With the idle chitchat out of the way the group goes into the next room. As they could see from the previous room, there isn’t anything in this one but it seems to lead everywhere else. There are three different ways out of the room. On the opposite wall is a hallway, to the left the room opens up directly into another, and finally a second hallway is further along the same wall the entrance is in.

Susan walks out into the middle of them and looks around. When nothing attacks her the rest of the group moves out to join her as she points at the various exits. “I say we go down one of these two close together exits. It looks like they might be connected to each other as well, and there are a lot of mushrooms in the one. I don’t feel safe leaving that behind us. Now the lonely exit at the bottom does seem to lead to a mushroom room, but that is far enough away I don’t think they have noticed us.”

Doctor shrugs, “I don’t think the myconids are the most active of hunters so there shouldn’t be a problem either way.”

Jeremy nods, “Neither direction is better than another, so let’s just go into the room that is directly connected to this one.”

As they move out Kelly glances to the side and down the hallway. Like they had seen already the place was filled with mushrooms but she feels something is staring at her. As if below the caps there were small beady eyes glaring out at her. But the feeling recedes as the group leaves the room and enters the next. She sighs and keeps this minor revelation to herself. No point in saying anything when they already know the monsters were against them.

In the next room there are three columns, and in between them is a small pool of water being fed by a stream coming down from the left. Around this pool is a chaotic gathering of small mushrooms. Most of which turn towards the group.

Jeremy laughs, “Kelly and Zach, you ready up some AoE for us. Me and Susan will keep them back.”

Then from their packs Jeremy and Susan bring out paper tubes. With a quick twist, they open the packages up and a flick of their wrists sends out a controlled shower of dust. As the mass of small myconids reaches the suspended powder, the frontmost ones convulse and fall backwards. This brings the sprouts to a halt, though not before a couple more end up partly inside the danger zone. They too convulse, joining the previously affected ones on the floor.

Susan sighs, “Good thing we prepared that antifungal medicine. Admittedly, I was more expecting to use it to treat someone being parasitized by shrooms, but honestly? I prefer this. Less body horror is always a good thing.”

Jeremy nods, “Though it is a good thing these aren’t the only enemies on the floor because we definitely didn’t pack enough if we face more situations like this. Stuff isn’t exactly cheap at the moment to make.”

Behind them Kelly is about to finish her spell when she asks, “Is that powder flammable?”

Susan shrugs, “Ish, if you are worrying about a dust explosion you don’t have to. Though the stuff will burn, it isn’t able to burn fast enough.”

Kelly shrugs, “Well, you’re the ones right up next to it. Zach, if you would be so kind as to hold them down now.”

Zach sighs and tosses out a compressed ball of plant fibers instead of one of his ropes. It arcs over the dust and lands in the center of the myconids who are milling about, unable to reach the group. The ball lands and bursts outwards into a haze of almost microscopic fibers, tangling up all the sprouts. “Be quick about it. The fibers aren’t exactly the strongest things.”

Kelly doesn’t need to be told twice as she tosses a ball of her own out, though hers is made of fire. The fire falls through fibers as if they aren’t even there and lands on the cap of one of the bigger sprouts at the center of the myconids. For a second the ball of fire smolders there as the myconid tries to remove it.

It doesn’t get much of a chance at it though as the ball shrinks down and burns through the sprout’s body. As it shrinks, the ball burns brighter and even as it sinks into the myconid the group can see where it is. Then once it has burnt down so far it is almost about to fall through the main stalk and onto the floor, four spears of flame stab outwards.

The flaming spears pierce a few other sprouts, but this damage is more incidental. The main force of the spell becomes clear as the spears suddenly spin, though not flat like a top. Instead, each spear waves up and down, slicing through the myconids at random heights. The spell only completes a few rotations, but by then the job is done. Only the sprouts farthest out are still standing. It has reduced all the rest to smoldering chunks of mushroom.

With that the group is able to easily clean up the last survivors. The Barrais don’t even have to worry about the spores, as those that remain are so small and scattered they aren’t able to summon a dense enough cloud of them.

After grabbing the few drops, they move into the room on the left and the prediction that it was connected to the room before last is proven true. Through the short hallway they can see down towards the hall they had decided to not take. But that isn’t what interests them. Instead, they look ahead. Across from them is an entrance into another room, and they can just make out another stone staircase going up.

