Well, I guess survival wasn’t so bad. But I was definitely over this fucking place.
Through my haze of pain, penalizing status effects and general sour mood the muffled sounds of shouting and scuffling played out behind me.
[You are no longer Dazed.]
The notification came with some clarity of where I was, but my head still felt a spin of vertigo. I was lying on my stomach buried in bits of broken-down furniture and trash. Below me was a stinking pile of torn up fabric that smelled of mildew and piss. I resolutely shoved all considerations of what my face was lying in out of my mind. I wasn’t pinned down but cocooned by the pile of junk that used to be the hut.
I tried to push myself up, but my good arm refused to function properly and looking at it gave me a bit of a shock. It wasn’t supposed to be bent that way. Blood was seeping out of my coat’s sleeves, those fresh and partially healed wounds having been torn open. Thank Mave for the pain-killer, else I’d be screaming like a child who didn’t get a cell phone for Christmas.
As I lay, the fracas behind me continued, punctuated by a steady rhythm of meaty strikes. I took a look at my party overlay.
[Ryan Wolfe – Heavily Injured]
[Alan Halloway - Injured]
[Viktor – Critically Injured]
[Pest – Slightly Injured]
[Mave Pollaris - Healthy]
[x_x_DarkEdge_x_x - Healthy]
[Carmilla – Healthy]
Definitely some wounds going around, but nobody had fallen yet.
The distorted language of Carmilla uttering a Word preempted a piercing hiss that split the air. Dark’s cursing followed the momentary silence just afterwards. I held a small hope that she had just withered his dick away, but as I checked the party overlay again, he was still healthy. Drats.
My daydreams of Dark’s dismemberment were brought to an end as my cocoon of solitude was disturbed. The section on my right side crushed into me as a weight plunged into the pile of hut atop me. No longer a protective cocoon, I was pinned under the junk. As the pile settled again, I spied Halloway’s form through the gaps in the pile.
“Howdy,” I said politely, “welcome to my new home, sorry about the mess.”
“Defiantly could use some housekeeping,” he responded with a bit of a groan.
Another Word’s twisted syllables were spoken, this utterance was longer, multiple words if not just a mouthful of syllables. A hissing crackle followed it, sounding like a blowtorch burning water and suddenly I was sweltering. Reds and oranges with sparks of purple tinted the light of the room.
“Photon Sp—!” Mave’s tired shout was cut short with the sound of a blow landing.
“Oh. Fuck.” I muttered.
“Huh?” Halloway grunted.
[Congratulations. You have cleared a dungeon.]
I was briefly distracted by the notification and my thoughts jammed up for a moment before the think meat started chugging along again.
“That’s sweet, but we are laying in a giant pile of kindling.” I said, trying to loosen the pile pinning me down. The ambient heat of Mave’s finisher move was already causing the bits of fabric amongst the pile to smolder.
“Fuck.” Halloway said and fought his way to his feet.
I weakly struggled against the pile. One arm nonfunctional and the hand on the opposite side being not much better with its blood-soaked bandage and missing bits. I kicked out violently, legs still working as they should just as the pile spontaneously combusted. Halloway was free and tearing at the pile violently to help free me.
I was getting decidedly roasted by the time Halloway managed to grab hold of one of my flailing feet and pulled me out of the pile of junk. I didn’t take any damage from the gathering heat, but damned if I wasn’t cooking.
Halloway helped me get to my feet and I was able to take in the room. Carmilla and Dark struggled to free Ryan from the corpse of the anaconda. It looked like the wither Word had only worked on a portion of the snake, but it was damaged enough for Ryan to rip it in half at the weakened point.
Pest was struggling to pull his sword-knife from the snake’s skull.
Mave was laying on the floor, a few feet away from the corpse of the boss ratkin. Her pointblank discharge of the photon splash orb had cut through the ratkin, its torso completely missing. Mave must have received a parting gift from the monster to cause her to be crumpled up on the floor.
The death orb lazily passed through the air perilously close to Halloway and I. It seemed our repeated fate to have that ball of destruction skim past us close enough to give us a sunburn and singed hair. We shuffled away from the remains of the hut as the orb crossed over it. A jagged line of the purple lightning that danced along with the orb struck the nesting that surrounded the hut. That small spark lit the trash heap off in a brilliant flash of light and flames like a sawdust bomb.
The enclosed space of the room roiled with flames that lashed back at us, and if not for Halloway’s swift action with his shield, I’d have been a very briefly lived fire elemental. I’d take the singed eyebrows and irregular haircut of the flame that crawled over the top of the shield as a win this time, even the sharp acrid sent of burnt hair was welcome.
