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[An Underground Labyrinth, Day 8, Late Afternoon]

Anya watches Harold do what is possibly the dumbest thing she's ever seen anyone do, walking right up to the giant ant with jaws that are big enough to cut him in two, and then bending even closer to put his head right between them. Freddy quickly grabs the back of his robe and yanks him back towards him, prompting Harold to start talking.

“What are you doing!? Look, they're friendly! They should've attacked us by now, but they haven't! And it didn't when I got in its face either! They're peaceful!” He wrenches himself free and returns to the ant, Freddy giving him a nasty glare as he begins drawing the Ant's jaws in his notebook.

And then the ant steps forwards, everyone tensing as they watch. But Harold doesn't get chopped in two. The ant just nudges him curiously with its jaws. Harold doesn't care. “Fascinating…” he mumbles under his breath before turning his head to the rest of the group. “Well? Lower your weapons, we're fine.”

Anya wonders why they even brought him on this trip as she watches the others sheath their weapons. She sighs as she looks around and realizes that the purple mana in here is just as dense as it is outside, and she'll be useless here too. At the very least she can see everything in here with great detail, what with how dense the mana is. It's an interesting sight.

As Anya looks at the surrounding bricks, and Harold scribbles in his book, Eva wrinkles her nose as she smells an extremely strong cocktail of scents fill the room. There's orange, lemon, lime, vinegar, and a bunch of other scents that she can't even go about naming. Nobody else seems to notice, but given that she's the scout of the group that's normal. She’s supposed to have the strongest senses, after all. Wouldn't be much of a scout if she didn't.

As the smells dissipate, the ants seem to change, and all of their jaws start closing with loud clacks. It's clear from the sight of them closing that the ant's jaws would be able to crush the group's bones, even with their high rank within the guild. It looks like the dungeon's gathered its strongest monsters to stop them. Anya eyes Harold with worry as she waits for the ant's jaws to snap shut around his head, but it keeps them open for a second before stepping back and closing them just out of reach of his head.

“Tch.”

Harold stands up and gathers his things, strapping his notebook into his belt as he turns to return to the group. “Suppose we should get going then. It looks like the dungeon's friendly for some reason.” Oh yeah. Anya had completely forgotten that the whole reason for them coming here had been to find the supposed dungeon.

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She looks up to find the mana stream that every dungeon has. It's a necessity if it wants to have a supply of mana that can keep up with the dungeon's needs, and it also leads directly to the core, so it's really usef…

Where is it?

There isn't a mana stream in here. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Anya hadn't seen one on the way in either. But that isn't how dungeons work. They have to have one, otherwise they would just run out. Even the biggest dungeons have one running right through the front door, and there's no way that storm outside could be the stream, it's moving way too fast! The core would've exploded by now if it was! Besides, dungeon cores don't even put themselves inside volcanoes, it's too dangerous!

Anya feels herself freeze up again, the sounds around her getting muffled by the blood rushing to her head as she struggles to think about what alternative this dungeon core figured out that no other core in history has been able to. She's pulled back to her friends by a hand on the shoulder and an aggressive shaking from Eva

“-nya! ANYA! Are you okay!? You were doing the same thing you did back on the boat when you fainted!” She shook her head as Eva stared her in the eye, clearing her mind.

“This dungeon doesn't have a mana stream.”

“What?”

“It doesn't have a mana stream!”

Eva froze too, the gears in her head visibly turning as she struggled to comprehend the statement. Harold and Freddy paused in the same way, just as shook.

“But… that's not how that works! What do you mean it doesn't have one, every dungeon has a mana stream!” Eva shouted, freeing herself from her stupor.

“Apparently this one doesn't! I don't know why either!” Anya shouted back, raising her voice alongside Eva.

Freddy steps between the two, pushing them back a little to ease the situation. “If you're going to argue, do it later.” With that, he raises the torch again and walks back over to Harold.

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[A Quiet Island, Day 8, Late Afternoon]

Looks like the group (party? Probably party.) The two women of the party were panicking about something, but Tank shut them up pretty quickly. A few minutes after Tank stepped in they all got their stuff together and started walking down one of the hallways. The one that leads to the farm. They walk slowly, and as the party turns a corner Johmmy sees the gentle blue glow of the mushroom farm up ahead, rushing forward to investigate.

As he turns the corner to the farm room, the rest of the party run after him to make sure he doesn't die. When they reach the entrance, they see him staring at one of the farmer ants harvesting mushroom stalks and storing them away in its stomach pouch. He's already gotten his notebook out again. As he's scribbling away again, I notice an ant on the ceiling acting strange.

It's one of the small pink ones, and it seems to be readying itself for something. With a great leap, it begins tumbling through the air, falling towards Johmmy and apparently aiming for his shoulder. And it sticks the landing! Johmmy jumps, scared out of his boots, but the little feller doesn't let go! He holds on with all his might, and scrambles up onto Johmmy's shoulder.

Anyways, Johmmy seems pretty interested in the little guy, flipping to a new page as the tiny pink ant stares him in the eye. It sits still for a second before looking down, noticing the leather strap of his satchel slung over Johmmy's shoulder. It leans its head down and takes a nibble of the leather, and I see the ant’s brain light up. I feel an emotion radiating off the small ant, one that I can best describe as “Delicious” or “Mmm Yummy”.

The ant slips its jaws under the strap and jumps off Johmmy's shoulder before he can react, bolting towards the nearest exit as it steals the satchel. It quickly makes its way over to a tunnel in the wall that is too small for any of the humans to fit through, and drags the satchel up behind it. All this happens in the course of a few seconds, the group too shocked to react normally. Miss Witch is the first to laugh, and the other two join in, much to Johmmy's chagrin. He doesn't seem very happy. I suppose I'll have to return the bag.

Hey, little guy… I know that leather tastes pretty good, but I need the bag back. Although, if it happened to flip open and gave me a good look at its contents, I wouldn't mind.