Chapter Three Hundred and Eighty-Seven — They Held the Line
Chapter Three Hundred and Eighty-Seven — They Held the Line No one really wanted to drag a bunch of chairs up to the deck. The chairs below were all kind of bulky and hard to navigate through the narrow corridors of the Beaver. So we mostly settled on sitting right on the deck, though I did go and get a chair for mister Lepido to sit on, since he was a guest.The fish was nearly done frying by the time everyone was properly introduced, and we passed around bowls for everyone to eat with. I... really wasn’t too hungry, but I still took a small portion for myself because it smelled really good and my tummy was sometimes louder than my brain.Besides, I was plenty active! I’d burn off those extra calories in a few bounces, no problem!“So,” I said as I nibbled on a wooden spoon. “Judas and Wendy both mentioned trouble with a moth dungeon?”Lepido frowned into his bowl. “That’s correct. Us mothfolk have lived nice, quiet lives for so long now that we weren’t prepared for the trouble we encountered. We’re more dependent on our dungeon than I would have expected, and now that it’s closed to us, we’re left with little recourse.”“What happened, exactly?” Caprica asked. She was sitting on the deck, legs folded under her quite primly while she blew daintily over the top of her bowl to cool it off.“A strange plant took hold of the dungeon’s core, and after some time, grew and grew until the dungeon’s light was nearly extinguished. It’s still a small dungeon, you see, even after all these years. A small, kindly dungeon that we’ve grown quite fond of, and in a way, I think it's grown fond of us in turn.”“Dungeons can be fond of people?” I asked.Amaryllis made a so-so gesture with a wing. “There’s no concrete proof that dungeons have any real personality. But... there are some people that insist on personifying them, and it’s true that occasionally the challenge a dungeon poses will change from person to person, which only encourages the thought that the dungeon has a personality behind it. Of course, those changes could be entirely arbitrary, or coincidental, and the factors that go into them might be so complex as to be invisible to the common person.”“I don’t know about all that,” Lepido said. “But we like our dungeon and it’s been fair to us in return. Slow to grow, not much of a challenge, plenty of fantastic goods. It’s allowed our little village to prosper. Candlelight Glade wouldn’t be what it is today without our dungeon. I know that because now that we are without, our village is suffering.”“When did the first plants show up?” I asked.“Oh, about two years back,” he said, clearly while searching his own memories. “It started off small. A few little strands around the core. Then it slowly grew, until today, it chokes out the entire dungeon. We couldn’t make it to the fourth floor at all a few months back. Now the third is almost inaccessible.”I nodded along. Sounded serious, and yet... “Two years is a long time,” I said.“Much slower than any other Evil Root infection we’ve seen,” Amaryllis said.“Maybe it’s a different kind?” Awen asked. “Plants can be pretty different from each other while staying the same kind of plant.”That was possible, I supposed. A slower-acting sort of Evil Root, maybe. "What do the plants look like? What colour are they?" I asked.Lepido frowned. “They’re more like vines,” he said. “They’re blackish-brown?”I shrugged. I didn’t know enough about botany to actually tell vines and roots apart, really. “So, either a slower kind of Evil Root, or something different but similar, or... hey, did any of the mothfolk try to stop it?” I asked. Maybe they’d done something to slow the growth down, but then it hadn’t worked?“We tried everything,” he said. “The moment we discovered it was harming the dungeon we started trying to cut it up, but the vines kept coming back. They’re quite resistant to magic, you see, but some of our farmers are quite skilled, and weeding skills would level very rapidly when trying to kill those vines... or you call them Evil Roots? Have you seen them elsewhere?”“Yeah, assuming we’re talking about the same thing,” I said. “But, before that, did the farmers succeed?”“A little. A day’s work could clear out a whole floor’s infection. But eventually it started growing back faster and we only have so many farmers. We tried burning it, freezing it, we brought in anyone from Codwood that we thought could help. We even had a rotation going for nearly a year, farmers going down to weed the dungeon every single day. But then the harvest season came, and we were all quite busy, and the weeds exploded out of control. It took months to push them back, and by then they’d grown faster and tougher.”