Chapter 10
A TASTE OF VICTORY
For the first time in three and a half months, Igmail was excited to wake up. His carrots were ready! Eager, Igmail practically sprinted into his garden room and very carefully pulled a few out of the dirt. Washing them in his wide mouthed watering can, Igmail peeled them, de-leafed them, and threw them in his pot of perpetual stew. The tough monster meat he had started it with was just about as tender as possible after a week of stewing, and the carrots immediately started to soak up the rich broth in the pot.
He also added in several of the more mature spices he had started to grow, though it was a rather eclectic mix. Letting the whole pot simmer for another hour or so, and getting very little work done in the meantime, Igmail poured out a generous portion of the stew into a specially prepared soup bowl with spork. He made sure not to get all the carrots, that would ruin the idea of a perpetual stew, but a healthy heaping ended up in his bowl.
Ignoring the steam wafting from the hot soup Igmail immediately tucked in, nearly frantic in his giddy desire to finally eat good food once more. Thankfully, Igmail had the self control to sit at the stone table he had placed in the middle of the main room before he commence the devouring, because he did not have had the strength to stand after tasting the soup
It wasn’t that great. Sure, the snake bits were tender and the carrots were tasty, the spices having done their job, but what hit Igmail the hardest was the emotional impact. After just that first bite he had to set his spoon down, sit up straight in his chair, and lean his head all the way back. Tears welled up in his eyes as images of home ran across the back of his eye lids.
The taste of mom’s beast tips and rice, with an extra serving of potatoes. The childhood memory of his dad coming home just in time for dinner, looking ruffled from his haste. Shelby, his pet tortoise, knocking over her aquarium and giving Igmail his first scar. Learning to garden from mom, learning the science of plants from dad, the day he ate food he had grown himself for the first time.
Watching as his parents grew more romantic in their old age. Watching as they teared up when Igmail got drafted. Their hugs when he came back from his first patrol and saw them for the first time in three months and a week.
Igmail liked to claim that he could handle isolation, and he could, to an extent. But his life just didn’t feel right without playing cards with his parents every Wednesday, or without their incessant exhortations to go on a date, even as annoying as the latter was.
Finally, after spending more time away from them than he ever had before, Igmail admitted to himself that he missed his parents. ‘Mom, dad. I love you. I can’t wait to see you again, but I still have stuff to do here, for the safety of the whole city. Or so they tell me,’ Igmail thought in slightly bitter longing. He sighed a long sigh and sat back up in his chair to continue eating. He added a dash of salt, transmuted from a random pebble in preparation for his meal.
After he finished, Igmail washed out his bowl in the main room sink, the excess water and food scraps traveling through a pipe Igmail had routed to the abyss potty. He got back to work on the bunker, but did so with a noticeably different attitude than before. He worked harder then before, his dedication at an all time high. But this wasn’t the labor escapism of before, the desperate distraction, no, Igmail worked out of resolve and determination to make this trip worth it. He affirmed to himself his motivation: making it back to the people he loved, and let it pull him forwards.
The work that had once taken him hours began to take him less than one, the densities and qualities that had escaped him came easily to his rock solid will. He moved with purpose and power, embracing the loneliness yet refusing to let it affect his outlook negatively. He didn’t discard his emotion as worthless, but rather chose to let them fuel his efforts in a positive manner instead letting them hinder him. He strived to make his emotional turmoil worth it, instead of lamenting that it wasn’t.
Where before the thought of home brought hesitation and distraction, sucking away his focus and effectiveness, now it only drove him harder and honed his focus.
It was in this manner that Igmail breached the barrier to tier four, a barrier the vast majority of people in Flourish never even reached, much less surpass. Not with an epic fight, not by conquering the dungeon and saving the city, but with a bowl of soup and memories of home. Igmail was content with that.
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Champion was not having a great time on the twenty fifth floor. After the annoyance of the slime floor the progression of the forward party had sped back up, though Artisan had been destroyed and remade in the process. His replacement was called Craft, and he focused more on javelins than rocks and bombs. He had a calico coloration because Master had used Artisan’s left over projectiles to patch the gaps in his body.
The twenty fourth floor had been full of rock elementals, so Craft didn’t get a chance to show the usefulness of his piercing projectiles, however, the twenty fifth floor played to his strengths a lot more. Breaking the pattern of a boss every five floors, the twenty fifth floor was revealed to be a goblin warren. A well equipped, very evasive goblin warren.
From the time the party of five had entered the floor they had been ambushed, kited, and chipped at. The goblins weren’t capable of doing too much direct damage but their savage intellect made them more dangerous than any group of monsters before them. Thrice had Dash saved Interceptor from falling into a trap, and twice had he failed to save Scholar from a trap. Scholar got so annoyed with the tricky goblins on their first attempt to complete the floor that he elected to switch places with Puggy.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The intelligent nature of the goblins would have conflicted with the Master’s command to never harm sapients, except for the fact that they were dungeon born. Their eyes were completely red, a dead give away that they were nothing by puppets controlled by the dungeon. Their intellect was simply a byproduct of the dungeon having more direct control over them than its other creatures.
