In the dungeon mind space, the owl glared at the woodlark. The little songbird ignored the owl and continued to observe the miniature flying horse. The owl already knew that the horse was entirely uninteresting. The woodlark was not behaving according to the owl’s expectations for potential prey animals, and the entire body of the bird was glowing aquamarine. The owl flew silently to a different branch to get a different observation angle. The woodlark made no reaction to the owl but did fly off a minute later. The owl followed.


    <hr>


    The tree spider moon cat watched the owl hunt one of the little birds. The hunt was a bit odd, the moon cat was sure that owls were supposed to hunt rodents and frogs and things like that instead of birds. The cat liked to hunt birds. The moon cat’s tail twitched as it considered getting up from its comfortable branch. The owl and bird moved down into the vines, where there were more shadows. The cat liked shadows too. With a huff the cat rose to its feet and stretched. The stretch started with the front legs reaching forward and down to stretch the back, then rising up to stretch the shoulders as the next pair of legs dropped down. A wave of stretching flowed down the body of the tree spider moon cat before it leapt to a lower branch and stalked toward the owl and bird.


    The moon cat’s attention locked onto the little bird once the cat noticed the aquamarine shining from every feather. The moon cat stalked closer to the bird which was observing something on the ground. The cat leapt up into a higher branch as it drew near to the little bird. The fish lashed its tail against the ground down below. The moon cat noted the fish and the motion of the owl flying between branches but remained focused on the songbird. The songbird made no movement. The cat grew a bit bored as it watched the bird watching the fish. The owl repositioned. Finally, the songbird launched from the branch and flew straight up. The cat raced up through the branches, tracking the bird and keeping to the shadows. The bird flew up into the light of the mirror star and perched on a high vine branch. The moon cat yowled softly in irritation at the bright light of the mirror star. It sat on a lower branch and looked up at the bird. The owl flew to a branch near the cat, keeping the little bird in sight.


    The predator pair followed the glowing songbird for nearly an hour. The little bird moved around the mind space, observing all the information bundles. The bird eventually settled on a mid-level vine branch and began to peck at it. The owl arrived near the bird and perched on a lower branch. The moon cat stalked along a higher branch and arrived a few moments later. The cat’s eyes went wide as the songbird continued pecking at the vine branch. The more natural bird-like motion tipped the glowing bird from “odd, maybe prey” fully into “prey” for the moon cat. The cats tail lashed back and forth, balancing the cat as its muscles tensed for the leap.


    The cat crashed into the songbird and swept it from the branch. The two fell onto a larger branch below and the cat pinned the bird under several paws. The cat opened its jaws wide in order to crush the bird’s head. As the fangs closed around the woodlark, the green glow stopped and a green tick crawled onto the moon cat’s face. The cat yowled in surprise and snapped its head back. The owl arrived in that moment and crashed into the tick and cat both. The trio thrashed around on the branch. The owl tried to pry the tick off the moon cat with its talons and beak while the cat scratched at its face with several paws to scrape the creature off. The woodlark flew off in a panic.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    The cat’s back legs stepped off the branch and onto empty space, altering the cat’s balance and pulling it to the side. The cat instinctually dropped down to hug the branch with its other limbs, but turned and leapt for a better perch before it could fall. The moon cat landed gracefully and began to lick its paws and wipe its face. The owl hooted as it flew above the cat and turned in a big circle. The tick had vanished.


    <hr>


    *bloop*


    The needles of the evergreen vine in the otherside worldlet pierced through the edge of space to form a new worldlet. The vine began to smoke immediately as intense heat and dull red light blasted it. The roots began to crisp as the vine dropped toward a small island of black stone surrounded by patchy red lava. Scattered raindrops trickled down the vine, slightly cooling it, or puffed into steam as they hit the lava.


    pain, absorb, grow


    The dungeon mind space echoed with ghostly memories of the pain of mana forcing its way through the vine body. Vine roots pulled harder on the ambient mana and new branches tried to split out from the smoking evergreen branch. As the heat began to boil the sap in the branch, the mana flowed more easily and the System took notice.


    _ Forced Mana Evolution Attempt Underway. Select Upgrade Path for ‘Poison Berry Vine (Evergreen)’:


    - Fire Alignment


    - Ice Alignment


    - Magma Slime


    - Do Nothing


    _


    The vine struggled to replace burning branches for one minute before:


    _ Random Selection. “Ice Alignment” Selected _


    Mana swirled around the crispy vine, momentarily shielding it from the heat. The mana pulsed, and the evergreen vine turned to ice. Ice water, instead of sap, flowed through the vine. White-blue needles sprouted from white branches. Icicle roots touched down on the black stone ground and drilled in. Frost began to creep across the stone, starting at the roots. The raindrops slowly coated the top of the vine with more ice and the bottom of the vine with icicles. The body of the ice vine quickly grew to the size of a healthy mature tree where it crossed through the portal.


    The lava near the vine darkened as it turned from semi-liquid to solid. The falling dungeon fruits began to split open instead of burning. The creatures did not survive long between the still deadly heat and the extreme cold, but a few ice aligned creatures survived close to the ice vine. An ice rabbit chewed on crunchy, cracking ice moss while an ice spider wove snowflakes between vine leaves above. An ice aligned jellyfish drifted too far out over the lava and melted. A patch of ice clams clacked open and shut, unbothered by the lack of water.


    <hr>


    The boss bat crashed, bladed wings first, into an ice snake and shattered it. Nearby, a pair of water bats blasted holes in an ice jellyfish. These new ice creatures were a pain, but the boss bat thought that it wasn’t their intention. The ice creatures on the vine were ok, just normal prey or predators, but when the ice creatures entered the water, they froze the water around them. Some of the creatures rose up out of sight, annihilated at the edge of the worldlet, but others drifted around or struggled to swim as they froze together into balls of ice.


    The boss bat felt proud of his colony of water bats. His bats were strong. They swam in thick schools throughout the underwater worldlet. Big sister Yrryth said that she thought a few of the bats were getting strong enough that they might evolve in some way. The boss bat was excited that there might soon be more big and strong bats like him and Yrryth.