[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 104 – Dungeonley, the Dungeon

A pair of Iron Ranked adventurers escorted Shrubley and his party to the edge of the miasma. They would go no further.

“I’ve already been in there three times,” Remus said. “It’s not worth it to go further. Does something terrible to your head. Hope you lot have a better time than we did.”

“Thank you, Remus,” Shrubley said kindly. “Your help has been most appreciated.”

Remus and Qela both looked at each other in surprise and then gave a friendly wave to Shrubley and his group. “Stay safe out there,” they said.

“You too!” Shrubley replied, getting on the tips of his roots and waving amicably in return. His whole bushy body swayed back and forth from the exuberant effort.

In the distance, he could still hear the adventurers talking, “What a nice little dude.”

“Very polite. Didn’t expect that.”

“Takes all sorts, don’t it?”

“That it does, Remus, that it does. We should keep an eye on the little guy, make sure–”

Shrubley turned and paced along the perimeter of the misty purple miasma, noticing the gradual shift in the vegetation and rocks along its border.

Clearly, this miasma wasn’t native to the area. It felt all sorts of wrong to Shrubley’s rooty feet. The ground began to squish and press in a little too easily. Not out of dampness, but desiccation, as if it were crumbling away to dust.

Shrubley shook his head. Whatever this was, he wanted to put a stop to it.

“Is the Dungeon causing this?” Cal asked, eyeing the border. For a moment, the skeleton thought he saw a clawed tendril grasp at him. He skittishly backpedaled.

When Cal looked again, it was gone.

“I do not know,” Shrubley told him honestly. “It feels wrong, however. Foul. Kind of like the mirror realm.”

Cal pulled his cloak tight around himself and moaned.

Shrubley put a twiggy arm around Cal’s bony shoulders. “It will be okay, Cal. Trust me. Together with the Countess, we are unstoppable. If Rykal could not stop us, then neither will this Dungeon. Isn’t that right, Countess?”

“Her thickness will protect us,” Smudge spoke up cheerily.

“Don’t say that,” Miranda chided as Sose snickered. “As for you, Shrubley, I do hope you aren’t expecting me to actually get my hands dirty on this little trip of ours.”

Shrubley’s crestfallen expression–what little she could make out–tore at her heart, but the Countess stayed firm.

“What do you mean?” Shrubley asked her.

“I mean, Shrubley, that I am your teacher. I am not your heavy hitter. My job here is to teach and guide you. Not to fight your battles for you. Should things get too dangerous, I will try to step in, but until that very last moment, it is all up to you.”

Cal’s bones began to clack and rattle as his nerves got the better of him. “I thought you were going to help us like you did with the bandit attack!”

“If you recall, Cal, I did not help you. I caught a bolt aimed at me, but then Shrubley and you all did the rest. I did not lift a finger.”

“If our teacher did all the hand-lending, how would we grow?” Slyrox asked. “This makes muchly sense, yes?”

Smudge looked up at the Countess, then over at Shrubley, then back to the Countess. “No… thick tank?”

“What is with him and thickness?” Sose asked, tilting his head. His ears wiggled. “Does he… understand what that means? No, no way.”

“Smudge!” the Countess snarled.

The little slime giggled and bounced toward Shrubley.

“I appreciate you telling me,” Shrubley told her, lifting Smudge up to his head. “You will not be disappointed in us. Does that mean you will not accompany us into the Dungeon then?”

“Oh, no I’m coming. I’ll be collecting part of the rewards after all.”

“But you won’t be doing anything!” Cal wailed.

“And?” Miranda put a hand on one large hip.

“And that’s perfectly all right!” Cal squeaked. “Right? Right. Totally fine. Absolutely. I love giving up some of my rewards to a very helpful teacher.”

Slyrox looked at the Countess. She didn’t seem to agree, but she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut about it.

“You are too right, Cal,” Shrubley told him with sincerity. “She is very helpful. Providing us with manuals, sheltering us with room and board. Even welcomed us into her castle during our travels. Teaching us all the while.”

“Well… when you put it like that, you make it sound as if we are in her debt,” Cal replied.

“There is no such thing as debt between friends,” Shrubley told him. “We all help one another. The Countess is here to help us, and in turn we owe it to her to do our best and, of course, offer recompense.”

“Enough talking,” Miranda told them. She took out the key. “Gather ‘round and we’ll see if this thing can cut through the fog.”

Sose rubbed his furry paws together, muttering mischievously about dosh.

Slyrox mumbled to herself, “Slyrox gonna get some fresh skrill. Hot cheddah. Big moolah.”

“What is this… hot cheddah? A sort of food?” Shrubley inquired with a great amount of curiosity. He liked to try new things.

“Is cash!” Slyrox told him.

“Oh… and here I thought it was cheese,” Cal said quietly to himself. “Wait. I can use money to buy many cheeses.”

The Countess groaned as she led the chattering monsters into the miasma. There was a moment where the purple fog closed in around them and seemed to turn them around, but then the key pulsed and pushed it away in a small 10-foot radius around them.

The ground where the miasma touched was even worse than the border. It was as if the very air was siphoned of moisture, the ground crumbled to dust under their feet.

Even the stone cracked and slid as it flaked into large crumbling chunks.

They made it to the large Dungeon door, a portal of epic proportions that rivaled the size of Talvar’s gate, only it was set into the stone hill that rose up into the mountain chain that encircled the valley.