Whatever the reason, however, the party was getting their butts kicked. Even as he ruminated Champion was hit with several flint tipped arrows, slicing thin cuts in his skin but doing little else. They weren’t even dangerous, stone didn’t bleed out, but they were very annoying.
Champion tried to charge the pests that harmed him, but they scattered into several tunnels too small for him to reach. Craft managed to pin one with an excellent javelin throw and Dash got another, but both Champion and Interceptor were useless. Puggy had a little more luck than the others, but his weapon of choice: his fists, somewhat neutralized his above average mobility through their lack of reach.
It only took them a couple hours to reach the final room of the floor, the expected boss room, but by then they were scratched up, banged up, beat up, and demoralized. Puggy was angry, Champion was frustrated, but everybody else was somewhat unenthusiastic about the coming fight. That went doubly so given the fact that there were at least eighty goblins, the short, green menaces, arranged on balconies attached to the walls of the room.
In the middle of the room was a tall, green menace, a hobgoblin, so thoroughly equipped with full plate armor that his long green nose was his only visible feature. He had a long sword in his hands but no sheath at his waist. The fight started with arrows. Lots and lots of arrows. There were at least four arrows in the air at any given time, most of them being mere annoyances, though there was the rare metal arrow mixed in that could actually hurt the golems.
The arrows meant Interceptor was tied up doing damage control, performing leap after leap to intercept the most dangerous of the arrows. Craft was taking out the archers, impaling the spread out goblins one by one. He had already taken out three with the bundle of javelins slung across his back by the time Puggy reached the hobgoblin.
Puggy came in with a straight punch right at the beast’s protruding nose, made dumb by his anger, but came to regret it when the hobgoblin revealed his speed by ducking under the punch and kicking Puggy’s legs out from under him at the same time. Dash came in from a less obvious angle, but seeing that the hobgoblin was just as fast as he, the golem contented himself with a probing kick, keeping the monster from pursuing his advantage over the prone pugilist.
Champion arrived at about that time, delayed by the arrow sticking from his foot, with a slash at the monster's neck with his spear. The hobgoblin deflected it with his sword, but that delay allowed Puggy to jump back to his feet. Champion started applying pressure with his spear, a whirling dervish of blade and stone as he kept his spear continuously moving. Dash held back a bit, only attacking when Champion’s strikes providing him with a safe opportunity, keeping the deluxe version green menace on the back foot by punishing any weakness in its form.
Puggy held back altogether, recognizing that he was of limited worth in frontally assaulting this particular monster. Instead he watched for openings, such as when Champion used his range advantage to go for the monster's left thigh, making it take a step back into an unstable stance. Dash came in with a kick to its torso, his weight further putting the ridiculous monster off balance before Puggy came in with a tackle to the legs.
Puggy’s move took the hobgoblin to the ground, and the golem was delighted to finally be back in his comfort zone. He near immediately had the hobgoblin in a full nelson with its back bent in a ninety degree angle, thoroughly pinned by the heavy golem’s skills. Champion took the opportunity to take a stab at getting through its armor in truth, managing to disable one of its unprotected knee pits. Dash kicked the beast in the face, prompting a fountain of purplish blood to spray his foot from what remained of the hobgoblins nose.
The lanky green humanoid managed to escape its hold rather quickly by overpowering Puggy, but not before its other leg was also injured. It was by no means an easy fight from then on, but it got easier. Puggy had to take it to the ground three more times before it stayed there, but in the end, Champion tossed it through the transport hoop like all the rest of the goblins. It actually took longer to get all the archers than it did to kill the boss.
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‘ARGHGHHGHGHG!’ Samurthabec screamed into the void of consciousness that surrounded her. ‘I thought I had them! I was sure! My poor babies, murdered by stone cold killers. How am I gonna decorate now? Nothing else I got in the top half even has thumbs! There must be a way to prevent the spread of these pests.’ Sam started to think and scheme, reviewing all the options she had at her disposal, until an idea finally came to her.
‘Matriarch!’ she wailed. ‘Ples help! Thwese meanies are kwiling my gobbins, and I don’t know what to doooo!’ Her voice reached across the tunnels, past Flourish and into the jungle to the east, eventually reaching the progenitor and her prince.
‘No,’ came the indifferent response. ‘Deal with your own problems, I’m dealing with mine,’ intoned the cold voice.
‘But,’ said Sam, dropping the baby voice, ‘they could become your problem too! They’ve taken over twenty five entire floors of my dungeon! I only got fifty! What will they do with they finish, huh? I bet they come after you and that pet of yours.’
Even miles and miles apart Sam was cowed by the glare that the progenitor released upon her. ‘I will not listen to this disrespect, Samurthabec. I am busy with greater things and will not subject myself to your pathetic helplessness any longer! I officially revoke your membership in the Dungeon Owners Association,’ the progenitor said with finality.
And just like that, Samurthabec lost her mental connection to all the dungeons around her, the metaphysical connections simply fading away, as well as her right to receive reinforcements from her neighbors. The tunnels that connected her to them remained, however, at least until a bypass could be dug.