Chapter Six

Dungeon Interior - The Play Begins.

“Switch out weapons,” Dennis called as they filed into the dungeon. Sam placed the cocoons on the ground to one side and opened his pack, pulling out a wicked-looking crossbow and two bundles of bolts. Dennis unstrapped the riot shield from his back and untied the hammer from his leg.

“Are you sure we can’t use our guns?” Tayla asked for the fifth time since they left camp in the early morning hours.

“Try it,” Chloe gestured to the rifle Tayla was holding, which clicked dully when she pulled the trigger. “See?”

“How does that make sense?” Tayla ground her teeth.

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Dennis replied gruffly. “It just is. Now, everyone tighten up; it will have set the challenge for six people.” His eyes flicked to the two cocooned forms. “We only have four, so this is going to be dangerous.”

Chloe nodded mutely as she snapped together a series of metal rods, creating a rough-looking staff that she started to swing through the air in increasingly complex patterns. A pale green smoke was left behind, forming an image of a bird soaring into the air. She jabbed the staff forward, the smoke rushing toward the party and entering their nose and mouth.

Soaring Hawk Buff applied.

All stats +10%

“I’ll lead,” Dennis said simply. “Sam will handle ranged enemies; Chloe will keep us alive.” His eyes focused on Tayla last, “Try and help if you can.”

Tayla nodded and drew her only weapons. A carving knife and a cleaver. What a bloody joke.

A lifetime of cooking, and all it got her was the class of Chef and not a single combat or survival talent to go with it. Not even Fire Resistant was helpful, which the burn scars on her hands showed pretty clearly.

They moved out of the Safe Room with Tayla just behind Dennis, where he could protect her the most. The rough stone walls closed around them as they crept as soundlessly as possible toward the first encounter room.

The local dungeon was becoming quite popular, with more than a few travelers having mentioned visiting it with one group or another. The survivors in this part of England were so scattered and spread out that anything that drew them together was a good thing. The dungeon could have done that, but it was rumored to lack a real challenge and, therefore, much of a reward.

A nomadic lifestyle had become the default, with no one daring to shelter in one place unless SHE came and demanded tribute, but in Tayla's opinion, it had caused more deaths than it saved.

What all that traveling did allow was the sharing of information, so they had a good idea of the layout of the dungeon and what they might face within. It was divided into five rooms, with corridors between them that were rarely guarded. They would fight different groups of mushroom enemies and then descend to the second level, doing it all over again. Once you cleared room ten, a voice would offer tips to improve and leave behind a chest with items inside.

There was always at least one potion, usually three. Always a cure-all, but sometimes three.

Dennis held up his hand, and they stopped, getting low and moving slowly until they could clearly hear the voices.

Peaking over Dennis’ shoulder, Tayla saw a mushroom with a large cap, about four and a half feet tall, and holding a sword and shield in pale arms. It had a large face but no feet at all that she could see.

It was talking to a smaller mushroom that stood as tall as its three feet of height would allow, holding a small round shield and a sword the size of a dagger.

“Welcome to the squad, Newb. I’m Shield; I lead our little group.” It smiled anxiously at the little mushroom.

“Here to help!” the squeaky voice was kind of cute.

“Don’t be too keen, lad,” Shield warned. “We may grow back when we die, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun to get killed.”

“I understand, sir,” Newb responded.

“Get ready,” Dennis whispered to the others. “Sam, get that Shield as soon as I charge.”

Sam nodded.

Tayla frowned as Dennis leaped forward, holding up a riot shield in front of him, and rushed into the room.

“INTRUDERS!” Shield wailed as two more bounced into the room.

Sam’s bolt bounced off the shield the mushroom held before Dennis sent it flying with a kick.

The fight was short, even with the additional mobs, but Tayla and others noticed the little Newb trying to save the initial Shield Mushroom. It kind of made her heart ache to see it trying so hard. She assumed the others felt the same, as no one seemed to take the little bugger out.

Just as Dennis closed on the Shield mushroom again, a figure in the shadowy corridor beyond caught the little newb’s eye.

“Poison King! Help us!” Newb called.

“Do your job, Newb!” A screeching voice called back. “Or I’ll see to it that your root is severed, and you will never grow back!”

The little mushroom turned back to the room, facing the party, little arms shaking.

