“What took so long?!” Jason whispered to Ben as they walked behind the father and daughter pair.

“Mom gave me another lecture… I swear dude, this place better be as awesome as you say it is or I’ll kick your ass.”

“It is. Your following will at least double.”

Ben smiles and laughs, “Yeah, I hope to get more than twenty people though. If I’m risking my life and all I want at least a million.” He takes his smartphone out of his pocket and turns on the camera app, “So where are those mushroom you talked about?”

“Couple of minutes walk ahead,” Jason answers, slightly lifting his voice as Ben has already rushed ahead to find his target.

“A million of what?” Hannah asks, making Jason panic and look at his feet.

“Instagram and Youtube subscribers,” Jason blurts out and runs away blushing to follow Ben.

When everyone reaches the edge of the dungeon's territory, marked clearly by the sudden change from green, grey and brown of the normal forest to the multicolored stained glass look of the dungeon's territory.

“Wait till you see the first floor,” Jason said proudly when he heard Hannah gasp at the sight.

“Its grown, again,” Locklear remarks as he steps over a patch of bright blue colored mushrooms that wasn't here the last time he came. A few steps into the dungeon's territory he freezes in place.

Everyone followed his example and stepped together, only to freeze in place as well.

“What is that?” Ben asks.

“Don’t know” Jason answers.

“It feels like there's something touching my skin,” Hannah says as she waves her hand slowly through the air, “Feels kinda good.”

“It does,” her father echoes, “And that's what alarms me,” he continues walking and the other three follow behind him.

“How many photos you gonna take?” Hannah asks when Ben keeps stopping to take photos of interesting mushrooms before running to catch back up to us.

“As many as it takes. I’ve got sixty-four gigs in this baby and I’m not afraid to use them.”

“He’s trying to become big on social media,” Jason says, eager to start a conversation with his crush now that he took some time to gather his courage.

“Most important skill to know nowadays,” Ben continues proudly, “And hopefully,” he stops and brings his hands to his chest in prayer, “My future V-log, praise be to PDP, can use this material,” with a quick ‘amen’ he goes back to looking for interesting mushrooms.

“Don’t ask,” Jason whispers to Hanna who smiles while her father voices his disapproval of the modern world.

“How do I find you online?” she asks but her father interrupts before Ben has a chance to answer.

“Oh no you don’t young lady,” he glares at her, “You don’t have time for this nonsense if you’re still planning on becoming a doctor.”

“Don’t worry Daddy you know I work hard,” she retorts joyfully, ”but I still need to relax sometimes you know,” she adds while flashing her father a big smile.

Mr.Locklear raises an eyebrow at that but doesn’t respond. The look he gives Ben, however, makes it clear that he should stay quiet.

“Tell him to DM me later,” she whispers to Jason who blushes from the close contact and just nods his head.

She continues walking next to him in silence. He desperately wants to say something but can’t think of where to start. The silence drags on and suddenly even the topics he thought might have been good seem terrible. Frustrated and embarrassed he runs forward again to stand by the [Hunter].

“Do you think it changed again?”

“Don’t know Jason. I hope that it hasn't’ but we know what it can do in less than an hour, so a few days might mean it won’t even be recognizable anymore.”

Ben passes everyone when he sees something interesting in the distance. “Cool,” his words travel through the silent forest. When everyone comes to look at what he saw Jason and Hannah repeat Ben’s words while Locklear frowns.

The once dead tree is unrecognizable, changed so much that if it didn’t look so impressive they would have kept looking for the old entrance. Jason puts a hand on the light brown bark and closes his eyes. Strangely the tree is warm, and there's a weird pulsating hum coming from it. Jason stands there, heart rate slowly matching the rhythmic pulsation of the tree. Ben walks circles around the tree, phone in hand and trying to make sure he doesn’t miss any angle. Hannah has both of her hands held out to the side and slightly in front of her, moving them as if she’s conducting a symphony none of the others can hear.