What a fucking fiasco this dungeon had become. The others were further away and looked to have weathered the flash well. If anything, Dark was looking to have made out like a bandit. Like so many romantic comedies of yesteryear, Carmilla had been knocked on top of him and was straddling the emo kid. I couldn’t tell whether her pink face was scorch marks or embarrassment.
I was just happy Mave was out of it enough to not have seen it. I didn’t bother to check on Ryan. He could just drink on of his horded healing potions if he wasn’t good.
I went onto my knees next to Mave, giving her a once over, but she didn’t look outwardly injured. Her indicator on the party screen had her listed as injured, so she wasn’t critical or bleeding out. Just flat out exhausted. I’d put money on her having a exhausted status effect of some sort.
“Mave, you okay?” I asked.
“Yea, just thirty more minutes.” She mumbled out like a kid trying to steal some more sleep before school time. I chuckled.
I would have offered her a snake oil pick-me-up, but with my current arm and hand situation I couldn’t really fish one out. And judging from the liquid saturating the side of my jacket, I had to assume that the clay vials may not have survived the festivities.
I suppose in an emergency situation I could wring out the jacket to get some of the liquid out of it, but it didn’t seem that dire. Pest joined me a moment later, his sword-knife and little double daggers back in place on his belt. Fuck! I had forgotten to check on him after the nesting exploded. I was a horrible… …pet owner? …bondmate? …friend at the bare minimum. Just horrible. Thankfully he looked okay. No singed fur or tail on fire or anything.
I looked to where the flaming orb ended its flight against a wall its liquid fire splashed across it and dancing on the floor like a molotov cocktail mixed with napalm. It was right next to the door that should lead to the little room that housed the dungeons final chest and partially blocked it. My Treasure Hunter skill telling me that the prize was delectably close.
Gazing at the flames led me to notice that we weren’t choking to death on smoke. The burning hut remains were billowing with black acrid smoke, but it seemed to just float right into the ceiling. I saw no obvious chimneys or vents, so feature or bug I wasn’t sure. Defiantly handy for our QOL though. I’d not report that unless I needed to. Another thing to add to the bank, but not something to immediately give Loki.
“Halloway, do you mind keeping an eye on her?” I asked him as my attention came back to Mave. “I’m gonna go to that last room and have a bit of a lie down. I think you all will manage looting the chest without me.”
I got to my feet.
“Yea, I got her.” He confirmed and took a seat next to her on the floor.
“Reach in my pocket and grab the flask?” I asked him.
“No,” he said.
“Come on, don’t be like that sailor, reach in there and get your prize.” I offered lasciviously.
“Hard no.”
“Dude, grab my flask and give her some sips, its got my tonic in it.” I said seriously. He made a face but reached for my pocket and felt around for the flask, I couldn’t resist a little jibe once he had ahold of it.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Oh, hello there!” I announced loudly. “It must be the other pocket.”
“You…” He trailed off and pulled the flask out. A classic joke, but a good one.
“Pest, let’s get out of this fire pit.” I said and he hesitated for a moment at Mave’s side. I sent some feelings of urgency through our bond. He was looking a bit stubborn, a deep frown on his face, before nodding at me and we left the boss room.
I would happily leave the party to their fun of watching Ryan break free of the snake’s coils and looting the dungeon chest once the conflagration of the hut and photon splash died out. After getting to the next room I went straight to the broken down bookcase that had so interested Pest earlier.
“Quickly buddy, let’s find what is here before anyone else follows us.” I said to him, and he needed no further encouragement, the tickle of treasure grabbing hold of him. He dove into the pile with the exuberance of his species chasing prey down a burrow tunnel.
Shreds of decomposing books flew from the splintered shelves of the collapsed bookshelf as he dug straight through. The bookshelf had fallen inward like the center had given out from its own weight. I felt it was slightly wrong in its decomposer. The wood was dry and should have been strong even as old as it appeared. No moisture or mold had eaten away at it. No insects chewed or tunneled through it. I wasn’t sure what dry-rot was, but I don’t think this was it. I tapped a corner of the shelf with my elbow and a chunk broke loose to fall to the ground. It struck the hard stone and poofed outward weightlessly like a pile of dry ash. The books that it had previously held were even worse, turning to dust at the slightest disturbance. It made my heart hurt. I love books.
I wondered if this was what would happen if Carmilla used wither on a piece of furniture. We were lucky we didn’t try to use fire anywhere else. We would have blown ourselves up. Looking back towards the boss room I realized we had gotten lucky. If the photon ball hadn’t blazed so hot, incinerating the dust faster than it could expand, we may have detonated this entire place in a devastating explosion.
The whole damn dungeon was a trap. A party that didn’t use magical light and used torches would not have lasted for a single room much less the fight with the flying snakes. Fire magic less powerful than Mave’s, that didn’t instantly incinerate what it touched leaving no errant floating sparks, would have lit this place up.
