Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Three — First-Person Platformer
Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Three — First-Person Platformer I didn’t know if dungeons had a sort of... ‘fairness system’ to them.What I meant by fairness system was something that made it so that when challenging a dungeon, the dungeon wouldn’t go out of its way to make any floor entirely unfair. Each floor had a solution that anyone could figure out given a bit of time, and while some of them were a lot harder than others, I’d yet to encounter a dungeon floor that was entirely impassible.I mean, all the dungeon had to do was make the challenge of a floor to dig through a wall of rock that was a dozen metres thick, and that would stop everyone but the most determined adventurer from pushing through. But so far I hadn’t seen or experienced anything like that.Which is why I wasn’t too surprised by the platforming challenge on this particular floor.Calamity and Puffles worked together to outline the route we’d need to take. Puffles had the experience, and Calamity just had excellent eyesight, could judge distances really well, and had a skill that helped him find paths, which all combined to make him really good at mapping out the route we’d need to take.The first jump wasn’t hard at all. We had to move halfway down the branch that the floor’s entrance was on, then down onto a thinner branch that crossed it from below. The drop was shorter than I was tall, and straight down onto a flat platform.We were still careful about it.The fireflies buzzing around were a constant distraction, and being distracted while walking over a huge fall was a quick way to trip. So Amaryllis came up with a game while we were on our way to the second jump. “Broccoli, green,” she said.“Green!” I repeated. “Calamity... red!”“Red,” he said. “Caprica, yellow.”“Yellow,” she repeated. “Mister Puffles, ah, white?”“Hmm, White,” he replied. Then he called out Amaryllis’ name and a random colour that wasn’t the same one he’d repeated.The game was simple, because a complicated game would be distracting, and that’s what the game was supposed to stop. By having us listen to our name and the colour, we were paying attention to each other. Your mind couldn’t wander off, not for long since your name would be called out soon. And if one of us failed to reply, then we’d know that they were more distracted than they should be.I thought it was pretty clever.We continued our callouts until we reached the second jump. This one was a bit trickier, since it wasn’t just a straight-down drop, but instead we had to run and jump over a gap that was just a bit longer than a full pace. That was about a metre and a little bit, I guessed, which really wasn’t very far. I could skip further than that.Something about there being a massive drop made it a lot harder, however. I saw Awen breathing hard, and patted her on the back reassuringly. “It’ll be fine,” I muttered.She nodded, then jumped as Amaryllis called out her name. “Uh, blue, and Broccoli, purple?”“I think we can stop the callouts while we take turns jumping?” I asked. That seemed reasonable enough.We went one at a time, with Puffles and Caprica hovering below on either side of the drop, just in case. With all the Jumping practice I’d gotten, the gap wasn’t much of a challenge at all. Then Calamity casually hopped over and Amaryllis did the same, arms spread out to catch a bit of air. Awen was last, and I clapped as she took a running jump and easily cleared the gap. She ended up running into my arms on the other side, but she more than earned the victory hug.“Right,” Amaryllis said. “Let’s keep it up, then. “Broccoli, you were at purple?”I nodded and picked up the callouts where we’d left off.The next couple of jumps were pretty easy. One was a bit higher than the branch we were on, but it was closer too, so while we couldn’t just step up onto it, it wasn’t too hard to grab onto the bark on the side of the branch and use that to climb up. With a few friends there to give a hand, it was almost trivial.Really, when Puffles had suggested that this floor was tricky, I was expecting it to be... well, harder than this. Not that I wanted to let my guard down or anything. I was fully expecting to run into trouble at some point.And maybe because of that, we didn’t.We were all careful with each jump. When we came onto a jump that seemed a little tricky (the fifth jump required us to leap not only vertically but also across a rather wide gap) we did the smart thing and had our fliers carry all of our gear over first, then we each jumped one after the other with a rope tied around us and a flying friend tugging upwards to give each of us more lift.Being so cautious was probably slowing us down a ton, but I’d rather be slow and safe than quick and risk losing a friend.It didn’t take too long that we were nearing the end of the floor. “Teal!” I said. “And Calamity, burple. Also, Mister Puffles, what’s the next floor like?”“It’s the last one. There’s a boss to face, then the dungeon core and the exit,” he said.“Burple?” Calamity asked. “That’s not a colour. Caprica, blonde.”“Is blonde a colour?” Caprica asked. “In any case, can you tell us more about the boss? Puffles, scarlet.”“Scarlet. And I can. We call her the Moon Mother, though that’s not the boss’s real name. There’s two ways of beating them. Well, I suppose three.”We paused before the next jump, none of us having to really argue about taking a little break to let Puffles talk us through what he knew about the boss.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.