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    One of the offshoots of the eye vine in the dark worldlet had grown apart from the main group of rising branches. The highest branch failed to connect to a floating patch of pebbles and began to bend outwards. The top leaves of that branch slowly collided with something not quite solid. The light-seeking branch pushed leaves and roots into the obstacle. The increased flow of water and energy to the end of the branch carried along sufficient mana for the branch to push through into a new worldlet.


    *bloop*


    The roots of the eye vine branch sank into loose white sand. Each grain of sand was perfectly round and identical in size. Cool water lay just under the surface of the sand. The leaves of the vine spread out and blinked their eyes in the light. Shifting rainbow light shone from every direction and painted the white sand with a chaotic pattern. A vine fruit soon dropped and spawned a batch of lizards. The lizards crawled out of the pile of limbs and looked around. An hour later, the lizards were still staring at their surroundings. A few of their heads wobbled back and forth, tracking some perceived pattern in the shifting light, and one of the lizards chewed distractedly on its sibling''s tail.


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    The white loops were almost buzzing as they scanned memories and absorbed sensory information. A minor, but still significant shift, had occurred in one aspect of the sensory rain. The volume of sensory rain had jumped and the additional sensations were only slightly similar to existing sensations. Initially, only a few loops had detected the change, but when they failed to find any related memories, more loops join in on the search for this anomaly. Eventually, nearly every loop was investigating some aspect of the change.


    Eventually, one of the oldest loops discovered something similar far down on the memory fine. The younger loops waited to receive memories as the lower loops continued the search. The older loops found only one other instance of something similar, but the memory held echos of the red section of the memory vine. "pain, absorb, grow" echoed powerfully around the mind space, even two steps removed from the red madness. The loops passed messages back and forth for a very long time about this interesting correlation.


    The raven information bundle had observed the loops for about an hour. They had all gotten caught up in some activity the raven only partially understood. It flew about in the sensory rain above the vine, watching ghostly branches form and collapse all over the space. One set of loops had stopped shining their light on the green vine or other loops, so the raven dropped down to find out why. The raven nearly missed the branch it was aiming for because it became distracted by the sensory rain around it. The raven was a creature with eyes and had all the mental facilities to absorb visual sensory information. The visual information in the sensory rain was usually subtle and the raven could ignore it, but a splash of bright colors came through strongly.


    "Pretty!" The raven croaked.


    A loop responded to the raven''s comment "curiosity, pretty".


    The raven thought about how to explain, then said. "Pretty colors, bright. Like treasure!" The raven shook its wings and added. "Want treasure."Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    The nearby loops did not inquire about treasure because a trickle of something drifted up from the foundational instincts. A feeling about the importance of ''treasure'' flowed up both mind vines and the loops observed many memories form above branches of the memory vine. Unfortunately, one of the clearest memories was strongly linked to the madness that lived inside the white vine. "pain, absorb, grow, system message, treasure unlock" The memory of the death of the elven construct tick replayed. The first loop, which sat like a ring around the base of the white vine, resonated with the memory and its vibrations disrupted the entire white vine.


    When the memories faded away and the first loop stilled, the white vine was inactive for a time. The first loops to resume activity were the oldest ones that had focused on "defense". The rest of the loops slowly returned to their normal activities.


    The foundational instincts insisted that treasure was important, but the memories available had strong correlations with danger and pain. After processing the experience of such a strong memory, the first loop wrote a new kind of potential branch and passed the message up the vine: "query: treasure-danger, treasure-good".


    "Treasure good!" The raven insisted. A nearby loop dutifully spread this input.


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    A burst of noise from the thinky-talky device caused Violet to drop a piece of shaped glass meant for the talky-thinky device. The glass landed on his foot and did not break. Violet swore and held on to the edge of his desk as he rubbed his bruised foot. He limped over to the thinky-talky device. It went silent right as he reached it. His heart skipped a beat because of that silence. His mind flashed back to when the core had nearly gone out and he had burned that handprint into the pedestal. The core did not go out, nor did the light from the core dim. After a minute, words began to trickle from the thinky-talky device and Violet let out a held breath.


    "Don''t scare me like that!" Violet said. "Some days, I think you''re too dramatic for your own good." Violet laughed and returned to his work. He picked up the piece of shaped glass and inspected it for damage. Satisfied, Violet turned to the nearly complete talky-thinky device. Its resemblance to the thinky-talky device ended with the clay plate base with embedded gems. The pattern of lobes on top of the plate was entirely different and Violet had built a framework of glass resembling a spiraling snail shell around the clay plate. He slotted the piece of shaped glass into place and checked the measurements against his notes. The words, "query: treasure-danger, treasure-good" were lost in the background noise of the dungeon mind chatter.


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    Punch didn''t know how to take reports from other bandits who weren''t scouts. One of the guards near the dungeon entrance had returned and wanted to tell him something. Punch stared at the man for longer than they were both comfortable with. "Well. Tell me then." Punch finally said.


    "Er, right. The vine isn''t dropping monsters anymore." The bandit guard said.


    Punch frowned. "What do you mean?"


    "The fruits that drop all the time, they aren''t monsters any more." The man said. Punch didn''t know his name.


    "What are they dropping?" Punch asked.


    The man shrugged. "Just stuff. Those sticks and the bits of amber and things like that."


    "Understood." Punch said. He took a moment to think about how to tell the man to go away. "Thank you, back to your post." The man nodded and left Punch''s tent. Punch really wanted to go tell Zdeska, but he hadn''t forgotten her instructions to act as third-in-command. What would Borth do? Punch wondered. Probably send his friends to go scoop up all the treasure they could. Inspiration hit him and he turned to Shtorrr. "Want to crush some monsters?" He asked.