As the echoes of the knock faded, the System prompted the dungeon.
_ Permit Non-Standard Entry During Quarantine? y/n _
_ Random Selection. “No” Selected _
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Violet Danderpuff looked up from his latest painting. “What was that?” He asked in surprise. The dungeon core didn’t respond, so he turned to his wall of visual scanners. There was at least one scanner for each worldlet, one for the captured space, and multiple for the human camp and the underworld tunnels. Aside from the dungeon creatures all hiding in fear, nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Violet shrugged and turned back to his painting. He was particularly proud of this piece. The only pigment that was easy to make in the dungeon was blood red, thanks to the red grass snake: a curious creature that caused red grass stalks to spout behinds its body as it moved, then returned and ate the grass later. Violet had milled some water aligned millipede chitin for blue and managed to find enough yellow snake scales to mill for yellow. Mixing the powders into apricot seed oil and using a weasel-hair brush to paint on wooden boards, Violet felt himself a real painter. Who knows, he might be able to sell some of these pieces if anyone ever showed up to break the quarantine.
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The evergreen vine had grown all the way across the captured space. The furthest tip of the vine pushed against the edge of the space. Its needles jabbed into and caught on nothing. With the relentless pressure of a glacier, the evergreen vine pushed through.
*bloop* *snap*
The end of the vine settled onto a hard sandy floor. A few roots extended from the vine to anchor it in the ground. A medium yellow light, like a late afternoon sun, lit the needles of the vine. On the far end of the new worldlet, an exit portal stood.
_ Recent Void-Claimed Space Interfaces With a Known, Established World. Warning: Quarantine Removal Requirements Not Met _
A panel of solid mana appeared over the new exit portal, sealing it.
_ Warning: Interworld Connection Detected. Consult With Your Dungeon Fairy on the Dangers of this Situation
_ Description (1):
Mana naturally flows from higher density to lower density. Sufficient difference in mana density between two connected containers results in a mana vortex that is incredibly destructive. A similar vortex results from two high density containers of different forms of mana. A connection between two worlds must be engineered specifically to inhibit the formation of such a vortex in either direction. This must be done because different worlds are almost universally of different mana compositions as well as densities. When the worlds are connected by a structure through the void, the mana on either side tries to equalize. The resulting vortex is incredibly powerful and will likely cause the destruction of the connecting structure.
_
_ Description (2):
Portals into established worlds should originate from said established world. If a portal is established from a miniature void space into an established world, the location of the portal inside the established world is unpredictable. The portal might appear in an innocuous location such as a desert or forest, but it might appear at the bottom of a magma chamber or on an airless moon or in the middle of a village of angry natives. Environmental hazards of sufficient energy (such as molten magma or angry natives) can traverse open portals and cause significant damage to void spaces.
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Portal from void spaces into establish worlds do, however, follow the “no ladders required” principle: the portal will be drawn towards a significant boundary of some kind (i.e. the portal will appear on the ground instead of a small distance above the ground, which would require a ladder to reach)
_
_ Warning: Quarantine Removal will Result in an Open Interworld Connection _
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A second knock echoed through the dungeon. In the dungeon mind space, the energy of the knock sank into the mushroom network and flowed along to the information bundles and the new vine. As the vine branches had put down roots to anchor themselves, the mushroom network fibers had grown connections into the roots. Energy from the knock up from the vine roots into the branches. Near the central body of the vine, a ghostly replica of a branch formed. The ghostly branch vibrated with the energy of the knock, then began to radiate curiosity. The mirror star reflected the curiosity of the ghostly branch around the mind space. All the vine branches grew slightly from the energy of the knock, but the ones lit by the mirror star grew a little more from the light filled with curiosity. A moment later, the ghost branch sank down into the branch below it.
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Violet dropped half the clay mugs he had made when the second knock surprised him. “Dammit!” Balancing on one foot, he waved the other at the clay shards, sweeping them into the scraps bucket. “Who’s knocking?” He demanded, walking over to put the remaining mugs back on the drying shelves. “Where are they knocking?” He snaped his fingers to dismiss his apron and clean himself off. “What are they knocking on?” He stomped over to the wall of visual scanners and glared at it. He spent a minute trying to divine some pattern from the dungeon creatures slowly emerging from hiding. He didn’t recognize any pattern, so he looked over the human viewers to see what they were up to. Looks like they are cutting vine branches to reinforce their defenses. Well… that’s probably wise. The humans obviously didn’t know where the knock came from. No help there.
Violet growled in frustration and rubbed at his face. Once was an anomaly, twice means I can’t ignore it. Sighing, Violet summoned a fancy desk with a fancy chair to sit in. He closed his eyes for a few seconds to focus a bit of magic. A hollow sphere appeared above the desk. A set of dots appeared on the sphere and a few hundred lines traced labyrinthine paths through the sphere, connecting the dots. Above each dot, a squashed ball appeared. The balls connected in a sort of tree that wrapped around the sphere. Violet opened his eyes to examine his dungeon map. The dungeon hadn’t provided him with sufficient authority to access the real map, but Violet had lots of free time on his hands.
“If I were to knock, where would I knock?” Violet asked himself. He extended a baton and mimed tapping on the dungeon. He tapped on the entrance, the tunnels, the portal to the captured space, and several other places. Nothing seemed right. The creatures reacted similarly in every worldlet. “Maybe the knock wasn’t loud in the tunnels?” He mused. “Not as many creatures down there thanks to the giant snake. The knock could have been from above and just echoed down into the tunnels.” He tapped idly on the desk with the baton. He summoned another baton and tapped both. He tapped out a syncopated rhythm on the desk. He hummed along to the tapping batons for a while before he reached one up and tried to strike the dungeon map like a gong. He blinked in surprise when the baton slipped from his fingers. He watched the baton roll off the desk and onto the floor, where it vanished. The map and the other baton vanished as well. Violet groaned and put his head down on the desk. “Oh no. This is one of those dimensional things, isn’t it?” He sat back up, heaved a heavy sigh, clapped his hands, and summoned the largest textbook that he had been required to purchase for the most boring class ever. The desk creaked dramatically as he set the book down and opened to the chapter listing. He fell asleep on the book before he reached the second page.