NOVEL NEXT 140: Dancing Quee-n
“Jellagon, do you want plush red or silky purple?” Delta asked as she conjured a soft pillow on the throne. The skull on the floor, moving with the pace of a slow slug, gurgled something out.
“Green cotton...” Delta mused, switching it up so the pillow was set into the throne.
The entire image was to be more of a symbol than the usual imposing sight of power to anyone walking in. Fran made an entrance, Wyin put on a show... Delta wanted her little Jellagon to make a statement!
The throne itself was a little shabby looking with only a few cheap-looking banners about. It was long and rectangular with stained glass set into the walls, showing off various scenes of the Dungeon.
A hot spa under a full moon with Luna, a party in Hog’s Head with Fera, Wyin at dusk, and even Lord Mushy fast asleep atop a nonplussed sheep.
For someone who went about the Third Floor with grace, able to act like sensible people? This room would be what they saw. A simplistic stone room with bright chandeliers and candles set into bumblebee candle holders and a snack table with some empty bowls that Delta would soon fill.
Chairs surrounded the table and a teapot bubbled away.
King Jellagon’s Humble Throne Room.
-Bowls fill with rare treats from across the Dungeon.
-King Jellagon lets them pass without a fight.
Delta hummed and mentally flipped a switch, shifting the room so it grew larger, the stone turning to a darker grey. The bumblebee candle holders became glaring wasps as the table and chairs vanished. The humble throne pressed into the back of the room, the top of it spreading up the wall like creeping vines of metal.
The metal turned more brass as the stained glass images changed to show Luna rising out of her spa with a knife; Fera’s pub dark except her eyes and the glow of her boomstick; Wyin turning to the viewer, smiling.
Lord Mushy was sitting up now, frowning. There were two new windows. One showed Maestro leaning on his cane with a wicked smile, and the last of Fran riding Bacon, emerging from the darkness of his room.
King Jellagon’s Displeased Throne Room.
-King Jellagon grows stronger and fights.
-The windows occasionally let loose abilities based on their images.
And finally, Delta flipped the switch once more.
The stone turned utterly black, glowing red lines moving between each block like pulsing veins leading to the throne, which was made of some crimson metal. Its height spanned the massive hall, arching out into two giant metallic wings and a snarling dragon head as the seat itself was massive, able to fit three adult males side by side.
The chandeliers blazed out of control, burning and warping the air, dripping black wax every few seconds like angry rain.
The candleholders were now full-sized guardgoyles, ready to spring to life when Jellagon needed them the most. The stained glass windows were no longer able to be smashed since dark holes of reality were in their place, occasionally letting a shadow-clone of one of Delta’s various monsters appear to attack, their form smoky with glowing eyes.
Two more had joined the fight.
A furious Hero with a cap on his power and Bob the worm.
“Oh, looks nasty,” Delta said with respect as Jellagon gurgled with pleasure at the sight of it.
King Jellagon’s Furious Throne Room.
Jellagon becomes almost full strength.
Minions spawn. Slimes from the melting wax and guardgoyles.
Shadow monsters aid Jellagon.
There was another switch to the room, but it required a password just to be safe.
“You Jelly?” Delta called out and the room shuddered.
The stone and walls broke apart, teetering on the edge of the Dungeon and the warped space that allowed it to be massive without being constrained to simple layers. A purple void stretched out between the floating platforms as the throne rose, breaking apart, forming a metallic dragon armour that Jellagon would equip in his full form, becoming the throne itself. The armour was so big it had to rise above the platforms, leaving its legs and tail hidden below. Storms crackled overhead dramatically and horrid winds blew across the void.
The shadow beings that had been pretty much a feature so far gathered into a massive blade that occasionally bulged with forms of past monsters.
“Feels very final boss,” Delta managed to get out without choking. Jellagon, thankfully still in his baby form, cooed at the sight of the power he wielded.
Overlord Jellagon’s Oblivion Throne
Jellagon is done.
Falling into the void removes someone from the dungeon.
The shadow blade can use moves from past bosses or combine them.
Violent storms buffet invaders.
Maestro provides dark Latin choir music wailing in the background along with electric guitar riffs.
“Do you think this is too much?” Delta asked Jellagon, who made a soft ‘oh no, never’ motion with a shake of his head.
Maestro let loose with his rock music and Delta conjured a lighter as the damn guitar was just so riffy!
‘Destroy all of death!’ Maestro chanted with his best impression of JRPG Latin.
‘Destroy all of life!’ he went on.
Well... thank goodness Mushrooms didn’t bother with such things as that.
---
“Ahh ah...” the woman known as Isanella sang, and she waited with sheer joy as Deo turned to her.
