Not everything was going well, however. A new part of the army had appeared—mutated kobolds. No longer furry or draconic, these maddened monstrosities resembled massive bipedal crocodiles with claws the size of daggers and covered in primitive armor. They bulldozed their way through the slime army through sheer power, and their claws were impervious to the acidic nature of the slimes.
“Troublesome foes,” Doc muttered as he watched the kobolds mowing their way through a group of gelatinous slimes. “Forget mutated, these beasts have likely already evolved into a tier 2 monster. My slimes can’t counter something like that right now, these… crocobolds, I suppose.”
Suddenly, a storm of arrows struck one of the crocobolds, piercing its scaly flesh and killing it. The kobold tribe stood ahead, fury radiating off their expressions.
“Guess seeing their kind treated this way is an insult,” Doc observed. “Unfortunately, they can’t put their anger where their strength is.”
The kobold tribe fought valiantly, but they were smaller, weaker, and easier targets compared to the crocobolds. Doc shook his head as their numbers quickly fell, depleted by the horror of war. The lead kobold in the funny hat; he fought the hardest through injury and the loss of his right arm and killed three crocobolds by himself. Doc let out a nod of admiration for the warrior before turning away.
“At least their sacrifice was useful to me,” Doc said carelessly. “Thanks to that attack, the slimes have adapted.” The grey family, having observed the kobolds’ method of fighting, had taken to throwing the armor and sharp slimes into the crocobolds, injuring them with brute carnage and forcing them onto the defensive.
Even then, the crocobolds were too many too strong. Under the enemy’s mind control, they pulled out massive wood and hide shields and slowly advanced once more, rendering the slime attacks moot.
Doc’s crystal glistened. “I didn’t want to do this, but there isn’t any choice.”
On the battlefield, a large crocobolds let out a triumphant roar as it smashed a gelatinous slime into nothingness. A faint buzzing filled its ears, causing it to whip its head back and forth to search for the source. Out of the darkness, a massive swarm of leaf muncher and bee slimes appeared and descended on the crocobolds. Their small size rendered them almost impossible to kill with the simple brute force tactics of the enemy, and soon the entire army of crocobolds wailed in pain as they were slowly devoured and stung to death. The bee slimes also brought out their slimes honey, dropping it onto the wounded slimes and healing them back to full strength.
And still the fight continued, the darkness of the dungeon lighting up with explosion after explosion. The kobold leader, alone and dying, watched carefully as the last of his mutated brethren perished. Sighing, clutching the bleeding stump of its missing arm, it leaned against a tree and slowly slid down to the ground. As the light began to fade, a purple slime rose up from the ground, surprising it. It reached out a tentacle and touched the kobold’s head.
“Shall we make a deal?”
*
“On your right, Rowen!” Anadine cried out. The two slimes ducked as a wooden arm crashed down, creating holes everywhere it struck. The treant dungeon boss was attacking with everything it had: brute force, magical wood projectiles, acidic goo launched by the vines, attempting to devour them whole, and uprooting the area with sharp roots. The two slimes were well aware that the boss version of monsters was always stronger than normal, but even they were astounded by the ferocity of this fight.
“Try to open a path for me with your magic,” she continued, using a tentacle shield to bash away another projectile. “I’ll get in there and chop this tree into sawdust!”
“Don’t be reckless. You’ll get eaten before anything else,” Rowen responded, himself slicing through vine after vine with magic.
“That’s the idea!” the blue slime shouted out cheerfully as she continued her advance. “We aren’t making any headway out here, so let’s try a different angle.”
“That mouth will melt you before you can get anything done!” Rowen argued, “I—oof!” Rowen, failing to dodge an arm, was sent flying into another tree, knocking the wind out of him. He quickly recovered and leaped away just as the tree was showered with wood darts, sending splinters flying everywhere.
“I’m taking the risk, Rowen. Just back me up!” Anadine shouted back. The blue slime, though lacking lungs, took a deep breath, increasing her size. She knew she had once chance. There would be no revives if she missed. All she could do was follow her training, both of them, and seek victory.
“Damnit, fine!” Rowen shouted. “If you die, I’ll bring you back just to kill you again! Darkball!” Rowen unleashed his special attack, a large ball of pulsating darkness that zoomed past Anadine and struck the treant. Upon contact, the ball exploded into countess balls of darkness, each dissolving a chunk of whatever they encountered. The treant wailed as one of its arms snapped off, followed by countless vine and dents in its trunk.
