#Sculk Infestation

[redbo-and-simbo]

OUR EXPANSION IS BEING THREATENED. WE ARE BEING THREATENED. ALL UNITS. COME FORTH. TO THE HEART. WE WON'T GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT.

..That can't be good.

[seaworker-and-droidwatt]

Assuming you haven’t been smashed to bits, I really hope you haven’t been Amadeus to bits, I’ve come to update you on the situation because that must’ve been weird on your end.

So the sculk is dead, disaster over, now we’re working on cleaning up. The workers have created a makeshift med bay somewhere for all the injured. AJ has very many broken bones, Evbo is getting his own room, red has potion burns but has a bunch of stuff to look into and oh, the other one get sculked. They dragged him off somewhere too. Most of the anons are out of commision.

But how are you looking? Hopefully Evbo didn’t do too much damage when the heart called.

I have no idea where anyone is but I can only assume red will head back to the deletion room as soon as he drops off Evbo if you want to meet up with him.

-🔹

I'm fine. ...Well, I have a few scratches from Evbo's tendril... things... but I'll just ask for repairs. I could tell he thought I was the other one. ...He doesn't normally speak to me all sweet like he was. But it meant he didn't feel like hurting me.

I'm sure I'll find my Evbo in the infirmary, according to what you're telling me. Or at least something interesting.

[angeart]

//more crackers smp lore and also some comfort

There’s been another attack—another overwhelmed scream—and it hurt, but that wasn’t the important part. The important part was that the night that wrapped around them all afterwards was silent, muffled in a way wholly unsettling. Bereaved and lonely. Something sad carried on the gentle breeze, mixed in with drifting snowflakes and fluttering pink petals. A fracture was growing, unseen but still there, around the snowy tips of the mountain. Somewhere amidst the cold, unfriendly snow, a patch of sculk steadily grew.

Ange finds herself standing at the edge of the snow, letting all of this wash over her. A mix of emotions swirls in the pit of her stomach, fueled by unease and worry. She stares, through the darkness that surrounds her, towards the little dip just below the top of the mountain range, where a house sits in isolation. Well, as much isolation as the ever-present sculk and the sway of wheat that’s not meant to grow in such a cold climate can grant. 

She takes a breath, the air crisp and heavy in her lungs, and she steps forward, placing her feet carefully along the pathway she’s learned over the time—a safe route picked apart after many mishaps, a way to reach her friend without unnecessary trouble.

Wren liked this place. They liked it, all the coldness and treachery of it. 

That’s why they picked it, for their café. For their home.

The views were wonderful, Ange had to admit. The gently falling snow, even if freezing to touch, was oddly comforting. Except not now. Now it reeks of solitude, where before it was a shared place, somewhere for people to come—a café.

Now, the only thing greeting Ange are the sculk sensors lighting up and rattling at her, and the mobs lurking in the dark ready to pounce.

The creaking of the snow gets swapped for a much more mushy sound of the sculk, only marginally less soft. If she’d slow down, she could make her steps almost completely silent, but there’s no need for that. She isn’t down in some deep, dark cave. She’s up in the overworld and the night sky is lit up by the northern lights, snaking through like a beacon of hope, and sneaking won’t help her deter the pesky skeletons that rattle just beyond the closest snow dune. 

She walks over the blackened ground, littered with specks of light blue not unlike freckles over skin or stars over the sky, until she reaches the house. 

And then she stops, seeing the figure curled up in front of the front door, warm in the thick winter clothes, but definitely not safe out here at this hour. 

Ange hesitates, despite herself. There’s an echo of a scream, something distressed and wounded and desperate, and a responding echo of pain that digs in white-hot, unravelling something at the code-level, burrowing under the skin, touching the organs and making the blood boil—all in one go—like a sonically charged shriek. Her hand trembles a little as she holds it over her stomach, lingering memory of a hurt that shouldn’t have been real flaring up under her touch. 

Still, she takes another tentative step closer.

The sculk sensors rattle, and Wren snaps their head up at the sound.

Wide alarmed eyes meet Ange’s across the distance that still separates them.

“Wh— No—”

Ange stands perfectly still, brows furrowing as she tries to parse through that reaction. “Do you… not want me here?” she hazards a guess, because she isn’t here to impose and even though she came uninvited, she doesn’t want to make Wren uncomfortable.

