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Terse Elements (A Dungeon Core, LitRPG)
Ch 40 - Almost Completely Happy

Ch 40 - Almost Completely Happy

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Spawn” Selected. Select From Available Spawn: … _

_ Random Selection: “Lesser Swamp Gremlin” _

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Treasure” Selected. Select From Available Treasure: … _

_ Random Selection: “Leather Belt” _

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Spawn” Selected. Select From Available Spawn: … _

_ Random Selection: “Lesser Squid” _

_ Random Selection: “New Material” Selected. Select From Available Materials: … _

_ Random Selection: “Coral” _

_ Random Selection: “New Material” Selected. Select From Available Materials: … _

_ Random Selection: “Salt” _

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Spawn” Selected. Select From Available Spawn: … _

_ Random Selection: “Lesser Clam” _

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Spawn” Selected. Select From Available Spawn: … _

_ Random Selection: “Tree Spider Weasel” _

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Spawn” Selected. Select From Available Spawn: … _

_ Random Selection: “Miniature Flying Horse” _

_ Random Selection: “New Material” Selected. Select From Available Materials: … _

_ Random Selection: “Bronze” _

_ Random Selection: “Unlock Spawn” Selected. Select From Available Spawn: … _

_ Random Selection: “Red Grass Snake” _

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One by one, the dungeon vines dug their roots down into the dungeon underworld. The underwater worldlet and the dark worldlet were the last two to make the connection, as their roots didn’t grow “underground”. The portal in the dark worldlet was in the middle of a clump of floating pebbles, and the portal in the underwater worldlet was hanging in the water just below the first air bubble. The bats investigated the new portal and found an underground river rushing through a maze of tunnels. There were enough air pockets in the tunnels that the bats were able to map out several tunnels. While it was an interesting hunting ground, most of the bats decided to stay in the underwater worldlet.

The bats soon found that the snakes were no longer the only predators worth worrying about. The new red and orange squid did not blend in well in the underwater worldlet, but they were excellent swimmers and could handle several bats at a time with all those arms. There was also a long furry creature with too many legs that sometimes stalked along the top of the vines, looking for sleeping bats.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

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The underworld snake was almost completely happy. Ten more dungeon musics had joined the first two. The resulting harmonies sent constant shivers of joy through the snake. There was more prey in the tunnels than ever before, and the tunnels were more numerous, of all different kinds. One section of tunnels wasn’t even made of tunnels—it was a lake of loose pebbles around a single cavern where the roots entered. The snake could swim through the pebbles as fast as it could slide through empty tunnels, and the pebbles closed up behind it. This made hunting prey quite challenging, because the prey could hide anywhere in the lake of pebbles. Yes, there were only two problems.

The first problem was that one section of tunnels was full of cold rushing water. The snake was not a water snake and had no desire to swim. The dungeon music from the water filled tunnels was also very faint, which saddened the snake.

The second problem was that the snake could still not locate the bat. The bat had haunted the underworld for months and had eluded the underworld snake the entire time. The snake could tell the bat was still in the tunnels—it could hear the bat squeaking to itself or the other bats sometimes. But the snake never managed to reach the source of the squeaking in time to catch the bat. All it ever found was empty tunnels or a loose rock or two. The snake was beginning to feel inadequate.

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The stone bat picked itself up off the floor of the tunnel as the sound of the giant snake receded in the distance. As long as the bat stayed perfectly still, the silly snake couldn’t tell it apart from an ordinary rock. The bat had gotten painfully bored once when it had been stuck on the floor of the main cavern while the big snake moped about because it had nothing to hunt.

The stone bat scampered off to the sandy tunnels. When it reached the central cavern, it climbed the roots until it could crawl up through the portal. On the other side, it struggled to dig its way up through the sand in the oasis worldlet. The bat enjoyed watching the worldlet transition from day to night. The feeling of hot sand slowly cooling in the dark was very pleasant. Climbing to the top of the largest vine, the stone bat hopped along until it could take a branch toward the acid rain worldlet.

By staying on top of the vine, the bat successfully avoided the human intruders, though there were some new creatures with too many legs who preferred being high in the vines also. The bat moved as quickly as possible along the acid vine so as to not take too much damage before jumping off the vine directly into the crack in the stony worldlet. One end of the crack went right up to the portal to the underworld. In the wet stone tunnels, the bat paused to listen for the giant snake. Hearing nothing, it scampered off.

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A grey blue flying horse, about as large as a cat, grazed on moss in the swamp worldlet. It stared stupidly at an acid aligned mushroom that sprouted out of the moss. Yellow liquid dripped from the mushroom onto the moss. The moss sizzled and let off a foul-smelling smoke. The horse took a bite of the mushroom. The horse spat out the mushroom and shook it’s head while whinnying in pain. It pranced about and flapped its wings, nearly falling into a small pond. A peacock squawked angrily at the noisy horse. Eventually, the horse settled down and resumed grazing moss. It bit the mushroom three more times before there wasn’t enough mushroom left to tempt it.