“The first is to use the light in the room to distract her. We used to carry big mirrors with us to do that.”“We could have brought some,” Amaryllis said.“No point. The dungeon core was the light source, and it’s all tangled up,” he said. “Which leaves the other option. There are these flowers in the room called lunaflowers. They have a powder that’ll make the boss dizzy. Run around, hit the flowers, and create a big screen of dust and it’s barely a fight at all. The dust makes you feel a little sick too, but nothing that bad.”That was good to know. “What’s the third option?” I asked.“Well, I suppose you could just fight her the normal way. You’d need to be pretty fast for it to work, and strong. We never did fight her head-on. But I imagine the lot of you might manage it, if you really tried.”That was certainly an option, but I figured we’d try the flower thing first. A dizzy, uncoordinated dungeon boss sounded way better than one who was ready to fight.“Have the roots changed anything other than the light?” Caprica asked.“The room’ll be darker,” Puffles said. “So you need to keep that in mind. And there are vines all over. They clutter up the room, cutting across from one side to the other. Some are as big around as a man is tall. Last time we came all this way, there were enough of them that they made it hard for the Moon Mother to fight at all.”“How does she fight?” Calamity asked.“Mostly by trying to stab you with her legs. They’re long and end in sharp points. Ah, and there’s a lot of fluff around her neck. Hard to cut through that.” He touched his own neck, which was surrounded by a thick ruffle of pure white fur.“So we’ll need high-penetration abilities,” Amaryllis said. “Awen’s crossbow, maybe Broccoli’s scythe. Some of my better spells. Calamity, if you focus on softer areas. Can we take her wings out?”“They’re quite big. A few holes poked through them won’t do much,” Puffles said. Seeing as how he had moth wings of his own, I decided to trust his opinion on the matter. “It’s all rather moot if we don’t actually make it there though. Should we keep on going?”We were most of the way there already, and the closer we came, the more the Evil Roots were more of a help than a hindrance. They formed bridges across the gaps created by the branches, long ropes of thick roots that hung between the platforms we were jumping off of.None of us trusted the roots enough to try to walk across them, or to use them to get across one of the gaps, but they did seem to bind some of the branches closer together, and there was no harm in picking spots to jump from where we had a root-based safety net beneath us.Finally, we arrived at the end of the obstacle. In the permanent daytime of this floor of the dungeon, it was hard to guess how long it had taken us to get this far through the dungeon, but it had to be at least a few hours.Fortunately, the end of the challenge brought us to another large, wide branch that led back into the massive tree’s trunk. By unspoken agreement, we all decided to take a bit of a break far from the edge, but before crossing into the next room.It wouldn’t do to face a dungeon boss with a gurgly tummy. We pulled out some snacks and sat down to eat. We had some hardtack from the ship, and some of that strange blue fish we’d picked up in Codwood. That, along with some seeds and nuts, made for a pretty light but filling meal.That was for the best. We didn’t want to go in feeling bloated either.“So, tactics for this boss?” Caprica asked.“Ranged penetration as an opening,” Amaryllis said. “If we can use the terrain to keep distant from it and pepper it from afar, then that would make for the best option. Low risk, high reward.”“She can fly, though, so it might not be all that slow. And Puffles mentioned that she was somewhat armoured,” Calamity pointed out. “Might not be so easy.”“If it gets into close-range, then we’ll have to rely on Caprica to stall it if possible, and on Broccoli to strike it from different angles.” Amaryllis turned towards our guide. “Mister Puffles, how tough is she?”“Other than the fluff? About as tough as good leather, I suppose.”“Can that fluff be removed?” I asked.“It can be burned off,” he said.That was good to know. I could manage a fireball or two to help. We bounced a few more ideas around, but mostly our plans were kept on the simple side of things. Easy enough to change on the fly, mostly because even with Puffle’s descriptions, we didn’t know exactly what we were going to be up against.So we’d do our very best and work together to overcome whatever was in there!Once snack time was over, we picked up our stuff. It had been a nice break; we even had the fireflies putting on a bit of a bumbling show for us (now that it was okay to be a bit distracted, I did enjoy looking at them!) but it was time to get moving.Squeezing through another crack in the wall, we arrived at the boss room, and immediately we could sense the presence of the Moon Mother. The room was darker than the previous floor, and the air was thick with the scent of the lunaflowers that Puffles had mentioned.We could see the giant moth monster perched on a raised platform at the far end of the room, her massive wings folded neatly against her back. As soon as she sensed our presence, she let out a high-pitched screech and leapt into the air, her legs and wings unfolding as she prepared to attack.Between us and her, however, was a room full of crisscrossing Evil Roots, many of which had large, delicate looking pods dangling from them.Ah, that would complicate things a bit.
