Chapter One Hundred and Ninety — Deadweight
Chapter One Hundred and Ninety — Deadweight We huddled together a little as we walked down the dark tunnel leading into the dungeon. I had cleaning magic glowing in my hand, and Amaryllis cast a light spell that followed over her shoulder. Even the buns had some magic to light their path, and yet the darkness swallowed it all.“Imagine a nine-pointed star,” Peter said. He, like the other buns, didn’t seem bothered by the dark at all.“Oh, okay,” Awen said.“Right, this fortress, the ruins behind us, used to be shaped like a squarish star. Four points around a square,” he continued.“That’s just a square with more edge,” Amaryllis muttered.“This dungeon was originally the same. Four areas. Then five, six, and now nine.”The path ahead lightened up a little, and soon we were crossing under the tooth-like bars of a giant portcullis. We were in a city. An old medieval city, like Needleford, or Fort Sylphrot, only unlike those, there was no life here. The sky was a near-monotone grey, only deeper shadows hinting at the fact that there were clouds above.The buildings around us were in ruins, with broken windows and smashed walls. A few had signs of fire damage, and everywhere I looked, huge roots poked out of the ground and tore into the houses. They looked normal though, not terribly evil.I shivered as a soft, cold wind tickled the back of my neck.“First floor used to be nothing but ghosts. Low level ones at that,” Peter said. “Now the walls between this floor and the next have broken.” He looked around, wary. “There are more roots now.”“So, there’s no central path through this dungeon?” Amaryllis asked.Carrot was the one to answer. “Yup, there is. If you imagine this place looking like a wheel, with each floor being a spoke, then the middle is the safe zone. Every time you finish a floor, you can access the next floor through the wall, but there’s also a door to the middle that opens. So you can go there to leave the dungeon, or reach any other floor that you’d already cleared.” She snapped her fingers. “Clearing a floor means opening the gate to the next floor, not killing everything. Sometimes monsters that you didn’t kill earlier will move through the safe zone from a previous level.”I nodded. That meant we had to watch our backs. It was a good thing the buns were so strong and cool or else this place would be really dangerous.The chill in the air grew a lot worse, and even though the false sky above was a brilliant blue, and it felt warm on my skin, I still felt as though my skin was rippling with goosebumps.I saw Buster’s one ear twitch. “Left,” he said.I looked over to the left, then gulped.The first ghosts were those bleeding out of the walls, first a few, then dozens more. They moved through the air slowly and gently, so many white forms packed so close together that I might have mistaken them for a rolling wall of fog.“Insight,” I said as I looked to one of them.Spirit of Forgotten Pain, Level 8.Not too strong, but there had to be well over a hundred.“Hmph,” Buster said as he moved over and planted his shield into the ground with a dull thump. “Orders?” he asked.Momma tilted her head to the side, ears flopping a little. “Let’s move to the gate to the second floor,” she said. “Peter, take care of the ghosts.”“Yes ma’am,” Peter said.Buster huffed again as he lifted his shield. “Very well.”“We’re just leaving Peter here?” I asked.Momma nodded. “Don’t worry, he’ll get all of them. Ghosts like that are best attacked using wide-area abilities. We don’t want to be around in case we get caught in that.” She took off, heading towards the right and around an intersection in the middle of the road. I jogged after her along with my friends, but I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder.Peter was stretching before the wall of ghosts, leaning one way until his little white bun tail wiggled, then all the way to the other side.Just as I was about to turn around to try and help, the bun disappeared.Two dozen ghosts warped as lines were cut into and through them.Peter reappeared some ways down the street, casually reeling in a long wire with a knife tied to the end.I decided that maybe he could handle himself, and ran to catch up to my buddies.“First wall,” Buster said.Out ahead of us was, in fact, a big wall. It was in rough shape, with roots breaking through the careful stonework and parts of it falling down. The top was a mess of spikes and blades, like a really deadly pincushion.“Carrot, what was the solution to this gate?” Momma asked.Carrot pointed to an archway set at the end of the street. “There’s a bell pull to the side. When you pull on it, it summons all the ghosts to the wall.”