Chapter Ten — Mushroom Hop
I stood at the very edge of the balcony and looked down at the big mushroom just a few feet down. A few feet down and a few feet away. And between me and the big fluffy looking mushroom was a two storey drop to a rocky field.“Okay, it’s okay, it’s obviously a path,” I said to myself as I looked at all the big bouncy-looking mushrooms all lined up in a curve that led to the next platform down. This was a... risk.And risks could be bad.I shook my head, then unwound one of my ropes. It was more than long enough to make it from where I was to the next platform. I created a loop, set a knot into it, and hung the rope off of a rocky outcropping. A few really hard tugs without so much as a creak and I figured it could hold my weight.Then I tied the rope around my waist. If I fell it would hurt. Hitting the ground all the way down would hurt more.I jumped on the spot a few times to unlimber myself, made sure that my backpack was nice and snug, then I jumped.I didn’t expect the mushroom to deflate on landing, then burst back to its full size.My knees shot up into my chest and I barely had time to kick at the next mushroom down.I landed on the third bum-first with a scream that echoed across the dungeon. I managed to flip once, my backpack flopping around, my legs kicking out to find purchase. My hand scraped the wall and I belly flopped onto the fourth mushroom down.It shot me back into the air where I had plenty of time to see the platform coming before I landed on it face first.“Ouch,” I said as I laid on the ground, cheek pressed down, butt in the air and knees and wrists lancing with pain. That had been, I decided, a horrible idea. A no-good, very bad, super dumb idea.Health 107/110I climbed to my hands and knees, straightened my skirt back down from where it had flipped, then crawled away from the edge when one foot slipped over it. “Nope,” I said. “Not until Jumping is way higher.”I took a moment to relax and calm my racing heart, then stood up and undid the rope around my waist. I tied it to a rock and took in my surroundings.There wasn't much to see. This ledge was about half a floor lower than the entrance ledge with a rocky archway filled with vines that partially hid a wooden door. The ground was one large slab of stone with a small sconce at the end with an unlit brazier on it. There was a sign hanging from the door, I cleared the vines before it.Out for tea-Maddy the HatterDid someone live here? Just in case, I knocked carefully on the door and waited a moment. When no answer came after my third knock I opened the door and looked within. “Hello?”The inside was a corridor. The ground packed earth, the walls were rough stone that might have been chiseled to be a little more uniform, but not enough to prevent creeping vines from climbing all the way up to the ceiling.A few glyph-covered stones hung in little iron cages, the rocks glowing blue and green and red and lighting up the corridor quite nicely.I checked for traps, wished I had a ten foot pole, then moved in. Nothing shot out of the walls, there were no time travelling critters and I couldn’t hear anything except for a faint and distant clicking.Careful not to make too much noise, I retrieved my showerhead flail and held it close by my side as I moved on.The corridor opened up to a field of sorts, a small hill surrounded on three sides by hedges that climbed up and up and up. The green sky had three bright suns in it, all of them carefully moving around and making the entire area bright and cheery while throwing my shadow around in weird ways.A large door stood open on the far hedge, some twenty meters away. And between me and that door, right atop the hill, was a large skeleton sitting with his legs sprawled out. He had an upside-down tophat on his head and was bringing a tea cup up against his mouth with a faint clinking noise.Two animals sat next to him on a blanket laid out atop the hill. One was a calico cat, with patches of fur missing, the other a long green snake that was missing an eye and quite a few scales.“Hello!” I said as I waved to the group. “Ah, it’s a nice afternoon for tea, isn’t it?”The skeleton stared at me without any eyes to see. His long legs gathered up to his chest and his toes dug into the blanket before he stood up straight and tall.“Insight,” I whispered as I took in the three before me.Maddy the Hatter, Skeleton Milliner, level 4Zombie snake, level 2Zombie cat, level 2I smiled at Maddy. “Do you like tea?” I asked. It seemed like a good place to start a conversation. He could invite me to tea, and I had some honey to share, and we could chit and chat and become the best of friends.Maddy threw his cup to the ground where it shattered. The door behind me shut with a dull boom and the clunk of a lock engaging sounded out.Reaching up, the skeleton removed his hat and reached an arm into it. Out came a big floppy wizard’s hat, all purple and covered with uneven yellow stars. He placed the hat atop the snake. Then he pulled out a second hat, a nurse’s cap with a big red cross on the front which he slapped onto the cat’s head.“Um?” I asked.Zombie Hedge Wizard snake, level 2Zombie Nursing cat, level 2“Oh,” I said. “That’s really neat!”Maddy spun on a heel, quite literally, and stomped off the hill, slamming the door in the hedge behind him with a loud clatter and bang.