The door to the surface.
The barred path to the interloper.
It should have bent and buckled under their continuous assault. It should have cracked and splintered under their unyielding barrage. It should have crumbled under their hate. Yet the door remained strong, blazing with that accursed symbol, pulsing orange light that seared their sight. The forward vanguard captain eyed the door with uncertainty.
“I expect you have a good reason for this hold up?” came the voice of the Princess. Her voice like fingers running through the inside of his skull like a bored spider.
“Enchanted door. Brute force is having little effect,” he reported. The sigh of the Princess of Bone was loud enough that all the marching dead around them rattled with uncertainty.
“Then use magic or perhaps try one of the various alchemy solutions that our researchers spent many, many years making?” the voice pointed out with a sweetness that barely hid her annoyance. There was a strange noise like a creaking hatch and the top of the door opened like a flap.
“Well... I suppose if nothing else, big sister will cull the idiots,” the Princess of Bone said with interest as five strange things were thrown by a winged creature before the door was rapidly closed up.
They hit the walls in various places, sticking instead of bouncing. They unfurled into a strange hexagon-pattern with a sponge cap underneath.
“It’s a mushroom,” rattled one skeleton. The forward Captain would frown if he had any skin left.
“Are we being insulted?” he clacked back.
Then the mushrooms began to explode with screaming stingers like that of a wasp. They rocketed about the room and impaled many skeletons, carrying them around as horrible, burning, bright, holy fire leaked out the ends to make it fly!
More than a few stingers came to a stop in the Flesh Wall.
“To cover!” the captain roared as his men took a protective stance with their shields, walking back behind the Flesh Wall.
A ten foot walking nightmare of congealed skin and muscle that soaked up any attack with ease. The captain felt confident that they would be safe behind it for now. The sound of the hatch opening again on the door made the captain pause.
He peered around to see a ball of squishy texture rolling to a stop before the door.
It didn’t seem to be doing anything for a moment, but the Flesh Wall moved forward, slowly on its countless toes and fingers. The thing quivered as if in anticipation. A few archers smacked dark arrows into it, but it didn’t have any reaction to being attacked until the Flesh Wall moved ever so slightly closer.
Then it unfurled into a nightmare with a petit little mushroom child in the middle. It cackled as countless barbed thorny vines rose up from its petal base.
“Hello boys... This is Wyin coming live from the second floor,” the evil child spoke with a voice far too old for its appearance.
The form shifted slightly, leaning forward with a smirk.
“And you can’t forget the unforgettable Maestro!” the voice turned masculine and booming.
The vines dived into the soil and the tunnel began to shake as the creature’s left eye became a black void with a deep orange light as the right became deep amber.
“And this is the beta-version of the Mic-room,” they said in sync.
“Charge!” the captain roared as the creature threw out strange mushrooms that looked like coiled rope as spears of thorny vines tore the Flesh Wall apart like it was made of pillow stuffing.
“Sorry boys, you made Delta mad and she’s got her favourite kids playing Dungeoneers... you aren’t allowed to mess that up. You aren’t allowed to make our mother upset!” the hybrid roared as the vines began to shear the marrow off the bone warriors. One of the rogue bone warriors threw a flask of bubbling acid that smashed across the torso. T he creature looked down at the mess.
“You know... Delta worked hard on this,” the female voice said without any emotion. The orange left eye blazed.
“First, you come in rudely knocking... then you come near her with your freaky flesh thing... and now you melt her work?” the male voice added.
The eyes blended together into a burning orange amber. The captain felt his spine tremble, despite having no nerves to transmit fear through for some time.
The being looked up as the thorns that grew out the walls began to vibrate with a low song, of all things. A choir of people singing in some sort of deep, ancient language. It pulsed and the captain shook harder.
“Tell your brat of a princess that we are coming. Your walls, your doors, your dead, your god... they cannot protect you,” the mushroom creature warned as it rose up into a throne of thorns.
“Even a god will become food for the worms and mushrooms,” the female voice rasped as the tunnel came alive with thousands of vines, entangling the soldiers and beginning to rip them apart.
The last thought the captain had was that perhaps... they were not the scariest thing under this earth.
---
“Maestro will sing a song and Wyin will grump. It’ll be fine,” Delta promised Nu. The box was silent as they stared around at the creations Delta had invented.
Spidershrooms latched on to faces and injected spores into the lung. That was being shelved because Delta felt like she wasn’t quite ready to unleash that on people and her true foes were undead with no lungs.
Goblinshrooms were just statue-like mushrooms that occasionally farted. They had a strange thing where they occasionally changed facial expressions, but Delta didn’t think they were dangerous.