At the question, Wren takes a sharp breath and uncurls a little bit more, back straightening. “No, that’s—” Sculk sensors light up, rattling softly in the background at the words. Wren’s eyes flit to them, as if they were louder than they actually are; as if they pulled and tugged violently at their attention. It’s only once they quiet down that they take a breath to speak again, and it’s wobbly on their lips, full of wariness and apprehension. “I could hurt you!”

There’s a momentary pause as Ange blinks, taking it in. “Is that the only problem?”

Wren pulls away slightly, confused. “What?”

A small, unbothered shrug accompanies Ange’s words as she reinstates the question. “Is that the only problem? That you might hurt me?” The night chill is sneaking under her clothes; she’s not dressed for snow, even if she keeps coming here. An involuntary shiver runs through her body, but she ignores it. 

“Yeah,” Wren says, breathless and still on the edge of baffled. Their brows knot. “Is that— Is that not enough?”

“Enough for what?” Ange considers Wren where they still sit huddled up. They look warm. They look like it’d feel nice to cuddle up to them, steal some of their warmth. At the same time, they look cornered. They look like they’ve put themselves in a place they can no longer run from, at the end of their rope. Just inches from falling apart. “Wren, what is it that you want from me?” she prompts, waiting for the words I want you to leave.

The words don’t come. 

Instead, frustration seeps off Wren as they say: “I want you to be safe.”

A small, sad smile curves Ange’s lips and she takes an easy step forward. “Nowhere is safe.” Nowhere is safe, and everywhere is just a step away from the maze of the mines, and the call of the sculk, and the disorienting dizziness of the world. Everywhere just a step away from an arrow in the back, a sonic shriek, a fall of a cliff. Just a step away from drowning in a powdered snow. “And I’m not afraid of you.” She takes another step, just as easy as the first. 

“Ange,” Wren says, and it comes out a warning.

They’re tense, wide-eyed, everything about them screaming You should be afraid. I am. Please be afraid. For your own good. Please understand.

But Ange brushes the message aside and doesn’t heed the warning. She keeps on walking, step after step, arms wrapped around herself just to stave off the impending, bothersome cold that keeps her verging on shivering. “Oh, so many things can hurt me, Wren, you’re not special,” she says half-jokingly, trying to lighten the situation. Her eyes shine in the dark, light but bright purple as she makes her approach, each step marked by a rattle of several sculk sensors that have made their home here.

Wren seems to deflate a little, something warring and unreadable in their expression as they pry their gaze away from the approach of a friend, eyes flitting across the glowing sculk sensors that pierce and diminish the soothing darkness of the night.

“Actually,” Ange sighs quietly, and she’s so, so close now. She crouches down, slow and careful and unthreatening, keeping her voice soft. “Wren?” she tries to catch Wren’s gaze, anchor the attention for the next words.

Wren pulls their knees tighter to their chest, their back against a corner of the building as they loook up and meet Ange’s gaze. “Hm?”

Ange offers a tiny, encouraging smile. “You are. Special, I mean.”

Incomprehension flickers across Wren’s gaze, and behind it something knowing, but deliberately evasive. “What?”

With a small huff, Ange sits back on her heels. “It’s like the whole powdered snow situation, isn’t it.” She tilts her head a little, considering. This probably isn’t going to make much sense, and she knows it—because it makes sense to her, in her head, but translating it into words is hard. Still, she studies Wren’s face, hoping to find something more than fear and tension and anxiety. Just a sliver of opennes, something she could slip through, that’d be enough. “You know, how if you fall in, you aren’t supposed to break it,” she says softly. “You don’t break it just because it hurts you. You let it run its course. You let it consume you.” 

Honestly, she isn’t sure she’s explaining this right. But there’s something about it that rings so true in her heart—maybe because she’s fallen into that damned powdered snow over and over again. Wren asked her not to destroy it, and so she always let it be. She let it be, cold biting and ravaging, taking away her warmth in a swift and vicious way and chipping away at what was left underneath. And she still didn’t take a weapon to it. Because she knew it’s going to be alright. Because at the end of it, she would respawn, safe and sound, in the warmth of her bed, and all she’d lose was a bit of time.

Most importantly, she never took a weapon—or a shovel—to it, because she loves Wren.

She looks at her friend now, a mix of sorrow and pleading in her gaze as she reaches out, slowly and questioningly. 

Wren tenses up, but doesn’t move away, too surprised and still tangled in trying to understand whatever Ange was saying for any sharper reaction. 

Ange takes what she’s given, and she lets her fingers connect with the warm skin of Wren’s face. Sculk-stained blackened fingertips slide over the cheek, right into the fur equally marked by sculk.

