Chapter Twenty Four

John, Camille and Sam all had smiles on their faces. Ever since they beat the moose and came back with a successful harvest they had been stuck working at camp waiting for their turn to raid the dungeon, and it was finally the day. Despite the early hour they were already in the clearing outside the dungeon double and triple checking their gear before going in. Once they were sure everything was in order they got in their usual formation and dashed inside.

They ignored the poison plants as was usual and started cautiously moving deeper inside. They hadn’t gone far when they came to a stop. There was something new in the dungeon, and that meant they needed to be extra careful. Thin pillars of stone were spread throughout the dungeon. John reached out to gently touch one and didn’t find anything strange about it, so they continued onward.

When they got to the place where the path diverged John stopped and asked

“You guys up for a little extra adventurer? I was thinking we could check out the upper floors and see if there is anything new instead of just going to the valley again.”

Camille chimed in a bit hesitantly

“Didn’t Olivia ban anyone from going up there?”

John shook his head

“I think the ban is just for going to the island. As long as we don’t have to fight the bear we should be fine.”

This time Camille interjected

“I saw we do it. We got all the blood river flowers at the entrance to the valley and everyone else has still been raiding there. If we go there we will have to go pretty deep to get anything valuable. Up there we might find nothing too, but at least it will be more interesting.”

With that decided they climbed up and started exploring the plant filled floor. As soon as they got up John went to examine the new room. There were plants he didn’t recognize and those pillars spread everywhere. He reached out to touch one of the new plants, but as soon as he did its leaves fanned out and cut straight through his gloves leaving a nasty gash on his finger. He pulled his hand back quickly and said

“Ah shit. Can you heal this up for me Camille?”

They stopped and Camille used her healing, but not before chiding John

“We know the dungeon is changing quickly. You are just asking for trouble touching unknown stuff like that.”

John grinned

“Ah but you’re here. That means I can be stupid and get away with it.”

Camille sighed at his cavalier attitude and they started moving forward again until Sam called out

“Hold up. I think I recognize one of these flowers. It's not as good as a blood river flower but it's worth taking.”

She walked up to a plant with small tubelike flowers.

“This should be a sweetflower. Edible, mana rich, and as you might have guessed, sweet. We can just take them back and save them for dessert to spice up the meals.”

Sam had only harvested a few of the flowers when they heard rustling in the brush. Sam jumped back and they all readied their weapons before a rabbit burst out and ran towards them. It was too low for a good sword swing, so John used one of his favorite moves for dealing with small opponents. He kicked it into next week. The rabbit went flying and John winced as it felt like he just kicked concrete instead of something made of flesh and blood. He cursed and swore to himself to get steel toed boots before their next run when more rabbits started to rush out of the bushes.

There were two of them attacking from each side so he backed up until he joined Sam and Camille to make a small circle. Then the fight began in earnest. The rabbit that initiated the second round of attacks jumped high when it was attacking him, so he brained it with his shield and watched it fall to the ground. He took a swing with his sword at the next rabbit, but missed so he had to deflect it with his shield. It went skidding off, landed on the ground to his side, and started charging again all before he could regain his balance. As it charged he was forced to deflect it again. This time the deflection sent the rabbit straight into one of the stone pillars.

When it hit it the stone shattered and the rabbit laid there in a daze. Before it could move John heard a cracking from the roof and watched the rabbit get crushed by falling stones. Since that enemy was out of commission he checked to make sure the rabbit he hit with his shield was still unconscious before turning to see if Sam and Camille needed help. Fortunately it looked like they didn’t. Sam had one rabbit pinned to the ground and was finishing it off with her knife and Camille didn’t have an opponent so he assumed it fled after the others were defeated. He went back to the rabbit he knocked out a finished it off before asking

“Do you guys want to get out of here after we harvest the sweet flowers? Or do you want to keep going? I’m fine either way.”

Sam held up the now bloody rabbit and said

“If we let ourselves get stopped by these little things then we are never going to make any progress. Plus once we come out we are going to have to wait another week or two before raiding the dungeon again so I say we keep going.”

Camille didn’t have any complaints with that so the party packed up the rabbits and the flowers before continuing to the next floor. This floor looked largely the same as the last time they entered. There were none of the new pillars and less of the new plants than the lower floor. Once they had walked just a few feet into the floor the customary barrage of fish started. They withstood it for a minute or two to check and make sure that they couldn’t find any new valuables on the floor and then they started retreating.

As they were backing up John felt a fish hit his shield particularly hard and then saw it drop at his feet. Since it happened to drop at just the right place he kicked it down the hole to the lower floor before continuing his retreat. When he got down he finished the fish off with his knife and then put it in the bag with the rabbit. After that they all decided to call it a day on their raid and head back to camp.

Back at camp they went to Olivia’s and told her about the rabbits and the new traps before going straight to the cooks and offered what was quickly becoming John’s usual deal.

“Hey Frank, We managed to catch a few things I think will make good eating. If you cook it up for us then you’ll get your usual share.”

