When we again returned to the underground crossroad, Hess let Jax fall in an unceremonious heap and walked to the fountain. Scooping up a few handfuls, she loudly sucked the liquid into her mouth and belched contentedly. Using her moistened hand to loosen some of the dirt from her smudged face, she turned to me, “Come on, take a few swallows and lets be about this. I’d like to be done with before nightfall.”

“Are we just going to leave him here?” I asked. I had bent over to check on him, but he seemed fine. She had not dropped him too hard.

“We certainly can’t take him into the tunnel,” she replied carelessly.

That was true enough. Still, I hated the idea of leaving him behind. There should have been absolutely nothing above us that could mess with us, and as far as I knew, that overgrown flower was limited to its own room, unless it grew legs somehow. Logically, he should be fine. But I still had misgivings. My experience from the other night had left me all too distrustful of this place. What if something changed? What if there was some monster roaming around that we did not know about?

“Will you stop worrying?” Hess said, finally, a hand placed impatiently on her hip. “You know he can’t die.”

I sighed. There were other concerns, but I had said them all already. The hard truth was that we had no choice here. If we waited until he woke up, the sun would set, and the Zombies would make sure that we would lose our chance for the day. We had been in here long enough. We needed to make progress.

So, tossing Hess back her club, I took a few swallows from the fountain, and taking note of my refreshed Poison Resistance timer, I gave her a nod.

“Ready.”

The left-hand tunnel twisted its way forward much like the right had, though in opposite fashion. This time, instead of heading down and to the left, we were lead up and right. And sure enough, before long, we started seeing signs of those flowers again, with their peculiar sweet scent. Though they appeared much smaller than the ones below.

“Do you think…” I started, but she quickly shushed me.

We were coming to a place where the tunnel was widening again. It was almost exactly like the one on the other side, except there was no accumulation of water. There was still plenty of moss, though, which made the footing less than ideal. Coming to a halt, Hess held the torch aloft, casting about for any sign of danger, but we did not see any reason for immediate concern.

She frowned. Quietly, she whispered, “This isn’t right. There should be something here. I can almost taste it.”

Just as softly, I returned, “Could there be traps?”

Instead of answering, she lowered the torch and started to examine the floor. For several paces, there was nothing except the same cold, moss-covered stone, but up ahead, we could see something dimly reflecting the fire light. Inching forward, we soon discovered a grating set into the floor. The crossed iron bars were perhaps two fingers in width and set just far enough apart for a foot to slip through if you were not careful. And as slick as the footing was, that would be an easy enough thing to do. Moreover, our investigation soon showed that the grating was set across the entire width of the room. And the light did not extend far enough to see where it might end.

“Tricky,” Hess muttered. “But not too dangerous by itself.”

I agreed. At worse, we would just have to crawl for a while. No, the real worry was the blackness extending underneath the grate. There was no telling what might be down there, but I had a suspicion. From the way the tunnel had twisted…

“Could we be over the plant monster right now?” I whispered, my voice taking on a slight tremble.

In answer, Hess held the torch over the grate and gave it a little shake. A few tiny embers broke loose from it and slowly drifted down. They did not illuminate much of anything, but before they died, we both made out the telltale shape of rope-like vines down there. And they shifted, ever so slightly.

“Looks like it,” she sighed.

As one, we backed away from the grate until we were far enough away to talk comfortably. “What are we supposed to do here?” I asked. “I mean, if we were going to do this normally. What is the goal?”

“Normally?” she repeated, “Obviously, we wouldn’t be able to defeat the monster from above, but it would be free to attack us as we tried to cross. So, I think this is supposed to be an endurance trial. Crawl across. Suffer the poison. Try not to get caught by your ankles while it…” she stopped and gave her head a quick shake.

“Hess?” I asked, curiously.

“It’s nothing…” she reassured me. “Just had a… weird thought is all. From your aura, I think.”