They’re not that different, she thinks.

“I’ll respawn if anything happens, Wren,” she half-whispers. “It’s okay.”

The gentleness of it all seems to break something in Wren, as their eyes suddenly glisten and fill with tears, hot ones that easily overflow. A dark, clawed fear that they’re now dangerous and nobody is safe near them and that everybody surely hates them now was so overpowering, but it shatters and gives so easily under the pressure of cold, friendly fingers and a kind smile. Somewhere behind it all, like a beacon of a lighthouse, the thought: I am not completely alone yet.

So Wren hiccups and sniffles and dips their head, even as it disconnects the salvaging touch. They pull into themselves, a bubble of self-protection from the thorns of the world, the ground rattling and humming and whispering underneath them hungrily, incessantly, even with someone’s presence so, so close.

“Oh, Wren,” Ange breathes out and shifts closer, still careful, still slow. She moves to sit next to Wren, wraps one arm around them and pulls them to her.

Wren slumps against her without a fight, hands pressed to their face and body shaking.

Relief is a warm tide, washing over Ange as Wren allows themselves to be held. 

Murmuring quiet things, Ange continues holding Wren without any sign of a desire to move away. She holds them, and she looks ahead at the sculk crashing into snow, and the pale, beautiful glow of the northern lights, and the blurry sway of cherry petals somewhere deep below the mountain.

And she thinks that, one way or another, they’re going to be okay.

Even though the black markings on her skin whisper gleefuly that she’s wrong, she elects not to believe them. Not to give in to that anxiety. Not on this particular night, with a precious friend in her hold. Not now, not now, not now.

Time twists around them, a nonsensical and dizzying concept, vague and dancing. It could be minutes, it could be hours, before they stir and Wren pulls away a little, finally quiet, rubbing their cheeks raw to erase the lingering traces of the tears. It’s still dark outside, stars shining brightly high above them.

“Wren…?” Ange says their name quietly, testingly, sheepishly.

“Yea?” Wren sniffles, face still hidden from sight.

There’s a skipped-beat of hesitation, before the question spills out, inviting and encouraging and afraid of rejection: “Do you want to sleep over at mine…?” 

Ange thinks of the dark circles under Wren’s eyes. Of the desperation and distress that led to those hurtful screams in the first place. Of their tears. Of the rattle of the sculk and the humming of the endermen somewhere just beyond the windowpanes, inside. She thinks of Judas’ empty bunk bed upstairs. She thinks of Wren, possibly falling apart at the seams, awake and exhausted and stumbly on their feet. She thinks of how heavily they leaned into her just moments ago, as if the weight of their own body—or maybe the weight of their sculk-stained soul—was too much for them to bear.

“Stiff is going to be in the lab all night again,” she continues to explain, to soothe any worries or bumps that might cause indecision. “And I have a spare bed.” 

There’s silence, considering and tense and not promising anything.

So with an audible smile, Ange adds a hopeful “We could cuddle?”

She feels Wren take a breath. 

It takes another moment, before Wren’s voice breaks the silence, shy and barely audible: “You’d… want that?”

Ange immediately latches onto it, because it isn’t a no. It’s a seeking of reassurance, and that she can do. With a grin growing on her face, she nods, even though Wren isn’t watching. “Yes,” she says, unhesitatingly. “I absolutely want that.”

It’s only then that Wren shifts again, enough to turn, and their eyes meet. They search in Ange’s gaze for a while, destabilised and desperately trying to find something that’d offer them some footing, and—

And maybe, just maybe, they find it.

Because when Wren breathes out, they end up saying “Okay.”

[citrine-elephant]

thank you, my brain, for letting me dream of leon being captured and trying to find a way to outsmart his captors

except, there's a bigger monster he wasn't exactly expecting, but should've. aaand... well, his captors are supposed to know how to deal with it, but they don't, and....

it can't see. all everyone needs to do is stay quiet. easy. leon's dealt with lickers before.

and he purposefully pisses the thing off.... :3c

... he's still kinda shackled, so he's gotta deal with that, on top of not making noise AND the gang's stragglers who are trying to kill him, or wrangle him to take him elsewhere. it's chaos.

[murky-tannin]

Btw isn't it wild that Sculk spreads from souls? We know this because of the souls depicted in the shriekers and wardens, as well as the soul fire, soul lanterns, and soul torches in the deep dark. And most notably how when something dies near a catalyst, it's exp (or, in other words, soul) is used as a catalyst to spread the growth of sculk even further.