“Oh, maybe it’s not so different from other Evil Roots, you were just more proactive about trimming it.”Amaryllis hummed. “That seems entirely possible, yes. Have any monsters emerged from the dungeon?”He nodded. “Some. The dungeon had mothsters, of course. They used to stay within, but soon they were roaming outside of the dungeon and making a mess of things. Then there were these strange... plant creatures. Skittish but quite aggressive. We have a rotation of folk by the dungeon’s entrance now, keeping them at bay.”I clapped my hands, then almost dropped the bowl I was balancing on one thigh. “Okay, we should definitely try to help.”“Can you?” he asked. “I feel like even if we get rid of the plant, it might be too late for Candlelight Glade now. So many young families have moved to Codwood, and some are finding life here just as good as it was back home. The folk of Codwood are a little... annoyed-some of them, at least-about so many of us showing up and looking for housing and work, but for the most part they’ve been fine, friendly folk. New families have found new homes.”“That’s not all bad,” I said. “If we can clear out the dungeon’s root problem, then that just means your village will be able to keep growing, right?”This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.“That would be nice,” he said. “We started with little more than half a dozen families, now there are a couple hundred folk living in Candlelight Glade, even after so many moved on.”“Then you’ll just grow again,” I said.Lepido smiled. “Maybe so. Do you think you can help us? We don’t have much to pay for that kind of thing, else we would have sent for help out in Inkwren. We had a few strange sorts show up, but none of them were able to help.”“We can try,” I said. “We have a bit of time to spare, right?” I asked the last to Amaryllis who frowned and made a so-so gesture. “We have some time to spare. If we reach the dungeon by tonight and clear it out before morning, then we might only lose half a day to this adventure. That would make it all worth it.”Joe, of all people, raised a hand and I blinked at him. “Hey, uh, think that once the dungeon’s cleared, we might give it a go?”“After it’s cleared?” I asked. “You mean, if we manage to remove the Evil Roots?”He nodded. “All three of us are nearing our tenth level. Don’t know if I want my second class to be a moth class, doesn’t seem like it fits, but it’s better than nothing, and it’ll unlock more general skill slots in any case.”“Even if you decide not to take the class?” I asked.“Oh, they could switch out their second class with something else,” Amaryllis said. "Once they have something to switch with. Doing that means you lose the progress you made toward that second class, but you don't lose the progress on your first class. Whereas, if you wait to take a secondary class until you have the perfect one, you'll be capped at level ten and won't be able to advance at all. Some progress is better than none."That seemed... entirely fair. “Alright,” I said. “Lepido, how long does it normally take to clear out the dungeon?”“Before all this evil plant business? A few hours, at most,” he said. “Everyone in Candlelight Glade has gone through the dungeon at least once, most of us more than that. We cultivated a lot of materials there. Silks and cloth and dyes. That means we go down into the dungeon two or three times a day. Some of us, at any rate.”“Ah, okay,” I said. In that case, it wouldn’t hurt to ask some of the mothfolk to escort the Scallywags through the dungeon if it wasn’t too dangerous. “Clive, Steve, Gordon, do you think you guys would want to give it a try too?”Clive was sitting with his back to the railing and was calmly stuffing his pipe. “Nope,” he said.Steve and Gordon looked to each other, then started debating it. I left them to it. If they wanted to go, they could.“Alright, so, how far is Candlelight Glade and what’s the dungeon like? Amaryllis hinted at it already, but we really don't have much time to spare. We're trying to get to a wedding, and even if it's more than a month away, we need to arrive early."Lepido smiled. "Ah, a wedding. Always a lovely event. You a part of it?""Nope! Well. not yet, at any rate. Hopefully! Um, we're friends with the couple. I guess we haven't technically been invited, but mostly we just need to get there to keep a bunch of terrorists from crashing the ceremony."Lepido stared at me."Anyway!" I hurried along, "We'll need to make things quick. Can a big group enter the dungeon? What kind of challenges are there?”