Very close to the entrance of the dungeon, all the warrior rats stand in front of the locked door. They pointedly ignore the other creature standing around, and the lack of other other creature, in favor of paying attention to Terash using logic on the keys.

“The sun goes in the middle, with the shield on the left. That leaves two keys to try on the right keyhole. Waning life is death, which is the skull, but the moon also wanes. The key itself doesn’t help there because the crescent is in fact in the shape of a waning moon...”

“Just try both,” commands Yeshi, “that would be faster than you trying to figure it out.”

“Of course,” the brown-furred rat acquests, pushing the shield, sun, and moon keys into the slots.

Nothing happens.

The rat replaces the moon key with the skull key.

Nothing continues to happen.

“I must be missing something then,” Terash muses. ““Across time, summer looks at her compatriots. Before, the guard of life, beyond the waning of it. Life burns brightly… Wait, if summer is the observer, the sun key is looking at all the other ones! The moon goes in the center!”

Changing out the center key, the ratfolk wait with baited breath.

Nothing happens.

“Why? I’ve tried every possibility, reexamined the puzzle, come up with the true solution, and still nothing! There’s nothing left to try, the puzzle ends here!”

“Try turning them?” suggests Trena.

Silence.

Terash turns all the keys to the right.

Nothing happens.

“Still nothing! Logical thought has failed, and the dungeon cares not for the sanctity of a puzzle solution! We’ve reached the end of every path for no reward, and are stymied for no reason at all.”

Yeshi steps forward, turning the shield key back. He overshoots, turning it all the way to the left.

“And another thing-”

“Hey, that’s new,” interjects Trena.

Terash stops the rant, and looks at Yeshi, then at the key turning the other way.

“I’ve solved it!” the rat announces, turning the moon key. Before the key can turn the full rotation to the left, it sticks at the neutral position, and the three panels of the door slide apart, revealing the chamber beyond.

Cautiously, the four step forward into the new room, the rats more cautiously than the other creature. There is a complete emptiness, other than a stone signpost with writing on it in the center of the room.

“Creature,” says Yeshi, gesturing at the one that hadn’t been lost to the pit for all time, “read that.”

“Got it,” it responds, walking up to the sign. “Under construction.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asks Trena.

“I would guess that it means this part doesn’t have anything in it yet,” responds the creature.

“Why would a room with nothing in it need such an elaborate locking mechanism?” questions Yeshi, incredulous at how something that took so long could not be even required to get to the dungeon core.

“I have a terrible thought,” starts Terash. He walks over to the pit. “Was there anything in that pit hole?”

“Yes, the other creature found some sort of living slime, and killed it with fire,” Yeshi informs the brown-furred rat.

“Still burning, by the way,” a voice comes from down below.

"So THIS is the kind of Dungeon we're dealing with! It relishes the psychological torment and struggling of the challengers! It offers the solution but makes it appear as though it were a trap!" Terash seemed to be having a slight mental breakdown.

It has been brought to my attention by my brain, belatedly, that as this collaborative effort is in fact canon and relevant to the plot of the story, it would serve as due dilligance to at least provide a quick outline as to what it supposed to take place during the course of the parts that require input from the other side before I can definitively publish the events as they unfold within the various dungeons, if only to provide explanations as to changes in character mental state and abilities.

Most of those changes are in fact rendered irrelevant due to the conclusion of such events, but even still it is worth mentioning.

Recap:

Events as They Unfold

The God (Gladius) summons forth the dungeons to do battle, in the form of (Gladius shows up, is like “hey, I was looking for some action.” and the next thing they know, they’re locked into a dungeon war on a small chunk of planet or something).

Experimental Dungeon at Chapter 44: Wherein the dungeon has 3 adventurers, 1 unconcious to-be-corpse, 3 unbound monsters, 1 Monster, and *Error* slimes.

Cannibal Dungeon at Chapter 22 dungeon, pre-invasion: Wherein the dungeon has 0 adventurers, 12 ratmen, 1 “unicorn”, 1 dreadnought.

Prologue outline: (As copied from the shared document) (Subject to changed at any moment, and in fact may not be accurate relative to already published material)

Turn One Experimental Dungeon:

Experimental Dungeon Core goes ‘Oh fuck’, is questioned by unbound monster 1. Adventurers reach puzzle 1, roll for Int. Unbound monster 2 activates healing on unconcious to-be-corpse as unbound monster 3 heckles. Monster remains in drowning state, dies. Slime reproduce.

Turn one Cannibal Dungeon:

Mari has vague memories of being doomed, but she can’t place it, because Gladius wiped her mind a little bit/took her from the past. Doesn’t want to war, but when Miradeen is missing, and Gladius tells her it’s because of the other dungeon, she goes nuts.

