The first room in the straight branch had another split, with exits to the front and to the left. A Wack-a-mole was going to town on a bed of some plant or another, but as soon as Will entered the room, it popped into a hole and vanished.

Which, Will knew, meant that it would pop back up behind him to attack with its mallet. Like he’d done with the first Wack-a-mole, Will waited for the monster to start its attack and hit it with a Thunder Burst.

Or, at least, trued to hit it with Thunder Burst. The attack came from behind Will, which meant he couldn’t see what was happening, but he could definitely feel the mallet hitting him. So, something must have prevented the Thunder Burst’s knockback effect from working.

Naturally, by the time Will turned around the Mole was back underground and preparing for another pop-up attack.

This time, Will cast Thunder Burst while turning around, and therefore managed to see a shield skill snap into place around the Wack-a-mole and block his attack, leaving the mole free to bash Will. This time, on the wombat’s helmeted head.

Which was far more painful than getting hit on his padded behind, and had the added “benefit” of making Will’s ears ring like the inside of a bell.

And then, as if to add insult to injury, Will’s armor started to heat up, quickly becoming hot enough to burn.

The new attack, however, was enough to clue Will in to the source of his not-hitting-the-mole problem.

Jumping away from another Wack-a-mole attack, Will looked around himself, trying to locate the Vole-V that he knew had to be in the room, and which was probably the source of the shield skill. Movement in one of the plant beds alerted the wombat to a possible location for the elusive rodent, and he wasted no time before charging at it.

The Vole, apparently, couldn’t shield itself the way it shielded the Mole, and Will smacked into it and knocked it down, dealing a decent amount of damage in the process.

He couldn’t focus on the Vole, however, since the Mole was still periodically popping up behind him to play wack a wombat. But since the support rodent was too distracted to shield its ally, Will managed to hit both of his enemies with a single Thunder Burst.

Stun procced on the Wack-a-mole, which gave Will enough time to finish off the Vole-V. And with one of the enemies down, the other followed soon after.

So, we’ve gotten to the two monsters in a room part of the dungeon? Makes me really glad I didn’t start out in this direction.

A short while later, rested and having Harvested both monsters, Will moved on, taking the left branch.

What followed were five more rooms, each with a different combination of two enemies. Which had Will fighting every possible combination, other than two identical enemies.

None of the fights were all that challenging, though every fight that involved a Vole-V was significantly more annoying than any of the others.

The support rodents could shield their allies, use their heat ray skill, and even heal, if Will gave them the chance.

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But even then, all Will had to do was target the Vole-V first.

The rooms themselves were just more of the same things Will had already seen in the dungeon. Two of them had Fulmigating Foxgloves for Will to Harvest. And all five had the exit on the left wall. Which should have meant that three of them should have overlapped three others. But the dungeon didn’t seem to feel obligated to obey such plebian disciplines like geometry and physics. Will just tried very hard not to think about it.

The fifth room was another dead end, and Will once again had to retrace his steps and return to the main branch, and once again take the exit opposite to his original entrance.

If this follows a pattern, which I’m guessing it does, then the next room will have more than two enemies. Not much I can do to prepare, I think.

The next room wasn’t much different than any others in the dungeon. It only had one exit, on the opposite hedge fence from the side Will entered from. It had the usual raised plant beds.

And it had one Wack-a-mole and one Guac-a-mole, each in a different plant bed, and both munching energetically on presumable precious herbs.

Will was ready for the battle, and had a Thunder Bolt skill ready. One bolt flew at each Mole, and while a shield skill flashed into existence around the Guac-a-mole and blocked the skill, the Wack-a-mole was left unprotected.

Both moles dove into the ground and vanished, and Will knew that staying in place would invite an attack from both, and probably from the hiding Vole-V too.

So, he moved, looking around for the rodent.

What he found, however, was a completely different rodent. A Vole-T was hiding in one of the plant beds, and as soon as Will spotted it, it fired its taser at the wombat.

One thing that Will had discovered in his previous fights was that the Vole-T’s attack had a chance to stun, just like his own Shock- and Thunder- skills.

And, because this was the absolutely perfect time for it, a fight against what appeared to be all four of the dungeon’s enemy types was precisely when the stun effect procced on Will.

The stunned wombat immediately became the target for every single one of the dungeon denizens. A mallet smashed into his back side. A flying avocado pit into the right. Heat rays lanced into his left side, heating his armor up to painful levels. And, of course, another shock came at him from the taser electrodes stuck to his helmet.

A second later, Will shook off the stun. Both of the Moles were underground, but the Moles were Will’s lowest priority enemies anyway. Taking out the Voles was far more urgent, and as soon a Will could move, he charged at the Vole-T in front of him.

The Vole-V tried to shield its ally, but whatever skill it was using was far more effective against magical attacks than it was against physical ones, and Will’s charge broke it, letting the wombat strike at the Vole.

As soon as the shield was broken, Will blasted a Thunder Burst around himself. The Vole-V couldn’t get a new shield in place on time, and the skill hit both the Vole-T and the Wack-a-mole which had been trying to attack Will from behind again.

Mole and Vole were sent flying, and Will took advantage of the new distance to charge at the Vole-T again. Which had the added advantage of taking him out of the trajectory of a flying avocado pit.

Even with another shield skill in place, the second charge was enough to finish off the Vole-T, which left Will free to look for the second Vole.

It was, of course, on the other side of the room, which gave it enough time to cast another heat ray skill on Will before the wombat could charge it, adding some more damage to Will’s accumulation of least and lesser injuries, but that was the last thing it ever did, as the charging wombat used another Thunder Burst immediately after charging it, and followed it by a second charge.

With both Voles down, the Moles followed soon after, with Will avoiding any further damage.

The wombat, having been bashed, pelted, shocked, and burned in the fight flopped down to rest.

None of the damage he took was above lesser, which meant that given enough time to regenerate his mana, he’d be able to heal everything. But there were enough wounds all over his body that it would take several hours to get there. And there were, of course, the four dead monsters to Harvest.

If I haven’t lost count, this fight brings me to ten moles and ten voles. And it was a one of each enemy room. Which means that the next one will be the boss room. What was it again? An A-hole? Or maybe not, I guess. Can’t assume I know the rules of this place yet, and there’s really no way to know that it won’t surprise me. But either way, I’ll want to wait until I’m in top condition before going in there.