Chapter Three Hundred and Eleven - A Full Bedspread

The dungeon’s main room, the one that was supposed to lead to every floor, looked like a bedroom.

A cute bedroom at that. There was a small desk to one side, a child’s bed on the other, and a bookcase filled with toys and baubles tucked away next to another doorway. The room was quite big, more than large enough for all twelve of us to step in.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” Amaryllis said. She knelt down and poked at a teddy bear, casually left on the floor atop a colourful braided carpet. “I thought this would be more... knightly.”

Lieutenant Petalwrought chuckled. “You’d think that, yes. The Knights of the Long Rest try not to advertise the fact that our dungeon is themed in such a childish way. Though I would beg all of you not to lower your guard. The teeth on the monsters we will be fighting are more real than any nightmare, and their magics are potent. Moreso now.”

I nodded as I glanced away from the bookshelf. Every book on there looked like a children’s book of rhymes and nursery songs. “Where do we go from here?” I asked.

The lieutenant pointed to the door ahead of us. “Right through there. That’ll open onto the first floor. On leaving the floor we will be back in this room here, and we can re-exit the dungeon, but you cannot leave the floor until it is complete.”

Aria, the magical researcher, perked up at that. She tugged a small notepad from her backpack and started scribbling. “Has that changed at all since the introduction of the invasive species?”

“You mean the strange plants?” Lieutenant Petalwrough asked. “No, I don’t think that rule has changed but... ah, you will see one of the changes that have occurred once we’re passed the first floor.”

“Evil Roots,” I said. “That’s what the quest prompts about them call them.”

Aria and the others looked at me. “There are quests relating to them?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. The World really doesn’t like these root things. I don’t know if they’re like a sickness, or like you said, an invasive species, but they’re bad news. They’ll suck up all the mana in the dungeon too. I don’t know if they’ve ever killed one that way, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Aria jotted down a few more things. “No wonder the crown wants this dealt with so quickly.”

“It’s a big old problem is what it is,” Bron said. “So, we moving on?”

“In a moment,” Lieutenant Petalwrought said. “First, we go over the first floor’s rules, and how to get past it. Then we decide on a formation and some contingencies. We won’t have time to discuss these things on the floor itself, not if we intend to pass it unharmed.”

Everyone seemed to take his word seriously, and he gave us a grateful nod.

“The first floor is a trial by combat. This dungeon has never shied away from those. The floor is shaped roughly like an arena, though the footing is hard to travel upon. If you have a difficult time walking, try skipping your way forward. It will make more sense once you’re on the floor itself.”

“What is the combat against?” Lucille, the wizard sylph asked. She adjusted her grip on her big staff. “Any known weaknesses we can exploit?”

Petalwrought nodded. “There are two types of adversaries. The edge of the arena is lined with creatures we’ve identified as blankifolds. Though of a strange and perhaps unique variety.”

“What are those?” Aria asked.

“Large creatures made of magical cloth-like material,” Amaryllis said. “They envelope people, smother them, then eat them.”

The lieutenant nodded. “These are made of a quilt-like material. If you stray too far to the edge of the arena, they will ambush you. They might move towards you regardless. They are weak to fire, or anything else that cloth would be weak to. Piercing attacks will harm them, though not very well. Crushing attacks are useless. Your best bet is to try to cut them apart. They aren’t much stronger than a blanket, truly. If they capture you, try to make yourself bigger. Spread your arms and legs apart. They will have a difficult time enveloping you that way.”

That was kind of spooky.

“The main adversary on the floor will be in the centre, a child’s bed mobile.”

“A what?” Erin asked. He’s been pretty quiet so far, but I could tell he was listening.

“It’s a device that hangs over a bed, with small objects attached to toys on it. It spins, to distract a baby,” the lieutenant said. “This one will have five creatures tied to it. Usually knights, warriors, perhaps lions or bears. You need to defeat all five to defeat the mobile, and on doing so, the door to the next floor unlocks.”

“So,” Lucille said. “Walk in, stay close to the centre, defeat the floor boss, then move on?”

“Ideally, yes.”

I raised my hand. “Has the Evil Root infected anything here?”

“Not the last time we explored the floor,” he said. “But that may have changed.”

“Formation?” Erin asked.

“I will challenge the floor boss with two knights. The other two will guard you,” the lieutenant said. “I know that some of you are capable fighters, but I’ll ask that you focus primarily on keeping yourselves and your comrades safe. The floor boss is unable to leave a certain set area, so they shouldn’t be a risk to you. Though on occasion, the floor boss has had forms capable of using some sort of magic. I’ll warn everyone if that’s the case.”

“That's a lot of risk you’re shouldering mostly on your own,” Amaryllis said.

“All of the knights here have faced this dungeon before. Several times each on our own. We should all be capable of taking on the floor boss, and with three of us working together, it shouldn’t be an issue,” the lieutenant said. “But, if there is trouble, then we’ll back out of the boss’s range and regroup. Everyone understand?”