Before Miranda could insert the key, it flew out of her hand and launched itself at the door. The keyhole materialized a second before the key struck home.

Shrubley hurried up to it and gave it a sharp turn.

A deep, ominous series of thunks and thumps echoed out from within the mountains as if they were waking up from a long slumber.

The door to the Dungeon opened slowly and soundlessly in the ensuing silence after so much noise.

A series of torches sprang to life as soon as they stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind them, guttering the flames.

“This is a nice place,” Cal said, appreciating the stonework and the crypt-like atmosphere. “Very dry. Desiccating even. No worries about joint rot here.”

Shrubley looked around the narrow corridor that marched down with bracketed torches lighting the way every 30 feet, leaving large pools of shadow between them.

“All right,” Miranda told them. “What’s the first thing you want to do?”

“Rush ahead?” Slyrox asked.

“Draw on the walls?” Cal said.

“Pyuu?” Smudge put forth.

Shrubley took out his [Magical Map] and gasped. “It works in here! I can see the hallway we’re in. If only it told me what the Dungeon name was…” Shrubley looked up sadly at Miranda. “Unless… you don’t think the Dungeon lacks a name, do you? Would somebody be so cruel?”

Miranda struggled not to pinch her nose in frustration as Shrubley walked up to the unfeeling stone wall of the Dungeon and patted it gently. “Do you not have a name?” he asked it. “You poor thing. Everything deserves a name. That must be why you are so upset. I shall call you… Dungeonley.”

Smudge believed that was the best name in the world to give a Dungeon. Sose, naturally, considered “Dungeonley” to be an absolute trash tier name. If anyone other than the kindhearted Shrubley had named it, the snarky oppa would have spoken this aloud.

“Shrubley, you can’t just put ‘-ley’ on the end of a word and call it a name,” Miranda told him.

The bush looked at her. “Of course you can. It is a name.” He patted the Dungeon wall. “Isn’t that right, Dungeonley?”

Against all odds, the Dungeon rumbled like an overgrown panther the size of a neighborhood.

“See?” Shrubley said. “Dungeonley likes it.”

“Gods save me,” Miranda muttered to herself, dreading that Shrubley might just try to befriend the thing with disastrous results. “The first thing you’re supposed to do is orient yourself. Check the passages. Check for traps, for monsters, and most of all, check to see if you can leave the same way you came in. Some Dungeons prevent this, others do not. If you can’t leave the way you came, look for a hole or depression that might be a clue you’ll need an item to leave. Otherwise… what? What is it, Shrubley? Put your hand down.”

Shrubley lowered his arm. “I could just ask Dungeonley.”

“You could…” Miranda took a deep breath.

Cal nearly fainted at the sight. He had yet to completely get over his crush.

“Sure. Fine. Go ahead, Shrubley. Ask, the Dungeon for help.” Miranda was sure her eyes were practically rolling out of her head by now.

Shrubley put his hand on the Dungeon’s wall. “I am sorry to be such a bother, Dungeonley, but could you help us out? I was hoping you could show us to the exit. It’s not that we don’t enjoy being inside you, it is really quite a lovely place you are. But perhaps there is something we can do to help you? I do not believe you wish to be hurting people, and yet I feel as if something within the Dungeon is causing people in Talvar to become sick. Children, Dungeonley, should never be harmed. They are innocent. And I do not think you would harm a child.”

“Even Slyrox knows this is weird,” she muttered quietly.

After Shrubley finished, there was no response. Nobody expected one other than Shrubley.

Despite that, Shrubley still waited around patiently, as if he knew an answer was forthcoming any second. The moments stretched out to minutes, and then further until finally the Countess snapped.

“Okay! We’ve tried doing it–”

A piece of the wall moved out ahead of them. At first it seemed as if the Dungeon had triggered a trap. Something that would come down the hallway and crush them.

The rumbling in the Dungeon grew more severe, jolting their bones (for those that had them) and vibrating their vision as the quaking became more severe.

There was a deep impression of the Dungeon’s core halls and corridors turning on a large table the size of a city center, rearranging themselves. Eventually, the rumbling stopped. Instead of a long narrow corridor, they were faced with an expansive room full of dark purple miasma.

“That didn’t just happen, did it?” Cal asked. He clutched his staff, peering warily into the room.

“Nobody says a word,” Miranda hissed.

Shrubley patted the stone wall affectionately. “Thank you, Dungeonley. I knew you were a good soul. We will rid these pests for you presently!”

The dark purple fog spilled out into the corridor, snaking and winding its way toward them as Shrubley took out his sword and shield and cried, “For Dungeonley!” as he charged down the steps into the large square room beyond.

Several creatures moved with great surprise within the miasma. Clearly they weren’t expecting visitors and definitely not one so small and loud as Shrubley.

Cal ran after his friend, joined promptly by Smudge and Slyrox, with the Countess trailing behind in utter disbelief.

No one, in all her days, had ever tried talking to a Dungeon. Not with any serious intent. And if they had, well, they weren’t of monster kin like Shrubley, who technically possessed a greater capacity to converse with it than a humanoid.

The sound of battle echoed down the hall as she looked at an empty stretch of stone wall. She gingerly put a hand on it. “You… look nice?”

There was no response.

“Yeah. Okay. Fair. Just make sure the little rascal doesn’t get himself killed, okay? Or else I’ll be the first vampyr to eat a Dungeon.”