Turn two Experimental Dungeon:

Adventures do solve puzzle, split up to check each of three rooms. Unbound monster 1 waits to ambush. Unbound Monster 2 finishes healing no-longer-corpse. Unbound Monster 3 notices Dungeon War. Monster remains in drowning state, revives. Slime reproduce. Dungeon Core informs Unbound Monster 1 that either it kills the dungeon that is now next to them or it will kill everyone. More to the point, it will kill the core and that would consign the everything to oblivion. Rant about how it completed the tutorial ages ago and that negative passive mana regeneration was an indicator of efficient killing, not just incompetent design choices.

Turn two Cannibal Dungeon:

Mari sends out the rats, unicorn returns. She tries to speak with Gladius, but he doesn’t answer. Rats are sent out with the goal of retrieving Miradeen. Terash proposes they attempt to carry one of Mari’s Overseers so she can see and communicate with them. He gives a bit of a speech about how Baruk should be standing leader. Rats are convinced from his behavior and history that perhaps he should instead be standing leader. Rats travel through the short forest to approach the new dungeon, noting that the area is completely different from before. The forest now has an air of magic and a heavy feeling about it. Swords are sticking out of the ground in a central field, and corpses and skeletons lay felled around. Clearly, it was a battlefield. They approach the secondary dungeon.

Turn three Experimental Dungeon:

Adventurer 1 (Stabby) is the one to enter the forward door, determines immediately that there’s a pit trap in the center of the room. Avoids it, discovers the door forward needs three keys. Attempts to return, gets pocket sand to the face as Unbound Monster 1 gets out of the pit and runs toward the entrance. Adventurer 2 (Shooty) is perplexed by puzzle, Adventurer 3 (Smashy) solves the rightward puzzle with ease, opening two more puzzle doors. No-Longer Corpse awakens, discovers immediately through the function of having eyes that there is no longer a cliff on the other side of the dungeon, but instead a battlefield of rotting corpses and rusting swords through trees; greets Unbound Monsters 2 and 3 with invectives, is responded to in kind. Unbound Monsters 2 and 3 decide to investigate the clearly haunted forest, leave not-corpse to its whims. Monster remains in drowning state, begins drowning. Slime reproduce. Dungeon core stays very still, with no one to talk to; considers sending out a slime wave.

Turn three Cannibal Dungeon:

Mari views the battlefield through her Overseer, but has no idea if it’s extremely different until the rats tell her, since she never saw the previous outside very well. Rats approach other entrance, noting that the exterior of the new dungeon is extremely different. While Terash is flummoxed by the lack of a dungeon sign, Yeshi suggests reconnaissance. Two rats sneak up the hill, approaching the double door.

Turn four Experimental Dungeon:

Avery attempts to run back and forth between the buttons, fails to open the door. Unbound Monster 3 states that all that greenery starting from the center of the riverbed is going to make it useless. Unbound Monster 2 replies it can hold things. Unbound Monster 1 opens doors, runs out of dungeon, tells Avery that there’s no time to explain and runs toward battlefield. Adventurer 1 (Stabby) reaches room 1, goes to the rightward room to collect Adventurer 3 (Smashy). Adventurer 3 (Smashy) is perplexed by tiles. Adventurer 2 (Shooty) decides the puzzle is unsolvable and goes to room 1. Monster remains in drowning state, drowns. Slime reproduce. Dungeon core coaxes a blue slime to the first floor entry, is stymied in the attempt to attack adventurers by slime’s lack of legs.

Turn four Cannibal Dungeon:

For an inexplicable reason, the rats feel irritated and bothered by the monsters’ presences. One has a bad feeling about their appearance. Consult for encounter. Post-turn four e-dungeon.

Am writing this in a separate doc so i don’t have to paste the turn five words. Will post here when done.

Turn five Experimental Dungeon:

[DUNGEON]. Also, Battlefield for Invader 1 and Not-Corpse.

Turn six Experimental Dungeon:

FLOOR 2: FIGHT

With all that catch up done with, a giant wall of text begins.

And now for the speculative part, based on discussions with the other author regarding how the event would unfold in broad strokes:

To start with, Experiment 31 and Avery would be pursued through the forest battlefield by the adventurers. Due to Avery's reluctance to follow without further explanation, they were not afforded the luxury of a signifigant head start after the Fighting McFightertons were waylaid by the interacting with the Cannibal Dungeon's Ratfolk. Rather, both groups would arrive at the dungeon in quick succession, at which point they would have a choice to make.

