The Dungeon's Worst Little Mistake

Thankfully, the rest of the way to the stairs is as simple as walking there. As fun as scrounging through other people's stuff is, it was time to finally move on. With an Inventory full of stolen goods and whatever food and supplies could be salvaged, Bug and Susan finally jump back over the steel walls when they get close enough and walk the final stretch of the floor to reach the Safe Room.

Unfortunately, even the Safe Room didn't get through the attack unharmed. With the walls cut in half, the fountain was severed, and water is now freely flowing into the room and flooding the floor with ash filled water. That whole mess is all slowly spilling out into the hallway like if someone had clogged the sink in the bathroom and left the water running. In the center of the room, the eternally burning hearth is flickering as the magically fed fire sputter on and off weakly like it is on its dying breaths.

"Well, not getting anything done in here. Let's keep going." Bug notes as the group peeks inside, her bare feet getting wet as the water runs around her toes.

Susan shrugs and Mimmie keeps herself occupied by playing with Bug's big fluffy ears. Leaving the Safe Room behind they round the corner and find the stairs leading down, the water from the leaking fountain trinkling past their feet and down the steps as they head on through.

Although, before heading down more than a dozen steps, Bug suddenly remembers something and then quickly runs back up again.

"What is it?" Susan asks from the stairs and starts to head back up after her.

"No, stay there. In fact, Mimmie, get down for a bit, Mommy needs to do something."

With a pout, the little girl complies and lets herself be lowered to the floor by Bug's wings, though clearly, she isn't happy about her piggyback ride ending prematurely.

"Don't worry, I'll keep carrying you. It's just that what I'm about to do isn't safe for you. I'll be right back." Bug says as she gives her a pat on the head.

Quickly heading back up the rest of the way, Bug looks to the brick walls and finds them still slowly regenerating. She has no idea how long it will take to finish, but considering that the process is fast enough to be seen right before her very eyes, then it is simply a matter of time until the Dungeon completely heals all the damage it had taken.

That isn't acceptable. Not at all.

After everything it has tried to do just to kill me, there is no way that I'm just going to let it heal and go back to like nothing even happened.

Reaching into her inventory, Bug pulls out every single one of her disposable Undead units that she has and quickly fills the hallway with them until there is hardly any room left to stand.

Zombified Lizardmen and Skeletal Kappa make up most of the numbers, but even other monsters from the previous layer like Giant Salamanders and Spiked Frogs and Garmoulds fill the space by the dozens. With the hallway filled shoulder to shoulder with rotting bodies, Bug snaps her fingers and silently commands them all to look at her and pay attention. Not that that is necessary, but dead or not, it is simply polite to look when someone is speaking to you.

"Not sure how useful any of these would be on this layer, so I might as well do some Inventory clearing. I'm keeping my best ones anyways, so it's not like I'm losing anything important…" Bug says to herself before speaking to the Undead. "Alright you lot of rotting freaks, I got a job for you all, so listen up! Grow Deadly Fungous."

Spreading the colorful spores to cover all the Undead along with a healthy spattering on the walls and floors, Bug nods with satisfaction as she sees the horrible mushrooms already starting to take root and sprout. Especially right where the bricks are trying to regenerate.

"Your job is simple, go! Go, spread out and spread these spores everywhere. Climb back up the pyramid, coat all the walls with it like it's paint, even leave the confines of the Dungeon and spread the shrooms into those underground caverns and caves out there if you want to. I don't give a crap. I just want them everywhere! Now go! Go my rotting minions and spread the shrooms to the whole world!" Bug declares with her arms raised and held wide.

All the Undead turn and sprint away, scattering in every direction the moment they find the first intersection. Frogs go jumping over half walls and get into places they normally shouldn't be able to, salamanders climb along the walls and disappear as they make for the border, and all-over rainbow-colored spores are already beginning to fly into the air as zombie bump into each other and drag their rotting flesh against the walls.

"Have fun dealing with that, Dungeon. Who knows, maybe the mushrooms will even manage to reach wherever those rat people came from. Alright, Susan, Mimmie, I'm done up here, let's get moving."

// You have left the Twenty-Sixth Floor.

// You have entered the Twenty-Seventh Floor.

…

"So, this is what the fourth layer looks like?" Bug comments as they reach the bottom and exit onto the next floor.

"Hm, yeah. Except the lights aren't usually flickering like this. But that's probably because the Dungeon is damaged after what happened."

"Must be putting a lot of energy toward rebuilding." Bug nods.

"Probably" Susan says with a shrug as she moves forward and takes point, her hand already resting on her sword, ready for anything.

Where before the Dungeon had been themed as something along the lines of a sewer in the previous layer, this time it is more akin to an old ruin. Looking much like the underground levels of an old castle and it abandoned dungeons, the brickwork has changed from red and uniform, to now being limestone walls and cobblestone floors. Archways line the ceiling periodically and mark every intersection making all the ceilings curved upward as carefully laid stones are held together with ancient mortar. As for the doorways, they are now filled with either the rusty bars of old and forgotten jail cells or with that of rotting, thick oak doors with metal slots for solitary confinement cells. Looking through the small slits that would only be big enough for a plate of food to slide through or a desperate hand, nothing can be seen inside as most of these tiny, locked rooms are pitch-black inside. Though, if one were to strain their eyes, the silhouette of a slumped over body might be seen, and through careful hearing, the sounds of weak breathing and desperate moans.

