Chapter Two Hundred and Four - Immune System

I stumbled out of the coreroom, and then almost instantly started to feel dizzy. It was Peter of all buns that helped me by appearing by my side and wrapping an arm around my shoulder. “What’s going on?” I asked.

The corridor leading into the core room was pretty much the same, with some cracked walls and the huge root in the middle. I knew that some of my friends had gone towards the entrance to guard it, but...

I saw Carrot carrying Awen as she ran back towards us. There was a lot of blood. I blanked out for a moment. “Awen?” I asked.

Carrot landed from a final hop right next to the core-room entrance and fell to one knee. “Momma, she’s hurt.”

“Awen!” I screamed.

I tried to go see her, but Peter held me back. “It’s fine, it’s okay,” he said. I fought to get free, but the older bun was much stronger than me.

Awen didn’t look good. She was wincing, eyes full of tears, and she had a hand pressed up against her side. Momma knelt next to her, and pulled her hand off of an ugly wound right under her ribs. The bun matriarch frowned. “Buster, the medicine pack,” she snapped. The bun pulled a potion out from a pouch on her armour and popped the tab. “Drink.”

Awen drank.

“What happened?” Amaryllis asked.

“Monster,” Carrot said. “Should have been paying more attention.”

Buster placed a bag next to Momma, then stood up. “I’ll go assist him,” he said before stomping off.

“That doesn’t explain what happened,” Amaryllis asked again.

Awen hissed as Momma pressed a cloth to her side. “It was one of those seed monsters. The roots just turned into a big plant monster like them, but bigger,” Awen said.

Peter let go of me, slowly, like he was releasing some small animal. I refrained from darting forwards, just moved over to Awen’s other side when Carrot stood, and took in her wound. It wasn’t as deep as I feared, but it did look ugly whenever Momma moved her cloth off.

“Can you clean it?” Momma asked. “Gently. Leave the blood directly over the wound in place, it’s coagulating.”

“Okay,” I said, leaning forward to sweep Cleaning mana across the wound.

“She was thrown a ways,” Carrot noted. “Might want to check her head, like when a little bun falls from a tree and knocks their noggin.”

Momma hummed, gestured so that I’d clean her hands, then raised Awen’s head up and looked into her eyes. She had Awen follow a finger while asking her questions. “Do you feel dizzy? Headache? Is your stomach settled? Do you feel like you’re about to lose your lunch?”

Awen replied negatively to most of them, and Momma gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Broccoli, make sure she doesn’t start slurring, collapse, or become confused.”

I nodded super fast. “I can do that,” I said. I turned so that I was sitting next to Awen, and looped an arm around the back of her head so that she’d have something more comfy to lay on than the dungeon walls.

“The core is cleared?” Momma asked me.

“It is,” I said. “I got a quest update about it, it’s safe now.”

“In that case we should consider our next move,” Momma said. “If the roots snuck into the core room on their own, then it’s possible that they’ll just reinfest the dungeon. At the same time, we can’t afford to merely stand here and guard it all day.”

“We can clear it out,” Carrot said. "Or we can do our best to do so.”

Bastion ran over to us. “We might not have to,” the sylph said. “The dungeon’s creatures are resetting. At least, I suspect they are.”

“Despite us being in it?” Momma asked. “That’s unusual for this dungeon.”

Bastion shook his head. “A lot’s unusual right now. The boss has returned to life and seems to be healing itself.”

“Oh, crud,” Carrot said.

“It’s attacking the roots.”

“Oh... not crud?” Carrot tried

I took that in while giving Awen a fierce side-hug. The dungeon was fighting back? “Is it like an immune system?” I asked. “It hasn’t been fighting back all this time.”

“Perhaps the root being in the core room prevented the dungeon from defending itself,” Momma said. “In any case, this is good news. It means that the dungeon might be less susceptible to roots in the future.”

“What do we do about the roots around here?” Carrot asked. She flicked a thumb over to the big roots still in the room with us.

“We burn them,” Momma said. “Broccoli, take Awen with you and head out. Carrot and I will light this room up. Bastion, Peter, Amaryllis, can you ensure that these two are safe?”

There were nods all around, then Bastion cleared his throat. “I should inform you that the new monsters spawned by the roots are quite a bit more fearsome. They still appear in their first tier, but seem to level at a rate that’s absurd.”

“How’s the dungeon handling it?” Momma asked.

“The boss is still an order of magnitude stronger,” Bastion said. “At least for now.”

“Then we’ll assist it where we can, but our main focus is leaving this place... Carrot, can you go see if the exit portal is active?”

Carrot gave a sloppy salute and bounced off to go check. “It isn’t!” she called back a moment later.

“Very well then. Everybun, go wait by the exit, we’ll be with you shortly.”

