Becky ran ahead to scout for squonks while Hans and Olza followed at a distance. The dungeon hallways were long, but they were simple and plain. The few corridors they had ignored on their first visit ended with empty rooms or uninteresting dead ends. Following the dwarf, even this far behind, was fairly easy with no real way to make a wrong turn.

While Becky hunted, clearing the route to the surface, Hans and Olza talked about the dungeon core.

“If dungeon cores regenerated, the Reavers’ Rest core would have come back, right?” Hans asked.

“Maybe it is? We were away from the dungeon, what, eight days? If that’s the speed a core repairs, Reavers’ Rest would be nowhere close to complete with that timeline.”

“That’s assuming it could also repair itself.”

Olza wobbled her head side to side, thinking. “That’s a fair point. Who could say if dungeon cores all have the same abilities?”

They heard Becky’s footsteps approaching. Looking down the hall, a glow the size of a match head moved toward them. The light grew until Becky said, “Just one. He’s dead.”

***

“You said we’d rotate who got the cabin,” Hans said, sitting by a fire at the surface basecamp.

“You made the tent smell weird,” Olza retorted. “That breaks the deal.”

“You’re making that up.”

“Why would I make that up?”

“So you can keep the cabin.”

“That’s a baseless accusation that is, frankly, insulting.”

Becky unleashed a sharp whistle. “Hey, eggheads, I said I’m heading out. Becki and I got errands.”

“Sorry, Becky,” Hans said, sincerely. “Thank you for all of your help. I know sitting here watching a hole isn’t fun.”

Climbing on to Becki’s back, the dwarf said, “Needed doing, so I did. Happy to do my part, boss. I’ll be back in the morning to take you back down.” The warthog jittered with joy. When the pair turned to leave camp, Hans thought he saw the familiar smiling at the prospect of stretching its legs with a run through the wilderness.

The Becks galloped into the trees, running on top of the snow without disturbing a flake.

“Is she okay?” Olza asked when Becky was out of sight.

Hans said she was. “Staying in one place is tough for a Druid. She’ll feel better tomorrow, but we do need to find a way to fight squonks without her. This routine isn’t sustainable. For any of us.”

“Any progress?”

The Guild Master shook his head.

The two sat quietly by the fire, but the day had been long. Once they finished their smoked venison, they went to their respective bedrolls, Olza in the cabin and Hans in his tent outside, using the cabin as a windbreak. Though he complained about it constantly, he didn’t mind sleeping in the tent for a while. It felt like being an Iron-ranked again. Nostalgia helped keep him warm.

Becky assured Hans and Olza that they didn’t need to take watch. She promised the gnolls would not be a threat. When they asked how she could be sure, she explained that the gnolls would know they were in her territory and leave. They didn’t ask for more details on how territory boundaries were defined in this case. Hans had suspicions he didn’t care to confirm.

“Hans… Are you awake?” Olza whispered from within the cabin. Though it was somewhat insulated, the wall didn’t muffle her voice. It was like she was sitting right outside his tent.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Sooo…”

“I had an idea,” she said, finally. “I didn’t want to wake you if you were asleep.”

“It’s okay. I’m up.” Hans said, lying on his back, looking up at the fabric of his tent.

“We talk about dungeon cores like they’re monsters, but what if that’s wrong?”

Hans asked her to elaborate. Olza said that a dungeon core was classified as a monster. Despite being stationary, it had powerful abilities, seemed to actively defend its domain, and controlled a small army of minions. Those were all traits of powerful creatures, and the most dangerous excelled in all three areas. Capable of strategy and leadership, a monster with numerous underlings was the worst kind, so even though little was known about dungeon cores, they ended up in bestiaries and hunting guides.

“As a thought experiment, what if we classified it as a plant?” she asked.

He was a fan of thought experiments. “I’m game. Catch me up on how far you’ve taken it already?”

“Plants spread roots to gather more nutrients and to stabilize their position. If they didn’t, a small breeze would send them halfway across the world. We already know we have roots here, right?”

Hans agreed.

“The Polzas–shut up, Hans–have petals, but dungeons attract adventurers instead of bees. I don’t know what the dungeon equivalent of pollination is, so we’ll skip that for now. The dungeon core room is built like a seed, though. The outer shell provides protection to give the seed time to sprout, and the seed is dense with energy inside to help.”

“Damn. And a seed sprouts much in the way the core room did.” He pictured a thin green sprout breaking through the side of a seed when it germinated.

“Exactly!” Olza couldn’t help shouting but quickly collected herself.

“That’s a good thought experiment,” Hans said. “What does that mean for your phantom healing crack?”

Hans gave her time to reply.

“Olza?” he asked, louder this time.

He heard grumbling from inside the cabin. “You can do this by yourself if you want.”

“I’m sorry. I was just playing around. I believe you about the crack. Promise.”

With an audible sigh, Olza continued, “It’s growing? Maybe it’s healing, like you said? I don’t know.”

“No offense, but I hope you’re wrong.”

Hans was sure he heard Olza sit up abruptly in the cabin. “Why would you say that?”