Avery and the Experiment argue about dungeoneering conventions, with Avery holding the belief that the tried and true method of 'the right hand rule' was simply the method to use when confronted with a split in the path, while the Experiment was adement about the viability of the alternate method, that of the 'left foot law'. Avery decries the method as a subversion of all that is good in the world, perpetrated only by goblin infiltrators, and enforces her will physically upon her erstwhile companion, taking them both down the rightward path of the Cannibal Dungeon. Interesting to note, the fact that the dungeon in question had three paths meant that there was absolutetly no chance of them taking the direct central route straight to the core.

Stabby, Shooty, and Smashy show up slightly after the dynamic duo make their way down the rightward path, and decide quickly that there was an equal chance that their quarry had gone down any of the three tunnels. Fortunately, that meant that each of them could go down one tunnel and signal the others through the single use quantem-entangled glass balls each of them carried with them, should they run into a problem and require assistance. With that in mind, the adventurers split up.

Unknown monster composition of the dungeon renders further speculation somewhat difficult, but included in discussion were the interactions between Avery's necromancy and the massive undead monstrocity known as a 'Dreadnaught', as well as the interaction between the Experiment and the acid of another of the Dungeon's defenders.

[9:00 PM] Vali: i can imagine the fight with the unicorn

[9:01 PM] Vali: "ow. i'm melting. help."

[9:01 PM] Vali: "pocket sand!"

[9:01 PM] Vali: neighs in frustration

[9:01 PM] kgy121: "Ah my bones. They're all i have left"

[9:02 PM] kgy121: "Have I mentioned I'm a necromancer?"

[9:02 PM] kgy121: "Mine! I'm still using them!"

Fun times and traumatic experiences all around.

Meanwhile, the Cannibal Dungeon also has the strongest of the ratfolk as a defender; the massive greatsword wielding Baruk. Given the onus of defending the core from incoming invasion, the rat has a proper dark soul fight with Stabby, greatsword to greatsword. Stabby spams consumables, magical items, and summons the other two, just in time for Shooty to round the corner and fire an arrow at Baruk when he sees the rat stab through Stabby's chest. Baruk escapes deeper into the cavern, and the two adventurers bring the greviously wounded Stabby to the enterance, lest he be unceremoniously coup de gracied by one of the monsters within the dungeon.

Meanwhile, having made their way down into the core chamber, Avery and Marina quickly become friendly, the necromancer stopping the Experiment from breaking the core with the stone spear.

After conversation, the subject of the dead blue core comes up, and Avery gets the bright idea to try using the Soul Jar spell on the new gem while already under the effects of the spell from the other gem. Naturally, Smashy and Shooty show up, and the Experiment and Baruk must work together to keep the Adventurers from delving too deep and interrupting whatever the two core personalites are trying to do without their input.

At this point, the rats in the Experimental dungeon are probably knee deep in slimes. If not, it would certainly be far less than interesting, considering how incredibly tedium floor three of the dungeon is, particularly in regards to how many times one would have to go through it to get the conditions set up for the actual puzzle to be solvable. That would mean they have to open every chest, after having found every chest, most of which require a particular arrangement of the switches to even have the passasge which leads to that particular chest opening up, and then following the entire chain of doors up to the end point.

Since they didn't retrieve the keys left in the first floor door, they'd have to go back through all of that again to get those back too.

As soon as the combat in the Cannibal Dungeon seems to have started to be a reasonable event, the Dreadnaught shows up, and recognizes the Experiment as an invading monster. Not incorrect, but it still sort of ruins the plan of 'keep everything out of the core chamber' when it smashes the experiment through one of the walls and starts talking to Avery while she's trying to cast. In a rare moment of foresight, she had laid down a magic circle against evil, which works handily at preventing an undead horror from pushing at the boundries of reality while she's trying to fiddle with them. However, that does nothing to prevent its words from reaching her, causing some slight mental trauma.

Completing the spell, Avery's soul in entered into the Blue Dungeon Core, at which point the number of cores on one side of the Dungeon War is greater than the other sides by one. This triggers the win condition for the side with more cores, and all the dungeon mobs of the losing dungeon are reset to their original positions and states. This also meant wiping the memories of all the losing members; the various bodies associated with the Experimental Dungeon had their minds wiped, and their various consumables reset. Orbs, unshattered. Lungs, unpunctured. Flesh, unmelted. And of course, because of order of operations, the transmition back to the original location occured after reseting their physical conditions and memories, which left Avery's soul, registered as a Cannibal Dungeon Core until the soul was removed in the transmission, with memories intact.

After this point, the Cannibal Dungeon has their effects take place, and the god who started all of this mess tries to figure out what made the show stop just as it was getting good. The off by one error in the system code was quickly patched out, and the order of operations error was not even noticed.