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A Dash of Life

  The core felt almost a tang of annoyance at the new intruder in it's dungeon, not out of malice or actual irritation, but because it's curiosity made it want to stop resting, but it didn't want to stop. After a bit of turmoil between the two... it's curiosity won over as it zoomed out of it's core and through it's dungeon, excited to see what else there was. When it arrived at the place the intruder had entered, it found... a regular centipede that had wandered into the cave, likely just seeking shelter it was certainly in for a strange time in a cave where the sky touched the land, and the land touched the sky. But before it could even inspect its new surroundings, the core had almost crouched down with it's mana in a sense, bringing it as close as it could, even if it could see it just fine from a regular elevation, it wished to see this new creature as close as it could.

  This observation was lasting quite a while, the centipede moved, the core's mana moved, the centipede climbed up a wall, the core's mana floated up as well, such a little creature was truly captivating it's attention just as well as the sky and grass had earlier. "!!!" Eventually after at least ten minutes of watching the centipede, an idea popped up in its head, what if it had it's own versions of them? So very captivated by the idea it immediately began working on it, a piece of paper was instantly made in front of it out of its mana, and it's own drawing utensils readied again, it watched the centipede as close as it could, and attempted to replicate it.

  Brush... brush... brush... stroke... stroke... stroke... by the 20th leg the core was starting to get irritated at the monotony of drawing out each individual leg of its centipede while tracking the intruding one. "...!" Eventually that irritation boils over at the 40th leg, which results in it making more haphazard random strokes to get it over with, by the end it's... in the shape of a centipede, but it looks like a child tried to draw one by memory.

  "......" The core was rather disappointed with itself with this one, the sticking out legs... the almost random angles... the randomly dull or sharp points, it all was wrong to it, and it simply couldn't let that stand! So, it erased each wrong leg and tried again, calmer now after venting it's irritation in that way. And so another brush... another stroke... and it is a centipede... with 96 legs, but it was hard for it to keep track of each and every leg, pure numbers never are a newborn dungeon core's strong suit. Satisfied this time, it pours more of it's own mana into this drawing, and brings it to life.

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  The centipede has to fall a few feet before it can reach the ground, but once it does it begins scuttling around, exploring this sudden world it has to roam, it begins climbing up the grass closer towards the sky, it must be quite the feat for a centipede to get that high. The dungeon core pays it's full attention to it's own centipede for a bit, before taking it away from it once it sees it's just acting like any other centipede, it must have wanted it to be special, but even dungeons can't have everything. Despite the lack of specialness in the centipede, it still likes the small insects, and so why not have more? More pieces of paper are created, and instead of monotonously drawing all 96 legs again... it simply instantaneously copies the centipede it previously drew onto the paper, and a new one is created.

  "!!" A decent few pieces of paper later, and a now excited dungeon core, someone could see a few small insects roaming around the plains, some slightly off looking insects... but insects all the same, even the original centipede who had entered, since drawn centipedes have no real reason to attack another centipede, it's a rather peaceful sight for an intruder being in a dungeon.

  Now that the dungeon had defense from... tiny insects (Sated it's curiosity and urge to draw), it could go back to resting and accumulating some more mana, which was even lower after the centipedes, not enough that it'll cause any problems, but enough that it knows well enough not to keep using up like it is now.

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