“How in Nature did he see my snakes? They should’ve been completely invisible to him! There is something very strange going on – and I don’t like it! Guys? Why aren’t you answering me?!”
Deecy had retreated inside the room’s entrance tunnel as soon as he had started his attacks, so she was unharmed even from the too-close use of his spell. She did give him a look that said she disapproved – which was hard to do considering she was a wolf – and he smiled back. “Sorry, I didn’t know they would all attack at the same time. I’ll watch out for any other…surprises.”
“Surprises? I’ll show him surprises…”
Uh oh…
With no other option but to press on (he didn’t even contemplate for a moment retreating – he had already gone too far), Fred let his Power regenerate a little bit before crossing the now-empty field of grass. While he took care to avoid the other spots filled with Mana along the way, he pulled a Health potion out from his PIB and drank it quickly, ignoring the nasty aftertaste it possessed.
There was a small patch of the same deadly grass right in front of the tunnel leading out; the last time he was there it had been disarmed by the Thief-based class they had with them. Fortunately, it was an ability that extended power outside of the body to “shut down” the trap – so he was able to Adapt it for his own use.
Through a little bit of research, he had learned that he had needed to upgrade it to the 3rd level in order to deactivate stronger traps; he just hoped it worked just as he had thought it would. Squatting down next to the corner of the Mana-filled area, he spotted a small, extra-concentrated swirling mass of Mana; it was that swirling concentration that he had seen his groupmates extend their power and shut off the traps. Doing the same thing he had seen countless times, he formed a spike of power and shoved it into the mass, piercing through and shattering it until it dissolved into the ground.
Looking at the rest of the grass, he saw that the Mana had drained from it – just like he was expecting. Extra cautious, however, he tentatively ran his hand through the now-inert stalks – and it was just normal grass. As this was the first time that he had actually used it in a dungeon, he wasn’t sure if it would work the same way and be as successful; fortunately, he was successful, and he stopped worrying about it.
Boldly stepping through, he led Deecy through the tunnel – again checking for any surprise traps along the way – and arrived safely at room number five. Only three more to go and I’m at just under 3,500 Power.
The room was filled with dozens of trees; they weren’t large, but they managed to fill the rather large space fully. He knew there were some defenders in there hiding inside the trees, but it was hard to see everything fully even with his Mana Sight. Again, when he was there before, the group would walk through the trees and they’d be attacked one-by-one, with two of them attacking at the same time near the exit. Knowing what he knew now about the ability of the core to change their orders, however, he was sure they would probably all attack at the same time.
“Stay here – this could get ugly,” he whispered to Deecy, even though volume wouldn’t matter to the core; Fred was told that cores could hear and see anything within the dungeon at all times (which made trying to mess around inside his home as a kid difficult, if not impossible). She stayed inside the tunnel leading to the previous room as he slowly walked through the first few trees, relying on his Mana Sight to see the defenders.
The first half dozen he passed were clear…and so were the next dozen. He kept walking, growing increasingly worried that he couldn’t see anything; suddenly, he saw one of them emerge from behind a tree, the nature of the tree somehow blocking it from even his Mana Sight until it was actually physically visible.
Juvenile Dryad (Level 8)
Vitality: 90
Attack: 12, Root Constriction, Root Extraction
Defense: 6
Respawn: 20 Nature Mana
Loot: 2 silver, 50 copper
Essence: 40 units
He never had that problem before, and he was worried that the core had somehow learned how he was able to see them. The core hadn’t said anything lately, either; Fred figured that since he wasn’t getting a response from any other cores, he had no reason to communicate anymore. Which means he probably thinks I’m coming for him now and is doing everything he can to kill me.
He was about to cast his Fireblast at the glimpse of the form he had seen when a noise behind him caused him to whip his head around; arrayed along the pathway he had just come down were six forms staring at him. Slightly shorter than him, they were the same color as the bark of the trees around them; the only color they had on them was their large oval-shaped and glowing-green eyes. With willowy thin limbs on a body that was only in a general sense shaped like a human, the lower half of the dryads seemed to melt into the ground as if they were more an extension of the dirt and grass than a tree.
Everything felt frozen for a moment as the two sides stared at each other; but then the dryads all lifted their arm-branches out in front of them and the ground underneath Fred exploded. Large roots from the nearby trees shot out of the ground and surrounded him, and it was only a quickly activated shield that prevented him from being ripped apart.
He hadn’t been idle during the standoff, however; as soon as he saw them raise their “arms”, he activated his shield and started tossing out Fireblasts where he remembered they were standing. Three blasts seemed to be direct hits as some of the roots seemed to lose all life within them after each cast; unfortunately, the shield’s rebounding feature didn’t seem to affect the roots too much as he was quickly enveloped in a writhing mass of brown and green tentacles.
He could tell his spikes were doing damage to the roots, but it wasn’t nearly enough; with his vision impaired, he could only try to visualize where he needed his Fireblasts to go. Another hastily cast spell seemed to miss, though the second apparently hit something as some of the roots fell away. With a little more ability to see through the gaps now, he was able to hit another dryad before they closed up again.
