The Dungeon's Worst Little Mistake

"Turn left, turn left!" Bug screams as she grabs Susan by the back of her shirt and drags her and Mimmie down the turn.

Behind them, the swarm of hungry roaches crashes down the hall and flows over themselves as the thousands of shiny bugs take the turn after them. Waves of the things crash against the wall and almost reach the ceiling at the apex of the wave, the sounds of hissing mouths and skittering feet drowning out all the ambient noise of the Dungeon as roaches clamber over roaches and smaller ones get crushed under foot by the larger ones. The only thing else that can be heard is Elaine as the little girl is laughing and clapping for the bugs that are chasing the group.

At least she is having fun. Bug and Susan are just trying not to piss themselves as they run with everything their undead bodies have. Half-Undead in Bug's case. In fact, if they had still been mortal, they would have quickly started to tire and slow by now.

As they run, Bug's ears twitch and she jumps, Susan copying her without hesitation. Not a moment later, a large blade comes flying out of the wall and cleaves through the hallway at about waist height. Bug had heard the trap trigger with a little click as either she or Susan had stepped on something, the gears in the walls grinding hinting at what was about to happen. The perusing roaches don't even care about the trap, with most of them simply flowing under and around the massive blade as it retracts back into the wall.

Sprinting down the halls with a tidal wave of living hunger after their tails, Bug leads the group towards some noise she had picked up further into the Dungeon. A couple of turns later and they come across a pack of diseased and mangy looking dogs with bloodshot eyes. The whole pack is lazing around and chewing on some bones from a recent kill.

When Bug and Susan round the corner, they all perk up and look their way, growling as they start to rise with what little fur they have left bristling on their backs. Bug and Susan don't stop running towards them even as the dogs start growling and barking, readying to attack the approaching women.

Then the roaches round the corner and the dogs immediately go wide-eyed and whimper. Forgetting about the women almost entirely, they turn and start clawing at the ground as they start to run, all barking and whimpering like they are crying out in fear.

Bug and Susan quickly catch up to and pass the dogs as they are just getting moving, the dogs not even bothering to try and bite them as they all cry and run with their tails between their legs from the coming death.

Now with over a dozen mangy mutts running away with them, Elaine is laughing and giggling like a child at a petting zoo as she reaches out and tries to grab the nearest dog.

"Doggies!"

The first intersection they reach, Bug and Susan immediately turn and run as fast as they can as the dogs keep heading straight. As soon as they find a solitary confinement cell with an unlocked door, Bug pulls it open like she is trying to rip the damn thing off its hinges. They all jump inside and Bug slams it shut. Not a moment later, the roaches come flooding through the intersection as they continue to chase after the dogs.

Bug, holding herself against the door and listening carefully, listening to the dogs desperately barking and whimpering as they run off into the distance. Letting out an exhausted breath as her half-dead heart is pounding in her chest like a drum, Bug lets herself slowly slide down the door and relax. Susan has a hand covering Elaine's mouth as the little girl is excitedly trying to say something, her red eyes watching Bug in the pitch-black darkness of the little room. After a while, Bug nods towards Susan and they both sigh with relief.

"They're gone. Holy crap that was scary…"

Susan glares at her. "I told you we should be more careful! Goddess, I hate cockroaches. Eugh~ah so gross!"

Elaine pats on Susan's hand that is still blocking her mouth, getting her to finally release her with a little apology.

She gives them a big smile, "That was fun! Can we do that again?"

"No, sweetheart." Bug answers with an exhausted smile as she moves some sweaty hair behind one of her horns.

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Taking out a lit torch to brighten up the little room Bug lays it on the floor beside her. Susan slowly drop to the floor to catch rest as well, setting Elaine's treasure chest down as well. In the back corner of the room is a fake skeleton holding a rusty mug, his head leaning on his shoulder with empty eye-sockets staring right at Bug. She grabs a rock off the floor and chucks at the skeleton, knocking its head off with a 'thunk' as it falls to the floor.

After catching her breath for a bit, despite not even needing to breathe anymore, Susan nudges Bug with her boot to get her attention.

"We need to be more careful. I understand that the upper levels weren't much of a threat to you, but down here the difficulty is just going to get harder. Did you have any way to deal with that mess back there?"

