“Kid ya need ta get serious,” spoke an exasperated Gerald.

But Silky is always serious mister Gerald, did you know that all these mushrooms you see are just a small part of a whole?

“Wait what are ya talking about? Just blabbing out random fact doesn’t make you serious kid, and what yer on about the mushrooms?” Gerald tried to admonish the young dungeon but was now derailed by the random comment.

All these big mushrooms you can see above ground? It’s all just the fruiting bodies whilst the main thingy is below ground and are just a big jumble of ropey things.

“Wait like a flower? How the fuck da ya know all these things kid?” asked Gerald in amazement as he placed his hands upon his hips whilst leering at the Toadshrool standing beside him. It was hard to imagine that the fugly monster beside him was a fungal equivalent to a walking flower and it wasn’t very often that he got to learn new things in his long life.

Silky grew them myself and when Silky put some of Silky inside of hundreds of them, Silky just knows.

Gerald was starting to feel his newfound amazement quickly fade to be replace by annoyance once more. The young dungeon was starting to revert to referring to herself by her own name again.

In his experience there were four types of people that did that; the stupidly arrogant, the powerful, the extremely evil with a major personality problems and/or high elves.

He wasn’t very keen about his charge going around speaking like a megalomaniac any time soon. It would also reflect badly for him.

“Kiddo remember what we said about the word I?”

Silky – I am sorry Gerald.

“Aight just try ta keep that in mind kid. Ya dinnae want to go about speaking like a loon,” Gerald then took a small pause as he watched the big Shrool turn around and lumber off between the mushroom-trees. “Now more importantly, ya got ta stop grow’in too fast without any defenses in place kid. We don’t know what else is in the cave out there that might come a’lookin if you keep pumping out mana all willy-nilly.”

But Silky… I’ve got you, Lorry and Jeff to help me.

“You need more monsters kid, ta three of us ain’t going to cut it,” he stated in a matter-of-fact fashion before swiping his hand and materialising his scrapheap-distiller.

What’s this? A new present?! asked Silky excitedly.

“Nah this ones for me kiddo, you’re too young to drink,” he joked with a snort before walking up to slap upon the side of one of his beakers within his contraption. A piece of chewed sap came off from the force of his gentle slap and Gerald quickly bent down to retrieve it. He then popped it in his mouth to wet it before sticking it back onto his device.

Awwww.

“Now I’m going ta head off to grab more beasties for ya, but I’m going to need you to grow some dry kindling for my boy over here,” he asked whilst squatting down to look at his now empty yet still sooty burning hatch that he had built into the bottom of his device.

What’s that?

“Hmmmm.. just grow a small mushroom and make it really dry will ya kid?”

Not a problem! I’l get on it mister Gerald.

“Oh and kid? How long ya reckon it would be before ya can claim ta area just outside this cave?” Gerald asked whilst sparing a thought for a certain asshole.

A while mister, Silky is trying to push out but its too big. So Silky…. I mean I.. am trying to dig my own cave to make it bigger instead because it’s easier than pushing my mana out into the big room.

“Oh well, guess I’ve got a wee stop to make.”

….

Gerald grabbed a hold of one of the Flenemon’s waving arms with a grin on his face.

The creature then immediately tried to pull back its frilly arm but found that its new prey wasn’t budging at all. It then pulled back all three of its other arms whilst somewhere amongst the basic nerve bundles that served as a brain it started to feel a sense of danger.

“You’re coming with me mate.”

Gerald then yanked the surprised Flenemon like a person yanking on their pet’s leash and the creature came off the wall along with a horrid sound. It somehow reminded Gerald of a wet fart squeezing through his ass cheeks.

He note with glee how the Flenemon that hung in the air pathetically was closing and opening its mouth in distress whilst waving its tentacles about all over the place.

“I’ve got you a new home mate,” he said before starting to ascend rapidly and trailing behind the arms of the Flenemon.

But before he got to the entrance of Silky’s dungeon a fun idea quickly occurred to Gerald.

He put some more power into his wingbeats to stabilize himself before starting to heave his arm that held onto his protesting luggage whilst rotating his wrist.

Unfortunately this caused the Flenemon to start to swing about in a parabolic arc that eventually turned into a full-on circular motion as he spun the poor monster about like a bola.

Then with a grunt, Gerald let go and sent the monster shooting upwards into the colourful cave entrance.

“Nice,” he congratulated himself before trailing downwards in a fit of wheezing giggles.

“Now what the fuck shot us in the nads before?” he wondered. Because if he was going to going about dishing out petty revenge, he might as well get it all done in one trip.