Just as Calista unlocked the latch, the kobold in the privy appeared at the other end of the barracks room and so they rushed through the doorway. The light disappeared as she shut the door and set the lock.
“Are you listening?” She asked the mage.
“For what?”
“For something that wants to kill us.”
“Who wants to kill us?”
“I don’t know, that’s what I’m listening for.”
“But what about the sandwich and the turnover?”
Calista rolled her eyes, “Nevermind.”
She pulled out her penlight and as its soft glow filled the air they could see they were in a storage room. Calista slowly turned the light to reveal shelves filled with sacks of flower, barrels of ale, and crates of unnamed contents lined the floor while loaves of bread, wheels of cheese, dried meat, onions, radishes, nuts, and dried berries.
“This place is particularly well provisioned for an underground dungeon,” Lefty said.
“If this place is full of food, why did the kobold go all the way to the kitchen?” Calista asked.
“Probably because you asked him to,” Lefty replied.
Calista nodded. “True.”
Lefty pointed to something by her leg. “Hey is that a chest?”
Sure enough, there was a chest sitting right below one of the shelves. It was an old wooden thing with heavy hinges and a thick latch held shut by an intimidating iron lock. She leaned down over it as she looked it over. It was a large chest, nearly as wide as she was tall and there were carvings of a faun and naked women carved onto its top.
What is with the naked women in this place? Is this dungeon some kind of brothel or something? She grabbed the chest and pulled it out so she could get a better look at the lock. Then, just as she activated her [lockpick] skill, the lid of the chest creaked open and something whipped out and grabbed her leg.
She cried out as her H.U.D flashed red, warning her of possible incoming damage. She tried to reach for her sword, but then two more tentacles flew out and wrapped around both of her wrists. When she tried to step away, yet another tentacle grabbed her about the waist and began dragging her back toward the chest. The damage was coming in now. -2. -4. -6. The word [wounded] flashed across her H.U.D. She would be dealing with penalties now. Then her feet left the ground as the tentacles hoisted her up into the air. Looking down, she saw the top of the chest had opened to reveal a massive, purple tongue sliding and salivating around a toothy maw. Then a low and sinister voice rumbled, “Come to Papa.”
From behind her, Lefty cried out, “Oh my gods.”
Calista looked down to see a long, slimy tongue working its way up her leg. “Hit it!” She shouted. “Hit it with something! Anything!”
A bag of flower came flying in from behind her and struck the monstrous chest in its mouth. The tongue punched the bag out and then wrapped right back around her thigh. She watched as the slimy, purple tongue slid up her leg and began grappling with the buttons on her pants.
“By the Lady, it’s a pervert!” She howled. “Get it off me!”
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She watched in horror as the two tendrils and the tongue unbuttoned her pants and then the tendrils gripped her again as she was turned, rotated until her back was facing the floor and the monster’s mouth. This has to be one of the mimics that the imp warned me about. She continued to struggle, fighting with the tendrils and the tongue to keep her pants on. She craned her neck to look down just as an onion hit the corner of the chest.
“You’re a mage, you nitwit. Hit it with a spell!” she cried.
Another tentacle then wrapped around her throat and a second later another damage warning lit up her H.U.D. -7. -8. She was close to being seriously wounded now. What was worse, she could see the writhing tentacles groping at her body as she fought to keep her clothing on.
With a crack of thunder, a flash lit up the storeroom. The tentacles spasmed, allowing Calista to wrench her sword arm free. The Emberblade slid from its sheath and she swung it wildly at the black tentacles. As the blade hit home, the toothy mouth below her let out a cry of pain, so she swung again and then again. Another flash of light announced a trio of magical bolts that flew past her vision as they struck home. The monstrous chest grunted in pain as the remaining tentacles released her and she fell to the floor.
As her character gasped for breath on the floor, she heard Lefty shout something homophobic. The monster was attacking him now. She drew herself to her knees and readied her sword. Two eyes had appeared on the chest. She could see they were cold and black and utterly without compassion. However, the eyes shifted to see her as she was taking aim and they went wide with fear. As she drove the blade home, driving the point directly between the eyes, the chest let out a whimper, trembled, and was still.
Her character was panting as she pulled the blade free. However, she raised her sword and brought it down again, hacking at the mouth of the chest. It needed to be dead. No, she needed it more than dead. She swung again and again until soon the mimic was nothing more than a puddle of mangled wood and flesh and bone lying on the floor.
Covered in gore, blood, and ooze dripping from her face and hair, she turned to find Lefty just as the door opened behind him to reveal the kobold holding a plate with a sandwich.
“They were all out of the turnovers.” The little dragonspawn said as he handed the plate to Lefty. Then he left and shut the door behind him.
Holding the plate in one hand, Lefty laughed and took a bite of the sandwich.
“This is not funny,” Calista said.
“Sorry.” Lefty stifled a laugh as he took another bite.
Calista shook her head. “This place is disgusting.”
Lefty laughed again. “You have to admit that was a rather clever use of a mimic.”
“In what way was that clever?” She asked.
The wizard shrugged. “I dunno, I guess I’ve just never been sexually assaulted by a treasure chest before.”
“It’s not clever. It’s disgusting.” She replied. “Now let's get out of here before the kobold realizes what happened.”
They searched the larder and found it only had one other door which was unlocked and led directly into a hallway. Calista checked for traps, found none, and then turned around to see Lefty still eating the sandwich.
“What?” He said between bites. “It says it's giving me my two hit points back.”
She rolled her eyes and decided to check her own status. -6. I thought it was more than that. She flipped through the combat logs. She had been -8, but two of those had instantly healed after the fight as they had been subdual damage. She chugged a healing potion and watched the negative points disappear.
The mage took his last bite and licked his fingers. “I don’t think it can get much weirder than that.”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen a mimic act that way before,” she replied.
“No, I mean about the kobold,” Lefty said.
“What about the kobold?” Calista replied.
“The fact that he just handed me this sandwich.”
“Oh, that.” Calista waved her hand. “My deception skill is high enough that he probably thinks we’re guests here.”
“No, not that either.”
Calista put her hands on her hips. “Then what?”
“The fact that that sandwich was so good!” Lefty replied. “You can’t see this, but it’s actually giving me a morale bonus to all of my base stats for the next hour.”
Calista could only shake her head. “Lucky you.”
The mage smiled. “So what now?”
“I don’t know, but I’d really like to get out of this place,” she replied.
Suddenly, the hallway began to shift. The stone rumbled and groaned as the corridor bent and curved to the right and the floor lifted itself into an incline.
Lefty was uneasy. “I don’t know where this is leading, but I doubt it’s going to be good.”
Calista flipped the sword in her hand. “Can it be much worse than where we’ve been?”
“Yes, I think it very much could.”
He’s probably right, she realized as they marched their way upward. Who knows what might lie behind the next door. The dungeon was yet again transforming around them. It would be unwise of her to underestimate what might come next.
The corridor continued to curve as it carried them upward. Finally, they reached another wooden doorway. Her mini-map told her they had reached the next level. It would appear this dungeon isn’t set up with a boss for each level, which is a positive. Checking the door, she detected no traps and so in they went.