Sporemageddon

I was being stupid. I had solutions to the problems I was dealing with. I was just so worried about the monsters and excited about reaching the end of the dungeon that I had allowed my emotions to over-ride my ability to think.

I couldn’t see because it was dark, so I had grown some moss that glowed. It was a solution that worked, but not well enough.

A big part of the problem, I think, was my propensity to try and affect the exterior world with interior abilities.

I used my knowledge to fix my problems.

I didn’t default to using things to change myself. For example, I had two types of mushrooms that could have made avoiding stalker-like enemies on this level of the dungeon significantly easier. The [Purple Capped Night Watcher] which I had used to good effect previously, and the newer [Dawnwatcher Cap].

“I’m kind of stupid,” I confided to Sir Nibbles.

He grunted in agreement, to which I flashed him a glare. Still... I could at least rectify stupidity by trying to fix my issues now. I had a fresh corpse to work with, and I didn’t mind waiting for a few hours, even if it would eat into my time.

It would give the dusty spores we had thrown around time to propagate, and the Pale Stalkers were already clearly susceptible to them.

So, I planted a few [Purple Capped Night Watcher] spores into the flesh of my new Pale Stalker pal and sat down with my back against one wall and Sir Nibbles on my legs, claiming my warmth and taking up too much room.

I chewed on a [Purple Capped Night Watcher], gave another to Sir Nibbles, then stored the rest for later. Then I tossed some [Dead Man’s Cough] around, letting the spores fill the air even as the low-light improving abilities of the Night Watcher finally started to come into effect.

“Alright, let’s keep moving,” I said as I stood up. I had to jump on the spot a few times to clear the tingles in my legs. Dumb panbadger with his fat head made my legs fall asleep.

We did as I said, continuing into the next chamber with the light of my lamp illuminating the path ahead and the glow of the lichen providing a little more cover. With the night vision mushrooms, I was able to see much deeper into the rooms. The deepest shadows were still too dark to see into, but the rest of the space had some contrast to it.

Which is how I discovered a Pale Stalker two rooms later, hanging upside-down from the ceiling in the centre of the room. It was almost entirely hidden, and it was just a slight twitch that made me glance its way twice and catch sight of it.

The damned thing was hidden behind a small rocky outcrop, head tilted so that it was almost pressed against the stone and scythe arms set wide.

I looked up, then back, then all around, checking for another stalker ready to pounce. When I found nothing, I relaxed a little. Now to decide... would I toss a bomb ahead and hope that it would kill the monster before it decided to give up on its ambush and just charge, or should we try to find another way around?

In the end, the fear of losing my way or of backtracking us into another ambush won out.

I tossed a mushroom bomb down at the ground beneath the Pale Stalker. My heart beat wrong when the stalker decided to move. In a blink, it was down from the ceiling, spinning around to land on all fours. It wheezed, probably caught a lungful of spores already, but that didn’t stop it from launching itself my way.

I jumped to the side, blasting a quick [Blight] at the monster who caught it in the face and didn’t slow down.

Sir Nibbles helped. The panbadger leapt up with a feral growl, his entire body somehow twisting out of the way of a scything claw before he laid into the Pale Stalker, his own little claws raking the monster’s hide over and over again even as he continued to twist around.

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Then they separated, and Sir Nibbles made himself large, all of his fur puffed out and back curved like a startled cat, only he was about twice the length of a large stray, and four times as vicious.

The Pale Stalker hesitated, scythes raised, then it coughed and gasped for air, and I realized that it had been holding its breath for a while. Probably from the moment the spore bomb had gone off, maybe?

I smashed another [Blight] into its face, and it reeled back, hissing in pain, then bent over as it choked and tried to breathe.

That’s when Sir Nibbles jumped five times his body’s height and wrapped around the monster’s neck. He somehow managed to position himself so that his rear legs were by the Pale Stalker’s neck, and when he kicked out with his claws, he dug through the monster’s throat as though it were so much dirt.

The Pale Stalker crashed down, convulsing. I hit it with another couple of [Blights], just in case. Once the monster stopped twitching, I slowly moved over, then gave it a switch kick in the ribs. “Scared me,” I muttered.

Sir Nibbled grunted in agreement, then looked at his claws. By the looks of it, he wanted to lick them clean, but the mask he still wore--even if it was now very much askew--stopped him from grooming himself.

“Alright, well, that’s something done,” I said.

Since I didn’t intend to linger here forever, I just poked some holes into the body with a camp knife, then poured in some fresh spores. This would become another hazard for anything following us.

Interestingly, I hadn’t caught sight of the moths or worms that were supposed to be down here yet. Some silk, sure, but nothing grand. It was possible that they made their homes along the edges of the dungeon, rather than right down the middle.

We pushed on through. It wasn’t too long before we were past the next room, then the next, and with each one, I was a little more... free with my use of spore bombs. We were walking through clouds that made the already poor visibility, even with chemical assistance, worse. It also meant that the next time we ran into a Pale Stalker, it was a corpse on the ground, slumped over in death already.

More spores planted, more growth magic sprayed around liberally, then we moved on. I did hear a distant whump at some point from behind us, so one of the other monsters definitely triggered one of my early traps. Poor thing.

I was almost surprised when we rounded a corner and came face to face with the entrance to the next level down.

“Well... crap, we actually made it,” I said.

The entrance opened to a set of stairs fit for creatures larger, and maybe more majestic than mere humans. As we walked down, I soon found myself squinting. There was light. Sconces hung off the walls to the left and right, though there was an occasional gap where one or another was missing. They were simple wooden torches, but the flames burned a shade of yellow that didn’t feel natural.

The stairs, too wide as they were, eventually lead down into a more level space. A tunnel, of sorts, with an arched roof and walls of natural stone that looked like they had been smoothed over.

Deep in that space, sitting in the centre of a pool of calm water with a narrow bridge leading to it, was the dungeon’s core.

Like the Ditz dungeon, it was another altar. Unlike the Ditz dungeon, the altar was made of local stone, with ancient striations left in the material.

The air here thrummed with raw magic, and I could almost feel the dungeon’s attention on me. Moreover, I could feel my skill pulling me closer. The [Ritual of Sporemageddon] wanted to be used.

So I moved closer and intended to do just that.

The altar’s surface was smooth and cold under my touch. I ran my fingers lightly across the surface, then hummed.

There would be a method to this madness. I didn’t want the spell to go off immediately. Ideally, I could cast [Ritual of Sporemageddon] with some sort of time delay. Enough to get out of here.

But... no, there didn’t seem to be anything like that built into the spell itself. Frustratingly, the spell, the skill, was entirely uninteractable when I wasn’t standing at the core of a dungeon.

“Annoying,” I muttered as I felt at the skill, but I was no expert in that kind of study. “Are you ready, Sir Nibbles?” I asked.

The panbadger made a strange, curious noise.

“We’re about to do Feronie’s will. This will definitely require some running.”

If I timed it correctly, maybe I could slip out of the dungeon with the morning crew? There would be a gap between people discovering that something was wrong and them creating a cordon to prevent anyone from leaving. At least, I hoped so.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, then cleared my mind. I had done this before, so I only had to do the same again.

The air around me wavered, then felt thicker before everything snapped into place. There was a feeling, an impression that this moment was more real than any moment before.

Then I felt a presence, and instantly I knew that it was Feronie. Warm, comforting, holding a knife behind her back.

I grinned, and it was almost as if the presence grinned back before it faded.

Then I had to grit my teeth as the magic hit, and the entire dungeon groaned. Power, an ocean of it, rushed through the entire space, and I said goodbye to any hopes that this might be a subtle affair.

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