Dungeon Runners (Part 2)

What they saw in the next room had them both stop, as stunned as they had been when they first entered the dungeon. As if by an invisible hand the words “Mushroom Forest” were suddenly scrawled across their vision.

Spread in front of them however was another massive room, easily large enough to fit most of Irondale, but Idris really couldn’t be sure. In front of them was a complex tangle of rock formations, twisting paths, and massive, glowing mushrooms the size of trees. Wormlike glowing vines draped many of them, and foliage that definitely wasn’t native to any cave environment combined to obscure the furthest details of the cavern.

Much of it, Idris realized, was sourced from the plants he had given to the offering point.

Idris cast Radiance followed up quickly with Detect. As he and Eana took stances ready for a fight he lofted it around the spaces nearest to them.

It illuminated what looked like a bed of gorgeous flowers under one of the mushroom trees. And as it did, a notification popped up:

Proficiency Level Up

Skill: Detect- 2/5

Progress: 8%

Description: At level two, the mana expenditure of Detect is reduced by 50% and the energy revealed by it includes cast spells and other deliberate uses of magic.

Reward: 5XP

That would be a good warning system for when somebody was gathering energy to cast a powerful spell, or if they did it while in hiding. He wondered what other effects would be revealed as he improved his proficiency in the spell

Eana was walking up to the flowers, carefree.

“Hold up!” Idris yelled at her.

She waved a hand dismissively, “I’m not a moron,” she said, stretching her staff out as far as she could to jiggle the flowers, “I just wanna see if anything happens.”

As she did, Detect showed an energy of a different kind coming from the flowers. While normally it revealed a glowing white mist, this energy had a blue hue to it, much closer to the color of Detect’s light itself.

“Unreal,” Idris said, “I think those flowers are casting a spell.”

“I wonder if they’re, like, living? I mean, are they like creatures and not plants?” Eana asked, then held her hand out to cast a spell.

“Assess works on them! It says its a parasite called a Floral Angler. What do you think we should do?” Eana asked.

Before Idris could answer, purple luminescent vines rose from the bed of flowers and began waving in the air.

Idris ran forward and pulled Eana backward before the things could grab onto her.

Instead they began snaking toward him. He struck at them but where he was able to actually hit them they simply bounced off the hard metal of his hammer and returned.

Retreat seemed like the better move. But as he did, one of the things began wrapping itself around his ankle and inching up his leg. His pants provided protection enough against it, but as it snaked upward it pulled the cloth away from his ankle. Where it contacted his skin it began to burn, like it was tearing away the top layers of flesh.

Idris yelped at the pain and shock of it and, with powerful kicking strides like moving through deep water, freed himself from the vines.

“Was not ready for that,” Idris said, wincing. The vines retracted and buried themselves in the loose soil around the flowers.

“Sorry!” Eana said, “Let me fix that for you.”

She held out her hands and cast Minor Heal. The now familiar sense of relief combined with incongruous anger flowed into Idris as the angry red welts that had formed on his leg were transformed back into pale, healthy skin.

The dungeon rumbled.

It wasn’t the ground that shook though. The two looked around, but there was no falling dust, no shaking vines. It had been, somehow, in the air.

It rumbled again.

Chaos… Deeper…

Idris met Eana’s eyes, “You hear that too?”

“Glad you said it first,” Eana said.

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They stood in silence, waiting for it to happen again, but it seemed the two words were all the dungeon was willing to share with them for now.

Not sure what else to do or even if this was normal for a dungeon, Idris just made a twirling motion with his finger vaguely at the rest of the cavern, “Let’s keep going then,” he said.

They moved through the various ledges, shelves, and natural seeming rock formations, the dungeon map slowly coloring itself in. They saw several more Fungal Anglers, but now that they knew what to look for the creatures were no more dangerous than an obvious cliff. As long as they kept their distance it wasn’t a problem.

They located the exit, but it was locked.

“Did we miss a key or something you think?” Idris mused.

“Do dungeons have keys?” Eana asked back.

“Dunno,” Idris said. He examined the door but couldn’t see anything resembling a keyhole. There was, however, a transparent looking crystal at the apex of the doorway.

“Hey,” Idris said, “Was there one of these crystals above the door into this room off the main hall?”

Eana looked up at it and nodded, “I think so, but it was glowing.”

The two of them “Ohhh’d” in unison.

“There’s gotta be something we have to do to get this to light up,” Eana said.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Idris replied.