You know what else collects and uses souls as a catalyst for magic? Players. And you know who is famously adept at enchanting things? Badboyhalo. And post.

(will be including examples of minecraft's soul imagery in a reblog for anyone who hasn't picked up on this aspect of it's worldbuilding!

[lookinghalfacorpse]

V-M was such a good fucking fic I literally cried at the end

thanks i love inflicting pain :) but seriously, the support for that fic was awesome and heartwarming. i love y'all

predictably, a sequel would open with A Lot Of Grief.

[arborescreens]

mc oc moment

[viridianstarlight]

It spreads.

[ethosiab]

revisiting some ideas for a warden/sculk infested etho au

[pearlescentmoondoesthings]

Scott held his sword by the grip, letting the tip of the blade graze the ground. He looked out at the setting sun, the last bit of it barely poking out from over the trees. The moon had begun to rise in its place, soaking the field in a beautiful glow. He could stay here forever, in this singular moment.

A soldier's life was never so serene however and after a few moments of standing in that field, he could feel the familiar tugging sensation at the back of his mind. Something pulling him towards the forest. He frowned, but shoved any unwillingness aside.

He was a soldier first. Duty calls.

Scott held his sword closer to him and walked over to his little cabin, grabbing the lantern resting on the windowsill and making his journey through the forest.

An eternity of walking, slicing through sculk and taking down any monsters that dared to cross his path, before he heard something. Someone...?

That was odd. Nobody was out in the forest this deep. Not where there was so much sculk and death and sorrow. Anyone who lived out here either had a death wish, was an idiot (Scott tried his hardest not to think about Joel.), or was someone in need of dire help.

Whoever it was, Scott decided to help. He was a soldier first, after all.

Scott approached the sound—it was an eerie and odd one, like someone sobbing but they kept choking—and as he got closer, he began to worry whatever that it wasn't human. He held his sword close to him and shined the lantern on the shadowy figure he could make out.

This person wasn't human, but they weren't a sculk infested monster. From what he could tell. Scott rose both eyebrows as he stared at them in concern and surprise.

"Are you..." he trailed off, throat suddenly feeling dry. "Are you alright?"

-Pearl had stood alone in that patch of forest for a while, her mind racing as she tried to reason with herself as to why her “vision” hadn’t ended by now. She was nearly bordering spiraling into somewhat of a panic attack when a newfound sense of fear filled her mind, this anxious thought train cut off as she sensed some being nearby that made a shiver go down her spine. She frantically looked around, knife drawn in a trembling hand as she tried to make sense of the claustrophobic feeling her mind felt at what was for now an unknown threat.-

-As Scott’s lantern-illuminated form came into view from the trees her eyes widened in fear and confusion, his drawn sword immediately worrying her further as she receded back a few paces. Her voice was a sounded more of a trembling panicky mess than the threatening façade she’d wanted to put on, but she was nowhere near her right state of mind.-

S-Scott..what the hell are you doing here in this world too- Never mind that, put the sword down now or I’ll kill you. None of this is real anyhow…

[daftdrac]

You know what this is something I have buried deep inside of me for fear of being judged by the fandom but I ship cubfan and pixlriffs. It started because of the hempires crossover and how pix was like the only person trying to un-sculk cub up until he called in reinforcements. Everyone else was inconvenienced by it and tried to remove the sculk but they never did anything about the source of the problem: cub being infested. I actually have SOOOOO many drabbles written about them stored away I love them SO MUCH actually. History nerd and science nerd. They were made for each other your honor I don't know what else I have to say to get people to understand this.

I literally made a discord server that was JUST ME so I could dump all my rants Abt mcyt and stuff cause my friends were probably getting tired of it and a lot of it was cub and pix. I would write these rants like I was actually talking to someone too it was actually really funny .. I called them pixlfan. My babies. I love cub and pix sm by the way like a lot. I love them

