Jan was shaken awake. Literally shaken, by a pair of hands. She gasped a breath as her mind swam into consciousness. Dan’s blurry face hung above Jan’s head. “Stop.” She said thickly, trying to push his hands away. She was so tired.
“Jan, wake up! Hana called for all fighters. Grab your spear!” Dan started to pull her into sitting up then handed her a small cup of water. “Let’s go!” Dan turned and dashed away. Jan blinked after him as the meaning of his words sunk through her exhaustion.
“Yes, Dan.” She said drank the water, grabbed her spear, and stood. She jogged after Dan. The ravens were cawing loudly today. The light is strange today. She thought. Is the dungeon going to start giving us day and night in here? That would be nice.
Jan reached Dan and Hana at the fence, close to the opening that funneled most of the dungeon creatures into a chokepoint. Since there was clearly no fighting going on at the moment, Jan rubbed at her eyes, trying to clear her vision. It didn’t work. Why is it so dark? She wondered, looking around. The ravens cawing came from above her and she looked up. Giant leaves spread out above her. The ravens all perched on the leaf stems or hopped back and forth to a branch as thick as her leg. Jan’s mouth dropped open in shock. “We’ve shrunk!” She yelled in panic.
The fighters around her started laughing, but their merriment was cut short when a dungeon fruit the size of a melon crashed to the ground nearby. The fruit split open, releasing several snakes. With all the fighters around, Jan couldn’t decide if she was more shocked by a fruit that spawned multiple snakes, or that one of those snakes made it to the fence and escaped. Hana’s voice cut through the commotion.
“The creatures are not attacking. We have enough food for now, so let the creatures escape if you want. Dan and Rionach, take your scout teams out. Return in one hour.” Hana clapped their hands. “The rest of you, spread out and make sure spawned creatures don’t head towards camp center.”
Dan pushed through the fighters to Jan. “Are you up for this? I know how tired you’ve been.” Excitement and concern showed on his face.
Jan smiled. She was excited too. Finally, something different.
----------------------------------------
The underworld snake dug contentedly through the soil. The dungeon music was loud and clear and there was prey in the tunnels again. Many of the tunnels had collapsed, true, but the snake was willing to dig for miles to connect them again. Some of the vine roots had grown so large that they filled the tunnels near the center, and the tubers grew half as large as the snake’s head before dropping to the tunnel floor and splitting open. The snake thought it was great fun to have several prey creatures appear at once so it could chase them all for a few minutes before letting some escape to be hunted later.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
----------------------------------------
The boss bat rested on a dungeon branch as big around as an old tree. The mana radiating from the branches and leaves of the vine was enough to push back the black dust that had nearly consumed the entire worldlet. The boss bat watched as spawn fruit fell and bats trickled in to fill the colony. When the colony was back to full strength, the boss bat would take them to destroy the last of the black dust before leading a hunting party against a few snakes it had noticed. The boss bat squeaked a happy welcome to the newest bats and they squeaked back.
----------------------------------------
The ravens were thrilled with the changes to the vine plant. The Huge leaves offered lots of cover for hide-and-seek and the food creatures were more docile now, instead of constantly attacking. The ravens felt stronger now that the fighting had stopped. They flew quicker and more nimbly. The flock followed some of the humans as they scouted the dungeon. The ravens were not quite so young anymore and felt the desire to establish their territories as pairs. One pair of ravens settled in the vines near the human camp, and the other pair settled on a branch reaching up from the broken base of the towering vine.
----------------------------------------
Violet adjusted his sun hat and dark glasses as he lounged in his lawn chair. He moved the viewpoint of the visual scanner slowly through the dungeon worldlets, noting the changes. The void soot had retreated from the vine in every worldlet, thanks to the evolution of the dungeon avatar vine. The “Greater Mana Vine” radiated mana in all directions, and the mana infused water or acid of the various mutations had become extra potent. The acid rain worldlet was already cleared of void soot, as was the sauna worldlet. The ambient mana was stronger than ever and the dungeon creatures had been strengthened. The hollow area around the dungeon core had tripled in size, so much that Violet felt he was sitting in an empty cathedral.
All in all, the dungeon fairy was furious. He refused to even look at the dungeon core and had set up a room divider to block the orb’s view of him. Violet knew the dungeon could perceive everything in the dungeon and didn’t rely on sight, but he just felt so angry and needed to send a message. If the dungeon wasn’t going to talk, then he wasn’t going to talk either. Lowering the defenses and losing an entire worldlet had been reckless. The entire dungeon could have been shaken loose from the side of the world, or the void infection might have reached the dungeon core and corrupted it. Violet couldn’t bring himself to discuss it with the dungeon yet, so he wrote his feelings in some letters to his imaginary pen pals that he would never send.
----------------------------------------
In the dungeon mind space, the mushroom spores settled on the other information bundles and across the ground, in every crack and crevice. The spores sprouted into nodes of network fibers and began growing in every direction. A few spores had landed on the broken beetle bundle. When those spores sprouted into fibers, the fibers pierced deep into the broken fragments and began to break it down.
_ Spawn Lost: Lesser Beetle _
Mushroom network fibers spread across the entirety of the mind space, connecting into a haphazard mesh. Broken pieces of plant and dungeon instincts began to decompose like the broken beetle bundle. The mushroom network absorbed and shared the resources from the decomposing mental constructs. The information bundles connected to the network continued to feel danger each time the mirror light swept over them, but as they absorbed mental resources from the mushroom network, that danger was tempered with strong.