After their less than optimal attempt at removing the roots and vines from the side of the building, Hera and Blue went back inside to see the problem from a different angle. They stood in front of a large cluster of vines atop the right staircase. The vegetation here was much denser than the one they saw outside. When they came back to the ballroom, Hera noticed that the growth inside went much farther away than what was around the building. This probably meant that more flowers were affected by the same thing that triggered the flowers outside.

They were working to thin out the number of vines that blocked the balcony, trying to, at least, clear out the worst part of the hedge. It was a good thing that Hera was walking around with two handaxes since Blue only had a small dagger to cut things when needed. In a situation like this, Hera lent one of her weapons so the controller could make more progress. They started thinking about how they should cut everything out, but they changed to cut only the edges by the wall after a while. That way, they could take off large chunks of grass at once. Still, it took a long time just to get to the first door in that area. Hera looked at the timer she had set to confirm how long it took to clean 5 meters of vines. The result was over 30 minutes. If they kept up that pace, it would still take two to three hours to clear just the balcony.

As they opened the path to a secondary hallway, the amount of vines inside was much smaller. Instead of the hedge that was on the way,here, it was only on the walls and ceiling. Of course, the floor was also a tangled mess, but at least they could walk inside without much trouble. Blue walked in first, followed by Hera, who created a pair of dancing lights to illuminate the path. Unlike how it was in Boothudurn, the dwarves in here used candlelight and not the glowing stone, meaning that the corridor was completely dark. There wasn't a way to know if that was just to be ostentatious or if the glowing stones weren't available in here, since it looked like a completely different room.

When the green light globules flew in the corridor, some vines radiated a similarly colored glow. The closer the dancing light got to the vegetation, the stronger that effect would be. Among the roots, Hera noticed a small flower that bloomed because of the light. When it opened completely, tiny yellow dots came out of it.

Hera quickly grabbed Blue's shoulder and pulled her back, "We need to get out of here now!"

"What? Why?" Blue asked just as more pollen filled the room.

"Cover your nose and mouth!" Hera ordered as the two ran outside.

It was a good thing that this all happened before they got in too deep into the hallway. Meaning it only took them a few moments to get back to the balcony.

"Can you please tell me what is going on?" Blue asked after being shoved outside the corridor.

"Those flowers. I think they might be some sort of defense mechanism. If we breathe in the pollen, we might end up getting poisoned or something," Hera explained.

"What flowers?"

"Those white ones that were blooming, there were a few around that place."

"I didn't see a thing," Blue put her head inside the corridor once more and looked around. A lonely flower had bloomed right above the open door and was now spreading its pollen around the area.

As Blue looked around, she suddenly fell face first on the vines. It wasn't like she had tripped, but her body simply stopped moving.

"Blue!" Hera gasped and pulled her over. Trying to get her away from the plants.

"What… is… happe... ning," Blue struggled to speak. She couldn't even move her mouth properly, but at least it didn't seem like she was having any trouble breathing.

Hera pushed Blue away from the corridor and created a stone wall in front of it, blocking any air from that direction. The last thing she needed was to be affected by whatever the pollen was while taking care of her friend. Luckily, those flowers seemed to be only inside the corridor. Outside, the roots were different, and there wasn't a single flower bud in sight. She turned back to Blue and used her [Observe].

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Pamella Blunt - Blue - Controller - Level 16 - Paralyzed

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"Shit, you're paralyzed, Blue. I have a few things I can do, but I can't be sure if it will work. Just try to stay calm and trust me," Hera did her best to seem confident, but it was the first time she had tried anything like this.

Risli had taught her about some types of plants that could paralyze someone and a few ways to take care of that. However, since it was extremely rare for something like that to happen inside Boothudurn, Hera had purely theoretical knowledge of it all. She didn't even manage to get spells, since there was no way to actually try to help someone recover from a situation like this.

What she had was a minor way to increase Blue's natural regeneration and a spell that helped the body to get rid of toxins faster. The problem was, the spell couldn't target a specific thing, meaning that it would try to push away all types of toxins.

Hera used both spells to no avail. Blue was still paralyzed, and now she couldn't even move her mouth. Only her eyes still showed some movement. Hera also noticed that the controller's breathing was getting weaker. But it didn't look like she was simply calming down. Instead, whatever made her paralyzed seemed to start to affect her organs.

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"Do we have a healer around?" Hera yelled to the dwarves that were still moving around, but there was no response.

She turned back to Blue, thinking about what she could do to help her. Hera looked to the side and opened her [Medical Reference], and a window appeared by her side. It was like looking at a website dedicated to medicine. She quickly looked through everything she had about paralysis. What could trigger it and how to treat it, but there was nothing that could help her at the moment. Then, as she was about to close the window, her finger touched the wrong part, and a new page appeared. It talked about poison and how it would affect the body, but what caught her eye was a small footnote.

'The dose makes the poison.'

That line was a principle of toxicology saying that everything is poison. What makes something deadly or not is the dosage. It basically meant that anything could be good as long that it wasn't excessive. Bananas could be an example of that. They contain trace amounts of radiation, and in theory, if someone were to eat 10 million bananas at once, they would die of radiation poisoning. More to the situation at hand, it also made Hera remember that poisons could be used as medicine.

