Chapter Five

Townies

Lily’s feet hovered a few inches above the ground as she drifted gently down the street, her head buried in the comic. It was her third one in the scant block between the newsagents and here. The pages blurred as she read, then she reread it, and then she stopped and examined several panels individually.

Walking had been too much to focus on, apparently, so she just hovered.

“One moment!” She called and dashed back to the newsagent, coming out with three full bags of comics. “Can I go back to the Waystation?”

“Sure,” Bert said with a smile, watching the teen vanish as she faded into the background.

“What did she find?” Bell asked, immediately curious.

“They are called comic books,” Bert told her with a smirk. “They are drawings of stories and that. You’ll love them.”

“In the meantime,” Bell scanned the area, “What else here is good?”

“Honestly?” Bert checked the rest of the place out, remembering where things were. “Not a huge amount.”

The truth was that the average English high street did not have a lot to recommend these days, especially to the average interdimensional traveler. You had a choice of coffee shops and tea rooms in some old-fashioned places, but other than that? A couple of takeouts that were useless without anyone actually running them, a market area that was closed, some charity shops…, and maybe a small branch of a bank?

If you were really lucky, there would be an optician!

This town offered a couple of chain coffee shops, shuttered takeout places, and two opticians. The only thing he could remember that Bell would be interested in was the tattoo shop, and he was deeply uneasy about introducing the somewhat impulsive pixie to the idea of a tattoo gun.

Wandering down the still and slightly broken-down high street definitely gave him the post-apocalyptic vibe. To escape the thoughts, Bert made a very hasty mistake and took Bell into the tattoo shop…

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Bell giggled, “There isn’t even any ink in it!”

“But there is a shit load of needles!” Bert insisted as he rubbed his painful chest. “And you aren’t supposed to have one in each hand either!”

Something Bert had discovered to his regret was that a pixie like Bell was more than capable of supplying the damn guns with enough mana to make the power supply and compressed air completely unnecessary.

What had possessed him to point out the most painful areas of the body to be tattooed on was beyond him. He put it down to temporary insanity.

“I want to try it in other places!” Bell said with a wide smile. “I bet there are places that hurt more.”

“No! Bad Pixie!” Bert yelped as she dove at him, laughing as the tattoo guns buzzed in her hands. In case anyone is wondering what a pair of tattoo guns feels like behind your ear, Bert would say it is ‘highly unpleasant’ he would also use terms like ‘burning fire of a thousand suns’ and ‘fucking pixie,’ but only if Bell was out of earshot.

He only managed to get Bell out of the shop by placing every bottle of ink, gun, and book in the place into his bracer storage. Still, she refused to relinquish one of the guns, keeping it in her hand and a grin on her face as it buzzed occasionally.

Somehow, Bert was forced to wonder if he had just unleashed something worse than the apocalypse, given the far-away look in her eyes and sleepy smile.

He was distracted as they stepped out of the door by the large club that smashed him in the face.

It still hurt less than the tattoo gun.

Burt caught the next blow on his arm before kicking his attacker away. It bounced down the roadway away from him, but it was far from alone.

“Ooh, playtime!” Bell smiled as Ringer leaped into her hand.

The road in both directions was packed with large, misshapen creatures. Bert saw a couple more emerging from a sewer cover as the group grunted and slapped their stone clubs against the floor. The whole scene was made even more surreal by the clothes the creatures wore. Perhaps it was how used Bert had gotten to leather and plate armor looks, but the sight of seven-foot tall, misshapen, Cromagnon-looking creatures with thick upper bodies, long arms, and short, stubby legs did not match well with the tracksuits, trainers, and caps worn at strange angles.

One of the creatures ambled forward, heavy belly sticking out from beneath his stained t-shirt.

“Alright, mates?” He nodded to Bert and Bell. “Me and the boys recon you owe us a little somefing for the trouble, ya?”

“Is that right?” Bert said as he scanned the crowd, not seeing anyone to worry him.

“Listen, bruv!” the leader jabbed a finger over his shoulder. “You gotta pay to play, get it?”

“Nah, man,” Bert chuckled. “We don’t.”

“Oh, is that right? Well, how about me and the boys–”

Whatever he was going to say next died with him. A pair of knives had sprouted from his eyes like magic.

Bert took the opportunity to leap into the middle of the crowd, laying about with fist and shield as he sent bodies tumbling. One thing that had become obvious was that people here if these were people, had not exactly been pushing their levels much since whatever happened happened.

Either that or he had been in even more shit than they had. In the end, it didn’t make much difference. Compared to pissed-off bears, trained warriors, mages, and worse… the return to Earth had left him feeling very overpowered.

They scattered, crawling into the sewers and drains as if they were made of Play-Doh.

