“I wish you had it back when I was forced to dance with that workercat.” Arden rubbed the side of her eyebrow at the memory. “Before you go into how much fun the skill would be to have, you need to figure out what kind of benefits it could give you.”
“I could walk around with everyone.”
“But how would that help? Could you fight in that form?”
“I think I’d have to upgrade to do that.” Minette didn’t sound sure of herself.
“What does the skill’s description say?”
“Oh, what do you know? It says it can make me overpowered beyond all belief. Super OP! I’ll become the God Tier Dungeon when I buy it.”
“It does not say that.” Arden called bullshit.
“It definitely does. Too bad you can’t read it.”
“Seriously, what benefits does that skill give you? How does it help?”
Minette laughed. “My presence can give units temporary combat and Morale buffs. I can help raise the workercats’ productivity, too. And you can see what I really look like. We can see which one of us makes the better cat girl.”
“It’s not like I chose to be one.”
“It suits you. You’re aloof, bossy, and kind of standoffish, but it’s a cover for how you really are.”
“And what’s that?” Arden glared at the ceiling.
“I haven’t fully figured that out yet.”
“Which means you’re full of hot air. Again.”
“Are you afraid of something? You’re so defensive,” Minette said. “I’ve been very patient with you. The least you could do is be nice.”
“It’s hard to be nice to you when I have to do all the thinking for the both of us. You’re not a thinker. All you want to do is ‘have fun and pet cute animals.’” Arden adopted Minette’s tone for her insult. “You want everything to be fun. That kind of attitude led you to the dreckitude that was your dungeon before I showed up.”
Minette erupted into a series of sneezes. They shook the hallway with their force. Arden leaned against the wall for support, her hand scrambling for purchase among the dirt.
Arden growled. “You can’t sneeze your way out of this.”
“No, I’m really—ahhh CHOO!”
The wall quaked, the rough movement slapping Arden into the air. She managed to stay upright. Her wings kept her airborne. The screeches of scared workercats sounded off in the distance.
“I told you not to get sick!” Arden yelled.
“I don’t think I’m sick. I’m allergic to kossbugs.” She sneezed again.
Cue the wailing of the poor workercats.
“What in the good name of the Demon Lord Oiseau, Overseer of Bellstrang’s Dungeons and Ruler of Cross-eyed Pigeons, are kossbugs? We would’ve been alerted to any enemy creatures wandering in here.” Unless the kossbugs snuck in as items somehow, she and Minette should’ve known about them.
“They’re—” Minette stopped to sneeze. “They’re parasites. No alerts for them. Did you happen to see anything weird on any of my walls? Wet spots or anything like that?”
“I think I might have, back in the Warp Gate room.”
“They’re here. Annihilate them. Kill every last one of them. Exterminate!” Her words lost their punch due to her sounding like she was on the verge of another sneeze. To her credit, though, she did a good job of holding it in until she finished speaking.
[NEW MISSION -KILL ‘EM ALL-
Clear your beloved dungeon of every last kossbug. Have Blaize and Mickey-Scotia help. If you’re good at it, maybe we’ll earn an Advancement.
I want you to do your best, but, above all else, I want you to HURRY UP AND SAVE ME FROM THIS WRETCHED HELL.]
“Wait, you can create and send out your own messages like that?” Arden asked.
“That’s what I do most of the time. It’s part of my Dungeon Keeping skill. Do you want to hear my rendition of a SYSTEM message voice?”
Minette’s next series of violent sneezes saved Arden from having to hear it.
Every time she sneezed, it was like the dungeon was about to implode in on itself. The workercats wouldn’t be able to do anything under these circumstances. The work environment was far too hostile. Arden was going to recommend that they huddle in a room somewhere, but maybe, hanging out in the hall was safer.
Who knew if her sneezing could dislodge objects? It certainly had the power to push units around. Arden wondered if any of the plants would be uprooted. The Recreation Center had to be a mess, what with all of its freestanding toys. Bless whoever would have to clean the room.
“I’m going to need a peon in case we need to do any digging,” Arden said.
