[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 119 – The Return of Dungeonley

Once Cal was put back together, he calmed down. “Sorry for falling to pieces like that,” he muttered to everybody. “I’m just… still not over the Rattle Rousers, I guess.”

Shrubley patted his friend’s back and adjusted his cloak. “It is okay,” he told him. “Healing takes time. You are among friends, Cal. We will not let them harm you ever again.”

Together, the group ventured into the mouth of the new Dungeon. Shrubley put his hand against the smooth gray stone of the corridor.

“What is it?” Miranda asked. She had long since given up on trying to understand how Shrubley did anything. With a shock, she realized she trusted him and his judgment.

“Dungeonley says he cannot help us much more this time. He got yelled at by his friends. Said it was unfair to other Dungeons,” Shrubley told them. He patted the Dungeon. “It is okay Dungeonley, you do not need to help us if you do not want to. But do not let peer pressure rule your heart. You are your own Dungeon.”

The Dungeon rumbled and a few new paths opened up where there had just been smooth stone walls before.

“What exactly is going on?” Konko asked, utterly astounded. “Are you truly talking to the Dungeon, Shrubley? How…”

“I suppose that is what’s going on,” Sose said slowly, squinting suspiciously.

“Shrubley can talk to Dungeons,” Cal told Konko. “He befriended the Dungeon outside of Talvar and apparently Dungeonley–his name for the Dungeon–has followed us here.”

“That’s… a thing?” Konko stared at the skeleton, belatedly realizing that yes, she was in fact conversing with an undead skeleton amongst a group of monsters. In the face of that, why wouldn’t Dungeons talk? “Of course, that’s a thing.”

“You eventually get used to it,” Miranda told Konko. “For now, just smile and nod. It’ll be a lot easier on you.”

“Will I?” she whispered hopelessly.

Shrubley let his glowbug familiar fly free and choose from the new paths. After visiting each, the glowbug returned to the first one.

He gave his familiar a quick bow and took that path. He didn’t know what to expect, but considered that to be part of the fun.

And while Shrubley could technically converse with Dungeonley on some level, that did not mean he was well versed in dungeon crawling. He had heard of traps and hazards, but lacked sufficient knowledge to properly envision them.

Which was why something caused Shrubley to stop moving. He looked down. His rooty legs were stuck in some kind of thick tarry substance that bubbled ominously.

“It would seem I should have jumped over this,” Shrubley said calmly, beginning to sink deeper.

“Yes, I think so,” Miranda said dryly. “However, you’d also have to watch out for… Well, I suppose you’ll find out.”

Cal looked on with worry. “But what if he gets hit? It would be better if it was me rather than him. I can at least fall to pieces and put myself back together!”

“He has to learn.”

“He can learn by watching,” Cal countered.

“You want to go into the tar pit?”

“No.”

Shrubley wriggled a little, finding he sank faster when he did that. “This is quite the sticky situation.”

Sose snorted.

Smudge rolled over to the tar trap and dropped into it before anybody else knew what he was doing.

“Ah, brilliant, Smudge!” Shrubley called.

Nobody could see how that was anything other than pure rank idiocy until it became clear that the tar trap was emptying. Glowing orange, Smudge was eating the tar with Hunger essence.

When he was finished, Shrubley merely climbed out of the pit. Now scoured clean as could be, while Smudge looked like a blob of old roofing tar. He giggled and rolled up the wall, sticking to it and leaving a long tarry trail in his wake.

“Is that a slime ability?” Konko asked. “Or… something else? I’ve never seen one of those… uhh, kind of monsters do that.”

“It’s a Smudge ability,” Shrubley told her.

The slime smeared his tarry self over several traps, entombing them in sticky tar. Cal caught onto what the slime was doing and used a few freezing spells to harden the tar further, preventing dozens of traps from springing on them.

Spikes shattered against the tar, traps designed to crush them flat could only move a few inches before their mechanisms were gummed up.

All throughout the Dungeon’s winding corridors, Smudge’s taunting laughter could be heard as the traps were defeated one after the other.

Shrubley suspected that Dungeonley’s confidence was surely taking a beating. He patted the stone wall comfortingly. “Don’t feel bad, Dungeonley, Smudge is quite the talented slime! Perhaps next time you will outdo us, friend.”

The group still had to watch out for those that Smudge had either missed or couldn’t tell were traps, but those were significantly less trouble than the ones Smudge had disabled with his tarry substance.

“I should have stayed outside,” Konko said, clutching her staff that Shrubley had made for her. It was pretty, with a few leaves growing on the curved end. There were no attributes on it, but it was a nice gesture all the same.

“Then anything outside might have gotten you,” Miranda told her. “We were hoping to find another town where we could park you. Oh, don’t give me that look, my dear! You’re not a fighter, you said so yourself. I know you’re not a wagon to park wherever we need, but you are to be protected, you know.”

“Like a wagon.” Sose snickered.

Konko looked down, feeling uncomfortable about all the attention. “Thanks.”

They reached the end of the winding maze of corridors, culminating in a large room, though the word hardly did it justice. Shrubley didn’t have the vocabulary to adequately describe what he saw.

“It’s like a Dungeon inside a Dungeon…” Shrubley whispered in awe.

“Dungeonception!” Cal said excitedly.

Sose groaned.