Nods all around, and then Lieutenant Petalwrought moved over to the door at the end of the room, half-turned, and pointed to two of the knights.

“You two after me, then the group, the other knights take the rear. Keep your eyes open and your weapons sharp.”

He opened the door and slipped in.

We followed a moment later, filing into a long corridor with pastel walls and a carpeted floor. It was lit only by a dim, warm light coming from the end of the hall. When we exited it was onto a soft, padded floor, covered in a strange cloth surface. It took looking around at the entire pattern of the floor to figure out that we were on a quilt. A quilt on a huge bed.

I jumped up and down, feeling the ground bounce below me.

It wasn’t quite like being on a trampoline. Those had a lot more bounce than this. This was more like jumping atop a pile of blankets. There was a lot of give, but not much pushback.

The floor was square, with walls covered in pretty wallpaper that had giant teddy bears and animals on it, though the wallpaper seemed scratched and weather worn in places, and I could tell that some parts were stained.

The middle of the room rose up to a big hill. Or maybe it was less like a hill and more like a huge blanket with something beneath it. Atop that hill, with a massive chain leading way, way up into the darkness where a ceiling should have been, was a mobile.

It was tilted really hard to one side, so that the lowest of the items on it was resting on the hilltop as if it was a discarded toy.

“Look,” Awen said. She was pointing off to the side.

I looked, but couldn’t see what she was pointing at. The floor was all quilted patterns, different bits of cloth of different colours, all laying next to each other in neat little squares.

Then I noticed some of those squares moving.

“Oh, I see them,” I said.

Quilted Blankifold, level 10, stalking

They didn’t look all that dangerous, but then, they were magical killer blankies, and I wasn’t sure what to think of that.

“We have... that’s a knight on the hill,” Lieutenant Petalwrought said. “So, knight, elephant, shooting star, sheep, wizard.”

I glanced along the circle of the mobile. There were indeed five ropes hanging from it, with a stuffed elephant, a big plush star, a sheep, and a robed wizard toy. They were all bigger than I was, which made it hard to really pinpoint the scale of things.

I did notice one other thing though. “Wait!” I said.

“Yes?” the lieutenant asked.

Pointing to the mobile, I tried to gesture to the chain holding it up. “There’s a length of root around the chain, do you see it?”

“I see it,” Amaryllis confirmed. “That means that the floor boss is likely corrupted.”

“Do you know what that will mean for those of us fighting it?” Petalwrought asked.

“I don’t,” I said. “It might even be easier. Sometimes the root makes enemies in a dungeon a bit stupider. They go berserk and will attack even if they should be cautious. And sometimes they’ll ruin their own floor puzzles. We went through an undead dungeon once, and a lot of the undead were unable to move because they had roots growing through them.”

“Interesting,” Aria said. She scribbled something down. “Would you say that the root hampered the dungeon more than it made it more dangerous?”

“Uh. I think so? When we cleared the root in that dungeon, the dungeon monsters started attacking the roots in the dungeon. Like an immune system.”

“A what system?” Aria asked.

“The thing that allows your body to fight off infections and illnesses,” Lucille said. “It’s what makes you feverish to burn off an illness.”

Aria muttered something while writing that down. “If that’s the case, then these roots truly are antagonistic to the dungeon itself.”

“More on that once we’ve cleared the floor,” the lieutenant said. “Stay here, and watch out for the blankifolds.”

The two knights with the lieutenant stepped up, swords whispering out of their scabbards while the two that remained stood on either end of our group, facing outwards.

I shifted to the side so that I had more room, then held onto my scythe. I didn’t quite know how to use it yet, but I wanted it close by if anything jumped out at us. Still, most of my attention was on the oncoming fight.

The three knights climbed up the hill, shields raised and ready, swords in high guards next to them, ready to plunge out against anything that came too close.

The mobile above shifted, tilting back a bit, and with that motion, the knight on its nearest end rose off the ground and stood.

It was a toy knight, with jointed arms and legs, and a body made of wood. Even its sword was more of a wooden plank, with some rough cuts along it to give it an edge. It raised a shield by its side, a large kite shield, almost as tall as it was, and its helmeted head rose up to stare at its oncoming foes.

“Awa, reminds me a little of that puppet dungeon,” Awen said.

“Did that one have an Evil Root within it?” Aria asked.

“No, just puppets,” Awen said. “I think that might have been worse, actually. They’re kind of scary.”

“You find them scary?” Amaryllis asked.

Awen blushed to the roots of her hair. “Awa... no?”

Amaryllis crossed her wings. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I, ah, didn’t want to disappoint you. Since you like them so much?” Awen asked.

I held back a giggle, then patted Amaryllis on the back. “It’s okay. I still love you, even if your hobby is scary.”

“It is not!”

“Maybe we should be paying more attention, you know?” Bron asked.

“Ah, right,” I said. Time to get our heads into the game. No goofing off now!

***