The misty bridge in the jungle was a thing out of a story. The rushing river below was hidden, only curling wisps of mist scattered across the bridge. Deo stepped on it as the jungle seemed to grow quiet around them. Devina, their guide, turned with a mysterious smile.
“I shall wait with anticipation for the results,” she mused and leapt off the bridge into the mist below. The orange bird flapping after her, cackling. Kemy rushed to the edge, her cloud like robe melding with the mist to give an almost sensual appearance, but she shook her head.
“I can’t see her,” she told the group. Grim sighed.
“She’s a frog, she’s as comfortable in the river as on land and this is her home, you don’t need to worry,” he pointed out with a roll of his eyes. Deo pointed before anyone else could speak.
“WE’RE NOT ALONE...” he warned. The group snapped to attention at the far end of the bridge that had mist so thick that it looked like a solid wall. The clouds of fog began to thin as if being noticed made them shy.
A large kneeling giant appeared as a shadow at first, before the mist peeled back like a curtain. Revealing a large, dark skinned, figure with muscles bigger than their own head, a leather wrap acting to preserve his modesty. He stood and the leather bands across his chest strained to the limit containing the might of this frogman.
“He’s big,” Amenster whispered. The frog tilted his head, large black eyes looking them over.
He pointed suddenly to the side of the bridge. In the direction of the point, a glimmering object could be seen.
A silver key.
It was suspended far out, entangled in roots by the handle. It dangled so dangerously close to vanishing into the mist below that it made the group nervous just seeing it.
“To earn the key... a challenge,” the giant rumbled. Grim looked about.
“I don’t see a puzzle or some obstacle,” he pointed out. The giant smiled, just the smallest upturn of his lips. He threw something that clattered to the middle of the bridge. Everyone stared down at the well carved staff. It was smooth from end to end, seemingly polished with some oily substance, dried out to give it a laquered shine.
“I am the challenge,” the giant acknowledged. He pulled out a similar weapon and smashed the butt into the bridge, causing it to shake slightly. The key rattled almost musically as it teetered from one side to another on its perch.
“One challenger may approach. To earn the key, I must be removed from the bridge for five seconds. Unnecessary power or antics will cause the key to fall. If someone goes for the key... it has its own defence,” the giant said, his voice a smooth deep thing. Like a deep well.
“Like what?” Poppy asked quietly. The river below ceased its rapid flows and something erupted high above the bridge in a rising flop, screaming as it gnashed its pincers together, water cascading down its rainbow hue carapace.
The thing vanished with an almighty crash below.
“Bob.” The giant seemed to think that explained everything. Grim seemed to choke up.
“That thing...” he muttered, face ashen. Kemy also looked torn between trauma and hesitant pleasant hand waving.
“The key is like a worm on a hook... for a bigger worm,” Vas commented, unaffected by the sight.
“Choose your warrior,” the giant called out and sat down, cross legged to wait patiently. Deo took a step forward, but Vas put a hand on his shoulder.
“May I?” he asked politely. Deo blinked then beamed.
“OF COURSE! I BELIEVE IN YOU!” Deo stepped back. Grim frowned.
“Deo is the strongest of us all,” he countered. Vas smiled as he passed his brown cap over to Deo for safe keeping. His hair, unnaturally smooth and flowing, framed his face.
“Perhaps... too strong. My master has built into me a great self-restraint for my own power. Failsafes in case I ever turned homicidal on him,” he explained with a little bit of pride. Grim opened his mouth then closed it.
“Can’t argue with that,” Poppy said and stepped back to a clear line that indicated the ‘end’ of the bridge.
Vas bent down and picked the staff up.
“VAS HAS THE POWER OF HEROISM AND FRIENDSHIP ON HIS SIDE!” Deo warned the giant. Grim quickly spoke up.
“Not all of us are friends! But He also had mild acquaintances,” he added.
“Also maybe a deeply hidden murderous rage,” Poppy reminded. Kemy looked at them.
“A… are you children okay?” she asked the group with concern.
“Mostly. Deo is convinced animals can talk and he just can’t understand them due to the shape of their jaws, but Deo is just that kind of guy. Oh, and Grim once tried to pull a sword from a stone and we found out his Dad stuck it there to plug a leak of rock water,” Amenster admitted.
“Rocks... don’t have water...” Kemy said confused, while Vas was walking towards the giant frog.
“You approach me?” the giant rumbled as he stood.
“I cannot hit you from afar,” Vas agreed with a polite smile. The giant suddenly moved and Vas raised his stick to meet the attack. The bridge rattled, but the force didn’t seem to travel through Vas as one would expect.
“My Master once travelled to de-throat Sirens of the green sea. I am quite used to processing sonic attacks and various frequencies in my body, these weapons are solid and the noise they make when struck together would be... alarming and potentially cause one to fall over. I cannot risk losing that key,” Vas said and pushed back as hard as he could. The giant budged just an inch..
“Ew...” Poppy said and Kemy touched her throat with wide eyes.
“Sirens... aren’t they the seducers of sailors?” Amenster pondered. Grim snorted.
“That’s wishful thinking of ugly pirates and sailors who have to explain why they have no cargo when they dock. Sirens can be traced back to meaning ‘Binders’ or such. I studied them when I wanted to be a famous sailor. They use sound and music to paralyze foes or utterly decimate ships if their choir is big enough. Seduction is just rumors. A siren would kill you if you implied they did anything like actually lure men in, the male ones in particular,” Grim grinned.
Vas pushed back and tried to slip under the frog’s pole to slam into his side, hoping to knock him off the bridge. The frog grabbed the weapon and instead flung Vas high into the air.
“If he lands on the bridge, the key will be lost!” Kemy cried. Vas turned and landed with grace on the bridge’s railing. The bridge didn’t even move.
