“Let’s see, I think I left them somewhere around this area, right? I should have collected them yesterday…”

Riding on her insectile bone mount through the Dungeon’s halls and past waterways flowing with brackish water, Bug keeps an eye on her mini map as she retraces her steps from yesterday. Up in the corner of her mini map is a handy little marker that she placed so she can easily find her way back to the Safe Room, and by extension, the stairs to the next floor. Though, Bug has no intention of traveling deeper into the Dungeon until she gets her lost minions back.

With her other skeletons sprinting behind her, Bug leads her forces in a charge through the Dungeon. Without the constraints of stamina to hold them back, the skeletons can run almost endlessly if Bug so desires, her mount carrying her forward so fast that her hair is billowing behind her and that she has to keep her wings tucked in, lest she end up catching too much air and getting lifted off.

Mimmie is just enjoying the ride, held in Bug’s lap, eyestalks pressed forward and squinting against the current as its long grey tongue flaps in the air like a dog going for a ride. For a creature that is used to living at a snail’s pace, going fast like this is a novel and fun experience. If only Mimmie could move this fast on its own, then it could catch its own food!

Rounding a corner at speeds, the Undead boar boss leading the charge, Bug spots a band of Lizard Men milling about. They don’t stop and Bug simply points forward, issuing a silent order.

Tusks lowered, claws extended, weapons raised, Bug’s small war band of the Undead quickly barrels down on the bipedal lizards like a cavalry charge out of nowhere. By the time the Lizard Men notice them coming and try to bring their makeshift weapons to bear, the boar is already making contact and goring the first lizard.

With a loud crash and a guttural scream like a crocodile attempting to roar, the Lizard Man is ran through the gut and lifted off its feet, a trail of blood flying in the air as it is carried forward and the boar smack aside a second with its bloodied tusk, sending the poor Lizard Man smashing into a wall with enough force to break bones, before continuing to charge through the group unhindered like it just burst through a brick wall and found the wall to be wanting.

Their formation already broken, they can’t even fight back as Bug’s mount jumps forward and nails the next one with three spear-like legs, bringing it down to the floor and tearing into it with claws and teeth and mandibles, ripping into its large muscular throat and making a mess on the floor.

Behind her, the rest of skeletons arrive and quickly overwhelm the remaining Lizard Men with claw and weapon both. Sheer numbers and Undead aggression being far too much for the last couple of them to endure for more than a scant few seconds.

Up ahead, the boar comes to grinding halt, the Lizard Man impaled on its tusk gasping and wheezing as it claws at it in desperation, trying to free itself. But it quickly grows weaker and weaker as more of its life bleeds out into a trailing puddle on the floor, eventually going limp as it slumps over and lays across the boar's bony face like some gruesome trophy.

“Raise Undead. You two, help getting him unstuck from that tusk.”

Raising the freshly killed monsters, Bug ignores them for a second as she continues to check her map.

“It should be around here, I think? Maybe it was this hallway there, after that intersection… Should be close. Let’s keep moving, the rest of you, fall in line and keep up!”

They keep moving from there, the new zombies following from behind in the back with heavy footsteps as they move their big reptilian bodies faster than they ever could in life. Bug could have had them run in front, but she doesn’t want to smell their dead bodies. They have a tendency to release their bowels after death after all…

“Getting closer, I can feel them. Turn left.”

Following the feeling of her mana connecting her to her minions, Bug continues to follow it in the general direction until the feeling grows stronger and clearer, until she knows exactly where she is going.

One more turn and she finds them.

She finds the zombie Lizard Men that she turned yesterday. The very same ones that she had used to try and pincer the humans she was playing with chasing after…

They had been left behind and promptly forgotten about until earlier, left to just stand around like a bunch of idiots with no orders to act on. When Bug had left the Safe Room and tried to lock onto the direction of lost minions - Her favorite ones, not these zombies – she had run into an issue due to the extra signals she was getting out here. With zombies in the way, she couldn’t pinpoint where her lost minions are.

“Good, now I can focus on finding the others. Get moving, we aren’t stopping until we find Bob and the others! Forward!”

I could have just cut off my control of these zombies, but then I would have wild Undead wandering around and killing everything on this floor. I don’t need them steeling my kills. I’ll ruin this floor when I am good and ready to do so, but not before.

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The zombies of yesterday, still with their half-skinned meat suits flapping in the wind, join the others at the back of Bug’s Undead proception, her little army growing yet again as she pushes them forward into the Dungeon’s wet depths.

Running past veritable rivers where fish swim and Kappa hide away at the sight of them. Past water falls that fall into lower areas or even just into bottomless pits full of darkness. Past rooms with monsters hanging out inside and presumably guarding a treasure, who shy away from fighting so many and wisely decide to stay in the room and let her pass. Past side passages and locked doors, that would require one to solve a puzzle or find a missing key/lever to enter. Past labyrinths. Past spike traps and pit falls that only serve as mild inconveniences for the Undead. Past and over, and through quite frankly everything and anything that tries to get in her way.

