The trip through the fleshy forest wasn’t even as bad as Jade thought it would be, the monsters only attacking them every once in a while. Even then, less than five attacked at once, never once overwhelming the party as they searched for the grand dungeon entrance.
It took them well into dusk to find it, Amy finally spotting it in her flights above the trees. The massive green structure stood out once there weren’t too many trees blocking their sight, Jade of the opinion that it looked more like an old style stone temple than a dungeon entrance. The square building was massive, the roof the classic triangle, and the entrance had many pillars supporting the overhang. Right in the center of the entrance were the doors, massive three meter tall slabs of the green stone that looked to be too heavy to open. This was also where the boundary of the daemon desert sat as well, the two biomes meeting right to either side of the building. The lime green sand and the fleshy grass looked practically nauseating to Jade, who immediately headed towards the entrance so they could camp for the night.
The doors swung open after the three adventurers pushed on it together, leading to a sparse interior with just a hanging chandelier in the center. The only other feature in the room were the stairs heading down into the depths of the dungeon, the party members giving them a wide berth after shutting the doors back up. Jade was a bit concerned about air quality until he felt a cool breeze coming up from the stairs. “Let’s get the campfire set up,” he mumbled, the siblings agreeing with little fuss as they both looked a little tired from trekking through the forest.
After setting up the campfire, Jade looked over his inventory to see about making beds for both him and Amy. Yes, it would take up some space when they put them away, but they could easily fit in Amy’s extra chestling space. His, he made out of the glowing mushrooms he had, placing it down to see that the bed sheets were a speckled dark and light blue, thankfully not glowing too much, though he’d have to see how much it glowed when they figured out how to shut off the light. He next looked to see what other options he had for a bed, roping Amy into the conversation to see what she’d be most comfortable with. Surprisingly, the flesh they’d been collecting could be made into a bed as well, though Amy was understandably wary of a flesh-made bed. Once it was made, however, they found that the solid bits of the frame just had a metallic pink color, the fabric the same material as the other beds. Of course, having a bed that matched her skin tone excited Amy, leading to the bed being easily taken by her for the night. They also soon located a hidden switch for the hanging light, sending the room into dimness with the fire the only thing providing enough light. The bed, thankfully, only glowed enough to see its outline, instead of being overly bright. Deciding to plan what their next steps were tomorrow, the three bedded down for the night, Jade easily falling asleep to the sound of the crackling fire.
#
Once all three were awake the next morning, they started back up the campfire with Jade’s stored wood and worked on breakfast, Yondol and Amy looking a bit more optimistic about the day.
“So first, we need to go back to one of the flesh altars,” Jade started, causing Amy to look up from the kettle she’d put over the fire and Yondol to pull out one of his notebooks to write on. “Just standing around it should allow me to craft the boss summoning item, allowing us to fight the madness worm.”
“You… sure it’s going to not be hard?” Amy asked quietly, Yondol too distracted by writing to ask questions himself.
“It’s honestly easier than the eye. Sure, it can surprise you by popping out of the ground, but we have the monster sight potions for that.” He pulled three such potions out of his inventory to show the siblings, the orange liquid sloshing around in the potion jars. “It’ll allow us to see it underground and more easily dodge its attacks. It also can’t go very high into the air, so as long as we time our landings properly, it shouldn’t even be able to reach us.”
“That… does sound much easier than the eye of madness,” Yondol commented. As Amy handed him a mug of coffee, he gave her a thankful smile, sipping at it while looking over his notes. “So there’s the eye, Weredeer, worm, and the brain eater. Any other bosses you remember from the game?”
Jade gave a grimace at that, thinking over the progression of Errant. “There’s the Royal Wasp from the jungle. You don’t get much from it though, so I’d recommend we not handle it until after we get items from the grand dungeon. Other than the Demon Wall, which only existed in hell, I can’t think of anything else.” Jade gave a sigh at that. “Of course, after the wall was defeated, it would unlock the latter half of the game, making everything harder and introducing new bosses, but we’d want to stay away from that even if we could get to hell.” Amy and Yondol frowned and nodded at that, Jade assuming that none of them wanted a repeat of the deaths caused by the evil biomes.
After wrapping up breakfast, the team opened the doors back up to head out. Thankfully there was a flesh altar right inside the tree line that they could access. Of course, they had to fight off more of the flying brains as well, but that had become an easy one minute fight at that point. Once at the altar, Jade opened his inventory, smiling as he noticed the [Flesh Worm] item show up. He had enough materials to craft three of the summoning items, Jade only crafting one for the moment.
“Good. Now all we have to do is fight it. We have to stay in the scarlet forest while we do. Not sure how it would react if we went into the daemon desert, but in the game, it would despawn.” Running back to the clearing around the grand dungeon, where they had more room, the three looked at each other, Jade with a giddy smile. Their pets quickly scampered off to the safety of the dungeon entrance as Jade started counting down. “Ready? Three… Two… One!”