[redbo-and-simbo]

~~~SEAWATT chose HEADS.~~~ Sigh. Drumroll. ... . . . . . . ? !!! TAILS. I WIN. ~~~Its been fun playing with you, Seawatt. Goodbye.~~~ (STRANGLE arrives, and stands guarding both of them as this takes place. They won't fight.) (Fear becomes replaced with a comforting numb that quickly sweeps over as soon as his spatial awareness leaves with it.) (Sculk on his beloved's hands goes through cloth. It penetrates through pores in skin, sinking deeper, deeper, yet deeper.) (Vision is the first major sense to completely go, he is plunged entirely into the dark. It doesn't scare him. Then along with it, control over the muscles in his body. Then joints alongside it.) (He doesn't think anymore.) (He hears someone's voice in the dark, beaming into his mind with no resistance.) (I----IM-----S-S-SO-RR---YYY...SS..SEA--W--) (D-DID'---N'T...MEAN...T-T-TO...) (I------- LL-O...VE-- Y-Y-YO-U...) (ENDLESS BLISS.) <RED used [Leave them alone. (Attack HEART with | Divine Light | and WORKERS.]> (The remaining WORKERS continue fighting off the remaining rats.) (You need them to be safe. You pray, and take aim at the HEART.) [ Flashlight clicks ] [ Sculk boils ] [ [ [ S H R I E K I N G ] ] ] [ Flashlight turns off ] < !!! CRITICAL HIT !!! > <DIVINE LIGHT IS UNUSABLE FOR 2 TURNS!> <HEART HP REMAINING [0/300]> <THE HEART STARTS TO CRUMBLE!> <<!!VICTORY!!>>

WE WILL NOT DIE WE WILL NOT DIE WE W ILL N O T DIE YO U C ANNO T K ILL U S IN A W AY TH A T---

(But there is no further speech. The heart shakes, beating rapidly, desperately trying to stay alive. It takes some clone's EXP with it.) (It turns to ash. All sculk on the solid surfaces connected to it soon follows in a chain reaction.) (And...the living that became sculked now are granted some better control of their minds...but not quite fully lucid.) Start checking conditions. Until we meet again, this is goodbye. I'm proud of you. [(Battle End.)]

(heavy breathing)

(flashlight slips out of grip and clatters to the ground)

(eyes turn to workers)

Get Seawatt to the infirmary immediately. I can take care of the Warden situation. Just get out of here. I'll send some people in here to assess the damage once we get all the injuries sorted out.

[seaworker-and-droidwatt]

Droidwatt! Are you okay???

Yeah. I spent a while trying to find everybody after Evbo just vanished.

(huff)

But I'm heading to the infirmary now. That's my guess on where everyone is.

[always-just-down-the-street]

Hey so are we gonna talk about the implications of the fact that the Firework Roulette is absolutely coated in Sculk?

Like obviously it’s a callback to Sculkfan and the Empires stuff but like- the way Cub discussed it, I don’t think all of the deaths have been his.

“And, uh, fun fact about this: the workers play this so often that the management tried to shut them down…”

Why are all of Cub’s workers infested with Sculk?

[isa-ghost]

ISA PLEASE I NEED YOUR DEEP DARK DEITY THOUGHTS

Something something sculk as a corrupting power. The ender king wants to take, wants to keep everything like a ship in a bottle but the deep dark? It wants to change. It wants to remake everything in its image.

There could probably be something cool having to do with sculk not being "native" to his world, but when rose "woke up" (phil updated the world and his bedrock lowered) so did the sculk. And now its lying in wait, slowly corrupting, slowly changing, slowly creeping.

And then... philza stopped avoiding it, and took some pieces to spread around. Is that gonna accelerate the corruption?

EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE THIS IS COOKING, DEFINITELY TAKING INSPIRATION FROM WHAT YOU'VE SAID HERE.

OKAY SO here's what I have so far (and restated stuff I said in chat yesterday during stream):

The Deep Dark Deity (I'm leaning female but also really fucking with them being genderless. Their gender is Corruption and their pronouns are they/it) has control over the Warden, sculk, etc. All things Deep Dark. The people who built and once lived in Ancient Cities were a cult that worshiped the Deity. Gods know when/how they died out, if they really died out or just went... elsewhere, and where they ended up if they aren't just dead. You can't tell me that's not a fucking portal. You know exactly what I'm talking about. They could've gone through there. But why?

Something something that portal being activated and the realm it would lead to being accessible is the only thing preventing the Deity from being able to escape DD biomes on their own. Currently they're bound to their own domain unless Phil takes a catalyst or other means of sculk spreading outside of the DD with him.

The Warden was created by the people who inhabited the cities (as we know from that one disc), meant to be a vessel for the Deity, if not straight up created in the Deity's image. Regardless, the Deity can indeed control/possess the Warden and command it whether they're inside of it or not.