With the path cleared for her, Anadine moved unimpeded through the destroyed area and finally leaped into the air toward the treant, tentacle arms sprouting all over her body. The treant turned and opened its mouth wide, acidic drool dripping.
Just as Anadine was about to fall in, her slime body let out a wicked chuckle.
“Naïve!”
Whipping her arms, the tentacles on her body went backwards, fusing together into two massive tentacle swords that greatly outsized her normal body. As if clapping, the two sharpened swords whipped forward into the sides of the mouth and seared through the tree. Since the mouth area was hollow, the sudden attack clipped the entire tree in half. With a terrible groan, the treant collapsed into two halves, killed faster than it could have ever thought.
Anadine landed smoothly, her arms returning to normal. “It had the strength, but it lacked the intuition or experience to put up a good fight. Just like the army.”
“I didn’t expect you to actually mimic it, though” Rowen commented as he joined her, disgruntled. “Seriously, you copied its arms?”
“I’m a high-tiered mimic slime, you know,” she reminded him. “Even if we are weakened due to Doc, our powers remain. Though I am a bit tired now. I’ll leave the rest to you, Rowen.” Anadine slumped to the ground into a puddle.
Nodding, the white and grey slime slid over to the top portion of the treant. There, glowing in the top of the mouth area, was a perfectly round red gem that glistened in the light. Approaching, Rowen could feel a magical call emanating from it. The gem would grant him power, territory, the ability to have a family—everything and anything Rowen had ever wanted. It could even return to him a human body. All it needed was just a little more time.
With a solid thud, Rowen pierced through the dungeon core without a second thought.
“I’ve already found what I was looking for.”
Epilogue
“It’s over,” Rowen reported in Doc’s heart room. “Here are the remains of the enemy heart crystal.
“Anadine, Rowen, excellent job.” Doc said. The dungeon spirit levitated the pierced red gem up to its crystal to examine it. Its shape was quite different from Doc’s own, perfectly round like a child’s wooden marble and with a deep red color, unlike Doc’s prism shape and purple color. Even in death, the crystal still glowed with magical power.
“We couldn’t stay to investigate the area unfortunately,” Anadine sighed. “I didn’t expect the corruption of the land to fade so quickly. We almost evaporated before making it back inside the dungeon.”
“Rookie mistake,” Ayla commented from the corner where she was resting, a playful smile on her face. “Takes me back though. Back when Aisha and I were fighting the undead dungeon on the battlefield, we had to be summoned back by Doc to save us. All the slimes ended up dying though.”
“Fighting to save adventurers though, still regret,” Aisha murmured. “But, not all regret, maybe.”
“In any case,” Doc resumed speaking, “this core has enough
mana to take me back up to enough strength for tier 3 slimes, maybe even enough left over to expand the maze floor into a proper form with traps.”
“You’re not going to try to recreate your dungeon?” Anadine asked, curious.
“No, not this time,” Doc let out a chuckle. “I’ve learned my lesson. Rather than being a large dungeon, I think this time I’ll concentrate on expanding the strength of my monsters. This fight only proved Claire’s past worries, that I’m not strong enough. When she wakes back up, I want to show her a dungeon she can feel proud of and feel safe in. She needn’t suffer stress any more beyond the upkeep of her home.”
“Pixies are not built well for stress,” Anadine nodded. “Fey in general react negatively to dramatic changes and problems. In my past life, I knew a few elves who killed themselves over a break-up with their human partner. I can just imagine what a dungeon pixie, a being with purer fey blood, would do in a similar situation.”
The five of them all looked down at Claire, who was still slumbering peacefully in her bed under Rowen’s slime blanket.
“I’ll be focused on absorbing this crystal, so the four of you are in charge of patrolling the dungeon for any remaining mutated monster who survived,” Doc ordered. “I noticed many fled into the forest and possibly the maze after losing the dungeon’s control. With their strength so high, it would be good they all perish sooner rather than later.”
“This is the slime dungeon, and all non-slimes shall be killed.”
*
In a dimly lit room, two pixies were kneeling. Their bodies quivered in fear as they shakily awaited the reaction to their report.
“So, let me get this straight,” a cool, silky voice echoed up from above them. “You mean to tell me the plant dungeon I was raising is … dead? The dungeon, that I might add, was meant to be gifted to the son of an important ally of mine, one that would secure me a sure place in line for family head at the next gathering? This dungeon, correct?”
