NOVEL NEXT Chapter 261: Waist Deep and Sinking Fast
Waller snaps his fingers, a move the Stonefist Brawler can pull off now that his temporary stone armor has crumbled away. "Ah, that's what the mushrooms are! Containers! Like pots, but...more organic, to fit with the theme of the floor, I suppose? They do still stand out a bit, but eh." Indeed, while the majority of the floor's decor - if it can be called that - is the oddly ridged black substance coating the walls and floors, the the fungal pods sitting on the five pillars in front of the team are more of a pale brown - and oddly moist-looking, as well. They don't seem dangerous, yet none of the Dirty Dealers are quick to volunteer to go inspect one any closer.
Reardon sniffs at the suggestion, a sound that echoes through the space. Despite being the smallest member of the team, his dwarven heritage apparently saw fit to grant him the party's largest nose. "A container for what, now? Wait, are you saying these things are the floor's equivalent of treasure chests?"
The minotaur shakes his head. "If there was one of them, maybe, but five? This feels like a puzzle to me. I bet you there's something in one of them we need to finish the floor."
Elissa, the party's leader and Pyroclastic Geomancer, gives the man a nod. "I concur. Pick one and see what's inside, would you, Waller?"
"Me?" He gives the other minotaur a short glare before grunting. "Fine, fine. Least the damn thing won't need any lockpicking." He steps up to the nearest pillar, the one on the right, and grabs hold of two of the flaps holding the bulb closed. He gives them a tug and the fungus easily peels apart, giving the man a good look at the contents. Reaching inside, he pulls out an amulet bearing a teardrop-shaped image. "Huh, maybe it is a treasure chest? Something relating to water, maybe?"
Alesha, the team's Shadow Sapper, gives the man a grin. "Maybe the rest will show us more of a pattern. go on, check the next!"
Waller's glare returns again. "There's five of us and five mushrooms, I don't know why I'm the one opening them all!"
"Because if one sprays you with acid, I'm the one that'll need to patch you up? Besides, you knew what frontliner work meant when you picked your class."
Waller grumbles again, but moves on to the next and repeats the act, pulling out a second amulet. "Must be one for each of us? Five prizes this early, it must be part of the floor rather than a normal reward." He reaches the middle pillar of the five and again pries the pod open, but this time what he finds inside is very definitely not a piece of jewelry.
Instead what leaps out is some sort of unholy scorpion, latching on to the minotaur's face with its eight long legs while its tail flails around. Rather than stinging the man though, the oddly thick appendage of the beast soon wraps itself around the Brawler's neck, cutting his shout short with a tight squeeze. There's no shortage of noise however as every other member of the party begins shouting in his stead, each quickly attempting to determine what they can do. None of them want to risk hitting their teammate with their weapons, so instead Palush, the orc Vanguard of the team, moves in to help Waller pry the monster from his head with his gauntleted hands.
Which is easier said than done, unfortunately. While the two of them working together to manage to release the hold the monster's legs have on his face, the tail remains firmly wrapped around his throat, indeed squeezing even more tightly in an attempt to resist being removed. Palush stops for a brief moment, seeing that his attempt to help is only helping to strangle his friend, and so he calls out to the others. "Alesha! Grab my sword, sever the tail!"
"Alright, alright, just - hold steady, dammit! I don't usually use a blade this size!" The squirming legs of the monster do quite a bit to unnerve the orc as she tries to line up a blow with the creature's stretched tail, but eventually she sees her moment and takes the swing. The appendage severs easily, sending Palush falling backward and Waller grappling at the remainder still wrapped around his throat, but fortunately the Vanguard finds himself up to the task of finishing off the injured beast. Pulling a dagger from his waist he begins stabbing it repeatedly before it can attempt an escape, and after the fifth blow it finally goes still, its legs curling up as it hisses and perishes.
On his end, Waller manages to recover his breath soon enough, but his speech is another story, and there's already indications of serious bruising around his thick neck as the tail is finally removed. "I - achk - dammit - "
"Easy, easy, take a sip of a potion, don't want there to be anything broken in there." Reardon passes a bottle over to the man before peering at the marks on his neck. "Good gods - good thing we had you around to trigger that surprise, eh? If you were an elf lass, that thing could've broken your damn neck!"
Again, Waller turns his glare on his teammates as he swallows the potion down. "If I were an elf lass, I wager I'd get more respect from you lot. One of you can handle the rest! What even was that, it sure wasn't a fungoid beastie!"
Elissa is the one to answer, as she carefully lifts the severed tail from the floor and looks it over. "The base form of the monster was certainly a scorpion, I'd say. But look at this - scales! In fact, if I hadn't seen the other half of the monster, I'd wager this thing was the bottom half of a snake."
"Great. The dungeon is getting creative." Palush glances over at the last two pods. "Fire might wreck the items inside, but any complaints if I just stab the rest of them from here on?" No one takes issue with the idea, and after the orc retrieves his sword from Alesha the man gets to hacking. The next pod contains another monster, but as it's immediately injured by the man's heavy sword, it doesn't get far before Palush finishes it with a second blow. Finally, the last container proves itself to be empty, aside from a third teardrop amulet waiting inside.
