Sporemageddon

Sir Nibbles and I climbed all the way up to the fifth floor before I decided that we needed to stop and sleep. The floor was safer than those below. We killed a few of the local moles and bats, and the corpses were used up, producing a fresh batch of mushrooms. I even opened up my last can of spam to celebrate with Sir Nibbles.

I was, basically, in a pretty good mood.

Escaping the dungeon might be a little tricky, but I didn’t think it would be that hard. There was some security around the Ditz dungeon, but it was rather lax, and waiting until nightfall might be enough.

Worse case scenario, I might have to pull back from the top-most floors and wait a few days.

There were contingencies in place with my crew, if a fresh batch of riots broke out. Hell, I was hoping for them.

More riots would mean more people fighting in the streets, more fires, more clashes between the bullies and the Union. That would all be a perfectly acceptable next step in destroying the foundations of the city.

City Nineteen wasn’t repairable.

Maybe, someday in the distant future, I’d have the political and magical might necessary to turn a city into some sort of... druidic haven, where the new gods are forbidden to take root and where people live in harmony with nature.

That wouldn’t happen easily. The people of City Nineteen were raised with the factory chimneys towering overhead. My dad had mentioned how his own father worked in one. It was a generational thing.

Maybe there was another solution. But I think that Feronie expected results sooner, rather than later. I don’t think ignoring a Goddess’ will was a great idea, so I wasn’t going to.

We slept rather easily, then I packed things up the next morning and we continued on our way.

The fourth floor, the floor with massive fungal grooves, was the same as it had been. Deploying a screen of spores ahead of us was enough to keep us safe as we made our way through. I was hoping that we’d make it to the top and out today, probably by the early evening.

Maybe? I didn’t have a timepiece, and I regretted it. A simple pocket watch would be more than enough to know more or less what time it was. I had the feeling that it was morning, but without a time-keeping device, I couldn’t be sure. It could well be much later or earlier.

Sir Nibbles and I made it to the end of the fourth floor, and I decided that we’d have lunch down here. The third floor, which was relatively safe, was also... not the cleanest. It was an ancient sewer, and while I trusted in my skills to keep me safe, there was something to say about being safe rather than being sorry.

So, once lunch was done, we started upwards, and I was very much ready to try and slip into any worker groups I ran into.

Chances were that if this Sporemageddon worked as the last one did, that people would have noticed already, but there was also a strong possibility that the middle-managers in charge would send people down anyway. There was often a strong disconnect between reality and the way the people staring at papers acted.

There was no one near the exit, and after removing Sir Nibble’s mask to let him sniff the air, he confirmed that he couldn’t smell anyone either.

We continued onwards, walking down long corridors lined with old brick walls. The space wasn’t lit terribly well, but there was the occasional torch along the way.

I should have been paying more attention.

I only noticed the light shifting against the wall ahead of us when it was too late. I froze, boot scraping on the ground, just seconds before a figure slipped out from around the corner.

The floor didn’t have many threats. There were these frogs, but they were relatively unaggressive, and the majority of the monsters were these eels that hid in the sewer water. As long as no one dove in, they wouldn’t do anything.

The person ahead of us might have known that.

They came around the corner and immediately locked onto Sir Nibbles and I. A human, male, about three heads taller than I was, with a metallic breastplate and platemail over their legs. They had a lantern in one hand, glowing a faint, magically-fueled red, and an unsheathed short sword in the other.

A delver, and not just some low-wage schmuck, either, his gear looked expensive, with carved filigree and all of the little signs that it was tailored to him.

“We have a live one,” he called back.

Behind him came four more, and I felt my heart sinking even as I tried to make myself look small and quickly activated all of my social skills.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

There were two more fighters in that bunch, another man, and a woman, both equipped with well-made metal armour and arms. Taking up the middle of the group was a man in lighter armour, a gambeson with a satchel on one hip and a toolbelt and bandoleer, both filled with small items. Judging by the pack, they were the group’s trap-finder, maybe a dungeon guide? Their gear looked decent as well.

And in the centre, a mage.

I’d come to know how to recognize mages. Unlike in the fantasy stories of my last world, here they didn’t amble about in ill-fitting robes looking like someone’s senile grandpa. A proper mage wore finery. Lace under silver and gold trimmed armour. This one, a man that had a touch of grey in his hair and trimmed beard, was wearing bracers that glowed with power. If it wasn’t for the staff by his side I might have assumed that he was an ill-placed noble.