“I never heard of the dungeon having problems with big groups,” Lepido said. “Do you really think you can help?”“Maybe,” I said. I didn’t want to make any promises I’d end up breaking. Still, a little hope wouldn’t hurt. “I think I can help, in any case. We’ve cleared out Evil Roots from other dungeons before. But never a dungeon that had been infected for this long. It might be a lot harder than any of the previous dungeons we fixed up. So yeah, no promises except that we’ll give it a good try.”“I wouldn’t mind coming along,” Calamity said. “Don’t know if I’d want a moth class for my third one, but your idea of getting it as a stopgap ain’t so bad.”“I’ll come as well,” Caprica said. “I have some experience in dungeons, and I'm probably our strongest combatant, so it makes sense for me to help spearhead the fighting.”I glanced at my other friends. “Of course I’m coming,” Amaryllis said. “To help our ‘strongest combatant’ here, if nothing else.”“Ah, I’ll come too,” Awen added. “It might be a nice experience, and, um, I guess I wouldn’t mind having more arms.”“And lots of cute fluff,” I said. “And wings!”She nodded. “That too.”“Alright!” I said as I bounced to my feet. “Let’s grab the gear we need. Mister Lepido, how far away is Candlelight Glade from Codwood?”“Half a day’s walk,” he said. “A little less if your hips aren’t as old as mine. Even less by carriage.”That was further than I’d like. “In that case... do you think we could park the Beaver above the town?”“That’d be mighty strange, but there’s room for it, I suppose. No docks or anything though.”That was probably fine. We could hold steady over land without too much trouble, and we had rope ladders for coming aboard and disembarking.“Then that’s what we’ll do,” I said.Lepido blinked. “We haven’t even talked payment yet, though. I don’t know how much a group of adventurers costs, but we had a hard enough time convincing the few that showed up to come already. We’re not the richest little village.”“We’ll do it for free,” I said.Amaryllis flicked one of my (bunny) ears. “We’ll discuss remunerations on the way over,” she said. “Seeing as how we are in the region already, I’m certain we could do the work for a steep, yet reasonable, discount.”I massaged my ear. “Okay, fine,” I said. “I’ll let Amaryllis fleece you for a bit, and then we’ll charge half of that. In the meantime... let’s pick up, everyone! We have some flying to do!”
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Chapter Three Hundred and Eighty-Eight — Moth-er of All Adventures
Chapter Three Hundred and Eighty-Eight — Moth-er of All Adventures The Beaver circled around Candlelight Glade a few times before we found a place to bring the airship down.The village was hard to spot from above. There wasn’t a wide clearing for a bunch of little homes. Instead, the village was almost entirely entwined in the trees. Homes hung off and above thick branches, sometimes with multiple homes stuck to a singular tree.Balconies ran all over, and there were several rope bridges linking the trees together as well as ladders and narrow steps that circled around the trees they were built into leading all the way to the ground.It wasn’t as if nothing was built on ground level, of course. There were a few open patches where gardens were growing, and a few small fields nearby ringed by fences that kept rows of corn and wheat safe.The dungeon itself was easy to spot from above. It was a big rocky outcropping rising above the flat land of the forest, with a vast glade before it and a gnarled tree clinging to it.It looked as if the dungeon had just popped out of the ground one day, pushing that big tree up and almost unrooting it. But the tree had clung on, and eventually its trunk had bent up to better catch the sun, creating a green canopy above the dungeon’s entranceway.The glade was where we decided to moor the Beaver Cleaver. We dropped anchor (slowly, in case someone was below) and when enough chain was down to keep us nice and steady, we lowered the ship down so that the deck was level with the treetops.Then we tossed a rope ladder off the side. I poked my head out and looked out below to discover that we’d gained a few curious onlookers. They were all mothfolk, like Lepido and Wendy, with pitchforks and hoes and big straw hats protecting their heads from the warm sunlight.“I’ll go down first,” Lepido said. “To make sure none of those pitchforks ends up somewhere inappropriate.”“That seems like a good idea,” I agreed. “Besides, we need to gear up for adventuring. Will we need anything in the dungeon? Lights, ropes, ten-foot-poles?”