From my aura? I blinked a few times as various possibilities flashed through my head. If she had a lewd thought while thinking of that plant monster… with the tongues… A sly grin came unbidden to my face. My natural instinct here was to just let the incident go, and usually I would have. This was not exactly the best time for such shenanigans. But she had been wanting me to flirt with her. Been all but cross with me about it, in fact.

I took a nervous breath as I considered my options. Of course, I had no idea as to what might make for a good line in that situation, so I went with something easy. Base suggestion. “Were you maybe just thinking about getting held down and… licked?” I asked, doing my best to approximate the teasing tone she had used so many times on me. I even waggled my eyebrows suggestively at her. Like a doofus.

It was not that great of a line. I knew that. Most likely, I expected she would just laugh, come back with some light banter, and we would move on. So, you can imagine my surprise, when instead, as soon as she processed what I had just said to her, she gasped, and biting her lower lip, she shivered noticeably for several seconds, her breath caught in her throat.

“Hess?” I lightly probed in concern. “Did… Surely you didn’t…”

She shook her head quickly, “No, just… I don’t know how. But that silly little attempt at flirting just made me unbelievably horny. For a second, anyway.”

I blinked. “You’re kidding.” That stupid shit had worked?

Instead of answering, she reached down between her legs and lightly drew her fingers between her lower lips. Holding them up into the torchlight, she brought them up to my face. They were glistening. “Does it look like I’m kidding?” she asked, seriously.

I cleared my throat. That was probably the most blatantly crass thing that I had ever witnessed. My other brain did not seem to care, though, and I was forced to shift my stance uncomfortably. Averting my eyes, I cast about for something to say, but I was coming up totally blank.

Fortunately, Hess was not done, “How did you do that?” She was looking at me expectantly, unconsciously rubbing her fingers together.

“I… What? How would I know?” I stammered. “I just figured… you’d want me to is all.”

She nodded in ready agreement, “You were right, but…” She looked away, thinking it over. Finally, she looked back to me, “Do it again.”

“What? Flirt, you mean?” I asked.

“Please?” she said, her eyes bright. “You have no idea how much that filled my reservoir.”

I took a step back. Right. That was a thing. I deflated a bit. Yes, a beautiful woman was asking me to flirt with her. Moreover, there was the possibility that it would make her aroused in a weirdly over-the-top fashion, but the fact that it was for science kind of killed the mood a little. Still, she had asked nicely. Usually, she just demanded I comply with whatever random thing had materialized into her head, so I was inclined to at least try.

So, I popped off with the first thing that came into my head. Regrettably. “Uh… Do you want me to help you with… all of that… moist… ness?” Slowly, I trailed off. The cringe factor of that line was so overwhelming that I had to close my eyes and look away in shame.

“Donum, that was terrible,” Hess said sadly.

“I know,” I said, nodding with self-recrimination. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, patting my cheek gently. “I think you just don’t do well when you’re put on the spot. It wasn’t even what you said that was so bad. The idea was fine. It was just… your word choice.”

I accepted the criticism stoically. “I guess that didn’t do anything for you?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Nope,” she said shortly. Then, after a moment, she continued, “It’s probably for the best, though. Now isn’t the time for this.”

I nodded slowly. She was right. “Uh… what were we talking about before?”

“The grate?” she reminded me.

“Right, right,” I looked down. The grate. We had been talking about the Dungeon’s possible design intentions. I shook my head. How had we gotten so off topic? I could not remember now. Taking a breath for composure’s sake, I tried to focus. We would have to crawl across, enduring whatever that monster below had to throw at us. Probably, a lot of poisonous licking.

I stopped again. Ah, that was it. The licking…

I smiled at myself. It had not been a total success, but for a moment there… For just a moment, I had gotten one over on ol’ Hess. Not totally on purpose, of course. Still, I would have to remember that little incident. Jax would probably love it.