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.“Did I say something wrong?” I asked the almost-cute zombie animals.The snake opened its mouth wide and a fireball shot out of it.I ‘eeped’ and hopped over the rather slow-moving projectile and heard it boom against the wall behind me. Then it opened its mouth again and a second fireball started to form.“Oh, shoot.”At least this time I knew what to do.I tossed my backpack off and started running and jumped over another fireball. They weren’t very big, and they only moved as fast as a dodgeball thrown by, well, me. Easy enough to avoid. But they were fireballs.I started spinning my flail around. I didn’t have all that much mana, not enough for two zombies as tough as the time rabbit at least. There was a pattern to the fireballs. They would launch, then slow down once they were a few feet from the snake. Then it would close its mouth, stare at me, and ready the next one.A pattern!I waited for the next fireball which I somewhat nimbly sidestepped, the warmth of it washing past me as if I had walked by an open oven but with less cookies and more fiery death. The moment the snake closed his mouth I rushed up the hill and brought my flail down.It smacked the snake right on the head like a very hard, very rude boop.“Hah!” I shouted before reaching down to pull out my knife. I didn’t want to do it, but it seemed as if I had no choice. At least I could reason that you couldn’t kill something that was already dead.A blur of white barreled into me, claws swinging this way and that with a cattish howl that sent me tumbling bum over teakettle down the hill. When I regained my feet it was to find the zombie snake completely healed... well, mostly healed, it was still very dead, but now bandages were wrapped around it and it had a few plasters on its snout.I took a moment to regroup while the snake shook its head and glared at me with its one eye. I had overlooked the calico, which was apparently a very bad idea. There was a clear theme here. The hats gave the zombies classes or something similar. No wonder Maddy was level four!The snake was a wizard, which meant fireballs for days. The calico cat was a nurse, which meant healing and first aid for the snake.That made everything a whole lot harder.I had to focus on the healer.With a huff, I picked up my flail and charged for the cat, only to pause as I had to jump over a fresh fireball. And that, right there, explained their gimmick. If I ran after the cat the snake would pelt me with fireballs. Focus the snake and the cat would hit me instead.Tricksy zombie animals were not my forte.I charged after the nurse cat who turned tail and darted away, moving faster and slower as if to bait me into getting hit by one of the fireballs raining down on me. Then, the moment the latest fireball shot past, I turned and hopped up the hill in three bounds and brought my flail down on the snake again.As expected, there was a screeching yowl and a ball of angry kitty shot towards me.So I hugged it.“Cleaning hug!” I shouted, because attack names are important. A bit of mana left me and washed over the kitty.Ding! Congratulations, you have eliminated Zombie Nursing cat, level 2!I wanted to whoop in delight as a ghostly cat purred out of the nurse, but then a fireball struck me in the chest and I went rolling down the hill again.This time the snake was playing for keeps. Fireballs, much smaller than before were raining down towards me, each one moving way faster than the big cumbersome ones from before.I ran, breath catching in my throat as I panted and patted down my chest. The gambeson and leather coat were singed and smoking a little but they weren’t too damaged.I ran over to a large stone off to one side, jumped over it, and landed in a crouch that ended with my back pressed against the cool rock and my chest heaving.That had been... well it had been terrifying.The snap and crackle of fireballs hitting the stone stopped a moment later. “Are you done, mister snake?” I asked. “I really don’t want to have to fight.”I dropped my flail for a moment, tugged my knife out of its sheath and transferred it to my left hand before grabbing my flail again. Maybe I could throw the knife at the snake and distract it?I checked my menus for anything handy and was surprised to find a message waiting for me.Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Jumping skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!Rank E is a free rank!“That was fast.” Maybe dodging fireballs gave more experience than just skipping around?Congratulations! Jumping is now Rank E!JumpingRank E — 00%The ability to jump. You can now jump farther and higher than before.I was about to dig into that when a hiss sounded from right above me. I looked up to find the snake with its floppy wizard hat staring down at me, mouth opened and fireball growing.My knife-wielding hand shot up and the sharp steel dug into the monster’s palate.I cringed back as the snake flopped around, then began to turn to dust. The hat glowed and disappeared with a soap-bubble pop.I leaned my head back against the stone, eyes closed as adrenaline coursed through me.“Note to self: snakes are sneaky.”
