Building in a straight line, hoping to stumble across an island was boring in theory, but it gave Gem time and space to think. It also allowed him to see more of Sleyn, at least the sky version. He found natural mobs out in the world, including a few flyers and something that looked suspiciously similar to his Cicadossum, but with a pair of thin wings emerging from its carapace.

By the time the adventurers delving his dungeon had decided to give up for the day without anyone dying (they’d made it to his Boss Room and then turned around, completing the Testing the Waters quest and giving Gem more experience points towards Tin Five), he had found his first island.

It was tiny.

Ridiculously so.

The entire island was made up of fifteen blocks, arranged more vertically than horizontally. It looked like an iceberg in the ocean rather than a floating island in the sky. All of the blocks were dirt, and at the very crest of the little island was a single dirt block topped with a bone-white tree.

“Oooh, birch!” Chesu said, rubbing his hands together when he saw it. “Birch trees are really pretty.”

Gem had to agree. The bark had a subtle pattern to it, with darker shadows that radiated in a circular pattern around the trunk. Its branches were high along the tree, with a shorter, more horizontal leaf pattern.

Without additional hesitation, Gem built out over to the island, gathered up the excess dirt blocks, and then harvested the saplings from the tree. He then continued on his way.

“Aren’t you going to harvest its wood?”

Gem sent the wisp an image of a grin.

“Fair,” was all the wisp said in response. There was an awed tone to Chesu’s simple statement, but Gem didn't look too far into it. Better to assume he was barely competent than to risk being wrong.

A second group came and went (once more getting to the Boss Room and then turning around) by the time Gem located a second island.

This one was a lot bigger.

At first glance, he estimated it had to be made of over a hundred blocks. There were hills and valleys, with ample smattering of trees and other flora. Gem thought that perhaps this was the ruins of some other Dungeon Core’s island, but Chesu assured him that was not the case.

The majority of the blocks here were dirt, with some cobblestone and a few sand blocks hidden in a cavern. He found some neat stalagmites and stalactites in the cavern as well, but they shattered when he tried to gather them. There were flowers, too, and these he was able to collect. They didn’t seem to do much (Chesu had nothing to add about the use of them) and so Gem just stored them in his inventory.

He stripped the island down, starting with the spruce trees and ending with the last remaining cobblestone. All told he collected just over seventy blocks of dirt, which would be a huge improvement to his tree farming capabilities.

Cicadossum I engaged in combat! 100% hit points remaining.

The Gem who sat in his Core Room looked at the group who just engaged his first pack of mobs. This group was made up of mostly humans yet again, but they were led by an older man with a mop of gray hair that was left long around his ears.

Gem said absently to Chesu.

“If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine, kid. I’m not here to tell you what to do.”

Chesu grinned as if caught red-handed. “Fine. But I can see over there a certain thing you might want to inspect.”

Gem peered off across the horizon in the direction Chesu pointed. It was relatively the same direction he’d been building in, but he couldn’t see what the wisp did. Chesu explained it was a fog of war, much like how he couldn’t see the adventurers outside his area of influence. Chesu was able to see it because he wasn’t a Dungeon Core.

“I will advise that… er… this find will be worth the effort.” He frowned, shaking his head. “I apparently can’t tell you what it is. That’s… dumb.”

Chesu nodded. “Can’t tell you what they are or how far away they are, though. You’ve passed like nine pretty decently sized ones.”

Gem sent him an image of an exhausted looking crystal.

“Because…” The wisp trailed off as he struggled with his words. “Because I’m not trying to tell you about an island. It’s a type of wood that I think you’ll be interested in.”

Gem thought with a small drop of excitement.

“We’ll have to try it! Like… I can’t tell you what the… items involved are. If I try to tell you the block types or the wood types, the words just die in my throat.”

Chesu laughed. “I’m pretty sure he’s got way more important things to be worried about, kid.” The wisp looked off towards the horizon. “This has Wisphame written all over it. I wonder if they’ve figured out where I am yet. Or why.”

Gem followed the wisp’s stare, as if he could see the place. Considering he couldn’t see an island along the horizon, it did not surprise him that he couldn't see the homeworld of the wisps. He started laying out blocks ahead of himself.

