paw in disgust at the apricots, but leaned over to groom the side of Chaney''s head with its tongue. Chaney endured the grooming as long as he could stand the scratchy cat tongue. Grooming was important to the big cat, as was hunting prey and avoiding detection.


    Chaney and the cat had been unlocking and improving his "hunting cat" skills for a week. The rules were simple, Chaney would sneak off and try to get food. The tree spider moon cat would stay in the stone hut until it heard something, then it would start to hunt Chaney. Chaney was allowed to eat whatever he could catch before the moon cat caught him, otherwise he had to eat whatever the moon cat brought him. Chaney had eaten more raw fish and bats and snakes than he even cared to count. Chaney had completely refused to eat the giant snail the cat brought one time. He was pretty sure the snail had been a cat joke.


    "Chaney!" The man and the cat turned in unison toward the sound of a shout. Without discussion, they crept through the vines and back towards the hut, keeping to the shadows. The shout repeated, giving the hunters the exact location of the noisy guest.


    "Greetings, master fairy." Chaney said from right next to the fairy''s ear.