A Dungeon’s Survival

Lawrence

“Stay back and brace yourselves,” Flur demanded before throwing a blade at something out of sight.

A moment later, darkness erupted from up ahead. It seemed to encompass everything as various plant life was ripped apart. A shiver ran down my spine at the sight.

“Wait, that's it?” our leader sounded confused, and was that a hint of disappointment in her voice?

“What was that?” Lance asked.

“A Crystal Puffer. They're common monster weeds native to the Great Caverns. They explode with magical effects if you get too close or when killed. I can't say I've ever seen that effect before, though, which is odd. Also, it didn't give any experience! Come on, deeper levels are supposed to be more dangerous, not a waste of time!”

“Ha ha, are you really complaining about something being weak down here?”

“Hey, if I'm forced to relive my childhood trauma, I at least expect the Dungeon to compensate me for it! Those things are a menace. They pop up everywhere. You can't get rid of them, and you're best off forgetting about any nearby mana crystals when they go off. Their explosions contaminate them, so unless you want random level one monsters exploding in your bag, they're a lost cause.”

“Ugh, that sounds horrible, actually. Hey, what about all the crystals Lizard-Bait's been gathering? Are they fine, or should we dump them?”

I jolted at his words. The thought of dumping the immense bounty I had harvested was enough to make me sick to my stomach. Luckily, Flur's next words put my concerns at ease.

“He's away from the front, and they're already stashed, so it'll be fine, probably.”

I sighed in relief, but I did start fidgeting with the pack that held them after that. I was making sure its pockets were sealed as tightly I could get them.

“Hey, Autumn,” Flur said, “there's another over there. See? It's the black one that looks like a massive dandelion. Come over here, and shoot it. I want to see how much experience you get.”

With a nod, she made to do as instructed. A few seconds later, an arrow was loosed. It impacted something out of sight from where I stood, and the sound of splattering came from up ahead. That was different from what had happened with the first one.

“How much?” Flur asked.

“None. No experience gained.”

“Seriously? In this Dungeon? If I didn't know any better, I'd just think they were normal monsters.”

She paused for a long few moments before turning to me, “Hey, Lizard-Bait, these things vary depending on the type of crystals they root in. Do you think we need to get one of each of them, or should just one do? Also, you might want to examine their mana crystals. Those weren't the effects of any I've ever seen before. Also, make sure to keep them separate from the others, and keep an eye on them, too.”

“Uh, right,” I absentmindedly agreed while the implications of what she had said were still sinking in for me.

Then, as an afterthought, I answered her previous question, “It would be probably be best to get one of each. There's more my master could learn from them that way.”

She nodded, and I quickly made my way to where the first of the downed creatures laid, my heart pounding as I did so. It had taken me a moment, but the significance of her words had reached me in full by this point. If she was unfamiliar with their variety, and that variety was based on their crystals, they couldn't be ordinary.

The idea of rare mana types being sealed within them excited me, but when I got to the hole in the wall where the monster was, I came to a stop and paused as I stared. The dead plant monster was lying limply inside the cavity. It didn't look like much, but the thing the base of its stem was connected to caught my eye for reasons I hadn't expected I to.

“That's weird,” I mumbled as I reached in and struggled to remove the plant monster from the magical reagent.

At first glance, I had thought the crystal was just oddly shaped, but as I pulled it closer, I realized what I was looking at. It was a shadow mana crystal, full and complete, but there was also a wind mana crystal connected to it. That should have been an impossibility from what I knew of the things.

“This doesn't add up. Mana crystals are supposed to form from large pockets of elemental mana. The conditions they need to develop require a single, overwhelming mana source to be present, but this one has two entirely different types of mana formed in separate crystals. It's like they formed independently and were fused together. Something like this shouldn't be able to naturally occur. This could only be done artificially.”

“You're right. That is odd,” the only person present who was likely to be more knowledgeable than me on the subject spoke up, “but I wouldn't think too hard about it. We're in a Dungeon. There's plenty of stuff in here that you can't find elsewhere, and as far as I know, none of it forms in the same way things naturally do. It's one of the reasons why they're so coveted. Cool, rare things are commonplace here.”

“Yeah,” I deflated, “I guess you're right.”

I had been excited for the implications of the find up until that point. My mind had been jumping to hypothetical scenarios that could potentially lead to the formation of such a strange sight, but she was right. It likely meant nothing.

“Could someone else carry this?” I asked, “Most of my bags are full, and I don't think a magical explosion around my reagents would turn out well for any of us.”