Occasionally, along the walls of the hallways and in the unlocked rooms and jail cells, chains can be found hanging from the walls and ceiling with rusty shackles at their ends. And for further decoration, even skeletal remains can be found still restrained with weights tied to their ankles, dressed in torn rags and covered in filth. Adding even further to the ambiance of a classic dungeon look, dried blood can be seen here and there staining the old white limestone alongside a healthy number of dust-filled cobwebs. Off in distance, the occasional sound of someone screaming out in pain can be heard as if someone is being tortured.

Heading over to a skeleton chained up to a wall with all its limbs spread out, Bug tilts her head as she looks at it in confusion.

"What's wrong?" Susan asks her.

"Is this… Is this fake? Raise Undead… Yeah, these aren't real bones, or no, they feel real at least, but this isn't a real corpse. Did the Dungeon grow these, why? And why bother with the dried blood? That normally wouldn't be here because the Dungeon always eats it all. Heck, there shouldn't even be a body left behind to begin with!" Bug complains as she shakes her head.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"I think it's just for atmosphere. You know, 'Ooh, spooky dungeon, scary~.'" Susan says as she shakes her hands around and fakes being scared. "Sort of like a haunted house."

"It's just lazy is what is. And that screaming in the background, it isn't echoing like it should be if it actually was coming from a person far away. Sounds more like the sound is being generated from somewhere close, like right around the corner… Wait, what's a haunted house?"

"Hm? Yeah, the screaming is fake. People have tried finding the person making it, but the source of the sound is always out of reach. The noise gets real annoying after a while… And a haunted house is a place you go to have fun being scared by people dressed up as monsters and stuff."

Bug raises an eyebrow at that, looking rather confused. "Where's the fun in being scared? Do people pay for this?"

"Yup. And yeah, it's not something I found particularly entertaining when I tried it. Elaine had fun though and seeing her get spooked by a guy dressed as a werewolf and scream was pretty funny." Susan says with a smile as she looks over at the little girl currently clinging to Bug's back. But when her eyes go down to the treasure chest that is now Elaine's lower half, the smile falls off her face and she becomes rather somber.

The girl in question, who clearly isn't scared by the spooky dungeon aesthetic, just gives Susan a big smile when she finds herself being talked about. "Hmm?"

"It's nothing…" Susan starts to say, but then she looks back at Elaine again and changes her mind.

"Do you- Do you remember that day? It was the fall festival in Corvan. You dragged me into the haunted house because Casandra was joking about you being a kid; said you'd be too scared and you wanted to prove her wrong… Do you remember that?" Susan asks with a bit of hope in her voice.

Elaine just tilts her head as she is listening. When Susan stops, she closes her eyes and starts visibly thinking hard as she pokes at her own head and hums.

"Mmmmmmmmm~ Eeehhhhmmmmmmaaaaaah… Nope! I don't remember any of that."

"Oh…"

Susan deflates and the little girl panics a bit seeing this. "I'm sorry I couldn't remember…"

Susan sighs, "It's ok. It's not your fault, Elaine. We can make new memories."

Susan sends a glare at Bug, the one at fault, but doesn't say anything more.

Elaine, not noticing this, just smiles and nods her head happily. "Make lots of memories. Will be fun!"

Bug, ignoring Susan's glare, cuts in as she bounces Mimmie up a bit on her back, "Yup, you'll get to make plenty of memories. But let's keep going now. Susan can you tell me more about this layer? I want to know what to expect."

"… Sure." Susan clears her throat and pushes past her discomfort. "Alright, so, first thing to note is that most people never get this far."

"Really?"

Susan nods as she carefully walks forward through the dim hallway, stopping at a corner to peek around and check for any movement. Bug just nonchalantly follows behind.

"Yes. Generally speaking, most parties wont head any deeper than the twenty-third floor. Past there, the traps become more deadly, the monsters much stronger, and they have to account for getting back to the teleporter safely so they can leave. Every floor past that, and their return journey becomes all the more dangerous. On top of that, the difficulty from floor to floor increases much more than it did in the previous layers. A monster on floor twenty-one is nothing compared to one on floor twenty-nine."

"Hmm." Bug thinks for a bit as she continues following Susan's back, her ears twitching as she listens out for the sounds of anything that might be waiting ahead of them. "I had heard that no one has ever made it back alive from facing the Boss on floor thirty. Is that true?"

"As far as I know, yes." Susan confirms.

"Any idea what the Boss monster is?"

Susan just shakes her head, "No. Once you enter the room, the door locks and you can't get out. Since no one has ever survived, we have no idea what it might be."

"Hm, and the rest of the layer? What sort of monsters are there?"

"It varies."

"Varies?"