A face full of book dust being thrown into my face brought me back to the loot search.
“Thanks buddy,” I told the studiously digging Pest as I tried to rub my face clear with my shoulder. I’d say I’d used my good arm. But I didn’t have any of those right now. Ache was starting to creep through into my body, the pain-killer word wearing out.
Pest was struggling to come out of the little burrow he dug himself, reefing and pulling at a square box that was getting buried by the swiftly crumbling pile. I tried to help him with a wide swipe with my bandaged hand, but it just made the whole pile shift like quicksand and it swallowed him and the box deeper.
At this point, I was very done. I started kicking the whole damn mess like I was destroying a pile of raked leaves. Dust and splinters went flying everywhere, and I was damn near dead on my feet by the time a very irritated and disheveled Pest was freed. Now at floor level he tugged the box from the somewhat dispersed pile. I flopped down next to him on the well aeriated collection of book dust and splinters. It didn’t feel any worse than rough camping under pine trees.
“What we got?” I asked as he sat in front of me and twisted the box towards us.
It was made of a dark wood and held small gold inlays bordering its edges. It was about a handbreadth tall. A good hand, not my current hand with its missing bits. The same in depth and an arm’s length wide. A small lock kept it closed. It was a plain-looking lock, like those that kept a little girl’s secret diary safe. I frowned at it and looked at the pile I was lounging against.
“Feel like hunting for the needle in this haystack?” I asked him.
“What?” he asked.
“The needle in the haysta…” I nodded at the pile and then trailed off.
“What?”
“Nevermind,” I said, “just stick one of you claws in that hole and swirl it around until something moves.”
Pest looked at his finger, then back at me.
“Won’t fit,” he said.
“Well, use the tip of your little dagger than.”
“Okay,” he said hesitantly and looked at me suspiciously. Slowly he drew one of his daggers and put the tip into the lock. He looked at me again, his eyes narrowing.
“What? Don’t look at me like that, you got to spin in around,” I encouraged, “like stirring a pot of stew.”
It took him a moment, but he finally got the motion right and a small click came from the box. Pest’s eyes grew wide.
“Lockpicking skill?” I asked with a sly grin.
“Yes chairman! How did you know?” He asked me quickly.
“It’s a troupe.”
“I like troupes. More troupes please!” He said.
“Sure, we can try some more later, for now, open it up and see what we got.”
He nodded vigorously and slowly lifted the lid to the little box. It had a classic red velvet lining and ten indents for small vials. Six still held vials.
I immediately inspected the familiar looking ones.
Name: Vial
Material: Glass
Durability: Undamaged
Value: Prized
FLAGS: TEMPERED
Contents: Healing Potion
Contents Flags: MAGICAL_HEALING - MINOR
Paydirt. Some of the vials were different and held the ANTIDOTE – MINOR flag.
This was pure money. I had struck it rich. Would I ever be defeated with these prizes? I heard the scuff of footfalls in the hallway behind us and quickly sat up to block view of the box.
“Pest, this is top value trade good. In your bag immediately, the whole box.” I excitedly whispered to him.
He scrambled to his feet and jumped to his all-consuming rucksack.
“Wait, take out one of the red vials, and keep it handy for me.” I quickly altered the plan, and he plucked one out before snapping the lid closed and laboriously feeding the box into his rucksack. I helped him with a rough shove from my bandaged hand to stuff the box into the bag.
“What do you have?” Ryan demanded from over my shoulder.
“Seeing if Pest has anything to help me recover from my wounds before the pain killer wears off completely.” I said in the most matter-of-fact manner I could summon.
“What is that?” He snapped, seeing the tiny vial grasped in Pest’s hand.
“He snagged a potion from somewhere! It was in his bag!” I said with a little over-the-top exuberance. “I won’t have to worry about my hand being maimed or my arm fusing funny after the reset!”
“Where the fuck did you get that?” Ryan demanded with a growl at Pest and quickly checked his bandoleer for all of his potion stock. I didn’t begrudge him the check. Pest has sticky fingers, and I was honestly surprised he hadn’t picked the jerk clean yet.
“Trade.” Pest snapped out quickly and glared at the huge barbarian, his free hand falling to the handle of his sword-knife. The little baddass wasn’t going to take any shit from the bad business barbarian.
“What did you get?” I diverted. “From the loot chest?”
“None of your god damn business.” The barbarian said with a surly look and shifted the chest on his shoulder before announcing, “I expect any further trades to go to the guilds treasury and not selfishly horded. I was going to give you one of these potions, but since you got it covered. Let’s move."
