KER-CHUNK. KER-CHUNK. KER-CHUNK.

The sunken structure continued to shake and the ground beneath them seemed to shift. Dust and small stones dislodged from the ceiling fell to the floor.

Huummmmmmmmmmmmm...

The powerful hum in the background reverberated around them, making the air vibrate.

tikka-tikka-tikka-tikka-tikka-tikka

A horde of Groshnickes charged towards them.

BREACH! BREACH! intoned the voice.

Gob, still size(9) with Toast active, barbtailswept across the charging horde, sending many of the Groshnickes smashing back into the others behind them.

Gurd jumped in front of him, and let out her rending

SCCCCCCRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!

ripping through the oncoming horde like a large blade.

KER-CHUNK. KER-CHUNK. KER-CHUNK.

BREACH! BREACH! intoned the voice.

All of a sudden the inky black area beyond the doorway that had opened suddenly lit up. Daylight unexpectedly flooded in through the ceiling, causing Gob and Gurd to shield their eyes, and causing the Groshnickes to scream and thrash around trying to escape the glare, their sensitive milky white ocular lumps obviously hurting from the sudden change in intensity. They flailed against each other in a chaotic jumble and skittered away into the dark recesses of the structure they had just emerged from.

Gob shrank back to size as his Toast wore off, while at the same time looking around and upwards as his eyes adjusted to the daylight. As soon as he was back to his normal size he sensed what Gurd had meant by burning. The hummm still filled the air, and it felt like his skin was on fire wherever it touched him, which was anywhere in the direction of the centre of the space beyond the doorway.

But he couldn't help but look anyway, what was beyond the doorway was incredible.

The room beyond the door was circular, obviously the black 'blob' in the very centre of the map Karl had shown them. What must have previously been the low, flat ceiling had been pushing upwards in concentric rings of stone forming a gigantic funnel that reached higher and higher upwards with each ker-chunk. The centre of the structure had now opened to the sky, and must have been well above the level of the swamp outside. Gob wondered what the others must be seeing from out there.

As the funnel pushed up however, the floor of the circular room had also been receding downwards. As it did, doorways identical to the one that had had just opened on Gob and Gurd's level were being revealed below them. Gob stepped through the doorway and looked over the edge at the slowly receding platform. There was a level below them, and a level below that, and another below that, and then Gob couldn't see any further... but he could still hear the

Rassssssssssp...

of stone on stone as the platform continued to descend. how many levels ar down dere? thought Gob.

Thankfully, the hummm was also receding into the depths. Whatever powerful thing was emitting that energy was heading downwards too, at least giving some small relief for the moment from the skin burning sensation.

CHUNK!

The movement of the stone stopped suddenly, the whole structure shuddered and then was still. Both above them and below them, for the first time in a while, apart from the low hummm still coming from below, there was stillness and silence.

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY OPENED THE QUEZATL TEMPLE DUNGEON.

It was the strange monotone voice again.

"HOO DAT?!" Gob yelled again.

"SHOW UZ YA UGLEE FASE!" yelled Gurd.

"dat woz a good wun, Gurd!" Gob complimented her happily.

I AM THE CORE. YOU ARE THE CHALLENGERS.

"NO WE IZNT." yelled Gob, "WE JUZ HAV TO STOP DE SWAMP COZ I OREDY GOT A KWEST TO DO."

CHECK YOUR QUEST BOX.

Gob looked annoyed and scrunched his parchment with a growl.

QUEST: Contain the isotope on sublevel 5. Time remaining: 02:59:32 until reactor meltdown.

GRRROOAOOARRRRR!

Gob yelled in frustration.

"I DON WANT ANUVA KWEST!"

I AM THE CORE. YOU ARE THE CHALLENGERS.

Gob kicked the wall in frustration.

BREACH! BREACH! BREACH WILL TRIGGER EARLY REACTOR MELTDOWN.

"WOT IZ A REACTA MELTDOWN?"

YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

"DEN I NEED TO GIT MI FRENDS TO HELP!" he yelled.

YOU DO YOU.

"how we gonna git dem to come befor da melt-down, gob? an wot about de rady-yashun?" said Gurd.

Gob didn't know how he could make it work. It would take them longer than the time they had to get back outside to even tell them their friends what was happenning.