“The roots holding the key are tethered to the ground. These walls must remain solid to avoid knocking everyone off their feet by merely crossing it. I am in greater danger of falling, but oddly, in the most secure place to fight,” Vas smiled and brushed a lock of his hair out of his face.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The frog joined Vas on the ledge with a single leap.
“Then let us spar on equal grounds,” the giant said calmly. Vas lowered himself, holding the staff so it was held at an odd diagonal angle.
Giant held his horizontally with both hands. The jungle went silent for a moment.
Then the clashing of wood was thunderous and furious.
Giant moved in with a swing suited for greatswords. Vas nimbly leaned one way or another, letting the blows graze past or missing him by inches. The frogman’s attacks pushed the golem back where the wall began to thin out.
Vas suddenly narrowed his eyes and went perfectly still. Kemy gasped in horror as Giant’s pole went straight for the side of his arm. The sheen Vas’ body took on was revealed not to be a trick of the light as the pole met Vas’ skin and the sound of wood meeting wood sounded again. Giant was rocked back by the sheer recoil of resistance he wasn’t expecting.
Vas lost the weird shine and the grainy wood material sunk back beneath his skin. He lashed out, not with blunt hits using the side of the staff, but sharp jabs with the flat end. Six or seven such jabs went into the giant frog’s stomach.
Deo cheered loudly for the golem. The giant frog slipped back, giving Vas the room he needed to step forward with his staff, swinging it around his body in a blurring arc of wood.
The frog was not the master of the bridge for no reason. He took the hit on his neck directly, the bulging muscles doing their best to meet the challenge as the frog pulled one leg in towards his chest, narrowing his own eyes back at Vas.
Then he pressed his head to the side, trapping Vas’ staff between his head and meaty shoulder. Vas wasted a precious second trying to tug at it before the giant's leg shot out. Vas sailed off the bridge and into the misty abyss below. Silence reigned as the giant frog rubbed his neck where he released the weapon. He turned to encourage the next challenger but froze as a strange sound began to echo back up. It was the sound of rock being torn off and splashing heavily into the water... of something creaking.
“WOAH...” Deo stared as Vas flung himself back onto the bridge, lashing tree roots piercing out the back of his dirty white shirt like extra limbs.
“Four seconds... I assume I get the same time limit?” the golem asked blankly as the roots looked like liquid spider legs in the mist. The giant turned and answered by throwing Vas his staff back.
Vas began to twirl it between all four of his extra roots and hands. The staff was almost impossible to track. However… the frog merely met the whirling attack that came in at his blind spot from his right..
The giant blocked it without even looking.
“I’ve fought spiders before. I am used to many limbs,” Giant smiled. Then he leapt high up, his staff point down like a spear.
“But if we are resorting to tricks... I don’t need to win,” the frog called down as he fell.
“I only need to make you lose.”
Vas rushed to meet him as Grim asked something casually.
“Did anyone else know that Vas was a tree spider thing?” he asked aloud. Deo thought about it.
“NO!...BUT I WISH I DID! THAT’S SO COOL!” he said, dancing a little in excitement.
“Mr Japes really stuffed a lot into him,” Poppy commented.
“I wonder if he comes with snacks...” Amenster pondered.
Kemy was dry heaving. She had no real comment.
---
Delta swallowed slightly. She couldn’t even muster a joke or something to snark at. This was too serious. The doors deeper into floor 3, unconquered land... shook once with a mighty rumble. The Delta rune of protection flickered as it tried to handle the strain.
Her guardgoyles did their best to hold their statued forms against the door, adding bands of extra strength to the door. But it wasn’t just pure strength attacking the door. A dark power was animating the attack. Delta focused on the door and felt the stale feeling of a stagnant pool of power.
She focused on it and was greeted with an image. Down the hall, over an army of bone and dripping flesh... past the flies of gluttony...
To a throne room where a little petite girl in a large frilly dress sat on the ornate dusty chair. She looked up, the face of a cherub surrounded by golden curls with a tiara of silver inlaced with a single ruby.
The face of the picturesque princess. If not for the fact half of her face was gone to reveal a black skeleton with runes branded into the bone.
“Let’s play... Big sister Delta,” she beckoned, her voice that of someone who had not spoken in a long time and the image shattered as Delta pulled back, her nonexistent flesh crawling.
> Lovely. Creepy girls gone necromancer. Just what this place needed. I assume we just met Princess Mhari or Princess Marrow?
Nu asked, focusing his blue screen on the door.
Delta frowned... something about the skeleton side of the girl’s face... inside the eyesocket was...
Something was moving.
The fallen Brother... the cult... it was finally meeting her head on and Delta was worried that she wasn’t going to be strong enough to protect her village.
Her hand clenched...
No... Delta was strong enough.
“Let’s play, Marrow. My rules, your game,” she whispered and the attack on the door stilled as if hearing this before resuming with gusto.
> You don’t have rules.
“Can’t cheat if I don’t have them,” Delta agreed and began to pull menus open. She didn’t have much time to make her elite squad ready to fend off an army.
And it all started where she started.
With mushrooms.
“Nu, get the mushrooms ready. Marrow likes to play with death ? I’ll bring something that doesn’t have ‘death’ in its cycle,” Delta pointed and Nu shivered.
> Mushrooms and Undead... a war no one needed, but is getting anyway.
Nu muttered this but Delta was already flying into action. She had two rooms to visit and a special mushroom to create.
If her foe was Princess Marrow? Then she was Queen Fungi.
Delta would embrace her demons to keep the children and the village safe.
She’d even wear a damn mushroom cap into battle if it meant helping her friends...
She just hoped no one had cameras. Delta might have to seal herself away for a 100 years in shame.