“Where am I supposed to put my feet on ice? It’s all slippery!”, I yell up to him.

Ugh, I wish he’d be more helpful.

I slacken my arms, as advised, and it helps. However, after a few minutes, my grip strength starts to give out.

Wait, a few minutes means-

The wall in front of me disappears and sucks me in.

Well, I guess I know what would’ve happened now.

Landing roughly on the snowy ground, I look around. I can see a large artificial glowing light at the top of the tall cavern. Around me, there’s a variety of nut trees including coconuts and walnuts. Between the bushes, I could see small figures scampering along the tree limbs.

I guess it’s kind of like, well the room we were in, except now, we can also go up the trees.

Looking between myself and the trees I shake my head. Climbing would be clunky at best. Apparently, like everything in this dungeon, it’s not my strong suit.

Stuffing my butter knife in my pocket I switch hands with my Bowie.

“Alright! What should I do?”

“Kill the squirrels.”

“Is there anything else?”

In answer, Ismund runs off into the trees followed by the sound of screeches and thinks.

“Alrighty then…” I mumble nervously.

Looking around for something relatively easy I find explosive walnuts being hurled my way.

“Crap!”

Running with all of my might I pump one leg after the other pushing off of and pulling myself forward with whatever I can get my hands on.

Almost there!

After a few minutes or so I end up at the edge of the cavern and meet up with the big stone wall.

Now I can be backed into a corner but not surrounded. Perfect?

Re-assessing my surroundings again I find a lone squirrel on a branch I can sneak up on. Hunching up my shoulders and lifting one foot after another I do what I’ve seen in many movies and hope it works.

Tip toe, tip toe… wait, does this ever actually work?

Before I can finish my thought the creature looks in my direction in answer. Hardening my features I sprint forward with my knife held in front of me.

The branch is way above my head.

Jumping up I grab the branch, pull it down, and let go letting it fling the squirrel in the air.

Where’s it going to land?

Looking into the sky I can’t find it among all the other branches and leaves.

Oh well, I guess maybe I’ll find its shadow on the ground.

Quickly setting my gaze across the ground I find a familiar monster hurling itself towards me.

I guess it didn’t go all that high. Don’t worry it’s just like those rabbits from before, right? I can handle one.

Before it can climb up my leg I kick it into a tree. Well, it grazes it more like. But those are just details. Before I can deal with it all the way I hear… ringing in my ear along with nut shrapnel hitting the side of my face.

Gosh.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

looking up I can see what must be a poop-eating grin on the monster’s face as it glides past me and lands on another tree.

Right the other squirrel.

Looking back to where I kicked It I can’t find anything.

Darn it! Where’d it go?

Looking around I spot its body on a low-hanging branch above me. Its claws were straining to hold a large coconut. I Kicked myself off to the side I barely dodged the incoming nut, which fortunately didn’t explode, but left a large crater in the ground along with a plume of dust. The coconuts didn’t explode but somehow the squirrels were able to hold them despite their weight and throw them with incredible speed.

Spinning around I jump up and yank it down by the tail. Pinning it down with my boot I get hit by another exploding walnut on my back.

I’ll get this one first, otherwise I’ll have two on me.

Wincing, I pull my blade back and then chop its shrieking head off in two heavy blows.

I guess I’m getting used to it. Wish I didn’t have to though.

Looking around for that other squirrel with the walnut I spot Ismund and wave.

“Oh, hey! How’s, um, it going?”

Before he can react I feel a stinging sensation on the side of my head along with a force flinging me to the ground. Ringing fills my ears and my vision starts darkening around the edges until there’s nothing left…

* * *

ISMUND

Before I can talk to her she’s a heap on the ground with a coconut rolling away from her.

Ah, should’ve expected that.

Lightly jogging forward I grab a branch swing up onto the branch and slice the monster across the neck. Sitting down I thought for a moment.

What to do. I could drag her along, leave her here under some snow…

I take off my backpack and glance between Drifa and the volume of it for a moment before shaking my head in dissatisfaction.

Ah well, worth a shot.

Pulling the tent gear out of my pack instead, I weave the thin rope between the holes in it and tie either end to a firm stick so that it looks something like a sled I could pull.

Pulling it forward a bit to test it I find that the string pulls tight and seals off the top of the ‘sled’ like a drawstring bag. Shrugging I leave the bag/sled on the ground and get the other monsters in the area.

Running forward I jump off of a tree trunk and find a perch on a large branch. Standing up lightly I take a look around for any squirrels in the area. With my enhanced vision I quickly find another squirrel, with its cheeks full.

That’s new.

Swinging myself towards it with another branch overhead I smash my pommel into its face making it spit out a bunch of small seeds. Grabbing its corpse I head towards another squirrel with its face full of seeds. Before I’m very close it spits seeds at me. They don’t do much damage but they did sting. The weird thing was, that the seeds seemed to do more damage over time. Now they were starting to get lodged into my skin and stick there.