There was only one thing to do. He played a trump card.

-1fate

"HEY! HEY DOWN THERE... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE TEMPLE? I TOLD YOU TO BEHAVE YOURSELVES AND NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING. BUT OH NO, YOU'VE DECIDED TO GO AND PUSH BUTTONS AND... STUFF, HAVEN'T YOU?" a voice yelled down at them from far above. Gob shielded his eyes with his hands and squinted up at the opening in the funnel-shaped ceiling of the temple. He could see a gargantuan head leaning over the opening peering in at them. At least it would have been peering, if it had eyes.

"oh grate," sighed Gurd, "iz mista fing agin, he iz so weerd."

Gob was more amazed at the size the thing must have been able to grow to in order to be able to peer over the top of the funnel like that. iz mista fing juz abl to git az big az he wonts to? Gob was a little envious.

"HEY MISTA FING!" Gob yelled back, "WE FOUND DA COOR! HE IZ HEER TORKIN TO US! CAN YOO GO AN GET MI FRENDS? DEY GOT TO HELP MI WIV DIS KWEST DA COOR GAV MI!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY? DID YOU SAY THE CORE GAVE YOU A QUEST? WELL, THAT WOULD BE RIGHT WOULDN'T IT? ALL THESE YEARS OF BEING THE GUARDIAN, AND THEN THE FIRST PEOPLE I EVER LET INSIDE GO AND GET A QUEST. TYPICAL. WHAT IS THE QUEST ABOUT ANYWAY?"

"HEY WE IZ IN A BIT OF A RUSH HEER MISTA FING, CAN YOO JUZ GIT MI FRENDS REEL KWIK?" yelled Gob.

"OH SURE IT'S ALL 'NOW! NOW! NOW!' WITH YOU LOT ISN'T IT? I'VE BEEN HERE GUARDING THE PLACE FOR YEARS ON END, AND YOU JUST RUN IN HERE--"

GO AND GET IT'S FRIENDS ALREADY. The core boomed up at the thing.

"RIGHTO THEN!" said the thing, and was gone, "THAT CORE IS SUCH A COOL GUY..." They heard him say as he sloshed off with massive squelching steps.

Gob turned to Gurd, "i don no how we goin to do dis kwest, an i don no how long mi frends wil tak to come, but wil yoo come wiv mi gurd?"

"of cors i wil. letz save da bogsporn!" she said.

SUBLEVEL TWO IS OPEN. intoned the Core.

There's was another

Click-Rasssssssssssp... chunk. chunk. chunk.

The door to the next level down slid open, and a descending row of steps extended from the wall, leading down to the next level.

"wot do we do?" asked Gurd.

FIND THE CONTROL ROOM AND DISABLE THE RADIOMETER.

"I DON NO WOT DAT MEENS!" yelled Gob.

SWITCH OFF THE GLOWY THING.

"ok gurd," he said, "letz find a glowee fing."

They ran down the steps together and plunged through the sublevel two doorway without hesitation. The minute they were back in the darkness of the passages, the lurking Groshnickes sprung on them.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Gob spinbarbed and barbtailswept. Now that he was size(4), he thought maybe he could barb the Groshnickes without jumping as he'd had to do to reach them when he was size(3). He tried using his tail scorpion-style, coiling it back and then flicking it straight forward, much like Gurd did. He successfully impaled a Groshnicke in the centre of it's forehead.

emerged:skill:barbskewer

After a few attempts, he found he could even do it while on the run, without having to stop to line up the shot, and soon he and Gurd were moving unstoppably through the passages of sublevel two, flicking their tails and taking out Groshnickes as they went.

Sublevel two didn't have the strange plant growth that level one had creeping all over the walls, and neither did it have the damp humid air. This level must have remained sealed and undamaged all these years, well below the level of the swamp. It was dry and consistently level, and it meant they were able to move quickly without any obstacles, except for the Groshnickes that seemed to randomly spawn from the siderooms that led off the passage around them.

The Groshnickes here weren't significantly harder to kill, but Gob noticed they were more strategic in the way they attacked. Whereas the level one Groshnickes had only ever charged in a direct line towards them, the sublevel two creatures tended to leap from floor to wall, using their agility to try and attack from an unpredictable angle.

