Whoever it was who’d built the stairway, he certainly didn’t have wombats in mind. Will’s legs were shorter than the height of the stairs, which made going down the stairs a risky and complicated venture. First, he had to stand parallel to the stair. Then he carefully turned so that his rear end dangled off the edge of the stair, with his legs in the air. Next, he crawled backwards until his rear legs hit the next stair down. And last, he turned around again, just as carefully as the first time, until his front legs dropped of the stair and he was once again parallel to the stairs, one step down.

And then he had to repeat the whole process for the next stair down. And the next. sixteen times to reach the bottom of the stairway.

You’d better have something good down here, Kili. Otherwise, I’ll be reporting you for accessibility violations.

The bottom of the stairway led to a small room, about three meters by three meters. The walls were made of roughly cut stone, the ceiling wooden, and the floor was simple hard packed earth. open wooden crates lay next to the walls. There was a single wooden door across the room, leading deeper into the cellar.

The room was cool, insulated as it was by being underground, and had a pleasant damp earth smell to it.

Well. It’s definitely a cellar.

Will spent a few minutes checking out the crates, but found them all to be empty. As far as he could tell, there was nothing at all interesting in the room.

I guess I’ll go check out the next room then.

It didn’t occur to Will that he would have trouble opening the door until he’d reached it and discovered that he could, while standing on his hind legs and leaning on the door, just barely reach the latch.

And that his paws were really not suitable to operating it.

He tried to jump up and catch it with either his paws or his mouth, but his best “standing” jump only got him one or two extra centimeters.

In the end, it took taking a running leap, slamming into the door, and hugging the latch with both front legs before he’d managed to drag it down and get the door to open.

Releasing the latch, a slightly dazed Will dropped down to the floor and looked into the second room.

It was nearly the same as the first room. Three by three. Wooden ceiling, stone walls, packed earth floor. Wooden crates next to the walls. A wooden door on the furthest wall.

The main difference was the leafy plant growing from the middle of the floor. Will wasn’t an expert in plant life, so all he could tell was that the plant had multiple stalks spreading out from a central point, each one carrying a single large leaf.

Will walked into the room, heading towards one of the crates, when two things happened simultaneously.

First, the door to the entrance room slammed shut behind him with a lout banging sound. By the time Will spun around to look at it, the way back was already closed.

And while Will was looking back at the closed door, the plant in the middle of the room started to spin slowly. A susurrus sound alerted Will to the moving plant, and he turned to look at it. The plant seemed to be unscrewing itself from the ground, revealing a large root.

The root was spherical, with the top half being purple and the bottom a yellowish white. A long conical root extended from the bottom, and Will could see that its edge looked a lot sharper than any vegetable had a right to be.

Is that a turnip? Will had just enough time to wonder, before the plant was fully out of the ground. As soon as it was completely free, it started to spin faster and faster, until the stalks were a single green blur.

Then it took to the air, floating high above Will.

Wut?

Will would have stayed staring at the helicoptering root vegetable for a lot longer, if said root vegetable hadn’t dive bombed him, sharpened root first.

Snapped out of his shock at the last minute, Will managed to move enough that the sharp root hit his heavily padded behind instead of the head it was aiming at. The tip opened a shallow wound, but was prevented from penetrating deeper by the layer of cartilage under Will’s skin.

Will whirled around, but the flying vegetable rose out of his reach before he could counter.

At the risk of repeating myself, Will thought, keeping an eye for another dive bomb, wut?

The flying vegetable circled around Will, high enough that Will had no way of getting to it. Will, in turn, kept turning around, trying to keep the perilous plant in sight.

This led to a sort of stalemate, with Will unable to get at his enemy, and said enemy unwilling to attack Will. They kept at it for a few minutes, but eventually Will stumbled over the hole in the ground his enemy used to be planted in.

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As soon as Will wasn’t staring right at it, the flying vegetable attacked, dive bombing the distracted marsupial. Fortunately for Will, he managed to recover quickly enough to dodge, once again taking a shallow wound on his wom-butt.

And once again, by the time he turned around to strike, his enemy was too high to reach.

This is getting annoying. Looks like it will only attack if I’m looking away. I think I’ll need to lure it down if I want to strike back. But how do I stop it from flying away before I can attack?