But enough of this! I needed to get my head in gear. The grate… the grate. Getting across did not sound fun by any measure, despite the lewdness of my imagination. That poison hurt like a bitch, after all. But it was probably doable. Although, there was no guarantee that there was going to be another one of those handy poison resistance fountains on the other side. How we were supposed to deal with that was anyone’s guess. “How far across is it, do you think?” I asked, more out of idle curiosity than anything.

“What does it matter?” she asked matter-of-factly. “We’re not going across, and anyway, it’s too dark to tell.”

“I know. I’m just thinking out loud,” I explained quickly. “There aren’t any of those wall sconces like there were below?”

“No, I didn’t see…” she stopped, her eyes quickly swiveling toward the grate again. “The sconces… they went out.”

My own gaze followed after her own, and I hesitantly nodded, a little confused, “Yes… I suppose they must have?” They would have been visible to us up here, otherwise.

Hess turned back to me, her gaze distant. Quietly, she muttered to herself, “But why would they have gone out?”

“Because… they ran out of fuel?” I hazarded, having no idea where she was going with this.

She looked at me then and smiled, “Oh no, Mr. Moistness.” I blanched. Apparently, Hess was going to be remembering the incident, too, though she seemed to be inclined to remember bits I would have preferred left out. “Things don’t change without a reason in the Dungeon. Once we lit those sconces, they should’ve burned forever.”

I looked at her incredulously, “But all of the campfires we lit went out.” What she was implying ran rather counter to the laws of physics. Not that that was anything new.

She tutted, “We built those fires. Sconces are an installation. They do not burn on mundane things like ‘fuel’.” Slowly, she began to pace, “No, there is something at work here. We just need to figure out what it is.”

Okay, then… So it was some kind of fuzzy game logic. I should have known. “Well… in that case, I guess we need to light them again and see what happens?” Step one of the scientific method was observation, after all.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Coming to a halt, she nodded firmly, “Right. You wait here and watch from above. I’ll go light the sconces.” And then, without another word, she ran back down the corridor.

I started after her, yelling, “No, wait!” But I slipped and fell to my knees. Hurriedly, I looked up, but she was already gone. Leaving me alone again.

“Fffffffuuuuuu…” I let the word escape like steam, dying like the light of the torch fading away round the corner. And the moment it was gone, the darkness almost swirled around me in a wave. It was absolute and impenetrable. Slowly, I sat back onto my heels. Unbidden, memories of the night previous invaded my consciousness, and a cold sweat started to bead on my forehead. I hated this. Oh, how I hated this. Nervously, I swallowed, my eyes wide, trying to see anything at all. My heart started to pound in my chest, causing my ears to throb in time with it.

I shook my head, trying to keep my imagination from running away from me. I was being silly. There was no way that ram could get down here. Or whatever it had been. It was just a dark hallway. There was nothing to be afraid of. Slowly, my fists unclenched.

That was when I heard it. It was such a soft sort of sound that I almost could not place it. It was familiar, though. I simply could not reconcile its presence with my surroundings. Not immediately.

It came once.

Then a pause.

And then twice more.

And then an even longer pause.

It clicked, then. It was unmistakable, though it made no sense. It was the sound of someone or perhaps some thing… sniffing. Right next to my face.

I held perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe. My eyes were as wide as saucers, trying to make out anything, but whatever had just sniffed at me was just as invisible as my own hand.

“Haaaah~”

That unmistakable feminine sound, and the warm breath cascading across my cheek, sent chills racing up and down my spine. Remembered fear once again swelled in my chest, and shouting in surprise, I jumped to my feet and began to flail wildly with my arms all around. But I did not connect with anything. I was not sure if that helped my disposition or not. But the quiet giggling that erupted a moment later certainly did not. In that moment, I almost fled in blind panic, but I had just enough presence of mind left to me to realize that I was just as likely to careen into a wall as anything else.

Instead, I took a few gulping breaths to steady myself, and summoning up a false bravado, I growled into the darkness, “S-show yourselves! F-faen of the Dungeon! Don’t… don’t screw with me!”

