Time had passed since the giant centipede had come, plenty of smaller animals had wandered in chasing the scent of mana. Squirrels, more rabbits, insects, even a few birds had checked it out, though nothing could properly attack the birds. The centipedes had started to congregate closer to the entrance, an endless buffet of color and food running straight into their hungry mandibles. The caterpillar-like ones were more spread out, less interested but some stayed closer, the largest of them seemed to not be interested in going near there, more content to munch on some glowing mushrooms and gain color that way. "..." The core just kept looking at all the insects at the entrance, and found that its dungeon looked significantly more empty because so much less was wandering about, it wouldn't let this stand! "!" It drew up about fifteen more centipedes, a pretty cheap investment with how individually weak they are, they could wander about the dungeon until they caught scent of what was at the entrance, but hopefully they'd wouldn't all stay there once there was too little to go around.
The centipedes were becoming colorful, oh so colorful, using brown gathered from squirrels some had reinforced their exoskeleton or enlarged their mandibles, the grey or white taken from entering rabbits kept making furred centipedes for some reason... the core just assumed they were copying the rabbits and left it at that, and the other insects devoured were mostly making the centipedes spotted, but many were vibrant shades or darker shades of all types of colors, only more time would tell what they'd become. The core's ball of mana looked a little droopy, like it was tired "..." wanting rest, and still being rather naive, believing nothing like the giant centipede would return, it headed to the core and went to rest... hopefully in this second day nothing exciting would happen.
Meanwhile... a human man armed with a sword and shield and in light leather armor carrying some form of compass, an elven man armed with a longsword and similar light armor, and a dwarf with a large axe in heavy armor were all traveling down a worn path towards the dungeon. "Oi, seem like we're going the right direction?" The dwarf man had asked. "Mana compass is still pointing here, in fact it's not even slightly moving, might have placed down a lure, which would be a bit concerning at this stage of life..." The human man's face looked a bit concerned at the idea of the dungeon developing fast. "If we need to we can run, so long as we gather a lot of information about the first floor even if we get injured the guild will pay for healing to fix us. Anyways though, it's still a newborn dungeon so there shouldn't be anything too powerful." The elvish man wasn't very concerned, but the human leading them still did not seem to have his worries abated.
An hour later...
"Pretty typical cave entrance... won't hear any complaints from me if it's pretty normal." The leader of the trio spoke up, before heading into the dungeon followed by his two companions. Immediately the dungeon was woken by the new intruders, its first human visitors, pure instinct launched it out of its core and towards what had alarmed it. "!!!!!" Its thoughts were racing as it got out into the fields, until it saw them proper. "What in the..." The dwarf was looking up and around the dungeon, clearly amazed by the sight, and just how... large it all looked. "Get your thoughts together, the core's woken up, I don't want to test how fair this one will decide to be. Let's get the info and get out." The human almost barked out the orders, and his two companions quickly followed along. Further in the trio went, watched by the core every moment, it once again had that curiosity, yet... it was mixed with something, perhaps some form of expectation? The core itself wasn't sure, but it was excited all the same watching them. "I can't believe it's already made somethin' like this... the ground touching up to the sky and starting to loop around... it's pretty amazing." "I must admit, it is rather amazing, I just wish it spent some more of its mana adding more lights..." Both dwarf and elf chatted, clearly losing their attention on the task at hand, though who could blame them? "Quit whining, you can see in the dark, and focus on the damn floor! There are bugs all around..." The human could, and he did, despite a few upset grumbles they put their heads back down to the ground and kept an eye out.
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10 minutes had passed since the trio entered, and they'd explored around for a while, much to the dismay of the expectant core who was getting rather upset. "..!" To solve this, it ordered its monsters to assault the party, centipedes of all manner skittered towards the three, the hero of the last major intrusion far away from the majority of its kin yet still following. "...You feel that, right? I think it's pissed off now." His sword drawn, the leader of the party announced what they all felt, weapons were drawn, and the three huddled around one of the glowing mushrooms to ready themselves for any worst case scenario. From the dark came the centipedes on several sides, the caterpillar-like monsters behind, including the first of them, far in the back due to its larger size. "It's sendin' the whole damn dungeon after us!" Wide eyed at the sight the dwarf yells, but is not intimidated, instead slamming his axe onto an approaching centipede, a new coat of paint covering the floor. As the insects continued to attack the three were easily dispatching each and every one until the caterpillars arrived. Before anyone could stop it, the small monster that had approached let out a cloud of poison forcing both insect and man away from the spot. "Shit-! Move!" Their leader yelled before they all dashed backwards away, into the dark where two of the party members could still see well... but one could not.
They held off the assault a while longer, slaying two of the caterpillars and with their previous total at least two dozen centipedes, up until one moment. Behind the human leader as he was stabbing his sword into one of the dungeon's caterpillars, a flash of red and purple climbed onto the back of his leg and bit deep, a harsh searing pain there took him down to the ground immediately as he swatted his leg, hurting the centipede, but only in a minor way. "AGH! SOMETHING BIT MY LEG!" Immediately upon his pained yelled his two companions grabbed him by the arms and dragged him away from the onslaught of insects, the elf drawing his bow and firing off a few arrows at the caterpillars to buy them a bit of time. "What happened? Where'd it get you?" His dwarf friend was immediately on it, checking his legs and asking where before finding it himself, and inspecting the wound. "Damn... that tore right through ya... like a burn too, we'd best head back before whatever got you gets us." The dwarf clearly had worry on his face for his friend, and likely himself. The man nodded, and his dwarf friend lifted him up over his shoulders and began a sprint back towards the entrance, though quickly outsped by the elf.
"!!!" The dungeon core watched excitedly as they were forced to flee so quickly by just one wound, it was also slightly relieved that it did make them leave, because its monsters were getting slaughtered, and it likely wouldn't have had much more until they were to the core, it could still have easily defended itself, but it didn't like the idea. "Almost out...!" Slightly out of breath the elf spoke before bursting right past the last bits of grass, into stone, into grass again, out of the dungeon's influence. Just a minute later the dwarf followed suit, once out in the open he placed their leader on the ground, where they quickly bandaged him, gave him a helping shoulder, and began to set off back to town, where they would inform the guild of the new dungeon and hopefully get their friend's leg healed.