"This might hurt, and I'm really sorry," Hera said as she pressed her hand against Blue's chest and cast a poison needle. She didn't focus on the strength. Instead, she made her toxin be able to move quickly through the body and spread itself as fast as possible. Then, when she felt that most of Blue's body was filled with poison, Hera used the Poison Control spell to make the poison target any foreign substance in the controller's body.

"F… F… F… Fuuu… uuuuuu… ck!" Blue finally started speaking again. She slowly moved her arms, which were still burning with the war going on inside her, "Are you done?" she asked while gritting her teeth.

"You are still paralyzed, or the observe still says you are. Hold on for a while longer," Hera replied while focusing on her magic. Even though she changed how the poison behaved, she still tried to hold it back, not to hurt her friend.

A couple of minutes passed, and Blue kept groaning the entire time while Hera used whatever remained of her concentration to heal her up. Finally, with a loud yell, Blue got rid of the paralysis, and Hera dismissed the poison.

"This hurts like hell!" the controller gasped still on the ground.

"I know," Hera replied while she kept healing her friend.

"How do you know that?"

"When I was training with Risli, she would watch over me while I poisoned myself and tried to take it away," Hera explained.

"That's… kind of brutal."

"Well, not everyone has a legacy to help out," Hera smiled.

"Wasn't that supposed to be something that we don't talk about?" Blue squinted at Hera.

"You said it yourself. There is no one here."

Blue clicked her tongue and tried to get up, but she lost some strength in her legs. Hera was able to catch her before she tumbled down from the balcony.

"Easy there. There is no need to rush," Hera said.

"But the dungeon quest…"

"Your well-being is more important. Even if we lose an extra level, it's not the end of the world," Hera replied while forcing Blue to sit back down.

It was obvious that they wouldn't be able to take care of the roots inside the building, but they didn't have to. The objective was to clear out the ceremony's venue, meaning that as long as Hera and Blue made the ballroom look great, they could consider that task over. Hera created a secondary wall that cut most of the vines and blocked the other two doors to ensure there wouldn't be any other surprises.

"Please tell that there was a reason why you didn't do that before," Blue asked as she saw the wall cutting off most of the roots and vines that were on the balcony.

"There was. I didn't think about this before."

"If I wasn't feeling like jelly, I would yeet you from up here."

"I'm lucky then," Hera walked over and helped Blue up, "Let's see if setting up the tables is just organizing things, or it's something else."

"Why that one? Let's deliver the dress. That one should be easy," Blue protested.

"You can barely move. If the dining thing is about making a seating chart, you can do that while resting, and I'll make the delivery. There is no need for both of us to go there."

"Yeah… I just realized, but big parties really have an advantage in this dungeon, don't they?" Blue asked while they started going down the stairs.

"You're right. Coming with a big group would be much better to do everything. We should do that when we come back."

"Aren't we going to the hard mode after this?" they arrived at the ground floor, and Blue seemed well enough to walk on her own now.

"Yeah, but we need to find out how to trigger that. I don't think we will be able to find that on our first try," Hera replied before stopping one of the dwarves that were carrying boxes around and asking about the dining room. The man replied that he was heading there and the supplies they were carrying were all for the dining room.

Hera and Blue followed them to another corridor on the same side of the building where the kitchen was and reached a massive dining room, but it was completely empty, aside from the large pile of boxes in the corner. Some of them were already opened, revealing silverware, tablecloths, and some decorations. As they walked around, a dwarf with a journal in her hand approached the two.

"Hello. Are you, perchance, Lord Vetek's assistants?"

"Yeah, that's us," Blue replied.

"Thank goodness you showed up. We are in quite a problematic situation. It seems we do not have enough tables for everyone, and we still have to decide the disposition of the seats in the room," the dwarf guided them to the other side of the pile of boxes where she had a large drawing of the dining room.

Blue took one look at the makeshift blueprint and smiled, "I got this. Do you want to deliver the dress while I take care of this one?"

"Are you sure?" Hera asked.

"Trust me. I may never have been to a wedding, but I was the one in charge of setting up the classroom for whatever weird cultural festival we had during school. If I can cram 10 projects in a 5 square meter room and still give some space for you to walk around, I can do this," Blue gave a big thumbs up. It was the first time in a while that Hera had seen her so confident in something.

"Ok, try not to do anything crazy while I'm gone. And if anything happens, use the comms," Hera turned to the dwarf, "Can you tell me where the princess's dress is? I need to deliver it to her."

"Oh, good. Someone brought it here by mistake, and I didn't know what to do," the dwarf picked up a long white box and passed it to Hera, then she pulled a small scroll, "Take this too. It's the delivery order. That way, you can get into the palace."

"Thanks," Hera picked the items and turned to Blue, "Are you sure you'll be ok?"

"I'll be fine, don't worry about it."

Hera nodded and left the dining room. The faster she delivered the dress, the faster she could come back to prepare everything. She wanted to unlock this dungeon for the rest of the dwarves. The more time she spent here, the more she realized how much this would all mean for them.