Dungeon’s Path

When everyone is ready, the team sets out to finish the floor. This ends up taking a bit of time though as after another tight squeeze, they have to climb through two more pits, thankfully empty. Before the last fight, this wouldn’t have taken too much time, but now the group is a wee bit more cautious when descending into the things.

Those pits, however, are empty of any monsters and so even Jim feels like the effort was a bit wasted. Not that he has long to process things, because soon enough they arrive at a giant cavern. Though not so big that it doesn’t seem absolutely packed with monsters.

If Jim had to guess, it looked about half the size of a ball field, any of them really. As for the height? It was a weird comparison, but for some reason he just couldn’t help but think of a five-story pagoda he had seen once while traveling for business. Oh, and there are a lot of mushrooms from what he could see when peeking in, both mobile and not.

While the previous areas had their fair share, it was in this room that things went to eleven. Even the ceiling had mushrooms growing from it. Though most important was at the center of the room.

Jeremy was the one to spot it, though Jim would have noticed soon enough. At the center of the room, where a giant pillar formed by the meeting of a stalagmite and stalactite met, there stands what has to be a boss monster. Taller than the rest of the myconids by an appreciable amount with what looks like a crown and a cape.

Though most striking is its color. They had sort of noticed it with the other myconids on the floor already, but the others were muted. More along the lines of various colors you would call burnt umber. Not so with this myconid. Their cap was a bright orange with creamy orange spots like what you would see in a video game. Sure, there are mushrooms that can take on similar shades even pre-system, but this felt like something out of a cartoon. Not only in shade, but overall coloring.

At this point, both Jim and Jeremy back off and regroup with the others.

Jim, “So yeah, looks to be at least twice as many enemies as the last group, plus a boss monster. Jeremy, would taking more of the spore preventative help keep us fighting?”

Jeremy shrugs, “At least it won’t hurt. I don’t really know how dosing works with magical cures yet. The tutorial, of course, talked about limits on how much you can chug healing potions and what not, but this is different.”

Kelly, “I feel it should work to a degree. From what I saw while we tested the things, the way they work is by leaving a blob of antidote magic in a person that gets used up with time and going by recent results, heavy exposure.”

Jim nods, “Okay, now the question is, do we want to fight this battle?”

The others laugh and Bill speaks up, “We have the drop on them this time. Kelly can easily charge up another fire spell and clear out much of the chaff. While dangerous, I don’t see it being deadly. Though we should stay in the entrance area and be ready to skedaddle if any of us fall over.

Jim sighs, “This is more than just a little dangerous. However, only Kelly and Kellinger have fallen to the spores so far. I suspect the rest of us just have more investment into physical stats. Though at this point, if you have spare path points, now might be the time to look into something short to handle poison.”

Kelly chuckles, “Way ahead of you. Of course, I won’t go into specifics, but right after we rested, I took a quick five pointer to up my resistance to the stuff. It was a little general so I don’t expect too much, but better than wasting a skill slot on something like poison resistance.”

The others see the wisdom in this and so take a moment to see what they have available. They do. After all, they just spent a number of fights being constantly submerged in the stuff. Though not all of them take the paths, they have available. In particular, Tess doesn’t because the only option she has was way too specific.

Sure, living next to this dungeon means being resistant to spore based poisons isn’t the worst thing. However, she wants one that will work against poison in general. Not that it wasn’t tempting. From what little they have discovered about paths, while stat rewards tend to scale with level, bonus effects are one off deals, if powerful. So the resistance to spore based poison would likely be on the scale of being immune to any myconid in the dungeon. At least until multiple floors deeper, but it wouldn’t ever get any better.

Bill does try and convince her to take, after all, five points isn’t going to matter in the long run, but she stands her ground. So, thus ready, they wait another couple minutes for Kelly to really charge up a shot. This was closer to ritual magic than the normal stuff, something that would be titled siege magic in a more developed world.

Once that was ready, they approached the cavern. Of course, with a giant ball of fire at the ready, this was a less than stealthy approach and so the myconid lord sent a couple swarms and a lesser to begin the fight. Maybe to try and bait the spell, maybe not. Either way, Bill and Tess are more than capable of clearing things up as the group gets close enough.

Then Kelly lets her spell go. What might have been mistaken for a fireball, soon shows its true colors. She had kept on improving her fire ribbons to the point that unbeknownst to others; she had even gotten a path devoted to them, and this big ball of fire was no different.

The ball slammed into the ground just past the entrance of the cavern and it splashed outward like someone had thrown a ball of damp sand. Except instead of grains, what burst out was ribbons. Those ribbons then crashed over the gathering of sprouts, lessers, two of the guards, and the five violet fungus.

Each ribbon fades away after hitting something, even the ground. Good thing there are enough that even losing a few when it hits the ground doesn’t matter. Sure, it doesn’t quite wipe out all the enemies in one shot. However, the sprouts and violets are gone along with one of the guards and six of the lesser myconids.

That meant out of a group of nearly a thousand monsters, only four survived. One guard and three lesser, though it isn’t like they’re doing so well either. The fire magic was enough to leave deep scars across the entirety of the guard and the lessers only managed it because the guards blocked for them.

