Chapter Two Hundred and Two - Heart of Darkness

Squeezing into the hole that Buster had created was a bit hard. We had to go in one at a time, with Carrot leading the charge, and Peter coming in last.

I had wondered why we didn’t just break through the walls, but it seemed as though they were literally feet thick and entirely made of stone. It made sense, for a castle. Not that I knew much about castles and the like.

We found a long, narrow corridor on the other side, one mostly taken up by the root, but it still had enough room on the sides for us to walk, though not shoulder-to-shoulder.

“Carrot, I haven’t seen this core before, where is it?” Momma asked.

Carrot pointed out ahead. “Down there. There’s a sort of round room, and on one side there’s the core room, and on the other’s this door that has a portal out of the dungeon.”

Momma nodded. “Very well, lead ahead Carrot. Little ones, stay in the centre. Buster, the rear.”

Our formation mostly set, we took off down the corridor. I sniffed at the air. Part of it smelled like dirt and grass, as if... well, as if someone had just unrooted a few plants, then scattered the fresh dirt around. It wasn’t a bad smell. Under that though, so faint that I had a hard time sniffing it out, was that tangy, wrong smell that I was coming to associate with the mana Momma kept mentioning.

The root pulsed, and all of us paused, breaths held as we waited for something to happen.

“I think we should consider moving faster,” Momma said. “Avoid touching the root, keep your magic to yourself.”

We picked up the pace, but there wasn’t exactly room to start running outright, not when the passage twisted and turned, constricting us through narrow gaps overgrown with roots and plate-like leaves. It was cramped enough to give a bun claustrophobia.

Finally, we reached an opening and stumbled into a large circular room. It had vaulted ceilings, with nine arches reaching up to the middle where a big chandelier hung. Between each arch was a huge painting, a fresco for each of the nine floors of the dungeon. The entrance, the mausoleum, the foggy forest, they were all represented.

The centre of the room was cut in half by the root, with smaller ones racing around the room and curling up around the pillars on the side and climbing up towards the paintings above. There were more seeds here, some of them bigger than those we’d seen in the boss room.

“Peter, destroy the seeds,” Momma ordered.

While Peter jumped to it, she turned to the rest of us.

“I can feel the core from here. Could you all wait here for a moment? I will go and inspect it with Carrot.”

Quest Updated!
Trim the Cruel!
You have reached the core, and the centre of this Evil Root! Destroy one, or both.

“I’m coming with you,” I said.

Momma hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

I shook my head right back. “I’m coming,” I said.

“Cores are dangerous,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “But I have to see it. I... I want to see what you do. If you can save this one, then maybe we can do what you did and save others. And if you have to destroy it, then I think we should all know about it.”

Bastion’s head whipped around to look at me, but he didn’t say anything.

“No, Broccoli,” Momma said.

I pouted. “Gosh, I wish I could get Miss Menu to share this with all of you,” I said. “It would make things easier.”

“Share what?” Carrot asked. “And, uh, who’s Miss Menu?”

“That’s what Broccoli calls the World’s call to action,” Amaryllis said. “Did your quest for this dungeon change?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Pardon me,” Bastion said. “But you have a quest. And you didn’t inform us?”

I blinked. “I mean, we were heading here anyway,” I said.

“Even if that’s the case...” Bastion sighed. “We would likely have done a lot more to guard you had we known. The protocols... not that you would care, of course.” His brow pinched and I had the impression he was fighting off something of a headache.

I really did feel bad for him. “I care,” I said. “What protocols?”

Amaryllis was the one to answer. “The World doesn’t just give out quests like a priest handing out alms. Most won’t ever receive one. In fact, most will never meet someone who has had a quest. They appear, at times, to those in the right places and the right times. Never when it comes to political matters, but to prevent disaster and destroy creatures that are harming the world... well, if you’re near such an event, you might receive a quest.”

“It’s protocol in Sylphfree that anyone who receives a quest has it verified by those in authority, and once that’s done, they are assisted as best they can be,” Bastion said. “One doesn’t just ignore the will of the World.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, the World can be pretty nagging sometimes. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t ignore it.”

Bastion looked a little exasperated. “No, no, it wouldn’t do to ignore that,” he said.

“Never got a quest before,” Carrot said. “What’s that like?”

“Uh,” I said. “Not much? Just kinda pops up sometimes. Hasn’t really changed anything. No real rewards either.”

“I would still rather have you stay,” Momma said. “But if you insist. The rest of you, could you form a cordon? If things go wrong, it would be best if everybun here were ready to act.”

I skipped over to Momma and Carrot, following them towards the back of the room and to a small corridor splitting off to the side. That’s also where the root went, though for some reason it wasn’t blocking the whole path again.

“It’s ‘cause that’s against the rules,” Carrot said.

“Huh?”

“You were looking at the root with a puzzled expression,” she said. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure that you were asking yourself about the passage and why it isn’t blocked. It’s because dungeons don’t like it when you change them up. Adding walls and blocking paths.”

