Micky wasn’t too excited about the monsters of this tower. The vast majority were going to be zombies. Now don’t get em’ wrong, zombies are right scary an all that. But that’s only in a city with a large pop of non-coms: the young, the weak, and the frail. Alchemical zombies were only occasionally infectious and that was with the same vectors as every other type of zombie besides the plague spreaders.

Now plague spreaders were right scary zombies. They spread the zombie plague and other plagues through the air and the water and pretty much just by existing. The zombie plague was a cloud of tiny tiny ill humored demons that converted everything living into the undead, this included some other forms of undead. This is why even vamps fought off the zombie plague.

These were not plague spreaders, these were alchemical zombies that could be worse, probably included some abominations, but could only infect through certain ways. Though that in itself was rare since most alchemical solutions were one and done.

But this still interested Micky in a very morbid way. He had just started learning alchemy. He knew this was a path he shouldn’t take but knowledge was knowledge. So Micky took a vial of zombie saliva, his heart beating and adrenaline pumping the entire time.

Micky scoured the rest of the lab, and aside from the glassware, which he packed but didn’t think would last anyway, there was nothing of use. All the herbs were ruined and one their way to becoming fossils, all the alchemical solutions were nothing but a dried crust. Micky was wondering if the ancientness of this lab was going to make the dungeon turn it into a dino hatchery in a few hundred years.

The next room was just a storage room, more zombies but this time rats. Busting up the crates found nothing. Apparently it was a pantry at some point but unless the group wanted [Uncle Bean’s Plague Rice] they weren’t getting anything from here.

Micky wondered if this was the tower of some necromancer or black mage. But it was more likely that the tower just transformed into what it was today after years of neglect. Most ruins type dungeons were infested with zombies of some kind. As well as infectious monsters and torment, with the occasional demon on the side.

Micky and Co. continued on their journey down the corridor, musing about dungeons Histopher said “I heard that if a dungeon gets ancient enough they all go natural at some point. Complete nature dungeon 10 out of 10.”

“No way, all the great dungeons have a theme to em’ they don’t go natural with a desert themed dungeon!” Said Desala. The tiny little gnome was very animated on the subject.

“No no, they all mutate to natural. Even ruins and tech dungeons go natural as the mutate along their path. It’s cuz all this tech and advancement only stays that way for so long, then poof it breaks down and becomes nature. Some people think its cuz the universe will eventually become cold stardust and stop existen’!” Said Histopher.

“That’s malarkey and you know it Histopher! I can make a fireball with an enchanted ring. Any red mage worth their mana could do it too, there’s no way the whole verse, let alone the multiverse could all go to a cold shit in hell like that.” Said Desala, putting the final nail in the argument.

Of course, that was only from her perspective, Histopher seemed to want to keep going, but knew when to stop. Well, considering there argument had attracted a mob, maybe not, and maybe that was why they stopped. No non battle relevant chatter on coms during combat. They may have only been true adventurers for a little bit, but they knew that at least.

The Zombie didn’t know what hit it. A water slicer cut it’s arms off and a slicer arrow to each leg. Finally Prin put it out of it’s misery by walking up to the thing and slicing it’s head off. Like most zombies it had tried to get at them by pulling itself towards them with it’s chin. Micky and Prin just felt sorry for the thing, the rest of the group looked like they hadn’t had enough.

They continued down the hall to see what they could find. They came across a room with a [Chest]!!!?! Yes it was a chest, and the kids were “CHESTY CHEST CHEST!!!!?!?!?!” only slightly happy about it.

“Who has the best luck stat here?” Asked Desala. She really wanted to open the chest, but she also wanted it to be something good. Also, there was no [Luck] stat, it was just something that adventurers used to explain their shitty luck. One of the ‘Hidden’ stats.

“Don’t look at me. I’m a fucking [Pink Mage] I have no luck, peroid.” Said Micky.

“I mean I’m accurate, and get a lucky crit sometimes, but I’m not really that lucky.” Said Histopher.

Desala nodded to that answer “That’s true, or you’d have a girlfriend already.” Said Desala.

“Hey!” Said Histopher.

“I’m also shitty with luck. In the town lottery every year I never win.” Said Desala.

“You know that’s rigged right? Only the nobles ever win, and the Baron’s son gets the grand prize every year.” Said Histopher.

“Nu uh! They just by more tickets! If only I had one more ticket this year I would have won! But no! I had to have one more honeyed apple...” Desala said, looking off into the distance remembering something.

“*Cough* Well ok, I guess it’s up to me and these lucky fingers, let’s see if I can get lucky again tonight!” Said Prin. Considering what he had heard on a regular basis from Prin’s room he was pretty sure she would have no problem with that kind of luck.

First Prin checked for traps, saying “I check for traps.” Which was completely unnecessary. Especially since there weren’t any. When asked she would say that some traps were set to unlock at that phrase, it was like ‘password123’ or ‘opensaysme’.

Prin opened the chest to find [Old Cloths]. Micky took his beaten up old totem staff to see if there was anything else inside but only [Dirty Sock]s and [Acolytes Old Underwear] came out. The entire pile registered as [An Acolytes Dirty Cloths].

The group argued if these were a [Quest] item that would be needed later in the dungeon. But they figured A. that they wouldn’t be going that far. B. that if they did need it, it was probably skippable and not something to be bothered with. And C. that nobody wanted to grab that stuff anyway. Even the [Ratty alchemists Robes] were completely worthless grays that they would have to pay to be laundered and repaired before they could even sell them.

Micky and Co. left the pile of clothes where they were and moved on. There wasn’t much left in the hall so they kept going. So far they were kind of disappointed with the loot. At least in the [Crawl] they had gotten something decent. This [Tower] despite being a [Ruin] type dungeon was turning out to be a bust.

Then they were attacked again. But this wasn’t a zombie. It was smart and fast and completely black. It moved like a blur and kept to the shadows. Desala smashed at it with a [Firehose]. This pushed it back into a room cornered. With nowhere to go but through the team to get out the beast hid in a shadow in the back corner.

Micky buffed up the group and prepared for the fight. He couldn’t get a good bead on the beast to [Charm] and [Enrage] it. This beast shouldn’t be here. It was likely a [Zombie Runner] or more likely a [Shadowlurker]. But when they were prepared They gave Desala a look to begin the destruction.

Desela fired off another [Firehose] into the room leaving no stone unturned and no box unsmashed. It wasn’t working, the monster wasn’t there. They looked up, like in their training, if it isn’t where you expect it to be, it’s up or behind. It couldn’t be behind, but it was most definitely up.

The beast launched, and was shot backwards by an arrow to the face. The beast skidded to a stop and was blasted by a water slicer before Micky and Prin smashed the thing in melee.

But it was not something that was supposed to be here. It was not a zombie!