Terse Elements

As the underwater worldlet grew, most spawns drowned before they could reach the portal back to the sauna worldlet. The vine spawn only survived if they had the air bubble mutation. The dungeon core vine didn’t have a mind to care about the waste of mana or the inefficiencies of random spawn selection, so the underwater worldlet filled up more slowly than any other. A few weeks after the humans started harvesting the creatures in the main worldlet, every worldlet except the main one and the underwater one had replenished the spawned creatures.

In the underwater worldlet, a fallen vine fruit got caught in one of the root bundles of the main vine. Since the roots were not under soil or covered in acid, this fruit was the first to successfully sprout a vine mutation that fused with the main vine without forced mana evolution. The small vine dug its roots down into the root bundle and stretched its leaves up and out. The leaves each opened a single eye as the two root systems fused together.

The dungeon core vine didn’t process visual input from the eye vines, but the System did. As the new eye vine branch fused with the main dungeon vine, the System saw something that triggered an immediate response.

_ EMERGENCY SITUATION: VOID ENTITY IN DUNGEON. ACTIVATING EMERGENCY RESPONSE. PLEASE CONSULT WITH YOUR DUNGEON FAIRY IN ORDER TO SURVIVE THIS SITUATION _

Every creature in the dungeon turned and moved as quickly as it could towards the underwater worldlet. The humans in the main worldlet paused their harvesting in confusion as the attacking creatures turned and ran toward the right-side portal. The humans yelled in surprise and backed up against the dungeon exit when a wave of salamanders came through the left side portal. The salamanders paid no attention to the humans and streamed straight across the worldlet. After the wave of salamanders, there was a trickle of every kind of dungeon creature which was followed by a very slow wave of jellyfish from the acid rain worldlet. The jellyfish in the stony worldlet could not push past the sideways rain and stayed stuck near the portal. In the underwater worldlet, the creatures swam about in every direction, sometimes thrashing out wildly. A water bat from the sauna worldlet swam in circles, releasing sharp bursts of water that sent pressure waves bouncing off everything more solid than water. That bat was the first to flush out the void entity.

The void entity appeared from behind a cloud of silt. It was shaped like a sea star and moved like a cuttlefish. It had no color of any kind and appeared to normal vision as a black silhouette with an iridescent outline. The bat dove towards the creature and let out an underwater screech. Nearby creatures turned and swam toward the sound. The void entity seemed to absorb and regrow its legs in a new orientation, then shot away, leaving black sparks behind. The bat swam through the sparks and caught fire. It thrashed about it pain as white fire burned it underwater. Other creatures brushed against the bat or the remaining sparks and caught fire as well. The bat and some of the burning creatures fell through the top of an air bubble and through a bundle of vine leaves. The fire went out as soon as it touched air.

Creatures flowed through the portal into the underwater worldlet. Many of them died of drowning before they could help with the fight. After the first exchange, the void entity hid in an empty stretch of water, the only sign of its presence being the absence of the air bubbles that constantly flowed up through the worldlet. A drowning millipede discovered it by accident while trying to swim backwards by spraying water. The next hiding place was in the interface between the water and an air bubble around a vine. This hiding spot did not last long because the increasing number of water-aligned bats still needed to breath and would swoop through the air bubbles to catch a breath. When the void entity fled again, a leg snapped out and several bats were turned to stone. When the wave of salamanders arrived in the underwater bubble, they quickly sighted a miniature void entity hiding just off the back of a frog. The void entity turned the frog inside out as it jetted through the body of the frog to escape.

This hide-and-seek fight continued in this manner for around an hour. The void entity would use its extreme speed and ability to ignore reality to hide in improbable places, while the dungeon creatures hunted about blindly to try and flush out the beast. Each exchange left at least one dungeon beast dead or bizarrely changed. Slowly, over the next hour, the wave of jellyfish drifted in. The air bubble jellyfish had no difficulty underwater, and the other jellyfish were only slowed down by the water—they didn’t drown. The jellyfish cloud slowly spread over the space in the worldlet and caused the first injury to the void entity. The void entity had tried to jet through a jellyfish like it had done to the frog previously, but the tendrils of the jellyfish were caught in the jet stream and were sucked up against the skin of the void entity. A buzzing scream shook every air bubble in the worldlet. The void entity desperately avoided the jellyfish after that and started hiding among the carcasses of the drowned dungeon creatures.

For two days, the void entity hid in or around the drifting carcasses. Every few hours a bat or a salamander would find the hiding spot and die flushing out the void entity. Eventually, the void entity ran out of carcasses to hide in because the jellyfish were slowly eating them. The void entity was once nearly enveloped by a jellyfish as it pulled a beetle corpse up into its bell for digestion. With few carcasses left and an even greater number of jellyfish and other dungeon creatures surrounding it, the void entity went on the attack.

The void entity formed it legs into a hollow cylinder and aimed at the nearest jellyfish. A black star, like a miniature version of the void entity, shot from the cylinder and through the jellyfish, turning it to glass. The void entity fired on three more jellyfish before a flight of bats swept in to fire their own jets of water at the void entity. The water mana attack seemed to slightly eat away at the body of the void entity, and it rushed away to attack more jellyfish. Since the void entity had ceased hiding, the many dungeon creatures were able to follow its movements and continue pressuring it. Sometimes the void entity fired black stars at the creatures chasing it. Most just died or changed to solid materials, but a few creatures suffered more anomalous changes. Some creatures had their limbs and head shuffled around on their body, some turned and attack their fellows, some imploded down to a single point. One jellyfish transformed to be entirely made of the white underwater fire.

As the battle continued, the swarm of bats were able to put the most pressure on the void entity. The water jet attacks of the bats tore at the entity’s skin until it was ragged. One bat, with glowing burns on much of its back and one wing, managed to organize the salamanders into a wall that herded the void entity towards the worldlet portal. With bat water jets, jellyfish stingers, and dungeon creatures all around, the void entity made to escape the worldlet. It jetted towards the portal, but not the flat face of the portal. The void entity pressed its body against the edge of the portal. Arms thrashing and pushing, the entity seemed to squeeze through an invisible gap on the edge of the portal. Right as its last arm slipped into nothingness, it reached out and slapped the side of the dungeon vine.

_ Successfully Repelled Void Entity. Experience Awarded _