Chapter Eleven — Wearing Many Hats
I didn’t get any loot from the snake and cat, but I did pack up the blanket that had been on the hill. It was nice and thick and smelled like freshly cut grass, and no one knew when they might need a towel.I checked my status while rolling up the blanket.Health 101/110Stamina 115/115Mana 22/105My health and mana both went up by about one a minute. That didn’t mean that I could survive being dropped to one health. When I’d been cut before I was aware of my health dropping by a point or two before going back up. That probably meant that the number was an indicator of health, not some ephemeral... thing tied to me.Still, I was healing faster in this world than back home, and I didn’t have any skills associated with it, so that was probably normal.The door to the exit hadn’t unlocked, which only left one way to go.Before running off though, I took a moment to find a decently flat rock and a sheet of paper from my backpack and some coal with a sharp tip.
Soon enough I had a somewhat rough map of the dungeon so far. Now I couldn’t get lost! Or if I did get lost I could ask someone how to get to the exit and use the map for reference. I just hoped that zombie animals couldn’t read, the last thing the world needed was an invasion of zombie critters.I rolled up my map and stuffed it in my sack. Out came a jar of honey and I had lunch while enjoying the surreal triple suns above for a few minutes.Health 107/110Stamina 115/115Mana 28/105“It’ll have to do,” I said as I got up. This time I faced the door equipped for battle. Flail in one hand, free hand on the knife I moved to my bandoleer, and eyes narrowed like Clint Eastwood just before he called someone a bad word.I pushed open the door in the hedges and peeked in. There was another corridor, this one surrounded by hedges on both sides and with a cobblestone path down the centre.No signs of the mean skeleton with the hats, or of any zombie critters.I stepped in and looked around. There didn’t seem to be any traps, but the hedges could hide anything and the cobbles looked too much like pressure plates for my liking. I stuck to walking on the grass for now.The path veered off to the right after a little bit then took a sharp turn. I stopped and stared. The hedges shrunk. They went from towering walls of green to being no higher than my hip in the space of three steps.That was interesting, but what was far more arresting was what I could see in the distance. Water. An entire ocean of water as far as the eye could see.I was on an island, with not too distant shores where the sea was smacking against stones and there was a small cottage-like home a few hundred meters away. Or maybe it was closer? It looked... off.The hedges around me formed a short wall around a garden with flowers and ponds and large, decorative rocks. But everything was tiny. The biggest flower was no bigger than my pinkie, the trees along the edges were only a bit taller than I was and the pond could be walked over.In the centre of it all was Maddy, sitting at a white, wrought-iron table that barely reached his shins. The skeleton held a minuscule teacup by its mouth as it sat on a chair that looked like it had been made for dolls, not people.There were three other guests at the table. A large hedgehog, a big ol’ tortoise and a shetland pony. Each zombie had a small teacup before them.“Hello,” I said. “Or, ah, maybe I should say ‘rarr?’ That’s in skeleton, right?”I might have said something offensive because Maddy stood up and flipped the tiny table right over the tortoise’s head, the tiny teapot cracking and breaking across the glass with a tinkle that filled the sudden, awkward silence. He reached up into his hat and pulled out three more bits of headwear.“Oh no,” I said as he placed one on each zombie animal’s head.The hedgehog got a chef’s hat, the pony a bright yellow construction helmet and the tortoise had its head wrapped in ninja bandages with a forehead protector at the front, one that had a sideways chess piece on it.“I didn’t come here to fight!” I said.Maddy the skeleton didn’t seem to care. He got up and stomped off towards the home, arriving at it sooner than he should have. He reached way up, grabbed the handle and opened the door. A moment later it slammed shut.The zombie animals all turned around until I could see the milky white of their eyes.Zombie Chef hedgehog, level 2Zombie Construction pony, level 2Zombie Ninja tortoise, level 2“Oh no,” I said as they started to move. The pony clip-clopped away from me before it disappeared behind a row of hedges. The hedgehog began to move towards me with a slow, waddling gait and the tortoise...Something grabbed me by the back of the ankle, then squeezed.I screamed and kicked out my foot, sending the tortoise flying across the garden. It had snuck up on me. Then again, it was a ninja. I was going to have to keep an eye out for sneak attacks.My backpack fell with a clunk and I began to backpedal away from the advancing hedgehog. It was only about the size of a smaller dog, but that still brought it up to my shin, and with everything else in the garden looking so tiny it looked formidable indeed.Kicking it seemed like a bad idea. It was missing plenty of its quills, but I was sure it wouldn’t feel good to try and punt it away.I started spinning my flail around and around until I felt it brushing against the hedge wall behind me. “Mister hedgehog, I’m warning you,” I said. “I’m going to smack you if you don’t stop moving close to me.”The hedgehog kept shuffling forwards.