“Rather easy,” Momma said. “Well, let’s see what we can do.”There was a little gatehouse next to the archway, with a big wheel with spokes sticking out of it in its middle. We moved towards that, and past the portcullis leading to the next floor. I could see more of the city on the other side, with homes and, off to one side, what looked like a graveyard.There were skeletons ambling around there.“Will the monsters from that side be alerted?” Momma asked.“Yup,” Carrot said.“Then could you please take care of them? Buster, could you raise the gate enough for Carrot to pass? I’ll keep an eye on the children.”Buster grunted, set his shield against the wall, and ducked into the gatehouse. He gripped the wheel in both hands and began to turn it. The chains running out behind the wheel jangled as they tightened, then, with a rusty grunt, the portcullis started to rise.“You’re sending Carrot in alone?” I asked.Momma nodded. “That way I can watch over all of you.”“What if she gets hurt?” I asked.Carrot giggled and bounced a bit closer. She patted the top of my hat. “Thanks, capt’n, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.I was still concerned when she ducked down and rolled under the rising gate. I don’t know what I was expecting the energetic ginger bun to do, but it wasn’t seeing her bounce closer to the skeletons, then wave her arms at them. “Come on, skeleboys and skelegirls, Carrot’s got some pounding to do!”The skeletons weren’t all bony white monsters. Some had the distended limbs and malformed bones of the corrupt ones we’d seen on the surface. Even more were covered in vines clinging to their ribs and joints.They turned towards Carrot, and as if on an unseen signal, started racing towards the lone bun.“Oh no!” I gasped as the first one reached her.Carrot dipped under a wild swing, moved up before the skeleton. She stepped to the side, under another punch from the skeleton, then spun around with a hop and delivered a rabbit punch to the back of it’s head.The skull went flying in a straight line that ended with a loud crack with it smacking another skeleton in the face.Carrot cheered and stomped a foot down so hard that I could feel it from the other side of the gate. Bits of rock flew into the air where she struck them with spinning kicks and tight jabs. Those same rocks zipped through the air and crashed into the advancing army of skeleton warriors.Then Carrot decided to get serious.She bounced up off the ground, used one skeleton as a spring-board, then kicked another so hard that it sent it-and her-flying. That only helped her land a spinning kick into another skeleton.“She’s not even touching the ground,” Amaryllis muttered as she watched Carrot pinballing across the street, then the graveyard, skeletons exploding into dust and bone shrapnel behind her.Carrot flipped over, and did a superhero landing in the middle of a group of skeletons. The earth around her warped, huge spikes shooting out of the cracked pavement to stab into the undead around her.“She’s really strong,” I said.“She’s one of the buns that keeps Hopsalot safe,” Momma said. “That means that we need her strength in order to protect what’s important.”I was beginning to feel that maybe my friends and I were a little bit misplaced in a dungeon like this one.Carrot continued to clear the next floor, slowing down as the number of skeletons pouring out towards her fell to a trickle. Some were armed, with swords and shields and spread, but that didn't seem to slow her down at all.“We’re done.”I jumped and spun around to see Peter casually walking over. He was rubbing a rag over a long knife. “Well done,” Momma said. “Buster, the gate please?”Buster nodded, then grunted as he started to spin the wheel again. The portcullis rose, and soon we were moving past and into the dungeon’s second floor.“Any trouble?” Momma asked Peter.“Not really,” he said. “I chipped the edge of one of my favourite knives with a bad swing. I need to practice a bit more it seems.”“You’ll never be done practicing,” Momma said. “That’s how things work.”Peter hummed as he tucked his knife away and moved past up.“Awa, these buns are kind of scary,” Awen whispered next to me.I nodded. “I didn’t know buns could be scary. They look so fluffy.”“Aren’t you the very image of someone who doesn’t look terrifying, but is?” Amaryllis asked.I snorted. “What are you talking about? I’m not scary. I’m friendly.”My harpy friend rolled her eyes and moved on past us. Bastion waited by the gate for us to pass, then stayed right behind us as we moved into the second floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever crossed a dungeon this quickly before,” he said.