We jogged as a group to the front of building four, dodging the piles of burning bodies that Dick had created. The smell of human flesh hung heavy in the air and for some reason the prevalent Winslow Winds were nonexistent today. The front of the building was charred and broken, the door to the left was completely torn from its hinges and lay bent between the two wings of cell blocks.

“Think we should head through 4BD first, beesh?” Phil asked as I eyed the opening from where we gathered.

“It wouldn’t hurt to make sure nothing crawls up our backsides.” Bradley added.

“Yeah, let’s do that. Scheel, take a couple up top and clear the cells, Phil, you’re with me and Junipher on the control room, everyone else bottom floor.” I handed out assignments and stepped into the gloomy pod.

Surprisingly it wasn’t the charnel house I was expecting. There was a smattering of blood here and there and most of the doors were off their sliders, but for the most part it just looked like a regular fight took place, that was of course if you didn’t look at what remained of the control room. It seemed where in most of the other pods the inmates had taken the opportunity to test their newfound powers out on each other, here they took it out on the control room. The steel window frames were bent out and all the glass was smashed out and scattered across the pod. The cinder block wall that made the foundation of the control room was completely smashed in exposing the subfloor. Water poured from pipes that had been broken within.

“Someone didn’t like that control room at all.” Anthony whistled at the destruction.

“This was my pod, I was the floor officer when it kicked off.” Hernandez mentioned as he led a group sweeping the bottom cells.

“What happened? I asked as we inspected the damage.

“It was a couple hours after initialization, this pod was locked down at the time. All of a sudden several doors popped open. I came down to secure them and that big Aryan fucker, Cross, came charging out with blood on his hands.” He had stopped to tell his story and everyone else slowly stopped what they were doing to listen.

“The tall, bald ‘wood’ with the viking sleeve tattoos?” Gallardo asked.

“Yeah, that’s him, he was completely amped up. Then a bunch more came charging out. I ran.” He looked down when he said the last. Man is ashamed of running from a fight he knew he couldn’t win.

“I didn’t see what happened to the control room, only the end result.” He looked up with rage in his eyes, “Later in the day they dragged that Lawrence, the COT, out and threw his body into the razor wire.”

Several of the gathered group muttered curses, but Hernandez's story wasn’t finished. “He was still alive. He was beaten pretty bad, and then he got hung up in the wire, they laughed as he struggled.”

FUCK! Razorwire ain’t no joke. Once it’s caught you, you have to be very careful about extracting yourself or you’ll get sliced wide open in multiple places. Not the way I’d want to go for sure.

“I guess they expected him to fall out of the wire quickly, but, instead he hung there for a while, squirming and crying. That fucker Cross…” Hernandez began to stutter with tears and rage.

“I saw it too, Cross came up and yanked him out of the wire.” Bradley added when Hernandez couldn’t finish the story.

Everyone was silent for a long moment. I was the one to break the silence, “I think we’ve seen enough, let’s get this done.”

“Hoo-Rah” Bradley muttered flatly. Everyone else voiced their eagerness to see this finished.

“Hall’s open.” Phil called out. I stepped up next to him and looked down the admin hall towards the opposite control room.

About halfway down the hall the lights went out and it was hard to make out details even with my enhanced perception. Near the entrance of the next cell block the walls and ceiling were coated in a glistening black substance that had tiny black shoots of ‘grass’ sticking out of it. An orange glow emanated from deeper into the building. Yellow and red embers of ash floated in the air, seeming to be blown out from within.

“Well that’s not fucking ominous at all, is it?” I asked no one in particular.

Dick took that moment to come up and quietly notify me that he hadn’t seen Cross’s body when he was cleaning up the dead. Suppose Hernandez might be able to get some payback afterall.

“Welp, let’s go find us the entrance to the dungeon.” I said loud enough for everyone behind me to hear and pushed forward behind Phil who had brought his shield up in front of him and led the way down the hall. Junipher was on my left and the rest followed behind us.

“That’s not it?” asked our Medic.

“No, I think whatever is in the dungeon is spreading outwards. It was like that at the kobold dungeon, had to kill some guards that were hanging around outside of it. Based on what Junipher and Lord Shubin told me, dungeons will send out monster raids if left unchecked for too long.”

“That is correct. Especially dungeons such as these that have been corrupted. They will send out the worst monsters to attack nearby settlements.” Junipher added for confirmation.

We reached the dark threshold of the next pod and heat shimmered from the control room and the source of the orange lighting was apparent as we looked around the corner. The back side of the building burned on the upper run and parts of the ceiling had collapsed. However, the surfaces coated by the black tar substance failed to catch fire and only threw off more ash and ember. The tiny fronds that wiggled in the hallway were full on fleshy black tentacles with pink bulbs that twitched and swayed in the heat of the fire.

“Damn beesh.” Phil murmured as he watched the stalks sway back and forth. “That’s some apocalyptic shit.”