Unlike places like London, Edinburgh, etc., little English towns did not have sewers to speak of. Not ones you could even crawl through, let alone live in. How they managed to squeeze into them was beyond him. Some magic was obviously at work, but he didn’t know the trick to it.

He tried to figure out how they did it, poking at the drains and such without much luck, while Bell knelt on one that had been a bit slow to run. She was humming happily to herself as she filled the tattoo gun. The design ideas book was floating in front of her, and flicking through options.

“I’m going to need to ask him some questions when you are done,” Bert offered.

“I’m just going to practice a bit,” Bell said happily while the seven-foot tall figure tried fruitlessly to drag itself out from under her knee. “I won’t take more than an hour or two, promise.”

“It might be easier if he was unconscious,” Bert offered helpfully.

“Yeah, but if he doesn’t scream… what’s the point?” Bell said with a beatific smile.

“Well, that’s my queue to leave,” Bert mumbled.

“Get off me, ya fuckin’ cow!” the victim struggled.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“A little tip?” Bert offered as Bell slapped the back of his head hard enough to mash his nose against the floor. “Insults are just gonna make it worse.”

“Mate, get your bird!” He glared at Bert. “Or when we catch her–”

Bert grabbed his face in a grip very much like steel.

“Tip number two. Threaten any of the people I care about, and I will strip the meat from your bones with a fucking spoon!” Bert snarled. “You attacked us, remember?”

“Why a spoon?” Bell asked when Bert stood up, wiping the drool off his hand.

“It’d hurt more.” Bert grinned.

“No, it wouldn’t,” Bell shook her head. “Rookie mistake. It just makes it take longer. What you want to do is use a super sharp knife, but cut reeeaaallly slow. That way, they suffer, and you don’t get sore arms.”

Bert blinked a couple of times and turned away, deciding he would never ask the question of why she knew that. As for her test subject starting to scream as the buzzing noise started?

They attacked a pair of lone travelers.

Fuck ‘em.

===============

Daractain emerged from his study of the orb for the first time in days. Not even the first layer of the complex spell had opened itself to him yet, but it was a very definite start.

To a fae who had spent several lifetimes in the pursuit of the secrets of the universe, that orb was the ultimate gift but also the most humbling moment of his many years. To think he had considered himself a man of learning, let alone an expert!

Such arrogance. That little orb held more knowledge in a single inch of its surface than he had amassed in his entire search. He had been an ant, picking at a crumb and thinking it knew what a cake was. He still was, but now he was aware just how much he didn’t know. They said that true wisdom was knowing just how much you did not yet know, and for the first time, Daractain believed the saying was correct.

“He’s doing it again!” A small mushroom with a hooked cap was quivering in rage as he pointed at a small viewing orb held in one diminutive hand.

Daractain was proud of his mushroom squad. It was a brilliant invention of his, even if it was an early one.

The problem with running a dungeon was the need for mobs inside. Honestly, Daractain would rather do away with the whole idea. It would be so much simpler to have the entrants merely wait quietly until they could be tested for physical limits, cerebral flexibility, and pain tolerance. Follow that with a nice written exam, with extra points for the essay question.

That would honestly be a much better way than all this messy stuff involving the murdering of dungeon denizens. Did these adventurers have any idea how difficult it was to get blood off cave walls? Did they even once consider that someone had to come and put all their entrails in a bucket and carry it out to the silage pit at the far end of the dungeon?

He solved this problem early in his career by creating a persistent consciousness and pairing it with a fast-growing, easily disposable body type. From that first mushroom soldier with a short sword and shield, Daractain had created variations.

The first variation was a spear thrower, the second a mage, and then he created a healing variant. All had been great until he created the poisonous mushroom soldier. It had been a simple design. Poison was created in the cap, rolled down to the brim, and then gathered in lumps and thrown by the soldier.

So simple, reliable, and fun for all the party.

But from the off the little mushroom had been different. They– mushroom soldiers are genderless –were just a touch… emotional?

Whatever the term was, the little mushroom had refused to fight at first, so Daractain had told them to think of it as a performance. A play of sorts. He even took the time to share some memories of plays he had seen with the little mushroom. For inspiration.

Now, looking into the little orb at the scene playing out in the dungeon’s third encounter room, Daractain cringed at the evidence of his mistake.

“You’ll never take me alive, Delvers!” The poison mushroom spun through the air, flinging gobs of poison at seeming random. “None may catch the one and only Poison King!”

The party in the encounter nearly lost their tank to the distraction; the quick actions of their mage in summoning a shield was all that saved him.

“Rise! Rise! Rise, my faithful followers! Throw yourself onto their blades!” Poison cackled as he posed in front of a sconce, letting the light throw his shadow across the encounter.

One of the other mushrooms threw a dagger at Poison, but he caught it.