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Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Four — Broccoli vs Mothra
Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Four — Broccoli vs Mothra “Alright, you know the plan,” Amaryllis said.Caprica ran ahead a little, then brought her shield up, ready to defend us. It wasn’t going to be needed quite yet, though.The Evil Roots draped across the room created several areas where the giant moth monster wouldn’t be able to cross through. She had to fly up and through a hole in the web-like roots in order to slip onto our side of the boss-room arena. That would give us a bit of time to react.We might need it, especially as one of the pods hanging off one of the roots shook, then fell off the root to hit the ground with a dull splat, some juices squirting out of the end and across the room.It stank, and I found myself reaching to pinch my nose on reflex against the wall of putrid stink hitting me.With a wet gurgle, a wriggling mass of leaves and roots clawed its way out of the pod, covered in a thick layer of goopy slime that it didn’t even bother shaking off itself. An Evil Seedling! We’d fought those ones before, in the Newbinnings dungeon a while ago.They hadn’t been strong then, just at level one like the technical newborns they were, but that didn’t make them any less of a threat to us when there was a dungeon boss in the room already.“Broccoli, Awen, go after the flowers,” Amaryllis said.“Right, got it!” I said. “What about the seedlings?”“That ugly thing?” Calamity asked. He nocked an arrow with casual ease and shot the seedling through the chest. It collapsed bonelessly, and that was one less threat to deal with.But there were dozens and dozens of pods on the roots all around us, and I saw a number of them squirming as the monsters within tried to free themselves.Awen darted to the right, so I went left. The lunaflowers were spread out across the edges of the room; some of them had been crushed by the Evil Roots, but a few were poking out from between them. The flowers were quite large, with petals as big as my hand, all bent upwards in a big teardrop shape with a big opening near the top. There was a bunch of yellow stuff in the middle, sharply contrasted against the deep purple petals.It wasn’t very nice of me, and my Gardening skill was quick to tell me that it was all wrong, but I grabbed the nearest Lunaflower by the stem right under the flower, then I gave it a vigorous shake.The yellow powder burst out, surrounding me in an expanding cloud while I held my breath and restrained my Cleaning magic. I didn’t want my magic clearing the air when I specifically needed that low air quality for fighting the boss.The boss had finally squeezed its way through the opening above and was coming down towards my friends.It was met in mid-air by a thunderous crack as Amaryllis released a powerful spell aimed right at its chest. Calamity’s shot, in contrast, didn’t make a noise, but as I blinked back the white line crossing my vision from Amaryllis’ spell, I could make out the fletching of one of his arrows poking out of the moth’s chest.Unsurprisingly, that wasn’t enough to bring her down.Caprica met the boss’s first probing attack with a heavy clang. She didn’t quite stumble back, but I could tell that it was still a heavy blow.“The other side! Quick!” Amaryllis said. She moved towards the wall of roots in the middle of the room, the others following after her. Calamity kept twisting around every few steps to let loose another arrow, and Caprica was backing away more slowly, side-stepping into the moth’s path as it stabbed forwards with its pointy-tipped legs.On the other side of the room, Awen paused within an expanding cloud of yellowish dust and fired her crossbow right in the boss’ side. Then she hooked the bow over her shoulder by its strap and took off running towards the wall.I wasn’t going to be caught out on this side of the room alone! I bounced towards the wall, only pausing to kick at a few poor flowers on the way to release their pollen into the air. I used a tiny bit of Cleaning magic around my mouth to keep the air I was breathing clear. Awen was using a piece of cloth for the same purpose, but I was worried that it wouldn’t be enough.I’d have to remember to check on her after.The boss screeched as Caprica finally slid under a large root, cutting the boss off from being able to hit her.The screech made all the roots in the room tremble, and then the pods started to fall. I don’t know if it was the shaking, or if the boss could somehow communicate with the roots, but it didn’t matter. I was squeezing my way through the wall of roots as pods splattered on the ground and disgorged Evil Seedlings.I popped out of the other side of the roots, then immediately deployed Weedbane into its scythe configuration and swiped at one of the seedlings while it was still ripping its way out of its pod.Amaryllis and Calamity were quick to hit some of the nearest ones as well, before they could start causing any trouble.“How’s it going?” I called out.“The boss isn’t taking nearly as much damage as I thought it would,” Amaryllis said. “We’re either going to need to hit it a lot harder, or this is going to take all day.”Mister Puffles landed nearby. He had been avoiding most of the fighting so far, and I couldn’t really blame him. He didn’t seem equipped for this kind of fighting. “Once the boss starts taking in some of the powder, she’ll be a lot easier to take on,” he said. Then he turned and kicked a seedling that was leaping towards him.The seedlings were all a little different, I noticed. Some were longer than others, and some had six limbs, others had multiple tails. They were all relatively low to the ground though, with bark-like skin as dark as the Evil Roots they were born from and strange eyeless faces with almost mandible-like mouths.