“Drasko is somewhere around there. Use him. I’ll Influence him to stay.” Minette breathed in for another sneeze.
Arden didn’t start flying until Minette finished.
***
Finding a wet streak on a dirt wall was a more difficult prospect than Arden expected. It was made exceptionally more difficult by Minette’s sneeze-quakes. Still, Arden persevered with her team of two cattens and a workercat. Communication consisted of pointing and tapping on the wall.
“Do you smell anything amiss, anything at all?” Arden had a feeling the cat monsters’ answer to her question would be the same as the other answers they’d given her.
Mickey-Scotia didn’t look at her. Blaize cocked her head to the side. Drasko scratched his belly.
In other words, they gave her their usual responses.
“I was a fool to think you guys would act any differently,” she said with a sigh. “C’mon, we can trace the perimeter of this room again.” Arden surveyed the walls as she took flight.
One of the cattens hissed. Her whole body went rigid. The other one reared up, her fur rising. Drasko yelped. His ears flattened to his skull, while his eyes darted around the room.
Hope rose within Arden. “This looks promising.”
What happened next had her looking as scared as Drasko.
Arden watched it happen in slow motion. The ceiling liquidated. It splashed down over their heads, soaking into the ground beneath them. The dirt churned into mud, Arden falling into it. The drenched soil mucked up her wings. She struggled to regain her footing.
The cats didn’t fare much better. Blaize scrambled to get free. Drasko grabbed on to her, making that a lost cause for the both of them. Mickey-Scotia yowled, mud caking her body. Arden came to the sharp realization that they were slipping. The mud dragged them downwards. It was swallowing them up.
“Minette! What’s happening?” Arden switched into her humanoid Disguise. Her far larger size helped her keep her head above the mud.
“Buzz, buzz,” she said in return.
“Don’t you dare buzz at me! We’re sinking.” Looking up, she saw that an infinite darkness replaced where the ceiling once was. She waved her arms, attempting to stay abreast of their everything’s-gone-to-shit situation.
The mud was lowering, taking them along with it. The Warp Gate remained in its place. It hovered in the center of the room, almost like it was resting on an invisible floor. In that regard, Minette still held onto some of her structural integrity. It was a shame she couldn’t keep herself together enough to not drown three of her units and her pixie.
The cats were no longer screaming. In fact, it seemed like all semblance of sound had left the Warp Gate room. Arden expected to hear a splash when she moved her arm, but there was nothing. Her vision blurred over, her nose clogging with the strong smell of dirt. Losing her other senses empowered the stench.
Rancid.
Normal dirt and mud weren’t supposed to smell like that. Arden shook her head to clear the fog.
Closing and opening her eyes revealed a dark cavern.
Her senses returned.
Arden streaked her hand through her hair, finding it dry. The other units were the same way, their fur no longer matted with mud. Drasko had his paws over his face. He was shaking like a leaf in the wind. The cattens growled, hissed, and spit at...s
omething.
A dim light over a doorway beckoned them to venture forth.
“We must be in the kossbugs’ part of the dungeon,” Arden said. She considered releasing her Disguise to conserve her mana points, but she remembered the fire-augmented daggers.
Putting up with how annoying Robin had been turned out to be more than worth it.
She smiled at the thought of scorching the kossbugs.
“Okay, we should move quietly. We don’t know what’s going to be down that hallway. There hasn’t been enough time for the parasites to become that advanced, but you never know. They’re not like the rest of us. They play by different rules.”
Drasko sat on the ground and shook his head in defiance.
“Yeah, it’s probably better for you to stay back,” Arden said. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Minette! Can you hear me? Tell me if there’s anything weird down that hall.”
She received no reply, not even a buzz.
“Alright, we’re on our own. That’s fine.” Arden fixed her shirt. “We’ll head into the hallway on the count of three.”
Blaize and Mickey-Scotia raced down the hall without her.
Arden took a leap, her arms stretched out.
She promptly fell on her face, due to forgetting that she wasn’t in her normal pixie body.
