After Kerrolf died, Hana closed their eyes and let theirself feel their doubts about survival for an entire minute. The old man had walked beyond the fence to get a closer look at the black dust that had appeared right before the earthquake. The man had taken an hour to die. He had screamed in agony then transitioned to hysterical laughter and then helpless sobs of grief. The man seemed to shift from one extreme emotion to another as black veins crawled over his body. Near the end, he hadn’t sounded human anymore.
Hana inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. They opened their eyes and ordered sticks placed at regular intervals radiating out from the fence. As the black came closer, the dungeon people might not have any way to stop it, but they would be able to track its progress.
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Violet lay curled in the dark against the wall of the dungeon core hollow with the visual scanner hanging in front of his face. He stared blankly as some humans tossed some dried vine branches on top of a mutated corpse, being careful not to get close enough to touch it. One of them touched the vine pile with a torch. Violet pushed out his will to infuse the fire with mana. He remembered a fair amount about void infections from the many nightmares he had suffered after attending certain lectures. Burning the corpse might spread the infection, but void infections would usually dissolve with an application of mana.
The dungeon fairy moved the viewpoint around the dungeon, noting where the infection was the worst and which worldlets had suffered damage from the earthquake. There were very few dungeon creatures left after the dungeon people had scoured the dungeon looking for food, and many of the remaining creatures had died from the void infection. The boss bat was struggling to keep the infection at bay with its one remaining bat that could swim. Two other bats clung to the dungeon vine, recovering from their injuries.
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Without the foundational instincts drawing down all the mental energy, the information bundles in the dungeon mind space began to feel a bloating sensation. Mental energy pooled in each bundle, waiting to be spent. The mirror light still spread give up, indecision, and shock, so the information bundles were slow to respond to the buildup of mental energy. A few of the bundles began to inflate and distend. The snake shifted with discomfort, instinctually trying to pass an intestinal blockage. The concept of “pass a blockage” spread to the other bundles through the mirror light. The plant bundles had no intestines but tried to move more sap or water through their bodies. The animal bundles all began wriggling, pushing, or gagging.
The mushroom information bundle sat in a crevice, out of reach of the mirror light. It slowly grew its network fibers under and through the debris of the shattered instincts. The buildup of mental energy was a little faster than the mushroom could direct into extending the network, so the mushroom body slowly grew, opening it’s bell high and wide. The mushroom had grown fat and showed signs of internal stress when it reached high enough to catch a sliver of mirror light through a crack. The concept of “pass a blockage” had almost no relation to anything in the mushroom bundle, but there was one action that was similar in the sense of “ejection”. The action had been artificially disabled when the mushroom bundle had been unlocked, but the restriction mechanism had been damaged during the mental shockwaves. The mushroom bundle flared the gills under its bell and released a thick cloud of spores.
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The mushroom body shrank down a bit after expending so much energy on the spores. The downward movement of the bell forced the air in the crevice up and out, carrying the spores along as a thick cloud. The spore cloud blocked the light from the mirror star and cast a sudden shadow on multiple information bundles. The animal bundles in shadow instinctually reacted in fear of a whatever predator had cast the sudden shadow. The butterfly flapped its thick wings. The frog kicked its legs, trying to shift its swollen belly. The snake raised its head, mouth open to bite. The spore cloud dispersed, drifting around the mental space. The mirror star picked up on the strong danger reactions from the bundles and reflected it back across the space.
Like a herd of deer, the bundles reacted immediately to the hint of danger and followed their instincts to flee, fight, or hide. The apricot tree grew thicker bark. The millipede tried to dart for a dark hole. The spider struggled to build a tight web funnel around itself. The fish flopped ineffectually. The bat squeaked in fear and tried to fly. The jellyfish drifted along the ground, too heavy to float.
The mirror star also reflected the sense of danger on the broken plant and dungeon instincts. While they were no longer whole, many parts of them were intact. The instincts of a poison berry vine activated to stimulate the growth of poison fruit throughout the dungeon. The dungeon instincts related to protection flared and directed mana in multiple directions. The dungeon core pulled the maximum amount of mana it could handle, increasing its brightness so quickly that Violet screamed and covered his eyes. The mana flows between the dungeon spaces and the void swelled into a roaring river of mana, cutting off the source of the void infection. The core sent mana to spawn defenses against intruders; poison vine fruit began falling in the dungeon again. Mana flowed into every branch and leaf of the dungeon vine, repairing and strengthening it. The amount of mana pulled by the core was more than could be used and the excess spilled out of the regular mana channels, directly into the flesh of the dungeon vine or out into the air of the dungeon. The dungeon vine began to glow and pulse with power.
_ Natural Evolution: “Greater Mana Vine” Unlocked _