Susan nods again. "Yes. One party might come back with stories about packs of diseased dogs. Another about Cyclops and Ogres. Maybe there are giant Slimes, swarms of flesh-eating bugs, and even Mimics. Others tell of hooded figures that cast blood and shadow magics, or of tentacled priests that attack your mind with horrifying images and try to drive you to madness. The further down you go, the crazier things get. Most parties aiming for the lower levels typically don't even bother with combat. They just sneak around and keep their distance from absolutely everything as they search for treasure and try to not get themselves killed."

Bug nods along as Susan speaks, then stops her at the next intersection, "Let's turn right here."

"Why?"

"I hear a monster I think. Biped, dragging something metal on the ground."

Susan points left. "Then we should go the opposite direction."

"Nope. I want to see how strong they are." Bug says as she pulls out her abomination of a scorpion bone mount, made from the conjoined bodies of two humans, and places Mimmie on its back. "How far down did you used to explore here?"

Quickly moving to follow Bug and the skeleton as it carries Mimmie away, Susan draws her sword.

"Floor twenty-four, but that was with a full party. Not by myself. We really shouldn't try picking any fights down here if we can avoid it." Susan says as she keeps looking worriedly towards Elaine, who seems to be enjoying herself quite a bit riding the scorpion.

"Our goal is to reach the end of the Dungeon. Fighting is a necessity. We can't just sneak our way down there, and besides, if we don't kill any monsters, how are we supposed to get stronger?" Bug says casually as she looks around the next corner and spots her target.

It doesn't see her, and she hides back around the corner as she begins to turn her arms into large, serrated blades.

Susan points to Elaine, "But what about her? Can she even fight? You and I might be able to handle to it, especially after you changed me… But Elaine is just a kid now."

Bug peeks around the corner again, her target getting closer, "Mimmie will be fine. She's still just level 10, but I'll help her grind out her levels and build some skills. If anything, she has a nasty bite, so you know she's not defenseless."

Susan wants to try and argue more, but she knows Bug is right. If they want to reach the end of the Dungeon and escape, fighting is their only option. And that includes Elaine. Even if she looks like a child now, they aren't always going to be able to defend her. Eventually, she is going to have to start pulling her weight in fights, or else she is just going to become a liability.

Luckily, she seems to be all for it as she grips her little hands into fists and starts shadow boxing.

"I'll become big and strong! Eats everyone!"

The two smile at her antics and then Susan grows serious. "Alright, what kind of monster is it?"

Bug peeks around again, "Looks like a big fat guy, brown sack on his head, and he's dragging around a big meat cleaver covered in dried blood."

"Wait what?"

"I'm going to go say hi."

"Wait, no, hold on! Is that a Butcher?! Don't!" Susan tries to stop Bug, but the girl slips around the corner and start running forward.

"Hi, my name is Bug. What's your name big fella?" Bug ask with a big friendly smile as she runs with her sword arms ready to strike.

Wishing she could still curse, Susan quickly follows after Bug and pales as she sees the monster ahead of them stop walking forward and then draws his massive cleaver up from the floor to hold it with both of his fat, meaty fists. Filling most of the hallway with just the girth of his rotund belly alone, the red of his one eye showing through the one hole in the sack on his head is filled with malice and hunger.

Unfortunately, the big fella doesn't appear to know his words very well, so his only response is a loud and drawn-out, earth-shaking roar of, "MmmeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaT!!!"

'Lvl36 Butcher. Meat, it's what's for dinner! A Dungeon spawn exclusive monster, this gluttonous, near-immortal demonic being won't stop pursuing any target that it has decided to eat. Don't let it catch you. If it does, your death will be a slow and painful one as you are butchered alive and cut into itty-bitty little pieces, salted, and then wrapped and packaged for later. Run, don't fight.'

Reading the Identify description, Bug can't help but to pale a little as she looks up at the fat guy that is now towering over her. But when the Butcher takes a meaty step forward and raises his cleaver above his head, Bug forces herself to keep smiling and to keep moving forward.

Stats

Name – Bug

Age – 0

Race – Half-Undead Gremlin

Class – Little Bodily Horror

Level – 30

EXP – 13/9000

Free Stat Points – 0

Heath – 342/342 [Health loss from internal damage greatly reduced by 70%]

Stamina – 111/111 [Stamina consumption reduced by 50%] [Stamina drain: Sunlight]

Mana – 288/288 [Total = 600] [-312 From Control Upkeep]

Vitality – 57 [+1 From Equipment]

Endurance – 37

Strength – 35

Dexterity – 52

Magic – 60

Intelligence – 52

*Luck – N/A

*Note: Luck is a work in progress stat. Points cannot be put into this stat at this time.

Stats

Name – Mimmie/Elaine

Age – 0

Race – Adolescent Mimic [Treasure Chest]

Class – Human-Mimic

Level – 10

EXP – 130/300

Free Stat Points – 0

Heath – 200/200

Stamina – 72/72

Mana – 40/40

Vitality – 25 [+1 From Equipment]

Endurance – 12

Strength – 22

Dexterity – 13

Magic – 10

Intelligence – 15

*Luck – N/A

*Note: Luck is a work in progress stat. Points cannot be put into this stat at this time.