Flur shrugged and took the crystal from me. Then, we began our walk forward again at a snail's pace. Our formation had changed slightly from before the delay, Flur putting Autumn up front, so she could shoot any of the monsters and vines the two of them spotted before we reached them, something that let our leader conserve her daggers. That was about all that changed, though. It was slow progress, and it was uneventful. Aside from the explosions of varying effects that would occasionally ring out, nothing really happened. Most of us seemed fine with that, but the tedium of it began agitate our leader after a while.

“Somehow, this is worse than the first floor! At least there were rewards back there. This is pointless!” she complained.

“Hey, at least I don't have a Plated Gator growling spittle onto my face,” Lance argued.

“You only say that because you're not the one trying to spot monsters in this place. There's hardly a clear surface, yet somehow, I'm more wary of those than anything else. The only silver lining is that, even if we get hit by these things, we're not likely to get hurt too bad since they're so weak, something I'd be happy to trade for some experience.”

As if for the sole purpose of agitating her more, the next plant's effect was to release a seemingly harmless fog that impaired our vision.

“Come on! Really?” she shouted, “That isn't even an attack! That's just annoying!”

She threw her hands up and took another couple of steps forward, impatience clearly getting the best of her. That was when it happened.

Whoosh!

Sploosh!

From right beside her and Autumn, the first plant to have gone undetected was set off. Before any of us could react, a blindingly bright light encompassed us. I heard screams from up ahead as a wave of force hit me. I found myself pushed back a step or two as I clenched my eyes shut. Then, I heard a wail of pain followed by a string of curses.

I blinked rapidly, trying to regain my vision. As an image began to blur back into place, I noticed something concerning. Two figures stood in front of me. Before whatever that had been, I was second to last in our formation. That meant, there should have been three.

I rubbed at my eyes furiously, and began reaching for my potions. My sense kicked back in a moment later, and I jerked my hand back. I had no clue what was going on in front of me. Randomly chucking potions probably wasn't the best idea that state. I was more likely to make things worse than actually help. Gritting my teeth, I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. That was when, I felt myself get shoved to the side as Lance pushed past me.

“Flur,” he called out, “are you okay?”

Our leader's response was a shrill cry, “I hate it here!”

When my vision eventually returned well enough for me to get a grasp of the situation, I realized what had happened. In front us was a pit. Autumn had narrowly avoided getting pushed into it, having instead been slammed against the wall by its edge. Flur hadn't been so lucky.

Having been in front of the rest of us, she alone had been hit by the brunt of the sudden surprise attack. Our leader, had been sent tumbling toward the same wall as Autumn, but unlike her, the floor beneath her hadn't been so forgiving. Past the low sitting brush in front of it and the fog that had obscured it from view, there was a hole. I shuddered as I stuck my head over the edge of it and looked down. The sight of what was below made me wince. I instinctively reached for my staff of healing magic.

That's going to take some work, I thought to myself.

At the bottom of the pit were stalagmites, much like the ones in the second room. Flur had landed in such a way that she had been impaled by one through the shoulder. Also, everything in the pit, Flur included, was covered in a dark fluid, the source of which was likely the Crystal Puffer sitting between the bases of the stone spikes.

There was no obvious solution to resolve that mess, and as a result, dealing with it took us a while. What we eventually ended up doing was having Lance carefully lower himself down and help our leader to remove herself from the rock that was jutting into her. From there, we lowered down one of the vines from the room after removing most of the thorns from it. Together, we tried to heft the pair out of the pit. The vine didn't hold.

Some time later, we had managed to prepare several such lengths of the vines. Together, they were enough to extract our party members. That was when my work really began. Healing Flur was not a quick process with the size of the wound, but magic did work wonders. By the time I was done, she wasn't thrilled with the lingering lowered mobility in her upper left arm, but given the circumstances, it was the best I could do.

After that, there was talk about whether we should continue on or turn back, but she insisted on the former course of action, so we began to move forward once more. That was mostly because none of us felt like arguing with her at the moment. We also didn't talk too much after that. The moth girl was absolutely fuming, and none of us wanted to set her off. Fortunately, we didn't run into too much trouble as we made our way through the remainder of the passage. On the other side of it was a large, open room filled with Crystal Puffers.

As the sight of it came into view, I flinched. I didn't personally mind the things all that much, but I was not looking forward to our leaders reaction to all of them. Bracing myself, I was about as ready for the oncoming tirade she was about to spew at the Dungeon as I could get, but to my shock, it didn't come. Instead, she just laughed. That, for some reason, sent an even worse shiver down my spine.

“Uh, you good?” Dan asked.

“Oh, I'm fine, great even!”

What followed was a scene of floral carnage as she began to take her anger out on the wide variety of monsters in the room.