Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-One - Ramp Up

“Oh, looks like we're going to need lights,” I said as we moved into the second floor.

The entrance was a crack at the base of the massive tree, a space where the bark was pushed out enough for someone to walk in without bumping into the sides, though it was still a bit tight, and the entrance zig-zagged a bit, cutting off any direct light from outside.

Hence my complaint about the darkness, because that little bit of light from the entrance was the only light in the floor.

Puffles summoned another light ball and held it up above his head with one hand, then, surprisingly, he touched the magical ball to the tip of one of his antennas and it held there.

I stared for a moment, then summoned a ball of light of my own--a spell I was growing pretty comfortable with--and touched it to my ear. It felt fizzly for a moment, but when I pulled my hand back, the light faded and disappeared.

I, of course, tried again, but this time while also looking around. Amaryllis and Caprica had summoned their own lights, and Awen pulled out a little lamp from her backpack and turned it on before hooking it to her belt.

It was more than enough light to see by, though I wished that the floor itself had its own, steadier lighting. The entryway seemed to be a big space with--unsurprisingly--floors carved out of the tree’s wood. The space narrowed out ahead and pushed to the left next to a great big hole in the ground that I couldn’t see the bottom of.

“Is the entire floor this dark?” I asked.

“Aye, it is. Never been much of a problem. Just got to cross the little bridge there, and then walk all the way to the top. That’s all,” Puffles said. He nodded, which made his antenna, and the light hanging off of it, bob up and down.

“Seems too simple,” Amaryllis said. “Also, Broccoli, what are you doing?”

I paused, feeling suddenly rather guilty with both hands up atop my head holding a pair of lightballs against the tips of my ears. “Uh,” I said. “I think I figured it out?” I let go, and the two lights stayed in place.

I wiggled my head and the lights bounced around with the motion of my ears. It worked! The trick was pushing mana to the tips of my ears, which was surprisingly vexing. I hadn’t realised it, but all this time I was mostly casting spells from my hands and on rare occasions from my feet. Using magic with my ears was a new one, but this was less about casting a spell and more about feeding magic to a spell I’d already cast.

Awen giggled while Amaryllis rolled her eyes with a ‘you’re very silly and I refuse to acknowledge your silliness’ sort of huff.

“What’s the challenge here, Mister Ward,” Amaryllis asked instead.

“Beetles, like I said earlier. They come rolling down the passage, bouncing off every wall along the way. If they hit you they can knock you down pretty hard, and if you tumble down that hole... Well, that’s it for you.” He pointed to the big hole, and I glanced over the edge again. Thankfully, I wasn’t afraid of heights, because the yawning darkness within might have been spooky otherwise.

“Does that happen a lot?” I asked, worried.

“Hmm? Nah, of course not. We can fly.” He beat his wings for show and lifted a bit off the ground. “Usually just fly past the entire floor, really. But with the vines in the way, can’t do that. Still, the vines make the beetles all messed up too.”

That made sense. I could see some traces of Evil Roots already. They were smaller than some of them became, hanging from the ceiling like vines with bits of rotten wood clinging to them.

“Let’s stick together, then,” Caprica said. “Maybe we can even tie each other together, in case? That way there’s less of a risk that any one of us will fall into the impossibly deep hole.”

“I have rope,” Awen said as she reached into her backpack again. Soon we all had knots tying our belts together, which would definitely make moving through the dungeon trickier, but we were all pretty decent fighters, so I was sure we’d find a way around that.

“Alright, so when the beetles come down, the best thing to do is just avoid them outright,” Puffles said. “Usually you can stick to the sides. The wall-side is best. They’re fast and they hit hard though, so don’t try stopping them.”

“What happens if they’re stopped anyway?” Caprica asked. “What if one of them was stopped by some of those vines?”

“Then we might have to fight them,” Puffles said. “They’re not great in a fight though. Big, but slow.”

We crossed the hole via the bridge, careful not to trip into the pit, then once on the other side, we started to climb. The floor was angled upwards, moreso near the centre than on the edges, and was about three metres across at its narrowest.

The whole thing reminded me a bit of one of those fun gumball machines, the ones where you’d put a quarter in and then the gumball would come rolling out of it and do loops before falling into a little basket you could fish them out of.

Only instead of gumballs rolling down to be eaten, we had giant beetles rumbling down the worn wooden floor with a noise like thunder.

“One of them is coming!” Caprica called out, though her voice was almost drowned out in the noise.

Then a spinning ball of black and blue came rushing around the corner and before any of us could react, it impacted.

Fortunately, the one it hit was Caprica herself, and she was ready for it. Her shield’s bottom rim was planted on the ground and her knees were bent just-so. There had to be magic and skills at play, however, because the beetle was as tall as I was, even rolled into a ball, and it had to weigh quite a bit, I imagined.