“Let’s go,” her father breaks the magical moment by trying to squeeze himself through the opening in the tree only to stop himself from falling forward when the opening suddenly widens to match his proportions. They follow him quickly down the stairs with Ben straggling behind everyone, hoping to record a video of the tree moving again but to no avail.

“Fuck me…” Ben says once he catches up to the rest of his party and gets a slap on the back of his head from their adult supervisor.

All four are standing on the small platform that overlooks a sea of mushrooms. Jason has his mouth wide open even though it’s not the first time he’s seeing the bioluminescent light show. The expression is mimicked on Ben and Hannah. Ben is so astonished he forgets to take photos, phone slipping slowly from his grip as his wide eyes scan the room slowly. Locklear's face stays expressionless while his eyes analyze the room for threats.

Hannah is the first to recover, stepping forward and going down the stairs that let her go down from the platform to the mushrooms with ease. She is grabbed by her father, “Not so fast,” he says and hands her one of his bags. Inside are four pairs of thick rubber waders and he tells her to put on two of them. He does the same before taking a step into the mushroom sea and walking a few steps, leaving a parted path behind him. He’s looking for something and when Hannah tries to join him he stops her with a raised finger.

Minutes pass before something happens. It’s hard to notice at first but stepping closer and listening carefully they hear what sounds like something hitting the thick rubber boots Locklear is wearing. This continues for some time before suddenly stopping. Only then does Locklear signal to his daughter that she can come in.

The two of them make their way forward slowly while Jason and Ben follow by jumping through the giant mushroom path. A path that weaves through the first floor, forcing them to move from one wall to the other instead of heading in a straight line.

Annoying, but as walking through the mushrooms doesn’t seem to be easy, they manage to keep pace with the father-daughter pair.

Something hits Hannah's leg and her arm lifts a harpoon/spear given to her by her father. She joins her father's hunts from time to time and is quite athletic so the weapon is not just for show when in her hands. With one foot she parts the mushrooms looking for what hit her. Target acquired she prepares to stab the lizard that is batting its head against her thick rubber boots.

Locklear stops his daughter at the last second. “Don’t,” he orders, “They can't harm us for now so unless you plan on eating that, lower your hand.”

Hannah does what she is told without a word, Ben, however, decides to protest.

“Mr.Locklear, you do know this is a dungeon right?” he says.

“Jason mentioned it to me”.

“Well, the thing with dungeons is that you're supposed to kill any monsters you encounter. It’s part of the game.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“You can’t level up otherwise,” Jason adds.

“Well,” said the recently leveled up [Hunter], “This isn’t a game so things might work differently.”

“Yeah, but if something tries to kill us, we can kill it back right?”

“Survival comes first,” Locklear says in a deadpan tone and treads forward.

“What's the difference than? Even if it's too weak to kill us it's still a dungeon monster.”

“There's no such thing as monsters. These are animals, they are part of this ecosystem and killing them might upset the balance.”

Both boys stop and stare at Locklear's large back, “They have knives for a head!”

“And praying mantises have them on their hands. They also eat each other when they mate. Nature works in mysterious ways and just because they look dangerous doesn’t make them monsters.”

There's a pause where both boys concentrate on making a further leap than the ones they had to do so far.

The mushroom they landed on is different than the previous ones and all the following mushrooms look similar to it. No longer large round caps but elongated ones. Becoming more and more elongated until they look like balancing beams more than mushrooms.

The boys have a bit of a hard time traversing them at first so the conversation dies out. The balancing act is made more difficult by long mushrooms that grow from the ceiling and reach down. To move forward the party has to move them out of the way.

Eventually, the boys find their balance and can move more confidently. It's then when the first attack happens.

“Watch out!” Hannah yells.

A few of the hanging mushroom vines that surround them come alive and grab at their bodies. The vines have teeth and are spitting slime, trying to wrap themselves around their hands and making them lose their footing.

Jason swings his bat around but there are too many mushrooms hanging around him, preventing him from putting any force into his swing or even hitting the thing wrapped around his arm.