"Without potentially killing you and Mimmie in the process? No. I could have used my mushrooms if those roaches aren't immune. I don't think they would be. My ice aura probably could have killed most of the lower level ones instantly and slowed the bigger ones down, but you two wouldn't be able to be around me, or you'd get frozen as well… Eew, what if they didn't freeze fast enough and I got covered in them?"

Bug involuntarily imagines it, being covered head to toe in frozen bugs and having to dig her way out of them as they crunch and squelch…

"What about your poison?" Susan asks.

"I could kill some of them with my poison, but not all of them. I can only make so much at once, and it's only really effective if it gets inside of the target. Contact damage is limited… Wait, crap! I could have poisoned some food or something and threw it behind us as we ran…"

Bug looks back at the door, "There were thousands of them. Even if most of them are Level 1, that is still a lot of experience. Maybe I should set out some traps and try to kill them all?"

Susan nods. "That could work. And if you hadn't rushed in to fight the Butcher like you did, we could have talked strategy. We could have come up with ideas for if we ran into something like this. We can do better than just blindly rushing in."

"It's worked out so far." Bug says with a shrug, though she knows she is wrong.

"Right, back when everything was easy and weak enough for you to cut down in one strike. Or where you could just send a bunch of Undead to stomp all your problems to death. That won't work as well down here. You can probably get some results with enough numbers, but the further down we go, you'll just end up feeding our enemies. We need strategy, plans. Do you understand?"

Bug looks a way for a bit and considers arguing just for the sake of arguing, but she knows that that would just be a waste of time.

"I understand."

Truth be told, Bug knows the value of strategy. She wasn't always this strong. She used to be just a weak little Gremlin living on the first floor. So weak that she could have been killed by a child with a wooden sword if she wasn't lucky. She had only gotten this far by using her brain. By setting ambushes and making her opponents underestimate her.

Being able to just power through everything like a berserker had been fun while it lasted.

Bug mentally sighs and shrugs. Back to playing it safe again, sigh…

"Alright, well, we have time." Bug gestures to the little room around them, "Let's strategize."

For the next couple of hours, the two talk and make plans for how they handle things moving forward. Growing bored from listening to the adults talking, Mimmie, still with a full stomach after eating the Butcher's head, after a while yawns and stretches before closing up her shell to take a nap.

When she wakes up later, Mimmie finds Susan patching up some clothes in a corner of the room. Bug is busy with making a simple dinner of sandwiches using some of the stuff she took from the cafeteria earlier. They both look over and give Mimmie a smile when they notice her climbing out of her shell.

"Hungry, Mimmie?" Bug asks with a sandwich held out for her on a wooden plate.

"Oooh, thank you!"

Bug sets the second one over by Susan who gives a little thank you as she keeps sewing.

While the three of them enjoy their sandwiches, Bug seems to remember something and speaks up.

"Mimmie, we should spend your Skill Points. Do you have any idea on what you want to get?"

"Skills?" The little girls asks.

"Mm, pull up your Skills so I can see what you have so far."

"Ok… hmmm, here you go."

Mimmie pulls up her window and shows it to Bug. Off to the side, Susan is curious, but all she can see is a blurry distortion in the air that hurts to look at. So she just goes back to sewing while she listens.

Bug looks over Mimmie's list and reads them out loud, "Alright, so you have Bite LvlMax… How do you already have a maxed-out Skill? No. Never mind, dumb question. Let's see, you also have, Bottomless Stomach Lvl2, Beginner Drummer Lvl1, Glutton Lvl5… Why am I not surprised that most of your Skills are related to eating? What else, you've got Definitely Not a Mimic Lvl5. Is this a disguise skill for Mimics or something? And last, we have Hardened Shell Lvl1. Must still be a low level because you haven't really taken any hits. We'll have to work on leveling that."

She reaches over and gives her a pat on the head.

"Some good Skills. Definitely makes sense for a Mimic to have. Now let's see if we can get you even more. Do you have any idea what kind of Skills you want?"

Showing her how to open up the Skill Points Store, Mimmie looks over the thousands of options and grimaces. She's not reading all of this!

"I want to bite and eat!"

Not surprised in the slightest, Bug nods. "Got it. Then let's look for some bite related Skills to start. But I also want you to consider some magic as an option. Being able to cast spells will make you a lot more powerful as well, ok?"

"Ok! I want to be STRONG!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright then, let's make you strong." Bug says with a loving smiling.