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The impact shook the floor under my feet, but Caprica didn’t move back even a smidgen.

The beetle was flung backwards and it unravelled in mid flop, articulated body parts unfurling to reveal... well, a giant, rather angry beetle. It landed on all six legs, then shook its big head.

“Nice block,” I said.

Caprica just nodded and wiggled her shield arm, as if she was trying to get the pins and needles out of it. I imagined that a hit that hard had to sting, even if she blocked it.

Amaryllis and Calamity immediately struck the beetle in tandem, one of his arrows plunging into its head while lightning crackled and raced across the giant bug’s carapace. It shook most of that off, surprisingly, until Awen levelled her crossbow and fired with a deep ker-chunk.

Congratulations! Your party has rolled a Ball Beetle (Level 6) into an early grave! Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!

“Nice work!” I said.

“Mhm,” Puffles agreed. “We’ll be seeing more of them,” he warned. “They’re slow once they unroll, but try not to get hit anyway.”

I nodded, that seemed like sage advice. Not getting hit was generally a fantastic thing to do in a fight.

“At least, ah, we can hear them coming,” Awen said. That was also a good point. The beetle wasn’t exactly a stealthy enemy.

“It dropped something,” Caprica said. I turned, looking at the spot where the last of the beetle’s body was fading away. There was something left there. A chevron-shaped chunk of what looked like the beetle’s shell.

I fired off an Insight at it.

Ball Beetle Shell Shield, New

“A shield,” I asked. “Oh, that’s neat. Maybe you could use it, Caprica?”

“We don’t get those too often,” Puffles said. “On account of avoiding most fights. But if you scrape that shield up into a powder with a grindstone you can make some very nice dyes with it.”

Caprica picked the shield up and turned it this way and that, then shook her head. “It’s too small. Too light as well. I don’t doubt that it’s fairly tough, but it’s not the kind of shield I’m used to using.”

I looked to my friends, and we all seemed to debate on who should have it. Calamity fought with bow and arrow, and if he needed to, he’d use a knife or a spear. He wasn’t keen on shields. Awen didn’t have a real use for it, and my fighting style relied on not being hit in the first place.

“Well, I suppose I can use that for now,” Amaryllis said. “We might sell it to the village once we’re done. Or trade it for some of that dye.”

With that sorted, we continued on our way up. It wasn’t long before we heard another rumble coming down, but this time, as we prepared to meet another beetle, the rumble just... stopped, some ways ahead.

We shared a look, then continued onwards, though at a more careful pace. The number of roots were growing, with several of them poking through cracks in the walls and spilling out across the floor. They were actually kind of helpful, since the floor was at a constant incline and it was a bit hard to find our footing.

As we continued, our lights (including my ear lights) illuminated the path ahead, and we discovered why the last rumbling had stopped.

A big beetle was caught up in a heap of roots to one side of the passage. It had unfolded from its ball form, but that had only gotten it even more tangled in the roots filling that side of the passage.

“Should we put it out of its misery?” Awen asked.

I hesitated, but Amaryllis replied before I could make up my mind. “Sure. It’ll be good experience for the lot of us, I think.”

Awen nodded, her bow went ker-chunk, and then we gained a little smidge of experience. I pushed the guilt in my tummy away. It was just a dungeon monster, so it wasn’t that bad. That didn’t change the fact that I’d felt bad for it.

We continued upwards, and after a few more revolutions, I was starting to lose track of which direction we were facing. The walls all looked roughly the same, and the floor was decorated in nothing more than concentric rings

We came upon another beetle that was caught in some roots, but the moment after Awen put it down, another rumble started to echo down from above. “It’s possible that one will make it to us,” Caprica said.

“Then we ought to hide,” Calamity said. “There, behind the roots. If it takes the same route it’ll get jammed up too.”

That seemed like a great idea, so we huddled up behind the outcropping of roots, ready to fight the beetle that came thundering down.

Our optimistic planning turned out to be pointless as it roared past, knocking aside a few of the dangling roots and slapping us with a bow wave of wind.

I barely saw more than a black-blue blur before the beetle was past and rumbling on down towards the ground floor.

“Well, that was mighty exciting,” Calamity said after a moment.

“Really,” I said. “Maybe we can avoid the rest too?”

“As long as there are more roots the higher we go, I suppose that wouldn’t be too hard to do,” Amaryllis said. “In any case, shall we keep going? I don’t mind the break, but I’d rather have a longer pause rather than a few short ones.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “This is really working out my calves.”

“It’s not ideal for my talons, I’ll give you that much,” Amaryllis said.

“Now come on, ladies, I’m sure ny’all have perfectly pretty legs,” Calamity said.

We all stared at him, while Puffles pointedly stared off into the chasm.

Calamity wilted. “Oh, sheesh, fine,” he grumped.

***