Ben fares better, using his kitchen knife to stab at the mushroom wrapped around his foot. The blade cuts deep and with glowing green goo flowing from the wound, the monster unwraps itself and hangs lifelessly from the ceiling.

Jason manages to make an overhead bash on his enemy, causing enough damage for the thing to let go of him. His, however, contracts and lifts itself to the ceiling, screeching in pain and hissing at him once out of reach.

Panting and heart racing the boys turn to each other and after sharing a wide eyed look of shock they yell “Yeah!” and “Alright!” trying to high five each other but lose their balance and Ben falls down.

“Up you go,” Locklear lifts the giggling boy out of the mushroom field.

“Animals or not I’m killing those things,” Ben says once his back up.

“They are nasty,” Locklear uses his machete to examine the slime dripping dead monster, “I’d still rather you don’t though,” he says uncertainly while looking at the round mouth full of small jagged teeth, “We can check which ones are real mushrooms and which are the hidden threats.”

“We can’t,” answers Hannah with disgust in her voice.

Everyone looks at her as she’s trying to get rid of green goo that splattered all over her, “I tried to hit one of them, nothing happened at first so I hit harder and it exploded into this,” she was waving her hands around trying to fling the sticky substance off of her. “And it won’t help to check each one either, ughh gross,” she wipes her cheek on the bottom of her shirt which was covered by the waders and was kept clean, “The worm monsters won’t break cover when you touch them. The boys pushed them away when they walked by them, nothing happened until they passed the things, only to be attacked from behind. They aren’t stupid.”

“They are,” Jason says, “It’s just how they were created. They were put here for a reason.”

“Explain yourself,” Locklear demands.

“I think I get ya,” Ben answers instead of Jason, “You said the first time you came here the place felt like an obstacle course, right?”

“Yep.”

“So these,” he motions with his hand to indicate the hanging mushrooms, “Were put here to make things interesting for us. Otherwise, Jason and I would jump to the end, and as cool as this place looks I doubt I’d return. Unless my following grows thanks to it,” he says while looking ahead with longing.

“Or there was some crazy treasure in the end,” Jason says Ben’s unspoken thought.

“Exactly,” he smiles a wide smile and jumps to another elongated mushroom before taking out his phone to take some photos.

“So you think that these were created with the intention of testing us?”

“Not testing, there's a better word for this,” Jason says, “Uhm… like a test is something that tests what you know right? This is supposed to help us improve as well, so... hmm...”

“A challenge,” Hannah comes to the rescue.

“Yeah, thanks,” Jason blushes but continues, “We’re supposed to overcome this together and become stronger through it.”

“It’s why dungeon floors get harder and harder with each floor,” Ben explains while dangling his phone off over the top of the glowing mushrooms underneath him, trying to get a good close up shot, “If all the floors are of the same difficulty nobody would want to play the game…”

Moving forward and stating that this isn’t a game Locklear makes them walk in a tight formation, covering each other's back. He walks behind everyone, ready to jump in and help if anything happens.

After every time they are attacked he also takes a moment to comment on how they can improve their handling of their weapons. He tries to convince Ben not to kill the animals and just stun them so they coil back up to the ceiling like springs, but with no success. Hannah does listen to him, although from time to time her targets end up hanging dead from the ceiling. Jason can’t help but wonder if she’s killing them on purpose and is just making them look like an accident but since it’s never clear he stays quiet.

When they finally reach the end of the hanging threats they are stopped by a sudden drop in the floor, a cliff they need to climb down or go back the way they came from.

Looking down they see shelves made of mushrooms and small platforms of earth on the wall, just the right size for the boys to jump down. So without a care in the world, the boys drop off the cliff to the first platform. Their landing sends a dozen insects flying everywhere, lifting off of the humongous flowers they were sitting on and fly to the flowers covering the wall on the other side. A few small glowing lizards and snakes hurry away from the shaking created by the boy's weight.

Locklear hangs from the edge and tries to put some of his weight on the giant mushrooms but the thing goes limp under him. Struggling to regain his balance his foot finds a glowing notch in the wall and he begins to climb down carefully with Hannah after him.