The giggling stopped for a moment, leaving the faint echoes of my own voice reverberating back through the hallway. And then very quietly, I made out a chorus of whispering coming from all sides…

“Oh, brave man…”

“Brave…”

“Lovely man…”

“Thinks he knows…”

“Thinks, he does…”

“Smells good, says Ahnbe…”

“Brave smelly man…”

“Brave…”

“Lovely man…”

Gradually, the whispering faded away, and I was left alone. I just stood there trembling, waiting for the shoe to drop and desperately hoping that it would not. Slowly, my heart calmed and some semblance of rational thought returned to me. Whatever it was that had just happened was over, apparently. Taking a last deep breath, I closed my eyes.

Fuck. Me. Sideways. If that kind of shit kept happening, I was likely to develop nyctophobia. Amongst other things. Damned Faen. I did not know why they kept messing with me. Maybe they just saw me as an easy target.

In any case, once again, I had not come to any harm. That was the main thing. Perhaps if I could learn to let go of my fear, it might be possible to interact with them in some form of meaningful fashion. They had actually spoken, in a way, after I had tried to face them down. Not that I could pick out much of anything, what with them all speaking at once. The only thing I could say for certain was that they had seemed amused by me.

Right about then, I saw the telltale glow of torchlight coming from behind me. It was extremely dim, but compared to the total darkness that I had been in before, it was like the coming of the dawn. Turning, I could see the room below just coming into view. I took another steadying breath. Right. Things to do. Still a bit unsteady, I tiptoed back to the grate and peeked over the edge.

I could not see much, just yet. Hess was standing at the edge of the room, still in the hallway. She seemed to be examining the area around the sconce. For what, I had no idea, but she seemed engrossed. As for the giant plant, I was not sure, as it was only faintly illuminated along the edges of the light, but it seemed aware of her. Or… at least, I thought so. It was not exactly moving, but it seemed poised, somehow.

After a few seconds, Hess seemed satisfied and once again, held the torch up to light the sconce. Moments after it flared to life, a ring of similar installations lit in sequence around the room. Eight in all. I could not be sure, as I was looking from above, and the angle was throwing me, but I would put the room at something like thirty feet to the side. And that plant covered almost every inch of it save for a narrow margin along the wall that widened slightly near the sconces. In fact, as soon as the fires flared to life, the monster seemed to pull into itself. Almost like it was cringing away from them. I would never have noticed from below.

A suspicion had wiggled its way into my brain pan. But I could not be sure about it just yet. In my years, I had played a lot of games. Especially, those of the role-playing variety. Inevitably, as with all genres, those games tended toward certain tropes and trends. And sure, developers would make changes here and there to keep gamers on their toes, but some things tended to crop up on a consistent basis. One of them, and this was one of the older ones, was that certain monster types tended to have certain weaknesses to certain elements… Or at least, they claimed to. Sometimes, the tutorial would say the weakness was there, but you would find out later that the developer had actually forgotten that bit of code. And never fixed it. Ever.

I sighed. Gamers held grudges for a long time.

Anyway, plants were usually weak to fire… or ice. And that made sense. If something was going to kill a plant, it was either going to be a fire or the weather. Not that it really could be called a weakness per se, when virtually everything that lived was also vulnerable to it. But that was games for you. Unfortunately, all we had were the few barely functional torches we had cobbled together, and that room down there was covered in water. So, fire was probably out. The water situation, however, just begged for a few well placed ice spells, but unless Hess had more tricks up her sleeve, I was pretty sure ice was out of the picture completely. It was a quandary.

Still, we had yet to figure out why the sconces had gone out, so I kept watching. Hess had not moved, probably hoping for something to happen but all was quiet. The plant seemed to be waiting on her to attack. After a minute or so, she looked up to the grate where I was watching. I could not tell if she could see me, but she made a shrugging motion and pantomimed that she was going to head back around. Unthinkingly, I nodded back.