“Some light wouldn’t hurt, at least on some of the floors,” he said. “It can get dark down there, especially with those vines blocking out the light.” With that, he hopped off the sides, wings snapping as they caught the wind and then he gently glided down.I watched him starting to talk to some of the farmers below, then I ran back below deck. It was time to get properly geared up for an adventure! That meant, of course, tossing off all of my more comfortable clothes and replacing it with my thick, padded dress, then slipping into my armour. I adjusted my breastplate, hooked my little pauldrons on, then slid on a belt around my hips.I had greaves and this bit that covered my knees... I was pretty sure it wasn’t called a kneepad though. I frowned at it and fired off my Insight skill.A Poleyn, Nearly NewThat was a strange name, but I supposed it had to be right. With a shrug, I slipped mine on and fixed them in place so that they were snug but not too tight. Then the last part of my armour was a single fauld, which was this metal piece that hung off my right hip and that kind of made my whole armoured set asymmetrical.I adjusted things here and there, tugging them into place, then I gave myself a good bounce or two to make sure everything was settled. “Perfect!” I said before grabbing my favourite turtle shell helmet. I slid my bigger ears through the holes in the helm and then settled it atop my head. I set Weedbane up against the doorway so I wouldn’t forget it.The last thing I did was grab a small backpack that I emptied out on my bed and quickly repacked. I had some cloth to use as bandages-just in case-some potions that I had laying around, and whatever I thought might come in handy in a dungeon, which mostly meant rope and a camp knife and after a quick jaunt to the kitchen, a number of snacks.I checked up on my friends once I was ready myself, and discovered that I was one of the slower ones. Caprica was on the deck, sitting on a rail with her wings spread wide to catch the sunlight and decked out in functional but elegant armour that we’d picked up in the Snowlands. Her biggest piece of gear was a shield almost as tall as she was, and heavier than her to boot. She could still move it around with ease, and I suspected that had more to do with skills from her Bastion class than anything.Awen was in her long coat, hammer by her hip and crossbow slung over her back. She was picking her nails clean with a tiny glass knife she’d probably conjured up for the task. Calamity, meanwhile, was checking his new Snowlander bow’s little gears and wheels. He had a small heap of arrows stuffed into a quiver that hung by his hip and a long hunting knife tucked at the small of his back. No armour for him except for a nice leather coat.And then Amaryllis stepped out from the lower decks behind me in her own fur-trimmed leather jacket. She looked properly spiffy and ready for adventure. “Well?” she asked. “Are we all going to sit around here and do nothing? Let’s see about this dungeon. We’re on a schedule, people!”I grinned. “Yup, we’re ready, I think. I wish I still had Teamaking, I could make us something to help.”“You still can,” Amaryllis said. “Buffs are buffs; they are derived from mana. Essentially, they are a spell. If you learn that spell, you'll be able to brew buffing tea without relying on the World to do all the work for you. You even have a head start because you used the Teamaking skill before and you should have some subconscious familiarity with the process.”“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t considered that. That was a good point! But it was also a concern for later. “Anyway, should we head down?”If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.There was a general consensus that yes, we should head down, and so we did! I did pause to tell the Scallywags that they could visit the town if they wanted to, and that their turn at the dungeon would come after we’d cleared it of any roots. They didn’t seem to mind the wait.Lepido was waiting by the ladder with a single mothfolk farmer next to him. Or at least, I assumed it was a farmer. He was a bit younger than Lepido-though guessing ages was hard when the person had fluffy all-white fur and looked a bit bug-like-and one of those straw hats on. He had a pitchfork too, though the tines were now poking into the grass underfoot.“Ah, Captain,” Lepido said. “I wanted to introduce you to this fine young man. He’s the one who’s been taking care of beating back the vines for the last couple of weeks.”