“Yeah, Hey Dick. Can you toss a fireball into the middle and see what happens?”

“Sure, toss fire into the creepy murder tentacles.” Dick stepped behind Phil who instinctively raised his shield in preparation.

Dick let the ball of fire forming on his fingertips fly. It arced from the landing and landed in the center of the largest tentacle stalks and exploded outwards. The stalks at the center of the attack in about a 5 meter diameter were instantly incinerated. The stalks outside of the attack seemed to lean into the fire and absorb the heat. Then they visibly grew larger and began to shake violently. The pink bulbs exploded outward in more tar and the density of burning ash increased in the area.

“Well, that’s fucking lovely.” I muttered.

“At least the fire kills them if struck directly. Though the ambient heat seems to feed them. Odd.” Junipher spoke to no one in particular.

“Ick… FUCK! Don’t touch the stalks!” Scheel had placed a hand on the door frame, and one of the tiny stalks was close enough to attach itself to her hand and begin sucking. She shook her hand and stared momentarily at the bloody spot on the back of her hand where the sucker had attacked. Suddenly the group in the hallway were in a perfect single file line and checking themselves over for any of the creepy stalks.

Bradley motioned to the other side of the control room into the opposite pod that the fire burned, “That wasn’t there before.”

We looked to where he pointed and saw a massive hole in the floor that was surrounded by stalks that stood about hip height. More of the sticky burning ash rose from the hole in the center of the pod. Around the hole, the largest stalks sat on vaguely human shaped lumps.

“More fire?” Dick asked expectantly.

“Nah, I got this, cover your ears kids.” I winked behind me at the puzzled faces and raised my AK to my shoulder and activated SELECTIVE AMMO: EXPLOSIVE and began firing into the ground around the largest cluster of the creepy stalks. Tar and stalks flew through the air from the small explosions. After several liberal applications of the ability we had a stalk free path to the dungeon entrance.

Gallardo and Bradley shrugged at each other, “We had that ability, hmph.”

As we approached the opening I noticed the tar substance was slowly inching forward to reclaim the area we had just cleared. The entrance sloped steeply into the earth beneath the building and was wide enough for us to move three abreast and still have room to fight.

“Alright, Phil, take the center, Scheel, Hernandez, take his flanks. Bradley, let me get you to bring up the rear and everyone else in the middle.”

The front line moved for the entrance and Phil took a tentative step and began side stepping down the slope. He looked up and shook his head back at me “Too steep, gonna have to slide on your butts.”

“Fucking gross.” Scheel muttered then resolved herself to getting dirty and dropped to her rear end and began a slightly controlled slide down the slope.Hernandez followed, keeping his shotgun raised above the ground and slid down the slope behind them. Everyone grimaced and I leaned over the sloped edge and Junipher came up and held her arms out to me with a smile.

“Would you be a dear?” I smiled and grabbed her up in my arms and took a step and dropped on to my backside on the tar slide that turned out to be less sticky and more the consistency of used engine oil. She gasped with a smile as we descended the slope at a gentle pace and the sounds of the disgusted group echoed down to us as they entered the slide behind us.

We came to rest at the bottom of the slide in a wide room that allowed all of us to spread out a bit and check ourselves over. The far walls had a pair of torches providing light to the otherwise dark room. More of the tentacle stalks grew near the fires but never within reach of the flame. An arched hallway extended out directly in front of us and ended maybe fifty meters away in a room that shimmered with the orange light of fire and heat. I walked up to the edge of the tunnel and could barely make out several square holes in the ceiling with more of the black oil dripping from them. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion and called Dick up.

“Fire?” He smiled conspiratorially at me. Smart ass.

“Yeah, down the middle and high, close to the ceiling if you will, good sir?”

He charged a bolt of fire in his hands and released it as I requested. It soared quickly down the tunnel and into the next room to bounce across the ground and sputter out. As it passed down the hall it revealed several more holes evenly spaced down the length of the arched ceiling. Everyone reeled in horror when tentacle stalks with pink bulbs shot out of the holes behind the fireball's passage, then slowly retreated back into their hiding spots. I noticed a pair of inmate pants on the ground in the middle of the hall as well. Well, we know those fuckers are lethal, don’t we?

Before anyone could comment on the first obstacle that awaited them a notification appeared in their vision.

WARNING!!! ANOTHER PARTY IS CURRENTLY ATTEMPTING THE DUNGEON!!! IF ONE PARTY DOES NOT LEAVE, THE DUNGEON WILL BE CONSIDERED TO BE IN A STATE OF CONFLICT!!!

ALL PREVIOUSLY KILLED CREATURES, COMPLETED TRAPS AND PUZZLES WILL BE RESET FOR THE INCOMING PARTY!!!

DIFFICULTY WILL BE INCREASED BY 50% FOR THE ENTIRE DUNGEON!!!

THE DUNGEON CORE WILL BE UNCLAIMABLE UNTIL ONE PARTY REMAINS!!!