No, he probably was a noble. The magical arts weren’t for the common man.

“H-hey!” I shouted, voice trembling a little. “Thank god! There was a big blast of magic! I’ve been hiding here for two days. I’m with--”

“Stop,” the fighter in the lead said, hand raised. He turned to the others, but looked at the mage in particular. “You said that you hadn’t detected anyone?”

“Not on this floor. That means he had to come up from the floor below,” the mage replied.

“Well well,” the fighter said. He slowly levelled his sword at me. “That makes you rather suspect, doesn’t it, kid?”

“I’m innocent!” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve been down here for--”

“Capture them,” the mage said. “We’ll see what the Bullys have to say later, but we don’t have time to waste on a child. Benard, do you have rope to spare?”

The trap-finder snorted. “I’ll truss them up like a lamb. They won’t make it out. What about the pan badger? Don’t see those very often.”

The group hesitated. Had they not noticed Sir Nibbles? Other than the trap-finder, that was. Then again, if anyone would have the skills necessary to notice something that didn’t want to be noticed, it would be someone with that kind of class.

“Well, damn,” the fighter said. His grip tightened on his sword. “Shoot it.”

The second and third fighters reached around for small, portable crossbows.

I reached into my satchel and pulled out a bomb.

Sir Nibbles hissed.

Things happened rather quickly after that. I flung my bomb forwards, only one of the fights snap-shot it out of the air just a few paces ahead of me. I winced as I was peppered with bits of mushroom and the air filled with a quickly-dispersing cloud of spores.

I grabbed another, then flung it underhanded ahead.

“Poison!” the trap-finder shouted.

Sir Nibbles howled, then leapt up and somehow twisted around the blur of a crossbow bolt. A moment later, however, the first fighter was swinging down at him.

I changed targets. I had intended to throw the next bomb behind the ground, or at least close to the mage, but I flung it at the fighter instead.

Sir Nibbles squeaked, and I felt my insides go cold as I saw blood fly off of the panbadger as he was struck.

Then the bomb I threw exploded in the face of the fighter, and he stumbled back, coughing.

He wasn’t the only one. The woman behind him was doubled over, clutching at her throat.

No time! I charged ahead, then ducked as something wooshed past me. A spell? I didn’t have time to examine it. I had to get closer to set off another bomb and--

The mage threw up his arms and grunted. The corridor ahead shifted, and I ran into a wall.

No, not a wall, a shield. It was a barrier that had sprung out of thin air, filling in the entire passage and blocking it off entirely.

“Nice try,” the mage said. He remained with one hand raised, looking smug and superior even as there were only a half-dozen feet between us.

The last fighter cursed. “Lower the shield! They need help.”

“They’re dead,” the mage said. “What was that?”

The last was directed to the trap-finder. The man didn’t seem as bothered at the death of the two fighters behind me. “Poison, of some sort. Fungal, I think. Wouldn’t want to test it myself. My skills just say that it’s damned potent.”

“Tsk. You, head back, tell the team on the second floor that there’s trouble.”

I grit my teeth, then glanced back. Sir Nibbles was standing. There was a cut along his side, and it was bleeding, but he didn’t look like he was dying.

I turned back to the mage. I had to kill this man. And the others. I... I slammed my hand against the shield. It wavered.

Wait...

Frowning, I pressed my hand against it, then pushed.

The mage grinned. “Can’t get past that one, chi--”

He cut off as the shield started to spit and fizzle on the edges. I jumped as a crossbow bolt thwacked against the shield right in front of my face, but I supposed that it protected from both directions.

I grabbed another bomb with my free hand.

My other hand started to plunge through the barrier. “Shit, he’s breaking throu--”

The moment my hand passed through, I fired a [Blight]. Point-blank, into the man’s face, then I kept it up.

He screamed.

The moment the shield snapped, I flicked my second bomb onto the ground, then dodged to the side, rolling onto the ground to avoid a swing from the third fighter. Soon, they were coughing, and so was the mage.

The trap-finder, being a smarter man, spun around and started to run.

It wasn’t going to work out for him. Sir Nibbles took off like a bullet and I heard him catching up to the man around the bend.

“Shit,” I swore under my breath.

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