Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Three — Recipe for Success
Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Three — Recipe for Success "One, two, three, four... nine, ten, eleven, and twelve," Amaryllis said as she flipped through the loose pages she held. I was always secretly impressed by how dextrous Amaryllis could be with her talons. They were sharp, pointy, and made of... talon stuff?Bone? Were talons bones? Or were they like nails?Were nails bones?No, that didn't make sense. In any case, talons didn't have pads, or little grooves like fingerprints, so it was impressive to see Amaryllis able to handle something like loose paper without any trouble. I supposed that she had a lifetime of practice. Or maybe she was using a bit of magic to help?"Is that enough?" Caprica asked."Twelve pages is hardly a cookbook, I daresay," Desiree said. "Is that not the goal of this floor? To collect the disparate and lost pages of a book?""Not an entire book," Amaryllis replied. She folded the pages and slipped them into a pocket within her coat before pulling out the dungeon manual. "This says that the answer usually requires between ten and twenty pages. So we're on the lower end of that.""But we haven't reached the end of the floor yet," Calamity said. "'Till we do, we'll be gettin' a few more pages, right?"I nodded along. So far we'd been navigating the dungeon maze for what felt like a solid twenty minutes or so. Not enough to tire anyone out, but still a decent walk, especially with the frequent imp ambushes to keep us on our toes.I didn't think we'd actually gotten all that far. For one thing, we were walking at a very slow, careful pace. For another, every time there was an ambush, we stopped to fight off the imps, and even if the fights only lasted a few seconds each, they were still enough to have us taking a short pause right after.I suspected that if we were to backtrace our route, we'd discover that we really weren't as far from the entrance as we thought."I just wanted to see where we were in terms of collecting these," Amaryllis said. "We should keep going. I don't think we want to spend the day in here."That was a fair point. "I don't even know what time it is," I admitted."Huh, that's not the kind of issue I'd ever considered," Booksie said. "But I suppose that the passage of time in a place like this is a little strange. You can't see the sun to gauge what time of day it is. It reminds me a little of this one library I used to spend time in.""How does a dungeon remind you of a library?" Caprica asked."It had a fantastic reading room, with sofas, and cushions, and a set of cooling charms that kept the room just cool enough that you'd have a valid excuse to use the blankets laying around. But it had no windows showing the outside. You'd step in in the morning, then finish a book and leave to pick another only to discover that the sun had set.""Awa, I don't know if it's exactly the same in a dungeon," Awen said. "But, ah, I do have this?" So saying, Awen fished into the pockets of her jacket and pulled out a small pocket watch with a little chain. She flicked it open, showing the time."Two hours since we've entered, already?" Desiree asked. "You are undoubtedly correct, Lady Booksie. This place plays tricks on the mind."With that more or less settled, we continued down the maze, always keeping the rightmost wall close. It didn't take long for us to be ambushed by more imps, this time a trio of them launched themselves at us the moment we came around a corner with little squeaks and weapons raised.Well, weapons of a sort. They had cutlery in hand, butter knives and salad forks, but it was still kind of intimidating to have a little red monster fly towards your face with a pair of forks and a lot of temper.Fortunately, even armed, the imps weren't able to handle more than a single heavy bonk to the noggin or fireball to the chest."Another page," I said as the imps poofed away. Only about half of them dropped a page on death, so the drop-rate for these was pretty good.As usual, we took a moment after the fight to check that everything was fine, then moved on.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.The only resources we were burning were mana and time, and I was pretty sure that the more spell-focused members of our group had a much faster mana-regeneration rate than the rest of us, so it was probably a non-issue.It took a solid half-hour of trudging along, going down one end of a passage, then coming back through it, and discovering countless dead ends, before we finally rounded a corner into a large room.There was a door here, a big double door, made of ancient wood and wrought iron that clashed with the rest of the floors' more restaurant-y decor.Next to it was a table with a few random items on it, and the far wall had a few smaller doors, like those cool waist-high saloon doors that don't cover the top or bottom of their entrance. The rooms beyond them looked like pantries. Rooms with shelves filled with containers and cans and baskets full of stuff."So, I'm guessing that's the door to the next floor," I said. "And... this is the puzzle?""It's supposed to be relatively easy," Amaryllis said as she took out the folded pages and walked over to the table next to the doorway. There was a book there, opened up, with a ribbon marking the opened page. "This book is missing pages, and one of those pages will match the content of one of the pages we collected. We need to identify the matching page, then bring all the ingredients listed on that page and set them on this table.""I suppose we can find those missing