It was impossible for any animals under his control to leave the dungeon, but he didn’t know why or how. It was that he didn’t understand why the game forbade it, allowing animals to venture out of the dungeon was a whole can of worms ready to explode. It would be hard for a dungeon game to focus on the dungeon if it allowed its players to play outside of and ignore the dungeon.

But that was in the game, and already there were far too many deviations from the game. He needed plants for the dungeon’s ecosystem, especially seeds. He could wait a long time for some seeds to be carried in, but he was relying too much on chance. In the game, seeds were randomized loot from dead adventurers. This reality is not so accommodating.

There were a few possibilities, first was that no dungeon creatures can escape. The thin membrane of fog that separated his dungeon was a wall, used to keep him and the dungeon in. Next, there was the need for dungeon creatures to be within the dungeon to survive or live. The final possibility he could think of was that he would lose any control of the dungeon animals if they left.

The first possibility didn’t seem likely. While this world and dungeon was based off of Dungeon Heart, there was no video game physics like invisible walls or mob spawning. At least none that he had found. Many of his powers were like the video game, but the actual reality was far too irregular and independent. Dungeon creatures couldn’t leave because the video game didn’t allow it, but that didn’t mean anything now.

His terraforming ability was different, allowing for much more dynamic sculpting instead of manipulating a tile-based map. His dungeon creature modification ability was also different, much more complex than in the game. There was no reason to assume that the barrier between his dungeon and the outside would be the few things that were just like the game.

The other possibilities were much more different beasts. Though, that was a bridge he would cross when he reached it. He used his control over one of his rats, one of the few that wasn’t severely injured, to find a bone from a dead dungeon creature and bring it to the entrance. It took a while pulling the bone through the small tunnels, but eventually he managed it.

When the rat reached the entrance, he forced it to push the bone through the fog wall. The bone went through without any resistance or difficulty. This bone was from a creature he had dominated, meaning that there wasn’t a curse in the actual structure of the animals. At least, none that persist after death.

With that, he commanded the rat to pull in the bone and, again, there was no resistance. He forced the rat to return the bone back into the dungeon, then he took control of one of his dominated insects that he didn’t care about. He wasn’t brave enough to use a rat for these tests, an insect was a different matter. Hive insects were only ones that mattered, others can be replaced.

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He commanded the insect, forced it to crawl towards the entrance of the cave, then forced it to walk through. Like he guessed, the fog wall wasn’t a solid barrier and the insect wasn’t forced back. However, that was all he assumed to be true. His connection to the insect became distorted and strained the instant it crossed, like the fog barrier was interfering. The few bits of information he got back were painful, like the insect was dying or being electrocuted. He tried to force his eyes to pierce through the fog and see what was going on, but he couldn’t. There was nothing he could do to see what was going on outside.

For all he knew, the insect was melting in the outside world, like a vampire in the sun. That made proving or disproving his theories difficult. He wasn’t looking to create an army and invade the overworld, he had enough problems with making a non-shitty dungeon. All he wanted were some plants.

Alright, what can he do? Well, he wasn’t sure if the damage or problems came from being in the overworld, or just not being within the dungeon. If there was an issue with any dungeon biological matter being in the overworld, he was toast and would need to just mutate the dungeon grass.

He thought it over, then he got an idea. He summoned one of his rats and used one of their tails to stick outside of the dungeon. When he did it, he discovered that the tail didn’t melt or suffer adverse effects, but it did hurt. The pain was like needles poking every nerve cell, to the point where he struggled to control the tail.

He pulled back the tail and performed one more test. He forced the rat to stick its head out, and for the first time, he managed to see the world beyond his dungeon. The sight was blotchy and staticky, but he was still able to see. The rat found the insect, or rather a slight black dot on the ground near it.

He forced the rat to look around before pulling it back. The rat took a while to recover. There didn’t seem to have been any damage to the rat that he could tell. He also learned that his animals needed the dungeon to live or function - the problem didn’t seem to be the overworld.

So, how can he reach outside of his dungeon to get plants or seeds or anything for that matter. Alex thought and started creating plans.

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Hasil was helping distribute the food that they received from a trading trip to Millpond. Everything was going well. When Adal disappeared, he was able to disguise the disappearance as an eager trip to find the caches. Opinion of him fell and he had to deal with Adal’s mother, but his plan was going well.

Then strange reports started to come in. A rat was found at the entrance of the dungeon, with a bone in its mouth. After waving it, it disappeared then reappeared without the bone. The tail stuck out of the dungeon, then its head.

Hasil didn’t know what to interpret this as. None of the other elders did, even the soothsayers. It was clear that this was an intentional message, but from what?

What was in the dungeon that could communicate with them? Why was a rat used to communicate? The more Hasil thought about it, the more he felt like they hadn’t even scratched the mysteries hidden within the cave.