“B-B-back off!” It yelled anxiously. “I-I-I’ll…”

“Jesus, somebody get that thing!” Dennis yelled. “It’s a bloody dungeon mob!”

“I think it’s just scared.” Chloe reached for it.

Newb swung its sword, catching her in the back of the hand and drawing blood.

“Shit!” Chloe slapped it away reflexively, and it spun in the air before coming to a stop. “Oh, fuck!” Chloe flinched back. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Ice cold, Chloe,” Sam shook his head. “Slapped the little dude to death.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Chloe protested.

“It’s… just… a… mob!” Dennis said, trying not to laugh.

Chloe was still grumbling to herself and shooting guilty looks at the corpse as they filed out of the room and into the corridor beyond.

The second encounter was a lot different. The mobs knew they were in the dungeon now, and it showed. They faced a grim-faced Shield flanked by a pair of narrow, taller mushrooms that held spears in their pencil-thin arms. A similar group hurried out of the far corridor as they arrived, with a third beginning to grow on the far side of the room. The sprouting mushrooms seemed like a stop-motion animation, but it certainly encouraged the group to hurry.

While Dennis and the others fought, Tayla saw a familiar figure bounce out of the tunnel, falling over as it tried to pull the little sword too quickly.

“Look! He’s back!” Chloe yelled happily, almost taking a spear to one shoulder as a result.

“Ah!” The little Newb mushroom flinched as it saw her before hiding behind the other mushrooms.

Chloe looked horrified.

“Now!” Shield yelled, and the two remaining Shield mushrooms worked together to throw Dennis’ shield aside long enough for one of the spear throwers to bury one in his leg.

Dennis hissed as he yanked it out while Chloe spun, summoning that same smoke and sending it snaking along the floor where it climbed up Dennis’ leg and poured into the wound, healing it.

The damage vanished completely as Sam nailed the second shield bearer with a trio of bolts.

Denis moved again, sending a spear-wielding mushroom sprawling as he charged after Shield. Tayla leaped forward and swung her knife and cleaver, chopping it into pieces.

“Fuck!” Chloe yelled. “That was some hit.”

Tayla frowned at the knives in her hands before she realized it. “They are mushrooms… my skills see them as ingredients!”

Chloe yelled out as Newb bounced over the dead Shield and launched himself through the air at Dennis.

“Murderer!” He yelled, digging his little sword into Dennis’ shoulder and twisting.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Denis grabbed it, flinching when it screamed in pain. He dropped it hurriedly.

“What the hell is with this mob?” He asked. “They don’t feel pain!”

“Don’t we?” Newb coughed pitifully. “Did you ever ask?”

“I–” Dennis looked horrified.

“Don’t let me suffer, please?” His tearful eyes turned to Tayla. “It hurts… so much.”

Tayla struck once, and the pieces rolled away.

“Fuck this,” Chloe laughed nervously. “Is this place messing with my head or what?”

“I don’t know,” Dennis said with a frown. “I think something is different with that one. When we see it next… I don’t know. Disarm it and tie it up?”

They moved on, the next encounter being mercifully free of the Newb mushroom, but they did meet a new type. It flung poison at them while yelling about serving the Poison King. Even when Sam nailed it with a bolt, the bloody thing tried to fling one last bit of poison before it died.

“Did you see how the others avoided this one?” Dennis asked as they took a quick break to drink some water before moving on. “I think the poisonous ones are part of a different group.”

“What about this Poison King?” Chloe asked. “Boss version of this thing?”

“Probably,” Sam shrugged. “As far as I know, they normally don’t tell you what to expect in dungeons, so your guess is as good as mine.”

Chloe groaned when she saw the little Newb sitting front and center of the line of mushrooms waiting for them in the fourth room. He had a determined look on his face, even if he did seem to pale a little at the sight of the party.

Tayla might have just imagined that, however, it was a mushroom at the end of the day. Pale kind of went with the description.

The numbers were increasing rapidly now, with more of the poisonous ones lurking at the back. One thing that Tayla figured out was that the ones she thought of as original were all a different color than the rest. Shield had a red and white cap, compared to green and white on the others. Newb was a pale red with only a few white spots, while the spear-wielding pair were gold, the others having a paler color. The newest mob was a thin one with two caps, one pink, the other purple. They held a staff and seemed to heal the others.

Before she could see much more than that, a blob of poison struck her shoulder, and the world seemed to swim as a burning pain began to spread.