Another miss prompted him to concentrate in his mind’s eye where the last one was before he released his spell…and he got it! Even more roots fell away until there was only a writhing set of two left. He quickly turned around, searching for the first dryad he had seen but his shield failed at the same time.
With nothing preventing them from reaching Fred now, they quickly wrapped him up and started to constrict. He frantically searched around for the last defender – but couldn’t see it anywhere. It would be easy enough for the dryad to blend in behind a tree and keep attacking from safety; since his Mana Sight was apparently being blocked by the trees, he had no idea where to attack. There were so many possibilities that he might end up using all of his Power up before he found it – there had to be another way.
He felt like he was being squeezed to death as he lost the ability to breathe; worse yet, he felt his Vitality starting to drain as the roots surrounding him started to suck it out of him like a plant extracting the nutrients from dirt. With only seconds to live, he wracked his head for a solution but came up with nothing; he thought about using the Fireblast near enough to him to destroy the roots but feared it would kill him too. Well, not necessarily “kill” – as his body would stay alive as long as he had the Mana – but he would be helpless against the dryad that was still loose.
He almost just started tossing out Fireblasts everywhere when something his parents once told him popped into his mind. He remembered asking his mother how the dungeon defenders knew who and when to attack, especially since some (like his fire elemental Firbey) didn’t have eyes. She told him that most of them relied on detecting movement one way or another: either through the ground, through the air, or through water using extrasensory receptors. Once they had detected something out of the ordinary (as in, not part of the general dungeon’s mana signature), they were instinctually instructed to attack it.
He hadn’t really understood it then – nor
did he understand it now – but the principle behind it he understood. Hoping that the core hadn’t overridden that instinct, he used his Power on his Conjure Object ability, focusing it on where he thought the last dryad might be, but wasn’t sure. A featureless – and lifeless – naked human body appeared in the air and slammed into the ground, coming to a stop in a jumble of limbs where he had envisioned it.
His vision started to go dark as he strained to see some sort of reaction; he thought it was a failure and was about to start the process of slinging out as many Fireblasts as he could before he passed out when he saw an arm appear out from behind a tree lifting toward the body he had created. If he hadn’t had Mana Sight, he probably would’ve missed it; as it was, the blazing green mana inside the arm was nowhere near where he thought the dryad was. With his last thoughts, he flung out another Fireblast right where he saw the arm and blacked out.
He came to moments later as something soft and wet was assaulting his face. He ineffectually tried to get his arms up to ward off the attack as he opened his eyes – only to get another face-full of Dire Wolf tongue. As soon as she saw he was awake, Deecy stepped back and nosed at his pouch by his side.
Huh? What happened? He was confused for a split-second – but then the pain of a nearly squeezed-to-death body sent shockwaves of agony all through his upper body. Fortunately, even though his arm was bruised and battered, he was still able to move it enough to grab a couple of Health potions from his PIB and bring them to his mouth.
A few minutes later, he was as healthy as he was going to get; his wounds had been healed, though he still felt a little stiff. He looked around, noticing for the first time that all of the roots that had fallen around him were all gone.
He looked at his Power, curious to see how long he had been out.
Power: 2000/6000
Based upon what he thought he had used during the fight and his Power regeneration rate, he didn’t think he had been out for more than a few minutes. Getting up and moving around, he started to feel better; with a quick thanks to Deecy, he preceded her into the tunnel heading toward the next room.
Chapter 37
The sixth room was actually almost as easy as the first few: all Fred had to do was walk in, toss a few Fireblasts, and retreat to the safety of the connecting tunnel while he waited. There was no hiding for the giant Fly Trap.
Bludgeoning Fly Trap (Level 12)
Vitality: 750
Attack: 20 – Bludgeoning Arms, 30 – Thorn-filled Mouth Trap
Defense: 20
Respawn: 210 Nature Mana
Loot: 10 silver
Essence: 300 units
It looked almost exactly the same as the one inside the first dungeon he had visited – if you were to double its size, at least. And add another six arms. And then add some traps around the room that would drop large thorn spikes on your head from the ceiling if you stepped wrong.
However, Fred didn’t have to worry about any of that. His Fireblast did a bit of damage by itself, but that wasn’t what he was relying on – it was the continuing damage that he caused the monstrous defender when it was lit on fire that did the trick. He ended up stepping just inside the room two more times to reignite the fire, but after ten minutes it was burnt to a crisp and unmoving. He thought for a second that the core had done something to make it fake its death, but soon enough it was melting into the ground and he received a rush of Essence.
And, considering his Power regenerated while he was waiting, it only cost 300 Power all told. Going into the last room, he was sitting at 1700 – more than enough. Or so he thought.
* * *
Five minutes later, Fred was rushing back through the tunnel, bruised, bloody, and out of breath. He barely avoided smacking right into Deecy in his rush to relative safety, and as he grabbed two more Health potions from his pouch, he apologized to her with his eyes as he caught his breath.