“This is just the second floor,” I said. “Is it weird that it’s called a floor even though it’s all on the same level? The last dungeons we were in all had distinct sections, but this one feels kinda... same-y.”Amaryllis shrugged. “It’s not entirely unusual. This seems to be a very straightforward dungeon. Dangerous, but in a simple way.”Carrot hopped over to our group, then stretched her arms out wide. “That was fun!” she said. “Don’t often get to just stomp out a bunch of weak monsters like that.”“You’re very strong,” I said.“Aww, thanks capt’n,” she said. “I remember when I first came here. My tail was shaking as if it was caught in a storm. It’s kinda fun to return here after so long.”“Haven’t you escorted a few little ones here for training?” Momma asked.Carrot ran her hands through her hair and brushed her ears back. “Ah, yeah but that doesn’t count. Babysitting duty’s not the same.”“You bring the little buns here?” I asked.“Just those that are a bit older,” Momma said. “It’s good to make sure that every bun knows how to defend themselves, no matter what they want to do when they’re older. Some find a love for it, some come to appreciate the difficulty those keeping the forest safe have to face, and a rare few decide to become the next generation of defenders."“Isn’t that dangerous for the little ones though?”“Awa, I think... maybe not doing it is more dangerous?” Awen fiddled with the string of her crossbow. “I lived in a big safe city, we had people to protect us, but out here there’s none of that. Um, a monster could sneak into Hopsalot at any time?”“We wouldn’t let that happen,” Carrot said. “But... yeah, it could. You’re a clever little human, aren’t you?”“Awa?” Awen asked. “No, it’s just logical, I guess.”I tapped my chin. “Insmouth doesn’t approach it the same way, I don’t think.”“We are not Insmouth,” Momma said. “We’re just a little village of buns that wants to live in peace.”I nodded along. I couldn’t argue against that.“The next wall’s coming up,” Buster said. Out ahead of us, right up against the edge of the graveyard, was another wall like the last. This one in even worse shape, with large sections entirely missing and revealing the one huge building on the other side. “Get ready. The first boss is coming up.”
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Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-One — Please Be Quiet in the Library
Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-One — Please Be Quiet in the Library I was feeling pretty useless.Not super-useless, but like... like watching someone doing something and wishing you could help, but then you learn that they’re way better at it than you. Like wanting to help someone with their homework, but they turn out to be the top of the class. That kind of useless.Carrot was bouncing around, smacking down any stray skeleton with whoops of joy, punctuated by rocky explosions whenever she hit the earth and used it as a weapon to destroy even more skeletons. When a few ghosts came around, I thought that was my chance to be useful, but then Carrot just blasted them with balls of glowing earth.If I had pockets, I would have shoved my hands in them.Fortunately, I was saved by an inquisitive Bastion. “Can you tell us about this boss?” he asked.“It’s not the main dungeon boss, obviously,” Peter said. “Not sure if you’d actually call it a boss under normal circumstances, but we’ve been calling it that for a while.”“So a challenge fight, then?” Amaryllis asked.Peter scratched his chin. “Something like that. The creature is called the Bone Lord. About level twelve? He’s this skeleton in a tweed jacket who summons more skeletons and undead. He’ll never fight you head on, which is what makes the fight tricky.”“Does he drop anything good?” Amaryllis asked. “Can you get a level from him?”“Sometimes he’ll drop a book, or a jacket. It’s nothing too special.”I nodded along. “So, what’s the strategy then?”“I run in, kill the miniboss, then we clean up the few monsters he had time to summon,” Peter said.My shoulders and ears slumped. “Oh,” I said.Momma noticed, and I know she noticed because she had a little smile. “How about we let the children take care of it?”Peter eyed her. “You sure?”“We’re there if it gets too dangerous, but they’re all at about the right level, and as young as they are, it’ll teach them a lot. If we need to rely on them later, this little bit of added strength might come in handy,” Momma said.Peter considered it, then nodded.