Idris reexamined the map. Throughout the entire room there had been one space they avoided, and it was the only space that had a feature that seemed unnatural when compared to the rest of the Mushroom Forest.

After some twists and turns to avoid the vines and flowers of the Fungal Anglers, they reached a semi open space. They could see clear to the other side, but had avoided going in because the vines of the anglers hung from the ceiling here.

But in the middle there was a small sort of altar.

The two looked at each other. Eana was a full two heads shorter than Idris. He held up one hand over her head and tried to measure the lowest hanging of the vines with the other.

Eana rolled her eyes and mimed rolling up her sleeves, “I got this, pull me out if they grab my hair or something.”

“Can do,” Idris said.

Eana crouched down and walked carefully through the hanging vines like a bent over old lady. After a moment she reached the altar.

“That’s weird,” she said, “It’s got the shimmering rock stuff all going into it but I can’t see the bottom.”

“That sounds like the offering point I used to feed things into before the dungeon opened up,” Idris said, “Try putting something in.”

She grabbed some rocky soil at her feet and dumped it in.

Nothing happened.

“New ideas?” she said.

“When I was putting stuff in before, it would stop giving me XP if I gave it something it already had too much of,” he said, thinking aloud.

“Well it’s got plenty of dirt and rocks,” Eana said.

“Try giving it something else, something from outside - what’ve you got on you?”

Eana rummaged through her pockets. She had brought along some basic mundane healing supplies that she usually brought when she went out with Gendra.

“A few pouches of pain relieving powder, some mint herbs, bandages -” Eana said, counting out different items and not, to Idris’s annoyance, immediately throwing them into the hole.

“Yeah, great, perfect, start tossing things in so we can see what happens,” Idris said. Honestly, it was like she had never even thrown items into a magical vortex of nothingness that helped to build out a dungeon before. She really needed to get out more.

Eana pulled out a few sprigs of mint and dropped them in. The mushrooms around the cavern all pulsed with light. Weakly, but it was noticeable.

“This is it, keep dropping things in. We’ll have to bring more stuff for this next time,” Idris said.

Eana dropped a few more things in, ending in a full pouch of the pain relieving powder. The mushrooms pulsed again, but this time they maintained a steady glow. Idris jogged to a cliff where he could just barely see the exit door.

“It’s lit! Let’s go!” he called back to his sister.

A few moments later they strode up to the doorway, now with a glowing gemstone above it. It opened and, hammer and staff at the ready, they walked through.

The next box on Idris’ map filled in with a circular shape about the same size as the previous room. The text, “Hall of the Imps” faded into existence and Idris closed the map to see the twisting and confused criss crossing of ledges, rock walkways, and rickety wooden bridges and shacks that all came together to create a space that seemed somehow much larger and more vertical than the Mushroom Forest.

Quiet, high pitched muttering and muted screeches echoed through the cavern, and in the distance they could see small, moving lights highlighting the shadows of creatures. There had to be dozens of them.

Before either of them could say anything the air once again rumbled around them.

Child of… Chaos… Welcome.

“It’s not just me right?” Eana said, “You can hear that?”

“You’re not crazy,” Idris answered.

Two paths. Growth… and destruction. One destination… deeper.

Before they could question anything further, Idris’s vision lit up with a quest prompt different than what he had grown used to. A noise like wind gushing through a cavern filled his ears as it appeared:

Dungeon Quest

Clear the Hall of the Imps

Remaining Imps: 31

Reward:

Dungeon Pathway Open

New Class Knowledge

Eana’s eyes lit up as she confirmed to Idris that she got the same quest he had, “A new class?”

“Thirty one creatures?” Idris remarked, “With that kind of XP it might even be worth investing in whatever it is we get offered.

“I didn’t know there were dungeon quests - you think the dungeon is actually kinda friendly?” Eana mused.

“No. But if it is, I don’t think it’s going to like what happens next,” Idris said, hefting his hammer into a ready position and grinning wickedly, “Shame.”

Eana shook her head and, patiently, explained, “But it told us exactly what to do to go forward. I think it wants us to fight our way through this room and - “

“Yahn,” Idris said, interrupting, “I get it. You’re missing the chance to make this an epic moment.”

She stared dumbly at him for a second, taking in his overly flashy “battle ready” posture before making an “oh” shape with her mouth. She lifted her staff in her own approximation of a fighting stance and said, “Right! Let’s go say-” she swung her staff around at some imaginary foes and made swooshing noises, stopping dramatically for the final word, “Hello.”

“Now you’re talking,” Idris said, and they headed into the twisting confusion of the Hall of Imps.