“But the one over in the boss room was blocked,” I said.

Carrot nodded. “Yep, it sure was.”

I didn’t quite understand, but maybe it didn’t matter. I had a whole bunch more things worrying me. “Momma? How are you going to get rid of the root?”

Momma didn’t answer for a while. “I don’t know,” she said. “I have some talent with magic, but I’m beginning to fear that this may be beyond me. I’ve always found that there is one method that always works with weeds. I just hope it works here too.”

I swallowed. Momma sounded... resigned but determined. It was actually a little scary. “We can break the core,” I said. “I’ve... the World told me to do that before, for another infection, and we can do it here too.”

Carrot winced, but Momma didn’t seem to so much as flinch. “If we must,” she said. “I’ll take the burden.”

“Momma!” Carrot said. “You can’t.”

“Huh?” I asked.

Momma smiled down at me and patted my helmeted head. “To the people of Dirt, there is no sin greater than the one we are considering now. The reward for that sin is a beacon of temptation upon your head. The punishment is, inevitably, death.”

“But, you're the boss of Hopsalot, can’t you--” I began.

Momma laughed. “They wouldn’t kill me. Silly little bun. No no, they would exile me, perhaps, or maybe nothing would come of it. I’m quite old already, you know, set in my ways. Hopsalot’s council of elders... why, I’ve raised a number of them. I’d like to see them try to meddle in my affairs.” She harrumphed. “But no, it would only cause me a lot of trouble, and perhaps I’d have some suspicions cast upon me for some time, but that’s all.”

“Suspicions?” I repeated.

“That’s ‘cause everyone thinks that someone that broke a core has to be some sort of evil person, a big old plotting villain,” Carrot said.

Oh no! Had that quest made me take a step onto the path of villainy? I didn’t want to be a villain. I wouldn’t look good in spandex. I shook my head and cast aside the silly thought. “That’s dumb,” I declared.

Carrot laughed. “Lots of things are.”

“Focus, buns,” Momma said. We were at the core’s entrance.

Each core room I’d seen was different, and yet they all followed the same principles. A small-ish room, with some space set out in the centre.

This one had walls of the same stone as the castle and the walls that separated each floor, with some nice pillars to the side holding up a domed roof. In the centre, on a plush bed atop a meter-tall pillar, was a faintly glowing ball.

The dungeon core wasn’t alone, of course. All around it, grasping onto the walls and pillars, and with dozens of tendrils all around the core, was the root.

“It’s everywhere,” I said as I looked in. The floors, the ceiling, they all have a thick mat of roots, with little sprouts sticking out of them that had sharp little leaves. The leaves were all twisted so that their flat side was towards the core, like sunflowers chasing the sun.

“It is,” Momma agreed.

She stepped in and took a deep breath. “There’s magic here, lots of it, but less than what you’d expect from a dungeon core room, especially one from a dungeon as large as this one.”

I followed after her tingles racing across my body. “Yeah,” I said. My mana was filling up fast, I knew. I’d need to vent it soon, but then, there might be a good reason for that soon.

Momma found one piece of the root that wasn’t connected to the rest and yanked it up. Her arm came down, edge-first, and chopped into it with a dull thwap. “Strong,” she said.

“I was never able to hurt a root,” I said. “I was surprised when Buster managed. Maybe I can try Cleaning them?”

“Hmm. Perhaps we’ll consider our options first?” Momma asked. She leaned up to the root and inspected it from much closer. “It’s mana-heavy. No, that’s not expressive enough to describe this. We’re taking in dozens of points of mana every minute here. This root has been taking more, and for... perhaps weeks. Most beings would combust, their will would twist and the magic, as volatile as it can be, would act out that will.”

“Like, thinking of fire, then making some without trying?” I asked.

“Something like that. The more mana you have, the easier it is to cast a spell. Now imagine having thousands upon thousands of points, then thinking about a fireball. It would practically cast itself, though, without the form and refinement of a skill or a spell, it would just be will pushed into volatile mana. It’s why it’s unwise to remain in a core’s room.”

“I see,” I said. That did sound awful.

“We should step out, before we absorb too much mana,” Momma said.

The three of us gathered just outside the door, and Momma crossed her arms. “Ideas?”

“Could we starve it?” Carrot asked. “Use up all the mana?”

“All the mana a dungeon core produces? I... that’s possible, but plants don’t die instantly when starved of water. I doubt this root would merely wither away. The amount of mana to be moved too, is incredible, and it would just be going into this chamber.” Momma gestured to the roots. “Unless there’s a way to eject it out of the dungeon, I can’t see it being feasible.”

“What about herbicide?” I asked.

“I don’t think we have anything strong enough,” Momma said.

I nodded, “Yeah, but what about like... mana that the root doesn’t like? We feed it a bunch of anti-plant-aspect mana.”

Momma looked between me and the core room. “Well, it’s worth trying.”

***