Leaving early in the morning, Prof led his donkey along the path to the dungeon.

He decided to bring the beast of burden with him, since transporting the loot was easier that way (he still remembered the small junkyard he had to haul back to Smallgrovewell), and according to every information he was able to gather, the entrance grounds of dungeons were reasonably secure from predators and stealing other people’s donkeys was frowned upon in Elven society. Even if he himself was not an Elf and was thus somewhat outside the law, they came upon a solution a week ago: their animals were decorated with the insignia of the Swift Arrow Clan, marking them as Clan Property, and so as Elven Property. No one in his right mind would steal from a Red Clan, after all.

That was the best way to suffer an accident or get kicked out of the Domain.

The dungeon was located a few hours out of Deadbranch, on the side of one of the mountains overlooking the city. The trail up there wasn’t really maintained but was easy to follow nonetheless – with a wonderful view of the valley between mountain chains, and even a couple of designated lookout point where the view was even more marvellous.

Back on Earth such points were often visited by couples in their cars to…khmmm… enjoy the view. Based on the prepared firepits and tent sites – and at least one couple coming down the trail – enjoying the view was not exclusive to Earth Humans.

The entrance grounds for this dungeon was a park. As in a mix of an English, French and Japanese pleasure garden, with artfully placed trees, shrubs, bushes and flowers, with winding paths of white gravel between them. Prof already learned that the entrance grounds gave hints of dungeon’s theme. He was told that there were dungeons with a miniature volcano, a lake, a battle site, ruins and graveyards as entrance grounds, almost all of them artistically styled and kept in pristine condition.

Like advertising: look at the picture of our plump, juicy, three inches thick burger and buy our sorry, miserable, squashed product. However, burgers didn’t try to kill him.

In the short term, at least.

Prof tied his donkey to a tree, next to patch of grass so the animal could have dinner without wandering away and entered the dungeon through a white picket gate. After a short, moss- and ivy- covered corridor he was greeted by the first room – a round affair with a tree in the center and some shrubs next to the wall. According to his information, the tree would try to hit him with its whip-like branches, and if he came close, it released some kind of paralysing gas. The shrubs on the other hand would try to ensnare him with tendrils and shoot poisoned thorns at him.

Prof was lucky, however: he had the natural predator of trees and shrubs in his possession. Axes.

He decided to start with the shrubs, with his armour and Dire Bear overcoat he was confident that the thorns would not reach his skin and he felt better with limbering up with small fry than the big tree. As it transpired, the shrubs weren’t a threat, the thorns couldn’t even penetrate his suba, the vines weren’t strong enough to bind him, and only managed to trip him once.

Massacring the greenery wasn’t hard at all, one or two attacks and the shrubs were done for. The big tree wasn’t much harder either. The whip-branches weren’t overly effective, being slow and weak, and with his Vitality of 14 – and corresponding high poison resistance, plus his Anti-poison jewellery – he could shrug the weak gas off too. He got slower while doing the job of a lumberjack, but the different poisons in the other Elven dungeon were much, much, much stronger.

After felling the big tree, he was a bit stiff, but still felt better than anytime back on Earth.

While he waited for the gas to be flushed out of his system, he perused his loot. The shrubs had a few poisonous berries and a handful of thorns left and there were one or two patches of spices scattered around. The big tree had about a dozen apple-sized fruits, containing the paralysing gas, and the whip-branches could be harvested for good fiber.

Having no Skills that had anything to do with woodworking, there was no chance he could extract the fiber, so he just cut off the branches. He would get less for the raw material than for the of semi-finished product, but it was still better than to try to extract the fibers and ruin the whole batch. The final piece of loot was a patch of distinctly coloured bark.

The next room contained something he already was familiar with: Choking Vines. There were patches of some ferns on the ground too, and Prof was warned that their leaves were razor sharp. They would cause nasty cuts on unarmoured skin, but Prof’s gear was good enough not to have anything to fear.

The vines didn’t prove any more challenge after he figured out how to handle them in the previous dungeon, so he was able to finish the room fast. He was careful to cut the vines in as long pieces as possible, so he was able to save almost six meters worth of longer pieces. He collected a bunch of the razor ferns too, he was told, they were somewhat useful as reagents in weapon oils.

The third room wasn’t much harder either: giant flytraps, interspersed with bladed ferns and the thorn-shooting shrubs.

Well, it wasn’t that hard until Prof accidentally stepped into a flytrap and the petals closed on his leg and he fell down face first onto a bladed fern. The flytrap started to chew his leg immediately – and ruined another one of his trousers. Luckily it was just a cheap piece, Prof had learned his lessons in the previous dungeons. A few well-placed strikes with his weapons later he was able to free his leg. The whole accident cost him twenty HP, more than all the other rooms combined.