After taking stock and making a final inspection of the room, the party soon comes to the conclusion that there's no other way out except from where they came in at. "Side path - these must be keys or something for another room later on." Elissa gives Palush a nod. "Lead us back and on to another path, would you?"
"At once!" The orc heads back through the portal ring, followed by the rest of the team, and fortunately they find no new monsters waiting for them when they arrive. Alesha paints the portal they just came from with an 'X', and Elissa points to her right.
"Well, let's try that way, then. Be on your guard, as usual." The man nods, and again Palush leads them into the next room. This time, they find something quite unpleasant on the other side - hip-height, foul-smelling water in a dim, claustrophobic tunnel. As the shortest member of the team, Reardon has the most vocal complaints.
"Unholy hells! Please tell me Worthy ain't gone into the realm of underwater floors yet!" Beside him, Waller shakes his head.
"Only old dungeons seem to do those, even ocean cove-themed ones. I'd wager this is just more of a hazard - makes it harder for us to see the floor, or slows us down."
"Mmmmaaakes it easier to see, to see who will prove themselves to grandmother..."
The party freezes as still as a painting before desperately looking around, lifting their glowing crystal amulets to try and light up the room. Elissa does her best to keep her voice calm. "A talker! Anyone see anything? ...Did the dungeon get a new boss lately?"
Alesha's response is cut short. "No, but - there! Behind that pillar!" She points behind the party and to their left, where part of the wall is...moving. Or at least so it seems at first, until the dark form separates from the structure sufficiently enough for them to see its shape. For a moment several of them think it may be a slim drider, but the light from their crystals soon proves that theory wrong. The torso of the monster is still humanoid...mostly...but its face has mandibles where a jaw should be, and above them sits far too many eyes.
"I wonder which of you will prove the tastiest soul..." With that pleasant greeting the monster launches itself from the wall, crashing atop Waller who barely has time to generate enough stone armor to protect himself. The two collapse into the water with a splash, and Elissa begins working to pull everyone else back.
"There's dry land down the tunnel, don't try to fight it on its own terrain! Palush, get the big lug free, the rest of you, push forward!" Alesha doesn't need any further encouragement, although the orc does pause long enough to grab Reardon by the collar, dragging him through the sodden tunnel as she runs at her best speed. For his part Palush charges the other direction, sword raised high, but he soon finds himself engaged with a sword fight with three of the monstrous drider's legs. His enchanted blade is a fine weapon, and sure to beat even an exoskeleton in time, but for the moment it does prove rather difficult for him to save his companion before the minotaur drowns.
Luckily, he's not on his own in that matter. Magma darts fly from Elissa's staff, two of them pinging off of the monster's shell, but two others managing to impale themselves into the bare chest of the creature's torso. It hisses as it pulls them out, the heat perhaps hurting it more than the penetration, but either way it gives Waller the opening he needs to climb to his feet.
An act which the monster doesn't seem inclined to allow. Its mandibles spread wide, and from the monster's throat emits a spell unlike any the team's heard before. "DESPAIR. DROWN. DIE." Elissa would swear that she feels her soul shudder in response to the foreign words, but that effect is minor compared to what happens to the spell's target. One moment, Waller was moving at his best speed to make his way down the tunnel, while generating as much stone armor as he could to cover himself. The next, it's as if the light in his eyes goes out. The large man slumps in place, his armor flaking off of his body in clumps and flakes, and his mouth drops open.
That mouth is soon coughing up blood a moment later, as one of the monster's sharp-tipped appendages stabs its way into the minotaur's spine. A second finds its way into his skull, and it's not until the third goes for his heart that Elissa finally recovers. "...Retreat! This is a boss-level monster! We need to regroup!" Palush doesn't need any further encouragement to fall back, and a moment later Elissa finds herself the closest party member to the beast. A fact which the beast clearly recognizes, given by the way it begins to eye her as he rips his legs free from the Brawler's corpse.
Elissa slightly panics.
The organic substance covering the walls of the room had made it difficult to perform minor workings of stone, and working with dungeon stone was always more difficult than using normal rock. But the stone was still there, just hidden away, and stone can always be relied on to perform at least one notable feat when pushed with enough adrenaline and determination. Stone...falls.
With a bust of energy from her staff, the Geomancer summons the full weight of the ceiling's support down on the tunnel between herself and the boss, cracking the wall's facade to splinters as tons of rock collapse. Part of Elissa hopes to catch the monster in the act, but her spell was too rash, the boss was still too far away. Despite the distance and the dim lighting though, there's a glow to the creature's eyes that continues to haunt her until the very last moment, watching her until the tunnel is completely buried, separating the two in a rather permanent manner.
With the barrier of several feet of stone in place, Elissa is able to slightly calm herself before retreating to rejoin the rest of the party at the other end of the tunnel. "He...Waller's fallen. The boss won't be digging his way through that, though."
Alesha grimaces, not wanting to be the one to point out the obvious, but feeling obliged to do so anyways. "Yeah, but...now we don't have a way out."
|
------------------------ FACE CONSTRICTOR - C- - SCORPION/SNAKE |
|
------------------------ XENOSTALKER - B - CAVERN HORROR/ARACHNE |