“Ahh ah ahh!” he sang back, and Alpha was a little awe-struck by how beautiful they made such basic notes sound as they just sang at each other.
“Humph,” Deo’s father mumbled, and the floor shook.
This family was singing at each other like they hadn’t actually seen each other in years. Alpha felt like an intruder, but every time he tried to flee out a window or teleport, Isanella appeared and gave him food.
Damn social etiquette. Alpha knew they were one of his many weaknesses, like social skills, talking to people, and necromantic liches stealing his soul.
Miss D would chap his hide if she caught him being rude to nice people. He paused between bites of some homemade cookie as that thought went through his mind.
Miss D?
He was getting stuffed on too much good food.
Delta would be upset if he was rude to her neighbors.
“You sing!” Deo insisted, leaning in with a grin. Alpha put down his napkin.
“I don’t sing,” he said without apology, and all three of them looked at him with shock.
“Damaged cords?” Isanella mumbled, a sweet sound even when she was muttering.
“Cursed?” Deo’s father eyed Alpha with concern.
“Shy?!” Deo exclaimed, voice rising a bit in horror.
“...all three... I should get going,” Alpha tried to get up, but hesitated when Isanella put a hand on his shoulder.
“I had words with the innkeeper... She's odd, but due to the unique circumstance of your arrival, you have a room there for however long you need. It’s only a small room...” she trailed off, and Alpha frowned.
“I don’t have a reward for your work,” he pointed out, and she looked amused.
“Then sing for me,” she teased and Alpha felt stuck by his own logic. He had to reward her... she did a quest for him even without him knowing it...
“Um... okay,” he said slowly and inhaled.
“A... B... C,” he hummed out, feeling like a total idiot. Isanella took his hand and spun him around.
“D, E, F” she carried on as if he was creating some masterpiece. Alpha flushed, so distracted by the sheer enjoyment the family got from singing the song that he didn't even notice that he continued the pattern when it swung back to his turn.
He had been musically shanghaied.
Delta better send some disaster for him to address, or Alpha was going to die.
---
Delta was sure she was missing something, but after returning the boss room back to normal, she checked the upgrades and only read the first two before she slammed the menu shut.
Allow Jellagon’s greed punishment to affect the fir-
Allow Jellagon’s greed punishment to affect the sec-
“That’s enough scary stuff for one room!” she laughed nervously as Jellagon settled on his humble throne, falling asleep on his pillow, a large green bubble expanding from his face and deflating as he snored.
Besides... the rest of the floor needed loving. It was far from done and the sheer amount of upgrades also meant the second floor could finally reach its peak! There was a sense, a Dungeon sense, when a floor reached a sort of perfect balance that any more large upgrades would be a disservice to her other floors.
Obviously, Delta would still improve the first floor like the Pond room and more, but it was just the way she liked it. The second floor was close to that, but it needed a lot of changes to be closer to ‘peak’.
She floated out to the main garden and decided to do something obvious. She marked Jellagon’s door with a massive set of double steel doors on it, the earth shaping over it to form a dragon-like maw with the door in its throat.
Delta added torches to the sunken eyes to make them glow.
Now... There was no doubt which was the boss, which suited Delta just fine. If she knew people... and Delta was pretty sure she was still a human being deep down, then the idea of not exploring for loot would kill certain people.
It was the rule of explorers. If you found the correct path on the first try? Backtrack and go the other way.
It did raise a potential future issue where people just ignored the third floor and rushed past Jellagon, but she could devise some conditional lock based on the floor later.
Information was going to spread by word of mouth from adventurer to adventurer. Delta couldn’t stop that and she wouldn’t have the DP or Mana to constantly change every room or floor every time someone visited... it would trap Delta in a loop of actually making no progress.
She decided to start where she always ended up.
Delta would start with the mushrooms.
She floated into the tunnel that once contained the massive hole that likely connected to the other castles of the Silence. Delta could have kept it open and thrown insults down it, but the thing was creepy if she was honest.
Now? Glowing orange mushrooms grew everywhere, their caps cracked with glowing veins as their roots caused ominous light to emerge from out the ground. The air inside the tunnel shimmered and Delta noticed one mushroom, likely the first one that grew was larger than the others.
“What should I do here? What should I do to make things fit into the ‘aesthetic’ of the floor?” she asked aloud. The theme was castle and garden really, with a built-in demon blacksmith. Every castle had at least one demon smith, right?
She mentally went over what she had. A library, a feast hall, a romantic garden with terrifying guardgoyles, an evil laboratory that would need to be converted, a blacksmith, a troll den, a kitchen, a map room, and a throne...
The idea hit her when she imagined what she would want in her castle if she was a princess. Delta would have to admit she was hitting ‘queen’ status, not princess, soon, but not today.