Such a powerful display of magic isn’t without consequences. Kelly wasn’t out of the fight, but she wasn’t going to be casting more than a ribbon at a time and not strong ones at that. Her Mana pool is overdrawn and her ability to regenerate it is shot. Still, in theory, there wasn’t much need of her fire power.

Of course, the general crowd of monsters wasn’t everything. The myconid lord had his personal guard and the eight regular myconids had been with him. So in theory, much of their actual power had been preserved, barring of course the two guards. However, myconids had never been ones for individual strength, rather always forming colonies and such.

There was just one catch, this wasn’t like when they had taken out the chaff in previous fights. The regular myconids weren’t at the top here. Rather, there was a myconid lord and that meant instead of leaders, the myconids were followers and could focus more on offensive power.

So while the part easily slices through the burned survivors, once they class with the guard and myconids, things stall out. Jeremy does his best to try and flank them, but the lord moves his followers to block it. Jim attempts to take him out, but the guard almost against its will raises its leg at the right time to deflect the shot.

In fact, all nine of the direct combatants are working together in a way no one in the team had seen before. Even more so than what Jeremy had seen in various military training grounds. Not that it was a secret why they could do so. The myconid lord was clearly in charge, even to the point of the other myconids almost seeming like puppets.

They weren’t of course. Still, the lord’s ability to talk through their spores was more than just natural, there was a touch of magic mixed in. This was what ended up turning things in the fight.

A stalemate turned fight for their lives. Jim kept trying to pin down the leader, but the guard did its duty well. All the while Kellinger and Kelly tried to grease up or burn down the regular myconids being barely kept back by Bill and Tess. Except it wasn’t working.

Even if it wasn’t quite a proper defense, the myconids not having to focus on both spore creation and spore talk were able to store some up. Enough that whenever a magical attack came their way, they could blow out a thick cloud of them to disrupt the magic or at least burst the magic early.

So while Bill and Tess are decent tanks and Jeremy really was trying his best to kill any of the monsters, the line of myconids started to push forward. Even when Jeremy did finally manage to take out a myconid, it wasn’t enough as the fight had been going on for a while at that point. Another myconid fell to the combined effort of Bill and Tess, yet still they were forced to retreat as the duo were taking damage from slaps and slams.

It was only once the third myconid fell that things started to look up. At that point, the lord was forced to send the guard forward to hold the line and take over their own defense. With that, the myconid lord could no longer focus on commanding and the monsters became sloppier in their attack.

Things were looking up, it should have been fine. Then Jim landed a shot on the lord, standing at the back, he looked larger than life, like some person out of a tall tale. Sadly, it wasn’t an instant kill. The lord was down and knew it would live, that the defense was doomed.

So it gave one final order and pushed all of its remaining magic into it. Tracks through the spores light up, like roots through the air. It doesn’t buff or otherwise improve the remaining monsters. That wasn’t the kind of order it was. Instead, they knew what to do.

Bill and Tess brace themselves as Jeremy joins them, able to tell something was to come. They didn’t get much more time beyond that though as the remaining five myconids jump forward and grapple the three. Two to Tess and Jeremy, with a single myconid giving Bill a bear hug.

This holds them in place as the Guard aims for the person in the center, Bill. At the back, Kelly and Kellinger send magic over Bill’s head to prevent it from stomping, except that wasn’t the plan. It isn’t like the guard has a skill for that, anyway. What it does have a skill for is grappling.

So instead of raising up, it simply barrels into Bill, crushing him with three of its five legs. At the back, Jim pulls out a pair of dungeon loot daggers and jumps onto the point where one of those legs connects to the main body as he tries to hack through it. Next, Kellinger grabs another of the legs and tries to burn his way through.

It isn’t quick enough. Off to the side, Tess can only watch as she tries to struggle away from the two myconids. The guard doesn’t even bother with the myconid that was caught up in its grip as well, instead putting all of its strength into squeezing. Bill, of course isn’t weak and so holds on for a moment.

Then the sound of bones cracking and Bill goes limp, his clubs falling out of his hand. Tess rages against the two myconids and the others are stunned, but they can’t stop. The enemies aren’t dead yet so the fight goes on.

On the other side, Jeremy manages to kill both myconids grappling him and he hurries over to help Tess. This is enough to free her soon after and with the five remaining focused on it, the lesser troop guard is soon dead. With that, all the monsters have died, the myconid that grappled Bill having succumbed well before him.

With nothing stopping her, Tess is down by the remains of her boyfriend, holding his head and crying. She wanted to believe, wanted to hope. That hope was shattered. Her healing potion dripping slowly out of his slack mouth, having done nothing.

Together, Kellinger and Kelly are able to lever the guard off of the body with their magic and Jeremy is able to get in to check. Except, even with his knowledge, finds no hope. Of course there will be loot, but Tess doesn’t care about that.

Instead, she grabs up her boyfriend’s body and rushes towards where they can now see the portal is. Outside, Ace  and Doctor are waiting. The person who had been on duty, watching the reports on people in the dungeon had saw one of their groups light go out and so called them.

Doctor even had a spell ready, except when it entered Bill’s body, he could only sigh and shake his head. He didn’t reveal how much damage had been done, but it was more than enough to have killed a normal man even without the broken bones.

Tess could only stand there as that last hope was snuffed.

Wolf’s Rest had lost a Founder.