Chapter 178: Fungal Folly
Even though Coop had avoided wandering into a dead end by employing Fog of War and Presence of Mind to map his route, he still found himself at an impasse. The final chamber was large enough to have confused his makeshift mini-map, tricking his distracted mind into believing that it continued further underground. Every other route was a proper dead-end, filled with nothing by mushrooms and moths. This one was more of the same, but rather than a simple damp cave it was a palatial reliquary of stone. The thin mists of Fog of War failed to saturate the empty space much like when his domain had discovered the open ravine that connected to the surface at the start of his cave exploration.
Coop had already hopped back to his feet, after blocking the surprise attack, and was twirling on his heels as he searched for the source. He suspected he had found the boss room. If he was designing a dungeon, the large cathedral of a cavern would have been a fitting setting to find the king of moths and mushrooms. The final confrontation had come sooner than expected. However, there was no obvious opposition to his presence, and the source of the attack remained hidden. It couldn’t be among the storm of moths, but every other option seemed even more unlikely.
“...I am going crazy…” An elderly man’s voice rang in his mind, latching onto the subconscious doubts that he had easily dismissed.
Coop couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh as the deceptions shifted their strategy and tried to pretend to be his own inner monologue.
“...The walls are closing in…”
“...I am scared…”
“...The shadows are consuming…”
Coop took a second to take in his surroundings properly, having his focus jolted back by the tangible attack that knocked him to the ground. The running commentary from the peanut gallery was easily ignored when his survival instincts were really kicking in.
The cavern was exceptionally large, almost the size of one of the pearlescent chambers beneath the fort back on Ghost Reef. It lacked the gentle blue illumination brought by the central pillars, but gray light flickered on motes of dust throughout the cave, and there was plenty of color thanks to the neon green covering the surfaces wherever the strange mushrooms appeared. They didn’t contribute much light beyond glowing themselves, leaving the rest of the cave in the inconsistent grays provided by floating wisps.
The ceiling was close enough to be visible in the dim light, maybe 80 feet up. It was all relatively smooth, lacking the natural formations of stalactites, though long ridges ran the length of the room. Really, the entire cave was too oval compared to the previous sinkholes he had explored. It obviously did not share the same origin as the rest of the cave system. The cavern also lacked the ever-present groundwater pools, relegating them to a few pond-like shapes at the back edges of the chamber where the mushrooms submerged themselves, making the crystal clear water seem uninviting with a toxic green tinge.
While the moths continued to swarm, appearing something like a blizzard illuminated by headlights at night. They kept their distance from him, behaving like the insects normally would, though Coop was already developing a theory that they were hallucinating at least as much as he was. They reminded him of a cat chasing a laser pointer, like they were pursuing an invisible streetlight which caused them to flow around the room in an unpredictable but seemingly deliberate way. They weren’t so dense that something larger could remain hidden among them.
As Coop scanned the room, his eyes finally reached the point where his warhammer had struck the ground when he thought he was getting into a fight with the gigantified green mushrooms. He had slammed his weapon hard enough to crush stone. In fact, he had pulverized a section of the ground and the crater that had formed revealed something other than rock hidden a foot beneath the surface. From a quick look, it seemed more like thick gray leather, already bruising from the shockwaves of his attack. It reminded him of the way an apple would bruise after being dropped, wet and mushy.