The main chamber of the slaver fungus was roughly the size of a football stadium. Walking into it felt like walking into the thunder dome. If the thunder dome was covered floor-to-ceiling in purple spores and people-sized mushroom caps, that is. Thick, almost vein-like lines of white fungus the size of sewer pipes ran across the entire cavern. They met in its center, where what could only be the ‘brain’ of the creature lay in waiting.

Sean had been prepared for some kind of all-devouring giant mushroom, perhaps one with a face. Maybe even one that was self-aware and came prepared with some long, dramatic dialogue about how it would crack him open or enslave him, too. But the fungal core at the heart of this place resembled nothing more than a tower-sized purple cauliflower with white clouds poking out along its sides. It had no face, no real features at all. It just looked…

… well, like an enormous mushroom.

Yeah. A mushroom. Nothing phallic at all, there. Nope.

Looking around the room, Sean noticed there were large depressions all across the cavern’s spore carpeting. Like something had compressed the surface so many times that parts of the mushroom’s neural network had just been permanently flattened. Something much, much bigger than him.

Alright… now where are you? Sean wondered. Paging final boss. Paging final boss to operating room, the patient’s here to defeat you.

Sean paused at the entrance to the stadium-sized cavern, waiting for more clues as to what the room would contain. The air was still apart from a slight haze of falling spores, and even Gel was silent. They both knew there had to be something else in here. There was no way the boss of this whole place was undefended. If it were, they could just walk up to the thing and eat i–

As he had that very thought, an enormous ant that looked like it had been raised by King Kongo rose up from behind the fungal-cauliflower core and began slowly pacing around. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of mushrooms covering roughly half of its armored back and sprouting halfway up its legs to where a human’s knee might be. Enormous, purple spore-covered mandibles gnashed at the air and clacked together with such force that Sean felt it from across the cavern. It reared back as if fighting an invisible opponent, and the slime warrior heard it screech in obvious pain before it collapsed back down into the ground.

“It’s the queen!” Gel shouted, though Sean had figured out that much himself. The slime’s arm whipped out in excitement, pointing at several spots along the queen’s carapace. “Look! She’s not completely covered yet! See how she’s still struggling? How there’s nothing sprouting out of her eyes like the others? The fungus probably hasn’t taken her over fully. Sean. Sean! That means we can still save her!”

“We’d have to get her to calm down enough for you to purge the infection. Something tells me she’s not going to want to do that.” Sean pointed out, before pointing to a few locations of his own. Specifically, at several pulsating parts of the fungal pipeline network crossing throughout the room. “Now, if I were a betting skeleton I’d say that probably–”

The purplish pipes Sean was pointing at bunched up, as if they were being squeezed, then a hole appeared at the top of the now-bulbous formation. The sound of hissing steam filled the room as great gouts of white spores were shot into the air as if from fire hydrants. An instant later, a white cloud descended, turning to a vague purplish color even as they watched.

“-- do something like that.” Sean finished. “Man, that is… wow. That was gross. Is that an attack? It looked like it was– nevermind. Are those spores going to be a problem for us?”

“They haven’t been so far.” Gel said, flicking his whip into the air and catching a swathe of spores like he was fishing for cotton candy. “Mmmm… delicious. It tastes like I’m eating fog, but with a heavier consistency… almost like there are seeds in it. Lots of tiny seeds.”

“Seeds?” That sounded ominous to Sean. He was pretty sure mushrooms didn’t have actual seeds, but then the only ones he knew about were earth mushrooms. Who’s to say this one didn’t make seeds?

“Make sure you don’t let any of that stay on us for long.” Sean told his gelatinous friend, before giving the room one final once-over. “Now if we’re going to rescue that queen, how are we going to get through here?”

“You don’t want to just run through it?”

If it weren’t for the purple spores covering every inch of the massive cavern’s surface, Sean might have tried that, actually. But something about the way this fungus had set up its home turf had his instincts screaming at him not to just wander in. For all he knew, that’s how the ants had gotten into this mess in the first place.