Jason rushes down while Ben waits for the other two party members climbing down using the holds in the wall. His phone is in his hands and he’s taking photos of everything while the father and daughter struggle to descend. Luckily for them, there is a small space in the middle of the cliff where they can sit and catch their breath. Jason is already sitting there, relaxing with a snack in hand. The others take out their water bottles and some snacks and soon Ben joins them with a smile.

“Selfie time!” he lifts his phone over his head and does a peace sign. Jason sticks his tongue out, Hannah flashes a practiced smile with a slight head tilt while her father just looks in the direction of the camera and grunts.

“Nice,” Ben says as he checks to see the result before dropping his backpack and sitting down with the rest of the party, joining them in looking at the magical garden growing on the wall in front of them.

Hundreds of flowers, in all shapes and sizes, are growing from the wall itself or out of small shelves of dirt, a few are even growing on top of mushrooms. Some are glowing while others are moving gently as if by a nonexistent wind, but it seems like all of them are releasing scents into the air. A sweet scent that is almost intoxicating. One that causes various bugs to buzz around the flowers and Hannah to pick a few small ones and place in her braid.

With the glow of the bioluminescent mushrooms illuminating her from all directions she seems almost like a fairy, making Jason struggle not to stare. Ben doesn’t seem to share his friends' shyness and simply flips his camera on and says “Look here,” before taking a photo.

“Show me,” she says and leans over Jason to look at the phone screen, “Can you do a few more and send me please?” she asks, oblivious to the crimson faced boy next to her.

“Sure, but I’m posting one of them on my page as well.”

“Deal,” she says and poses for the camera while Jason munches on his Snickers bar to look busy.

“No deal,” Locklear voices his opinion, “You know what I think about you posting photos of yourself online.”

“Relax Dad,” she counters, adding an eye roll that her father can’t see, “I’m just gonna use it as a new profile pic,” she turns to him with a smile.

”I’m not talking to you sweetie, I’m just explaining things to Ben,” he smiles back at his daughter, “Understood?” and glares at Ben, “You can upload any photo you want as long as none of us are it.”

“Yes, sir,” Ben lowers his head.

“And don’t think I won’t find out if you do, boy,” he says with a gruff voice and stands up to continue the descent. “Wait until this place isn’t a secret anymore, okay?” he ruffles Ben’s hair.

“Okay,” Ben smiles and jumps down to the next platform with Jason on his heels.

They reach the bottom first and as they jump down from the last platform, instead of hitting solid ground they are catapulted back up, almost reaching the platform they jumped off from.

“It’s a trampoline mushroom!” they yell and continue to bounce up and down with joy. The next few minutes were filled with laughter and high pitched noises as the kids bounced up and down. Climbing the platforms they dived from as high as their courage allowed them to jump from, going one platform higher after each successful jump. Removing their skateboard helmets and throwing away the backpacks the kids did what kids tend to do, forgetting all their fears and doubts while having fun. Even though they were in the middle of a dungeon.

Places that they knew were dangerous and deadly, filled with traps and monsters. Places it was not the best idea to ignore their surroundings and play while the adults were away. Because all the noise and excitement could be heard everywhere on the first floor, and while most inhabitants were scared away by it, some weren’t so skittish.

Locklear asked them to stop. To sit down on one of the platforms and wait until he came down before they continue, that he’ll give them as much time as they want to jump around, but the kids didn’t listen. They didn’t care, they were having too much fun.

Maybe if they spared a glance they would have understood that the hunters' words were wise. That this was a dungeon. A dangerous and sometimes deadly place full of traps and monsters. Monsters that fear nothing while protecting the one who created them and the place they consider their home. Ones who are attracted to noise, and in this case to the jumping. With one such monster already looking at them from the shadows, observing how they fly high into the air and land lightly only to shoot back into the air again. With the duo distracted and screaming loudly, the monster used the opportunity to approach closer.