ingredients in that pantry?" Caprica asked."I think so," Amaryllis said. "The instructions in the dungeon book were a little vague. Ah, but there is a note to be on the lookout for imps the entire time.""Right," I said. Calamity, Awen, and I moved over to the pantry and carefully looked into the first one. I reached up with Weedbane and shifted a few boxes around, then squeaked as an imp came flying out from behind one.Calamity pinned it to the ceiling with an arrow. "Guess the note was right, huh?" he said."Guess so," I said.We made short work of clearing the other pantries, just moving things around and making sure there weren't any imps hiding away, ready to jump out and nibble at us when we were least expecting it.In the meantime, Amaryllis worked on the recipe book, comparing each page one at a time to the existing recipe and setting them aside into two piles when she was done with each. In the end, it looked like she was down to three possible fits. "I think it's this one," she said. "Booksie, you have a better grasp of books and such than I do, can you take a look?"Booksie nodded and came over, then compared the shortlist to the recipe book. I came closer, enough to see that the recipe book had a few pages ripped out of it, but it was done in such a way that we couldn't just match the ripped edges."I think it's this one," Booksie said. "Which means, if I understood, that we're missing... two cups of flour, half a cup of olive oil, red pepper flakes, six cloves of garlic..." Booksie continued to list ingredients while the rest of us went into the pantry and started rooting around for what she was listing. It wasn't all that simple, since nothing was labelled and we had to look in every box and bin to figure out what was what.Still, in the space of a few minutes we'd grabbed what we needed and moved it to the table, with Booksie checking through it all to make sure it was all there."I think that's it?" she asked as she set down a small block of cheese.The moment it touched the table there was a loud clunk and all of the ingredients, the book, the pages, and everything in the pantry, vanished.The door shuddered, then slowly squeaked open on a loud, rusty hinge."I guess that means we can go on?" I asked."I think so," Amaryllis replied. "Let me take one last look at my dungeon book before we move on.""Man, you're really in love with that thing, huh?" Calamity asked."That thing is saving us a lot of headaches. Would you rather stumble around blindly through this entire dungeon?" she said before adding a last 'I think not' huff as final punctuation.
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Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Four — Judgement Day
Chapter Four Hundred and Seventy-Four — Judgement Day "Here's what we can expect," Amaryllis began.She was standing with wings-on-hips, nose turned down so that she could read from the dungeon book. The book was currently being held open by Awen, who had been volunteered for the job by Amaryllis."The next floor is the last. The dungeon's boss is there, along with a cadre of weaker monsters to come to his defence. The boss itself should be around levels eight to ten, so not an enormous challenge, but keep in mind that this is a dungeon boss nonetheless. They won't be so easy to take down.""What kind of monster are we talkin' about here?" Calamity asked."His name is the Sue-Chef," Amaryllis said. "He's some sort of imp-goblinoid hybrid. A large winged imp. He uses a cleaver, or a chef's knife, and has several offensive cooking skills, as well as self and group buffing abilities.""Offensive cooking skills?" Desiree asked. "That sounds peculiar. How does one cook offensively?""It's fire magic, mostly," Amaryllis said. "As well as baking magic, which I suppose is closely related. In any case, it would do us no good to underestimate the boss. The boss room is some sort of food court according to these notes, and the additional monsters are called Sous-Lawyer Imps. They'll be a little bit stronger than the imps we faced on this floor.""If they're only a little stronger, we should be able to take them," Caprica said."Yes, but don't forget, they'll be distracting us from the boss, who is undoubtedly a threat," Amaryllis pointed out.I nodded. "Amaryllis is right. I'd rather we all be as careful as we can be and come out of this without a scratch. Do you think our current formation is good enough?""It should be," Amaryllis replied. "Let's keep Booksie in the centre again. No offence, Booksie, but you're both the VIB of this quest and our weakest member.""VIB," I repeated. "Amaryllis... did you make a bun pun?"Amaryllis huffed. "You misheard me." She huffed almost silently. A stealth-huff of hidden bird-y humour! But I was onto her. "In any case. Once the boss is eliminated, the imps will stop spawning, so our focus should primarily be on the boss monster itself. I propose that we split our efforts two ways. One group focusing entirely on the boss, and another group to keep the chaff occupied.""If that's the case," Caprica said. "Then I propose myself, Amaryllis, and Awen focus on the boss. I can hold it off in close range, Amaryllis can apply damage over time with her magic, and Awen's crossbow has a great deal of penetrative power that ought to harm even a boss monster.""That leaves Calamity, Desiree, Booksie and me to take care of all the little monsters," I said. "Isn't that a little unbalanced?""No, I think it's reasonable," Calamity said. "On big hunts, we'd used to have the stronger members' focus on the bigger beasties and the rest would work on clearing out the area around them. We can