The room, if it was a room at all, was so large they could not see the sides. There was a lone narrow bridge of stone that stretched all the way into the darkness below, which surrounded a stepped pyramid at the center of the colossal room.

Suffocating darkness pulsed from the pyramid and a dark, foul, bloody miasma flowed out along the narrow bridge and fell away in thick scarlet curtains to either side.

Shrubley had the keen understanding that this thing was not meant to be. It was an interloper. A parasite. It was feeding off the smaller Dungeon, weakening it, and controlling it.

Was that why Dungeonley could not help them further? Was Dungeonley trying to keep this infected Dungeon contained somehow?

The walls ahead of them tried to close, but the tarry substance spread on them from Smudge slowed them enough that Shrubley and his party were able to slip through onto the bridge before they shut.

“I think the Dungeon… that is, the infected Dungeon, is trying to keep us out of here, trapped in a series of never ending trap tunnels,” Shrubley said, stepping forward into the pulsing miasma.

“Smells like… copper,” he said.

Cal stepped into the dark red mist after Shrubley. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I hope it doesn’t stain my bones.”

Smudge rolled forward, leaving a trail of sticky tar behind for everybody else to deal with until the Countess ordered him to the back of the line.

Konko inched forward, in front of the Countess. She gingerly poked a finger into the swirling mist and screamed. A dozen tiny cuts appeared on her fingertip, tiny ruby droplets appearing from each cut.

“Shrubley!” Konko cried, surprising herself at the first name she would call for help.

Panicking, Smudge acted first. He lunged forward and began to grow several sizes to encompass the girl safely in his gelatinous mass before the Countess stopped him.

“No!” she said sharply. “Covered in that tar, you’ll do more harm to Konko than good.”

“Pyuu…” Smudge shied back.

Meanwhile, the soul shrub hurried to Konko’s side, staring with confusion at the wounds. “The mist did this?” he said thoughtfully.

“It hurts!” Konko told him. “Can’t you heal it?”

Shrubley was about to heal it with a simple [Recovery], but he had a sneaking suspicion that wouldn’t work. If this was like the other Dungeon, which had a poison miasma, maybe this red mist was something else.

A different affliction, but an affliction all the same.

Shrubley reached out and used [Transference], tapping into the Bronze imprint that allowed him to pull status effects to himself.

He could feel the [Bleed] effect trigger, but as Shrubley was a plant without blood, it struggled to find purchase. His veins were very different from any mammal’s, but it was enough that he was able to use [Counteract] to develop an antidote in the shape of a tiny blue berry with ivory polka dots. He popped one off and gave it to Konko. “Eat this. It will protect you from getting sick again.”

Concentrating, Shrubley grew a few more berries for the Countess to hold should she, Sose, Slyrox, or Konko need any. He didn’t know if Slyrox’s mask would keep out the miasma. It seemed to do well for the poison until it was damaged, but she had since fixed it.

“It sure is nice not to have any blood,” Cal called from the midst of the bloody miasma.

Sose glared defiantly at the miasma. “You’ll regret it,” the small animal threatened it.

The mist, however, was not cowed by the oppa. However, the Countess wasn’t about to take any chances. Even her Steel Rank didn’t guarantee she would be immune forever, so she fed a berry to Sose and popped another into her mouth.

The remaining berries she kept safe should they be needed. It was fortunate they had someone with Shrubley’s skill set along with them. Though a healer usually covered this area anyway, few were so effective as Shrubley at covering a wide range of circumstances.

Konko inched forward into the blood mist again, wincing as she stretched a finger, then her whole hand into it. “Hey, it just tickles now!”

She couldn’t believe how effective Shrubley’s healing worked. Not only did it remove the affliction entirely, but she was now immune to it.

It’s no wonder every adventuring party clamors for at least one healer, and here Shrubley is leading his own party as a combination healer and… well, I’m not sure what else.

Despite her long-standing desire not to fight or battle creatures, she had to admit that seeing Shrubley’s example was giving her a strange longing for the life of an adventurer. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely done with that life as she once thought.

They reached the base of the stepped pyramid just as the stone bridge collapsed into the darkness with a thundering boom.

A massive door opened at the base of the pyramid, where more red mist flowed out. Shrubley steeled himself and stepped forward into the darkness where the mist was thickest.

He hated the smell, but at least his nose wasn’t as sensitive as Sose’s, who was making a dry retching sound. The little thing was struggling to rub his furry muzzle with his paws before disappearing into the depths of the Countess’ clothing with a conjured mask of Dust essence.

Even Konko was trying not to lose her lunch. “Ugh, it smells like a charnel house in here.”

The Countess, meanwhile, breathed deep and almost seemed to glow with power. Rather than afflicting her, the blood mist was empowering her. Every breath was like feeding. She grinned to herself, realizing just how poorly this would go for the Dungeon if she decided to intervene.

There was such a thing as the Feeding High that dramatically enhanced every vampyr’s attributes, but it faded quickly. It was to ensure that they would feed and get away should they need to. In this case, it supercharged the Countess.

She was certain, as they ventured into the depths of the pyramid, that she could simply walk through any wall of her choosing, breaking it with her raw power.

This is their Dungeon, she struggled to remind herself through the haze of such a high. I must remain impartial.

Shrubley was hardly surprised when the large stone door to the pyramid slammed shut behind them, leaving Shrubley’s glowbug as the only light. It was time to see what this new Dungeon had to offer.