“Plant monsters are the worst. They’re the most frustrating thing to hunt.”

“...But it doesn’t move?”

“It’s more complicated than that!” Hans announced, clearly having made this argument before.

Fighting a plant monster meant facing the ultimate home field advantage. They were underestimated constantly for the reason Olza mentioned: How could a monster that can’t move be difficult to kill? A tree couldn’t dodge an axe, after all. As a result, many plant monsters fed exceptionally well early in their lives. All those untrained locals and inexperienced adventurers strolling to their doom, oblivious to the real danger.

“By the time an experienced adventurer gets called in, chances are it’s gotten pretty strong, and that sucks. Lumberjacking is not an easy profession, and that’s when the tree isn’t trying to eat you.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“And then if any monster is going to have some surprise ability, it’s going to be a plant monster. There are so many variations and mutations. Since no one likes them, they don’t get researched all that much.”

“Speaking from experience?” Olza goaded Hans.

“Yes!”

The Guild Master launched into a story about a job where he, Mazo, and Gret brought along the lizardmen, Izz and Thuz. Hans, Gret, and Mazo were Gold-ranked at the time while Izz and Thuz were Bronze-ranked. Somehow a small town kid got their hands on a Ya-te-veo seed. Whether the child knew what it was when he planted it could never be determined as most timelines of the incident suggested he was eaten first.

“Picture the snakes clump up like a medusa, make those snakes anacondas, tie them all together by the tails, and then plant them. That’s what a Ya-te-veo is like. It’s like fighting giant snakes as tough as tree bark.”

“Fascinating,” Olza responded.

The job took the party out to wine country to a quaint little town full of expensive inns booked year-round by nobles. That last fact they learned the hard way. After three days on the road, they looked forward to a soft bed, only to find that no rooms were available in the entire town. They ended up camping outside that town’s chapter of the Adventurers’ Guild.

“Mazo was livid,” Hans chuckled.

The Ya-te-veo had been planted in the attic of a local wine merchant’s house–probably the boy hiding it from his parents–in a part of town packed with luxury homes and expensive condos. The plant had eaten the entire family of that first home, and spread into the houses on either side, breaking through windows to snatch new prey. Three adventurers put themselves on the menu before the local chapter requested help from Hoseki.

The neighborhood had been evacuated by the time Hans’ party arrived. A set of nervous town guards monitored the perimeter. For them, ‘town guard’ was supposed to be a cushy post where the most difficult arrest was the occasional rich drunk. The guards closest to the monster trembled, though they did their best to hide it.

Presently, the Ya-te-veo was calm, looking like the houses had been overwhelmed by large, but harmless, vines. The small leaves on its appendages moved gently in the breeze, projecting an unnatural sense of peace. The guards told Hans that when the monster was active, the vines moved with the speed of whips and the force of battering rams. Most of the local guards took several steps away from the monster when the adventurers explained who they were. Knowing what the Ya-te-veo could do, the guards weren’t taking chances if the adventurers poked at it.

“None of us had fought a Ya-te-veo before, but the guidebooks made it seem easy. They recommended destroying the ‘trunk’ near its base or burning it down, ideally with fire magic but any source of flame could work in a pinch. The entire ride out, we argued with Mazo. She insisted we let her scorch it to make things quick and easy, but townsfolk don’t appreciate those kinds of tactics very much. They’d prefer to have homes after the job was done.”

Looking at the killer plant sprouting out windows and through holes in rooftops, Mazo started to laugh.

The houses themselves were like armor for the Ya-te-veo. The trunk was inside, potentially in the attic if their intel was accurate. Getting a finishing strike would mean going inside, climbing the stairs, and chopping the trunk in half, all while anaconda-sized vines attacked from every direction. The halfling Blue Mage realized this the moment she laid eyes on the vines sprouting from the fancy home.

“Are you about to tell me you set fire to a town?” Olza asked, still speaking through the cabin wall with Hans lying in his tent outside.

“You’re as bad as Mazo.”

The alchemist giggled.

“We put it off for as long as we could, but protecting property would never come before my party’s safety. I had to explain to the town alderman that our solution to the town’s problem was to burn part of it down.”

That conversation may have gone better if Mazo wasn’t in the background singing happily to herself while she thumbed through her spellbook, trying to decide what monster’s fire ability would be best for the situation. Hans coughed loudly, but instead of quieting, she asked Gret if he thought she should pick Demon’s Fury or Liquid Fire, both spells she learned from a fire efrit.

After a stream of assurances that they would do as little damage to the town as possible, which the alderman believed even less than Hans believed himself, the alderman agreed to follow Hans’ advice. Rebuilding three or four homes was far better than risking more lives, but Hans understood the alderman’s need to explore all of his options. That was his job, and Hans had his.

Being careful not to bring water too close to the monster, the party helped the local fire brigade soak the buildings adjacent to the Ya-te-veo, which sat as still as a normal plant. It grew fastest eating creatures, but water would help it as well, so great efforts were taken to keep it dry.