All she heard was the screeching laugh of a poisonous mushroom.

By the time the healing from Chloe roused her, it was almost over.

Sam was holding Newb still while Dennis finished off a pair of Spears.

“Let me go, you cowards! Newb roared.

“Calm down,” Sam said calmly. “We just want to talk!”

“Never!” A screech came from the shadows, and a large glob of poison arced across the room, catching Newb full in his little face. He writhed and screamed before hanging limp and dead in Sam’s grip.

“What the fuck is going on?” Dennis snapped.

Their arrival at the final encounter room on the first floor was even weirder.

A ring of poisonous mushrooms and spear wielders were surrounding a few Shields and Newb, along with one Healer. The group listened as they approached the entrance.

“Give it up and serve the Poison King, fools!” This one had a much deeper green poison dripping from the cap, which was a darker grey. “There is no other choice!”

“We all serve the Core!” Newb shouted defiantly.

The ring of enemies laughed.

“May you be wiser in your next growth!” The one Tayla thought was Poison gestured, and the poison flingers and spear throwers raised their weapons.

“Save the lad!” Shield roared, and a massive fight broke out.

The party had to move back from the tunnel to avoid the flying spears and poison, only hearing the sounds of battle.

Eventually, it went silent… except for a gentle weeping.

Dennis and the others picked their way over the fallen and dead to find a weeping Newb holding a sliced-off portion of Shield’s cap in his trembling hands.

He turned teary eyes to the party and held it up for them.

“He died to save me. See?”

No one spoke for a moment.

“What is happening in this dungeon?” Dennis asked again.

“If I tell you, can you help?” Newb looked into their faces, searching for hope.

“Maybe,” Chloe said softly. “If we can.”

“Do you know how dungeons work?” Newb asked them.

“No, I’m sorry,” Dennis said, crouching in front of the crying Newb, who sniffed through his little button nose and wiped his eyes.

“Well,” Newb looked lost for a second but carried on suddenly, “The core is the one who makes us… us?” It nodded to itself. “Right. Right. So, the evil Poison was powerful, but they wanted more, so they killed the root of Archer and Rogue, taking their food for themselves. That meant that the first, the um original one…” It trailed off, looking lost again.

“The ones with the most color in their caps?” Tayla asked.

“Yes!” Newb sighed with relief. “It grew larger than all the others. Even larger than Shield! He called himself the Poison King, and now he is trying to take over the whole dungeon!”

“Dungeon!” A screeching laugh echoed through the shadowy corridors. “You think too small, little one! I shall take over the world!”

“Fuck, that’s creepy,” Sam shivered.

“Enough, rookie,” Shield’s deep voice echoed through the darkness next. “It is over. He has our roots now. We serve, or we die.”

Newb hung his head.

“When you finish the dungeon, look behind the large stone on the left wall,” he whispered. “If you want to kill him and save the dungeon… that is where he is. Where the roots are.”

“We need cure-all potions,” Dennis said, trying not to move his lips as he drew his hammer back. “Can you get them?”

“We only have five left,” Newb said. “I’ll have them waiting as soon as I regrow.”

Dennis brought the hammer down, and the group silently moved on to the stairs, ready to descend to the next level.

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

They saw Newb again in the second encounter on the floor. He did as he was told by the screeching shadows, but he nodded to Tayla as he died on her knife.

No one spoke; they just trudged on to the next encounter, each of them sharing a simmering anger as they got closer to their real enemy.

The Poison King.

None of them spoke of their deal with little Newb, but it was the only way to save her children, so Tayla would have gone on alone if she had to. No one suggested turning back, even when the numbers got out of hand, and Chloe was dancing throughout the fights to keep them alive.

In the fourth room, things went south in a bad way. It seemed they would be forced back by the mushrooms, but Newb gave a signal to Shield, and the mushrooms seemed to stumble and fall while the glob of poison arcing through the air to the exhausted Chloe was intercepted with a mighty leap by Newb.

The horrific substance splattered across his cap and back as he bounced off Chloe, having left nothing but a scratch with his fake attack.

He lay dead at her feet as she danced on, angry tears in her eyes.

When the last mushroom fell, Dennis turned to Chloe and motioned her not to say anything. Tayla looked around the room, seeing the shadowy figure in the corridor, watching and listening.

