No Need For A Core? - 113: Fierce Fight Facing a Ferocious Fungus

113: Fierce Fight Facing a Ferocious Fungus

No Need For A Core? by Zagaroth

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With both of the sixth-floor bosses being shape changers, near the core, and entirely new to their capabilities, Mordecai invited both of them to join the family in the war room. Neither was perfect in taking their human forms; Jasi had a hint of the serpentine still, with traces of scales and slitted eyes, while Kulle’s hair was rather mane-like and carried a hint of dampness, but they were still mastering their new abilities, and more fully developed minds. Not that Mordecai could talk: his tendency to keep purplish hair was a vanity to the color of his core, while his golden eyes were a vanity to his affinity for dragons.

As the four groups settled onto their respective couches, he noticed an interesting thing about the way Kazue had arranged things. The new couch that Jasi and Kulle were sharing was a loveseat the same size as the one her parents shared. He gave Kazue a narrow-eyed look, and she beamed innocently at him. Mordecai snorted with amusement; it seemed he wasn’t the only one willing to play matchmaker.

While they were too new at being people for Mordecai to worry about a romance blooming anytime soon, the idea did have him pondering what the offspring would be like, and the best he could come up with was the most terrifying version of a hippocamp he’d ever heard of. Hmm. It might be best to make a routine so that any offspring of bosses were considered guests until they were older. As long as they were kept in the ever-growing warrens when they had visitors, there shouldn’t be any issues, but he didn’t want any problems with a powerful offspring not being comfortable on the same floor their parents were on. It was unlikely they’d be that strong before adulthood, but better safe than sorry.

With that done, he turned his focus on the delving party. They were changing up their formation after discussing the information on the sign, namely that there are warring ‘factions’ on this level. In addition to this, while Brongrim and Nainvil were capable as vanguards, neither of them was particularly adept as a scout.

So the two of them joined the three caravan guards in forming a protective ring around the kitsune. With potential social situations at hand, no one was to attack unless something else attacked first, and let Takehiko speak first. Shizoku was still their leader, but Takehiko was the more practiced, smoother talker. The thirteen-year-old was going to do her best to dimple at anyone that they were negotiating with. The three-tail admitted that this was the best course, but she didn’t care much for playing the part of ‘cute kid’.

By the time the party encountered one of the factions, they’d already had to deal with fungal spores and poisoned darts, as well as attacks from feathered serpents. The small troop they encountered was the light cavalry mounted on polecats, and the kitsune turned on the charm. The bunkin instantly folded when Shizoku did her best to beam at them, and Mordecai groaned as he realized what happened. “Kazue, this is your fault.”

“What?” His wife blinked, and everyone in the war room turned their attention to him.

“Our more social inhabitants are all used to practically worshiping the one adorable, small, kitsune woman they know. Their ability to say ‘no’ to Shizoku is only slightly greater than their ability to say no to you, at least so long as she keeps the charm on. And a number approaching that close to zero might as well be zero.”

“Oh,” Kazue said while Moriko started laughing. “Um, well,” the little redhead kitsune suddenly smiled at him. “At least I know you think I’m adorable.”

“You already knew that.” He replied dryly. “Now, let me mitigate this.” Mordecai turned his attention to the various bunkin on the fifth floor. “Alright, I know Shizoku is cute in almost the same way Kazue is, but shore up your emotions at least a little. I’m not going to interfere with current negotiations beyond this: you can only escort them as far as your own camp, you may conduct trade so long as you keep it fair for yourselves, and you can not offer combat support beyond that initial escort.” Mordecai hadn’t intended to intervene at all, but he was worried that they’d get carried away and even help them in the boss room.

The acknowledgments he got back were a little sheepish, and he just shook his head in amusement. They’d have to fix that minor flaw later. If Aia found out, she’d be ruthless in sending teams with cute shrine maidens every time.

Akahana pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I wonder if I could have gotten away with that.” Ricardo naturally assured her that she’d have done even better. Mordecai thought that despite looking like Kazue’s slightly older sister, she had a different sort of attractiveness. But he hadn’t survived over a thousand years by expressing such thoughts.

This extremely successful negotiation tactic got the party to the light cavalry faction’s camp, the opportunity to safely rest while they conducted some trades, and guaranteed safe passage if they encountered any more light cavalry. It was a tactic that he’d made specifically viable, it just wasn’t supposed to be quite this easy.

Well, there was a reason it was good to have a trusted group run your setup. It was the best way to find flaws. At least the path forward had them cross a bridge over the river, where the water drakes got a shot at them, and further on one of the giant spiders ambushed them just as they were finishing off one of the mushroom trees with strangling vines. That little surprise left them looking a bit ragged and forced Takehiko to use a mid-tier (for him) spell. Compared to someone like Aia or Traxalim, Takehiko’s top-tier spells were mid-tier.