After the light from her torch disappeared around the corner, the monster seemed to relax. Or at least, as much as a plant can be said to. It waited for another minute or so before turning several of its flowers to face one of the sconces along the wall. They gathered above the flame, and as one, began to secrete large amounts of that poisonous mucus. The reaction was explosive. Every time a drop hit the fire, there would be a fwump and the flame would sputter until finally, it extinguished from the air pressure of the small expanding explosion.

My eyebrows rose up into my forehead. “Now that’s interesting,” I said aloud. Which was a mistake.

The flowers, already close to the grating from putting the fire out, swiveled as one to face me. There was a pause as we stared at each other, man to giant, many-tongued, drooling, plant monster, and then it surged forward. I jerked back, hastily trying to escape down the hall, but the moss underfoot again made sure that I slipped onto my behind. As I scrabbled backward, my hand randomly fell onto a bit of cloth, and Jax’s shirt came loose from my waistband. Not wanting to lose it, I grabbed it up, and quickly risked a look back.

The plant had attached dozens of little tendrils to the grating, and several of the smaller flowers were beginning to poke their way through. Thankfully, the metal seemed to be restricting the bigger ones from access. The flowers zeroed in on me, still trying to scurry backward on my hands away from it, and together, they coiled like a spring and launched a volley of small thorns all over the place. More out of reflex than anything, I curled myself into a ball, holding the little wad of cloth in front of my face. It was not much, but it was enough to catch most of the organic shrapnel headed my way, though several thudded into my shoes, and at least three hit my shins.

“Son of a bitch!” I yelled out, as the poison again invaded my bloodstream. These thorns were much smaller than the ones before, but that did not diminish the effectiveness of the toxin in the slightest. And unfortunately, my poison resistance had run out well before then.

As the pain throbbed its way up my leg, I squatted down and through tear-flooded eyes, I painstakingly pulled the thorns from my shin. It was stupid move. I knew it while I was doing it. But it was like a compulsion. Those barbs had to come out. All I knew was torturous agony and the need to get rid of it.

Finally, as the last one came loose, I looked up just in time to see a flower the size of a dinner plate coming right for me. And after only just getting rid of the thorns, I did not want any of those disgusting tongues ringing it to touch me. So, I did the only thing I could do. I punched it.

Now, to be fair, slightly out-of-shape, former office workers like me really should not be going around punching giant plant monsters on the best of days, but one makes do with what one has available. And all I had was my fist and the shirt that was wrapped around it. Which was fortunate. Because the punch did diddly-squat. As for the flower, it happily wrapped itself around my fist and started pulling and secreting mucus all over it. Instantly, I let go of the shirt, and the flower pulled away, apparently content to digest its catch.

I did not have time to mourn the loss, though. There were still plenty of others coming, so I leapt to my feet and made to escape. But my foe was not going to let me go that easy, just yet. While I had been distracted with the flower, a tendril had wrapped itself around my ankle, and I went back down in a heap.

“Motherfucker!” I yelled. Could I not stay on my feet for one damned minute? It was like I was being juggled in a fighting game!

Quickly, kicking with my foot, I managed to break the tendril, but not before half a dozen flowers had closed the distance to me. Reacting out of a combination of panic and instinct, I started to roll back down the hall. To the Watcher with trying to get back up again! If I was destined to stay prone this fight, then so be it!

I only made it about two or three paces before the flowers caught up to me, and realizing my fate, I curled back into a fetal position and closed my eyes. But nothing happened.

Slowly, I cracked an eye back open. The flowers had all stopped. Like they were frozen.

Hastily, I scrabbled to my knees and floundered along until I was a modest stone’s throw away. Only then did I look back. The monster was still there, though it seemed to have relaxed somewhat. As I stood there watching, it eventually started to recede, away and back down into the pit below. Slowly, I paced back to where the monster had stopped, though I was now limping severely from the poison still eating at my leg. What had just happened? Why had it let me go? There was no way the thing would have shown me mercy, right?