Delta did hit upon something strange when she merged her fire and water crystals with the mushrooms. The fire crystal she had so long ago gotten from that farmer and the water one more recently.
Delta peered down at the mushroom that seemed to be burning and called up its screen.
> Mushroom of Fire:
> A mushroom that has obtained pure fire elemental energy. This creation can be ingested to force someone to face their fears. They burn alive if they cannot find courage.
>
> Mushroom of Water:
> A mushroom that has obtained pure water elemental energy. This creation can be ingested to force someone to face their sorrows. They will drown in regret if they cannot find the will to carry on.
> Click to expand...
Mushrooms that caused one to go on a spirit trip? Delta was making some real good stuff now!
So... Delta did the only thing that was logical. She merged them.
> Mushroom of Steam:
> A Mushroom that has obtained that rare elemental energy of steam. This creation can be ingested to force someone to purge their impurities from their body. They will cook alive if they cannot purge themselves of toxic substances and become more.
“Oh God... weak kids with low chances of being a god with legendary techniques are going to invade me,” Delta whined to Nu.
> Just reverse merge them...
Nu sounded done with the affair.
Delta did so and the result was indeed different.
> Mushroom of Hotspring:
> A mushroom that has obtained the rare elemental energy of Hotspring. By soaking this in water and bathing in it, your body will recover almost supernaturally fast from physical wounds and innate energies will return sooner.
Delta tried mixing them next, both combos ending in the same product.
> Saunashroom:
> A mushroom that grows to be as big as a tree. Inside a unique hot spring can be found. Some may help and heal someone, but others may be trapped to dissolve victims over time.
The water mushroom looked like a jellyfish on a stalk, see through and smooth. The Steamshroom looked like a little house where steam poured out a little chimney. The Hotspring mushroom looked like a basin at the top with boiling water that steamed. The Saunaroom?
It was like a giant smurf’s house with a cheerful wooden door and steam fogging up the sap-like glass. It looked inviting and Delta glared at the words that one of these might just decided to eat people...
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It was something to think about later. Delta had an undead army to remove and offering free hotspring sauna trips wasn’t going to do much.
“Swordshrooms?” Delta asked Nu as he checked up on the various projects.
> Look worse than Kemy’s staff. You wouldn’t want the kids to see them.
Delta scratched that off the list.
“Any of the metal combos?” she asked briskly as she shorted the elemental shrooms in order.
> Quite useless. They can’t move and if they get too big, they seem to crush themselves under their own weight. They also don’t reproduce.
Delta bit her lip.
“And... that?” she asked softly.
Nu took some time to float back and respond to her.
> They have high compatibility and work better than anything else we’ve tried.
Delta gripped her hands into her skirt and swallowed once like she was drinking something bitter.
She looked up at the pond in the secret room where the creature slowly crawled onto the sand, grasping and twitching.
“Am... I a bad person for making this?” Delta whispered with doubt. Nu moved in closer and for a moment his screen flickered into a barely human shape as he seemed to put an arm around her. A frowning young man’s face showed before he was just a screen again.
> No. If you made this for fun or kicks? You would be a Dungeon, but you made this to protect everyone.
The creature looked up as the waves of mushroom caps twitched.
“Mo...ther?” it rasped. Delta’s face squeezed tight with pain and hurt at the word. She stood up and rushed forward, putting her arms around the creature’s neck.
“I am! I’m here for you... please don’t hate me,” she begged. The creature slowly pulled its arms around her and simply spoke softly.
“I am... ready to... protect,” it promised. Delta looked up and brushed a lock of sprawling mushrooms that grew from almost every inch along its head and back.
“My hero,” she smiled with a watery smile. With that she stood up and planted a small press of her lips on its forehead.
“Hero. Would you like that as a name?” she asked and the creature smiled slowly, an effort.
“I... get a name?” it managed. Delta nodded, beaming despite how her eyes leaked tears.
“Always,” she promised and the creature stood to its full height and powerful muscles bulged.
“Then... I will be your hero,” he promised as the sea of mushrooms along his back wriggled like separate entities.
“I will be your hero in the dark so... you may shine,” he announced and began to walk off towards the exit.
---
Maestro knew that in most fights, he and Wyin would cream these bone-jokers. Sharing a body that could barely hold a smidgen of their most fabulous selves? Not so easy, he had to admit. The Micshroom was a ‘transceiver’ or an empty puppet someone who was hooked into the shroomnetwork could inhabit.
So far, that was Maestro, Wyin, the Pygmies if they ever banded truly together into that… unified Pygmy God mindhive, Mushy, and occasionally, Boary of the grove. Missy was still a bit young to fully use it since she was a new kind of Mushroom being.