She rubbed her hands excitedly as she stretched the room out massively, making it almost as big as the garden and feast hall, using up some DP to really push it to where she wanted. With a wave of her hands, she began to shift mushrooms around, feeding them Mana until they grew truly massive. It had themes of the Mushroom Grove, but she quickly put that to rest by focusing on the floor.
With stuff she absorbed from Mharia’s castle, she watched as cream marble formed like liquid being poured until it settled into a gleaming floor.
Delta gave it a few experimental taps before she grinned, pulling up her sleeves to get down to the fun stuff.
The large lavashrooms narrowed, becoming thinner and also covered in marble, causing their heat to form into the stone, forming orange veins like glowing ivy. Occasionally, flashes of heat rose, causing them to have a soft strobe effect before the heat spread across the ceiling where Delta created elegant paths for the light to pass through, forming her own magic artwork on the ceiling.
“Hem...” Delta coughed, looking around to make sure she was alone before she manually took control of the mana and the pillars.
The heat inside the pillars began to pulsate in ever-increasing rates before the surface of the pillar became covered in various coloured glass, causing the expanded space to flash with intense pumping bass and colours.
“Unce Unce Unce!” Delta said, moving around like she had ragdoll physics on.
She paused, feeling eyes on her. She turned to see all the Guardgoyles and Jellagon watching her.
“I see you’re developing sonic attacks,” Doctor said good-naturedly as the sound ceased.
“It’s music,” Delta countered, crossing her arms.
“It’s intense,” Dragon replied, his lips pulled back in a grin.
“It’s meant to get the blood rushing!” she added, feeling defensive of her early 2000’s rave music.
A screen appeared before anyone else could make a smart remark and force Delta to seem more insecure about her flailing.
You have developed the room to become a ‘Hot-Blooded Ballroom’. Accept change?
Delta grinned and hit it without thinking. The entire room began to shake as the walls and pillars warped, stretching further.
From the very top, a chandelier, much grander than Jellagon had in his throne room, appeared like molten gold, all the lights were made of fire and water crystals, their lights pulsating to form a soft shimmering lilac colour over the room.
Nearby, a wall pulled in on itself, forming a grand stage where a band could play, but at the top of the marble steps, a platform lowered, showing Maestro’s form as he was lowered down, his majestic cane propping him up as he leaned on it sideways, hat tipped down.
The shaking did not stop and Delta threw herself to the ground in hopes of avoiding blame if Nu came looking.
“Ah, panic in the ballroom,” Maestro declared grandly as at the top of the room at various spaces, large observation windows for people to sit appeared, each of them having a personal sign. Delta couldn’t quite give them a decent look over as the shaking hit some sort of crescendo.
A double set of doors formed on the far side and it felt like it stretched and looped elegantly to the surface, connecting to her entrance hall.
From the first window, a confused Sir Fran and Bacon appeared. Fran had lost his usual armor and weapon, appearing in some sort of elegant tuxedo. Bacon, his calm piggy self, had a cute little bowtie around his neck.
“I... see,” Fran said after a moment as a chair appeared for him to sit. The next window showed a smaller version of Wyin who had a beautiful black cocktail dress on and actual legs, her hair trailing back into the shadows behind her chair, she smiled holding up an ornate fan that had a bloody red sunset on its surface.
“Delta... it’s only been a day since you consumed the pest. I shouldn’t be surprised,” Wyin smiled mischievously. Jellagon was gone and appeared on a... booster seat in the final window, a top hat on his dragon skull.
Three windows were made across them, showing Fera, Muffet, and Lord Mushy in attendance. Lord Mushy was in his usual royal regalia, Muffet had a ghostly white dress around her body and Fera...
Fera wore a giant puffy pink ball gown and had a massive powdered wig on her head along with cherry red lipstick.
Delta stared but then it clicked as Fera reached under her dress and pulled out a massive bottle of spirits, throwing one to Fran, the bottle sailing across the room easily, before she uncorked her own.
Only Fera would wear the most ridiculous things to smuggle contraband into the ball.
Delta quickly pulled open her new window to see what she had ‘accidentally done.
Hot-Blooded Ballroom.
A massive dancehall that allows all to enjoy the elegant politics of ballroom dancing or the rough and tumbling fun of doing the worm with surprise guest appearances from Bob. The room has different functions depending on the event. The floor bosses are always able to attend, even if defeated, but lose all combat power. The other windows will have random guests from around the Dungeon so the adventurers better hope they were kind to that one random goblin or frog!
Competitions can be held or ‘general party mode’ can be activated. Any outsiders who use the Entrance door are put under the condition they cannot kill, same for monsters in attendance. Usually, they cannot leave the hall, but unique ballroom parties may extend to the garden beyond!