“Yeah, but the list of things is different per world. I’ve had a lot more freedom on Sleyn since they didn’t know I was here, but either someone’s figured it out, or they’ve just put a blanket restriction on the planet.” He frowned. “Maybe they’ve slated it for destruction.”

A coldness snaked its way through Gem’s core.

The wisp stared for a moment before bursting out in a high-pitched giggle. “Oh, no. Kid. You give wisps way too much credit. We’re much more of the pencil-pusher variety than the do-er variety. It’s… someone from Wisphame will do the math. If a world is unable to be saved from whatever, they declare it dead. If they declare it dead, then no more wisps get sent because there’s no more cores.”

“Dead planets don’t produce cores, kid. That’d be silly. Universe has to have some unbreakable rules.”

Gem wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t say how or why. He knew for a fact he didn’t belong on Sleyn. Gem wasn’t a native, but somehow he’d ended up tapped as a Dungeon Core anyway. Why? And how? Was it Ruxium? The Ostrum themselves?

It felt to Gem that cores weren’t quite as black-and-white as Chesu thought, but he didn’t have proof besides his own existence.

He built in silence, placing blocks along the path and only detouring when Chesu gave him very awkwardly broken instructions on a different direction to go. They finally made their way over to the island.

This was another small one—barely fifty blocks total, if Gem had to guess. It was flatter, too, so the blocks only took up two y-levels.

But the top layer of the block was covered in a thick undergrowth, and from it sprouted trees that towered over the island, covering it in shadow. The variety of the flora ranged from green ground plants with thick, broad leaves to flowery shrubs that sported a number of brightly-colored petals arranged in unique offshoots. From the too-tall trees hung brown vines that were dotted with triangular leaves.

Some of the trees hosted fauna too, in the form of natural mobs. These were little bipedal creatures that swung from the branches by a prehensile tail so they could root around the tree bark with their elongated mouths and tongues.

“This,” Chesu said, his voice carrying the grin Gem didn’t turn to see, “is a Jungle biome.”

Gem took his time to explore. There wasn’t much to investigate—no natural caves or other strange block structures—but he did find plenty of unique block types and things he didn’t recognize.

Gem thought.

“Grass is always greener, kid, as an Issy would say. You’d have the same thought process if you came across a Forest biome if you were a Jungle Dungeon.”

Gem sent him an image of a shrugging core. He didn't give the wisp the chance to argue with him before moving on.

“Nothing. They’ll despawn harmlessly and appear elsewhere. There’s no dungeon to support them, so they’re only here for ambiance.”

There were plenty of trees so Gem didn’t feel the need to leave one behind to farm it for saplings. The trees broke down into Jungle Saplings and Jungle Wood, instead of being a specific name of tree, like Spruce or Birch. He also sometimes got vines, which Chesu treated like the flowers.

Perhaps they are just decoration, Gem thought to himself as he stripped the Jungle island of its resources.

Most of the underbrush vanished when he harvested the trees. The remaining plants vanished when he retrieved the blocks they rested on. Nothing cried out in pain or despair as its home was removed; things just simply stopped existing.

The blocks Gem collected weren’t dirt, but were instead a material called mud. It had a similar color to it as dirt, but the block’s texture was less small particles compacted together and more wet and clumping.

“You’ll have to put mud blocks down to grow Jungle trees,” Chesu said at one point, drawing Gem from his harvesting. “Just like you need dirt for other trees.”

Chesu went to answer, then shook his head. “Can’t say, kid, sorry.”

By the time Gem finished stripping the island of its resources, the rings were visible on the horizon. Morning.

He looked at his dungeon. The third group had come and gone, and his other consciousness had reset the mobs and traps, and absorbed whatever had been dropped, if anything.

Gem thought to the wisp.

“And it’s a new day,” Chesu said with a motion to the rings lurking on the horizon. “Means all your quests have been reset. So maybe you’ll get another level or two, too.”

He stayed with Chesu as they traveled back to the dungeon together. Gem didn’t have anything pressing waiting for him, so there was no reason to collapse his consciousness into one. No adventurer groups drew his attention, no Ostrum threatened his core. There was just no immediate danger.

As they traveled, they talked like friends, joking about the day’s activities. It was almost enough to make him forget the world was ending and he was its only hope.

Almost.