After that finishing the room was fast. His loot this time were a few berries, razor ferns and some “teeth” and juice from the flytraps. The former was a delicacy, the later could be used for a potion for adults with… performance issues.

In the fourth room he had to navigate a maze of thorny hedges – he had to be careful, he was warned that the hooked thorns were poisonous and hard to remove. Interspersed with the hedges were thorn-shooting shrubs, and to make it harder, there were pitfalls with flytraps in the bottom, and here and there a few Choking Vines hanging from the ceiling.

The room wasn’t really hard or dangerous, but extremely annoying. He first tried to hack his way through the hedges, but realised that it would take more time than to navigate the maze and despite his best efforts, he still got a few thorns lodged into his hands. He had to cut them out, and got seriously sick from the poison. The pitfalls were quite easy to spot, they had a slightly different kind of mosses covering them, probably everyone with a Perception higher that four or a [Traps] Skill above 25% could have spotted them without any problem.

At least if one payed attention, meaning only people who didn’t know anything about the dungeon would have been caught by the traps.

The loot in this room wasn’t worth his time, the already known stuff was only present in small quantities, the only piece worth anything was a piece of wood, that was good for handles and which was hidden in a patch of hedge. Even with his Scavenger Perk he probably would have missed it, if he wasn’t warned to look out for it.

The fifth room was the last one of the first floor, the corridor leading to the second floor was covered by a hedge and protected by the Floor Boss, absolutely surprisingly a giant plant. It had a large head, consisting solely of a huge mouth with rows of sharp teeth. The head was attached to the roots by a waist-thick, flexible and thorn-covered trunk. Being bound in place, the plant would not pose any danger to ranged combatants, save for one tiny gimmick it boosted: its roots.

The whole boss-room was covered with the roots, and they tried to snatch everyone not giving sufficient attention and dragged the victim back to the plant so the head could munch on them. As an added mechanism the plant released spores after each hit that made everyone that inhaled them dizzy, giving the roots a chance to snag a distracted adventurer.

Preparing for the fight, Prof covered his face with a piece of wet cloth, hoping for it to be enough against the spores, and entered the room. For a moment he thought about the whole situation. He was going to slice of vegetables, that was almost like making a salad, so why did he need fighting Skills for that, and not [Cooking]? Or if the vegetable in question was considered a weed, [Gardening]? But where was the border between weed, plant and plant-monster drawn?

Arkadia was still a bit confusing, even the Locals have not been able to figure out some inconsistencies, despite knowing a truckload more about the System than Prof, who have read the official Rulebook, written directly by the Administrator.

Who was, probably, an idiot or an asshole.

But it was not the time to use [Philosophy] but to make a salad out of the Floor Boss. Prof rushed into the room, jumping, rolling and launching over, under and next to the roots, his aim to reach the plant’s head for a few well-placed Critical Hits. It had a head, so it was probably possible to land a Critical Hit there. Right?

But then again, could you backstab a book? It has a spine after all, and is most probably prone…

In this case, the plant’s head and trunk was bound in place, so it couldn’t dodge, evade or – in the absence of arms and weapons – block Prof’s charge. The two axes met the head – you can’t attach only a mouth to a trunk, so the stuff around the mouth probably was the head – and split it into two. Vertically, since with the mouth it was split into two horizontally already. However, a plant has no brain, so slitting its head did nothing but remove the head from the equation.

Or more correctly, removed half of the head from the equation. The trunk and the roots weren’t influenced whatsoever. Moreover, Prof received a nice dose of dizzy-making spores right in the face and despite the wet cloth enough got through. His vision started to swim, his balance was shot almost immediately and standing straight was becoming harder and harder. Almost like being drunk but without the nice accompanying buzz.

He liked the Drunken Moss more.

Now attacking the trunk, he inhaled more and more spores, and after a time, the roots finally found purchase. Before passing out and ending his second life in a not really dignified way, Prof remembered the antidotes he had bought in Deadbranch just for such a situation and managed to down one of them.

The dizziness wasn’t completely gone, but at least he regained enough control to keep going. hit after hit he landed on the trunk, dose after dose of spores he inhaled. Finally, he needed to down the second antidote, but the Boss wasn’t felled yet. The head was entirely gone by this time, the trunk reduced to a stump, but the roots still continued their attack; from the waist down, Prof was completely encased in them, and they started to squeeze very hard. Right before Prof had to drink his third antidote, the Boss was finally defeated.

It was looting time!