Shaking off the embarrassment, Arden broke into a run. Catching the cattens may have been nigh on impossible if they hadn’t been slowed down by the appearance of the very things they sought.
Kossbugs were like catten-sized centipedes. Pincers framed their mouths. A foul-smelling liquid dripped from them, which explained the rancid smell assaulting Arden.
Their drool hissed and sizzled when it hit the ground.
“Watch for that,” Arden warned the cattens.
They had four kossbugs to deal with in the cramped hallway. Arden held out her hands, Robin’s daggers materializing as she equipped them from her Inventory.
Blaize snarled, then launched claws first at the nearest kossbug. Her swift speed came into play as her claws sliced through the kossbug. One set of slices smoothly transitioned into another set.
A putrid odor clouded the hall, coming from the kossbug’s wounds.
Mickey-Scotia moved next. She tackled a kossbug, bringing it to the ground. Her claws hooked into it. It squirmed to get free. Its efforts only caused more of its blood to pour and stink up the place. The kossbug’s pincers clicked, its face coming close so it could leak its drool on to Mickey-Scotia. The catten twisted the kossbug to the side.
The other two kossbugs set their ugly sights on Arden, because of course the pixie would have to deal with two monsters at once. She cast a Hallucination of an angry catten to draw one of the kossbugs away.
“Bring it, insect!” she shouted at the lone kossbug before her.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for it to become clear that kossbug outclassed Arden. All it took was for the kossbug to smash its head into her stomach and she went flying.
She definitely intended to block that hit, though. It wasn’t her fault that she got owned. Her arms just weren’t working at that moment. Plus, the kossbug pulled a cheap move. It cheated.
Arden groaned. She got up, only to get knocked over again when Mickey-Scotia tossed a kossbug in her direction.
Stars and corpse glitter dust were all she saw for a moment. Her only refuge existed in the sounds of carnage. The cattens crunched through the kossbugs’ skin, cracking through them and splitting them open like lobsters. No help from Arden needed, the cattens exterminated the disgusting bugs. She deactivated her Hallucination.
Arden stood and then immediately wanted to crawl her way into the dirt.
Perhaps there was a more elegant way to describe it, but sometimes the simple and straightforward description’s the best. To put it simply: it smelled like ass. And not any ass, but the rankest, swampiest ass there ever was.
She retched, unable to properly throw up.
By the time she lifted her head, the cattens had already gone down the hall.
A yowl-oh from the other side stopped her from chasing after them.
Drasko!
“Blaize! Mickey-Scotia! Get back here!” she yelled.
Arden didn’t have the time to wait for their return. She hurried back to where they left the workercat, her arms and legs pumping like mad. The last thing they needed was to lose a workercat.
Although, when she got back to Drasko, she started to think that losing a peon might not be that bad. If she was quiet, maybe she could tiptoe back down the hallway with the cattens. The giant tiara-wearing kossbug might not have noticed her yet. It was a shame it was giving Drasko quite the cardio work-out, what with him running around the room and all.
Nope. Not doing this. Arden took steps back.
Sadly, her attempt to nope was denied by the King or Queen or Prince or Princess or Whatever-its-Highness-was kossbug’s even greater NOPE. Arden slid into her fighting stance, which needed some work, she had to admit. She wasn’t sure how holding one dagger above her head and the other one by her hip would help her not get torn to pieces by this giant bug thing, but she tried it.
Nothing happens if you don’t try. The royal kossbug must’ve been a fellow fan of that old school adage because it tried to close its pincers on Arden. She crossed her arms, holding back the pincers with her daggers. It was like she was fending off the world’s worst hug.
No longer the bug’s primary target, Drasko ran to the far wall. He pressed against it, then gave Arden a fiery glare that said Drasko will remember this.
Arden dropped below. The pincers snapped closed in the space over her head. She struck out to hit them with the daggers. They uselessly clanged against the tough skin. The pincers popped open, no longer holding back the drool that was now rudely dripping on Arden.