Mordecai intervened for the second time when the party reached the boss room. He had Klastoria stay out of the fight and prompted three of the feathered serpents to harass Takehiko once the fight started, with some more on standby if needed. His decision here was based on testing what would invoke the aura to boost their bosses, and it would fade if he had both of them ready to fight. Having some weaker creatures around to harass Takehiko seemed fine by whatever standards were used.

In his original dungeon, he’d not stumbled across this ability until much later and had just assumed that it was an instinct or reflex of some sort. It also hadn’t mattered much by then, as he had a lot more floors and very few people got near the end. It just wasn’t important to him, just something nice. After his dream visitation with Ozuran, Mordecai had a different point of view and assumed that some way of comparing relative strength had been deliberately built in and automated.

The party was confused by the three red crystals glowing at the top of the cavern and paused to discuss what it meant, but were unable to come to a conclusion as to what they meant. So they slowly began exploring the floor, trying to figure out where the boss was. They came to a stop once more when they found the giant mushroom tree, and after some more conversation, split the party back into its original configuration before closing in on what they could only assume was the boss fight.

Sarcomaag was much more awake than he’d been in his first few days, even if his thoughts still felt a little different than most creatures did. So he was keeping track when the party grew close, and waited until Brongrim and Nainvil cross into the range of the sticky nets before showing his hand, so to speak. As the fungal nets launched at the leading pair, poisoned darts launched themselves at the rest of the group, initiating the battle.

The sudden assault caught them off guard, but they rallied quickly. It was clear that the dwarf and half-orc were going to need close in support, as they were already being slowed by having to fight their way out of the nets, so Shizoku made the decision to bring them all in close while Takehiko’s faerie started working her magic to seal the small wounds the guards had picked up defending the kitsune and easing the symptoms of the toxin the darts had carried.

It was the right move to make, given the circumstances, but there still was a price to pay. It quickly became difficult to maintain formation as the group cut and burned their way past the assault of sticky traps, which was when the feathered drakes swooped in to attack Takehiko.

The five-tail swore in annoyance, recognizing the dungeon was deliberately hampering his ability to support his teammates, and turned his attention to his attackers while waving the others off. If the three fliers simply attacked aggressively, then Takehiko would have been able to take care of them with a single blast. But they were circling at a distance and taking turns casting darkness spells while another one dived bombed him.

His defenses and combat experience were enough that they were not terribly dangerous, but it did force him to either move or keep countering the darkness, and Sarcomaag was not hampered by a lack of light as he launched his ranged attacks. His faerie of course stayed near him, which would make Shizoku the healer for the rest of the team until Takehiko could deal with his attackers.

When the rest of the party got close enough that the nets could no longer target them, they now had to deal with the lashing tendrils and the terrifying maws that opened up around the trunk. Shizoku’s opening attack once she was in range was to test a variety of alchemical mixtures, which helped her quickly identify that the giant mushroom tree was vulnerable to fire and ice.

Unfortunately, she only had time for one more offensive spell before she had to turn to keeping everyone else healthy, so she conjured a simple ball of flame that rolled up to the base of the tree and stayed there, slowly burning while she moved onto to applying antitoxins to a couple of the guards who were still showing signs of the poisoned darts and handing out healing elixirs. While they were able to cut tendrils fast enough to keep each other from being dragged into the maws, they still hit hard enough to bruise and batter on their own.

Takehiko maneuvered outside the range of the darts so that he could find a moment to cast a longer spell, and three rays of fire leapt from his hands simultaneously. The scorching beams found their marks, searing holes into the feathered serpents, and the kitsune was finally free to help his comrades again. Once he made his way past the darts and nets.

With a touch he called forth an aura of fire around Nainvil, allowing the half-orc’s greatsword to cut searing gashes into the trunk of the tree, and Takehiko then took over healing duties while Shizoku conjured a second ball of fire. Keeping both active took up most of her concentration, but as the tree couldn’t move it was a rather effective attack for the level of the spell.

The mushroom tree didn’t last for much longer under that assault and soon stopped moving, silently burning.

One of the three red gems in the ceiling started glowing blue.

Takehiko swore angrily.

The second tree burst out of the ground nearby.

This one went down faster, with the five-tail conjuring an ice storm that covered the backside of the tree and Nainvil’s greatsword still coating in an aura of fire, and the third one had both kitsune hurling bolts of fire as fast as they could.

Once the third one was down, the battered group was visibly relieved when the third gem turned blue and the boss door opened. After the group had salvaged what materials they could lay claim to, they started toward the sixth floor and Brongrim started asking Shizoku about what else she had, as he wanted to see about making himself some incendiary rounds.

Mordecai decided it was a decent fight, all things considered. The group wasn’t out of resources, but they’d definitely spent themselves a little thin and they were going to want to prepare better next time. This meant the next floor was going to be significantly tougher for them, and if the dungeon had a seventh floor, that would probably be too dangerous to tackle just yet.