“Just because harvest is done and I’ve nothing better to do,” the mothperson said. He extended a hand to me and I shook. “Pleased to meet ya. Lepido here says that you’re mighty good at dungeoneering?”“Ah, we’re alright at it. And we’ve managed to fight off some Evil Roots in the past. But I can’t make promises.”“That’s fair,” he said after a moment. “Is this the group that’ll be going down?”“It is,” I said. I turned then made introductions to everyone. “This is Amaryllis, our mage, Calamity, our ranger, Awen, our mechanic and fixer-upper, and Caprica, our tank. And I’m Broccoli Bunch! I... uh, also definitely have a role in the team. I hope we can be friends, sir!”Puffles G. WardDesired Quality: Someone forthright and kindDream: To see the light“I’m Puffles,” he said with a serious look in his eyes that almost-almost-set me to giggling. “I’ll be guiding you down there, best I can, in any case.”“I look forward to it,” I said. “Do we need to do anything special before going down? Or can we just... head on in right away?”Puffles worked his shoulders, all four of them, and then shrugged before tugging his pitchfork out of the ground. “No harm in heading in now. Didn’t have any real plans for the evening except to sit back and smoke my pipe.”“Perfect,” I said with a happy little clap. “So, what can you tell us about the dungeon’s first floor?”“Floor, huh? Not much of a floor at all, really. More like a long passageway. You’ll see what I mean once we get there. You need a few buckets of sugar water to get past it. Or we did, before the dungeon went weird.”“What’s the sugar water for?” I asked. “And where are you getting sugar from?”“The ants. Leave it out and they used to leave you alone. Four or so buckets a trip, but you’d get some good quilts for it. The sugar’s from tree sap. It ain’t good for eating here, unfortunately, but it is sweet and the ants like it.” He tugged at his shirt, which I noticed was made of a thickly woven material. His overalls too, for that matter. It looked a bit too thick to be normal cotton.“So we need sugar water,” I repeated. “And buckets.”“Needed. Barely a point to it now. The dungeon used to let you by for free, but now with the vines in there, there’s no peace to be found. You lot ready for a fight?”I glanced at my friends and got a bunch of nods. “I think we are, yeah.”Puffles nodded. “Right, follow me, then.” He walked over to the dungeon’s entrance, a big round door fit right into the side of the stone jutting out of one end of the clearing. He tugged aside a latch, then gestured for us to back off. “Dangerous, this bit. Get ready.”I didn’t have time to ask him what we should get ready for then he tugged a final latch aside, then flung the door open.A huge ant flopped down, as if it had been clinging to the wall. It was as big as a dog and wrapped in black vines from the tip of its clawed feet to the end of its abdomen.The ant shook itself, then looked up towards me and opened its mandibles wide. It only came up to about my knees (so more like a smaller dog, really) but it still looked incredibly creepy, especially when it started to scurry towards the nearest of us.Unfortunately for the ant, that was Caprica.She grunted and the sharp bottom end of her shield came crunching down atop the ant’s head, pinning it to the ground with a thump. She reached around the shield with a long knife and stabbed into the poor ant.Then Calamity’s bow twanged and a jolt shot from Amaryllis’ wand, and the ant was suddenly fading away into magical motes.“They’ve been crawling out of there for a while,” Puffles said. “Dangerous lot.”Congratulations! Your party has exterminated a Quilted Ant (Level 5)! Due to combating as a team your reward is reduced!“Could have used some warning,” Caprica said.“Ah, that’s true,” Puffles said as he scratched behind his head. “Sorry ‘bout that. Ought to warn you now that I doubt that’ll be the only ant we see. There’s hundreds of them down there.”“So we’ll have to conserve our mana and stick close, then,” I said.At least that one ant didn’t seem all that tough in the end. Just level five, and slowed down by those roots clinging to it? That was manageable.Then again, levels weren’t everything. A level four dragon could still likely gobble me up.With a final nod, Puffles led us into the dungeon, one hand holding up a conjured ball of light while while his other three hands kept a firm grip on his pitchfork.You are Entering the Golden Light DungeonDungeon Level 4-8Your entire party has entered the DungeonSeal Dungeon until exit?Dungeon left UnsealedAny Person can Enter Dungeon InstanceAny Person can Exit Dungeon Instance
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