“So, if we are going to take this Bone Lord on, what are good strategies?” Amaryllis asked.“Hardly fair to tell you if it’s meant to be some sort of test,” Peter said.“She never said it was a test,” was Amaryllis’ quick reply.Momma chuckled. “You’re right, I didn’t.” She cleared her throat. “Consider it a test.”Amaryllis didn’t look amused, so I rubbed her back a little to make her feel better. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. This way we get to keep all the fun loot too.” She huffed, but it wasn’t a disagreeing kind of huff.The door leading into the next floor was missing. In its place was a large root passing through a wooden gate and forcing it ajar. The more we moved in, the uglier the roots got, this one included. It was covered in nasty thorns and I had the impression that it was pulsing whenever I wasn’t looking right at it.“These things are a bigger blight than I had imagined,” Momma said as she approached the root. “Perhaps coming here so soon was for the best.”Amaryllis tugged on her goggles, the same ones she’d gotten in that glass dungeon a while ago. “They’re magical. Or if they’re not magical, then they’re filled with magic, which I suppose is merely a semantic difference.”“Interesting,” Momma said. “Let’s move on. Carrot, are you coming?”We crossed the doorway and into the next floor.I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The first floor had been a city road, the second more city with a graveyard. Now we stood before a large building surrounded by an open courtyard where dying trees were being weighed down by climbing vines.The one building was big and imposing, with gargoyles at the corners and a grand, peaked roof. I thought it was a cathedral at first, but it lacked the belltower and the religious stuff.Then again, maybe it was a cathedral of a sort I wasn’t familiar with.“Watch the bones,” Buster said. He gestured to the ground where, upon a cursory inspection, I could make out bones sticking out from between patches of dying grass. The few bushes dotting the courtyard had piles tucked under them, the occasional skull watching us from the shadows.I expected it to stink, but instead the air smelled like very old compost and upturned dirt with a faint, musty odour, like rotting paper.“Where does the Bone Lord hide?” I asked.“Inside the building, of course,” Peter said.I could probably have guessed that. “We should get ready here, then, before we actually start fighting or anything.”“A plan wouldn’t be amiss,” Bastion said.I agreed. “Alright, so the plan is, I approach the nice Bone Lord, and try to make friends. And if that fails, we all fight him.”“Perhaps not having a plan could be a nice change of pace,” Bastion said.“You’ll learn to get used to it,” Amaryllis muttered. “How about we allow you to go to the front. Bastion, you’re fast and decent with that sword. You can intercept. Awen, your job is to snipe the Bone Lord when Broccoli inevitably fails to soothe it. After Broccoli, I’ve got the magic best suited for taking out large numbers of skeletons. I’ll try to buy you time to face the Bone Lord and take it down.”“Him. It’s a Bone Lord. Not a Bone.... uh, what’s the gender neutral for a lord or lady?”Amaryllis smacked me with a wing, which was very rude. I was just getting the undead lord’s pronouns right. “Stop being an idiot. A large part of this will rely on you. Your Cleaning magic is the closest we have to Holy. So you need to work hard to take the Bone Lord down, understood.”You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.“I’ll do my best,” I said.We formed up in a diamond. Bastion took the lead, with Awen behind me and Amaryllis to my left.Momma and the other buns cheered us on-well, Carrot did at any rate-as we stepped into the cathedral.The interior of the grand building was as Peter had said, a huge library with towering shelves to the sides and a great big opening in the middle with benches and desks. It would have been a majestic place where the books on the shelves were not moldy husks, if there weren’t roots sliding around the columns decorating the room, and if there weren’t dozens of corpses strewn all across the floor in big bony piles.“Oh, yuck,” I said as the smell hit. Mold and dust and rotting meat. I began to let my Cleaning magic out as an aura to keep the worst of it at bay. It helped a little. It also made my friends bunch up a little closer, though that might have been the poor lighting.There was some light, of course. The walls had big stained-glass windows on them, and the wide-open doors behind us let in light and wind. Better yet, the ceiling had some pretty rough looking holes in it that let columns of dusty light pour down from above.