“Ye, yes your most holy of graces,” the pixie on the left stammered out. “We had reports of another dungeon moving in on its territory, and-”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” The voice quietly interrupted.
“It was a weak dungeon sir, we checked it out ourselves,” the pixie on the right hurriedly explained. “It was clearly damaged and weakened, so we provided the baby dungeon some Dream flower seeds and filled it with enough mana to protect it, all without showing ourselves like you ordered. It should have been an easy win!”
“It’s dead,” the voice said, monotonous. “Clearly, you two failed to ascertain the true strength of this dungeon. Which means, you both are incompetent, and I don’t need incompetent followers.”
“No, please sir, give us another chance!” The two pixies begged together, prostrating fully onto the ground.
“Take them away,” the voice ordered. “Have their dungeons show corruption and kill a few adventurers. When they are dead, deliver their corpses to my mother as a gift.” From the shadows, two black knight pixies appeared and dragged the screaming pixies away, ignoring the screams of pain and begging.
“Useful fools,” the silky voice muttered. “They’ve ruined my plans; plant dungeons are hard enough to raise, let alone find.”
“Master, letter from you most esteemed mother,” a knight appeared from behind and handed over a black envelope. A dazzling white hand gracefully took it and opened it with a sharp fingernail. With a snap of his fingers, a dazzling light appeared in the air, illuminating the figure.
Long, glistening black hair framing a handsome face dressed in a black and gold robe. Golden wings shook behind him as he leaned forward on his throne, examining the paper.
“It seems my precious baby sister was involved in something interesting,” the voice giggled a moment later. “My, divine power she says? Oh mother, you always did spoil her over me and my brothers. Wanting to find her? Ah, a reward . . .”
The figure leaned back on his throne, which rearranged itself to not impede his outstretched wings.
“Make a note of it slave. I care not how but find my sister’s dungeon before my annoying brothers. This is just what I need to fix this mess with the Florian family. She doesn’t know what kind of dungeon my sister possesses, but it won’t be an undead. Search every dungeon just over a year old.”
“Yes master,” the knight bowed in deference. “And what of the dungeon that derailed your plan.”
“Hm,” the figure tapped his throne carefully. “I wouldn’t do for my image to illuminate a dungeon so weak.” A devilish smile blossomed on his face. “It’s about time to recruit for our faction is it not? Tell those youngsters that whoever can eliminate this dungeon will be brought in with all the benefits of my protection.”
“It will be done my master.”
*
Claire looked around, confused. She had no idea where she was.
“Where the hell am I!” She screamed, her voice echoing in the blue void she found herself in.
“Neither here nor there I suppose,” a carnation to her left answered her. “You’re here, so you are not lost, be then again being somewhere doesn’t mean you aren’t lost.”
“Don’t forget that perceiving here is not the same as being here,” a cherry blossom reminded the carnation. “For all she knows, she could be somewhere else.”
“Please be quiet,” Claire groaned. “You’re both very annoying to listen to.”
“You’re the one that made us this way,” the carnation grumbled, clearly annoyed. “Not that you know or realize or even understand.”
“I’m being punished,” Claire declared, “some cosmic being outside the entire flow of order has decided that I deserve this somehow.”
“Well you did do some heavy drugs,” the cherry blossom agreed. “In this place, that cosmic being outside the flow of order would be you, since nothing here can invite you in. So, you’ve done this to yourself. Does that make you a genius or a fool?”
Claire could only groan.
*
In the slime dungeon, the kobold females wept as they gathered the corpses of their fallen males. The younglings looked on and cried as the warriors were piled up in preparation for the burning, an honored kobold tradition for the fallen. None of them noticed the ring of slimes enclosing them in all directions, led by a blue slime.
“There is no room for non-slimes in the dungeon,” Anadine murmured, hearing Doc’s words repeat over and over in her mind.
“Those crocobolds were quite dangerous, more so than any of the other mutated beasts. The kobolds possess the same potential.”
She looked on at the grieving kobolds. She felt no hesitation. Her tentacles slapped the ground, and the cave was filled with screaming as the females melted into the bodies of Anadine’s minions.
Anadine herself gathered the younglings into a group, examining their small, frightened figures. She let out a slimy smile and pushed a pile of slime cores at them.
“Welcome to the dungeon. I can’t wait for you to evolve.”
At the entrance to the dungeon, the worg skull was now joined with a kobold skull, wearing a funny stone hat.
Afterwards
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUIKk-er7H0&t=1s
ve.
Dungeon Wars Page 26
