I’m a little further off and away from the river now, but I suppose the fight has started, judging by the tufts of forceful explosions and rays of concentrated white magic flying out just beyond the smoking tree-line. I wonder, as I lick my fingers, what should I be doing? I guess the ‘interesting’ thing would be to help fight the hero party, but…
Another explosion barrels out in the distance ahead of me, vaporizing the entire crown of a large tree in an instant.
I lick my last finger clean and continue my thought. But that wouldn’t be great for my overall, long-term health. No, I think my priority should be to look for the secret stairs. I wonder, do I even have to fight the hero-party anymore? I feel like we’ve all grown out of that phase. I mean, it’s sort of my job still. But it sort of isn’t. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Let’s play it smart. My main goal is to escape the dungeon. Always has been. So let’s stay focused on that.
Jumping back forward towards another tree, I then leap, using my ability and reach for the highest branch above me and stare out at the chaos unfolding in the water. Streams of fire and magic lash out from the small boat, as the wizard and priestess shoot their magics in loose streams and flows rather than in any shattering explosions now, as they wash over the surface of the river all around them with their destructive energies. There are unseen things in the water that writhe and scream and lash out with their burning, flaming tendrils towards the casters.
But each time the hero manages to land a quick, easy slice and stop them. Each time the monk manages to land a single punch that causes something to splash back a little further in the distance and for their boat to rock just a little. Just a tiny bit from the force vibrating back through her bones. They’re absolutely destroying the bad things, ooh!
Occasionally, the odd stick will fly towards the boat from my side or from the other side of the river. But fewer of those come with every passing minute as the rest of the apes are quickly picked off by the adventurers. Or as they abandon the fight entirely to make the most of it and to gorge on the sweet, yellow-sap from the trees, that is now unguarded, as most of the bad things are by the boat. Wait.
I narrow my eyes and look down at the tree below me, at the steady drip of yellow goo seeping out of the bark.
Are they stealing my food? My yellow sap? Mine? Mine?! Ooh!
I shake my head, no. No. That’s not important right now. Food isn’t important for me at all. Don’t let it distract you. Focus. Stairs. Stairs. What do I need to do to find the stairs? I need to…
Uh…
I guess I need to go to the thief? She’s still in the boat. Usually she would have split off from them and made her way to me, but maybe she can’t do that now because of the things in the bad water. They can’t reach her now, but maybe they could if she was alone. But how?
The gap between the boat and the tree-line isn’t too big, but it’s pretty substantial. No ape could cross that in one jump, you’d land in the water. Ooh! Ah, wait.
Duh.
Bending my knees down and bracing myself, I look at the boat ambling lazily past my tree, just ahead of it and I leap, using my ability again to jump further than any other of my kind could. In an instant I see my body leave the tree and the world blur below me as I fly with some speed, before feeling the lurch of the fall a second later, as the world pulls me back down towards it. Wind blows around me as I soar and something slices through it for a second, some disturbance as something below me swipes and grabs and reaches towards me. As some bad thing below me tries to reach me in mid-air and it almost does.
An arrow soars just past me and I hear it hit something wet just next to my ear and then a splash a second later as whatever it was falls back down into the foul water. The boat comes into view and two small, elvish hands reach out and catch me just as I come back down. Ooh!
The thief says something and laughs, pulling me in. The monk and the wizard turn to look at her with some obvious confusion in their faces. Ooh! I think the wizard recognizes me as the one who threw the stick before and she begins yelling, but the hero says something and she turns back forward and blasts another bad thing getting close to the boat. The thief looks at me with a smile and sets me down next to her before picking up her bow and getting back to work. I can’t help but feel like I’m a child having been brought to work for the day, as I look up at the fighting adventurers around me who ignore me entirely.
I guess I’ll have to wait until the first wave is over before we can go continue on our little adventure. Looking up, they don’t seem too worried about me. I suppose they trust the thief, even if they likely don’t understand her reasoning. I can sympathize with that. Ooh! But it might still be a little while, the bad things will keep coming for a bit. Then there will be a short interlude and then more bad things, then another interlude. And then the sub-boss. The sub-boss?
Ooh.
Ah.
Hmm. Yeah, I’d like to be gone by the time they get there. A lot of the sub-bosses can be a little… well, a little much for my delicate heart, honestly. Ooh. I’d rather not talk about it. Let’s just say the dungeon-master's tastes are a little too dark for me once in a while.
Instead, I look around trying to pass the time. My eyes spot a familiar brown rucksack on the floor of the boat, the smell of something sweet emanating out of it. My eyes narrow as I sneakily climb into the wizard’s bag.
Has she been hiding my food from me? Ooh!
The second brain from the trash mob is a good element. It gives you time to explore the setting of each floor and it allows the MC to do "stupid" things that would be annoying in most settings but make sense here. Also it explains how he can adapt to each new floor/character so easily.
Thank you a whole bunch for reading! It also comes with its downsides, unfortunately. But that's a point for a bit later
Be careful MC. Аfter all, if instead of meat you pull out a blue striped fabric, everything may end badly.