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.At only level one, they weren’t a huge threat in terms of skills, but that didn’t mean they were powerless. Levels only mattered for so much, after all, and I didn’t want to get bitten by anything, regardless of level.“I’ll take care of the seedlings,” I decided aloud. “You guys focus on the boss!”“Right,” Amaryllis said.Awen nodded too, and started to rack another bolt into place. The boss was flying back up to the hole above, but this time she was slashing at the roots as she went through, outright chopping the smaller ones apart so that they came crashing down around us. That would make it easier for her to get through, and it dislodged more of those pods.I raced around the room with a few bounces, slashing at any fallen pods that hadn’t disgorged the seedlings within yet. Whenever I came close to a lunaflower I give them a quick smack on the stem, shaking them hard enough to send a scattering of dust loose.The room was starting to fill with a thin haze of yellowish dust, but I didn’t know if it was enough, especially not when the boss was still above it all.“It’s coming down again!” Amaryllis said. This time she fired a few dozen smaller bolts that sliced upwards and left long burns along the boss’ side, cooking some of the fluff that protected it.My friends scattered as the boss came crashing down, the sweep of her massive wings and the weight of her passing pushing back the yellow dust filling the air.My friends started coughing even as they forced themselves to pay attention to the boss.I grit my teeth and moved faster, cutting clean through another seedling while also preparing a brace of spells. Fireballs, the best ranged option I had after my Cleaning magic.I let them loose and the brightly burning embers smacked into the boss’ side. A couple caught the big mane of fluff around her neck on fire for a moment. Not very long, but enough to burn through some of its protective floofiness.Calamity continued to strike at the boss with a flurry of arrows that seemed to enrage it more and more. It stomped towards him, but then Caprica launched forwards with a sudden burst of speed and crashed into the boss shield-first with a heavy thump that sent it reeling until it spread all six feet wide to hold itself up.A quick slash from Caprica took off one of the boss’ antennae before she flew backwards and away from its retaliatory strikes.Awen and Calamity kept up the pace, raking the boss with bolts and arrows. Some caught in her fluff, but a lot of them poked through that anyway and soon the boss was starting to look a bit like a pincushion.“She’s almost down!” Amaryllis said.I think she was right. The boss was finally breathing in some of that yellow dust, and her motions took on a bit of wobbliness. She was swaying, and it looked like she was having a hard time tracking any one of us for longer than a few seconds. She wasn’t the only one who’d gotten a lungful, however. I noticed all of my friends coughing or holding a hand over their mouths.I took a big risk and leapt over to the boss, swinging Weedbane around in a wide, sweeping slash that dug into her skin. It didn’t go deep, but it did leave a big wound, and it looked to me like that was how we were going to take her down, with a thousand little cuts.Amaryllis called down another big lightning strike just as I kicked off the boss, and then Caprica rammed into it again.The boss crumpled. It wasn’t dead yet, but clearly we’d hurt her a lot. I felt a little guilty as Calamity carefully lined up a shot and fired, the arrow punching through what I guessed was a weak spot in the boss’s carapace and taking it out once and for all.The boss’s crash to the ground loosened a few last pods, so it wasn’t over quite yet... but really, the seedlings were easy to mop up once all of us could focus on them.Ding! Congratulations, you have mothdered the ‘Mother of All Moths, the Luminous Matriarch,’ level 8! For defeating a Dungeon boss, bonus exp is gained! EXP reduced for fighting as a group!The seedlings didn’t fade away the way the boss’ body did.“That was fast,” Mister Puffles said as he landed nearby.“Yeah,” I said. I heard Awen coughing, then I frowned and with a bit of focus, blasted some Cleaning magic all around, clearing out the dusty air.“Ah, thanks,” Awen said as she breathed more deeply. She coughed a few more times, then shook out the handkerchief she’d been using.“No problem,” I said. I was about to check to make sure everyone was safe and healthy when Calamity interrupted with a loud exclamation.“Loot!”I turned to see that he was right, there was loot. Where the boss once stood was now the last fading remains of dungeon monster ashes, and in the middle, a long pole... no, that was a staff! It was as long as I was tall (discounting my ears) and topped with a large glass ball that had a faint white glow coming from it. The staff was made of some sort of pale whitish wood, with some fluffy ruffles near the ball at the top.Amaryllis was quick to scoop it up. “Oh, now this is nice,” she said as she examined it. “A magical focusing staff.”“What does it do?” I asked.“It... focuses magic,” Amaryllis said, giving me a somewhat puzzled look. “Specifically... hmm, it looks like it’s made for light magic.”I shrugged. The only wand I’d ever really handled didn’t seem to work the way I expected it to. I wondered if this staff was the same.In any case, it looked like we were done with the boss! Now we just had to clean up the core and fix this dungeon up! Easy!
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