Somewhat startled, but eliciting a curious response to the question, the priestess moves closer to me with the monk at her side. The laughing monk grabs the wizard and pulls her off of me with some effort, as the fire-caster is struggling and kicking in her attempt to get back to me. Laughing too, but just weakly as if just very tired, the priestess raises a single hand. A pool of rainbow water, of white-magic forms in her single cupped palm. Leaning forward, she blows on it and sends a small wave of it my way. Instinctively, again, I step back but then stop myself remembering that I’m not an undead today. I must have some real trauma about this stuff by now in my lizard-brain though. I’m flinching a lot today now that I think about it.

  The puff of white magic floats around my head, as if it were spring pollen. I feel a warm, wholesome sensation. Somewhat weaker than usual, but still a noticeable contrast from my usual state of emotion. As the strange magic envelops my head, I feel the sting on my skin lessen. I feel a strange crunching noise vibrate through my bones, as my body restores itself. As the horn is reconstructed through the tinge of the rainbow magic. A second later, I’m good as new.

  Honestly though, I would have been fine. It was basically just a scratch. I wonder why we had to come here to do this? I look back to the thief who is still humming and stroking my neck. I guess she’s becoming a little overprotective of me now, which is ironic considering the whole… uh… well, you know, everything that has happened between us so far. But sure. I guess her being a little paranoid and overbearing is better than the usual stabbing and gutting. The elf meets my gaze and then looks away, her face turning red. Uh, okay? I look back to the priestess and nod to her as well, it’s my only form of communication in this horrible body. Making a show of things, I shoot a puff of sparkling rainbow light out of my newly rebuilt horn, together with the last of my masculine pride. That is assuming I ever had any to begin with.

  The wizard squeaks in delight, as she tries to catch the magical sparkles midair, running around in circles for a moment as the glitter falls down below like fresh snowfall. But the ground is becoming strange and we all see it as she runs. How it seems to wobble and sink beneath us all, as if all of it were gelatinous now. As if all of the dirt and mud and stone had peeled away to reveal a rotting bladder full of cystic froth and maggots. As our weight presses down on the ground that is becoming softer and softer, liquid begins to seep out from around us.

  Out from the many mangled bodies of the dozens of dead flowers, connected to the meat like so many tubes and growths. With each pressing down of new weight on the surface, more ooze seeps out of the pustules and gaping holes that their eviscerated corpses sit over, bubbling and spluttering like infected zits. The roots of the dead plants digging into the meat of the floor below like parasitic, fungal infections on a body.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Yeah, I know it’s gross. But it is what it is, okay?

All the while the music continues, the playing of the miller continues growing louder and louder now, as more holes open up. As more sores and wounds rip the flesh beneath us apart. It’s starting.

  I look up to the thief, surely she knows there isn’t much time left? But she just seems to be as calm as ever, she’s not even sparing any mind to the wizard-girl who has caught one of my unicorn sparkles and is marveling over the small glimmer of magical energies. Instead, she’s just sitting on my back, humming and stroking me. Answering any curious questions from the hero-party with short, quick one or two word answers.

  The hero looks to the monk and they both shrug at the same time, but then seemingly decide that this is strange, but fine, as they keep walking forward down the way. The wizard takes a moment, stopping to pet me again under the poison gaze of the elf, before running off after the other two, sparkle in hand like a melting snowflake. The thief pats me on the side and then points down the way, down…

Down the way we just came from?

  I look at her curiously. Surely we didn’t come down all this way just for the priestess to heal my boo-boo? I’m literally going to be dead within hours. Hours if I’m lucky that is, so… we didn’t. Did we? I look to the elf who nods again with a smile, saying something as she keeps pointing. I sigh a unicorn sigh and turn around to go back down the way again, following the hero-party which certainly feels odd for me as I look at their collective backsides. Not like that, guy. Especially not with you-know-who watching my every twitch and movement. Can you imagine what she would do if I ‘ogled the goods’ on any one of them? Not that she, or they, are my type to begin with. The dark-lord is the only one who has space in my heart. Though these days, I feel like my love is a little one-sided. Ah, life can be so cruel.

  You might be wondering, guy, why didn’t the hero-party urk you right away? Well, that’s easy. I’m a unicorn. Unicorns are very much uh, one of the ‘good guys’, if I were to paint with a broad, adventurer-perspective oriented brush. Obviously they don’t know about my day-job here, as far as they’re concerned I’m just a friendly, cool magical creature the thief found on the way. It’s not uncommon for adventurers to bond with creatures. Remember when I was a drake? It’s like that.

  Obviously adventurers can bond with any kind of creature, if it’s white-magic flavored or fire or even shadow-magic. It’s all fair game. Creature bonding is more dependent on the two connecting personalities, rather than any specific arch-types or classifications. Theoretically, if the priestess became best friends with a demon. Well… human society might be a little weirded out by it, but it’s fair game down here and they might have a great time together. Such things are more blasé in the dungeon than they are on the surface though. I like to think that we’re a meritocracy down here. Doesn’t matter who or what you are, pull your weight and do your part and that’s good enough for us. Everything else that you do during your life is your own business. Human’s don’t roll like that though, as far as I’ve understood it.

  Anyways, it’s still easier to connect to someone or something if you’re similar. It’s natural that the fire-specialized wizard, for example, would be drawn to a fire-creature like the drake. But you can’t take that as a rule of thumb, it’s more of a generalization. She could fall for me if I was an ice-drake too, for example. Not that I can allow anything like that to happen. I wouldn’t want any more… I glance behind myself out of the corner of my eye.

I wouldn’t want any more ‘incidents’ to happen.

Something shakes deep beneath us.