Frank looked at John and said

“We’ve got plenty of meat around now that you brought back those big beasts for us to butcher. If you want me to cook for just a share it better be special.”

John pulled out the bag and said

“How about rabbit, fish, and sweetflower? All freshly caught.”

Frank looked at the bag

“Aww hell. I guess i’ll give it a try. Never gotten to cook anything from a dungeon before. Should I go ahead and cook it up now?

John agreed and then he started to drink with Sam and Camille while they waited. After an hour Frank came out with two beautifully roasted rabbits, a fish, and three small circles in his hand. He held them out to John and said

“I’ll bet you were lookin forward to getting these.”

John nodded

“Thanks for your help getting them out. I’ve never been good at butchering myself.”

They started to eat and Frank gestured to the rabbit

“So how hard is it to hunt these guys? I’ve hunted down my own dinner before and these guys have a nice bonus inside them so I figured I might try my hand at catching some.”

Instead of trying to explain how much tougher they were than normal rabbits, John pulled out his shield and showed Frank the dents in it.

“One of the buggers you just butchered made that when I blocked his dash. Unless you have a good team if you mess up once you're probably a goner.”

Frank sighed

“Well shit, there goes that hope. I’ll just have to charge you a fee for butchering 'em next time.”

John nodded

“As long as you cook them up while you're at it that's fine with me.”

After that they got finished up dinner and enjoyed a few of the sweetflowers as dessert before heading back to their cabins and calling it a day.

Gem

After watching what are now its favorite invaders for testing new creatures leave, the gem started to think about what had changed since their last visit. There had been an influx of incapable invaders. The kind that continued to go deeper despite not being able to fight well. It was a mystery why so many of them started to come until the gem started to listen in on their conversations. One invader said

“I heard they got ten of those magic flowers just for fighting a moose. If we got that many we could try and start our own farm instead of being hired hands”

Another group underestimated its defenders saying

“I heard the demi-humans are only two feet tall. Even if they have armor or whatever it’ll be just like fighting a kid.”

Groups that had similar conversations made up the majority deaths in its territory. Thinking that the gem resolved itself to put some of its better mana producers at the front of its territory knowing they would be lost. The groups that found them and made it out would attract other incompetents to help fuel its growth.

Once it had made that decision the next issue was assessing how well the rabbits had fought and how effective the stonefall traps had been. The stonefall traps hadn’t worked well on the experienced group, but there was still hope that they would be effective on the less cautious invaders. After all, the trap had worked flawlessly when it was triggered, even if it was by one of the rabbits.

That was another thing that needed to be considered when designing its territory. The traps needed to do more than hurt intruders. They needed to help the defenders, or at the very least not harm them. That would be one of its more urgent projects.

After reviewing what needed to be changed about the traps the rabbits were next. They had performed fairly well in combat, but they did not have the finishing power needed to fight on their own. They just couldn’t strike high enough to hit the invaders vital parts. If they rabbits were to be truly effective in the future they either needed a boost to their offense or a partner to work with.

These thoughts were interrupted by a death in its territory. All thoughts about traps and rabbits immediately left its mind as it focused on absorbing as much information as possible from the death. When it was done it examined its territory and found that the partner of the invader who died was fleeing while injured.

It watched them until they were all the way out of its perception and then switched back to improving its territory. Despite the recent improvements its plants were still less impressive than its creatures. This led to an interesting thought. It had given its creatures cores. Why not do the same for its plants?

Chase

Chase had just finished beating the snot out of one of those idiots who wanted to be an adventurer without even being able to use mana when he heard a commotion going on in the town. He rushed back and saw that it was just another wannabe adventurer that got themselves maimed while wasting time the someone competent could have been using in the dungeon. Chase was about to turn away when he saw something strange. Olivia came out of her office and rushed over to the boy. She examined his wound and then instead of leading him to the healers she half carried him and rushed towards her office.

Intrigued by the development Chase sped over and peeked through the window into Olivia’s office. He watched as she opened her safe and then pulled out a box. She took off the lid and it was full of potions. Chase’s vision went red and he barely heard Olivia as she said

“This is going to burn like hell and taste like shit but if you want to keep that hand you're going to have to put up with it. Now drink.”

He saw Olivia poured some of the potion on the boy’s hand and poured the rest down his throat. As Chase continued watching the boys wounds started to visibly heal. He lifted his good hand up and clenched his fist before punching the wall in a rage. As soon as he did he heard the thump it made and saw Olivia start to turn her head so he slid down the wall till he was below the window and started to think

“If she had given one of those to me I would have been completely fine. That bitch had healing potions and she let me get maimed. Why the fuck would she use a healing potion on a little farmer boy and not use one on her best adventurer.”

Chase continued to rage for a while, but eventually he calmed down to a cold determined anger. He stood with with a mean glint in his eye thinking

“She will pay for making him lose his fingers. Her, those little girls that made me lose my fingers, all those adventurers that are too afraid to pair up with me. I’ll make all of them suffer for what happened to me.”