Adventurers who challenge this room must dance to the satisfaction of the selected theme. Be it ‘robot’, ‘pop’, or ‘romantic waltz’. Doing all the challenges and intentionally doing poorly simply to get any gift will activate King Jellagon’s consequence ability.
Upgrades:
Unlock metal Mosh pits, rave parties, and kidbop themes. O2 album automatically added for free. You cannot reject the O2 album. Just accept it. 10 DP.
Panic in the Disco: Unlock a special event where Dance Machines are spawned. Insane footwork needed, but the prizes are much better. 20 DP.
Phantom of the Opera: Unlock a special mini-boss event, transforming Maestro into the Ballroom Phantom, able to challenge adventurers who attack the judges. 25 DP.
“I might have done something,” Delta admitted and she was spun in surprise.
“Sir Maestro, a waltz please,” Doctor said pleasantly as he managed to hold Delta’s hands, her avatar becoming stronger by the day.
“Aren’t you supposed to ask a lady to dance before you sweep her off her feet?” Delta asked, relaxing as Maestro spun his cane.
“This one is dedicated to all those foxy boys and girls out there waiting to shake their moneymakers, Delta’s Grandest Ballroom is open for business! The greatest show is here!” he announced, making the music flow from the marble pillars as Delta was led away by Doctor.
She laughed as he spun her under the twinkling lights of the sky.
A moment later, Dozer stepped forward, taking over as the judges all applauded politely.
Delta laughed as she was spun around and around.
She felt... a little like a princess.
She couldn’t wait to share this feeling with everyone. Deo, Quiss, Ruli, and everyone!
Everyone deserved to feel like a princess.
---
High above, unseen by anyone unless they were looking, the grand royal court of the spiders all gossiped and chatted elegantly in their web-seats. Nearby, Mharia looked down, a little sadly as the ballroom was fantastic... but there were just enough hints of her home ballroom to make her quiet.
Quee, easily the largest of the seated spiders, made awkward gestures with his hands.
“No, I don’t want a cough drop,” Mharia muttered.
“I said ‘you sound sad’,” he replied curtly. Mharia wanted to speak a dead language at him and make him feel like she did... stupid.
“But you weren’t far off. You're improving rapidly,” Quee insisted. A silence settled over them as Delta was doted on, favoured by all her monsters. Acting as nothing had happened between her and Mharia.
Was it spite or just normal for Delta to abruptly move on with her life?
“I pretend not to remember,” he announced and Mharia gave him a look that said she had no clue what he meant.
“Before I was me. I was another. I was ‘her’. She was not a nice person... or really a person so to speak. For Delta, the great mother of us all... I don’t want to burden her with the knowledge I remember being broken down... burned by her rage. However, I know what it is somewhat like to feel like you are in chains without any manacles or iron links. You feel alone, an outsider... like it will all come crashing down,” Quee said quietly.
“How can you not hate this then?” Mharia asked and Quee thought about it.
“Because when I was reborn, I saw who I was through the eyes of a new person. Delta was utterly in her right to destroy who I was... and it would be her right not to return me, but she did. She saw something in me worth saving I suppose and that makes me feel more positive towards Delta than who I was. I feel good being here. It’s that simple,” Quee shrugged after speaking.
“Simple...” Mharia repeated, spreading her wings in thought.
She looked down at Delta bringing some of Turtog back... even if accidentally.
Perhaps simple... but Mharia would struggle with her reality for some time. But for now? She’d simply enjoy the music and her fr- companion, Quee’s, company. At least the half-spider monster was sophisticated and mature!
“Ria! Look, look! It’s Maestro!” Quee abruptly gushed, squealing as he nearly hopped out of his chair. Mharia was tugged forward with blinking eyes.
“A singing mushroom man, yes I see him,” Mharia responded dryly. Quee looked scandalized.
“That is the supreme Star of the Dungeon! The singing darkness, the gentlemanly specter, the voice of a thousand songs! It’s Maestro!” Quee flailed his arms in disbelief at her lack of interest.
Mharia thought about it.
“He ravaged me and my supreme forces with his powers and a bunch of mushroom and spider fusions. Then he multiplied by three and surrounded my gaping dragon,” she mused aloud, thinking back.
“Urgh... jealous,” Quee muttered.
“He was coming to kill me,” Mharia reminded him flatly. Quee sighed in a daydream-like tone.
“What a way to go,” he agreed.
Mharia looked away in disgust.
Boys... spider-boys... and their stupid crushes on singing mushroom men that could be giant piles of spiders and mushrooms.
Now, if it were Wyin? There’d be a figure to admire.
Strong, scary, and commanding.
Now, that was a death!
They both sighed, oblivious to the other.
---