Chapter One Hundred and Ninety - Deadweight

We huddled together a little as we walked down the dark tunnel leading into the dungeon. I had cleaning magic glowing in my hand, and Amaryllis cast a light spell that followed over her shoulder. Even the buns had some magic to light their path, and yet the darkness swallowed it all.

“Imagine a nine-pointed star,” Peter said. He, like the other buns, didn’t seem bothered by the dark at all.

“Oh, okay,” Awen said.

“Right, this fortress, the ruins behind us, used to be shaped like a squarish star. Four points around a square,” he continued.

“That’s just a square with more edge,” Amaryllis muttered.

“This dungeon was originally the same. Four areas. Then five, six, and now nine.”

The path ahead lightened up a little, and soon we were crossing under the tooth-like bars of a giant portcullis. We were in a city. An old medieval city, like Needleford, or Fort Sylphrot, only unlike those, there was no life here. The sky was a near-monotone grey, only deeper shadows hinting at the fact that there were clouds above.

The buildings around us were in ruins, with broken windows and smashed walls. A few had signs of fire damage, and everywhere I looked, huge roots poked out of the ground and tore into the houses. They looked normal though, not terribly evil.

I shivered as a soft, cold wind tickled the back of my neck.

“First floor used to be nothing but ghosts. Low level ones at that,” Peter said. “Now the walls between this floor and the next have broken.” He looked around, wary. “There are more roots now.”

“So, there’s no central path through this dungeon?” Amaryllis asked.

Carrot was the one to answer. “Yup, there is. If you imagine this place looking like a wheel, with each floor being a spoke, then the middle is the safe zone. Every time you finish a floor, you can access the next floor through the wall, but there’s also a door to the middle that opens. So you can go there to leave the dungeon, or reach any other floor that you’d already cleared.” She snapped her fingers. “Clearing a floor means opening the gate to the next floor, not killing everything. Sometimes monsters that you didn’t kill earlier will move through the safe zone from a previous level.”

I nodded. That meant we had to watch our backs. It was a good thing the buns were so strong and cool or else this place would be really dangerous.

The chill in the air grew a lot worse, and even though the false sky above was a brilliant blue, and it felt warm on my skin, I still felt as though my skin was rippling with goosebumps.

I saw Buster’s one ear twitch. “Left,” he said.

I looked over to the left, then gulped.

The first ghosts were those bleeding out of the walls, first a few, then dozens more. They moved through the air slowly and gently, so many white forms packed so close together that I might have mistaken them for a rolling wall of fog.

“Insight,” I said as I looked to one of them.

Spirit of Forgotten Pain, Level 8.

Not too strong, but there had to be well over a hundred.

“Hmph,” Buster said as he moved over and planted his shield into the ground with a dull thump. “Orders?” he asked.

Momma tilted her head to the side, ears flopping a little. “Let’s move to the gate to the second floor,” she said. “Peter, take care of the ghosts.”

“Yes ma’am,” Peter said.

Buster huffed again as he lifted his shield. “Very well.”

“We’re just leaving Peter here?” I asked.

Momma nodded. “Don’t worry, he’ll get all of them. Ghosts like that are best attacked using wide-area abilities. We don’t want to be around in case we get caught in that.” She took off, heading towards the right and around an intersection in the middle of the road. I jogged after her along with my friends, but I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder.

Peter was stretching before the wall of ghosts, leaning one way until his little white bun tail wiggled, then all the way to the other side.

Just as I was about to turn around to try and help, the bun disappeared.

Two dozen ghosts warped as lines were cut into and through them.

Peter reappeared some ways down the street, casually reeling in a long wire with a knife tied to the end.

I decided that maybe he could handle himself, and ran to catch up to my buddies.

“First wall,” Buster said.

Out ahead of us was, in fact, a big wall. It was in rough shape, with roots breaking through the careful stonework and parts of it falling down. The top was a mess of spikes and blades, like a really deadly pincushion.

“Carrot, what was the solution to this gate?” Momma asked.

Carrot pointed to an archway set at the end of the street. “There’s a bell pull to the side. When you pull on it, it summons all the ghosts to the wall.”

“Rather easy,” Momma said. “Well, let’s see what we can do.”

There was a little gatehouse next to the archway, with a big wheel with spokes sticking out of it in its middle. We moved towards that, and past the portcullis leading to the next floor. I could see more of the city on the other side, with homes and, off to one side, what looked like a graveyard.

There were skeletons ambling around there.

“Will the monsters from that side be alerted?” Momma asked.

“Yup,” Carrot said.

“Then could you please take care of them? Buster, could you raise the gate enough for Carrot to pass? I’ll keep an eye on the children.”

Buster grunted, set his shield against the wall, and ducked into the gatehouse. He gripped the wheel in both hands and began to turn it. The chains running out behind the wheel jangled as they tightened, then, with a rusty grunt, the portcullis started to rise.

“You’re sending Carrot in alone?” I asked.

Momma nodded. “That way I can watch over all of you.”

“What if she gets hurt?” I asked.