The other noticeable difference here was that there was treasure. So much treasure. Like level one, there was a curving, winding central passage with rooms branching off it all the way along. Unlike the now-empty rooms of level one however, the rooms here were still packed with it There were piles of coins, artefacts, furnishings, stone wall carvings, and all sorts of intricate jewellery and accessories.

Gob's eyes goggled at the sheer amount of the stuff, but there was hardly time to waste looking at the riches, they had to find the radiometer.

It wasn't long until they saw a bright green glow emanating from one of the rooms.

"DAT MUZ BE IT!" cried Gurd triumphantly, running forwards ahead of Gob, straight into the room. She was met with a

slash!slash!

Her eyes went wide, and she gasped as she grabbed at the two deep gashes that an extremely large Groshnicke standing in front of a glowing green bench had just carved across her stomach.

"GURD!" he yelled in concern as she dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach, blood spurting out onto the floor.

"iz ok... giv mi sec" she gasped, "yoo git him for mi..."

Gob spun to the Groshnicke demi-boss and with a vengeful

GRRROOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!

and flicked his barbtail at it. To Gob's surprise and annoyance however, this creature dodged, and Gob's barb missed it. It stood there leering at him threateningly with its milky ocular mounds for a beat until Gob realised he still had his tooclors attack, and stchakked it twice across the face.

His pigironclors or slicehooks probably would have killed it, however his swamp-troll claws had no skill attack bonus, and simply left some shallow cuts on the creature's face.

He readied himself for a return attack.

It came with lightning speed, so fast that he didn't even have a chance to think about whether he could block it.

slash!slash!

It got him across the chest. He wanted to howl in pain, but he was still standing, he had a wounded partner to look after, and he had a quest to complete.

This time he barbtailswept it. He did it with all the dexterity he had learnt over the last few days of battling swamp creatures, and it was impressively fast. The Groshnicke hadn't been expecting a low sweep following his last attack, and was taken by surprise as it's legs were taken out from underneath it, causing it to lose it's footing and clatter to the ground in an ungainly pile of limbs.

Gob pounced forwards and bit down on it with his tuskybite. The power surged through his tusk cap, and the creature exploded in a milky white shower of gore.

"oooh i luv it wen yoo do dat!" said Gurd as she unsteadily got to her feet. Gob could see already that her wound was closing up and he was again impressed at the efficacy of the swamp troll slimeskin.

He ran to the glowing green glowy thing. It was a round circle of bright green light set into a stone top that pulsed from bright to brighter. It had ornate symbols around it, carved into the stone top.

"wot we do wiv it?" said Gurd.

Gob shrugged and plunged his tail barb through it. It sparked and crackled and didn't glow anymore.

YOU COULD HAVE JUST PRESSED THE OFF BUTTON. intoned the Core.

"NOW WOT?!" yelled Gob in reply.

There was the rasp of a door closing and the rasp of another door opening.

SUBLEVEL TWO IS CLOSING. SUBLEVEL THREE IS OPEN. PROCEED TO SUBLEVEL THREE. 01:39:19 REMAINING UNTIL MELTDOWN.

"AN DO WOT?"

FIND AND DISCONNECT THE TRANSFER COUPLING.

"DA WOT?" he yelled, already turning to run out of the room and back along the passageway, Gurd close behind him.

IT'S A BIG PIPE.

Running back into to the central space with only just enough time to jump through the closing door of sublevel two, Gob and Gurd dashed down the next set of stone steps that had appeared to give them access to sublevel three. As soon as they stepped through the open stone doorway, Gob noticed a series of rounded metal tubes running along the ceiling following the curving passageway.

"i fink dat da pipe" said Gob.

"we juz brake it?" asked Gurd.

Gob shrugged and nodded.

They both tried stchakking it with their claws, and skewering it with their barbs, but the pipe was strong, and although they dented and scratched it, they couldn't break it.

tikka-tikka-tikka-tikka

The noise they were making attracted more Groshnickes. As they approached, Gob could already see there was something different about the way they were moving. These Groshnickes used their multi jointed legs to not only move forwards, but sideways and even upside down, clinging to the walls or the ceiling, even springing from the walls to the ceiling unpredictability, and extremely quickly.

Gob decided it was time to get big again.

"can yoo git al dem wile i brake da pipe?" he asked Gurd.