Jeremy shakes his head, “I hope this isn’t another dead end. This floor would suck if there are too many like that. Though I guess the dungeon was bound to have some kind of maze-like floor, eventually. So far they have all been very straight forward.”

Jeremy shrugs, whatever there is to come he can’t really do much about it. Instead of thinking about it deeper, he sneaks up the stairs with the others gathered around the bottom. This time though, he can just call them up as the room above is empty except for the small stream of water which had been flowing into the pool below. Different from the last room, though there is another way out. Directly in front of the group is a short hallway into another room. This one is empty as well, but instead of just another hallway it has a staircase that goes up.

Doctor shakes his head, “This will take us above the original entrance. I really do have to wonder how much up and down there will be here.”

Kelly hums for a second and taps the wall. “I have a suspicion. On the second floor, there is actually a good bit of travel. The ramp and forest room both have very high ceilings. This should be as high as the floor goes because with the three floors they add up to about the same height.”

Jeremy frowns, “While that would make sense, it doesn’t particularly mean too much until we have explored the entire floor. Lets just see how far this goes.”

Once again Jeremy climbs up a staircase alone. This time though, he finds a completely different scene. The room above isn’t empty and none of the previously seen enemies are there but what is there makes him slowly lower himself down in hopes of not being detected.

Back in the previous room, he gestures for the others to stay quiet and retreat into the previous room. Once there he sighs, “Well the dungeon is back to its old games but with a twist. Right above us is a group of kobolds and goats. The catch is they aren’t just some savages in a campsite or some such. Instead, the kobolds appear to be mining out the wall and the goats are equipped with saddlebags.”

Kelly frowns, “Did you see anything actually getting mined or is it just setting? Because we could very much use some kind of metal. The towns have a lot of it, but most is high temp stuff we can’t do much with at the moment. Except I guess the copper wiring we could strip out.”

Zach shakes his head, “All of that stuff isn’t worth it anyway. I specialized a bit in acquiring resources, and all that processed stuff is going to be pre-system metal. The stuff still raw and in the ground will slowly be changed. But once it has been worked by sapient hands, the structure gets locked in and protected by our souls. If this is a real mine that will be amazing for our settlement. Dungeons rarely develop ore until after the first boss.”

Jeremy nods, “Thats nice. Now how are we supposed to deal with the fight? There are only four kobolds up there, one of which is a magic user and nine goats. However we have to enter the fight by climbing some stairs. Not the worst problem, but it doesn’t really allow us enough room for more than one person at a time.”

Sarah laughs, “We just have to play it similar to how we did with the assassin vine! Sure, we won’t be able to clear them all with this tactic. It isn’t like they will just stand around at the top of the stairs. But we should be able to stun them for a few crucial moments as we all climb up.”

Kelly tilts her head back, “Hmm, I don’t think I can manage a stun and still damage them. Still not a bad idea. I could throw the magical equivalent of a flashbang so we can all at least get up there before they can respond.”

Jeremy raises an eyebrow at this. “Do you already have a flashbang spell you can use for this? I don’t really want to take chances on this sort of thing. After all, it would only stun them for a few moments so we can’t exactly wait to see if it works. The moment your spell goes off, we need to be hustling up those stairs. Plus you can’t be in the back. To get the spell into place, you’re going to have to join me at the front of the group for this.”

Kelly shrugs, “Give me a year and I should be able to have guided spells even if they leave my line of sight. For now though, you aren’t wrong. Still, while I haven’t practiced this specific sort of spell it isn’t hard to manage. I just need something similar to the spear ball, except more condensed. Shrink the ball of flames down as small as possible and put more of the magic into the light show and pressure wave as compared to the fire. This is actually why I won’t be able to deal damage. All the magic will be going towards enhancing the flash and bang parts of it instead of stuff like flames and damage.”

Susan laughs, “Why not just pump some magical napalm up there? Flood the place in a thin layer of sticky fire.”

Kelly shakes her head, “As I hinted at, there is only so much magic I can use for any particular feature of the spell. Napalm like spells should require much higher skill than I have as well as being multi-element. After all, where do you think the stickiness would come from? Because my guess is I would have to team up with Zach over there to even come close. Nevermind the fact he isn’t a summoner type so he would have needed to bring tree sap along with us.”

Jeremy claps his hands together lightly, though it is still enough to make everyone else shut up. “I think the flashbang idea will work fine for this. Now let’s head back in there and line up. Once we are ready none of you can slow down. We need to be up there pronto!”

Akhier

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