Growling, I throw the dead body at it as a distraction, close the distance, and decapitate it.

Got you.

Climbing up to the top of the tree I slash a few unsuspecting throats in the process.

Seems like they’re spreading out. Earlier they were swarming around the centre, but now that nobody’s there…

Looking back towards the sled thing I made I let out a sigh.

She could’ve just followed me like usual. Then we wouldn’t have this mess. Well maybe this is more efficient, I don’t have to worry about any distractions other than occasionally dragging her.

Scampering down and jumping off of the tree I finish it with a roll and a slice to the squirrel that seemed to think that Drifa was a good target. Looking up from the blood spray I drag the bag towards around the border we were at.

Well, I mean, she is a good target. All they have to do is hope that I’m not paying attention.

Shrugging, I carry on.

After doing a few laps around the outside I work myself back into the centre of the cavern. Rolling my shoulders and cracking my neck I get ready for the rest of them to come at me.

Here’s the last of ‘em. At least it’s gone better than the other times.

> [Rebooting…]

About time. Although, I don’t know how long it should take.

Brushing off the thought I fling myself up a tree and grab a coconut out of a squirrel’s hands putting it in my inventory for later.

She’s complaining about the food all the time, may as well see what she can do with this.

Putting my sword away after a cut to its throat I decide to just use my bare hands so I can have more mobility and just focus my concentration on the monsters instead of when to switch my blade into my hand. As a bonus, I could also work on getting more comfortable with using hand-to-hand combat without much of a threat.

Granted this is more bullying than anything else.

I give myself a grin from that.

Kicking off of another branch I grab another monster and slam its skull into one of its brethren.

I like that move

Grabbing another branch I pull myself onto another tree.

Let’s see… I think there’s probably four more.

Nodding to myself I step up a few more branches, dodge an incoming coconut and crack the neck of the monster responsible. Another one flew above me spitting out seeds in rapid succession. They were hitting me but a few more seconds wouldn’t do much damage yet. At least the squirrels were limited to more gliding than flying. Jumping forward I find that it’s a tad out of reach causing me to fall unceremoniously without my prize.

Rolling to keep the sting of the fall to a minimum I find that another coconut’s hit my ribs.

“Ugh!”

Stumbling to the side I look for the portraiture only to find empty space.

Shouldn’t have gotten so confident, eh?

Letting out a disappointed sigh I reassess my surroundings.

Well, there’s the gliding one with seeds somewhere. The coconut one can’t be too far… the other three I think I saw aren’t in sight. None of them are. Oh, well.

After giving myself a sarcastic smile, I let it go slack with concentration again.

They could really be anywhere since it’s pretty large in here. That said, they probably want to be close to what they want to kill.

Climbing up another tree to scout I notice that it’s stripped of all of its previous… well I guess weapons. Looking around I can say the same for most of the others.

They’re probably where the ammo’s at. In which case, it’s probably fine to leave Drifa here.

Spotting a large tree covered in ripe produce a little distance from me I decide to wait there until the monsters decide to come over. After all, it would be a perfect spot for them. Prey, ammo, and trees for cover. The only problem is that they don’t have a shot either way, but they don’t seem to care about that part. So, it’s perfect for them.

I’ll wait for them to come to me.

And fortunately, that doesn’t seem to take long. As I’m charged by five at once.

I missed one.

Taking cover behind the tree I hear a large thunk and reverberation hit the tree. Looking around would probably give the seed one a good shot…

I’ll only be a little brash.

Dropping down I swing from the branch I was crouched on and latch onto another ahead of me with a squirrel tail pinned underneath my grip. Pulling myself up I release my pin giving the beast an opening. Rushing up my arm it managed to get to my shoulder where I ripped it off before it tore my neck open. Throwing it against the tree I head towards the squirrel with the coconut. Dropping down another level I grab its hind legs and smash it into a tree a few times until I’m sure it’s dead with a red streak already starting to rot on the tree.

Stepping up a few branches I’m hit by three explosive walnuts at once making me lose balance. Before I hit the ground I manage to get hold of a tree limb with my better hand.

I guess this is a walnut tree. Makes sense why there’s so many.

Making my way to the top of the tree again I’m Hit by a walnut on the hand.

“Gosh.”

Spotting the squirrel, I head in its direction. Unlike other parts of this dungeon, or just other dungeons in general, it didn’t charge at me so it could use its distance as an advantage.

It’s playing smarter, I’ll give it that much. Despite its crafty nature, I caught it in the end and snapped its neck.

Three down, two to go.

Hearing a whistling sound, I look up to find another walnut heading in my direction. Giving it an unimpressed frown I jump up and summon my sword last second allowing me to skewer it.

Gotcha!

Letting myself hit the ground I let out a sigh of relief as I find myself back to square one in the room with the waterfall.

Done.