still open up with a big early strike. Desiree can fling a few fireballs, you too, Broc, and I wouldn't mind planting an arrow or two in the boss.""Does Booksie need to help with the boss at all?" I asked.Amaryllis hummed. "Conventional knowledge says that as long as she helps in some way during the overall fight, she should be okay. But other, equally conventional knowledge says that she should help against the boss itself. It doesn't need to be a great contribution, though.""What should I do?" Booksie asked."We can pin the boss down for you to give it a good bonking," I suggested."Just throw that mace at the boss," Calamity said. "Wait, no, that'd leave you unarmed. Does anyone have a brick? A rock, maybe?""Ah, I don't carry those," Awen said. "But I have, um, this?" She reached under her coat and into the small of her back where she pulled out a small wrench.Booksie accepted it, then weighed it up and down. "So, I fling this at the boss?""Just hurt it a little," Amaryllis said. "I don't even know if it's really necessary, but it's better to be safe than to have to redo the entire dungeon, isn't it?""I think I can manage that much," Booksie said.With everyone more or less ready, we stepped into the tunnel leading to the next floor of the dungeon. This one quickly led to a staircase that we clambered down, then into a small antechamber with a large pair of solid double doors.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.The anti-boss team stepped up into the lead, and Amaryllis and Caprica pushed the door open for us. The room beyond was like a food court... court room. More or less.The space where there would usually be rows of benches for an audience to watch the proceedings was replaced by rows of tables with benches right behind, as if the crowd of onlookers was meant to be replaced by a crowd of eaters.At the far end of the room, on the little stand where the judge was meant to be, was a large greenish... man? He was almost tall enough to reach my chin, with bulging, muscly arms and an apron that had Kiss the Judge written on it.The boss glared at us as we made our careful way down the central alley of the room. Then he raised both arms. One held a long chef's knife, the edge dinged and dented. The other held a wooden hammer, with brass rings around the head. "Prepare for your taste to be judged!" he roared."Booksie!" Amaryllis said."G-got it!" Booksie said. She took off running ahead of the group, which got the rest of us running after her. Then, with an arm pulled way back then flung forwards, she threw Awen's wrench as hard as she could.The tool glinted as it flipped end over end. The boss moved his knife in the way, and the wrench clanged off of it. "Those are not proper table manners!" he shouted."Get your hits in, everynyan!" Calamity said. A split second later, the boss grunted as an arrow buried itself in its burly arms with a meaty thwack.I concentrated, creating a brace of fireballs and then sending them flying out ahead. They were right behind Desiree's own, which I noticed were both larger, brighter, and flew faster. She probably had a few skills to make them better. Or she was just better at magic than I was.The boss roared even as he covered his head with both arms and started to charge our way, the mini-fireballs bursting apart against his tough hide.Caprica darted ahead, meeting his charge with her shield raised and somehow stopping the boss dead, despite being about a third his mass.Then Amaryllis and Awen started on him, Awen punching bolts into his side while Amaryllis let loose with a powerful burst of lightning magic.I was sure we were going to win this one very soon when I started to feel a little strange. Warm."He's using baking magic!" Amaryllis warned. "Keep moving!"I was about to start flinging more fireballs when I noticed something moving above. I glanced up and gasped. "Imps!" I shouted.Calamity shifted, back twisting as he aimed up and fired an arrow that punched through a pair of imps and sent them tumbling down. But there were a lot more where they had come from.I swung my scythe out above as soon as the imps were in range, cutting one right out of the air. They were weak, but there were easily thirty of them above and they were all coming down towards us.Desiree grunted and flung out a large ball of fire as big around as she was tall, then she flung a second, much smaller fireball right into the big one. The moment the smaller one rammed into the larger sphere, it exploded above us.I ducked down, a wave of heat and stray bits of fire slipping past me. "Whoa!" I said. That took out a few of them, but not all. Still, it gained us some time, and distracted from the growing heat I could feel inside of me.How dangerous was baking magic anyway? It didn't feel that warm, but maybe it didn't need to be. I was already sweating a lot.More imps came screeching down from the ceiling, and our group spread out to cover the back of those attacking the boss. I made sure to stay close to Booksie, who helped by bonking any imp that smacked into the floor, taking them out of the fight for certain.There was another big boom as Amaryllis unleashed another spell. I glanced over and saw electrical trails flicking from crossbow-bolt to crossbow-bolt. Their metal bits were acting as lightning rods for her magic, shoving it deeper into the boss.It stumbled, landing on one knee, which was when Caprica rushed in and hooked the boss around the neck, sending him crashing to the ground."Booksie!" Caprica shouted. "Bonk him!"And so, with very little fanfare, the boss was taken out.
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