The gall of this mother fucker. Not only did he call us selfish, but I’m one-hundred percent certain he just lied to my face about giving me a potion.
I stared at his back as he left, his lacky Dark and Carmilla close on his heels. Mave passed through soon after, leaning heavily on Halloway, granting me a tired smile. They passed through slowly without any conversations as they followed the leader.
“Buddy,” I said after a moment of pause. “Can you help me drink that?”
“Yes.” Pest said and struggled with the vials stopper. As he tugged on it with strenuous fervor I was thinking about the prizes within his bag. A pop and distressed squeak brought my thoughts back and I found him staring at the ground. Potion vial empty and a splash of potion on the floor.
“I apologize Chairman.” He said with great solemnity.
“You gotta twist those out little buddy.” I said sadly.
“I apologize. Hands are complicated.” He said with a frown as he stared at his offending appendages.
“I know Pest,” I said as I waved my bandaged hand, “I know.”
“Want another?” He asked and tugged his rucksack open.
“No. Waste not, want not.” I muttered before licking the floor of the dungeon.
[Achievement Unlocked – Dungeon Defiler]
[You have done unspeakable acts to an innocent dungeon. You vile monster.]
[Dungeon Defiler - Benefit] You make dungeons uncomfortable. They are more likely to send groups of minions at you prematurely.
I hate this fucking place.
[***]
I love this fucking place. I was skipping by the time Pest and I reached the exit of the dungeon. I felt great, I had the means to become fabulously wealthy in Pest’s rucksack. I had friends and a best furry buddy who was so cute I wanted to crush the life out of his little body. I swept him up and gave his wiggling form a squishing hug, rubbing my check into his furry head.
“Hey!” I announced and suddenly stopped. “What happened to your hat?!”
“Bad trade,” he muttered, hanging in my grip like a shopping bag full of mayonnaise.
“Oh,” I said and hugged him again. “It’s okay! We will get you another!”
With that proclamation I deposited him back on his feet and grinned. I put my hands on my hips and struck a pose for my onlooking party members. They were resting at camp and blandly watched my antics.
“You must feel better.” Halloway muttered at me.
“I feel like aces!” I announced.
“You can take watch then.” Ryan grumbled at me and rolled over into his bedroll.
“Oh.” I said, drawing out the word. I looked to the sky, in my joyous mood, I hadn’t even noticed that it was night. And was a wondrous night it was! Stars brilliantly twinkling and bathing us in their beautiful light.
“You are high as shit, aren’t you?” Halloway asked me, preparing his own sleeping roll.
“High on life!” I loudly announced, this time raising my arms to the sky to take in the nice cool air and wondrousness of the great outdoors.
“Shut up you bipolar fuck!” Dark grumpily yelled at me from a bedroll that was curiously close to Carmilla’s. This fucker was flaunting it at this point. How cruel. I’d have to do something about that.
I frowned for the first time since dancing out of the dungeon. I spotted Mave as far away from Dark as she could be, but still within the general vicinity of the firepit in the center of our little camping spot. She was out cold in her bed.
“Does anyone have a bowl? I’d like to boil some water.” I asked the group. Halloway grunted and dug a small cooking pot from his gear.
“Here, now shut up so we can get some sleep while you come down from your trip.” He said.
“Thank you gracious sir,” I gave him a grandiose bow as I took the pot from him. “I shall grant you your silence so you may rest. And worry not. I will keep the night badgers away.”
“Fuck you.” He said grumpily and dug into his sleeping roll.
“Fuck you too my friend! Fuck you too.” I said cheerfully. I sat at our campfire, someone had lit it, and I stared into the flames, looking for the fire’s secrets.
I wasn’t nearly as happy as I acted. I was actually pretty irritated. I felt great after the potion and took way too long in delighting at flexing my restored hand. As it grew back it was itchy, insufferably itchy, like a thousand fire ants were chewing at it. I was grateful that I had Mave’s Word still lingering when it was regrowing, else I had the theory that it would have been painful to an extreme. Nerves growing back had to suck.
I fished my waterskin out of my pack and filled the small pot with water before setting it close to the fire. I watched as Pest made his way over to Mave and dug himself into her covers. She was so exhausted that she didn’t so much as twitch at his invasion. I smiled. He was good. She was good. Halloway too. Even Carmilla wasn’t bad. But Dark and Ryan were horrible. I felt like this was something that I had already pondered on way too much, so tried not to dwell on it. You can only level corpse desecration on an equine so much.
As soon as the water was warm enough to show a waft of steam, I took the pot of water and crept over to where Dark lay.
I set the water down next to him and slowly pulled back the edge of his covers. With excruciating care, I eased out his hand and gently lowered it into the water. I didn’t know if this summer camp prank worked, but I was going to find out.