Well, that didn’t go well.
The last room was supposed to be full of Woodmen, tall soldier-like figures that resembled walking trees that would attempt to swarm the invaders in overwhelming numbers. He had planned on letting them group up to attack and then take out large numbers of them with his Fireblast, which would’ve ended the threat quickly enough.
And, truth be told, he hadn’t seen anything to contradict his thought when he went in. Arrayed in lines ten across and six deep, the Woodmen looked primed for his attack, steadily holding their sharp wooden swords pointed in his direction. Sixty Juvenile Woodmen seemed eager to fight – and so he gave them a fight.
Juvenile Woodmen (Level 7)
Vitality: 60
Attack: 12, Sword Attack, Assembly
Defense: 10
Respawn: 14 Nature Mana
Loot: 1 silver
Essence: 20 units
As only a dozen of them attacked him from different places in the line, he waited until they had grouped up a little bit nearer to him before using his Fireblast, taking out half of them in the process. The last half-dozen got closer and he was able to wait until four of them had gotten close enough together to catch them all in the same blast, flinging their burning bodies halfway across the room in the process. The last two got close enough to attack so he activated his shield, and he watched as they were impaled by his spikes and then launched backwards.
It didn’t outright kill them, which he didn’t really expect it to; strangely, though, instead of running straight back to him, they instead ran back to the waiting “army” of Woodmen. In all honesty, though, they couldn’t really be called Wood “men” anymore – more like Wood “man”.
The dozen that had rushed him were apparently just a distraction; while he wasn’t looking, the remaining forty-eight wood soldiers had all jumped into an enormous pile, melting into one another to form a large undulating wooden hill. As the two remaining Woodmen reached the hill, they threw themselves on top and melted into it.
Fred was so shocked that he couldn’t react, only stare in open-mouthed confusion. What are they doing? He hadn’t seen them do this before; they had only attacked in squads of increasingly larger numbers, straining their tank at the time with trying to keep everything focused on him. He had seen the other “attack” in its stats when he looked at it, but as he hadn’t seen anything come of it the first time, he had ignored it.
Unfortunately.
Now, he was left flat-footed as a shape emerged from the top of the hill and rose into the air, the wood flowing easily into the new form of a colossal woodman. Once it was done forming – at almost 40 feet tall – he concentrated on it to get a better idea of what he was up against.
Giant Mega-woodman (Level 16)
Vitality: 3000
Attack: 50, Sword Attack, Stomp, Disassembly
Defense: 50
Respawn: N/A
Loot: 50 silver
Essence: 1000 units
Now at least I know why the ceiling in here is so tall. The Giant Mega-woodman didn’t quite brush the top of the stone room with its head – but it was close. It held a massive wooden sword that was about a dozen feet long and two feet wide; looking at it made him wonder if his inner core would be able to bring him back if it sliced him in half from head to crotch. Probably not.
It took a step and he could feel a small reverberation through the floor. Another step closer and the shaking was a bit worse, almost enough to unbalance him. Snapped out of his self-imposed stupor, he started flinging Fireblasts toward it, attempting to light it on fire; although he could see that he had inflicted some damage, it didn’t continue as the area he had hit ejected itself. The burning piece that fell to the ground looked like it was a single Woodmen that had taken the brunt of the attack and fallen off. After three relatively unsuccessful attacks, he concentrated again on the monstrous defender.
Giant Mega-woodman (Level 16)
Vitality: 2820
Attack: 47, Sword Attack, Stomp, Disassembly
Defense: 47
Respawn: N/A
&
nbsp; Loot: 47 silver
Essence: 940 units
It appeared as if the attacks that should’ve done major damage to the Giant had instead only “killed” one small Woodmen each, though they did obviously weaken it some. Compared to what it was before his last few attacks, though, it was still a walking tree of death. Which was getting a little too close.
He looked behind to see how far away the entrance tunnel was, and he realized that he had initially come out a bit too far in his earlier confidence. It was only about fifteen feet away, however – so he made a run for it.
He heard a high-pitched *wooshing* sound and instinctually dived forward, slamming his face into the hard ground. He felt the wind batter his body as the massive wooden (but obviously extremely sharp) sword barely missed him, easily slicing a large groove into the rock. Fred got up quickly and attempted to finish crossing the distance, but he saw the sword coming back for him out of the corner of his eye.
Jumping backwards, he again narrowly avoided being sliced in half as the sword crossed in front of his face. With that way out an improbability at the moment, he instead ran back toward the huge woodman, hoping to outrun its attacks while he tried to figure out what he was going to do.
He was down to only enough Power to fire off another five Fireblasts; thinking about it logically was a bit tough in the current situation, but he figured it was a pretty good bet that he wouldn’t get any better result than he already had. Fortunately for Fred, his decision to run at the Woodman was a good one; although it was quick with a sword, the colossal mobile tree wasn’t very fast with its feet. He was able to run right through its legs while it tried to readjust and turn around.
Dungeon World: A Dungeon Core Experience Page 25