Sculk contains XP, which is popularly headcanoned by most players as "life force" because living things drop it when they die (and it's earned though life experience, and life experience increases life force or whatever, blahblahblah, not explaining this in detail here, it's not my headcanon it's just the gist of what I've seen people cook with). This is what the Deity (EDIT: Deity name is Sculk Scourge!) survives off of. They consume it, and there is no such thing as "enough," it always wants MORE. If Ender King is greedy for the material, DD Deity is greedy for... whatever you'd call life force. When something dies in sculk, its life force is consumed by the Deity, and the sculk spreads because the Deity is being made stronger/more powerful and therefore their influence is spreading.

In addition to life force (killing mobs in DD biomes, bottles of enchanting, etc), some other "offerings" they enjoy include diamonds, lapis (gives lots of xp when mined), bones, god apples, infested stone, and beacons.

I'm cooking up a summary type thing like this for each of the Hardcore deities, but one of the things this Deity would represent is the concept of the apocalypse. It consumes to gain power, becomes so powerful nothing can stop it, and continues to consume until there is nothing left to consume.

Taking your idea of how the Deity only came to be after Phil updated Rose's power/influence over the world increased once more. Something something corruption something something Rose's evolution went Wrong somewhere and it turned into a whole ass new deity. Something along those lines idk. Whatever I go with, they have it out for Rose. It's her and her creations that they consume to grow stronger, that they want to remake.

They fucking HATE glow squids because they look like something THEY should've created, being all blue and glowy and ethereal like that. But no. Fucking ROSE did. 🙄 Their resentment of her knows no bounds.

Actually idk if it's resentment or just general ill will but again: They very much intend to do Rose harm. Including emotionally. Like by hurting her precious Child of the Sky. Or corrupting him to make him theirs instead. =)

This isn't a headcanon but like. The vibes of this deity? Scylla from EPIC: The Musical, both the song and the monster herself.

Given the nature of the Warden and the spirit of the Deep Dark in general, the Deity is blind. It navigates the world through hearing, smelling, feeling vibrations, and by sensing the amount of life force something contains. Phil should not enter the Deep Dark with more than 30 levels of XP. If he overstays his welcome in any DD biome, but especially in an Ancient City, the possession he'll undergo by this Deity will make Ender King's possession of him look like NOTHING.

Little does he know, his little recent escapade down there, and those souvenirs he took back with him, like his "doorbell," are, in a way, similar to the backpack Ender King gave him on Quesadilla Island. :)

Appearance-wise, the deity is feminine in body shape even if they're genderless, with long silky hair that looks like sculk. They have milky white eyes, sharp teeth, and everything about them is long and spindly. Their height, their limbs, their fingers. I'm not sure what they wear but it's long and flowy, also looking like sculk.

Idk if you've seen Owenjuice's New Life Series but when he's the Warden origin or whatever it is? This Deity can navigate through sculk like that, swimming in, out, and through it. Here's a timestamp of one of Owen's videos so you can see what I mean. They're always watching. So long as you can see sculk, the Deity can see you. :)

[roxynugget]

Alright, I'm gonna say it: I don't like any of the mods out there that add a Deep Dark dimension very much.

Like, I get it. Coming up with good ideas is hard. Making a game out of it, for free, is even harder.

But the mods are not deep or dark enough. They have bosses, and some very standard Minecraft game progression. They have OP gear you can find. All of that is fun and challenging. But is it scary? Not particularly.

The Deep Dark is a place that consumes you. The Warden may not have teeth but it will eat you alive nonetheless, to add to its body.

It is an organism that wishes to be the only organism. It infests. It spreads. And it does so without malicious intent. Because it doesn't care about anything at all, only living longer than you.

And to top it off, visiting an ancient city is usually post-game, which is far less terrifying. You are solely motivated by greed. You can leave. The daylight is always within reach.

I

I wish the Other Side was an unfathomable depth. I wish its surface started high up, and went down to -64, so you began to wonder if it even had a bottom at all. I wish your old OP gear didn't work well on sculk there, and you had to find new tools before a monster bit your head off. I wish rockets wouldn't light, so your elytra was useless. I wish there was a fog, like the void fog from old versions, that got thicker the farther down you went. I wish the walls and the floors could eat you alive. I wish the Warden was the least of your worries compared to food and finding a way home.

I wish you spawned there without a portal back, and had to figure shit out from there.

The things I'd do if I could code...

Note: I have looked at all the available Deep Dark dimension mods I could find. I am not looking for recommendations. You do not have the mod I'm looking for.