It takes hours. The Dungeon is massive after all, and even riding on an Undead, untiring, mount, it still takes some time to get where she is going. But eventually, she does get there. She arrives at where she feels her lost minions to be.

Bob, Sam, Zax. All three of them, together and in one place. All three still in one piece and functional.

Bug finds a wall…

“They should be here, how do I… go around, quick.”

Wall. More wall.

Turn a corner and turn again.

Wall.

Turn, turn, down a hall, another turn. Quickly kill a handful of Spiked Frogs that blocked her way. Another turn! She is back in the same hallway!

There is nothing but a wall in the way!

“How? How do I… I…”

She checks her map, but the image is clear as day. Hallways wrapping around a blank space in the map. No doors leading in, no room to fill this space. Nothing!

I know they are in there. I can feel it. The direction changes as I go around them. They are in there, somewhere. Move around. Try to move towards me!

Getting off her mount and walking over to the wall in a hurry, Bug presses herself against it and tries to listen through the bricks.

…

Nothing. Even with her hearing that is so far superior to that of a human’s, she can’t even hear the slightest noise on the other side. Not even as her minions grow closer, and she can feel that they are just a scant few feet away from her.

“How could… there has to be some way of getting out of there. There has to be. Uh… Continue to move towards me, follow!”

Bug moves along the wall, her minions on both sides of the wall following along as she carefully moves, keeping a close eye on her connection. At some points, they get stopped inside, Bug having to carefully command them to get them unstuck from whatever it is they ran into so they can continue following. Wherever it is that they are trapped in, it doesn’t follow the same outline as the space in her map. And by the time she reaches the corner, she finds that her trapped minions must have hit a wall of their own as they are unable to follow any closer.

Around she goes, carefully testing the walls as she moves to see if any secrets passages, or hidden doors can be found. If a loose brick and be pressed or pulled, but the walls all the way around prove to be quite sturdy and still. Not a single brick will shift, and no walls disappear as if they were just illusions. There is no way inside.

Feeling desperate and not knowing what else to do, Bug goes around again, a second time. But this time, she pays closer attention to the positions of Bob and the others, painstakingly mapping out the shape of their prison inside of the walls.

It is a perfect square of what Bug measures to be about fifteen or so meters wide on all sides. No exits, at least none that her skeletons can figure out how to open. And inside is the occasional obstacle along the walls, though they are simply able to walk around them.

“Where are they? How did they… Oh… OH! The pipes! They are still inside the pipes!”

She remembers the water reservoir that she had been dumped into before getting promptly flushed. Right before getting knocked out and waking up to find Mimmie munching on her hand.

The reservoirs. They have to be trapped inside of one! But how do I get them out? Why haven’t they been flushed out yet? It’s almost like… It’s almost like they are being held in there, on purpose.

“Fuck!”

She punches the wall as hard as she can, bones in her fist cracking from the force of the blow. Mimmie hides its eyes quickly in fright as Bug continues to curse and hit the walls again and again.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Shit! Shit eating Dungeon!!! Give me my minions back!”

One punch after another rains down on the wall, the bricks slowly being painted red with her own blood as skin and scales crack and bones break. But the bricks don’t budge and inch. Not even a single grain is lost from them as they weather a storm of fists. The Dungeon’s walls are nearly indestructible, and even if Bug were to break her body in trying, she can’t get though. She just isn’t strong enough.

With her Field spreading with her anger, deathly-cold ice growing on every surface, and her breaths coming out as white vapor, Bug punches the wall once last time and them collapses forward, leaning against the wall on her knees as she keeps hitting it.

“Give them back! Give them back, they’re mine! Give them back, you damn Dungeon!”

But it doesn’t. No unseen doors in the wall magically open. They don’t just reappear before her. The Dungeon doesn’t even respond to her calls, nor attempt to gloat at her. They just remain trapped and the Dungeon remains silent.

She sits their for a long while, wracking her brain on how she could get them back. Mimmie, for its part, just silently remains where it and watches her, Bug having left it to sit on her mount while she walked.

Eventually, not knowing what else to do, and feeling rightfully depressed, Bug starts to stand as she heals her hands, one still held against the wall to support her.

“I should get going… I know where the stairs are. Sooner I reach the bottom, the sooner I can kill the Dungeon… I don’t want to, but I guess I’ll sever my connection. I’ll miss them, they were my favorites…”

She turns to return to her mount, but stops as she feels a slight vibration coming from the wall. Almost imperceptible, but it is there.

“Hm?” She turns and looks, but can’t see anything happening. But she can feel something happen through her connection to her minions. She looks down, and then… left, very, very fast to the left. Gone and speeding away.

“A… Wai-wait!!! Wait, wait, wait, wait, come back!!! Where are you taking them!? Ahhhh! Quickly, after them!”

Bug runs back to her mount, scoops up Mimmie into her arms, and then they are off, moving as fast as a dozen boney legs can carry them.

“Give them back, they are mine!!!”