“Remember how I said plant monsters could have some strange, undocumented mutations?”

Olza said that she did.

“Good. Anyway, Mazo’s Liquid Fire ability is like rain falling sideways, and the rain is lava.”

A wall of fire droplets flew across the street and into the house with the Ya-te-veo. The monster immediately raged, flailing and smashing vines in all directions, searching for the source of the attack. Liquid Fire punched through walls and roof tiles like acid before catching fire inside the building. Meanwhile, the other party members stood by, watching for any deviation from the plan. If the fire spread out of control or if the Ya-te-veo had a longer reach than anticipated, they would step in to guard Mazo and limit damage to the town.

“We didn’t need any of that, so we’re watching the Ya-te-veo burn to death, and Gret points out that the smoke was an odd brown instead of gray or black. We didn’t think much of it because all sorts of stuff changed the color of smoke and flames when they burned, and we had no idea what weird fabrics or chemicals were burning inside. We shrugged it off and let Mazo finish.”

Izz was the first to notice the shift. “Mr. Gret,” he said. “Is something the matter?”

The Rogue dropped his bow and stared at his hand, half a smile on his vacant face, his fingers moving slowly, one at a time.

“The alderman!” Thuz exclaimed as the town’s leader fell backward. He landed sitting up, laughed playfully to himself about the sensation of falling, and then drew in the dirt with his finger.

Other than the two lizardmen mages, every human, dwarf, and halfling in town fell into delirium.

“Apparently, this Ya-te-veo–or maybe all of them, I don’t know–released a psychoactive smoke when it burned.”

Olza, trying to speak between laughter, asked, “You’re telling me you got a whole town high?”

“Whole place. Izz and Thuz were so mad. Lizardmen are immune and resistant to most poison and toxins, so they were fine. They said it was like taking care of a drunk friend except there were a few hundred of us.”

“Amazing.”

“Everyone was sober in 24 hours, and we reported our ‘observation’ to the chapter librarian when we got back to Hoseki. She suggested we not record the effect to keep people from pursuing or growing Ya-te-veo purely for the trip.

“Meanwhile, Mazo still insists that we’d be richer than the king if we found a way to mass produce it. Thank gods she hasn’t found any Ya-te-vao seeds.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t, from what little I saw of her.”

“The best part of the story,” Hans continued, “is that Mazo found a new entry in her spellbook the next day. She was clearly tripping when she wrote it, but it was undoubtedly her handwriting. There was a whole big debate on how to test it, but eventually we figured out it makes the target sneeze.”

“Sneeze? That’s it?”

“That’s it. And she has no idea where it came from or how she learned it. Complete blank.”

Olza’s laughter died down and then the two didn’t speak for a long time. Thinking she fell asleep, Hans didn’t say anything.

After a while, she asked softly, “Do you miss it? Adventuring?”

“Every day.”

***

The next morning, Hans’ spine had contoured itself to the bumpy ground and locked in place. Groaning and flopping like a fish, he got to his knees and crawled out of the tent. He no longer desired the nostalgia of roughing it like the old days. A light flurry had come in the night but not more than a dusting. Olza, meanwhile, looked well rested. She happily moved about camp to prep her bag for the day while a teapot hung over the fire, swaying softly in the occasional breeze.

“We’ll need to do a bunch of these trips, huh?” Hans said, sitting on a log by the fire.

“Probably,” Olza said. She swapped fresh vials into her bag and stowed the previous samples safely in a box at basecamp.

Looking around the Polza patch and out over the pit, which had a ladder now rather than a rope, Hans saw nothing but lumpy, rocky ground. He might have already found the flattest campsite available.

Nope. Can’t do it.

“We should build a proper cabin,” Hans said. “Something big enough for a group. I think it will get a lot of use.”

“More for Galad to build?”

“I was hoping to find help from someone else. He doesn’t need more to worry about. Hmm. We should build it on top of the pit now that I think about it.”

Olza looked at the hole and back to Hans. “That seems risky.”

“That’s why we need someone who knows building. If we can do it without the whole thing falling into the pit, it will disguise the dungeon pretty well.”

The alchemist chuckled. “Pretty rude awakening to have monsters show up for breakfast.”

She was right. Sleeping on top of a dungeon was a bit daring, but the more he thought, the more hiding the dungeon entrance under something innocuous seemed wise. That building could also serve as a sort of gate, giving Gomi a way to guard who went in or what came out.

I don’t know anything about architecture.

New Quest: Design a dungeon cabin.

***

Open Quests (Ordered from Old to New):

Progress from Gold-ranked to Diamond-ranked.

Mend the rift with Devon.

Complete the manuscript for "The Next Generation: A Teaching Methodology for Training Adventurers."

Expand the Gomi training area to include ramps for footwork drills.

Design a system for training dungeon awareness.

Research the history and legends of the Dead End Mountains.

Protect Gomi.

Train Gomi adventurers to keep the dungeon at bay.

Design the ultimate strategy for hunting squonks.

Solve the town secret problem without being a conspiracy weirdo.

Design a dungeon cabin.