It chewed through her sleeve and bubbled her skin. The blisters popped fresh blood. She screamed, seizing up for a moment. Her health dropped to 208 out of her original 300.
Arden released her Disguise. The daggers laid on the ground, helping no one. She flew out of the royal kossbug’s reach, her arm peppered with oozing holes. It swung its head towards her, its sharp pincers clicking. Kicking her legs gave her the added momentum to get away in time.
She cast a Hallucination spell to distract the kossbug. Its too-many-damn feet scurried towards the fake dancing workercat. While it was occupied, Arden reactivated her Disguise. These back-to-back actions cost her 75 mana and counting. Her supply falling to drastic levels. Pain kept her from succumbing to her weariness.
Daggers back in hand, she rushed to get in a couple of hits. Her first blow cracked the shell covering its tail, but the second hit didn’t do much of anything. The blade glanced off of its exposed flesh.
Having discovered the workercat to be false, the kossbug screeched with bitter rage. It was probably also screeching because Arden cracked its butt open. That was an important distinction to make. Rage and literal butt hurt would make any monster scream.
The kossbug whipped its massive body around. Its thick flank smacked into Arden, hurling her off to the side. Whomp! She didn’t land with any amount of style or grace. She ended up in a heap, a collection of janky limbs and a terribly dizzy head.
Giving her hardly any time to gather her many wits, the bug advanced.
“Gumdrops!” Arden rolled over.
The bug snapped at her. She traced an arc with the dagger. The blade wound up making a new scabbard for itself in the side of the bug’s face. The kossbug roared, acidic spit flinging out of its mouth. Arden twisted in time for the globs to only hit her in the upper chest and shoulder.
Bye, bye clothes and bye, bye enormous chesticles. Better for all of that to go than having her face melt off. But, really, acid is wholly unpleasant no matter where it hits you. No one would recommend it other than knobblogs, and they liked to peel their skin off for fun and stick it onto slimes. Needless to say, knobblogs are not tastemakers. Thei
r trends will never be in vogue.
Her thoughts nowhere near revolving around knobblogs or their heinous fashion trends, Arden curled up in agony. The kossbug lowered its head to snatch her up in its pincers.
Two beautiful roars signified her heroes’ return. Blaize and Mickey-Scotia jumped on the kossbug and took the fighting back into their skilled and capable paws. They writhed, then rolled and cut up the horrid creature and did all the great things that monsters that were meant for fighting can do.
Arden didn’t see all this happen herself. She was far too busy being huddled up in a ball, crying her eyes out (almost literally because of the fumes).
She could see the reviews printed in the Dungeon Reviews Digest now: Weak pixie, constantly had to be bailed out by other creatures. Too much of a whiney bitch. Boring, cat obsessed dungeon. Stick to the other dungeons. Crawl away!
Arden tried to do the last suggestion. She dragged herself across the ground, leaving a trail of gore like a slug trails its slime.
Combat stuff happened. Arden was losing her attachments to reality, which made it hard to focus on the fighting happening right next to her. She vaguely recognized Drasko fainting at the sight of her ragged excuse for a body. Her Disguise wore off. Arden felt like a fly floating in a water glass, the water being the blood she’d spilled in her humanoid form.
Metaphors and metaphors. Maybe that was too many of them all at once. Floating in her make-believe la la land shielded her from the fact that she was at 12 health points and 0 mana points.
Oh, great. The numbers were right there, ruining everything. How was she supposed to act like she wasn’t dying when all she could see were the numbers 12 and 0?
Something squished, big time. Then, there were a bunch of other little squish squishes. The cats kept roaring, except for Drasko, seeing how he was incapacitated.
“Hey there, wet light,” Arden mumbled. She probably meant to say “white light,” but her brain went to lunch around the time she took her acid bath. It never came back.
A so-called “wet” light took over all that Arden could see.
When it dissipated, she and the others were back in the Warp Gate room. It was entirely normal. The dirt was as it should be. The ceiling had come back. Arden still had a massive hole in her body, among other problems, but everything else seemed alright.
The Trash Tier Dungeon Page 7