They dug too greedily, and too deep. Sean thought with sordid amusement, before getting his head back in the game and peering up at the walls.

There were no lights down here, but his burning undead orbs didn’t need them. It took the slime warrior a moment to spot them, but just as he had seen before in the tunnels, there were roots running all throughout this cavern as well. They even reached all the way up to the ceiling, where Sean was now pretty sure some of the spore carpeting was hiding tree-sized roots instead of just rocks and earth.

“Alright.” Sean said, his game plan forming in his mind. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to clear a path for us on the wall with slime whip so the spores can’t detect us. I’ll climb along it and we’ll work our way up towards the ceiling and see if we can get to the center of the cavern. Once we’re within swingin’ range, you latch onto one of those big roots up there and we’ll jump over. If we time it right, we'll land right inside that mushroom tower and then you can eat it from the inside out. Whatever defenses it has, I doubt there are any in there.”

"I love it." Gel said. "Now what about the queen?"

"She's our first stop after the fungus core goes down. We'll sneak back to the wall, climb up it again, and jump on her, too."

“Perfect. Great ideas always work twice." Gel said, and Sean couldn't tell if the slime was being sarcastic or not. "Now, what’s the plan if she attacks us after we jump on her? None of those other ants we jumped on were too happy about it.”

“They weren't, but that might not even matter. Look at all that armor she has on her back. Those ridges are way thicker than what the soldiers had." Sean pointed out. "Plus, I’ll bet if we can land on one of those mushrooms she's got growing out of her, then she won’t even notice us hitching a ride. Then we just can clean her up from there.”

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Sean was warming up to the plan now, getting more confident in their odds of success the more he spoke. “After that, the rest should be easy.”

“'The rest' being...?” Gel’s arm whipped out along the cavern floor, rolling over the spores and consuming them until he had essentially vacuumed up a small path.

“Having you dissolve her infection from the outside in. By shoving your whip in, just like you did with Bernard and that other ant.” Sean asserted, even as he strode forward. “Try not to kill her of course, but if she’s survived this long then I’m sure she’ll survive that, too. Even if it takes longer.”

“It will." Gel confirmed. "I want to set her and her hive free, which means I would prefer not to kill her."

"Yeah." Sean agreed, and he really meant it. That option would be preferable, especially if it put the rest of the hive in their debt. They could use all the allies they could get right now. "I'm all for that if we can manage it."

"One question though."

"Yeah?"

"How do you plan on keeping her from attacking us while I burn her insides?” Gel asked, with real curiosity in the slime’s tone. “Can you speak ant and let her know what we're doing? No, of course you can’t. That’s silly. Forget I asked.”

“Don’t worry about that part. I’ve got it covered.” Sean said confidently, waiting for Gel to clear the next section to the wall before he moved forward. Leaning down, he picked up a few rocks and stuck them in their pack. “If my plan works, then either way it goes, we'll be fine."

After a second's extra deliberation, Sean amended. "Should be fine, anyway."

“Works for me!” Gel said brightly, completely ignoring any possibility of failure. Then, in the same satisfied tone the slime always used during mealtime, Gel exclaimed in delight. “Mmm… Mmmm! I know this is the fungus's doing, but this queen's carpet is phenomenal. I could munch on it all day. Do you think that she'll mind if we eat all of this before we go? After we're done rescuing her, I mean.”

Sean wasn’t sure if the slime had made a euphemism on purpose, or if that had been completely unintentional. Either way, he decided to just leave the remark alone and answer honestly.

“This is an infection of their hive, Gel. You can eat as much as you want. I doubt anything we care about is going to complain.”

“Well if it does, it won’t for long!” Gel said, pointing his slime whip at the cavern’s tower-sized cauliflower core and shaking it vigorously. “You hear that?! You're next, you vile vegetable!”