“There,” Amaryllis whispered as she pointed ahead.At the far end of the room, sitting at a rather ordinary desk, was a skeleton in a brown jacket with shoulder patches. He had a dried up husk of a book set before him, and his head was tilted down as if he’d passed away while in the act of reading.He looked... lonesome, and quiet.“Insight,” I muttered.The Herald of Newbining, Bone Lord, level 12, QuietWhat did ‘quiet’ mean?Swallowing, I slowed my pace down a little as I reached the middle of the room. There were more bones around, and the floor, once marble and inlaid with complex patterns, was cracked and broken, roots occasionally bulging out from beneath it.I gestured for my friends to stay back, then with a series of dainty little hops, moved closer still to the Bone Lord.When I was some meters away, I calmed my racing heart and cleared my throat. “Hello,” I said.The Bone Lord raised his head, slowly, like a heavy crypt door coming open. He turned, and I noticed that part of his face was missing as a tangle of greenish roots had taken hold of his visage.“My name is Broccoli,” I said. “Broccoli Bunch. I’ve been a friend to skeletons before, and I’d love to be friends with you too.”I waited, but Friendmaking didn’t do anything.“Do you want to be a friend?” I asked. Maybe I had to be a little more specific?Still nothing.The undead rose to his feet, roots, thin and still green, snapped behind him as creaky bones worked to bring him to his full, unimpressive height. “Um, can you understand me?” I asked. “Amaryllis, I don’t think he understood me.”“I did,” she said.I put two and two together and came to a number that was expected but not wanted. “Oh, shoot.” If Amaryllis could understand, then I wasn’t speaking skeleton.The Bone Lord spun around and started to hobble away. He would have been faster, but a bunch of roots were tangled through his hip and legs, turning his run into an ungainly hop.“Wait!” I called as I rushed after him.The skeleton swiped a hand through the air, and I stopped, breaking so hard my shoes squeaked on the marble. I was expecting some magical attack, and had my Cleaning magic ready to try and counter it, but nothing happened. Nothing obvious, at least.“Awa!” Awen awa’d loudly.A glance back revealed that the skeletons around her were beginning to rise, clicking and clacking as they stood up and came together from the bones strewn around. There were only a dozen of them, but there were enough bones on the ground to have ten times as many attacking us.“Broccoli, focus on the boss!” Amaryllis called. She punctuated that with the zap-bang of a lightning spell that tore a skeleton asunder.“Right!” I said before bolting after the Bone Lord.The skeleton gestured ahead of him, and three of the bodies before us rose and jumped out towards me.I ducked next to the first and smacked it with my spade, the next two I hit with a pair of cleaning balls that sent them stumbling back. Only one of them collapsed, the other, while clean, wasn’t taken out entirely.That wasn’t a good sign.A smack from my spade in passing sent its head flying across the room. Behind me, the skeletons I’d hit started to melt away.The Bone Lord bounced around a corner, and I charged right after him.I squeaked when a small skeleton ambushed me the moment I came around the corner. It was wearing a checkered dress, and it clamped right onto my legs like a limpet. I blasted it with enough cleaning magic to wash away the dust on the shelf behind it, then wiggled my leg to untangle it.The Bone Lord was getting away.I growled and flung a trio of cleaning balls after him. He ducked under the first two, but the third splashed against his back and sent him careening into a shelf. That wasn’t enough to take the mini-boss out. He continued running, off into a little room set to the back of the library.I charged after him, then discovered that the room only had a spiral staircase within. Bouncing up the steps, I could hear the clatter of bony feet on stone just ahead of me. I was catching up.The stairs ended, and I found myself on a long wooden walkway that ran around the edge of the main room of the library. There were more shelves here, and a glance to the side showed my friends forming a triangle and smacking down more and more skeletons with magic, hammer and sword.The Bone Lord was facing me, and next to him was an abomination.I tightened my grip on my warspade and got ready to fight.
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