"no prolem!" she said, with a grin. She actually seemed to be enjoying all this.

Gob pulled out his flask,

"TO KRUNCH!"

and swigged. And swigged.

+1size +1size +1size +1size +1size

Wrapping his large arms around the pipe he pulled with all his strength, groaning with the effort. dis pipe is tufffffff! he thought.

He could see Gurd heroically barbskewering and sweeping the Groshnickes in the passageway just ahead of him. she iz so wunerful! he thought.

+5heart +5connection +5romance

He pulled the pipe even harder, straining with all his strength until he felt it start to creak and bend, before with a rending

SHREEEEIK!

It gave way, breaking in a shower of sparks and gushing out a gunky green fluid all over Gob and the floor of the passage.

THAT WASN'T THE COUPLING. intoned the Core.

"YOO SED DA BIG PIPE. WOZ DAT DA RONG PIPE?"

NO. YOU JUST WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO DO IT SO QUICKLY. THE COUPLING IS MUCH EASIER TO BREAK BUT ITS ALL THE WAY AT THE END OF SUBLEVEL THREE. IT'S A BIT CHEATY TO BREAK IT HERE. YOU ARE A VERY VIOLENT... COUPLE.

WE IZ TROLZ!" they shouted in sync.

There was the rasp of a door closing and the rasp of another door opening.

HMMM. WELL, ANYWAY SUBLEVEL THREE IS CLOSING. SUBLEVEL FOUR IS OPEN. PROCEED TO SUBLEVEL FOUR. 01:04:02 REMAINING UNTIL MELTDOWN.

Gob and Gurd were already running.

"AN DO WOT?!" yelled Gurd.

YOU KNOW WHAT? DON'T EVEN BOTHER. YOU GUYS KEEP BREAKING MY STUFF. JUST GET DOWN TO FIVE. SEE IF YOU CAN SORT OUT THE ISOTOPE. GOOD LUCK.

Rasp. Rasp.

SUBLEVEL FOUR IS CLOSED. SUBLEVEL FIVE IS OPEN. PROCEED TO SUBLEVEL FIVE. 00:59:52 REMAINING UNTIL MELTDOWN.

"WOT IZ A ISA-TOPE?" yelled Gob as they jumped down the steps to sublevel four and kept going to sublevel five.

Huuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

As soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs they were again buffeted by the intense radiation of the... something. The something that was in the centre of the circular space. The burning sensation returned to their skin. Gob turned away from it and tried to squint at it sideways from the corner of his eyes. The radiation was so strong he could hardly even bear to look at it. But what he saw was a hemi-spherical dome of black metal that seemed to vibrate and ripple with the power that came out of it.

"wot iz dat fing gob?" asked Gurd.

"i fink dat iz da isa-tope." he answered,

"IS DAT DA ISA-TOPE, COOR?" he yelled.

THE ISOTOPE IS INSIDE THE DOME.

"HOW CAN I GIT IT?"

OPEN THE DOME. BUT THAT'S PRETTY DANGEROUS STUFF IN THERE... DO YOU HAVE YOUR CONTAINMENT PREPARED?

now i reely need mi frends. thought Gob.

"YES I IZ REDY" he lied.

emerged:deception

THEN PUSH THE BUTTON THAT SAYS 'OPEN'.

Gob looked around. He couldn't see any buttons.

"WERE DA BUTON?!"

THE BUTTON IS ON SUBLEVEL FIVE. SOMEWHERE.

"YOO IZ REEL HARD WERK, COOR!" he yelled at it angrily, "com on gurd, we got to go fin da buton."

They dashed into the open doorway to sublevel five, then both skidded to a halt. Sublevel five wasn't like the other levels. The passageway was at least five times wider and taller than the passages on the other levels. It didn't curve around with side rooms running off it like the other levels, but was rather a straight, square passage leading into the darkness.

A very long way away, down what was obviously a very long tunnel was a faint green light.

"i fink da buton iz dat lite." said Gob quietly.

"i fink da grosniks iz goin be bigga heer." said Gurd looking around at the size of the tunnel with concern.

"yep, I fink so too." agreed Gob.

DEFINITELY ARE. intoned the Core.

Gob took her hand and looked into her googly eyes. "yoo redy?"