As an experiment, Will turned his eyes away from the monster for a second, and then immediately jumped away. The vegetable seemed to be entirely predictable, and streaked down to attack. This time, however, it missed Will completely, and Will managed to swipe his claws and shred one of its leaves.

When it got back up in the air, there was a slight wobble in the plant’s flying.

Hmm. If I can get some more leaves, it might be stuck on the ground.

Will repeated the ruse of looking away, and the monster fell for it again, letting Will shred another of its leaves. This time, the wobble was really noticeable.

Not very smart, are you? Let’s go again then.

Two repetitions later, the strange plant couldn’t take off any more. It was still spinning around, but it could only hover close to the ground.

Unable to raise its only weapon high enough to attack, the vegetable was practically helpless, and Will could strike at it freely. Barely a moment later, the plant was lying on the ground, nearly julienned by Will’s claws.

Rutstabaga slain!

Gained 10 XP

Nope. No way. Nopesky. Noper von Noperberg. I can deal with the flying murder turnip. But that name? that’s at least slight psychic damage.

Intending to abandon the cellar and get back to the Board, Will turned to the door. Which had closed behind him when he walked in. And which opened into the room he was now in. And which he couldn’t open properly.

And which, he found out after too many attempts at jumping at the latch, he couldn’t open at all from this direction.

Damn it. And it said I can’t leave the dungeon except from the entrance or exit. I sure as hell am going to try though.

Before doing his business, Will approached the dead root vegetable, and activated his Hunter-Gatherer skill. The upgraded version said it could work on plant based monsters, and as annoyed at the thing’s name as Will was, he wasn’t going to waste the resources.

Rutstabaga corpse harvested!

Gained 1 rutstabaga root (average)

Huh. That one gave me a higher quality drop. Maybe it’s because the skill has a higher rarity now?

Will spent a few more minutes looking around the room, finding nothing more than empty crates, and then moved into the next room.

Which looked completely identical to the previous one, except for the lack of a rutstabaga planted in the middle.

Will walked in cautiously, letting the door slam closed behind him.

No point in worrying about it. I can’t go back anyway.

The first crate he checked was empty. So was the second.

But as he was standing on his hind legs and looking into it, Will felt a sharp pain in his behind. Dropping back to the ground and spinning around, he saw standing in front of him a potato.

The size of a watermelon.

Standing on two sturdy looking roots.

And holding a short, slightly curved knife in another.

Will stood staring at the new piece of weirdness just long enough for said weirdness to attack him again. He had just barely enough time to turn around and take the hit on his shoulder instead of his face.

Will yelped in pain, and struck back at the potato. The blow bowled the potato over and caused it to roll away from Will, until it hit one of the crates.

Taking advantage of the newly opened distance between them, Will charged at the potato, trampled over it, and then continued savaging it until it stopped trying to move.

Potanto slain!

Gained 5 XP

You have got to be kidding me, Will grumbled. Who named these things?

New achievement “Punching Bag”

Drop below 50% health.

Seriously, mate. Have you ever thought about not getting hurt?

Reward:

Least Cure Skill Shard

A quick check showed Will that he was down to forty-five health.

Yeah, that’s definitely not good. I hope the skill shard helps.

Skill shard: Least Cure

Tier: Basic

Type: healer

Cost: 20 mana

Decrease the severity of one wound by one category. Alternatively, heal two health.

Can only be used once per 24 hours on a given wound.

Can only be used once per 24 hours for a general heal.

Cannot be used on Minor or more severe wounds

Don’t cancel your health insurance yet.

That’s… that’s a really bad skill, isn’t it? It barely heals, and really expensive. Still, I could really use some healing right now, since I can’t get out of this cellar. And it's not like I have any other use for mana.

After absorbing the skill and using it as many times as he could, Will was up to sixty-six health.

I’ve got one more least wound I can heal today, and the generic heal, for a total of four more health. Assuming my mana regenerates fast enough for it to be relevant. I’ll see how much mana I have after looting this… potanto.

potanto corpse harvested!

Gained 1 potanto tuber (average)

Will had ten mana by the time he was done, and decided to wait the extra half hour and heal as much as possible before moving to the next part of the cellar.