“Please tell me what’s happening!” Violet pleaded with the dungeon core. “I’m worried. Your mana draw is far too low for a healthy dungeon and the ambient mana is getting pretty thin. With the quarantine up, I can’t even call for help. Please!” Violet knelt on the floor of the dungeon core hollow. He had dismissed his lawn chair in order to summon a few lanterns for light. Violet felt like the small space was suffocating him, like he was trapped in the rubble of a collapsed cave or locked in a bank safe. The thin ambient mana was not enough to comfortably fly, so Violet was forced to pace back and forth on foot when he wasn’t begging the dungeon core to talk to him. Violet shivered as a wave of cold seemed to wash over him. The System decided to add more worries onto his too-small plate.
_ Void Contamination Detected. Quarantine Already Established. Purge Contamination Immediately _
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In the dark worldlet, a jellyfish drifted off to the side of the space. The thin ambient mana slowed its travel but did not stop it from floating. When the jellyfish neared the edge of the space, a few particles of black dust settled on the jellyfish’s bell. The bell the jellyfish warped and twisted around the black dust. A think black slime began to ooze down the jellyfish’s tentacles. When spikes stabbed out of the tentacles, the jellyfish fell. Thrashing its body, the mutant jellyfish was annihilated when it fell past the bottom of the dark worldlet.
In every worldlet, black dust began to creep in around the edges. The dust coated and stained everything it touched, like soot. In the acid rain and stony worldlets, the rain and rushing water spread the void soot rapidly across the ground. The acid aligned vine, even without pressure from the dungeon core, naturally secreted a small amount of acid. When the void soot brushed the mana-infused acid, the soot vanished. The creatures in the acid rain worldlet were all infected with the soot and suffered grotesque mutations. Many of the creatures ended up dissolving into puddles of wet soot, but a few salamanders remained with extra limbs, extra eyes, no eyes, spikes, twisted bodies, or multiple mouths. The mutants turned on each other, eating the weakest among them.
The soot encroached on the edges of every worldlet, starting a certain distance from the entrance portal. In the quicksand worldlet, the floating moats of light were extinguished as they drifted near the edge of the space. In the swamp worldlet, the puddles of mud grew black. In the oasis, the sand turned grey as the soot was mixed in. The soot vanished from the thick clay mud in the sauna worldlet anywhere the blue vines sprayed mana-infused water. No void soot appeared in the captured space.
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A bat sentry alerted the boss bat to the appearance of darkness out in the underwater worldlet. The boss bat swam over to examine the change. It sensed something in the dust that reminded it of the void entity the bat had fought so long ago. The boss bat backed away warily from the dust. It shot a jet of water at the floating black particles. The particles in the path of the jet vanished. With a squeak of satisfaction, the boss bat swam quickly around the air bubbles, mustering the remnants of the colony to defend their home from a new foe.
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In the recently formed stream worldlet, the stream carried the soot along in the current, staining the streambank. The void soot spread up the streambank toward the vine. The soot spread up a leaf that touched the ground. A black stain, like spilled ink, shot up the vine branch, twisting it violently. The branch struck other branches, spreading the stain. Black liquid dripped on the sandy streambank, boiling away the sand and releasing foul smoke. The branches split and joined in knots, sprouting spikes, mouths, and hair. The black stain raced down towards the roots. The roots dissolved into ash, and the worldlet collapsed.
The portal from the main worldlet into the stream worldlet snapped closed, severing the vine. The main worldlet shook violently, causing soil to churn and vines to whip back and forth. The towering vine snapped near the base The shaking spread through the portals to every worldlet. The worldlet grounds cracked in many places, rising and sinking irregularly. The fire void artifact tipped precariously and severely burned one of the large blue vines in the sauna worldlet. The stony worldlet cracked, draining away much of the rushing water. Boulders fell from the cliffs in the lake worldlet. Shockwaves rebounded around the underwater worldlet, killing most of the remaining bats. Tunnels all over the underworld collapsed. The dungeon people struggled not to sink in the shaking sand as several apricot trees toppled to the ground. Violet screamed as he was flung into the wall and knocked unconscious.
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The shock of losing the stream worldlet struck the dungeon mind space like a sledgehammer striking a table stacked high with porcelain dishes. The information bundles were tossed around the space and the mirror star ricocheted around the space, striking the ground and several bundles, crushing the beetle bundle. Large cracks spread across the foundational instincts. Fragments of instincts were crushed together, ejected from the ground, or sunk out of sight. When the shockwaves faded and the turmoil stopped, the mirror star was orbiting low around the outside of the mind space, rolling through the air like a dropped marble. The butterfly flapped drunkenly above the remains of the beetle, and the other animal bundles pulled themselves out of cracks or out from under debris. The jellyfish drifted, slightly askew.
As the mirror star orbited the mind space, the uneven ground cast long shadows, preventing access to the mirrored light for periods of time. The mirror star reflected the chaos and disruption of the mind space into whatever bundles were illuminated by its light. The animal bundles sat in shock and indecision, reinforced by the mirror star when it was in sight.