Carrot giggled and bounced a bit closer. She patted the top of my hat. “Thanks, capt’n, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”

I was still concerned when she ducked down and rolled under the rising gate. I don’t know what I was expecting the energetic ginger bun to do, but it wasn’t seeing her bounce closer to the skeletons, then wave her arms at them. “Come on, skeleboys and skelegirls, Carrot’s got some pounding to do!”

The skeletons weren’t all bony white monsters. Some had the distended limbs and malformed bones of the corrupt ones we’d seen on the surface. Even more were covered in vines clinging to their ribs and joints.

They turned towards Carrot, and as if on an unseen signal, started racing towards the lone bun.

“Oh no!” I gasped as the first one reached her.

Carrot dipped under a wild swing, moved up before the skeleton. She stepped to the side, under another punch from the skeleton, then spun around with a hop and delivered a rabbit punch to the back of it’s head.

The skull went flying in a straight line that ended with a loud crack with it smacking another skeleton in the face.

Carrot cheered and stomped a foot down so hard that I could feel it from the other side of the gate. Bits of rock flew into the air where she struck them with spinning kicks and tight jabs. Those same rocks zipped through the air and crashed into the advancing army of skeleton warriors.

Then Carrot decided to get serious.

She bounced up off the ground, used one skeleton as a spring-board, then kicked another so hard that it sent it--and her--flying. That only helped her land a spinning kick into another skeleton.

“She’s not even touching the ground,” Amaryllis muttered as she watched Carrot pinballing across the street, then the graveyard, skeletons exploding into dust and bone shrapnel behind her.

Carrot flipped over, and did a superhero landing in the middle of a group of skeletons. The earth around her warped, huge spikes shooting out of the cracked pavement to stab into the undead around her.

“She’s really strong,” I said.

“She’s one of the buns that keeps Hopsalot safe,” Momma said. “That means that we need her strength in order to protect what’s important.”

I was beginning to feel that maybe my friends and I were a little bit misplaced in a dungeon like this one.

Carrot continued to clear the next floor, slowing down as the number of skeletons pouring out towards her fell to a trickle. Some were armed, with swords and shields and spread, but that didn't seem to slow her down at all.

“We’re done.”

I jumped and spun around to see Peter casually walking over. He was rubbing a rag over a long knife. “Well done,” Momma said. “Buster, the gate please?”

Buster nodded, then grunted as he started to spin the wheel again. The portcullis rose, and soon we were moving past and into the dungeon’s second floor.

“Any trouble?” Momma asked Peter.

“Not really,” he said. “I chipped the edge of one of my favourite knives with a bad swing. I need to practice a bit more it seems.”

“You’ll never be done practicing,” Momma said. “That’s how things work.”

Peter hummed as he tucked his knife away and moved past up.

“Awa, these buns are kind of scary,” Awen whispered next to me.

I nodded. “I didn’t know buns could be scary. They look so fluffy.”

“Aren’t you the very image of someone who doesn’t look terrifying, but is?” Amaryllis asked.

I snorted. “What are you talking about? I’m not scary. I’m friendly.”

My harpy friend rolled her eyes and moved on past us. Bastion waited by the gate for us to pass, then stayed right behind us as we moved into the second floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever crossed a dungeon this quickly before,” he said.

“This is just the second floor,” I said. “Is it weird that it’s called a floor even though it’s all on the same level? The last dungeons we were in all had distinct sections, but this one feels kinda... same-y.”

Amaryllis shrugged. “It’s not entirely unusual. This seems to be a very straightforward dungeon. Dangerous, but in a simple way.”

Carrot hopped over to our group, then stretched her arms out wide. “That was fun!” she said. “Don’t often get to just stomp out a bunch of weak monsters like that.”

“You’re very strong,” I said.

“Aww, thanks capt’n,” she said. “I remember when I first came here. My tail was shaking as if it was caught in a storm. It’s kinda fun to return here after so long.”

“Haven’t you escorted a few little ones here for training?” Momma asked.

Carrot ran her hands through her hair and brushed her ears back. “Ah, yeah but that doesn’t count. Babysitting duty’s not the same.”

“You bring the little buns here?” I asked.

“Just those that are a bit older,” Momma said. “It’s good to make sure that every bun knows how to defend themselves, no matter what they want to do when they’re older. Some find a love for it, some come to appreciate the difficulty those keeping the forest safe have to face, and a rare few decide to become the next generation of defenders."

“Isn’t that dangerous for the little ones though?”

“Awa, I think... maybe not doing it is more dangerous?” Awen fiddled with the string of her crossbow. “I lived in a big safe city, we had people to protect us, but out here there’s none of that. Um, a monster could sneak into Hopsalot at any time?”

“We wouldn’t let that happen,” Carrot said. “But... yeah, it could. You’re a clever little human, aren’t you?”

“Awa?” Awen asked. “No, it’s just logical, I guess.”

I tapped my chin. “Insmouth doesn’t approach it the same way, I don’t think.”

“We are not Insmouth,” Momma said. “We’re just a little village of buns that wants to live in peace.”

I nodded along. I couldn’t argue against that.

“The next wall’s coming up,” Buster said. Out ahead of us, right up against the edge of the graveyard, was another wall like the last. This one in even worse shape, with large sections entirely missing and revealing the one huge building on the other side. “Get ready. The first boss is coming up.”

***