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.My flail swung around and thunked unto the hedgehog with a yucky crunching sound.Then it caught on fire. I pulled my flail back and looked away from the mess it had made of mister hedgehog. Zombies were not very tough, not even zombie hedgehogsDing! Congratulations, you have cooked Zombie Chef hedgehog, level 2!That was nice and good, but now I had to deal with a flail that was on fire. Swinging it around only seemed to make it worse, the cord that made up the chain of it burning more and more. Soon it was going to burn up completely and I’d be left weaponless. The pond! I just had to-That’s when a spinning green disk flew out of a hedge and cracked against the back of my knees.I fell onto my back with an ‘oomph’ and saw the tortoise crawling away at a tortoise-y pace to go hide under a hedge.“Not, nice,” I coughed as I got back to my feet. That had hurt, but it hadn’t injured me, at least.A glance to the side showed that my flail wasn’t much of a flail anymore. The showerhead was warped a bit, the stone within cracked and the rope was still burning, what was left of it, at least. I had taken out one of the three zombies, but at an incredible cost.There was a distant clunk-clunk sound that had me getting up a whole lot faster. Just in time too, as a rock the size of my head landed where I had been laying.I started looking around, trying to trace the source of the sound. It was probably why I caught the tortoise slowly sneaking up behind me with a gardening trowel in its mouth. A very sharp-looking trowel.“Oh no you don’t!” I said as I ran over to the ninja tortoise and jumped.Both feet crashed into the tortoise’s back, squishing it flat before I bounced off. A quick spin around and I got ready to do the same thing again when, with a poof, three more tortoises appeared.“Clones,” I growled. I was getting very very miffed about all this running around and trying to kill me stuff. It had stopped being funny. I took a running leap and stomped first one clone, then the next, then the next, bouncing from one shell to the next like an Italian plumber.Three of the clones poofed away, then the final tortoise began to fade into motes.Ding! Congratulations, you have assassinated Zombie Ninja tortoise, level 2!Two down.It wasn’t a nice feeling, knowing that killing these poor zombies was becoming so routine. Well, not routine, but common. The ghosts were different, less tangible and more obviously evil. These critters were kind of cute if I ignored the smell of rotting meat around them and the more zombie-ish parts of their anatomy. Cute animals missing an ear were still cute. Cute animals with hanging entrails... not so much.Something went ‘clunk-clunk’ again and I dove to the side. A moment later a rock flew past where I had been standing, impacted the ground with a dull thud, then bounced into the pond with a splash.I looked in the direction the rock had come from and saw a wooden pole swinging back down behind a hedge.“I saw you!” I said as I ran over. I had my knife out, but really, really hoped that I could talk to the pony because stabbing a cute little zombie pony would be like stabbing my childhood and that just wasn’t cool.I rounded a hedge and skid to a stop.The pony, yellow hat and all, was standing next to a trebuchet, and before it, pointing right at me, was a ballista.I never backpedaled so fast in my life.The ballista fired with a ‘twang’ and a blur shot past me and into the distance. “Look, mister pony, I don’t want to hurt you, but you’re not giving me any choice here,” I said.The sounds of what I suspect was a ballista being reloaded filtered over to me. No good.I wasn’t about to run back around the hedge, which left up and over the only option. With a running start, I charged towards the hedge and leapt into the air. My skill must have helped, either making my legs supernaturally strong or telling gravity to mind its own business for a moment, because I moved as if I had just bounced off a springboard.A wide-eyed pony looked up a moment before I crashed into it feet first. By the time I had recovered from my jump the pony was only a memory.Ding! Congratulations, you have demolished Zombie Construction pony, level 2!Part of me wanted to cheer, to jump and skip and be super happy that I had won another fight. I tamped down on that little voice, stood back up and bowed towards where the zombie pony had been. “I’m sorry,” I said.Being happy over the death of something, even something already mostly dead, wasn’t cool.I looked around the garden once I was done paying my respects and found that my efforts had been rewarded. Where the zombie ninja tortoise had faded away was a hat. It looked like an old British soldier’s helmet, with a dome in the middle, a large flat brim and a turtle-pattern all across its surface. A pair of leather straps under it showed how it was meant to hang on to the wearer’s head, and the inside was padded with more leather.“Thank you,” I said to the zombie tortoise, even if it couldn’t hear me.Shelled kettle hat, new.My new hat was quite comfortable once it was strapped down nice and tight. I’m sure I made for a dashing figure. I wiggled my head a little to make sure everything was neat and fit right, then hopped on the spot a few times to make sure it wouldn’t just fly off my head. It seemed nice.Which meant it was time for me to continue on my adventure.A bit of exploration around the garden revealed that the entrance had locked behind me already. There wasn’t anything else on the island except for the massively oversized house in its middle.Health 110/110Stamina 115/115Mana 39/105Not nearly as good as I wanted, but it would have to do.I picked up my backpack, holding it by the straps, then reached up and turned the door handle.
