“Something strange? Lady, everything around here is strange,” Gus said.

“Something is different about the plants over there,” Yang said. “I suspect a trap.”

Gus scoffed, “Is that your Paranoia talking or your paranoia?”

“I think she’s right,” Max said. “My Insight allows me to see magic a little bit and there is magic around those plants and not around the others.”

“If it’s a trap, what kind is it?” James asked. “Ebba said they could be blades, or poison gas, or-”

He didn’t get to finish as the third type of trap triggered. Gus had walked too close. The plants all around the suspect column jumped up as one and rushed them. They looked like half dissected animals, driven to attack.

Yang sliced her short sword in a wide arc, bisecting two of the little beasts. Her sword must be magically sharp, that was the third time Max had seen it cut through something like butter. James must have spent a lot on it.

Lily sprayed the coagulant on the scrabbling things but they passed through the mist unaffected. Two leapt for her face while the remaining eight took a target each and jumped. All six of the humans had two plant animals jumping for their faces.

Max stepped back and swung his hammer across his chest. It hit one in the body and diverted it to the side. The second one still hit him, but he managed to catch it on his gauntlets. The animal's vines wrapped tighter and tighter around his hands, binding them together.

Despite looking like a four legged animal before, the room’s defenses were neither plant nor animal. They had no set form, just flexible vines around a series of organ-like nodes. Max pulled on his hands to separate them, but they wouldn’t budge. Instinct had him using the same trick he learned to get out of zip ties.

He held his hands closer together, letting the vines rearrange around the two wrists. Then he brought his arms down sharply. The sudden widening at his waist was enough to snap half of the vines and he pulled apart the rest. The plant animal he had hit first had recovered and jumped at him again. This time Max twisted out of the way and it flew by him with inches to spare. He followed it with his hammer, smashing it as soon as it hit the ground. Blue and green paste oozed out of the organ he hit. He smashed the other nodes to be sure it was dead.

He turned to see that Gus had already killed his attackers and Yang was slicing vines off of Lily. James had caught both monsters on his buckler, but was having troubles fighting back. Ashley was even worse off. She had blasted one out of the air with her hammer, but the other one caught her face and brought her to the ground. She was trying to pull them off, without success.

Max jumped forward and grabbed the organ that was blocking her mouth. He pulled back, allowing Ashley to gasp for breath. Then she yelled and renewed her furious attack on the vines. Max fumbled with his belt and pulled out his multi-tool. He didn’t have time to pull out the knife, so he attacked the vines with pliers.

It was rough going, but they worked together to kill the two little attackers. Max turned to help James next. He had killed one, but the other was too quick for him. Max evened the field and they killed it moments later.

As Max cleaned and put away his multi-tool, he said, “As traps go, that was fairly simple.”

“Easy for you to say,” Ashley said as she cleaned goop out of her hair.

“What I mean is that the little buggers didn’t really attack us, they just wrapped us up. Even one of the parasites would be harder to kill than ten of these guys.”

“I think they are meant as a non-lethal restraint,” Yang said and prodded one with her sword. “I suspect the other traps will be much more lethal.”

Gus slid to the floor and said, “How are we going to deal with blade traps and poison clouds anyway? We don’t have shields or gas masks.”

“We’ll have to avoid them entirely. I think I’ll be able to detect them and we can go around the long way. Anyway, get back up. We haven’t checked the whole room for monsters yet.”

Gus groaned and stood back up. The rest of the squad joined him shortly afterwards. They carefully crept through the room and Ashley found them one more parasite. This one was sleeping, somehow unaware of the two fights that had happened earlier.

Blood Parasite Level 5

Max motioned for them to sneak up around its sleeping form so they could attack as one. All five of their hammers were out of juice so Max turned to James to start off the fight. James nodded and added Decay to the monster. Now that he was looking for it, Max could see a slight shimmer in the air as the magic took effect. He tapped Gus on the shoulder next. Gus was confused at first, only belatedly remembering he had the Warped Mirror card.

He created a clone next to the monster and Lily sprayed it with coagulant. The parasite was quick to wake up, but it didn’t last long. The clone held it in place and the monster slowly fell apart. A few sword slices and hammer strikes helped it along.

Minor amount of essence gathered

“Good job, everyone. We are getting better at this,” Max said.

Lily and James thanked him, Gus and Yang just grunted. Ashley said nothing. Ever since they entered the dungeon, she had gotten quieter and quieter, always listening for more monsters.

James walked up to one of the monsters and kicked it. His shoe came back bloody. “These things are weird. Like, where are their eyes, their ears?”

“That’s a good question,” Max said. “I figure their antenna on the top of their head could be ears. Or maybe eyes? They could just be made of magic. Ebba said all of the monsters in here were created by the dungeon.”

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Since the room was clear, they had time to investigate. Max used the end of his war hammer to scrape off the crusty blood and look underneath. They found something that could be eyes along the upper lip of the monster’s enormous mouth. Everyone had their own theory about what parts of the monster were vital.

As they talked, they looked around and found the exit door. It was right next to where the plant animal trap had sprung. New plants were already growing from the base of the flesh column. The placement made sense in retrospect. The traps weren’t supposed to be random, it was a security feature for the genomic library. They could expect to find traps around entrances and exits, and around valuable items. Not that Max knew what aliens considered valuable.

Once again, Max decided to wait for the hammers to recharge before they moved onto the next room. While he waited, he made another copper war hammer. He made a few changes to the design, smoothing out the spike and making the whole hammer bigger. It wouldn’t get stuck in bodies and hopefully the magic effect would be larger now.