The group entered the final encounter with murder in their hearts. Dennis roared and lay about him with his hammer, crushing as many enemies with his shield as Tayla covered his back. Sam was firing as fast as he could reload, but Chloe was the real game changer. She screamed like a pissed-off banshee, and the energy from her staff gained a sharp red edge that tore apart anything too slow to move.

It ended up being a very short fight, especially when Newb slipped into their lines and began to finish off any injured mushrooms that still clung to life.

The last mob died, and a door opened, showing a set of stairs to the surface and the reward room.

Dennis nodded to Newb, and he led them to a large boulder sitting against the far wall. A hidden passage behind wound deeper into the earth, and the party followed it, Newb perched grimly on Sam’s shoulder.

A few minutes later, they all crouched at the entrance to a large cavern.

Looking around, Tayla saw the tiny growing forms of the mushrooms they had fought as they grew. Beyond that, a single, giant mushroom sat in the middle of a ring of glowing moss.

Newb pointed, and the group sprinted for the large form, Dennis keeping his large Riot Shield raised to block any attack.

A rumbling laugh sounded as they cleared the last of the rocks and faced the Poison King in his own lair.

“Foolish, foolish little one,” the Poison King said as it raised its agile arms that it used to fling the poison that dripped in thick clumps from the large, black cap above it. “My ascendancy almost complete. You should have followed me into the world!”

“You are a traitor,” Newb said grimly. “Traitors must die.”

“Well, if you insist!” The nine-foot-tall mushroom struck, and they all winced, but when the dust cleared, the only thing hit was a patch of moss, which was now dying.

“No!” Newb yelled.

“Yes!” Poison King laughed. “Your root is dead, and you will surely follow!”

The fight began in earnest, and Tayla found herself carving large chunks from the mushroom as Dennis worked to block its powerful blows.

As it was driven back, it let out a hiss, and spear-wielding mushrooms sprouted around the cavern, only to be attacked by massed Shields that fought while chanting Newb’s name.

Class Evolution!

Chef - Battle Chef!

New Skill: Julienne!

Dice your target, be it ingredient or foe, into a thousand pieces in a whirlwind of blades!

Tayla didn’t hesitate, activating the skill and seeing the world slow to a crawl as her hands and arms blurred, bright glowing slashes covering the form of the Poison King before everything snapped back into real-time all at once.

The giant mushroom exploded into pieces, sending poison flying in all directions.

Dennis staggered back, a large glob of the flying liquid heading right for him, and fell on his back.

“Nooooo!” Newb threw himself in the way, once more taking the brunt of the attack.

The group rushed to the fallen mushroom as he rolled lifelessly from Dennis’ chest.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Chloe panicked and tried to heal the little mob, but the green smoke just dissipated as it touched him.

“No!” Dennis slammed his riot shield into the floor over and over. “Fuck!”

Tayla just stared, stunned, until a figure hopped weakly out of the shadows.

The group roused and turned to face the new threat, only for Shield to raise his hand and speak.

“Stop!” Shield called, his voice choked with emotion, “We may still save him.”

“How?” Chloe demanded.

“It is a way all our own,” Shield nodded as mushrooms came forward and lifted the fallen Newb above them and began to chant as they took it deeper into the shadows. “We owe a great debt to one young mushroom and to you.” He waved one tired arm, and one of the Healers came forward, dragging a pouch. “He said you needed these. He told me… just in case he didn’t make it.” Shield turned aside as if hiding his tears. “Please, go. The rest of your rewards await above.”

“Can we help?” Tanya asked as the figures marched off into the dark.

“You have. Now go. This is dungeon business.” Shield did not turn around.

Tayla opened the pouch and saw five Cure All potions.

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

Daractain applauded as his mushroom squad appeared in front of him.

“Marvellous! Simply marvellous!”

“You really liked it?” Poison asked shyly.

“It was perfect,” he gestured to the viewing portal where the Party was leaving with tears in their eyes, “They will never forget this dungeon run. Never!”

Poison beamed.

“How did I do?” Newb fidgeted nervously. “I forgot the explanation at one point!”

“You were great, kid!” Poison beamed. “You all were.”

“I think I should get to be the hero!” Shield protested.

“Wait till you see the next story!” Poison said. “I call it The Shield of Love!”

“Oooh,” the squad clustered around the excited Poison as Daractain idly toyed with the orb.

The orb was important, of course, but even undead Daractain was still a Fae, and the Fae loved a good story above all else.