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At one he pulled out the worm item, willing it to activate as he held it above his head. A massive roar soon emanated from below ground as it disappeared in another flash of light, each party member swigging the monster sense potions quickly. Once chugged, they could clearly see a red outline of what looked to be the worm boss rapidly approaching them from underground. With a snap of their summoned wings, they each lifted into the air, flying above the tree line as the monster burst out of the ground. Jade had been scared that the boss monster was going to be incredibly fast, as the monster in the game would be quicker if they were above ground. Not wanting to fight the monster in a cramped cave, however, led them to decide to fight the monster despite the risks. The monster looked like the classic pink colored worm, though it had screeching mouths all along its length. Some of the mouths shot out breams of crimson light, the three party members quickly dodging as they got into their groove of attacking. The worm kept jumping in and out of the ground at a rapid pace, making holes they had to avoid as it did so.
As more and more damage was done to the monster, bits of it would fly off, congealing into small balls that Jade and Amy would have to take care of before there were too many to handle. Yondol, therefore, was doing most of the damage to the worm, his sword flashing through the air at a rapid pace. It took them nearly a half hour to get through the monstrous amount of health the boss had, only getting hit by a side attack once or twice, though the attacks didn’t hurt too much with the armor they had on. Once each of the balls popped in a flash of light, they dropped a loot marble, though the team ignored them as they focused more on fighting.
The madness worm soon let out one final shriek, the party members letting out a whoop as it disappeared. Just like before, they once again received one sack each, the party regrouping at the dungeon entrance with their pets. “Okay. Let’s see how our luck panned out this time,” Jade muttered, opening the sack in his inventory and looking over the items. He blinked when he realized he never looked over the other item drops from the Weredeer, ignoring them for the moment and looking at the worm loot. “No pet items here. Amy?” She shook her head, leading Jade to let out a sigh.
“Do we have enough to summon it again?” Yondol asked, Jade giving a quick thumbs up in response.
#
It took two more tries to finally get the pet item to drop, Jade grinning at the [Cuddly Brain] item in his inventory. Pulling it out, it looked similar to the other token that had summoned the chestling, Jade carefully handing the item to the nervous looking elf. “There you go, man. Try it out.” With a nod, Yondol focused on the item, it disappearing with a flash. He then jerked back, presumably at the screen that popped up in his face. His pet also appeared at his feet, the brain looking around the same as the brains they’d been attacked by, but with tentacles coming out the bottom, similar to Jade’s grinning eye.
“Only two of the bags got used up,” Yondol commented, pulling out his notebook and writing down the information. “I don’t see anything about crafting, though.” They had to wait a bit for Amy to finish gathering up all of the loot marbles and come back to the dungeon entrance before moving on. Once she was back, the three tried out various things to see how different the magic was to Jade’s.
“So no crafting. We need to see if either of you can loot chests…” Jade mumbled, Yondol quickly writing down the experiments they had to test. His pet also climbed up onto his shoulder, Jade shuddering even as Yondol barely reacted. “So other than having no crafting, as long as you both can loot chests, it’s almost the same kind of magic as me.”
“What about building?” Yondol asked, causing Jade to blink in surprise.
“Here,” Jade said, offering a trade to give Amy some of the stone bricks he’d made. “See if you can place it on top of the grass.” He pointed at the pink grass bordering the blue dungeon stone, Amy giving a nod and peering intently at the grass.
“Nothing,” she sighed, trading the bricks back. “I got the feeling from my magic that it’s simply not possible.” Jade sighed at that, looking at his inventory and all of the stone and mud he had to place.
“Wait. What about planting the seeds?” he asked, both siblings cocking their heads at that. “Let me try putting a slab of stone and mud down real quick…” He imagined a simple, one meter square section to place down the stone to separate it from the grass, feeling a good bit of energy leaving him as he did so. “Okay… takes a lot of energy. It’s probably going to take a while…” Placing the mud on top nearly depleted the mage, Jade huffing as he supported his arms on his knees. He then offered some of the mushroom moss seeds to the siblings, directing them to plant only on opposite sides of the square. It was a resounding success, both spots of moss appearing and looking to be about one centimeter in width.
“It looks so weird above ground,” Amy commented, pocking gently at the mass of moss. “So how far do we have to build this?” she asked, getting a grimace from Jade.
“At least to the tree line. We may have to chop the trees down, though it shouldn’t be too hard.” Using the quick and dirty method of crafting, Jade soon summoned a flesh axe in his hands using some of the boss’ loot drops and grunting at the weight of the weapon. “Flesh ore is the strongest material besides Abyssalite, so it should be enough to chop down some trees.” The party carefully moved back to the tree line of the scarlet forest, Jade taking a few experimental swings with the axe. This time, there was no magical assistance with swinging the axe, most likely because Jade knew it was not going to be used in any type of combat. With Amy and Yondol looking out for incoming monsters, Jade took a swing at the wood of the nearest tree, finding the flesh axe smoothly moving through the wood like hard butter. With only a few swings, the tree came toppling down, the three party members quickly getting out of the way as it fell to the grass.
Motioning for one of the siblings to try looting it, Yondol quickly tapped at the fallen tree, it bursting in a flash of light similar to what happened with the boss. Even the stump disappeared, leaving smooth, unblemished ground in its place. “Now that’s cool,” Amy muttered, giving Jade a wide smile. “I’ll work on chopping down the trees and Yondol can protect me during it. You can handle the job of expanding that.” She motioned towards the slab of mud that poked out of the ground, the glowing mushroom moss already having spread a little across the corners. “We’ll call if we need any help.” Giving the axe to Amy with a nod, Jade quickly rushed over to the slab he’d made, grinning like a madman as he felt his energy reserves slowly refilling.
* * *