We all squeezed our way out of the corridor, with me and Awen staying by the rear of the group as we moved. “Are you okay?” I whispered to my friend. She wasn’t bleeding anymore, the bandages Momma had wrapped around her chest doing their work. As were the potions, I guessed.

“Awa, it still stings. I think my back hurts more though, I hit my kidney on something when the plant threw me.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” I said.

Awen smiled up at me. “I’ll be fine,” she said. I believed her, but there were still tears in her eyes. “Ah, I think I might be buying or making some armour though, like what you have.” She rapped a knuckle against the side of my chestplate.

“Oh, I bet you could store all sorts of cool mechanical thingies in some armour,” I said.

She nodded. “That’s what I was thinking too. Might make it hard to move though.”

“You just need to build up your muscles.” I raised my free hand and flexed, but owing to the puffiness of my sleeves, not much happened. Also, I didn’t have big biceps, but that was another thing.

Awen giggled. “I’ll work on it, then.”

We exited the tunnel into the back of the boss room. The Dreaded Dead King was at the far end, skeletal form moving faster than someone of that size should have been able to. His huge blade, as long as I was tall, flashed through the air with a hum and sliced a monster apart with a violent splash of... plant stuff.

I felt a wash of heat against my back and glanced back into the corridor. Within was an inferno; bright fires leaping out of Carrot and Momma’s hands and splashing against the huge root inside. Now that it was disconnected from the rest, it seemed a lot easier to burn. It was still taking a bit for the fire to catch, but as the buns passed, they left some parts of the root utterly engulfed in fire.

Smoke poured out of the corridor, and I imagined it becoming like an oven in there, at the very least.

Momma exited and wiped her brow. Carrot followed after, the tips of her ears squished in a hand. “I always catch my nibs on fire,” she muttered.

“We should move,” Momma said.

“Through the centre, or around each floor?” Buster asked.

“Centre, I think.”

Everyone and everybun did what they had to to get ready, and we took off, skirting around the edge of the room where the boss was still fighting plant monsters.

The monsters were kind of like the tentacled... vined things that had come out of those big seeds, but these were much bigger, with four big legs that reminded me of elephants and long, thin grasping antennas that whipped around before it crashed into stuff with its larger graspers. They were all green and brown, with nettles and thorns all over them.

They looked nasty to fight.

The boss was basically a buzzsaw, though, and they died as soon as they entered his range.

We moved out of the main boss room, and into the chamber that led into it. A pair of plant-tentacle monsters... plant-acle monsters, jumped out and attacked our group. They were summarily crushed and torn apart by Buster and Peter who never even slowed down.

Leaving the keep brought us back up to the opened section of the final floor. Like before, the castle was covered in vines and roots. Unlike before, there were now undead everywhere. Skeletons with swords and zombies with long, clawed hands.

“The dungeon really is going nuts,” Carrot said.

A few skeletons turned our way and rushed at us, only to be met by a thunder-clap from Amaryllis and a lunge from Bastion. The skeletons didn’t last very long.

“It seems that we’re as welcome as the roots,” Bastion said. “We should leave sooner rather than later.”

“This way,” Peter said. He skipped ahead and at an angle away from the gate we’d used to reach this floor. There was another door, this one in just as bad a shape, but at least it was opened. Skeletal undead, ghosts, and a few of those dread knights were milling near the door.

When they turned their attention our way, they were met by three furious buns in the form of Carrot and Buster and Peter who tore through their ranks.

Beyond that gate was a large circular space, the centre of the dungeon where gates connected to every floor. Opened gates. Undead from the first few floors were rushing out and heading to the last ones, including the one we were at.

Bastion frowned ahead, then nodded. “There are fewer roots on the first floors. It’s targeting wherever the infestation is worst.”

I was afraid we might get swarmed, but from what I suspected was the fifth floor came a huge monster, all tentacles and vines. Skeletons and zombies clambered all over it, trying to rip it apart. It quickly became the centre of all the undead’s attention.

“Quick,” Momma said.

We ran. Not too fast, but as fast as our slowest members could go, and that only lasted as long as it took for Carrot to swoop in behind Awen and swipe her up into a princess carry. She squeaked, but didn’t protest.

We picked up the pace, dashing across the open area, ignoring the fountains and decorations in favour of moving towards the gate to the first floor. It seemed as if the buns were making an effort not to interfere with the dungeon’s defenders, and for the most part, they only lashed out if we came too close. They were more focused on the plant monsters.

We burst out onto the first floor, onto the streets and ruined cityscape where our trek had started. There were plenty of ghosts still around, but they were streaming away even as we passed by beneath them.

The entrance loomed large ahead of us, completely unguarded.

We slid through the darkness, and then out into a lesser sort of dark.

I was hit, right away, by the change in the air. I hadn’t noticed, but the dungeon’s air stank. Out here in the open, the air was fresh and lively. The moon shone above through the sparse trees, and a wind blew in and around the grassy ground.

We were out of the dungeon.

***