Squatting down, I examined the area for some sign or clue. The moss was fairly thick here, but I could see the faint outline of the bricks underneath. They were set in a random, mismatched pattern, with squares and rectangles of all different sizes placed without any apparent care. However, right where the plant had stopped, the bricks had all, seemingly without forethought, lined up. A seam traced straight across the hallway floor, and following the line with my eyes, it continued up the wall and the ceiling. Curiously, it was right at that point where the hallway began to widen into the room beyond.

I leaned back as a memory resurfaced, unbidden. A memory of another room, this one filled with sand. And a door that it could not cross. “Domains,” I said aloud. Hess had mentioned something about that before. And apparently, the Dungeon had as well, in its own way. That really had been a tutorial.

Abruptly, another fwump sounded from below. And then another. It would seem that the monster was returning its den to its preferred state, and soon I was again cast in darkness.

I could not say exactly how long it was that I sat there in that dark hallway, but it felt like hours. And the burning cramps running up and down my leg from the poison in the thorns were not particularly pleasant companions to be spending any amount of time with. Not to mention, I was still nervous that the Faen would come back or that the monster below would somehow find a way of getting around its magical boundary. But, after a long while of absolutely nothing happening, I relaxed. And as I sat there, trying to massage the cramping away and picking thorns from my shoe, I began to think.

For one thing, how exactly was that supposed to be an endurance trial? Its seemed like a total death trap to me. And I had thought that it might be feasible? Hah! What a joke! Then again, I had been alone. If Hess and Jax were here to run interference, then perhaps. As it was, I had nearly died just from being a little too close. If it were not for that domain line…

Speaking of, what a weird thing it was to restrict your monsters from passing an arbitrary divide in the stones. Not that I was ungrateful. That little rule had totally saved my bacon. But if the goal was to defeat us in combat, then it seemed like an unnecessary restriction that only hindered the monsters. Unless, of course, the goal was not to kill us. But then, if that were the case, why have the monsters at all? To challenge us? Push us, somehow? Or were we just some form of entertainment for the invisible tricksters that seemed to be watching us all the time?

Then, I had another thought. If I were to try to put myself into the shoes of some… being that was out there making Dungeons, then it made sense to have a way to restrict your creature’s ability to move about. Sometimes, you might want a certain fight to happen in a certain place, and if that were the case, then you definitely would not want your monsters to just up and wander off in their free time. Maybe this domain business was simply a way of doing that.

I sighed. “What the ‘stits and ‘snails is taking Hess so long?” I growled to myself in frustration, intentionally borrowing her favored swears. I did not have a clue as to what ‘stits’ were or how snails was supposed to be a swear, but they were kind of fun to say now that I was sampling them.

I stood up. Something had to have happened. The question though, was what was I going to do about it? If something had truly happened to Hess, then I was boned. It was only a matter of time before I met my end in this place. Then again, it was not like I was going to swan dive into the monster pit behind me. Even if I were prone to acts of fatalism like that, the grating would not have allowed it, and besides, I did not want any part of that mucus. That was no way to go.

But, I did not want to stay there any longer. Taking a moment to consider, I decided that I should be able to make it back to the fountain, darkness or not. At least then, I could get rid of these damned cramps. Though they were slowly starting to fade on their own, they still hurt like a bastard. It was a goal.

So, with arms outstretched, I blindly began to shuffle-limp my way back down the hallway. Even so, I was careful not to touch the walls. I had seen plenty of those flowers growing there, and though they had not shown any signs of aggression, I certainly did not want to touch one.

Just then, something gently blew in my ear, and blindly, I flailed at it only to have the back of my hand smack loudly against the stone wall.

Gritting my teeth and jumping in place from the pain, I wheezed out a string of curses against a backdrop of giggling.