“Thank you, minion!” Poison brandished the weapon. “Now go forth and die in my name!”

“That’s it!” Shield Mushroom abandoned the fight and lunged at Poison.

“Oi!” Poison tried to run as the others closed on him. “No breaking character!”

The clustered mushroom beat, stabbed, burned, and kicked Poison to death.

Just as they turned back to the astonished adventurers, a single bruised and bloody hand rose from the pile of mush.

“Look for my return… in the east!”

“This is weird,” The party healer said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“It has to be a trap, right?” Their archer hesitated.

“Yeah, let’s bail,” Their warrior called. “I heard there is another dungeon a few miles south of the old town.”

“Wait, he’s just a little weirdo; ignore him!” Shield Mushroom called.

“Oh, gods, it’s talking to us. RUN!” The party scrambled out.

The orb shattered in Daractain’s hand.

Poison hung his little mushroom-cap-covered head and sniffled.

“Wasn’t MY fault.”

“You were overacting again,” Daractain said severely. “We have spoken about this before.”

“They refuse to stick to the script!” Poison sniffed and flicked some poison into the corner.

“What script?” Daractain frowned. “We don’t have a mage script in that room, do we?”

“No, my script,” A pile of stained and blotchy paper was summoned by the little mushroom soldier and thrust up above its head. “Worked hard on it.”

Daractain had to summon a magnifier to read the scrawled writing. Despite being about the size of a child, Poison’s writing was small enough that an ant could have written it. The whole script was almost forty pages long and featured a complex and branching story that adapted to the actions and abilities of the party they were fighting.

It was basically the story of an unnamed Mushroom soldier who was on their first day as a member of the dungeon’s mushroom mobs, only to discover that the evil Poison King was planning to overthrow the dungeon orb as the first step to taking over the world.

Over the course of the dungeon, the little noobie mushroom fights valiantly until he can take no more, siding with the invading party to stop the threat of the evil Poison King before dying valiantly to save a vulnerable party member.

Daractain idly corrected some spelling mistakes as he read it over again and then stared hard at little Poison.

“Have you got other scripts?” Daractain asked eventually.

“One or two,” Poison said guiltily.

“Give them here,” Daractain held out one demanding hand.

Poison put three other scripts in his hand.

“All of them,” Daractain said coldly.

Poison put two more in the waiting hand.

“Poison!” Daractain snapped.

Five more were added to the pile.

“If I have to ask again!” Daractain ground his teeth.

Poison put a full thirty scripts on the tottering pile.

“Very good,” Daractain made them disappear. “We will start with the first one you gave me. I will read the others tonight. I may have notes.”

Poison’s large, gooey eyes stared up at Daractain with hope. “We do script?”

“Yes,” Daractain sighed. “It is rather good, but I will create this new member first. I will issue orders accordingly.”

Poison began to dance in place, happy little tears falling from his eyes.

“Decorum, please.” Daractain sniffed as he turned away.

================

Tayla Morrigan stroked the cocoons that held her two children and waited for the others to finish getting ready to go. Ultimately, she knew they couldn’t stay here, but there wasn’t anywhere else to go, was there?

The only reason she was willing to go to the dungeon in the first place was that a cure-all potion was supposed to be one of the final rewards. If they got one of those, at least she could get one of her children out of whatever spell this was before anything too bad happened to it.

She really wanted two. Having to choose which of her children to save was not something she was looking forward to, but this was her only hope.

Sam ducked into the tent, his hand resting anxiously on the butt of his pistol where it sat in the leather holster. He never took his hand off that thing these days, not since his brother was killed before he could pull it one night.

They had never even seen what it was that got him. Her husband had been dead five days before she was found, dragging the two heavy cocoons behind her by the group. At that stage, there were ten people. Enough to look like safety after barely surviving the attack herself.

Dan had woken her when he screamed and started to fight the thing on top of him. She would never forget the sight of her husband struggling and fighting under what seemed like a giant grasshopper, its back legs glinting with steel blades as they fought.

Her husband died holding it in place while she stabbed it over and over again.

In the aftermath, Tayla had stumbled out of the tent, following the drag marks from where her son and daughter had slept, and into the forest. Something had creaked above her, and then she was slashing with the knife. All she remembered was flashes of the knife and darkness. Then, she saw them.

Her children curled into fetal positions as the cocoons hardened around them.

These days, she could not even see inside anymore.

“Time to go,” Sam nodded to her and lifted the two stiff forms as if they weighed nothing, placing them on each shoulder as she picked up the hunting rifle and followed him out of the simple tent.

Chloe and Dennis were waiting outside for them.

“We’ll get this done,” Chloe said grimly, “Then we’ll take those kids of yours and find somewhere to set up and wait.”

Dennis looked away, his expression showing his doubts, but said nothing.