—------------------------

Climbing a sheer dirt wall with only one working arm was hard. Sean hadn't been wrong in his earlier estimation of the cavern's size -- this chamber was massive. Getting them in position took nearly the full two hours Sean had invested into the duration of spider climb. If it weren't for Gel slowly regaining their mana by ingesting large swathes of spore-carpet, Sean might have been forced to head back at the halfway point.

As it was, they both made it to the top with full mana. Sean twisted his head around to gauge the distance and make sure they were as close as he could get them. Then he addressed his friend.

"Alright Gel, you're up. Can you check if that root next to us is sturdy enough to swing from?"

"Sure." The slime agreed, whipping his arm out and latching onto it with ease. "Want me to just pull on it?"

"Yep. Hard as you can. If it falls out... well, then at least we know not to use that one."

Gel wrapped the end of his whip around the root and gave it a sharp tug, pulling with all his might. Predictably, the tree-sized root didn't so much as budge. Sean hadn't expected it to, Gel wasn't exactly built for strength, so he balanced both of his feet flat against the ceiling and grabbed his broken arm. Then the slime warrior gave the whip a mighty tug of his own.

It wasn't until Sean was finally satisfied that the root wouldn't move on them mid-swing that he finally realized just how high up they were. Back on earth, Sean had always had a respectful appreciation for heights. He had gone rock climbing a few times, but never free climbing. He respected those who did, but the lack of safety gear had put him off it.

Now here he was, who knew how many stories up, about to dive onto an enemy at what was surely going to be terminal velocity by the time he made impact. Sean didn't know when it had shown up, but he couldn't keep the grin off his face. His plan was crazy, sure.

But it was also awesome.

Just need to test one last thing. Sean thought, reaching back and flipping open the pouch that held the rocks he had picked up earlier. He grabbed the handful, and tossed one down.

It plummeted through the air, falling fast enough that Sean lost sight of it.

"Did you see where that landed?"

"No, but if you were looking to hit that massive fungus-tower as your target, then I'm pretty sure you missed."

Sean nodded in agreement, and then tossed another one out. He aimed further out this time, giving it a bit of force. This time, the slime warrior got the response he had been hoping for.

You have struck Slave-Shroom Network Core for 0 damage.

Dismissing the prompt, Sean threw his last few rocks in slightly different arcs all in the same general direction. It was a simple test, really. The core was huge, so they had a good chance of hitting it. But given how far that fall was, Sean wanted to be absolutely certain on when to let go. If they missed it entirely, there was a good chance the spore carpet Gel had been eating wouldn't be enough to break their fall.

Especially not with the plan he had in mind.

"Alright. I think I've got it. We'll swing forward, and then you release on my mark." Sean said, reaching back into another pouch on their pack and grabbing the showstopper for his plan.

Then he carefully took the pack off and hung it from one of the nearby roots. For posterity, he wrapped another root around the loops as well. When Sean saw his beloved frying pan hanging out, he was caught by a moment of indecision. But only for a moment. Sean grabbed the pan and stuck it in his chest cavity. He felt better with it with him. Not going to lose this thing, no matter what happens.

"Ready?"

"Ready!" Gel affirmed, and Sean let go of the wall.

They fell forward, and as they picked up speed Sean briefly wondered if Gel's whip-arm would be strong enough to hold them for another pass if they missed the first time. Luckily, he didn't have to find out.

"Drop!" Sean called as they came up on the sweet spot of their swing.

The slime's timing couldn't have been more perfect. The pair plummeted towards the 'network core' as it was called, and Sean brough his knees up to his chest. Gel retracted the remainder of his whip arm, which whipped up and behind them in the onrush of air. The slime warrior ducked his chin, drank his potion of Rock Skin, and then wrapped his arm around his feet.

Gravity and their own momentum soon took hold, spinning the pair round and round in the air until the whole world became a blur. As the potion took effect and they shot towards their target, Sean felt a strange sense of absolute freedom. The kind one only gets when they finally step over into the abyss.

Raising his mental voice in gleeful triumph, Sean bellowed a single word out into the void.

"CANNONBAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!"