The eye vines in the dark worldlet gazed into the darkness. The void infection had never managed to gain a foothold on the floating clumps of pebbles, but the soot still floated near the edges of the space. A few of the eyes narrowed, as though they spotted something. Beams of mana shot from the eyes and erased patches of the floating void soot.
A few of the remaining worldlets did not need any assistance from the dungeon people to clear the void soot. After the sauna worldlet was washed clean, the quicksand and swamp worldlets quickly followed. Blue moats of light returned to fill in the edges of the quicksand worldlet. The bats cleared the underwater worldlet after a few days, and the acid rain worldlet cleared itself one day later.
The evergreen vine did not radiate mana like the other greater mana vines. The evergreen mutation was focused on retaining water and mana, not spraying it around. The stream of mana that the dungeon core sent into the evergreen vine was spent on growing and reinforcing the needles and branches. With the larger size and increase in mana, the vine could more easily weather the blizzards. The branches still grew low along the ground, but they stayed warm enough to melt the snow alongside the larger branch, forming a path. The lack of radiating mana did not delay the purge of the void soot because none had ever appeared in the mana-less space.
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The dungeon people were relieved that the dungeon had returned to “normal” but remained cautious. Hana kept them living behind defenses and sleeping in shifts, but they were able to go out and collect apricots from the other trees in the dungeon. The people noticed right away that the newer apricot trees grew faster and produced more fruit, so they kept watch for new ones that could be transplanted into the apricot orchard to replace the damaged trees. The larger dungeon fruit would spawn multiple creatures at a time, but also more resources. Most of the resources spawned from the fruits as melon sized orbs, but the stone, flint, and amber would spawn as a jumble of small stones. A few people tried collecting the orbs of lead and bronze, but the weight of the orbs made them inconvenient.
The sudden safety and improved quality of food had the dungeon people in high spirits and they soon celebrated a wedding. Jan and Dan swore a marriage oath to each other in the center of the worldlet behind the apricot orchard which the people had named “the fields”. One clever harvester strung a harp with snake gut and played very badly while everyone danced around. When the rain began falling on the fields, Hana ordered everyone back to work.
A few of the scouts had noticed that the soot avoided the new vines, so Hana directed them to try shifting some of the smallest branches nearer to the soot. This experiment proved that the vines could erase the soot somehow and it didn’t return, so the dungeon people began the hard work of dragging huge vines around the edges of the dungeon floors to clear out the infection.
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Dan picked up another stone and skipped it across the lake. After several skips, the stone disappeared. He pointed at the abrupt termination of the ripples. “See? Everything just stops there. I think the same thing happens on the other floors, but something stops us from thinking about it, or maybe stops us from looking at it.”
His lounging companion, Galbran, took a bite of dried apricot while shaking his head. “I really don’t understand what you mean. We know the dungeon floors don’t go on forever, but I don’t see anything different about the lake.”
Dan furrowed his brows in confusion. “Do you see how the ripples stop, like they hit a wall? Right there, see?” He pointed again at the spot.
Galbran squinted at the water. “I do not.”
Dan put his fists on his hips and stared out over the lake. He was frustrated that no one else could see the small oddities that he could. Dan sometimes wondered if he was imagining things, inventing distractions to keep his mind occupied during the repetitive days. The wall in the lake was the easiest thing for Dan to see, but its effects were invisible to everyone else, it seemed.
Galbran stood and clapped Dan on the back. “Come Dan, since you got Jan removed from the work of carrying vines, you had better take the lead on this next section.”
Dan looked confused again. “What? I didn’t-“ His mouth shut with a snap as he realized what Galbran meant. His face turned bright red as Galbran laughed and walked back to their vine.
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Violet sighed as he watched Dan on the visual scanner, struggling to lift a few hundred pounds of vine over a boulder in the lake worldlet. Watching humans perform manual labor was much less interesting than watching romantic drama or watching the more clever humans figure out how to entice the dungeon vine to grow straight up a cliff. Violet moved the scanner back to the main camp, hoping to find the harp player on break. He was in luck, the aspiring harpist was tuning up his crude instrument. Violet pulled out his flute to try and play an improvised duet along with the harp. In the dungeon fairy’s opinion, the results were terrible. The harp never got near being “in tune”, and the harpist had no real idea how to play it. Violet didn’t mind, it was something to do.
Violet had given up trying to “investigate” the captured space. He hoped someone important would show up soon and take care of that business. In the meantime, Violet watched the humans, played his flute, wrote letters to imaginary friends, and tended a patch of moss that he had set up in a little planter box. He wished one of the dungeon creatures was small enough to be a practical pet for him, but it was not likely any creature would stay small after the dungeon claimed it. Violet also wished he had a better imagination or wider interests. If he could forget how much debt he was in, he would probably quit and leave the dungeon (if the quarantine wasn’t in place) but being alone in the dungeon was better than having sewer rats for roommates.