While they waited, Max encouraged everyone to practice their magic abilities. In the heat of the moment it was easy to forget to use them, the only way around that was practice. Lily brought her mushroomantis back out and practiced giving it directions. James practiced shooting his glass shards through the tight columns. Max had to prod Ashley, but she eventually practiced her light beam attack. Gus created a Warped Mirror clone of Max.

A completely naked blue Max appeared by his side and immediately attacked. It was like fighting against a deranged toddler. Not very strong, but willing to sacrifice anything to get a hit in. When the real Max got a kick to the balls, he changed Gus’ practice. He could only make clones of himself from there on out.

Yang just stood there and watched them for the most part. Max was about to encourage her to get in on the practice when she dissolved into motes of mana. She had replaced herself with a Decoy and he hadn’t noticed.

“Alright everyone, let’s get going. Hammers up, cards ready, let’s do this thing,” Max said.

Four parasites were standing near the door, gnawing on the meat column there. They were just as surprised as the humans when they saw each other. Thankfully, Max’s insistence on practice paid off.

An image of Yang appeared in front of the four monsters, her sword held up menacingly. The two closest monsters hissed and leapt at her. They passed right through the illusion and smacked into each other.

While the monsters were distracted Lily made her mushroomantis appear behind them. She had it creep in and strike two of them at once. James tagged each parasite with Decay. Ashley sent her searing light bolt into the upper lip of the furthest monster, hopefully blinding it. A blue clone appeared behind the fourth monster and immediately attacked. By the time Lily sprayed the coagulant, most of them were already injured.

The mushroomantis stayed alive longer this time around. Lily was concentrating and sending it mental commands so it could avoid counterattacks. Gus’s clone only lasted five seconds, but that was five seconds the monster stood still. It gave Ashley the perfect shot to blind it. She sent out her burning light as James flung his glass shards. His aim wasn’t as good as hers, but he drew blood with every throw.

By now, the monsters were all slowing down. The coagulant had turned their bulbous bodies brown and crusted over their tentacles. One of them saw the humans standing in the doorway, but couldn’t move fast enough to leap. Instead, it crawled over haltingly. It arrived just in time to get skewered by Yang’s short sword. She slid it in between in the antenna tentacles and the monster fell to the floor, dead.

Lily grunted in frustration as her summon died. The remaining three monsters had no more distractions and came at the humans together. One of them was thoroughly blinded and ran into the wall nearby. One of its legs fell off from the effects of Decay.

The other two monsters walked right into Max and Gus’s hammers. Yang had already shown them the sweet spot, so they both hit their monsters in between the antennae and killed them with a super strike each.

Yang crept over to the blinded one and put it out of its misery. The room was quiet once more.

“Yes!” Max and James said as one.

They laughed and turned to each other for a high five. They missed the first time, but got a solid smack for the second one.

Max traded out his used war hammer for a fresh one. He had the squad wait for a moment to see if there were any more that wanted to join the fight. Nothing approached so they crept into the room. This one was a bit different. Every so often, a flesh column had been chewed through. Some of them were still dripping blood. On the far side of the room, there was one more monster, but it wasn’t a parasite.

Toxic Centipede Level 12

It was an insect type monster, with segmented blue and purple chitin. It had twelve legs, thin wings, and a barbed stinger. It was wrapped around the column, slowly chewing into the flesh. The sick sound of bones cracking punctuated wet tears. The monster’s head was on the other side of the column, so it didn’t see them approach.

Max gave everyone a hand signals for the attack. The first step was for James to use his Decay card while it was distracted. While he threw spell after spell at the distracted monster, Max had everyone hide behind a column. No way were they taking that thing’s charge head on.

James ran out of mana before the monster caught on to the spells. Max waited a bit to see if it would start losing limbs or something, but it only slowed down its chewing. After a silent count down, everyone attacked as one. The mushroomantis appeared directly behind it and struck out with six scythes at once. Most of them deflected off the chitin, but two shredded its wings. A clone of the monster appeared directly above the monster and wrapped its long body around its target.

Ashley waited for the right moment and sent her light beam right into the monster’s mouth. She had missed the eyes on the upper lip. She tried again as James flung his glass shards. They all bounced off the monster’s bloody skin. Lily sprayed the coagulant, but it seemed unaffected.

Max took a few big breaths. The two blue summoned monsters wouldn’t last long against the real one. He needed to strike while it was distracted. Before he could second guess himself, he ran in. As he ran, the monster stabbed the mushroomantis with its stinger, popping it.

The clone avoided a few tail strikes but got caught by its huge mandibles. An instant later, the clone was gone too. By then, Max was there with his bigger war hammer. He slammed it down in between its compound eyes as hard as he could. The resulting super strike shattered the chitin and pulped the brain matter beneath it. The larger hammer didn’t create a larger magic effect, but the perfect placement was enough to kill it.

Medium amount of essence gathered

Max took a few deep breaths. That monster was freaky looking, somehow worse than the parasites. The stinger was over a foot long. He was glad that he got a lot of experience from it, but he didn’t want to see any more of them.

“What was that thing? I don’t think it was even affected by the spray,” said Lily.

James bent down to examine the remains. “It looks like a cross between a centipede and a bee.” His eyes lit up. “It’s a CentiBee!”

“Insight says it was a level 12 Toxic Centipede,” Max said.

James stood up and beamed. “Nope! It’s a CentiBee. I’ve decided.”

Max rolled his eyes and they continued searching the room. There were no other monsters, but they did discover something else concerning. Yang said the exit door was trapped. Two flesh columns on either side of the door had something magical near the base.

“How are we going to avoid the deadly, deadly traps when the door is right behind them?” Gus said and scratched his head.