Wyin and he?
They made a good couple in terms of battle. But Maestro was not blind! He knew the frozen tree of the north had her heart captured by a truly dashing knight. After all, Maestro was the one who gave Wyin live updates of the fight with the Holy-Pot warriors that consisted of several people against Sir Fran. If they got as far as Wyin? Maestro may have to bring Mother into a meeting to make her... ‘chill’ as the smooth youth would say.
She held a grudge.
Still, if a group that ever came through that beat Fran but Maestro really didn’t like? He’d egg the girl on to whip them with gusto. That was the fun thing about Wyin. She put on a deep edge about herself... but she was so lonely she would kill for Delta.
Well... they’d all kill for mother, but no one would just come out and say it where Mum could hear! They had all heard the chastising the Pygmies had gotten when they messed with Jeb in the third floor kitchen.
No one wanted that turned on them. Mother was such a pure person that anything she made... even if it scared her... she matured and made sure it was loved. Maestro? He had started out as an aggressive angsty Spitter and matured. Maestro guessed his attitude back then would have scared her, but his most recent transformation?
She was all over him in love!
To raise a murder happy Mushy into such a gentleman? Bob into a human-loving worm that just wanted to be petted? Quee who was an enemy but now turned to be a music loving boy?
Delta... Delta did that.
Delta was their purpose. Her love for humans became their love. Her wish to protect the children became their wish. Mother’s promise that everyone had good in them sounded almost possible in this Dungeon they called home.
So... if this was his real body? Maestro would only feel pride as he began to fall... only pleasure that he was falling in the name of Delta. Only feel a bit of regret he could not be with her too much longer.
The Mic-shroom was heavily damaged with toxic laced arrows and a mage that had talent in black fire. The embers burned deeply and gave off a sickly scent as if the fire was infecting the flesh it touched. The Guardgoyles kept throwing in Stinger Missiles or the occasional Jack’s (trademarked)explosive flask.
It wasn’t enough. This army of undead seemed to put itself back together, appear from dust, truly… seem undying.
“You’ve got moves,” Wyin said begrudgingly. Maestro chuckled as he sent a sonic blast into the approaching numbers, turning them to bone dust. The dust flowed like water away from them around vines to reform into soldiers.
“Darling, I am the king of grooves, but these suckers are making me look lame,” he complained.
“Do... you have anyone worth fighting for?” Wyin asked as she broke apart three more Flesh Walls in a single spear effort of vines. Maestro knew she meant someone besides Mother and he paused for a moment.
“Mushy... my naive brother who guides humans and likes it. He’s so clueless he once let a human stab him basically! Missy... she’s a special crossbreed but my little sister...” he panted as he blasted ghostly wraiths away with blue jazz.
He thought of someone suddenly.
“A human,” he whispered.
“She sang with the voices of goddesses and the tones of demons. She shook my world and we connected beyond love and lust... beyond right and wrong... we became a harmonious duet that made us complete,” Maestro perked up and his songs became solid... almost ripping through the undead.
“You love this human?” Wyin panted as she crushed bones under her fury.
“No... not love... she has her love, but we complete each other in another way. Something primal in the soul,” Maestro admitted.
“...Sounds complicated,” Wyin mused.
“Just make sure she doesn’t use you to steal your domain and become a primordial tree,” she scowled as she slapped down several bone bats.
“Specific enough? What even is-” Maestro was cut off as a series of black arrows pierced his side.
The avatar they inhabited knelt down in the result of their crumbling ability to fight back. A hatch opened up, but they ignored it, hoping it was stinger missiles or more bombs.
“Any idea how we can take down these boneheads before we go out with a bang?” Maestro panted, really feeling the feedback now.
“Kill them before they kill us,” Wyin announced.
“Genius,” Maestro’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Something moved past them and Maestro looked up to see a tall creature with its back to them. It was... perhaps once a human. All skin and basic human features had been removed to a basic template. The back of his skull and all the way down his spine like a mane of hair was gleaming golden mushrooms.
“I am... here,” he promised and turned to show eyes with deep orange light, no irises. He gave them both a thumbs up.
The mushroom infested moss around a corpse turned and walked calmly towards the undead army.
His fist pulled back and smashed through a skeleton warrior who was unprepared for the attack. From the impact, a ripple of muscles in the taut grey skin moved eerily until a burst of golden mushrooms grew down the skeleton.
“I am the only human that mother ever killed consciously combined with her hated Slimers with mushrooms added on,” the creature announced.
The creature stood against the army with his lone turned ally.
“I am Hero.”